Not many things can put the scare into you quite like atrial fibrillation–I’ve heard people say it feels like the heart is trying to break right out of the chest.

Some 3 million Americans live with this condition, which comes with a higher risk of stroke and the constant anxiety of wondering when the next attack may strike.

But now, a new study finds that more than half of all cases could have been avoided.

Researchers looked at data on some 14,600 patients with an average age of 54 who took part in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study.

During an average follow-up of 17 years, there were 1,520 cases of A-fib–but the researchers say 57 percent of them were related to one or more of the known risk factors for the condition, including high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes and excess weight.

That means well over half of all A-fib cases may be completely avoidable.

The one caveat here is that not everyone faces the same odds in the first place– and your own risk could vary dramatically based on a couple of things well beyond your control: gender and race.

The researchers say black women with at least one A-fib risk factor had a whopping 94 percent risk of developing the condition. For black men, that risk was 91 percent, according to the study published on the Web site of the journal Circulation.

White women with at least one risk factor had a 50 percent risk, while for white men it was 38 percent–a number that only sounds small because it’s smaller than all the others.

Of course, some people might get the condition no matter what they do–and if you’re facing A-fib, there’s no reason to panic.

Try yoga instead–because another new study finds it can slash the number of episodes and reduce some of the most common symptoms associated with the condition.

Researchers say three yoga classes a week–along with regular practice at home–can cut the number of irregular heartbeat episodes in half, and significantly reduce the depression and anxiety that often accompanies it.

Patients in the small study who practiced yoga also enjoyed improvements in physical function, vitality, social function and overall physical and mental health.

Since other studies have found that yoga can help lower blood pressure, improve cholesterol levels, reduce asthma severity and even fight fibromyalgia, you might want to pick out your mantra today–whether you suffer from A-fib or not.

There isn’t a drug in the world that can undo the ravages of the lifestyle that leads to diabetes–but that won’t stop Big Pharma from trying to sell you one anyway.

And they’re really laying the sales pitch on thick right now, with researchers claiming that Actos can slash the risk of diabetes by 72 percent in prediabetics.

But as you’ll see in a moment, there’s a huge asterisk on that number.

Researchers gave 602 overweight and obese prediabetics either Actos or a placebo. Over an average follow-up of 2.4 years, just 2.1 percent of those who got the drug went on to develop diabetes–versus 7.6 percent of those who took the placebo, according to the study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Now, think about this for a moment. In both groups, more than 92 percent of prediabetics *didn’t* develop diabetes.

That tells us one of two things: Prediabetes isn’t all it’s cracked up to be as far as warning signs go… or 2.4 years is nothing in the deadly march towards diabetes.

I’ll go with the latter, and that brings me to the asterisk: The study doesn’t prove Actos can lower the risk of diabetes by 72 percent… all it proves is that it might slow the approach of the disease in prediabetics.

But that doesn’t mean you’ll avoid it.

Diabetes is not something you get in a day, a week, a month, a year or 2.4 years–it’s something you work towards with years or even decades of poor eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle.

A drug won’t fix that… and it might even make your life worse, because patients who took the drug in this company-funded study experienced some ugly side effects: average weight gain of nearly 9 pounds and a higher risk of dangerous and possibly deadly fluid buildups.

What’s more, other studies have found that Actos may be almost as risky for the heart as Avandia, and some researchers have found a link between the drug and bladder cancer.

In other words, forget meds–and focus instead on fixing the problems that led to prediabetes in the first place.

And you start by skipping the sugar.

Tough, I know–but if you can shake your addiction to the sweet stuff and slash your overall carb intake, you won’t just avoid diabetes.

You’ll be the healthiest person you know.

It’s never too late to start good eating habits–and it’s never too early, either.

You might even want to start your own kids off when they’re still in the womb– because a new animal study suggests that our food preferences might be based on what mom ate when she was pregnant.

And that means if you give in to those classic prenatal cravings–like ice cream– you could raise a kid with a serious Ben & Jerry’s habit.

OK, kids will scream for ice cream no matter what, so let’s not get too carried away here–but since you should be eating right during pregnancy anyway, let’s take a look at the details of the new study.

Australian researchers divided pregnant rats into two groups: One set got regular “nutritious” rat chow (sounds delicious, doesn’t it?), while the other was given the kinds of sugar-packed junk that’s sadly become the backbone of the modern human diet.

Later, after the pups were born, nursed and weaned, the babies were allowed to pick their own food: rat chow, or junk.

And as it turned out, the babies of junk-fed moms went for the junk… while the ones that developed in rat-chow wombs ate rat chow, according to the study published in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal.

Then, the researchers took a peek inside the rodents’ brains–and found that the pups born to junk-eating rats had actual measurable differences in the “reward” centers such as opioid receptors and dopamine transporters.

In other words, these rats were already junk-food junkies.

“How ironic that your mother nags you to eat your fruits and vegetables, but it could have been her actions that helped you prefer junk food,” journal editor Dr. Gerald Weissmann told London’s Daily Mail newspaper.

But let’s not be too quick to blame mom… because it takes two to tango.

Moms and dads need to work together and share the healthy habits they hope to pass along to the kids.

That means dad needs to be a “diet buddy” during pregnancy and beyond–and even say “no” to an ice cream craving instead of grabbing a spoon and joining in.

Kids don’t need much help getting hyper–they’re bundles of energy, and they don’t come with an “off” button.

But some foods can put them into overdrive, turning an already amped-up child into a full-blown monster–and there’s one ingredient in particular that parents need to watch out for: artificial coloring.

Finally, an FDA panel has agreed that food dyes are responsible for rotten behavior and even ADHD-like symptoms in at least some kids… but don’t expect them to actually do anything about it.

Instead of calling for warning labels or even an outright ban on artificial colors as some scientists and parents groups want, the panel called for more research.

That’s code for “we’re getting uncomfortably close to upsetting our pals in the food industry, so let’s stop right here.”

But we don’t need more studies, because researchers have been chasing the artificially colored rainbow for years–and there’s no pot o’ gold on the other side… just some of the rottenest little leprechauns you’ve ever seen.

For example, two studies out of the U.K. found that kids given foods that contain artificial dyes and the preservative sodium benzoate start to climb the walls.

Those studies and others like them helped move Europe light years ahead of us– and foods with artificial colors sold there now carry labels that say they “may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children.”

That’s a frightening thought when you consider that some foods can have up to nine different artificial colorings–and they’re not all in cereals and Jell-O.

You might know that cheese isn’t normally day-glo yellow… but you may not realize that artificial colors are used regularly in everything from pickles to salmon.

That’s right–salmon: Farm-raised fish are fed dye pellets to give them the nice pink color their wild brethren have naturally.

Of course, there’s a much larger issue here and that’s the fact that dyed foods are almost always processed foods–and you and your kids shouldn’t be eating them anyway, no matter what kinds of colors are in them (or even if they contain no colors at all).

As bad as dyes are, there are plenty of other ingredients that are far worse– including the sugars and starches that make up the bulk of the modern American diet.

Give this junk to a kid, and he could end up so nutritionally deficient that you’re bound to see problems ranging from mood disorders to ADHD-like symptoms– even if the foods they eat contain no dyes at all.