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TO YOUR GOOD HEALTH: Peptides should be used with caution

Lifestyles

DEAR DR. ROACH: I’m curious about peptides. I read that they’re incredible health cures and effective at lowering weight and high cholesterol. People say that major pharmaceutical companies are suppressing them because they offer better cures at cheaper prices. Is there any credibility to these claims, and should I take them, mainly by self-injection? — S.W. ANSWER: A peptide is a string of amino acids. Long peptides are called proteins, and they play many diverse roles in most of the structures in the human body, as well as the enzymes that our bodies use for ...

Nutrition apps can help build healthy habits

Lifestyles

Green means go, red means stop. Trophies or confetti come with good performance, and people who fall behind get nudged to do better. Those brightly colored engagement tactics long ago jumped from smartphone games to everything from online shopping to sports betting and classrooms. So it should come as no surprise that many nutrition-tracking apps like MyFitnessPal and Noom also use gaming features to keep users coming back. But as nutrition apps proliferate, some researchers are raising alarms that gamification features may do more harm than good for some people. Isabella ...

DEAR ANNIE: Friend’s abundant joy highlights her own pain

Lifestyles

DEAR ANNIE: I am embarrassed to admit this, but I am jealous of my best friend. “Claire” and I have been close for more than 20 years. We met in college, stood in each other’s weddings and raised our children alongside one another. She has always been the person I could tell anything to. Over the past year, though, everything in her life seems to have fallen into place. Her husband received a big promotion, they bought a beautiful new house, and her daughter was accepted into her first-choice college. Meanwhile, my husband was laid off, we are worried about money, and my son is ...

HINTS FROM HELOISE: Let us end toothpaste drama now

Lifestyles

DEAR HELOISE: The letter from Jan M. purports to end all the toothpaste drama. However, there’s one more thing that nobody has mentioned. Because of my curiosity, I cut open the tube after thinking I’d effectively removed all the toothpaste within — only to discover that no matter how one chooses to empty the tube, it still has lots of toothpaste remaining. I cut the end of the tube, then cut along the creases of each side, and found that not only is there still toothpaste along the length of the tube, there is a significant amount at the end where the toothpaste exits the tube. ...

Bridge by Steve Becker

Lifestyles

Declarer’s first aim is to make his contract. At no time should the matter of potential overtricks influence his plays, since the value of a game, a slam or even a partscore far exceeds the value of an overtrick. Consider today’s deal where South is in three notrump and West leads a ...