If you enjoy eating ham, bacon, hot dogs or sausages on a daily basis then you may want to consider cutting back. A new study is claiming that 50 grams of processed meat per day can raise the chances of developing bowel cancer. Under their assessment, "processed" means any kind of meat preserved by chemical additives, for example.

Representatives of the World Cancer Research Fund suggest that the safest level of consumption for this type of food is none at all. As far as other cancers are concerned, they don't think there's much of a connection.

Bowel cancer is a big deal over in the UK with it being the third most common type of case. What about red meat though? Well that's considered best in moderation, with researchers suggesting 500 grams or less per week. But it might be harder for some people than others to eliminate processed meat from their nutrition altogether.

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Parenting is not easy. Even the best of moms deal with tantrums from toddlers. But would you believe a statistic that says mothers and their young children argue upwards of 20 to 25 times an hour?

It sounds sensational, especially when displayed as a headline. But there's more to this study than a bunch of strife. Researchers watched 60 pairs of moms and toddlers in a lab to try out various conditions that would make the child more prone to having a temper tantrum. The mothers were told to play with their child, but enforce rules that would make him or her likely to argue.

This was done at a little over two years of age. A second phase observed similar situations six months later. The findings reveal that under strenuous circumstances, the number of arguments was up to two dozen on average. However, my only problem with this study is that it's easy to infer round-the-clock temper tantrums. In reality, the scientists purposefully set it up that way. They're quick to note that these conflicts are normal for that age -- it's just interesting to see concrete stats applied to child rearing tendencies.

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It's not easy sitting at home and preparing every single meal of the week. Even the people who love to handle their own food may find a day that demands eating out. But where to go? There are so many flawed menus in the food industry that it makes choosing a healthy establishment feel like playing the lottery.

Enter America's top 15 healthiest restaurants as chosen by Health magazine. Some of the eateries may surprise you by being on the list! For example, Denny's brought up the bottom of the pack thanks to their Fit Fare menu featuring items that are 15 grams of fat or less. The editor's pick for their favorite choice off this menu was the Grilled Chicken Breast Salad.

P.F. Chang's also made the cut partly thanks to their carb-free vegetarian lettuce wraps. The other contributing factors were their use of whole grain rice, all-natural chicken, and reduced sodium sauces. These are not the only reasons, but you can bet they're not loading you up with excessive fat and preservatives. Criteria for these restaurants included how they prepared the food, the trans-fat content, portion control and other nutritional factors. Check out the full list for more information and see the other healthy establishments.

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Science has shown us in the past that being married has it perks. Those people are more likely to be healthier, and some folks even attribute longevity to their marital status. But a new study shows that being in a happy marriage can keep your blood pressure in check too. Otherwise, you're healthier off being single according to researchers!

Couples who reported a low level of satisfaction, meaning that their relationship could be turbulent, had a higher systolic blood pressure reading than couples that were happy. Those people in a stressed marriage were shown to have blood pressure approaching an unhealthy level.

But a good level of satisfaction helped the blood pressure of those other couples. This seems like common sense to some people, but it's interesting to observe concrete feedback regarding the heart health of stressed individuals. Of course, there's also that one guy who lived to 100 allegedly thanks to staying single (if only he knew that couples who fight together live longer together).

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It's a fact: most kids love sugar. Candy could be a food group all by itself for young children and teens, which goes a long way in explaining why certain asthmatic symptoms show up when a diet rich in sugar is consumed.

The theory behind the sugar and asthma connection comes from the Nestle Research Center of all places. Not a bad location to try testing this idea! What researchers found was that ingesting lots of sugar results in mucus production and narrowed airways due to inflammation.

In turn, asthmatic wheezing is produced. This priming of the immune system was a hypothesis presented by Dr. Sonja Kierstein. Testing began on mice, which reacted to the sugar much like kids (in other words, they couldn't get enough of it). By the end of the procedure, the sugar-fed mice had twice the airway inflammation as their tested counterparts. If you're interested in reading more, check out the report here.

