How would you like to get rid of your fat cells in a matter of a few hours? Sounds perfect, right? Well, you can. It's called liposuction, but it comes with painful side effects and risks of complications. But if lipo sounds like your kind of miracle cure, there's another procedure in the works that could potentially be even more successful at helping you lose the fat.

This procedure, developed by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard, is called cryolipolysis, and it works by freezing fat cells and in turn breaking them down without damaging other tissue like skin. It's currently undergoing clinical trials, but results are promising.

Still, it's not without its critics. As one leading expert warns: "These kinds of treatments are never going to be an excuse for not getting round to dieting. Nor is it going to be a treatment for obesity."

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When you cook, do you stick to the standard salt and pepper? Or do you get more creative, adding fresh herbs and spices to your meals? There are benefits beyond great flavor ... so the next time you cook, be sure to spice it up.

Using spice has been linked to weight loss, and using herbs and spices in place of salt can benefit your blood pressure. In a recent study, researchers found that many herbs and spices can protect tissues from damage and inflammation -- both of which are problems caused by high blood sugar. So frequent use of certain spices and herbs may help those who are living with diabetes.

Spices and herbs are high in antioxidants. While it's not clear how much of each item is necessary to protect tissues, incorporating these ingredients in your meals in small amounts certainly can't hurt. The spices and herbs researchers found to be beneficial include cloves, cinnamon, allspice, apple pie spice, pumpkin pie spice, marjoram, sage, and thyme.

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We all have body fat. It's necessary for proper body function. While a healthy percentage of body fat varies greatly, according to the American College of Sports Medicine a healthy range for women under 40 is 20-35%, for men 8-22%. (The ranges change for those over 40 and for fitness standards.)

But a recent study reveals that one fat cell isn't necessarily like another. In obese people, fat cells appear "sick."

Compared to fat cells taken from lean people, the fat cells from obese people were deficient in several ways. For example, the endoplasmic reticulum -- which helps cells synthesize proteins -- was stressed in the fat cells of obese people. This stress of the endoplasmic reticulum could inhibit or change the body's production of protein and could lead to insulin resistance (a contributing factor for obesity).

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If you are a woman living in an urban area, you may have an increased chance of developing breast cancer. It seems women who live and work in large cities have more dense breast tissue than those in suburban and rural areas. Dense tissue increases risk.

This connection -- between risk and big cities -- may stem from the fact that urbanites tend to have kids later in life and are more likely to use hormone therapy. Pollution and stress may also play a role.

Regardless of the cause, researchers from the London Breast Institute say the risk is real. So if you live or work in a city, make sure you get your mammograms as recommended and if you learn that you have dense tissue, go to a facility that offers digital technology -- it can detect up to 50 percent more cancers in dense breasts. Regardless of where you live, really, you should follow these preventative strategies.

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My breasts are dense. I know this because I hear it every time someone examines me, squashes my boobs into a mammogram machine, slides a gooey ultrasound wand up and down and all around my ta tas, or makes me dangle my girls through the slings of an MRI machine. Dense. So dense. Unbelievably dense.

Young women have dense breasts. That's just how it goes. And that's exactly why we youngsters -- meaning any of us under the age of 40 -- must take control of our own breast care. Mammograms are not the best for us -- that's why the imaging test isn't recommended for women under 40. They're not effective because they often don't pick up masses wound up in dense tissue. A mammogram missed my breast cancer a few years back. Ultrasound picked it up, though -- thankfully. But my first line of defense -- and the method that turned up my pea-sized hard tumor -- is self examination. That means once each month, girls, you must check your breasts. Here's how.

Schedule your do-it-yourself boob massage for one week following your menstrual cycle -- fewer hormonal tissue changes this way -- and do this: Recline your body or stand in the shower like I did that fateful day I found my pea. Put your right arm up over your head. Use the fingertips on your left hand to feel your right breast in its entirety. Then switch arms and hands and take care of your left breast. Note what you feel and remember it. Because when you check again a month later, you'll try to detect changes. If you find any, get yourself to the doctor. Because you are young, you may be dismissed -- I was -- but you just stand tall and firm and sure of yourself and demand that you be referred to a specialist, someone who will combine a mammogram with ultrasound, and maybe MRI too. Let your gut guide you. If it tells you something is wrong, it probably is. Pursue your health, my friends. Because no one else will.

Young women, dense as they can be, get breast cancer. I did. You might too. So get to work on saving your life. Now.

For more about young women and breast cancer, visit the Young Survival Coalition here.

On Sunday, a marathon will take place in my city. There will also be a half marathon, a kids marathon, and a 5K. I've got a handful of friends of who will challenge themselves in the name of fun and fitness by running in these races and while I won't be one of the competitors this year, I may entertain the idea next time around. Part of me is intrigued by the physical accomplishment I could make by conquering more than 26 miles. Part of me just wants to participate in an event that has the power to save lives in five different ways.

