Some people view their workout outfits like any other - a way to showcase their style. Other people take a more utilitarian approach to what they wear while sweating it out – as long as it does the job, they don’t care what it looks like. No matter what camp you’re in, take a look at these latest fitness trends and let us know if you’d wear them or not! Source: Thinkstock View Slideshow ›

While no famous faces are scheduled to appear in the 2012 Boston Marathon, celebrities have run this historical course in the past. Keep reading to see which of Hollywood’s finest have taken on the country’s oldest marathon. View Slideshow ›

Dumbbells are one of the most widely used pieces of exercise equipment, and for good reason. They’re affordable enough to have in a home gym, easy to handle, and can be used to strengthen every muscle in the body. The next time you pick up a pair, avoid these lifting mistakes. Using the Same Pair For Every Move Why it’s bad: Not all muscles have the same strength. Lifting too light a weight isn’t effective for strengthening the body, but even worse, a weight that’s too heavy puts you at risk for a strained or torn muscle. The fix: Use different weights to target muscles effectively. I keep a set of six-, eight-, and 10-pound weights on hand, and depending on the difficulty of the exercise and the strength of my muscles, I change up the weight. You’ll know the dumbbell is the correct weight when your muscles fatigue after eight to 12 reps. Follow that rule when lifting, and you’ll achieve quicker results. Keep reading for more dumbbell mistakes and how to fix them.

Here’s what’s making health news this morning: Drug Sales Get Scrutiny (WSJ): Lawmakers are looking into a “gray market” for cancer medicines and other drugs, allegedly set up by distributors who establish fake pharmacies to buy drugs cheap and then artificially raise their prices. Calls Grow for Leader of Komen to Step Down (New York Times): Tuesday’s resignation of the CEO of the breast-cancer charity’s New York City affiliate is intensifying calls for the departure of the group’s founder and CEO, Nancy G. Brinker. Researchers Closer to a Test to Predict Heart Attacks (Los Angeles Times): Tracking a type of cell known as a circulating endothelial cell in the blood might allow doctors to help at-risk patients who scored normally on stress tests. Bloomberg Charity Adds $220 Million to Anti-Smoking Effort (Reuters): The funding for Bloomberg Philanthropies will be used to fight tobacco use around the world, focusing on low- to moderate-income nations. Project to Explore Human Perception (WSJ): Paul G. Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft, donated $300 million to an effort to map the human brain’s circuitry. Study Finds a Pattern in Male Baldness: Could There Be a Cure? (Time’s Healthland blog): Researchers say they have identified a protein that looks like it has a role in male-pattern baldness, according to a study published in Science Translational Medicine . Image source: iStockphoto

Nike is in the business of dressing athletes, and at the 2012 Olympics, the sportswear giant is helping give athletes a competitive edge with its high-performance gear. This week, Nike unveiled its latest innovations in running gear, explaining that it’s “going green while going for gold.” Using fabrics created out of recycled water bottles and working towards zero-waste construction techniques for sneakers, Nike’s aim is to design more eco-friendly products for the Summer games. In the trickle-down theory of sportswear technology, elements of these designs will be making their way to the masses soon. Get a preview of what the runners will be wearing in London, including a dimpled speed suit and a marathon shoe so light it feels like a sock. View Slideshow ›

Greek yogurt is more than just a breakfast food; it also makes a healthy fat substitution in recipes. Skip oil, butter, and heavy cream, and bump up levels of calcium, protein, and probiotics with these easy swaps! Sour cream : Replace sour cream with Greek yogurt, and most people won’t even be able to tell the difference. Use it on top of baked potatoes or serve alongside Mexican fare; you can also use yogurt as a sour-cream substitute when making chip or veggie dips. Baked goods : Ditch the eggs and oil in store-bought cake or muffin mixes by substituting one cup of yogurt and one cup of water. Yogurt keeps cake from tasting overly sweet while also giving it a more dense and homemade feel. Instead of making cream cheese frosting, make Greek yogurt frosting; the ratio of Greek yogurt to cream cheese is 1:1. Heavy cream or milk : In stove-top dishes that call for dairy like mashed potatoes, curries, soups, or pasta, use yogurt. (Or add yogurt to any sauce-based dish that you’d like to make rich and creamy.) To avoid curdling, stir in the yogurt once the dish has been taken off the heat, then gradually reheat if necessary. Mayonnaise : Skip the oil-based mayo in tuna, macaroni, and potato salads; same goes for salad dressings like Caesar, Russian, or ranch: just use a 1:1 ratio. The tang that yogurt brings these recipes is even tastier than mayo. Source: Flickr user alanagkelly

There are many reasons to eat flaxseed: they’re full of omega-3s and fiber and help promote healthy digestion, to name a few. Besides sprinkling flaxseed over a salad or cereal, it’s also really easy to incorporate them into recipes. The best part is, flaxseeds don’t really change how a recipe tastes, so no one will guess they just got a megadose of nutrition. View Slideshow ›

