The benefits of napping

The benefits of napping is well documented. Here are some more numbers:

1) a recent study have found that the good nappers, men and women who napped at least three times per week for an average of at least 30 minutes, had a 37% lower coronary mortality risk than those who took no naps.
2) an earlier NASA sleep researchers have found that a nap of 26 minutes can boost performance by as much as 34%.

Do our bosses know these ?

Health statistics

1) Loneliness could boost Alzheimer's risk: a 4-year long study on group of old people (averaging 81 years of age) found 20% increase on the loneliness was associated with about a 51% increased risk of developing Alzheimer's.

2) Children who get more rest less prone to obesity: sleeping 1 extra hour a night reduced the chance of being overweight from 36-30% in young children, and from 34-30% percent in older children. Similar results were also observed for adults before. Researchers don't know exactly why sleep and childhood obesity may be related, one factor is that lack of sleep may disrupt hormones that influence metabolism and hunger.

Having pets improve health

Needless to say having pets can improve pet owner's health. I just found some numbers for this:

1) one study of women recovering from breast cancer found 87% reported that their pets filled at least 1 important role in their social support. 43% reported that their pets fulfilled more than 10 important support functions, such as being cared for, tactile comfort.

2)another survey pulled more than 11,000 people from 3 countries found that over a 5-year period pet owners made 15-20% fewer annual visits to the doctor than non pet-owners, and those who went to the doctor the least were those who continuously owned a pet.

Source link

Housework beats athletics at reducing cancer risk

Housework prevents breast cancer more effectively than athletic activity or manual paid labor does, according to a recent study of 200,000 women. According to researchers, "out of all of the activities, only housework significantly reduced the risk of both pre- and post-menopausal women getting the disease", and spending "16 to 17 hours a week cooking, cleaning and doing the washing" reduced cancer risk "by 30% among the pre-menopausal women and 20% among the post-menopausal women".

All exercise alters hormones and metabolism, which affect breast cancer, but why housework beats athletics? Researchers explained that moderate forms of physical activity, such as housework, may be more important than less frequent but more intense recreational physical activity. Another reason why women live longer than men ?

(the original research paper link)

The non-secret formula of long life

The non-secret formula of long life is stay in school, according to Dr. Lleras-Muney, an economist at Princeton. People's life expectancy at age 35 was extended by as much as 1.5 years simply by going to school for 1 extra year; or expressed in another way - 1 year of education lowers the probability of dying in the next 10 years by approximately 3.6%.

About 100 years ago in US, different states started passing laws forcing children to go to school for longer periods, say, 6 years to 7 years. In 1999, Dr. Lleras-Muney went back and found the laws in the different states and then used data from the census to find out how long people lived before and after the law in each state was changed. She then found out the above formula. So far it has been confirmed by other studies covering many other countries.

It is not clear yet how it works between Education and Health (correlation? causation?). In my opinion, education promote the habit of acquiring knowledge, and knowledge in turn help people optimizing their lives in many ways.

Healthier numbers

(1)

Again and again, researchers find alcohol in moderation may extend life span. The latest - drinking a moderate amount of alcohol — up to four drinks per day in men and two drinks per day in women — reduces the risk of death from any cause by roughly 18%.

(2)

Over the past several decades chicken (white meat) consumption has gone up, red meat isn't going anywhere or falling down somewhat. Sign of healthier times. (below, click it to see bigger picture)

Sources:http://www.ers.usda.gov/

Men put off going to ER during big games

David Jerrard, a emergency physician, looked at hospital emergency room visits around 800 regular season college and pro football, baseball and basketball games in Maryland. He found that male emergency room attendance increases by 50% after the conclusion of a football game. Also, 30-40% more men check into emergency rooms after a baseball game ends than during the innings. Men stay home instead of seeking treatment for everything from chest pains to a cut finger. Jerrard warns, "Men should not risk their health by putting off going to the emergency room because they want to see the final results of a football game. It could be the last game they ever see."

In my opinion, when men are watching a football game, they are just too focused to feel the pain.

Want to live to 100? This may depend on Mom

A team at the University of Chicago found that people born to women younger than 25 were about 2 times more likely to live for a century or longer than people born to older mothers.

The study of 198 centenarians born in the United States from 1890-1893 found that first-born children were more likely to live to 100 than later-born siblings. After further analysis, the researchers concluded that this longevity advantage among first-born children was largely linked to the fact that they were born when their mothers were in their teens or early 20s.

Just a FYI - according to the Census Bureau, between 1990 and 2000, the number of centenarians in the United States increased from 37,000 to 55,000. Women are 3 to 5 times more likely than men to reach 100 years.

Eating slowly may promote weight loss

A new study on a group of women provides the scientific proof that if you eat slowly, you will eat less, and therefore you will control your weight. When eating quickly, the women group took in an average of 646 calories in 9 minutes. But when they slowed down, they consumed 579 calories in 29 minutes, and enjoy the meal more. Win-Win situation.

Don't sit up straight !

