Exercising, eating well and living a happy-stress free life are the cornerstones of good health. Any one of these cannot function well without the others. Your organs, especially your heart, need you to work out and keep them active. An active lifestyle ensure your heart is healthy enough to sustain you. Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to fitness. Some people chose to go the traditional route, going to the gym, joining an organized sport, etc. While other pick non-traditional exercises like trekking, hiking and dancing.

Although many people do not recognize the benefits of these alternative exercises, cardiologists do. In fact, they believe one of these exercises is better than the usual cardio people always go for, which is running: dancing.

How Does Dancing Help Your Heart Health?

As mentioned above, good exercise and good food are essential for health. If you are at risk for high cholesterol or have high cholesterol, you must take extra precaution for your heart health. While diet changes are often recommended for people with high cholesterol, and exercise is equally crucial. The National Health Services (NHS) advises most adults to aim for around 150 minutes (2.5 hours) of physical activity each week, emphasizing that this doesn't necessarily require strenuous gym workouts, as many enjoyable forms of exercise exist.

When choosing an exercise routine, it's essential to consider your personal physical abilities and, importantly, your enjoyment of the activity. Ideally, selecting an activity you find pleasurable will make exercising feel less like a task and more like a positive part of your lifestyle, increasing the likelihood of sticking with it consistently over time. The health service often recommends walking, swimming, and cycling as good starting points for incorporating more physical activity into your routine.

Unique benefits of Dancing

Experts at the Cardiovascular Health Clinic highlight that dancing could be an exceptionally effective and enjoyable way to boost heart health.

They explain that the heart, being a muscle, benefits from exercise just like any other muscle in the body.

Engaging in just 20-30 minutes of aerobic exercise daily can significantly improve the heart's function and dramatically reduce the risk of developing or dying from cardiovascular disease.

So, a simple dance session, whether on a dance floor or in the comfort of your own living room, might be precisely what's needed to improve your heart's well-being. Dancing offers a fun way to break a sweat without the intense exhaustion sometimes associated with gym workouts.

According to a 2021 study in the Open Access Government portal dancing could effectively lower cholesterol levels and overall fitness and body composition in postmenopausal women. This study highlighted that a simple intervention like a dance class three times a week helped with their health, self-esteem and self-image issues.

According to the Health Clinic, the varied movements involved in dancing, including changes in direction and pace, can burn up to 300 calories every half-hour, which can be more than running, swimming, or cycling at a moderate intensity. Furthermore, the release of dopamine and endorphins during dancing can contribute to improvements in mood, mental clarity, and overall emotional health.

Can It Be A Long Term Solution?

Beyond its effectiveness as a calorie burner and fitness enhancer, dancing offers significant long-term benefits for individuals managing high cholesterol. Many healthcare professionals advocate for its ability to help manage body weight and reduce the likelihood of cholesterol levels increasing.

Ananda Lewis, celebrated TV host known for her authenticity and warmth, passed away at 52 after a long and brave battle with breast cancer. Once a beloved face on BET’s Teen Summit and MTV’s Total Request Live, she used her platform to engage young audiences with pressing social issues and celebrity interviews that left a mark.

A Powerful Presence on Screen

Lewis first came into the spotlight through BET’s Teen Summit, where she led candid conversations on challenges facing Black youth. Her interviews with figures like Kobe Bryant, Tupac Shakur, and Hillary Clinton earned her critical acclaim, including an NAACP Image Award.

In 1997, she joined MTV, becoming a key voice on MTV Live, Hot Zone, and TRL. Though her move sparked criticism, she remained unapologetic. “Growth is necessary,” she told the Associated Press. “You’ve got to get out there and live your life.”

She later launched The Ananda Lewis Show in 2001, a daytime talk show aimed at real conversations, even if it followed a familiar format. The show lasted one season, but Lewis remained a powerful presence, later joining The Insider as a correspondent.

Breast Cancer Journey That She Shared With The World

In 2020, Lewis revealed that she had been living with stage 3 breast cancer since 2018—later advancing to stage 4. Her diagnosis came after years of ignoring persistent inflammation linked to mastitis from breastfeeding. A lump discovered in her right breast led to a biopsy, confirming it was invasive carcinoma.

