Disease Proof

• First lady Michelle Obama loves steamed broccoli and is emerging as a champion of healthy eating, praising community vegetable gardens and unprocessed and locally raised food and recently opening up the White House kitchen to show onlookers her chefs’ prowess with vegetables; The New York Times reports.

• Next time you’re feeling blue. Keep this in mind. Presented at this year’s American Psychosomatic Society's annual meeting, researchers believe optimists live longer. Optimists were 14% less likely to die from any cause and 30% less likely to die from heart disease than pessimists; via Reuters.

• Don’t have neck fat either. This study, reported at the American Heart Association's Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention annual conference, claim larger neck circumference, i.e. a fat neck, is closely associated with known risk factors of disease, such as cholesterol and diabetes; from HealthDay News.

• Teenagers need more vitamin D! Discussed at an American Heart Association conference, findings reveal adolescents with low levels of vitamin D had increased risk of high blood pressure and high blood sugar and are 4 times more likely to develop metabolic syndrome; the Associated Press explains.

• Reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, some experts believe we’re over-diagnosing prostate cancer, suggesting that standard PSA screening tests indentify too slow-growing tumors that’ll never develop into a cancer threat; via The Washington Post.

• The ozone layer keeps us from burning up in the sun, but when it makes landfall it can kill you. New research in the New England Journal of Medicine has determined people exposed to ozone are 25% to 30% more likely to die from lung disease than individuals living in areas with cleaner air; Reuters reports.

Image credit: The New York Times