Type 2 diabetes— long known to have an adverse effect on the brain— has now been linked with the loss of brain matter.
Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), researchers studied the brain structures of 614 patients with a mean age of 62, who had all been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes for an average of 10 years. They found that long-term diabetes was associated with the greatest loss of brain tissue – suggesting brain atrophy.
“It’d been thought that most, if not all, of the effect of diabetes on the brain was due to vascular disease that diabetics get and, therefore, stroke,” lead study author Dr. R. Nick Bryan, chair and professor emeritus of the department of radiology at the Perleman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, told FoxNews.com. “We found that in addition to that, there’s sort of diffuse loss of brain tissue, atrophy… we think may have a direct effect of the diabetes on the brain.”
Researchers noted that the greatest reduction of volume was seen in the brain’s gray matter, where the organ’s neurons are located.  The shrinkage of gray matter is often regarded as the start of the neurodegenerative process. Since patients with diabetes have been previously shown to have a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease, the findings suggest cognitive changes may be related to neurodegeneration.
“[We’re] not saying all [people with diabetes] will get Alzheimer’s, but suggesting that many of them will have worse cognition and worse thinking ability as they get older and probably more of them will get neurodegeneration and Alzheimer’s, than non-Alzheimer’s patients,” Bryan said.
The findings suggest that for every 10 years of diabetes duration, the brain of a diabetes patient looks approximately two years older than that of a non-diabetic person – with regards to gray matter volume.
“One thing that’s pretty clear was that the adverse effect of diabetes was significantly worse in patients who had diabetes longer,” Bryan said.
Researchers point out that, for people with diabetes, proper care is a priority.
“[Patients] need to take the maximum effort to cooperate with physicians… to manage diabetes and blood sugars as well as they possibly can to try to decrease or prevent the damage of diabetes to the brain and ability to think later on in life,” he said. “[Diabetes] significantly affects all the organs in the body; the brain is one that is affected significantly perhaps in not just one, but two ways— not just vascular that we know about, but as a primary or direct assault on the brain.”
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While we’d all like to believe that losing weight is just a matter of eating fewer calories, sometimes it’s not that simple. When it comes to weight loss, eating the right kinds of foods can be just as important as simply eating smaller portions. Some foods can help keep your blood sugar stable, preventing you from crashing and craving a sugar fix, and others can help you feel fuller longer or even encourage fat loss.
Coconut oil
Coconut oil has been making headlines as a new superfood – and some believe it can help you lose weight, too. Coconut oil is made up of medium-chain fatty acids, which are metabolized differently than the long-chain fatty acids found in most fats. These medium chain fatty acids are used first and foremost for energy in the body, instead of being stored as fat.
Apple cider vinegar
Produced by fermenting apple cider, apple cider vinegar is known to be a rich source of minerals, enzymes, vitamins and amino acids. A study cited by the American Diabetes Foundation found that consuming apple-cider vinegar before a high-carb meal significantly increased insulin sensitivity, reducing insulin spikes that can lead to cravings.
Lemons
According to the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, vitamin C levels are inversely related to body mass. People with adequate levels of vitamin C oxidize 30 percent more fat during moderate exercise than those with low levels of vitamin C. Start your day with a glass of lemon water and substitute fresh lemon juice for vinegar on your salads.
Wild fatty-fish
High in protein and rich in omega-3 fatty acids, fatty fish including salmon, herring, trout and sardines, can support weight loss while also helping a person maintain muscle mass. Some evidence also indicates that omega-3s found in fish may help improve metabolism, though more research needs to be done. Wild caught fish always contain fewer contaminants that farmed fish, making it a healthier choice.
Grapefruit
Grapefruit is low in calories, high in enzymes and can keep you full. In a study published in the Journal of Medicinal Food, researchers found that eating half of a fresh grapefruit before meals was associated with significant weight loss among obese study participants. Researchers also noted that participants who consumed grapefruit before a meal also experienced a significant reduction in two-hour post-glucose insulin levels.
Adding these foods to your diet on a regular basis can help you shed some extra weight without much extra effort. For long-term weight-loss, eliminate processed foods and stick with whole foods and regular exercise.

Jacqueline Banks
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From artists to office workers, people in all walks of life claim that going for a stroll helps them work out ideas or overcome creative blocks, and now new research finds that stretching one's legs really does give a mental boost.
"Many people anecdotally claim they do their best thinking when walking," study researcher Marily Oppezzo, of Santa Clara University, said in a statement. "With this study, we finally may be taking a step or two toward discovering why."
