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" GOOD HEALTH NEWS TRAVELS FAST: Five years ago, you probably didn&amp;#039;t have any idea what an antioxidant was. Now you know to seek them out in both skin-care products and foods \u2014 and your body&amp;#039;s the better for it. So we went to top medical, diet, and fitness experts to get an early look at the health ideas and buzzwords that will define the year ahead. Here are the 2008 trends you can&amp;#039;t afford to miss. 1. SUPERFOODS Plain old food seems plain old-fashioned as more and more products are getting a health boost with new added ingredients. Now you can eat cookies and tortilla chips that lower cholesterol, fry up an egg to ward off depression, or pop a can of soda to get your vitamins and minerals \u2014 or so marketers claim. Retail sales of these &amp;quot;functional foods&amp;quot; now top $26 billion a year and are projected to climb to over $36 billion by 2010, according to a new research report. You&amp;#039;ll see a huge boom in foods containing omega-3s, for example, predicts Tim Straus of The Turover Straus group, a consulting firm in Glencoe, IL, that specializes in the food and beverage industry. These heart-healthy fatty acids are found naturally in oily fish, like wild salmon and herring, flax, and nuts. Since 2006, omega-3s have been added to more than 250 products \u2014 an increase of over 90 percent from 2005. You can also expect to see more foods fortified with probiotics \u2014 healthy bacteria believed to improve your digestion and boost immunity. Sales of the probiotic yogurt Activia have soared in the United States since it hit stores in January 2006. There&amp;#039;s even a female-focused subtrend of the superfoods craze: According to the market research firm Mintel, since 2004, manufacturers have launched more than 140 new foods and drinks brimming with nutrients women need, such as folic acid, calcium, magnesium, and iron. What&amp;#039;s behind the explosion in superfoods? In a word \u2014 you. A recent International Food Information Council Foundation survey found that 75 percent of consumers believe nutrition plays the greatest role in maintaining or improving health, and 85 percent feel certain foods have health benefits that reduce the risk of some diseases. Nutritionists are generally in favor of superfoods since these products make it easy for consumers to act on the latest health news. But these great ideas don&amp;#039;t come cheap, so if you&amp;#039;re going to shell out extra for them, use your personal health needs as a guide. If you&amp;#039;ve got a family history of cancer, go for foods enriched with antioxidants. If you&amp;#039;re at risk for heart disease, look for foods that lower cholesterol, such as those with whole grains, omega-3s, and plant sterols. But don&amp;#039;t expect these foods to work health miracles. &amp;quot;Ultimately, nothing can replace a plant-based diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy, and fish high in omega-3s,&amp;quot; notes nutritionist Clare Hasler, Ph.D. Just a few examples of the exploding trend in functional foods: Benecol spread contains plant stanol esters, compounds that lower cholesterol. Tropicana Pure Premium Calcium + Vitamin D delivers as much calcium as a glass of milk, or 35 percent of your daily dose of the bone-building mineral. Right Direction cookies contain plant sterols and soluble fiber to lower cholesterol. I Can&amp;#039;t Believe It&amp;#039;s Not Butter! Mediterranean Blend contains 400 mg of omega-3 fatty acids per serving. Caffe Sanora&amp;#039;s Healthy Roast Process preserves the beans&amp;#039; polyphenols, beneficial antioxidants that are better absorbed by the body than the antioxidants in green tea. Corazonas Tortilla Chips are made with oats and plant sterols that have been shown to help reduce &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; low-density lipoprotein cholesterol by up to 15 percent. Vitamin D, also known as the sunshine vitamin because your body produces it when your skin is exposed to sunlight, is getting its day in the sun. Why? New research suggests that it may protect against cancer, heart disease, depression, and diabetes \u2014 illnesses that account for about 60 percent to 70 percent of American deaths. In fact, a recent review of 18 studies on vitamin D found that people who take supplements of this nutrient appear to have a lower risk of death from any cause over a follow-up period of six years. &amp;quot;Vitamin D is one of the most potent regulators of cellular growth, helping prevent cells from becoming malignant,&amp;quot; explains Michael F. Holick, M.D., Ph.D., a professor at the Boston University School of Medicine and author of  The UV Advantage. Now that more and more doctors are becoming aware of this vitamin&amp;#039;s benefits, yours may ask about your intake in order to prevent or treat a possible deficiency (which is three times more common in the winter than during sunnier seasons). And while you&amp;#039;ll still need to slather on sunscreen, you may soon be advised to catch at least a few rays without protection; Holick suggests being outdoors sans sunscreen for about 10 to 15 minutes a day in spring, summer, and fall. When the government releases its updated USDA guidelines in 2010, they&amp;#039;ll likely recommend a higher daily vitamin D intake for both men and women. In the meantime, Holick joins a host of nutritionists who advise premenopausal women to get no less than 1,000 IU of vitamin D \u2014 five times the 200 IU currently recommended by the USDA. You can find higher amounts of vitamin D in some multivitamins, such as One-A-Day Women&amp;#039;s. Both the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Council on Exercise (ACE) deemed &amp;quot;functional fitness&amp;quot; one of the biggest workout trends last year, and in 2008, you&amp;#039;ll really start seeing it catch on at local gyms. