The eat-your-peas mode of staying healthy is changing to include chocolate, sleep, and a few other things most people enjoy.

No one likes to be nagged, but that's often what health advice seems to do. There are all those don'ts (as in smoke, eat too much, gain weight). And the dos (exercise, eat fruit and vegetables) are predictable, even for people who don't mind them. Live longer, live healthier, you say? Okay, but what a chore and a bore!

Lately, however, health researchers are reporting results that suggest maybe we can have our health and enjoy ourselves, too. Studies have elevated coffee ...

Better outcomes for pancreatic cancer surgery.

Pancreatic cancer has been in the public eye lately because it has afflicted several prominent people, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, actor Patrick Swayze, and Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University whose inspirational last lecture became a YouTube sensation and, as a book, a national best seller.

It's odd that the disease would strike so many famous people at about the same time, because pancreatic cancer is fairly uncommon. Nearly 38,000 Americans were diagnosed with the disease in 2008, a fraction of the 215,000 ...

Negative studies have piled up, but are they a fair test?

Good news about vitamins is hard to find these days. Headline after headline — including a few in this newsletter — blare negative results. B vitamins don't prevent heart attacks. Vitamin E doesn't benefit people with Alzheimer's disease. Vitamins A, C, and E — no cancer protection there.

Lack of benefit is one thing. But mixed in with the null findings are a few that suggest large doses of vitamins might cause some real harm. One of the first came in 1994, when results from a high-profile Finnish study ...

I'm 65, and I don't think my memory is as good as it once was. I read about a study that says you can improve your memory by eating less. Is there any truth to it? It sounds too good to be true.

I've been taking omega-3 fats and have two big bruises. Even small doses of aspirin cause me to bruise. My doctor is not concerned, but should I be?