The Five Points of Life races, sponsored by LifeSouth Community Blood Centers, are designed to raise awareness about the need for five life-saving donations -- blood, apheresis, bone marrow, organs and tissue, and cord blood. Some event participants and volunteers are donors, some are recipients, and some are both. Donors are asked to wear an orange ribbon on race day. Recipients: a blue one (we're Gators here, hence the orange and blue). The ribbons will serve as reminders of the importance of saving lives.

Should I run next year, I'll be wearing a blue ribbon, in honor of the several units of blood I received while hospitalized three years ago with chemotherapy-induced low blood counts. What a thrill it would be to publicly acknowledge the gift I was given. What a thrill it would be to run all those miles.

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If you can, imagine a hot needle going into a sore muscle that's been damaged by athletic stress. Hippocrates used this procedure to treat shoulder pain of discus athletes in the fifth century; it's called prolotherapy. Today, the idea is the same but the methods are slightly different.

Prolotherapy is controversial because modern doctors use needles to inject a sugar solution into damaged muscles. This causes inflammation, much like you'd expect. However, that's exactly its purpose: the body's response to this irritation is to send nutrients to the spot of pain as fast as possible. This literally causes scarring to the already pained muscles and ligaments.

But wait, isn't scarring a bad thing? Not in this case. The scarring causes the body to repair the muscle by laying down new tissue. This procedure theoretically fixes the problem and the pain. But not everyone is convinced. Prolotherapy is still up in the air because not all research backs its effectiveness. You'd think that if the Father of Modern Medicine endorsed it, other practitioners would too! It is, after all, a natural response and healing process -- but hopefully they'll come up with a solid verdict that everyone can agree on.

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Of all forms of cancer, I personally find breast cancer the scariest because not only does it mainly affect women, but it is also the most frequently diagnosed cancer among women in Canada and the United States. Excluding skin cancers, breast cancer is actually the most common form of the disease in women across the globe.

There are also so many risk factors that women have to consider, it almost makes it seem impossible for anyone to not get the disease. One of the newest potential causes being discussed is the density of breast tissue. According to this article, breasts are made up of both fatty and ductal tissue, and the more dense ductal tissue in the breast, the higher the risk of developing the disease.

The piece says that until recently it was believed that it was just harder to find tumors within the dense tissue, but a recent study found that women with more ductal tissue were actually five times more likely to develop breast cancer than those with little or none of the tissue.

Since there's not a lot that you can do about this, or many of the other risk factors (first menstruation before age 12, having children after age 30, genetics, etc), the best defense is to make sure you get a breast exam during your yearly check-up and begin getting yearly mammograms after age 50.

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Sometimes genetics blesses us gals just a tad too much, and sometimes we earn that big chest by simply gaining too much weight. Oh yeah! Pregnancy and nursing does tons of good for the boobage too, right? Not.

So of course there are more important issues in the world, but for those in the world with an extra five pounds or more of chest...it's no fun! Too big boobs cause back, neck and shoulder pain, not to mention the other psychological issues they create. Breast reduction surgery is sometimes the only legitimate option for a drastic reduction in breast tissue, but often it can be controlled in another way. Plastic surgery is extremely pricey, and has all sorts of risks and side effects that go along with it, so it shouldn't be taken lightly.

If too big boobs or droopy boobs are your issue you may want to jump on the fitness band wagon, cause getting down to and maintaining your ideal weight may just do the trick. If you are overweight or over fat, lose it! Extra weight on the scale means extra weight everywhere, including your breasts. Get down to your ideal weight. Don't aim to be only 20 pounds overweight. Get down to the real deal best weight for you. I promise your chest will shrink some and so will the pain in your back.

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Signs posted up on doctors walls, television coverage, health news broadcasts, and even commercials all emphasizing the new proper procedure on how to cough in public. We are now supposed to cough into our sleeve or a napkin, tissue, hanky, or something cloth to catch the germs. Coughing on the hands or just straight out in to the air can transfer germs for up to eight hours as they float about waiting to land on something or you spread them around with your hands on everything you touch.

With all of this coverage, I still witness lots of people coughing unprotected into the air or on their hands. So what will change the habits of millions of people daily? I think it begins at home with mothers teaching the proper way to cough while impressionable minds still can grasp the new concept. I also think the school systems should jump on board emphasizing the proper way to cough and protect others from spreading germs. But for us old farts out here, well...., that lesson may be harder to teach. We just need to get a better prospective on how our carelessness can affect a lot of people and build a conscious. Nothing like getting coughed on a hundred times in a doctors office by people ignoring posters plastered all around the office on the proper way to cough to realize this.

I have had friends over the years make fun of me lovingly when I raise the neck of my shirt and cough down inside my shirt saying I look so funny doing that. I felt it was the best way on a spur of the moment kind of thing when the coughing urge hits, to keep my germs from flying about. Who is laughing now?