Creative types have extolled the virtues of walking for centuries. In fact, several musicians were almost superstitious in their devotion to daily walks, according to the new book "Daily Rituals" (Knopf, 2014) compiled by editor Mason Currey. Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky took a two-hour walk each day regardless of the weather, and Ludwig van Beethoven regularly went for a brisk stroll after lunch. [10 Fun Ways to Keep Your Mind Sharp]

The habit was hardly restricted to composers. Novelist Charles Dickens was an avid pedestrian, and the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once wrote, "I have walked myself into my best thoughts." Even the rigid daily schedule that Charles Darwinadopted later in life included time for three short walks.
To test if there is any merit to this widely held belief that walking somehow stimulates the mind, Oppezzo and a colleague recruited dozens of people, mostly college students, for a few experiments at Stanford University.
In one experiment, participants completed one set of tasks while seated, and a second set of tasks while walking on a treadmill.
Walking seemed to improve the participants' scores on a test of creative thinking, the researchers said. On the test, participants were given the name of an object and had to come up with as many alternate uses for that object as they could in four minutes. For example, one person in the study said a button could be used "as a doorknob for a dollhouse, an eye for a doll, a tiny strainer, to drop behind you to keep your path."
In another experiment, however, the walkers did slightly worse than the sitters when given problems that had only one answer, such as a word association where the problem is "cottage—Swiss—cake" and the answer is "cheese."
The researchers said they don't have an explanation for why walking may bring these benefits in creativity. It's not clear if other forms of low-intensity physical activity, or a familiar, comfortable task like knitting, would have the same effect on the mind. Future studies will eventually find the complex pathway from the physical act of walking to the cognitive changes in the brain, the researchers said.

Megan Gannon

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Women with mutations in the BRCA1 gene are at high risk for breast and ovarian cancer, and there are currently no drugs proven to reduce their cancer risk.
Now, early research suggests that existing drugs, already approved to treat other conditions, may help prevent breast cancer in these women, although more research is needed to prove this.
One drug, called benserazide, is currently used for Parkinson's disease, and in studies it reduced the formation of breast tumors in mice that had been implanted with cancer cells containing the BRCA1 gene mutation. All of the mice that did not receive the drug developed breast tumors, but 40 percent of mice given the drug were tumor-free, said study researcher Elizabeth Alli, of Stanford University School of Medicine.
Some studies show that women with mutations in the BRCA1 gene have a 50 to 70 percent chance of getting breast cancer by age 70, compared with a 12 percent lifetime risk for the average American woman. Last year, actress Angelina Jolie announced she had undergone a double mastectomy to prevent breast cancer because she has a BRCA1 gene mutation.
Two drugs, tamoxifen and raloxifene, are already approved to prevent breast cancer, but there's little information about how well they work for women with BRCA1 gene mutations. Both drugs work by blocking the action of estrogen on breast cells; the hormone can fuel the growth of certain types of breast cancer.
"The data out there for the efficacy of these drugs [among carries of BRCA1 mutations] is controversial, and inconsistent," Alli said. "So really it'd be ideal to identify new drugs that are more effective for this population."
The BRCA1 gene is involved in repairing damaged DNA — a critical function, because damage to DNA can lead to cancer. Mutations in the BRCA1 gene increase the risk of cancer because they impair this repair process.
Benserazide, and possibly other drugs, may work to prevent breast cancer from BRCA1 mutations by restoring cells' ability to perform one type of DNA repair, the researchers said.
Alli noted that tamoxifen also increases the risk of endometrial cancer (cancer of the uterus lining), and for some women, this risk may outweigh the drug's benefits.
The next step in the research is to see whether benserazide, or other drugs that work similarly, prevents breast cancer in mice that have been genetically engineered to have BRCA1 gene mutations.
The drug will also need to be tested in a clinical trial before researchers know whether it works in people. It's not clear how soon a trial could start after the work in mice, but it could be relatively quick because the drug is already being used in people, Alli said.
However, even after a trial begins, it can take many years to enroll enough people to complete a study, she said.
