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By HealthWatch, January 26, 2010

Wondering how to keep skin young looking? Maybe you feel 25 but your skin gives away your real age. Well, you can work to keep skin looking young and it does not have to be that hard either. The right skin care has a lot to do with how young you look, so you need to start taking good care of your skin.

Even if you are getting older, it is not too late for you. You can work on your skin and get it looking younger than ever. Here is a look at some great skin tips that you can use to stay looking 25 – we won’t tell your real birthday.

Cleanse the Right Way

If you want to know how to keep skin young looking, you need to know how to cleanse the right way. Dirt is the enemy so get rid of it. You need to keep skin cleansed on a regular basis, but be gentle. You do not want to irritate the skin. Ensure you go with a nice cleanser with natural ingredients that will not aggravate or be harsh on skin too.

Learn What to Avoid

When you want skin that looks young, you need to learn what to avoid. There are many enemies of skin that looks young and healthy. The sun can be a huge enemy to your skin. Combat that by avoiding the sun and by wearing sunscreen when you are in the sun. Smoking is bad for the skin as well. While it can be tough to quit, you need to quite if you want skin to look young. Stress is another thing to avoid. Stress can really wreck havoc on skin, so work on relaxing and try to cut down on that stress.

Work on Your Diet

Another great idea to use if you want to know how to keep skin young looking is to work on your diet. The things you eat can affect your skin. If you want clear, beautiful, and young skin, you need to eat a diet that includes veggies, fruits, omega 3′s, and whole grains. Foods that include vitamins and antioxidants are important for keeping skin in great shape.

Change Your Skin Care Products

Chances are that you are using the wrong products for skin care. Sure, they may say they will help you keep skin looking young by the ingredients will tell the real story. If those products have various chemicals in them, you are using the wrong products. It may be time for a change.

Instead of using skin care products that include chemicals, it is time that you switch to a healthier option – natural skin care. If you want to know how to keep skin young, your skin care products are important. You need natural ingredients that actually provide results, making skin look younger instead of older. The right products will go a long way towards keeping skin looking young.

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By HealthWatch, October 17, 2009

The latest diet craze to sweet the nation involves a food item not typically seen in any traditional diet plan, Introducing Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet.

Dr. Sanford Siegal first developed the cookie diet in 1975 as a way to treat chronically obese patients (patients who are unable to keep off any weight lost due to exercise/dieting). He has treated more than half a million patients with the sugary diet and claims that there is less risk of obesity in the very low-calorie diet.

“I have yet to see the first case where anyone suffered any ill effect from eating a low-calorie diet,” said Dr. Siegal in an ABC News report.

The 1,000-calorie a day regimen, which ABC News has reported celebrities like Jennifer Hudson, Denise Richards and Kelly Clarkson have all reportedly tried is dangerously lacking in nutrients found primarily in vegetables and fruits.

Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet may result in quick weight loss, it’s nutritionally unsound and can even result in weight gain, experts say.

Cookie Diet followers drink water and eat six uniquely developed 90-calorie cookies each day, followed by a 500-calorie dinner of lean protein and sparse vegetables. With reports being mixed, there have been a bunch of documented success stories.

Josie Raper told “Good Morning America” that she went from being a size 24 to a size 6 in a little close to six months by following this diet.

“When I started the Cookie Diet, there was no splurging or sneaking little snacks,” Ms. Raper told “Good Morning America.”

I was very strict in keeping to the diet including waiting until the Monday of Thanksgiving to start this program so that I could get through every single holiday without snacking or caving in to my cravings.”

According to Josie Raper, she has been on the Cookie Diet for two years now and hasn’t regained the weight.

Weight loss experts say the Cookie Diet’s basic flaw is that it does not help dieters to retrain their eating habits, this results in a greater chance of the dieter falling off the diet or ‘cheating.’

“If you lose weight through diet and exercise alone and don’t change anything else in your life, you are probably going to gain the weight back,” says registered dietitian Anne Fletcher, author of “Thin for Life” and “Weight Loss Confidential.”

When you don’t deal with the underlying reasons for why you’re overeating, you’re definitely more likely to gain weight. This is like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound, it fails to treat the core reason for why the individual is overweight in the first place.

