Blog Posts by Health.com

Getty ImagesBy Ashlee Davis

About 13% of women who give birth develop postpartum depression, a serious, long-lasting condition that's more than just "baby blues."

Postpartum depression can happen to anyone, even the rich and famous (and new dads too). Exhaustion, sleep deprivation, and other stressors take their toll.

These celebrity moms shared their postpartum depression with the world, despite a cultural stigma against discussing motherhood in less-than-glowing terms.

Health.com: Avoiding the stigma of mental illness

Brooke Shields
Shields put postpartum depression front and center in 2005 when she traded barbs with Tom Cruise, who had criticized her use of antidepressants after the birth of her daughter Rowan.

Shields talks frankly about her extreme, sometimes suicidal, feelings in Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression.

"If I had been diagnosed with any other disease, I would have run to get help. I would have worn it like a badge," Shields told People magazine.

By Dana Sullivan

Claim: Yoga reduces lower-back pain. | TRUE
Several studies suggest that yoga can help ease the ache. One of the most recent, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2005, found that yoga does an even better job at relieving lower-back pain than traditional exercises.

Health.com: 4 ways yoga relieves low back pain

Claim: Yoga can help you lose weight. | TRUE
How much depends on the type, how often you do it, and your diet (of course). More-athletic styles-most notably ashtanga, a.k.a. power yoga-burn more calories and help build more muscle (which translates into an even higher number of calories torched) than more-meditative versions. A 150-pound woman can work off more than 460 calories during a single hour of power yoga (versus around 170 calories for a traditional yoga session). Many celebrities, including Serena Williams, love how yoga helps them stay in shape.

Health.com: Blast off fat with yoga!

Claim: Yoga cures asthma. | FALSE
Many asthma patients

By Erica Kain

Is it really possible to find out whether I'm pregnant five days before I miss my period? According to the advertisements for one such pregnancy test, finding out early could help you adopt "a healthier lifestyle in the critical first stages of your baby's development."

So why not pay extra for a super-sensitive test and end the suspense? There may be a good reason to wait.

First, a pregnancy test primer: Whether it's a blood test or a urine test done at a doctor's office or in your own bathroom, a pregnancy test is positive when it detects the hormone hCG in your system. The production of even a small amount of hCG means the fertilized egg has been successfully implanted in the uterine lining.

The variance between at-home pregnancy tests is the amount of hCG they can detect, with early pregnancy tests detecting lower levels of the hormone.

Health.com: Recipes for a healthy pregnancy

"The commercial pregnancy tests range from 20 to 50 mIU/mL. Since hCG levels double

IstockphotoBy Jennifer Goldstein

Once upon a time, there were beauty rules you were supposed to follow when you hit a certain age. But, like perms and frosted lipstick, those guidelines no longer apply. To find the freshest antiaging tricks, Health polled 140 experts for their best advice.

Sure, we heard fundamental tips like "Wear sunscreen!" again and again, but we also picked up some unexpected strategies. Read on for nine great ones that will help you look amazing.

Warm up your hair color
"Ashy tones are your biggest enemy as you get older," says George Papanikolas, a colorist who works with actress Rachel McAdams. "Women tend to add pale highlights and go blonder to camouflage gray, but they end up looking washed out and older."

If you don't need to hide gray, try a few warm highlights around your face. "Blondes should go more golden; brunettes should try warm, caramel tones," colorist Robert Ramos says. For more gray coverage, use a permanent dye in a warm color one or two shades

Answer: Yes. People who are physically active are far more likely to lose weight and keep it off.

You've probably read headlines that screamed: "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin!" Those stories are based on a controversial Public Library of Science study from 2009 that showed women who exercised regularly for six months were no more likely to lose weight than women who didn't work out at all.

How could that be? We all know that exercise burns calories; an hour on the treadmill torches 300 to 500.

Health.com: 20 little ways to drop the pounds and keep them off

Here's the deal: Much of what was written about the study was misleading, says its lead author, Timothy Church, MD, director of preventive research at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The study didn't focus on calories; all participants followed their regular diets.

What the study showed, Dr. Church says, is that exercise alone, especially if you eat poorly, may not help you lose weight.

By Ashlee Davis

'Tis the season to be jolly-and pack on pounds indulging in rich, fattening fare. Here are 12 holiday diet hazards you and your family should avoid, along with healthier options that only taste indulgent!

If you simply can't resist a calorie-laden holiday favorite, we've figured out how much exercise-running, jump-roping, skiing, etc.-it'll cost you.

More from Health.com:

25 Diet-Busting Foods You Should Never Eat

The 50 Fattiest Foods in the States

What to Eat to Avoid Holiday Heartburn

IstockphotoBy Ayren Jackson-Cannady

This time of year, who wants to count calories or go on a diet? But you can keep your weight steady or even drop a few pounds without any special effort. Yes, really.

We've tapped some of the nation's top health and fitness gurus (plus real women who have done it) for advice on getting slim effortlessly. Read on to learn their secrets.

Push yourself (just a little)
"If you ride the bus, walk part of the route. If you walk, walk faster. If you run, run farther. These small tweaks will raise your body's metabolic rate, and you'll see a few pounds drop off in a few months without changing anything else!"
-Marcus Eave, personal trainer for Technogym

Health.com: The 7 best fat-blasters

Think string cheese
"Americans eat, on average, around 30 pounds of cheese a year! You can slash hundreds of calories a week if you stop eating whole cheese, which is high in saturated fat and sodium, and reach for low- or no-fat varieties or tofu to get your calcium."
-

Peter SvensonAs told to Judy Dutton

CariDee English, age 25, won America's Next Top Modelin 2006-but it wasn't easy. In addition to meeting the challenges of the reality show, English struggled to hide her psoriasis, which at one point in her life covered 70% of her body. Here she shares intimate details about how psoriasis almost derailed her modeling career, why it still haunts her, and how she fought back. English is now the host of the reality show Pretty Wicked.

I was 5 years old when I looked down at my legs and saw a couple of red spots. "Mom, what's this?" I asked. To this day, I remember the look on her face. It was almost like heartbreak. She knew exactly what it was because she had it, too.

Psoriasis is a hereditary condition that causes the skin to form red, scaly patches called plaques. My mom only had it on her knees and elbows, but by the time I was 12, plaques covered 70% of my body. Ointments relieved the itching and inflammation only temporarily. To hide it, I avoided