Blog Posts by The Editors of Prevention

Enjoy these easy food fixes for your most beautiful complexion everThe path to beautiful skin just might be through your stomach. "When the body is out of balance, one of the first places it reveals itself is the skin," says Ruthie Harper, MD, a board-certified internist in Austin, TX, who specializes in nutritional medicine. "If you're not getting the right nutrients, skin gets cheated out of what it needs for optimal health and beauty." Learn to make the most of your body's skin-stomach connection with these 10 food fixes that give you a healthy, glowing complexion while warding off a host of skin conditions.

5 Signs Your Skin Is Stressed Out

1. Power up with probiotics
When the stomach's natural flora gets out of whack because of stress, infection, or a course of antibiotics, you may experience digestive ills and skin problems such as acne, psoriasis, and eczema, as well as dullness and wrinkles. "If your gut's bacteria balance is unfavorable, the toxic bacteria can leak through microscopic holes in the wall of your gastrointestinal tract and

No, your nails aren't just a canvas for pretty polish. Find out what serious problems might be hiding under your mani-pediYour nails may speak volumes about your tidiness, attention to detail, and your fashion sense. But next time you go for a polish change, take a look at your digits; they might be trying to tell you something too. Your body has a knack for letting us know when something has gone awry and your nails are no exception. Their shape, texture, color, and overall condition can clue you in on what's happening with your health over the last six months. Here are seven things--from "Skip the salon this week" to "Go see your doctor, stat!"--that your nails say about your health.

1. Weak, Brittle, or Splitting
The clue: If you can break or bend your nails easily, you can peel them, or they constantly split.

What it means: Brittle nails often related to advancing age. Less seriously, your nails could be overprocessed due to harsh manicures, acrylic nails, or gel wraps. "Take a break! Give your nails time to breathe," suggests Rebecca Baxt, board-certified dermatologist in New York and New Jersey.

You've heard it before: Being overweight or obese is one of the biggest risk factors for developing type 2 diabetes. Turns out, it might be the type of excess body fat--not simply the number on the scale--that puts you at an increased risk.

Obese patients with too much visceral fat--a type of fat that surrounds internal organs--were found to be at a significantly increased risk of developing diabetes, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In contrast, patients with excess subcutaneous fat--the "pinchable" fat that's right underneath the skin--didn't have that same danger.

"What we're seeing is that not all obese individuals are going to get diabetes," says lead study author James de Lemos, MD, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern. "It's not just how heavy somebody is; you can't simply put them on a scale."

Researchers aren't sure why visceral fat seems to increase a patient's diabetes risk, but de

Find out how these double-duty gadgets and tools will make losing weight easy and deliciousLet's face it: All those diet plans and low-calorie recipes mean squat if your kitchen cupboards are lacking the tools that make cooking healthy meals no-excuses easy.

Luckily, you don't have to be Julia Child in order to whip up something that's low-calorie, but still satisfying. And to prove it, we gave staple kitchen items a second look to see if they can't work beyond their intended purpose to help you trim calories and fat. The results? They totally can..

But wait! We haven't even told you the best part yet. Now that you know you can use most of what's already in your kitchen drawers, you'll easily be able to eat four 400-calorie meals a day, which, as you know by now, is the key to lasting weight loss. Plus, you'll fuel energy, rev metabolism, and feel fuller longer.

Ready to get cookin'? Read through to see all 17 double-duty kitchen gadgets now!

Is Your Kitchen Making You Sick?

1. Measuring Spoon Set
If you thought these were only good for measuring liquids, think again.

You know how it goes. You wake up in the morning, glance at yourself in the mirror, and decide you're "too fat" to go anywhere. Instead of interacting with the outside world--mirrors! people!--you'd rather sit at home watching too many hours of Keeping Up With The Kardashians and eating cheese fries...with your hands. Hey, we've all been there. But would you believe us if we said it's all in your head?

It's true, say researchers at the University College London. Feeling thin or fat is an illusion constructed in our posterior parietal cortex--an area of the brain that integrates sensory information from different parts of the body. Unlike your sense of touch, there are no specialized receptors in your body that send information to the brain about the size and shape of your body parts, says lead study author Henrik Ehrsson, MD, PhD. "Instead, the brain appears to create a map of the body by integrating signals from the relevant body parts such as skin, joints and muscles, along with

Your diet isn't working. Here are the sneaky reasons why You cleaned out your fridge. You shelled out for new workout clothes. You took the pizza delivery guy off speed dial and (finally) remembered where your pots and pans were hiding. So where the heck are the weight loss results?

The problem is, many of our most dearly held healthy eating rules are far too open to interpretation. Done wrong, that low-carb diet could backfire--or, worse, set you up for a heart attack. And your new, slimmed-down veggie-based meal plan? It might mean you're eating more calories than you were before.

To bust the diet myths that are putting results out of your reach, here, our expert-backed tips.

1. You went gluten-free "just because"
If you go gluten-free and you don't have celiac disease or gluten intolerance, you may be missing out on the host of vital nutrients found in whole grains, such as folate and fiber. "Why skimp on healthy foods if you don't have to?" says Samantha Heller, RD. "Gluten-free does not necessarily mean low-calorie, either." So

It's one of the most popular label claims around, but there are some surprising ingredients lurking in your 'all natural' health foodsUnless you have a green thumb, lots of outdoor space, and the time to grow your own grub, sticking to a diet free of processed ingredients can be challenging. (If you are that person, can we come over for dinner?) Otherwise, you do your best, eating whole foods whenever possible, and opting for the most unadulterated, natural options you can find when you buy from the box or the bag. Or so you think.

The problem is, labels can be misleading. You'd need several pairs of hands to count the number of "100% Natural" claims you see in just one aisle of the supermarket. That's because neither the U.S. Food and Drug Administration nor the Federal Trade Commission have a strict definition for the term; the FDA says it "has not objected to the use of the term if the food does not contain added color, artificial flavors, or synthetic substances." But hold up: Without getting so much as a wrist slap, so-called "natural" foods can still contain a wide range of processed sweeteners, lab-produced

Smile! 'Tis the seasonWe all know how it goes: Ask a busy woman to take on just one more thing and she'll sooner slug you then submit to your suggestions. We're the same way, which is why we went looking for the simplest and quickest science-backed ways to boost your health. And we set the bar high. We wanted tricks that dramatically improve your health and wellbeing with very little effort on your part-and we found them. Here, ways to reduce your diabetes risk, calm your rattled nerves, and even help you lose weight-all of which you can do quicker than you can say, "I can't."

1. Call on your inner child to calm nerves
Why it works: "Feelings of having too much to do and not enough time to do it can exact a toll on health and wellbeing," says Melanie Rudd, PhD candidate at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. Her solution? Look at something that inspires awe. Her findings, which will appear in the journal Psychological Science, reveal that people who viewed 60-second videos that included