The diet also worries Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Program at the New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, because it lacks in serious good nutrition.

“I am concerned that if someone were to follow this over the long term, there are many different nutrients that they would be missing that you would normally get by eating regular food,” he told “Good Morning America.”

Cookie consumption as a weight-loss strategy is just another fad diet, says Dr. Stuart Fischer, who wrote “The Park Avenue Diet.”

“Every study shows that when people change foods only and rely on that to lose weight, they have a 95% failure rate. This cookie diet relies heavily on sweets but to lose weight you need to forget what sweet tastes like. When you lose your sweet tooth, you are about a fourth of the way to reaching weight-loss success.”

“It just doesn’t exist.” But Fischer says the diet is so low in calories that followers won’t have the energy to do any of the necessary exercise, which he says is important to maintain good heart health. He also added that staying on a cookie-heavy diet will most-likely result in dieters falling into a rebound phenomenon.

“The body goes into a starvation state,” Fischer explains. “And it holds onto every morsel and calorie until the person’s weight goes higher than it was before.”

Dr. Siegal is frequently in the news. Over the years he has been featured on ABC’s Good Morning America, New York Daily News, CNN, and the Fox News Channel. Thanks to the recent resurgence of interest in hypothyroidism (“super-foods”) that was sparked by Oprah Winfrey, multiple media outlets have aired features on Dr. Siegal and his work.

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By HealthWatch, September 11, 2009

Between natural growth spurts and hormonal spikes, a tween’s skin will take on a mountain of abuse. Problems with acne or other skin blemishes are so common that there’s a billion dollar industry dedicated to treating the symptoms. With so many products on the market these days, its hard to find a reputable source for reviewing which treatments actually work, and which are just marketing campaigns. One of the most commonly overlooked resources to fight teen acne actually can already be found in most homes. There are many home remedies that work just as well without the expense found using any of the commercial products advertised on TV. Now while your grandmother might have her own opinions as to which home remedies you should try, here are a list of proven do-it-yourself acne treatments. Most can be accomplished for under $3 (and in some cases for free).

1. Wash your skin regularly. This also means using the correct type of soap/product for your particular skin type. Wash your face after you wake up in the morning, after any sports practice or strenuous exercise and then once more before you go to bed at night. This is the most important step to fighting acne, though you don’t want to over-wash. Your best bet is to just stick to the morning, post-exercise and night washing routine. If you don’t break a sweat then you should wait to wash your face until bedtime.

2. Learn what type of skin you have. Blot your face with a Kleenex/tissue-paper. If you see oily residue, your skin is oily. No residue, you have dry skin. Little of both? You have combination skin.

3. Use a facial scrub at least once a week to rid your skin of blackheads. Pay attention to the active ingredients, you don’t want to use anything that uses bleach.

4. Aloe Vera has been used all over the globe as a topical ointment for the treatment of burns, rashes and many other skin ‘ailments.’ When applied to the skin, it helps by preventing scaring and stretch marks. It’s also been proven to help speed along the healing process.

5. Eat a healthy diet complete with daily vitamins and minerals to keep your skin looking good from the inside out. A simple ‘one-a-day’ multi-vitamin can take care of this step.

6. Warm Salt Water. This works best for those of you who have really oily skin. Use warm (not hot) salt water to wash your face. The mixture of warm salt & water works well to remove any excess oil. You don’t need to spend a lot of money for this one, in fact regular table salt works just fine (but if you happen to have some sea salt in the pantry, that will work even better).

7. Drink plenty of water. Take soda out of your daily diet, you’ll be patting yourself on the back for doing this when you start to notice less skin blemishes.

8. Use a masque on your face once a month. Try these recipes for your skin type:

For Dry Skin: Mash a banana, mix with a tablespoon of honey and apply it directly to your face. Rinse with cool water after five to ten minutes and you should be able to see how soft your skin has become.
For Oily Skin: Mix oatmeal, lemon juice and one egg white until slightly wet. Apply directly to your face and leave on until dry. Rinse with cool water.
For Combination Skin: Grind a potato and collect its juice. Apply the juice directly on your face and leave to dry. Wash it after 10-15 minutes. This method helps removes ugly acne marks from the skin as well.