Flu season should be about avoiding physical contact with other humans to stop the spreading of germs, right? Wrong! A new study by Carnegie Mellon University shows that giving hugs can keep you healthy.

"If you have folks around you who can actually be there to give you hugs, that means you have a good social support system around you," Dr. Seema Yasmin explains. And that helps people get well and stay well.

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Go ahead lie about your age. It may be the very thing that helps you live a longer life.

If those fibbers truly believe that they are younger than what it says on their birth certificate, a new study shows they are among a group of people who have a lower death rate.

That's compared with those who felt their age or who even feel older than their years.

The new research letter is published in JAMA Internal Medicine online.

The study looked at data from from 6,489 people with an average age of 65.8 years who reported that they felt a little less than 10 years younger. What's interesting is most people in the study didn't feel like their actual age. Most said they felt about three years younger. Only a tiny percent, some 4.8%, felt at least a year older than their actual age.

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Eating a Mediterranean diet may be your key to living longer. That's according to a new study led by Immaculata De Vivo, associate professor at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School.

The diet involves eating items off a menu that is rich in vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans and peas, unrefined grains, olive oil and fish. It keeps dairy, meat and saturated fats to a minimum. And you can have a glass of red wine with dinner without cheating.

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