Health Tips Line

After separating from Prince Charles in 1992, Diana was back on the market and looking for her Prince Charming. So when she was invited to meet Tom Cruise on the set of his new movie, we’re sure, like the rest of us, she would have found it thrilling. And also like the rest of us, she probably fantasized about going on a date with a huge Hollywood star. But it was not meant to be—and not just because he was married to Nicole Kidman at the time. No, there was another, very specific reason she didn’t entertain the notion. Read on to learn exactly what she thought about the potential pairing. Get  Reader’s Digest ’s  Read Up newsletter for more royals, cleaning, humor, travel, tech and fun facts all week long. Were Princess Diana and Tom Cruise friends? No, but they had met briefly. In 1992, Tom and Nicole, who had been married two years by then, met Diana at the London premiere of their movie Far and Away . A few years later, in the summer of 1995, Cruise was filming...

When April rolls around, I snap into hay-fever defense mode: I pop daily Zyrtec, squirt Flonase up my nose twice a day and stuff tissues into every bag I own . Oh, and I carry my asthma inhaler. Yay, spring?! My fellow allergy sufferers, it’s not our imaginations: “Allergies are getting worse every year,” confirms Elise Liu, MD, an instructor in the Department of Allergy and Immunology at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. She says it’s partly due to climate change making allergy season last longer, but there are other factors experts are still teasing out. But beyond severity, it seems like women suffer more from allergies. Case in point: My husband will have a day or two when he complains of a tickle in his throat, and meanwhile, I’m hopped up on every allergy medicine known to womankind. To find out if allergies actually affect women differently than men, I combed the scientific research and talked to Dr. Liu and Payel Gupta, MD, a New York–based allergist, i...

I am, by my own admission, an oversharer , and that includes financially. Someone compliments my dress, and I immediately reply, “Thank you! I got it for $20 at Target—you should get one so we can be twins!” (This is charming with friends and mildly unhinged with strangers, and I’ve done it with both.) I’ll voluntarily tell people what I paid for my car, my shoes, my kids’ sports equipment and—once, memorably, at a party—my dental crowns. Nobody asked about the crowns. I offered. ($2,000 per crown, by the way. I think I got ripped off.) So why did I go full Fort Knox when a new neighbor asked what my husband and I paid for our house? Maybe I was worried she’d compare prices and feel smug or devastated? Maybe I didn’t want the whole block to know? Maybe—and this is the one I’d prefer not to dwell on—I genuinely cannot remember the number and have apparently decided to just never think about it again! (You’d really think I’d remember after signing my name 1,600 times and promising ever...

Imagine you’re on vacation in Bali. You wake up refreshed, have some breakfast and decide to walk down the main road into a nearby village. On your way, you run into a local law enforcement officer. He tells you that you shouldn’t be out and about on that particular day and detains you . That’s what happened to Karl Adolf Amrhein, a 57-year-old American tourist, when he took a walk on Bali’s annual Day of Silence—known locally as Nyepi—on March 19. Each year, the country essentially shuts down for 24 hours. People stay indoors all day and don’t use electricity. Schools, businesses and the airport are closed. And the Day of Silence rules apply to everyone in Bali, regardless of their nationality. Incidents like these are why it’s so important to learn about local laws and customs before traveling to another country . “Planning ahead and researching before a trip translates into avoiding fines, confiscations or disruptions during a visit,” says Alessia Maria Vitale, who works in intern...

For this story, originally published in 1986, our editors distilled dozens of sources from the Reader’s Digest archives into a compelling account. As we mark the 114th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking on April 15, 1912, it remains as fresh, moving and shocking as ever. Read on for a remarkable chronicle of the disaster and its aftermath—along with video clips of survivors, the wreckage and more. The White Star Liner Titanic , the largest ship the world had ever known, sailed from Southampton, England, on her maiden voyage to New York City on Wednesday, April 10, 1912. She was built with double bottoms, and her hull was divided into 16 watertight compartments. She was thought to be unsinkable. The liner carried more than 2,200. Occupying the first-class suites were many well-known men and women—Col. John Jacob Astor and his young bride; President William Howard Taft’s close adviser Maj. Archibald W. Butt; former congressman and Macy’s chief executive Isidor Straus; and J. Bruce Is...