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Women who eat a lot of fat, particularly saturated fat, may be at higher risk of certain types of breast cancer, research suggests. Past studies have come to differing conclusions on a association between dietary fat and breast cancer. Whether the two are even linked at all remains controversial. The a second analysis of a large, long-term study, suggests that fat may a role in the development of certain forms of the disease but not others, the authors said. Still, it cannot prove that a high-fat diet is the reason any of the women got cancer. "In our study we confirm that saturated fat intake was associated with breast cancer risk," lead author Sabina Sieri, from the Fondazione IRCCS National Cancer Institute in Milan, Italy, told Reuters Health in an email. "Saturated fatty acids intake should be as low as within the context of a nutritionally diet." Saturated fat in the diet most often comes from meat and other animal products like butter and cheese. The research team's findings are based on a study of about 337,000 women from 10 European countries. They filled out questionnaires about their diet and lifestyle and were followed for an average of 11 to 12 years. During that time, about 10,000 of the women were diagnosed with breast cancer. The study found that women who ate the most saturated fat were more likely to develop breast cancer than those who ate the least. For the analysis, the researchers used medical records to classify breast cancers into specific subtypes, for instance based on whether the tumor may respond to the hormones estrogen and progesterone. They found that women with diets high in saturated fat were 28 percent more likely to develop tumors that had receptors for estrogen and progesterone than women with the lowest saturated fat in their diets. The pattern was similar for fat intake. However, the of developing breast tumors without receptors for those hormones was not linked to dietary fat, according to the findings published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The researchers said it's dietary fat increases the level of sex hormones in the body. That could why high-fat diets are tied to a greater risk of tumors whose is related to estrogen and progesterone, known as hormone-receptor-positive cancers. Those cancers make up the majority of breast cancer diagnoses. Sieri and colleagues found that high levels of saturated fat were also linked to a greater risk of HER2 negative breast cancer, but not HER2 disease. HER2 stands for human epidermal factor receptor 2 and is one factor used to determine how fast a cancer is growing. Dr. Clifford A. Hudis, chief of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center's Breast Cancer Medicine Service in York, said the risk of hormone-receptor-positive cancer linked to saturated fat was "relatively modest." What's more, he "These patients were not randomly assigned to follow one diet or another." That means other differences between women who ate high- and low-fat diets may have factored into their cancer risk. Still, Hudis said, the findings are consistent with recent research looking at specific types of breast cancer and make sense based on what is known about the biological effects of dietary fat. Dr. Michelle Holmes, who has studied diet and breast cancer at Harvard Medical and the Harvard of Public Health in Boston, said that in the grand scheme of things, any link between fat and breast cancer still seems to be small. "In my opinion, the bottom line is that if the association with fat and breast cancer exists, it's fairly small (and) it's probably limited to certain subtypes," Holmes told Reuters Health. Even though the study included a "huge" number of women, she said, "the doesn't leap out at you." Hudis and Holmes, who were not in the research, there's no reason women shouldn't still back on saturated fat. "Saturated fat is bad for heart disease anyway," Holmes said.ext.
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Children with simple cases of appendicitis may be safely treated with antibiotics instead of surgery, suggests a new study.
Forgoing surgery to remove the appendix may not be an option for all kids, researchers say, but just three of 30 children who tried the antibiotics-only route ended up needing surgery.
"In this group of patients with uncomplicated appendicitis - in the people we studied, non-operative management with antibiotics alone appears to be a reasonable alternative," Dr. Peter Minneci told Reuters Health.
He is the study's lead author, from Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
Appendicitis is when the appendix, a small tube-shaped extension of the colon, becomes inflamed and filled with puss. The appendix may burst without treatment and cause a widespread infection.
Although the cause of appendicitis is not known, Minneci said it may often occur when a piece of feces blocks the appendix and allows bacteria to proliferate. Other inflamed tissues may also block the appendix and cause the condition.
"It used to be that people would operate on appendixes in the middle of the night," he said. "Then we found that it was safe to give them antibiotics and operate on them in the morning."
Doctors began noticing that some of the children were feeling better in the morning after the initial treatment of antibiotics.
"They were hungry and they didn't have pain anymore," Minneci said.
To see whether antibiotics alone might be enough to treat appendicitis, he and his colleagues enrolled 77 children and teens brought to the emergency room at Nationwide Children's Hospital from October 2012 to October 2013.
All the participants had been diagnosed with uncomplicated acute appendicitis. Their appendixes had not burst, were not overly swollen and imaging did not show a hard piece of stool blocking the organ.
Those uncomplicated cases represent about one in five appendicitis cases at the hospital, the researchers note in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
The participants and their families were allowed to choose between surgery or receiving 24 hours of intravenous antibiotics in the hospital followed by 10 days of antibiotics in pill form after they went home.
