By ANNA TONG, Sacramento Bee

Our Stone Age ancestors lived in an uncomfortable world, spending their 30-year life spans hunting and gathering without air conditioning or heat.

But some say the cave men ate better than we do.

That's the premise behind the Paleo diet, a health and weight-loss trend that encourages people to eat modern-day versions of Paleolithic food.

Sad news for the happy meal.

In what seems to be a first-of-its-kind rule, Santa Clara County, Calif. voted Tuesday to ban restaurants from giving away free toys in high-calorie meals. This includes nearly all versions of the McDonald's Happy Meal.

The toy edict is the latest in the growing ado about childhood obesity.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Last Dec. 19, Suzanne Aymeric, administrative assistant, mother and avid runner, sneezed.

Shortly thereafter, the Natomas, Calif. woman went to a Christmas party at her mother's house in Orangevale.

Twenty family members chatted in cliques, snacking on chips and dip and hot wings. Her divorced parents' new spouses were there.

Don't ask Sacramento, Calif., Mayor Kevin Johnson to dunk, because he won't, and can't.

On his 40th birthday four years ago, Johnson wanted to see if he could still do it.

The scent of cigarette smoke is stubborn, clinging to clothes, walls and hair. Now scientists are beginning to explore the health threats of "thirdhand smoke," or the residue left behind after the smoke clears.

The thought of kids with runny noses sitting in Santa's lap sharing their deepest desires and germs this holiday season isn't eliciting the usual "Ho, ho, ho." It's more of an "Oh, no, no."

As in, "Oh no, don't give Santa swine flu."

A video of a cheerleader supposedly crippled after getting the H1N1 flu vaccine has received almost a million hits on the Internet.

It's driving doctors crazy, as they insist the vaccine is safe and anti-vaccine preachers are plain wrong.

A sweeping statewide study released today points to soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages as one of the main reasons why we are fat.

Single men, listen up: Sacramento, Calif., is the only metropolitan area on the West Coast where there are more single women than men.

What has the region's singles scene so lopsided are the 20,000 more single women than single men over age 34, according U.S. census data from 2006.

In the race to check the H1N1 pandemic, some California nurses are at odds with their hospitals. They complain that rules on the use of one simple, yet important weapon -- respirators -- may not protect them from on-the-job exposure to the virus.

But hospitals counter that their respirator practices are safe.