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For people with potentially fatal food allergies, every day brings with it a challenge to watch what they eat (or come in contact with). More kids seem to developing peanut allergies for example. In the past half-decade, cases of this nut reaction have risen 35 percent. But there's hope that these allergies can be lessened through new methods of combating their effects.

One example for peanut allergy sufferers has children taking a small dose of the peanut protein -- under a doctor's supervision of course. This has been shown to help mitigate the severity of reactions if peanuts are accidentally consumed. It's called oral immunotherapy and the treatment has helped grow their tolerance.

Even though over two million school kids have such allergies, there's hope that through more studies and treatments doctors may be able to curb the reactions altogether! Will we see a pill that can cure allergies someday? Maybe not, but if this research has any implications, then we may not be far away from a reality close to it.

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Compulsive text messaging, urges to get online and surf the web, cravings to play video games... What do all of these activities have in common? They're practices people do on the Internet, and one doctor says psychiatrists should recognize it as a bona fide mental illness.

Technology certainly has made things easier to get work done. But it can also be a great distraction to "unplug" from the rest of the world. After all, have you ever looked at your watch and gotten online to check your email, only to realize hours have passed in what seemed like minutes? Making time fly is one thing, but a doctor from the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland says this habit can be taken a step further to addiction.

According to Dr. Block, getting hooked on the web has all the same traits of a typical "offline" addiction: withdrawal and tolerance and requiring more time to get the same satisfaction, for example. He also says that 86 percent of Internet addicts have other mental illnesses -- so I'm wondering if those traits contribute to this computer-aided dependency. Either way, it'll be interesting to see if psychiatrists diagnose "web addiction" in the future.

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Just when you thought companies would start producing more natural, organic products as a result of widespread distaste for excessive additives, news comes out that certain "organic" brands actually contain a dangerous carcinogen. Dioxane is a chemical byproduct of a method used by companies to make harsh products feel more soft.

What kind of products are we talking about here? Shampoos and lotions that go directly on the body, just to name a couple. These personal care items are not supposed to be used if they're seeking USDA certification. So the problem is that these uncertified products are still being sold, even without the blessing of the USDA.

According to this post, kidney, neurological and respiratory damage is also known to be caused by dioxane. Think it stops there? The organic products using the compound could also be considered a groundwater contaminant. I'm not sure exactly how "organic" products like this become so dangerous, but I sure wouldn't want to pay for a known carcinogen to lather up my hair with. For a list of these brands, check them out here.

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You've heard the news and seen the headlines. Apparently us Americans are walking zombies getting less and less sleep every year. This is what organizations such as The Sleep Foundation will lead you to believe. But a study out of the University of Maryland counters this argument saying that citizens in the USA are actually getting plenty of sleep.

Whereas the myth of sleep deprivation claims we're getting less than seven hours of shut eye, the UM research says Americans are getting a healthy dose of eight hours. Why the discrepancy? Well interestingly enough, it may have more to do with funding than results.

The Sleep Foundation gets its money partly from pharmaceutical companies that manufacture sleep aids. See the connection? The University of Maryland, however, funded its research using tax dollars. Not only that, but the myth is dispelled using far more numbers -- there was a difference in over 30,000 individuals between the two surveys. It just goes to show you that not everything you see in the media is 100 percent accurate!

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For the parents out there: do your children spend a lot of time in front of a screen most of the day? If you have teenagers (or happen to be one) then "screen time" is another term for "hobby." I played sports as a kid, but even back then I tried to absorb video games and TV like a sponge. Well according to Canadian researchers, some teenagers spend as much time in front of a screen as it takes to be employed in a full-time job.

That's in the ballpark of 40 hours per week. Over a thousand teens were studied for half a decade beginning in 1999 to assess habits related to watching TV, playing games, and using computers. Collectively, this was known as screen time.

Guys are the big offenders, over half of whom absorbed over 40 hours in total time spent in front of a screen. Only about a quarter of the girls spent that much time soaking up the technology. It's always interesting to see connections like this drawn, even if they refer to teens of a different region. Judging by activities back in the States, things are not drastically dissimilar over here.

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