"We do believe patients should be admitted to the hospital and watched," Minneci said. "They shouldn't just get antibiotics and be sent home."
Of the 77 participants, 30 chose antibiotics and 47 picked surgery.
Of those who chose the antibiotic option, 93 percent were feeling better within a day. They also tended to recover faster.
Kids in the antibiotics-only group had an average of three days of recuperation versus 17 days in the surgery group. They were also able to return to school after three days, versus five days among kids who had surgery.
Three patients in the antibiotic group did require surgery to remove their appendix within the 30 days following their first ER visit. None of their appendixes burst, however.
Both children and parents rated their quality of life higher in the antibiotics-only group, compared to those who had surgery. But on average, the length of hospital stay was longer at 38 hours for the antibiotics group, compared with 20 hours in the surgery group.
"We really aren't trying to say you shouldn't have an appendectomy," Minneci said. "We're saying there are two reasonable treatment options and you have to choose which is appropriate for you and your family."
Dr. Mary Brandt said the new study is small and an initial step, but modern surgery is about becoming less and less invasive.
"It's an encouraging first result and definitely means we should continue studying this as an option," said Brandt, a pediatric surgeon at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston who was not involved in the research.
Minneci and his colleagues continue to follow the patients from the original study to see how they do. The researchers are also conducting another trial among patients with more complicated appendicitis.
In addition, the team is working with other hospitals to enroll more than 800 children in a larger trial.
"If that study finds the same thing, then this will probably get adopted as the standard of care," Minneci said.
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Talk about dirty money: Scientists are discovering a surprising number of microbes living on cash.
In the first comprehensive study of the DNA on dollar bills, researchers at New York University's Dirty Money Project found that currency is a medium of exchange for hundreds of different kinds of bacteria as bank notes pass from hand to hand.
By analyzing genetic material on $1 bills, the NYU researchers identified 3,000 types of bacteria in all—many times more than in previous studies that examined samples under a microscope. Even so, they could identify only about 20 percent of the non-human DNA they found because so many microorganisms haven't yet been cataloged in genetic data banks.
Easily the most abundant species they found is one that causes acne. Others were linked to gastric ulcers, pneumonia, food poisoning and staph infections, the scientists said. Some carried genes responsible for antibiotic resistance.
"It was quite amazing to us," said Jane Carlton, director of genome sequencing at NYU's Center for Genomics and Systems Biology where the university-funded work was performed. "We actually found that microbes grow on money."
Their unpublished research offers a glimpse into the international problem of dirty money. From rupees to euros, paper money is one of the most frequently passed items in the world. Hygienists have long worried that it could become a source of contagion.
"A body-temperature wallet is a petri dish," said Philippe Etienne, managing director of Innovia Security Pty Ltd., which makes special bank-note paper for 23 countries.
Central banks and state treasurys usually worry more about counterfeiting and durability than microbiology, several currency experts said. With nearly 150 billion new bank notes circulated every year around the world, governments spend nearly $10 billion annually to provide people with notes that are fit to hold.
A U.S. one-dollar bill, printed on a cotton-linen blend, lasts little more than 21 months. In all, the U.S. Federal Reserve System is spending $826.7 million on new money this year to make 7.8 billion bank notes with a total face value of $297.1 billion.
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It’s a common saying: “Laughter is the best medicine.” And now, science may prove it to be true.
A new small study from Loma Linda University in Southern California found a relationship between humor and memory in older individuals.  For their research, the scientists analyzed 20 generally healthy seniors as they watched a comedic video for 20 minutes. For comparison, a control group of 20 seniors didn’t watch anything for the same period of time.
The participants in each group were then given memory tests and provided saliva samples in order for the researchers to test their hormone levels.  Those who watched the funny video scored much higher on the memory tests than the control group, and the laughter group had lower levels of the hormone cortisol, which is typically associated with stress.
Study author Dr. Gurinder Bains explained that laughter causes the body to release endorphins and send dopamine to the brain – improving overall activity and function.
"Learning ability and delayed recall become more challenging as we age," Bains, a Ph.D. candidate in rehabilitation sciences at Loma Linda, told ABC News. "Laughing with friends or even watching 20 minutes of humor on TV, as I do daily, helps me cope with my daily stressors."
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Happy Woman I was asked to speak about what I go through as a survivor and how the heck I have been able to live with Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer for 11 years – when the prognosis was three to five years.  
Dr. Tousimis also wanted me, as a patient, to address the future of cancer research, patient care, and my foundation for women's cancer research.