Earlier this year the WSJ reported on new research suggesting that a hormone gel can help certain women at risk of preterm birth and its subsequent complications. That study, by the National Institutes of Health, found that using a progesterone gel in women with a short cervix cut the rate of early preterm delivery by 45%. A review published online today by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology that encompasses that research and other previously published work also highlights the potential of vaginal progesterone gel to prevent preterm birth in those women. According to an analysis incorporating the earlier study and four other trials, for a total of 775 women and 827 infants, using the gel reduced the rate of early preterm birth by 42% compared to a placebo. Preterm birth is defined as before 37 weeks of pregnancy and early preterm birth as before 33 weeks. Unlike the study published earlier this year, this review — by combining data from different studies — was able to see a benefit in women who have a short cervix and also a previous preterm birth, explains Roberto Romero, chief of the NIH’s perinatology research branch and an author of the review. (Romero was also an author of the previous study , published by the journal Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology.) Romero tells the Health Blog that the review of the studies also found a significantly lower rate of admission to the neonatal intensive care unit among babies whose mothers were treated with the progesterone gel compared to a placebo. And it hinted at lower rate of preterm birth in women with a short cervix who were pregnant with twins. Still, that needs to be confirmed with a separate randomized trial of the gel in those women, the review says. It’s not fully understood why a short cervix is associated with preterm deliveries. Women with the condition are identified using a transvaginal ultrasound. Based on these findings, the authors of the review recommend all pregnant women be screened for a short cervix between 19 and 24 weeks into a pregnancy. Treating eligible women could save almost $500 million annually, according to cost-analysis research. Romero estimates it could prevent 45,000 preterm births per year. The gel is developed by Columbia Laboratories and is currently FDA-approved for use in women who undergo certain fertility treatments, at a cost of about $15 or $20 per dose. It’s marketed in the U.S. by Watson Pharmaceuticals. Columbia says the FDA is scheduled to decide by Feb. 26 on its application to use progesterone gel for preventing preterm birth in women with a singleton pregnancy and a short cervix. An FDA advisory panel meeting is scheduled for Jan. 20, the company says. As we have written , the gel is different from Makena, the injectable drug used to prevent early labor in women who have already had a preterm birth. Its pricing has stirred controversy . Image: iStockphoto

Drugs for Late-Stage Breast Cancer: Research presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium and published online by the New England Journal of Medicine shows that adding two drugs to standard therapy for metastatic breast cancer can halt tumor growth for several months, the WSJ reports . One study found that adding Roche’s pertuzumab to Herceptin and chemotherapy stopped tumor growth for an additional 6.1 months in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, while a separate study of Novartis’s Afinitor found the drug stopped tumor growth for an additional 4.2 months when added to another drug, a form of hormone therapy. Experts said it’s too soon to know if the drugs will actually improve survival. Paving the Way For Health Apps: General Electric and Microsoft plan to announce a health IT venture today to create a platform for developing software applications for health-care providers that address quality and cost, the New York Times’s Bits blog reports . The new company, which aims to have about 750 employees and will be located near Microsoft headquarters in Washington state, will include existing products from the two companies including Microsoft’s Amalga and G.E.’s Qualibria software, Bits says. Unanimous Recommendation: An outside FDA advisory panel unanimously recommended the agency approve Pfizer’s drug axitinib to treat advanced kidney cancer after research showed it halted tumor growth for two months longer than an existing drug, the WSJ reports . The drug hasn’t been shown to improve survival. Norovirus Vaccine?: A small study of an experimental vaccine against norovirus, which causes diarrhea and vomiting, showed the vaccine outperformed a placebo, WebMD reports . Results from the 90-person analysis were published in the New England Journal of Medicine . Researchers say more studies are needed to answer questions such as how long the vaccine’s benefits will last and whether it will protect against multiple strains of the virus, WebMD says. Correction: An earlier version of this post didn’t make clear that pertuzumab stopped tumor growth for an additional 6.1 months and that Afinitor stopped tumor growth for an additional 4.2 months. Image: iStockphoto

Much of the research on work-related injuries to firefighters has been focused on what happens when they’re actually racing into burning buildings to put out blazes. But when researchers from the University of Arizona and Johns Hopkins University looked more broadly at firefighters’ duties and obligations, they found far more injuries related to on-the-job physical exercise than actual firefighting operations. According to the new study , covering the Tucson Fire Department and published in the journal Injury Prevention, there were about 17.7 injuries per 100 firefighters annually. Nearly 33% stemmed from physical exercise activities — mandated during the shift and (ironically) intended to actually prevent injuries by keeping firefighters in better shape. Transporting patients resulted in almost 17% of the injuries. (The study explains that the vast majority — 84% — of the Tucson department’s emergency dispatches were medical rather than fire emergencies in 2009.) Patient-transport injuries were also most likely to result in lost time, mostly due to back strains and sprains. Training drills accounted for just over 11% of injuries and fireground operations accounted for about 10%. Those fire-related injuries, however, were more likely to be more serious. Study authors write that more attention needs to be paid to the risks of injury due to non-firefighting activities. “While most studies indicate the need for improved fitness (e.g., cardiovascular health and functional mobility) in order to carry out response activities, efforts should also be concentrated on providing these men and women with improved resources and structure to maintain fitness levels and training-based skills without exposing themselves to injury in those processes,” they write. Image: iStockphoto