In a welcome boon for recession-racked consumers, the prices of generic pharmaceuticals have been falling in recent months - and are expected to continue their downward spiral for the foreseeable future.

The chief reason for this remarkable development, according to health information company IMS Health, is the pitched pricing competition that started in 2006 between huge retailers and drugstore chains, as well as the wars for market share between the many makers of generic drugs. (Read more about Generic Drugs Getting Cheaper in U.S.)

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A majority of owners of MP3 players are listening at levels equal to the noise of a chainsaw, risking dangerous, irreversible hearing loss, according to a recent study.

Although the research, done by environmental health officials from the city of Edinburgh, is specific to one metropolis in Scotland, it may suggest a disturbing trend of MP3 player use all across the Western world. (Read more about Users of MP3 Players Heading for Hearing Loss)

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Compared with high school students of the seventies, U.S. teens today rate themselves as far more intelligent, self-satisfied and able to be exceptional spouses, parents and workers, according to a recent study. Today's kids are also much more likely to say they have a high IQ and are "A" students, even though other research reveals they do a lot less homework than their counterparts of the seventies.

"What this shows is that confidence has crossed over into overconfidence," said Jean Twenge, an associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University. She, together with co-researcher W. Keith Campbell, of the University of Georgia, studied data from Monitoring the Future, a large national survey of thousands of American high school students done from time to time over the past 30 years. (Read more about U.S. Teens Awash in Overconfidence)

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It's long been known that vitamin D is essential for calcium absorption and thus good for bone and teeth health. But research now also suggests a role for vitamin D in fending off such chronic diseases as diabetes, immune disorders and cancer.

But federal scientists are cautious about suddenly touting the vitamin as a cure-all that should be taken in mega-doses by people of all ages and ethnicities. (Read more about Allure and Doubt Regarding Vitamin D)

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A cold or the flu is often a tiring, aggravating experience. But the next time you're suffering from one, remember this: allowing your body to rest while allowing the cold or flu to run its course is actually good for your long term health.

Conventional medicine and the pharmaceutical industry would like you to believe there is no "cure" for the common cold, that you should protect yourself from the flu with vaccines laden with toxic chemicals, and that it is favorable to ease symptoms with a variety of medications.

However, all three of these positions lack an understanding of what colds and flus really are, and what they mean for your body. (Read more about The Truth About Colds and Flus)

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High triglycerides in your bloodstream can be just as much a danger signal for the health of your heart as high cholesterol, according to the Harvard Heart Letter.

Trouble is, people's awareness of the threat of cholesterol, hyped in the media for years, is far greater than that of triglycerides, the most common form of fat in food and the blood. Researchers have determined that the triglyceride danger threshold is 200 milligrams per deciliter of blood. So if your level is above that, the best way to reduce it is to change your lifestyle in the following eight ways. (Read more about Eight Strategies to Reduce Triglycerides)

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Increasing exercise capacity reduces the risk of death in African-American and Caucasian men, according to research on the link between fitness and mortality, including over 15,000 participants. Reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, the researchers investigated exercise capacity as an independent predictor of overall mortality for African-American men (6,749) and Caucasion men (8,911) in addition to analyzing whether racial differences in exercise capacity influenced the risk of death. Each participant was tested by a standardized treadmill test to assess exercise capacity. They were encouraged to exercise until they were fatigued or unless symptoms of cardiac ischemia developed. These individuals were then tracked for an average of 7.5 years. (Read more about Men's Death Rates Cut Drastically Through Daily Exercise)

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You probably know that changes in diet and exercise can effect improve you heart and decrease your risk of cancer. But a recent study published in Obstetrics and Gynecology found that women who followed a combination of five or more lifestyle factors, including changing specific aspects of their diets, experienced more than 80 percent less relative risk of infertility due to ovulatory disorders compared to women who engaged in none of the factors. Ovulatory problems have been indentified in between 18 to 30 percent of infertility cases. (Read more about Seven Steps to Increasing Your Fertility)

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New research by the Partnership for Prevention suggests that over 100,000 Americans lives could be spared each year by increasing five preventive steps. The report claims that there are serious shortcomings in disease prevention across the US, especially for ethnic minorities.

The greatest preventive impact would be 45,000 lives saved from more adults taking a daily low dose of aspirin to prevent heart disease. Smoking cessation would save 42,000 lives. Adults having regular annual cancer screenings would save 14,000 lives a year. For adults aged 50 of over, an annual flu shot would save 12,000 more lives. Additionally, nearly 4,000 lives would be saved by increasing the number of women aged 40 or over who have been screened for breast cancer in the past two years. The report also suggests that 30,000 cases of pelvic inflammatory disease could be prevented if sexually active young women were screened for chlamydial infection in the past year. (Read more about Five Measures for Preventing 100,000 American Deaths a Year)

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According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI), waking up coughing or having a prolonged cough that lasts for weeks should receive serious medical attention. Alan Goldsobel of AAAAI explains, "Coughing protects the body by removing mucus and irritating particles from the respiratory tract. Coughing is a useful function that does not always mean there is a problem. However, coughing at night, after going to sleep indicates the need for medical attention." (Read more about Coughing May Be a Serious Sign)

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