It's always difficult to answer: "How have you managed to live this long?"  I respond with several possibilities:
1) Anger. This propels me to the "mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore" attitude.
2) Stubbornness. I absolutely refused to leave my children who were 8 and 10 at the time of my first diagnosis
3) Denial. Even running a cancer foundation, I don't think of myself as a person with cancer.  I just keep this Type A personality moving forward
4) Humor. I believe humor heals. Does it cure cancer?  No, but it can sure change your disposition, and we all know that being positive does a body good.
I will never know why I am still here; most things boil down to luck and a guardian angel.  Whatever or whomever you pray to doesn't matter.  Quieting your mind and thanking the universe for all the blessings that have come your way is what's important.
Have you ever written a list of all the things you are grateful for? This is a healing exercise before you go to bed.  Grab a pad and pen on your night stand and write down what you are grateful for that day.  What a nice way to go to sleep.
I am grateful that I was asked to speak to these wonderful women last week.  Every time I am asked to speak is a gift.
Noreen Fraser
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A jury has awarded $14 million to a suburban Chicago woman who said in a lawsuit that she suffered a debilitating stroke after taking the birth control drug Yasmin.
Lawyers for Mariola Zapalski say the stroke occurred 13 days after she began taking the drug, paralyzing her left side and causing permanent brain injury.
Friday's verdict came after a two-week trial in Cook County Circuit Court.
Defendant Dr. Zbigniew Aniol declined to comment Saturday.
A $2.5 million settlement in the same matter was reached a month ago with the hospital, Resurrection Medical Center.
Drug maker Bayer has also faced lawsuits from women claiming the contraceptive caused blood clots that led to serious health consequences.
The company stands by the drug and says it is safe if used as directed.
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It's like dark chocolate: How can something so good be good for you? Well, it’s time you started believing in the power of your java.
Coffee is the number one source of antioxidants in the U.S. diet, according to a study from the University of Scranton. Plus, a growing body of research suggests that quaffing a few cups a day can reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's, and even prostate cancer.
The catch? While any coffee will provide some payoff, you need to pick the right roast, storage strategy, and brew method if you want joe with mojo. Here’s your step-by-step guide to making your coffee its healthiest.
1. THE ROAST
In the universe of coffee beans, lighter roasts are the dark horses. "The antioxidant effects of coffee are related to compounds called chlorogenic acids," says Dr. Peter Martin, director of the Vanderbilt University Institute for Coffee Studies.
"Roasting green coffee beans transforms these acids into better antioxidants—but if you keep on roasting them, they break down again." So buy light-brown beans. And when you're on the go, ask for Original Blend at Dunkin' Donuts or Blonde at Starbucks.
Coffee versus Tea—which one is really better for you?
2. THE STORAGE
Roasted coffee beans have free radicals, which become more numerous the longer the beans are exposed to air, according to a study in Food Chemistry. That's a problem because, as free radical levels rise, some antioxidants in the beans are spent fighting to stabilize them.
Store your beans in an airtight container and don't grind them until you're ready to brew; the same study noted that whole beans had fewer free radicals than ground coffee. For an even grind and smooth-tasting joe, use a burr grinder; it ensures that the particles are more uniform in size. Try the Camano Coffee Mill ($65, redroostertradingcompany.com).
Could a jolt of java keep diabetes at bay? See how to Fend Off Disease with Coffee.
3. THE BREWING
The Keurig is king for convenience, but for antioxidants, the Moka is master. Researchers in Italy examined five different brewing methods and found that coffee percolated in a stovetop Moka pot, an espresso pot, or a Neapolitan-style pot produced coffee with more than double the antioxidant levels of java brewed through a paper filter. Pick up the Bialetti Moka Express ($45, bialettishop.com). Too strong? Add some hot water to espresso to make an americano.
Want to transform your bland cup of Folgers into delicious gourmet coffee? Try this Sneaky Trick for Better-Tasting Coffee.
4. THE CUP
How do you take your coffee? Here's your new answer: "Black, without sugar," says Martin. "Coffee in itself is extremely nutritious—anything you add is diminishing it."
A touch of half-and-half may not add many calories, but new research from Croatia suggests that milk can reduce the antioxidant levels. Of course, if you doctor your drink with sugar or artificial sweeteners, you're just stirring in calories or chemicals. A better way to handle bitter: Add some ground cinnamon to taste.
And while you’re at it, use coffee’s robust flavor to turbocharge these dishes and drinks.