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s all about training your body with routine but demanding tasks you face in your daily life \u2014 from walking and bending to hoisting your 4-year-old into a grocery cart \u2014 so you can increase the efficiency of those activities and prevent injuries,&amp;quot; says exercise physiologist Fabio Comana, a spokesperson for ACE. The workouts will help you develop flexibility, coordination, and balance, mostly through floor exercises and the use of equipment such as a stability ball, wobble board, and fitness bands. Functional fitness teaches muscle groups to work together as they would in the real world \u2014 not just lifting, for example, but lifting and rotating at the same time, as you often do when you&amp;#039;re putting away groceries. You can find a functional fitness class at most gyms. The classes go by different names, so ask a trainer which ones fit the bill. Or check out the Christi Taylor: Funktional Fitness DVD (cduniverse.com). Increasingly, doctors are discovering new ways to use our genetic profile \u2014 gene variations inherited from our ancestors \u2014 to determine our risk of developing illnesses such as asthma, schizophrenia, arthritis, and cancer, and also to steer the way toward the most effective treatments. &amp;quot;This strategy allows us to stop practicing medicine by the law of averages and actively tailor management of health care to the individual by looking at who&amp;#039;s at risk and how we can personalize their treatment, therapy, surgery, and lifestyle,&amp;quot; says Charis Eng, M.D., director of the Center for Personalized Genetic Healthcare at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute.  Personalized medicine \u2014 which involves gathering information from a comprehensive family medical history and blood tests \u2014 is already a doctor&amp;#039;s most powerful weapon against a number of cancers. For example, there are five types of breast cancer-susceptible genes, and each is associated with additional types of cancer. So if you carry the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation, for instance, you also have an up to 80 percent lifetime risk of breast cancer (compared with a lifetime risk of 11 percent among those without the gene mutation). This cutting-edge research suggests that personalized medicine can also be applied to lowering blood pressure, alleviating depression, and even helping smokers quit. The rapid growth of personalized medicine may soon be regulated by legislation. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act seeks to protect against employment and insurance discrimination based on genetic information, and is expected to be signed into law in the coming months. Many of last year&amp;#039;s health crazes have shown real staying power. Some examples: A SHOT HELPED US BATTLE CERVICAL CANCER. Gardasil is a new vaccine that protects against human papillomavirus (HPV), a common infection that can cause cervical cancer. Since the FDA approved the vaccine for girls and young women ages 9 to 26, sales have skyrocketed \u2014 to over $286 million in the United States in the second quarter of 2007 alone. Critics say receiving the vaccine encourages promiscuity among girls. But the controversy is unlikely to stop the vaccine from becoming routine preventative health care for the preteen set. ORGANICS WENT MAINSTREAM. The U.S. organic industry grew 21 percent in 2006, to $17.7 billion in consumer sales. The Organic Trade Association (OTA) anticipates organic-food sales will grow about 18 percent a year through 2010, and that sales of nonfood organic products will increase up to 40 percent a year during the same period. &amp;quot;People choose organic because of personal health issues, because they&amp;#039;re new parents and believe it&amp;#039;s better for babies, or because they are rejecting toxic pesticides, antibiotics, and synthetic hormones,&amp;quot; says Barbara Haumann, a spokesperson for the OTA. WE TOOK A BREAK FROM PERIODS. First came Seasonale, a birth control introduced in 2003 that enabled women to menstruate only once every three months. Then last July came Lybrel, a pill that eliminates periods altogether. In a recent survey, 97 percent of physicians said that continuous oral-contraceptive therapy to suppress a period is medically safe and acceptable. But since there are no long-term studies proving that fact, it&amp;#039;s still considered uncharted territory. WE SCARFED 100-CALORIE SNACKS. To give diet-busting treats a fighting chance among a population facing an obesity crisis, manufacturers began packaging cookies, crackers, and pudding in units of 100 calories, the amount nutrition experts consider reasonable for a snack. Stores now offer over 170 different 100-calorie products, more than double the number from 2006. DARK CHOCOLATE BECAME A HEALTH FOOD. Recent studies have touted cocoa&amp;#039;s health benefits \u2014 from lowering blood pressure to boosting skin&amp;#039;s resilience to sun damage \u2014 giving consumers even more reason to indulge in some chocolate. Mars recently launched CocoaVia, a dark chocolate bar that&amp;#039;s high in flavonols (a potent antioxidant found in cocoa); Nestle has introduced a line of 53 percent and 62 percent cocoa chocolate chips and bars; and Hershey&amp;#039;s now makes Extra Dark (a high-flavonol, 60 percent cocoa bar) as well as dark chocolate Hershey&amp;#039;s Kisses. Dark chocolate may provide some health benefits (and it sure is delicious), but it&amp;#039;s still dessert, so enjoy it in moderation \u2014 about an ounce a day. WHOLE GRAINS GOT A WHOLE LOT SEXIER. They&amp;#039;re showing up not only in baked goods but also in pastas, cereals, and even juices. And that&amp;#039;s good news, because whole grains \u2014 including wheat, corn, oats, barley, quinoa, spelt, and rye \u2014 contain more fiber and other important nutrients (such as selenium, potassium, and magnesium) than refined grains do, and have been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity. Look for the words &amp;quot;whole grain&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;whole wheat&amp;quot; to be listed first among the ingredients. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/body/health-fitness/advice/a2459/top-wellness-trends-2008/>