I'll admit, when I was a kid, I was allowed to eat candy "cigarettes," those little sugar sticks with red tips that came in a box that looked like a pack of cigarettes ... or the gum that had powder under the wrapper so you could blow on it to create puffs of smoke. That was back in the day, and now that the dangers of smoking are so well known, I had assumed that these candies were no longer manufactured.

No such luck! Candy and gum resembling tobacco products are still available -- as I quickly found out when my 5 year old (who thinks smoking is gross) thought it was so cool to find a candy pack and tell me that he had cigarettes.

My thought is that these candies are undermining nationwide efforts to prevent tobacco among youth. However, I also have to admit that eating these candies never enticed me into becoming an actual smoker. Never, not once, did I ever have the urge to try a cigarette regardless of my exposure. Still, I believe for the most part that it does give the message that tobacco is cool and fun.

What do you think about candy-tobacco products?

A dose of Rover might just be the perfect medicine for heart patients. Research, reported by the American Heart Association, has found that spending time with a dog helps heart and lung function by lowering blood pressure, diminishing the release of harmful hormones, and decreasing anxiety.

The best news, is that it doesn't take much time with a furry friend to see results. In the study, hospitalized heart patients spent just 12 minutes with the dogs -- so even short-term exposure to dogs has beneficial physiological and psychosocial effects on patients.

Personally, I can attest that dogs are a great comfort ... they make people happier, calmer, and feel more loved ... this has to be a huge help when you are scared and not feeling well.

Women are living longer, healthier lives than ever before. That's why it's even more important today to prevent one of the leading causes of death among women: heart disease. In fact, heart disease is the leading cause of death among women over 65.

While most of the risk factors, signs and symptoms are the same in women as they are in men, there are unique aspects to women's heart health that are different, so it's important to get tested. And though many tests measure cardiac health, some are better at detecting disease in women.

According to MORE magazine (Sept. 2007), these are the tests that you should be asking for and why:

• Stress echocardiogram -- A stress echocardiogram uses ultrasound to show the heart's motion at rest and at peak exercise and is more accurate for women than conventionsl stress testing, which can lead to false positives in women.

The next time you sit down to eat a big juicy hamburger, instead of pouring yourself a glass of soda or a milkshake, consider reaching for a glass of apple juice. Certain substances in apple juice help reduce the level of the so-called "bad" (LDL) cholesterol and may protect against heart disease.

Even better, drink cloudy apple juice, often labeled 'natural.' it contains as much as four times the polyphenols as the clear types. These antioxidant chemicals in apple pulp are also believed to reduce your risk of cancer.

Apples have always played a role in a healthy diet. For decades, if not hundreds of years, we've been told to eat an apple a day to maintain our health. Now, science is uncovering that the healthy components are not just in apples, but are in apple juice as well ... now that's something we can all drink to.

Forget signing up for a time-consuming class on the other side of town. I mean really, do you actually have time to learn how to save someone's life?

All kidding aside, and because I know you really are busy, you can now conveniently learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in less than 25 minutes -- and in the comfort of your own home. So no more excuses!

The American Heart Association (AHA) has unveiled a revolutionary self-directed learning program: CPR Anytime for Family and Friends, $30. The kits includes an inflatable CPR mannequin, a 22-minute instructional DVD, and a resource booklet. The DVD walks you through each step of the training, from inflating the mannequin to doing chest compressions and rescue breathing.

You recognize your family traits -- you have your mother's nose and your brother has your father's eyes -- but what about the health problems? Did you inherit any of those? According to the U.S. Surgeon General, your family health history is a powerful screening tool and now there's a new web program to make it easy for anyone to create a sophisticated family-health portrait. Users can keep updated information to share with the family doctor and the information that you provide creates a drawing of your family tree and a chart of your family health history. Both the chart and the drawing can be printed and shared with your family members or your health-care professional. Access it at familyhistory.hhs.gov/

While a cup of cantaloupe with only 54 calories provides more than half of your daily vitamin C requirement, a third of your vitamin A, and a healthy dose of potassium, it is your watermelon that helps reduce heart disease and certain cancer risks.

The watermelon's red flesh contains lycopene, an antioxidant that helps reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. A cup is only 40 calories and eating it at room temperature supplies nearly a quarter of the 30 milligrams of daily lycopene suggested by current research.

With that said, don't throw out the cantaloupe -- with calories this low and nutrients this rich, both melons are a great choice and both deserve a place in your diet.

To learn more about eating watermelon at room temperature, see this previous Cardio Blog post.

I'm not the betting kind. But I'd say odds are pretty good you aren't aware of these sobering statistics. So put down your Blackberry, open up your eyes and pay attention!

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) wants men (yes, you) -- and women -- to know the following facts about men's health care:

• Heart disease is the leading cause of death in men.
• Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for men.
• In 2001, nearly 66 percent of on-the-job injuries involved men.
• Men are four times more likely to commit suicide than women.
• Males account for 80 percent of drownings in the United States and are 1.5 times more likely than females to have traumatic brain injuries.