SWEET TIP
If you're hooked on your morning sugar fix, a bean with a sweeter, brighter flavor profile can ease the transition for your tastebuds. Try Stumptown Coffee Roasters' Colombia La Piramide or Ethiopia Nano Challa.
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Cadbury Creme Eggs, Peeps, Robin's Eggs: We love you. But you pack quite the caloric punch. Figure out what it'll take to burn off those Easter season indulgences before you hit the candy aisle.
*Calories burned based on a 135-pound woman.
Cadbury Creme Egg: 150 calories (1 egg) 
This classic Easter treat packs 6 grams of fat and 20 grams of sugar into one little egg. (Thanks, irresistible cream filling!). Indulge, then grab a partner and burn off those cals with a 30-minute game of doubles tennis.
Original Peeps: 140 calories (5 yellow chicks)
The good news here is that Peeps have no fat content —but five of the little guys (a serving size) have 34 grams of sugar (ouch). If you're headed to the gym, hop on the rower — 20 minutes of moderate rowing will burn those cals off.
Milk Chocolate-Covered Peeps: 110 calories (1 chick)
These individually wrapped candies get a plus for built-in serving size. And 3 grams of fat and 14 grams of sugar isn't SO bad. Burn off the cals with a 30-minute brisk walk (hey, you can do that during your lunch
Cadbury Mini Eggs: 190 calories (12 pieces)
With that coated hard-candy shell and creamy milk chocolate inside, there's really no way to say no to these gems. A dozen pieces is a satisfying serving size, but it packs in 8 grams of fat and 27 grams of sugar. Burn off the calories with a 30-minute run/walk, like one of these non-boring treadmill workouts.
Sweetarts Chicks, Ducks and Bunnies: 50 calories (10 pieces)
Like most fruity candies, these cuties have no fat, although a serving does have 12 grams of sugar. The good news? About 30 minutes of gentle yoga burns nearly 80 calories, so if you have a few more pieces than the serving size (those bunnies are so friggin' adorable!), you're still good.

M&Ms Bunny Mix: 210 calories (1.5 ounces or about 1/4 cup) 
Gotta love those pastel colors and bunny ears on these special-edition candies. A small handful has 9 grams of fat and 26 grams of sugar, so put on those running shoes: A 25-minute run at a 12-minute mile pace should burn off those cals.
Hershey's Milk Chocolate Eggs: 200 calories (7 pieces)
There's something so fun about peeling off the pretty foil on these little guys. (We remain hopeful that this action also burns cals, but it's doubtful). Hide seven pieces in an Easter egg and get a surprise that includes 12 grams of fat and 22 grams of sugar. A 30-minute elliptical workout at a moderate pace should burn the cals off.
Whoppers Mini Robin Eggs: 190 calories (24 pieces)
Buy these in handy little milk-carton servings (rather than the grab-all-you-can bags) and you get a bonus for automatic portion control. There are 5 grams of fat and 30 grams of sugar in each box; burn off the cals with a 30-minute cross-country hike.
Snickers Egg: 160 calories (1 egg)
Eating one of these takes you straight back to childhood. Burn off the cals (plus 9 grams of fat and 17 grams of sugar) by taking your exercise regimen back to basics, too: 15 minutes of moderate jumping rope should do the trick.
Reese's Peanut Butter Egg: 170 calories (1 egg) 
Get your peanut butter fix with these individually wrapped eggs; there's 10 grams of fat and 16 grams of sugar in each one (but yay for portion control). It'll take about 35 minutes of moderate aerobics to burn those cals off.
Lifesavers Gummies Bunnies and Eggs: 130 calories (20 pieces) 
Chewy and sweet, these have no fat but 25 grams of sugar per 20-piece serving. Use the opportunity to do some springtime yard work: 25 minutes of it will burn off those cals.
Russell Stover Marshmallow Egg: 110 calories (1 egg)
Remember finding these during Easter Egg hunts? Thanks to the light'n'fluffy 'mallow, each egg has just three grams of fat and 14 grams of sugar. Burn off the cals with 30 minutes of beginner Pilates.
Russell Stover Solid Milk Chocolate Bunny: 240 calories (1 bunny)
We're pretty sure sharing these treats has initiated plenty of sibling rivalry over the years. (Who gets the ears??) Each one has 14 grams of fat and 23 grams of sugar in addition to the 240 calories. Mend fences with said sibling and go on a 30-minute moderate bike ride to burn those cals off.

This article originally appeared on Self.com.
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