Call her Bessie. Call her Daisy. Call her Buttercup. Just call that cow something. A new study by researchers at Newcastle University’s School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development finds that cows given pet names produce more milk–up to an extra 500 pints a year!–than cows that are just anonymous members of the herd.

Oprah’s back on the weight-loss bandwagon. “How did I let this happen again?” she asks in the January issue of O. From a low of 160 pounds, she’s climbed back up to 200 pounds–and she’s determined, once again, to get them off. After reading “Feed Me!: Writers Dish About Food, Eating, Weight, and Body Image,” I couldn’t help wondering if Oprah wouldn’t have served women better–make that all of us–by saying, “That’s it. I’m through with dieting. I’m through trying to be someone I’m not. I love my ample self. Hallelujah!”

Low-carbohydrate diets burn fat in the liver more effectively than low-calorie diets, according to new findings from the Univerity of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. The results add more to a growing pile of evidence that cutting back on carbs may be the best and healthiest way to trim off fat.

Don’t eat another peanut butter cookie, cake, or anything else that has peanut butter as an ingredient. That’s the advice of federal health officials, who are investigating a nationwide outbreak of salmonella that has so far sickened 470, hospitalized at least 90, and killed as many as six people.

Researchers this week reported findings from an experiment most of us would happily volunteer for—a study comparing dark chocolate and milk chocolate.

Keeping an eye on how much salt you consume? You may be looking in all the wrong places, a new report suggests.

“I have enjoyed great health at a great age because every day since I can remember I have consumed a bottle of wine except when I have not felt well,” a bishop of Seville once said. “Then I have consumed two bottles.” That may be more than anyone would recommend these days. But over the past two decades, the evidence that wine protects the heart has grown indisputable. Now a research team from Europe uncorks a surprising new explanation.

With budgets tight, what better gift than something practical for the kitchen? PDQ asked our favorite professional chefs and cookbook writers to suggest inexpensive kitchen essentials and specialty items worth splurging on.

How produce is grown can influence its nutrients, recent research proves. For some fruits and vegetables, organic may have a distinct nutritional edge.

“To take wine into your mouth,” the American writer Clifton Fadiman once observed, “is to savor a droplet of the river of human history.” Hundreds of research studies offer evidence that wine, and perhaps all alcoholic beverages, offer powerful health benefits. But if a little is good, too much can be deadly. PDQhealth explores the delicate balance.