The You Docs Tip of the Day: The powerful age-proofer you need

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• The You Docs Tip of the Day: A dark chocolate a day keeps the high blood pressure away

  The You Docs Tip of the Day: A dark chocolate a day keeps the high blood pressure away

  Attention, all you chocoholics out there. When Australian doctors prescribed a bar of dark chocolate daily to people with high blood pressure, a mutiny broke out. Half said eating that much candy was hard. One in five groused that chocolate just wasn't an acceptable hypertension treatment. Shocking, huh?

  Actually, we're with the rebellious Aussies, not their docs. You don't need a whole bar to get a healthy dose of chocolate power. Artery-friendly flavonoids in dark chocolate are so powerful that a daily piece the size of a Hershey's Kiss (about 30 calories, though make it dark chocolate) can lower your blood pressure. Even more impressive: Eating that much only once or twice a week cut heart failure risk by a third in a recent study.

  Besides, you'll wipe out chocolate's protective edge if you eat a bar every day because of the calories. Have a 3.5-ounce bar, and you're downing 440 calories and more fat than a Big Mac!

• The You Docs Tip of the Day: One thing we bet you don't know about yourself

  The You Docs Tip of the Day: One thing we bet you don't know about yourself

  It's not your bank balance, your weight or your pants size. It's a number that could help keep your body younger and sexier. And your mind, too.

  That vital number is your fasting blood sugar, which is what doctors look at when they're checking for diabetes. Yet even though rates of blood-sugar problems are going up faster than the mosquito count at a picnic, we bet you don't have a clue what your number is. Why? Not enough people are being tested early.

  Old-school medicine says to get your blood sugar checked at 45, earlier if you're at high risk (overweight, underactive, have high blood pressure or a family history of diabetes). But an impressive new study of 325,000 people suggests that even if you have no known risk factors (zero, zilch), getting tested as young as 30 could find diabetes up to six years sooner. That's huge. It buys you time to avoid diabetes' complications, which, trust us, nobody wants. They include nerve damage, heart attacks, kidney failure, blindness, sexual problems and dementia

• Ask the You Docs: Can you lose your sense of taste?

  Ask the You Docs: Can you lose your sense of taste?

  Q: I can taste only honey, licorice, cinnamon and vinegar. Everything else is just pulp. Why have I lost my sense of taste?

  ANONYMOUS

• The You Docs Tip of the Day: Lower your odds of losing it

  The You Docs Tip of the Day: Lower your odds of losing it

  A springy stride, a veggie-packed plate and a spot of tea. Put 'em together and you've got a shot at lowering your odds for brain-fogging dementia. We YOU Docs love finding new payoffs from great habits like these. It's like a health "BOGO" ("buy one, get one free"): Do something great for your body and - BOGO - your brain gets better, too. New research recently has turned up three of these, all easy.

  The first one's a no-brainer: Moderate to vigorous physical activity translates into a 45 percent (!) lower risk for dementia compared with light activity. So pick up your walking pace with high-intensity intervals for one minute of every 10 if your doc says you can, or add another activity to your day - like washing and waxing your wheels with intensity.

  BOGO 2: The same good eatin' that tames high blood pressure slows the progression of fuzzy thinking. We're talking about the DASH diet, the simple-genius plan that brings hypertension down. It's eating loads of fruits and veggies, plus fat-free dairy and

• The You Docs Tip of the Day: Your blood pressure on sugar

  The You Docs Tip of the Day: Your blood pressure on sugar

  When it comes to the carrot and the stick, we always go for the carrot. But if two carrots - losing weight and preventing diabetes - aren't keeping you out of the sugary-drinks aisle, maybe a third will: Eliminate just one can of soda a day, and your blood pressure might fall into the healthy zone. Should we mention that you'll also trim your chances of a fatal stroke or heart attack by 5 percent to 8 percent? No drugs needed.

  Yes, all by not popping just one soda top a day. In 810 people with slightly high blood pressure, simply nixing 12 ounces of a sugary drink daily dropped systolic pressure (the pressure on your arteries when your heart contracts) nearly two points and diastolic pressure (the pressure between beats) about one point. That may not sound like much, but take our word for it - that pressure relief means a lot to your arteries.

  Scientists aren't sure why cooling it on sugary drinks makes blood pressure calm down. Soda (or sweet iced tea, fruit punches or other sugar-rich drinks) may prompt

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