Your mother's advice to sit up straight in your chair could be a prescription for lower back pain. A new study using new imaging technology reveals that sitting upright with a straight back (90 degree) and thighs parallel to the floor increases the strain on the lumbar discs in the lower back.
In fact it's better to lean back a bit in a chair, even if looks like slouching. The best position is what you get in a La-Z-Boy, 135 degree between back and thighs.

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Source: Chicago Tribune, Nov.28, 2006.

Job burnout could boost the risk of illness

We all heared this already - the daily rigors of work, such as tight deadlines and long hours, can lead to job burnout, which then lead to an increase in rates of heart disease, flu virus, and high blood pressure. A recent study showed those who experienced job burnout were 1.8 times more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, in which a person's body becomes resistant to the sugar-regulating hormone called insulin.

Source: Psychosomatic Medicine, Nov. 2006.

The link between health and wealth

We all know the health leads to the wealth. Here are some numbers to back it up - a study of 10 industrialized countries from the beginning of the 20th Century through the mid-1990s found that better people's health - such as better dietary and medical care - increased the rate of national economic growth by about 30%. As an example, 10% fall in cardiovascular mortality alone can generate 1% increase in per capita income.

How to live a longer life ?

1) the refrigerator is used to lengthen the life of food, and a new study suggests a similar principle could prolong life, too. Researchers have found that lowering the body temperature of mice by just 0.5°C extends their lifespan by around 12% for males and 20% for females. In the future, people might be able to take a drug to achieve a similar effect on body temperature and enjoy a longer life.

2) the only previously proven method of significantly increasing the lifespan of an animal has been through a restricted calorie diet. In an recent experiment, mice fed with 30% fewer calories than usual lived 20-30% longer.

People feel pain differently

I have long believed that pain sensitivity varies genetically among people. In a recent medical research, a gene called GCH1 regulates an enzyme that correlates with pain sensitivity in rats. In humans, having 1 copy of a particular version of the gene makes you less pain-sensitive than other people; having 2 copies makes you highly insensitive to pain.

I am sure I get just 1 copy (or less) of GCH1, and my daughter have 2 (or 3) copies. Next time when you admire someone who seem more heroic than you, please understand that they may just be luckier and more comfortable under pain.

Cancer patients are more likely to commit suicide

According to a sobering finding of a new Canadian study published in the Oct. 19 online issue of the Annals of Oncology, cancer patients are more than twice as likely to take their own lives compared to those in the general population.
The rate in the study worked out to be 19 out of every 1,000 male cancer patients and 4 out of every 1,000 female patients. The overall rate of suicide was about 2 to 2.5 times that of the general U.S. population. In this population, males committed suicide at 4 to 5 times the rate of females, which is consistent with the suicide rate in the overall American population.

According to this research, "the high-risk patient was male with head or neck cancer or myeloma, advanced stage, with little social or cultural support and limited treatment options."

Lung Cancer Run in the Family

A new study in the October issue of Chest found that that having a first-degree relative with lung cancer nearly doubled the odds of developing lung cancer. The association was even stronger for women. Women who had a first-degree relative with lung cancer almost had triple the risk of lung cancer, while men with a first-degree relative with lung cancer had about a 70% higher risk.

Excess weight reduces men's fertility

Obese men are more likely to be infertile than their slimmer peers, according to the first study to look at whether a man's weight influences a couple's fertility (Epidemiology, Sept. 2006).

Researcher found for every excess 10 kilograms, or 20 pounds, may cut a man's fertility by 10%.

There are a number of mechanisms by which being overweight could affect fertility in males. For example, excess weight may reduce sperm concentration/count, alter hormonal balance and increase scrotal temperature, or overweight men may simply have lower libidos and less sex than normal-weight men.

Midlife divorce increases heart disease for women but not men

Based on several thousand cases beginning at age 51, researchers calculated that by age 60, women who were divorced, remarried, or widowed were nearly 50% more likely to have cardiovascular disease than women who stayed married".

No such difference was seen for men. In fact, men who remarried were actually 19% less likely to develop heart disease than those who had stayed married to the same person. The researchers conclude that "emotional distress and socioeconomic status" cause the harm to women.

Those who attempt suicide rather than just thinking about it

A recent survey in UK showing that people who said they had thought about taking their own life in the last year, just under 10% reported that they had made an attempt on their life.

The researchers found those individuals who had actually attempted suicide, rather than just thinking about it, were more likely to have serious ill-health, to be unemployed and to have poor relationships with their friends and family. And these factors had a cumulative effect – aparticipant with two of these factors was 3 times more likely tohave attempted suicide; someone with all three factors was 11 times morelikely to have made an attempt.

Surprisingly perhaps, rates of self-reported depression and anxiety were no greater among the suicide attempters than among those who only thought about suicide.

How to lose weight ?

Easy, try eating off smaller plates and bowls.

Study shows that using smaller bowls and spoons may curb the amount of food eaten.
There was a earlier study found that teenagers poured 77% less juice into tall narrow glasses than they did into short wide glasses. In a recent study, participants were randomly given a 17 ounce or 34 ounce bowl along with a 2 ounce or 3 ounce ice cream scoop and allowed to serve themselves ice cream. Altogether, those with large bowls and large serving spoons served themselves — and ate —nearly 57% more ice cream than those with smaller bowls and spoons.