1. Potatoes: best at beating hunger. What food is most effective at shutting down hunger? Potatoes, reports a new Australian study. Of 38 foods tested, plain boiled potatoes were the best "diet food," creating the greatest sense of fullness (satiety) in 41 subjects. The next most filling, in order: fish, oatmeal, oranges, apples, brown pasta.

In snacks, popcorn was the hunger-suppressing winner, far better than ice cream, peanuts, chips and candy. The worst food tested? Croissants.

The clear message, according to the researchers: To curb your eating, select foods with built-in hunger controls.

2. Meat: Cook on low heat. Eating lots of fried meat increases the risk of kidney cancer, according to a large international study conducted by Swedish investigators. Cooking meat with high heat, as in frying, causes potent carcinogens to form. It's better to slowly roast or stew meat at low temperatures, or microwave it. Also, eating lots of meat and little fruit can raise your odds of pancreatic cancer about 25 percent, Italian researchers report. Meat equaled smoking in promoting the cancer. Eating lots of produce, particularly orange and dark green vegetables, lowered the risk of kidney cancer.

3. Cheese: Less serious heart hazard? Serge Renaud, the French researcher who first credited red wine for less heart disease in France, now says cheese is not as hazardous as believed. Cheese isn't linked to high rates of heart disease the way fatty milk, cream and butter are, even though all such dairy foods are laden with artery-clogging saturated fat, Renaud's new research finds. When milk is fermented to make cheese and yogurt, Renaud contends, calcium salts are formed, inhibiting intestinal absorption of the bad fat. But he cautions: Don't go overboard with cheese; eat it sparingly, as Mediterranean people do.

4. Tea: a strong stroke-fighter. Tea drinkers have a lower risk of stroke, reports a new study of 552 Dutch men, ages 50-69. Men who daily drank about 5 cups of black tea (the tea most Americans drink) were 69 percent less likely to suffer a stroke than men who drank half as much, says the 15-year government research in the Netherlands. Researchers credited tea's antioxidants called flavonoids, which possibly discourage the formation of stroke-triggering clots. Previously, the researchers found a 50 percent reduced risk of fatal heart attacks in men who drank more than 2 cups of black tea daily.

5. Honey: the sweetest laxative. Athens University researchers fed honey (doses of 1.5 to 3.5 ounces) to healthy Greeks. Ten hours later, nine of 20 volunteers reported a laxative effect. Likely reason: Many people can't fully absorb sugars in honey, mainly fructose. Researchers declared honey a mild laxative. It's not advised for those with irritable bowel syndrome.

6. Fish Oil: good heart medicine. In a year-long study of 610 patients, Norwegian researchers found that 4,000mg of fish oil (omega-3 fatty acids) daily boosted the odds of keeping vein grafts open after coronary bypass surgery by 18 percent. In subjects with hypertension, daily fish oil lowered blood pressure a few points. The amount of fish oil used in the studies is found in 10 ounces of salmon.