Instead of following a conventional medical path, Lewis chose alternative treatments. “I wanted to understand why my body created cancer and how to change the terrain,” she explained. She focused on diet changes, stress management, detoxing, and holistic therapies like high-dose vitamin C, acupuncture, and cryoablation.

A Different Kind of Battle

Lewis moved to Arizona in 2020 for 16 weeks of intensive integrative treatment. Her cancer reduced from stage 3 to 2 and was no longer in her lymph nodes. But the journey wasn’t without hardship—financial struggles and insurance lapses made consistent treatment difficult.

In early 2023, a scan showed the tumor had grown slightly, but it had not spread. She underwent electrical ablation in Mexico, which unfortunately didn’t succeed. By October 2023, a PET scan confirmed the cancer had advanced to stage 4. Still, Lewis continued treatment and saw significant improvement by January 2024.

Lewis was candid about her journey, using her story to raise awareness about early detection and holistic health. “Stage 4 doesn’t mean the end,” she said. “It means I have to do more.”

Her message to women was clear: be proactive. Prioritize mammograms, manage stress, sleep well, and adopt a clean lifestyle. “If I had known what I know now ten years ago, perhaps I wouldn’t have ended up here,” she said.

“I want to look back and say—I did that exactly how I wanted to,” Lewis reflected. Her legacy is one of resilience, wisdom, and an enduring belief in the right to choose one’s own path—even through cancer.

In a revolutionary medical breakthrough, scientists have identified that a five-minute phone test will soon be able to detect early onset of Huntington's disease—a rare, genetic brain disorder—long before symptoms become visibly apparent. With digital health technologies revolutionizing the future of diagnosis, the new app test offers promise of quicker, more convenient, and highly accurate tracking, all from the comfort of the patient's own home. Wondering how your phone could be part of the future of neurology? Here's what a new study says.

Scientists have created a smartphone application that can identify early signs of motor symptoms of Huntington's disease within five minutes. The research, published in the journal Brain, is presented here with the explanation of how simple devices used on a daily basis can become big medical devices to analyze a subject's neurological well-being in real time from the comfort of his or her home. This innovation is especially valuable considering the scarcity and intricacy of Huntington's disease (HD), a genetically inherited disease in which there is, as of yet, no cure.

How the Smartphone Test Works?

The test developed is composed of five smartphone tasks assessing factors like finger tapping, balance, and involuntary movements. These activities together create a Huntington's Disease Digital Motor Score (HDDMS), a sensitive measure that can identify minimal changes in motor function that could occur before more evident clinical signs. As Ed Wild, Professor of Neurology at University College London's Huntington's Disease Center, points out, the fact that motor impairment can be measured in only five minutes at home has the potential to change the way clinical trials are carried out and disease progression followed.

Huntington's disease is a genetically inherited condition that leads to progressive degeneration of nerve cells within the brain, particularly in areas responsible for movement, cognition, and emotion. The symptoms usually occur between ages 30 and 50 and gradually worsen. In the early stages, there can be involuntary jerking or contorting movements (chorea), clumsiness, imbalance, and mood swings. When the disease progresses, patients become severely disabled from a motor standpoint, develop loss of cognitive abilities, and have psychiatric disturbances.

Conventional diagnostic approaches such as neurological assessment and imaging studies can be costly, time-consuming, and not as sensitive when identifying early-stage symptoms. The HDDMS tool is a cost-friendly, easily accessible alternative that could result in improved disease management through earlier intervention.

What Sets the HDDMS Test Unique and Accurate?

In contrast to traditional clinical evaluations that entail patients visiting specialized clinics, the HDDMS may be taken on a smartphone in under five minutes. The measure was created using information from more than 1,000 participants in four independent studies and is among the most widely validated digital tests for HD to date.

The investigators discovered that the HDDMS was almost twice as effective as conventional techniques in detecting significant changes in motor function. Such accuracy is important in rare conditions such as HD, where clinical trials have often been hindered by limited sample sizes and heavy participant burden.

With a number of hopeful treatments for Huntington's disease being developed, the need to measure disease progression accurately has never been greater. Integrating the HDDMS into clinical trials could make the research process more efficient by cutting the number of participants needed and the time needed to determine the effectiveness of a drug.

Professor Wild highlighted that more sensitive equipment is essential in rare disease investigation, where the limited patient base means it is challenging to set large-scale trials. He added the HDDMS provides a "more meaningful and convenient" means of assessing motor function than standard in-clinic tests.

