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       Updated Monday, April 27th, 2009 (426)      
 
15 Things You Probably Didn't
Know About Your Body and Health


1. Rinsing your nose with salt water can help keep you healthy and ward off allergy symptoms.

2. You're more likely to have a heart attack on a Monday, or up to three days after you've been diagnosed with the flu or a respiratory tract infection.

3. Obese people spend approximately $485 more on clothing, $828 on extra plane seats, and $36 more on gas each year than their thinner counterparts. An overweight driver burns about 18 additional gallons of gas a year.

4. Eating fruits and vegetables may help your body make its own aspirin. Benzoic acid, a natural substance in fruits and vegetables, causes people to produce their own salicylic acid, the key component that gives aspirin its anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties.

5. A 20-minute nap can improve your overall alertness, boost your mood, and increase productivity. In addition, your heart may reap benefits from napping -- a six-year study found that that men who took naps at least three times a week had a 37 percent lower risk of heart-related death.

6. Your kitchen sink is dirtier than your bathroom. There are typically more than 500,000 bacteria per square inch in its drain, and the faucet, basin, and sponge are crawling with germs as well.

7. Baking soda can whiten teeth, garlic can help treat athlete's foot, and honey can soothe a hangover.

8. Regular exercise can lower a woman's cancer risk -- but only if she's getting enough sleep. The National Cancer Institute followed nearly 6,000 women for almost 10 years. Women in the top half of physical activity levels showed an approximate 20 percent reduction in cancer risk, but sleeping less than seven hours per night resulted in a decreased benefit.

9. Watching yourself run in a mirror can make a treadmill workout go by faster and feel easier.

10. Third-hand smoke -- the particles that cling to smokers' hair and clothing and linger in a room long after they've left -- is a cancer risk to young children and pets.

11. Walking against the wind, in the water, or while wearing a backpack burns about 50 more calories per hour than walking with no resistance. People who wear pedometers also tend to burn more calories and lose more weight.

12. Trained sexologists can infer a woman's orgasm history by observing the way she walks. In other news, men find women who wear red sexier than those who wear "cool" colors such as blue and green.

13. Some men experience pain, headaches, or sneezing as a result of ejaculation. The increased activity in the nervous system during orgasm may be the culprit.

14. Germ-killing wipes can spread bacteria from one spot to another if you reuse them.

15. Oatmeal, citrus fruits, and honey can boost your sex drive and improve fertility. Oats produce a chemical that releases testosterone into the blood supply, vitamin C improves sperm count and motility, and vitamin B from honey helps your body use estrogen, a key factor in blood flow and arousal. 

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