Category Archives: Lifestyle

Smartphones Are Reservoirs of Allergens According to New Research

A new study being presented at this year’s American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Annual Scientific Meeting in Louisville, KY, showed elevated levels of cat and dog allergens, as well as β-D glucans (BDG) and endotoxin on simulated phone models. “Smartphones showed elevated and variable levels of BDG and endotoxin, and cat and dog […]

Chronic Stress Can Result in Loss of Pleasure and Depression

Scientists at the Medical College of Georgia looked in the hypothalamus, key to functions like releasing hormones and regulating hunger, thirst, mood, sex drive and sleep, at a population of neurons called the proopiomelanocortin, or POMC, neurons, in response to 10 days of chronic, unpredictable stress.  They found the stressors increased spontaneous firing of these […]

Men and Women Might Need Different Interventions for Obesity

A new study from UCLA researchers finds sex-specific brain signals that appear to confirm that different drivers lead men and women to develop obesity. “We found differences in several of the brain’s networks associated with early life adversity, mental health quality, and the way sensory stimulation is experienced. The resulting brain signatures, based on multimodal […]

Fasting Diet Reduces Risk Markers of Type 2 Diabetes

Researchers from the University of Adelaide and South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) compared two different diets: a time restricted, intermittent fasting diet and a reduced calorie diet to see which one was more beneficial for people who were prone to developing type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes occurs when the body’s cells […]

When it Comes to Sleep, it’s Quality Over Quantity

“There’s a dogma in the field that everyone needs eight hours of sleep, but our work to date confirms that the amount of sleep people need differs based on genetics,” said neurologist Louis Ptacek, MD, “Think of it as analogous to height; there’s no perfect amount of height, each person is different. We’ve shown that […]

How Long Can Humans Live?

Using a new way of analysing mortality records, figures from 19 high-income countries suggest that we haven’t yet approached the maximum human lifespan and could see the record start to rise in the next few decades. “We don’t appear to be approaching a maximum limit at the moment,” says the study’s lead researcher David McCarthy […]