HLife | Healthy Living Redefined

Psychology: Looks like washing your hands has more than a physical benefit. A recent study concludes that the activity “wipes the slate clean,” affecting us psychologically by removing doubts about recent choices, in addition to the feeling of being clean of germs as well as the already established link to feeling morally restored. “It’s not just that washing your hands contributes to moral cleanliness as well as physical cleanliness, as seen in earlier research” said Spike W. S. Lee, a doctoral candidate in social psychology. “Our studies show that washing also reduces the influence of past behaviors and decisions that have no moral implications whatsoever.” The researchers say that the “clean slate” effect may be relevant to many choices and decisions in life, not just the complex ones where ‘good behavior’ is implicated (for example, cheating) but also with simple choices like whether to buy one car over another (buyer’s remorse). The study was published in the May 7th issue of Science.

Sleep: According to a new study to be published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, just one night of short sleep duration can induce insulin resistance, a component of type 2 diabetes.  “Sleep duration has shortened considerably in western societies in the past decade,” said Esther Donga, MD, lead author of the study. “And simultaneously, there has been an increase in the prevalence of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.”  The researcher says that the co-ocurring rises in both situations may not be a coincidence. “Our findings show a short night of sleep has more profound effects on metabolic regulation than previously appreciated.” Previous studies found that multiple nights of less sleep than normal resulted in impaired glucose tolerance, but this is the first to examine the effects of only a single night of partial sleep restriction on insulin sensitivity. The data indicated that the sensitivity depends, not on the health of the person (all volunteers in the study were healthy and had no sugar problems) but on the amount of sleep you actually get the night before.

Cancer: In the race to find answers about ovarian cancer, researchers now have something to cluck about.  Researchers have been using the chicken as a model to study this disease and have discovered that a diet enriched with flaxseed decreases the severity of ovarian cancer and increases survival in hens. “The chicken is the only animal that spontaneously develops ovarian cancer on the surface of the ovaries like humans,” explained Janice Bahr, professor emerita at the University Illinois Department of Animal Sciences. Several studies have already shown that flaxseed inhibits the formation of colon, breast, skin and lung tumors. The results showed that hens fed a flaxseed-enriched diet for one year experienced significant reduction in late-stage ovarian tumors. Though hens fed the flaxseed diet did not have a decreased incidence of ovarian cancer overall, they did experience fewer late-stage tumors, which translated into higher survival rates. Also, hens with the flaxseed diet had better weight control, which is important because obesity increases cancer risk. Ultimately, the flaxseed-enriched diet helped the birds maintain a healthy weight and resulted in less sickness and death, which Bahr says may provide the basis for trials that evaluate how effective this can be for women.

Sex: A new study suggests that it may not help older men and women with sexual problems to talk to a doctor, but men who talk to their partner about their issues report greater happiness, while those who talked with friends felt less depressed. The research, to be published in the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, shows that the way men and women deal with sexual health and stress in their later years varies greatly and that there is not one solution that can help ease unhappiness caused by sexual problems. “Older adults are advised to talk to their doctors about sexual health issues, but not all people do so and talking with a physician is not as helpful as you might expect,” said Ryo Hirayama, Ph.D. However, confiding in a partner or with friends was found to be effective for many men in reducing stress and unhappiness related to sex. Unfortunately for women, this same benefit was not reported. “In fact, women with higher levels of sexual stress who confided in their close friends reported lower happiness,” said Hirayama. Researcher Alexis Walker said that, “what this tells us is that women’s sexual issues are complex,” adding, “a woman with a great deal of sexual concerns could feel threatened by talking to her spouse about it, or perhaps simply confiding in a friend is not enough.” Most importantly, the researches say the findings show that men, who are typically considered to be less conversational or sharing than women, can greatly benefit from social networks and confiding in their mates.

Parenting: Want your kids to eat more veggies? Serve those first, says a study. Researchers at Penn State University found that when serving meals in various combinations and proportions to preschool children, the earlier the vegetables were served, the more were consumed. “We gave children carrots first without other competing foods,” explained Barbara J. Rolls, Chair of Nutritional Sciences at the university. “When they are hungry at the start of the meal, it presents us with an opportunity to get them to eat more vegetables.” Rolls explained that this challenged the conventional belief that children simply won’t eat vegetables, because they don’t have a taste for them, for example. It also provides parents a simple strategy to get their children eating a more healthy and nutritious diet. Putting out veggie snacks when children are hungry is a good idea, while setting an example by eating vegetables yourself as the parent while your kids are still young and impressionable also helps. The study was published in the current issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Exercise: Apoptosis, the natural ‘programmed’ death of cells, is arrested in the aftermath of strenuous exercise, says a new study. Researchers studied blood samples taken from people finishing a marathon and found that the mechanism that drives this cell death shifted after the race. “Apoptosis is a normal physiological function dependent on a variety of signals, many of which can be modulated by strenuous exercise. Here, we’ve shown for the first time that exercise modulates expression of the sirtuin family of proteins,” explained Gabriella Marge, lead author of the study. Sirtuin proteins may play the crucial role of mediators in the maintenance of skeletal and cardiac muscle tissues as well as neurons, which explains the protective effects of physical exercise for survival and aging. The findings appear in the journal BMC Physiology.

Nutrition: Consuming more nuts appears to be associated with improvements in blood cholesterol levels, according to analysis of data from 25 trials reported in the May 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Nuts have been the focus of intense research recently because of their potential to reduce coronary heart disease risk and to lower blood lipid (fat and cholesterol) levels based on their unique nutritional attributes, said the authors of the study. “The effects of nut consumption were does related, and different types of nuts had similar effects on blood lipid levels,” the authors write.