Blog Posts by YouBeauty.com

Newer generations are aging faster than ever before.

Have you ever worried that you're going to turn into your parents? Well, if you're not careful it's going to happen sooner than you think-and in ways you might not have expected.

An April 2013 paper in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology found that when it comes to metabolic health (basically, how well your body uses insulin to process the sugar in your blood), today's 45 year olds are on par with 60 year olds of the generations before them. What does that mean for 20- and 30-somethings? Well, you do the math: Just add 15.

QUIZ: Find Out How Long Your Youthful Looks Will Last

The study measured various aspects of metabolic health, including the prevalence of being overweight or obese and body mass index (BMI). All three are notably higher in young people today than they had been in the past, with obesity among women in their 20s up twofold from a generation earlier. That means that a 20-something is two times more likely to be obese by her 30s than a woman 10

Taking care of yourself now will really pay off later.

Getting old is getting expensive. Really expensive. Think billions-hundreds of billions, even. And according to an April 2013 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, it's just going to get more so in the coming decades. Why? The incidence of dementia is on the rise in our country and it is a pricey disease. There are so many costs associated with dementia-medication, health care, home care, etc. It's not just as simple as taking a pill and calling your doc in the morning.

QUIZ: How Fast Are You Aging?

Fortunately, dementia is a chronic disease. "Fortunate?!" you say. Yup, fortunate, because like many chronic diseases, dementia is in part lifestyle-driven, which means that you can help control it. There is an abundance of research, and more emerging everyday, that what you eat, how active you are and how you manage your stress today all contribute to your risk of dementia later in life.

Let's break down what you can do.

Watch What You Eat
Brain food is

It's time to strength train your brain!

It may be housed in an immovable shell of bone, but your brain-that three-pound fatty mass between your ears-is the most dynamic organ in your body. Your thoughts and actions add brain cells to the 100 billion already there, and create and strengthen the connections among them.

Your brain is constantly inventing and reinventing itself. Knowing how your lifestyle choices dramatically affect these abilities can help you boost the power of your brain and keep it supercharged for the rest of your life.

QUIZ: Are You Aging at the Right Pace?

"Your brain is the single-most magnificent, integrated and complicated miracle ever designed in the history of this or any universe," says Paul Nussbaum, Ph.D., clinical neuropsychologist, adjunct professor of neurological surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the author of "Save Your Brain." "The fact that this miracle sits directly between our ears and is the ultimate portable and wireless device and literally

Genetics are a factor, but they're not everything.

Will luck be a lady when it comes to aging?

According to an April 2013 study published in Journal Watch Dermatology, luck isn't so much a lady as it is a gene.

While it's widely accepted that people with inherited Fitzpatrick skin types V and VI (which correspond with more melanin and deeper complexions) enjoy more natural protection from the sun's damaging rays than the fairer types I and II, the expression of aging through symptoms like sun spots, wrinkling and sagging can still vary dramatically within each skin type group.

PHOTO UPLOAD: See Yourself With Perfect Skin

To explore a possible connection between genes and aging caused by the sun, a study was conducted on 502 French, middle-aged Caucasian women. A six-point scale scored facial photographs for the presence of wrinkling, sagging and pigmentation. Factors like age, smoking history, hormonal status, body-mass index and estimated lifetime sun exposure were controlled.

Using the data, scientists, for

Their cause is still a mystery.

We Asked: Anthony Komaroff, M.D., is a professor at Harvard Medical School, senior physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and author of the syndicated newspaper column Ask Doctor K.

The Answer: Hiccups are almost as mysterious as they are annoying. (Almost!) They're impossible to study in the lab because you never know when you're going to get them and they're usually over pretty fast, but doctors have their theories as to what's going on. Basically, it seems that hiccups are a breathing reflex gone haywire.

QUIZ: Will You Age Well?

Normally, when you breathe in, the muscles in between your ribs contract, pulling your ribs outward and expanding your lungs. At the same time, your diaphragm-the flat muscle that divides your chest from your abdomen-moves downward, opening up more space in your lungs. This creates a vacuum that causes you to suck in air.

When you hiccup, both of these things happen, but uncontrollably and much faster than when you're taking a

Sorry all you dairy-lovers...

You've heard the old slogan: Milk: It does a body good. Well, the truth is, we don't know that for sure. Strong data from laboratory tests and a major research effort called the China Study have revealed serious questions about whether or not milk is truly safe for humans. But what we do know is that whole milk products-cream and whole-fat cheese, yogurt and ice cream-do a body bad. Very bad.

QUIZ: Find Out if You're Eating Right for Beauty

The type of fat in dairy products is saturated fat, which is the kind that increases your risk of cardiovascular disease by damaging arteries and increasing the "bad" LDL cholesterol that clogs them up. Too much saturated fat (stick to no more than 20 grams per day) also makes you put on weight, which can lead to obesity and a host of health problems.

That's not all. A recent study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that women who often ate high-fat dairy were more likely to die from breast cancer than

Millions of Americans eat burgers, sodas and fries every day, so you'd assume that any ingredients and chemicals contained in fast food would be deemed 100 percent safe. But that's not necessarily the case. Find out which six concerning additives are lurking in fast food.

- by Sunny Sea Gold

More From YouBeauty:

How Fast Food Affects Your Beauty

How Well Will You Age?

See Yourself With Perfect Skin

Getting nervous really stinks (literally!).

There are three kinds of sweat: sweat from heat, sweat from exercise and sweat from stress. Of the three, stress sweat is the hardest to control and gives off the foulest stench. If you have trouble keeping your cool in stressful situations, it's not just bad luck-you're biologically programmed to stink under pressure.

QUIZ: Measure Your Stress

Under normal circumstances, perspiration is meant to cool you down so you don't overheat. When it's hot or you're exerting yourself physically, your temperature gradually rises. Your body's internal thermostat, located in the hypothalamus, eventually recognizes that it better do something to chill you out and triggers the release of neurotransmitters that instruct millions of eccrine (sweat) glands all over your body to produce sweat. As the sweat evaporates, it carries heat away from you, cooling you off. Voilà.

It's a whole different story when you are about to give a speech, stuck in traffic on the way to the airport, or