What is Huntington's Disease?

Huntington's disease is a hereditary, always fatal disease due to a mutation in the gene encoding a protein named huntingtin. The mutation results in an abnormal repetition of the DNA sequence CAG (cytosine, adenine, guanine), causing brain cells to degenerate over time. Every child of a parent with HD has a 50% possibility of inheriting the defective gene.

Symptoms are:

• Chorea (involuntary jerking motions)
• Cognitive impairment
• Personality and mood changes
• Trouble with walking, talking, and swallowing
• Insomnia and weight loss

With time, people with HD become unable to take care of themselves. The disease is eventually fatal, and no cure is available. Medications can be used to control chorea, depression, and anxiety, however.

Diagnosis is usually made through neurological examination, genetic testing, and imaging tests like MRIs or CT scans. Although these work well in establishing the disease, they are frequently unable to identify early signs, especially minor motor dysfunctions.

Treatment is mainly supportive. Medications like tetrabenazine and deuterabenazine are employed to manage movement disorders, and antipsychotic medications can be given for psychiatric abnormalities. Genetic counseling is highly advised for HD-affected families.

Although the HDDMS has been impressive in its accuracy in initial trials, scientists recognize that additional studies are necessary to assess its ability to forecast long-term functional decline. Additional research will also investigate how the tool can be introduced into standard clinical practice and patient follow-up.

If successful, smartphone-based HDDMS will be the cornerstone of the global battle against Huntington's disease, providing an affordable and scalable means of monitoring one of the most complicated neurological diseases in the arsenal of medicine.

We have all heard people say that they are old souls trapped in a young body, however, this is a figure of speech people use. While this phrase may mean you like old school things, it can also happen literally. Sometimes your body ages faster than you do, but this is the biological age we are talking about. While chronological aging is counted as the years we have lived, biological age can be faster or slower.

Think of it as perishable food. If you leave them in unfavorable environments, they can spoil fast, becoming edible. However, when you keep them in the correct environment with even temperature, the food will stay edible for longer than it should. Our bodies are similar in that sense. If you take care of it, limiting processed food, exercising and taking care of your health, you will find that your biological age is much slower or healthier than a person who does the opposite. However, what is the connection between biological aging and our lifestyle. How do we age slower/faster depending on our choices.

A new study suggests that signs of faster aging in your body are connected to a higher chance of developing dementia and stroke. Specifically, researchers found that people with shorter telomeres in their white blood cells tend to have an increased risk of these two brain conditions. These findings were published recently in the journal Neurology.

What Are Telomeres and Why Do They Matter?

Think of telomeres as the protective caps on the ends of your chromosomes, much like the plastic tips on shoelaces. They prevent your chromosomes from unraveling and getting damaged. Every time your cells divide, these telomeres get a little shorter. This makes them a useful way to estimate a person's biological age, which is how much wear and tear your body has accumulated from stress over time, rather than just your age in years. Your biological age can be quite different from your actual age.

Lifestyle Habits Can Counter the Risk

However, there's good news: the study found that this link between shorter telomeres and brain diseases wasn't present in people who maintained healthy lifestyle habits. This suggests that even if your body shows signs of faster aging, you can still reduce your risk of age-related brain diseases. This includes things like keeping a healthy weight, limiting alcohol, getting enough sleep, and exercising regularly. These healthy choices can help delay the aging of your cells and lower your chances of developing these conditions, especially if you're already at a higher risk.

Shorter Telomeres, Higher Risk

For this study, researchers looked at genetic data from over 356,000 people. They categorized participants into three groups based on the length of their telomeres: short, medium, or long. They then compared telomere length to people's lifestyle habits and whether they had developed dementia, stroke, or depression.

Over an average of seven years, nearly 26,000 people developed at least one of these three age-related brain diseases. People with the shortest telomeres had significantly more cases of these brain diseases compared to those with the longest telomeres. Overall, after considering other risk factors, individuals with short telomeres were 11% more likely to develop one of these brain diseases. More specifically, they faced an 8% increased risk of stroke, a 19% increased risk of dementia, and a 14% increased risk of late-life dementia.

It's important to remember that this study shows a connection, not a direct cause-and-effect relationship between telomere length and brain health.