Health/Fitness « Weekly Gravy

A particular brain wave may help diagnose concussions in high school football players and predict when it’s safe for them to return to play, new research suggests. Delta waves are markers of brain injury and perhaps healing. They tend to decrease with age, but researchers found increased levels of these low-frequency waves in the brains of high school football players after a concussion. Levels declined only after symptoms eased, the researchers observed. “There’s debate right now in the science literature over whether that indicates damage or if it’s a healing response to the damage,” said lead researcher Elizabeth Davenport, an assistant professor of radiology at University of Texas Southwestern O’Donnell Brain Institute in Dallas. “The jury’s out on whether or not it’s healing or just a kind of distress signal.” Concussions are a form of brain injury caused by a blow to the head or violent shaking of the head and body. Davenport suspects delta waves might be a sign of the brain cleaning and repairing itself after such an injury. They might also be a sign of the brain’s connecting cells, axons, being torn apart, she said. These two activities might not, however, be mutually exclusive. As the brain heals, delta waves disappear, Davenport noted. “What we’re really hoping for with this is that it becomes a part of the toolkit that doctors have… read on > read on >

Perhaps to no one’s surprise, new research has determined that men do, in fact, have a much stronger sex drive than women. After reviewing more than 200 studies, investigators “found that men consistently report a higher sex drive,” said study author Julius Frankenbach, a doctoral student of psychology at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany. En masse, the research showed that men say they spend considerably more time thinking about sex, fantasizing about sex, feeling sexual desire and masturbating, compared to women. “What did surprise us,” said Frankenbach, “was that the finding was consistent across countries, age groups, ethnicities or sexual orientations. Men having a higher sex drive than women seems to be a quite universal psychological pattern.” But there’s a hitch. When discussing one’s own sexual proclivities, are people always honest? “Sexuality is a sensitive topic,” Frankenbach acknowledged. “So we also considered the possibility that people’s self-reports are not fully accurate. There was some evidence for such inaccurate responses in our data.” “For example,” he noted, “men reported having had more sexual partners than women, which, by simple logic, is almost impossible. However, we concluded that this response bias was relatively small, and could not explain all of the gender difference in sex drive we observed. In other words, we think that the gender difference is real.” The 211 studies reviewed were published after 1996,… read on > read on >

A “virtual autopsy” of a mummified 17th century Austrian infant has shed new light on Renaissance childhood — as well as the importance of vitamin D to health. The researchers used CT scans to examine the remains, which had been found in an aristocratic Austrian family crypt containing the perfect conditions for natural mummification. Analysis revealed that the child was a boy approximately 1 year old and overweight for his age, according to the German scientists However, his diet didn’t result in proper nutrition for a healthy body, creating a mystery for scientists. The child had been stricken by severe rickets or scurvy, diseases that are driven by deficiencies in vitamins D and C, the scans revealed. The child’s rickets had caused his ribs to become malformed in a pattern called a “rachitic rosary.” Bone knobs formed at the ends of his ribs, creating the appearance of a chain of large rosary beads under the thin skin over his rib cage. The scans also revealed that the boy had inflammation of the lungs characteristic of pneumonia. Since children with rickets are more vulnerable to pneumonia, the researchers speculate his nutritional deficiency might have contributed to his early death. It appears the aristocratic son was not exposed to direct sunlight, which allows the body to create its own supply of vitamin D, said lead researcher Andreas… read on > read on >

Smoking is an incredibly hard habit to break. Anne Levine of Baltimore can attest to that. But Levine, 58, is getting help from a potential new tool: psychedelics. The four-decade smoker has tried to quit a dozen times. But once she became part of a research trial testing a psychedelic drug, quitting became easier. Researchers think they may have found the answer to quitting in a compound called psilocybin, a drug also found in “magic mushrooms.” “There’s several existing treatments, both medications and other therapies, but they all have lots of room for improvement,” Matthew Johnson, a psychedelic researcher at Johns Hopkins Medicine, told NBC News. “None of the medications help a majority of the people long-term. Even six months down the road, it’s pretty small success rates.” Johnson is leading a randomized controlled trial supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. This is the first time in 50 years the federal government has given a grant to study a psychedelic drug as a treatment, NBC News reported. “The fact that the NIH is now interested in these types of studies is a great thing,” said Dr. Charles Nemeroff, chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Texas Medical School at Austin. “It’ll provide us with funding to be able to do these controlled studies,” Nemeroff told NBC. He is not involved… read on > read on >

A vitamin D deficiency puts you at risk for more than just weakened bones, a major new study reports. Too little vitamin D in your system can increase your overall risk of premature death, as well as your specific risk of dying from cancer, heart disease or lung disease, according to data gleaned from more than 307,000 U.K. residents. “Each of the cause-specific forms of death that we assessed echo the same theme – this being the importance of having sufficient vitamin D prior to facing any of these life-challenging situations,” said lead researcher Joshua Sutherland. He is a PhD candidate with the Australian Center for Precision Health at the University of South Australia. Vitamin D is known at the “sunshine vitamin” because your skin synthesizes the nutrient upon exposure to direct sunlight. It’s primarily known as a crucial nutrient for building and maintaining healthy bones. However, prior research has shown that vitamin D receptors are found in most major organs and human tissues, indicating that it plays a role in regulating many other functions in the body, the researchers explained in background notes. To examine the extent of vitamin D’s importance, Sutherland and his colleagues tapped into the UK Biobank, a large-scale biomedical research database containing in-depth genetic and health information from half a million participants in England, Scotland and Wales. The research team… read on > read on >

Even when eating nutritiously, healthy aging depends on moderating the number of calories you take in. Surprisingly, studies show that if you follow a healthy diet, but eat more than an average number of calories, you won’t fare any better in terms of healthy aging than people who follow the traditional Western diet. You want a lifelong diet plan that provides micronutrients, fiber and antioxidants while still limiting calories. That means whether you count calories or portion sizes, it’s important to keep track of all high-calorie foods, even the healthful ones. Here are some examples. While plant oils — such as walnut, olive, safflower, sunflower, grapeseed and sesame oils — are better for you than butter with all its saturated fat, tablespoon for tablespoon, oils actually have more calories — 120 to 130 calories compared to butter’s 100. Use an oil spray to coat pans before cooking to conserve calories when you really need to use oil. When eating a rainbow of veggies, winter squash and sweet potatoes are great choices in the orange color range, but 4 ounces of squash have only 44 calories compared to 84 calories for the same amount of sweet potatoes. If you need a large portion to feel full, eating squash will allow you twice the volume for the same number of calories. Among the most nutrient-dense fruits, a… read on >

Driving under the influence and distracted driving are well-known hazards, but few people think twice about getting behind the wheel when feeling drowsy, a sleep expert warns. “Drivers can reduce the danger by being aware of risk factors and taking precautions,” said Dr. Praveen Rudraraju, who directs the Center for Sleep Medicine at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, N.Y. Each year, nearly 100,000 traffic crashes can be attributed to drowsy driving, including more than 1,500 deaths and over 70,000 injuries, according to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Most drowsy driving accidents occur between midnight and 6 a.m. among drivers who are alone in their vehicle. Risk factors for drowsy driving include: sleep loss — even just one hour less than you need; use of sleep aids, anti-anxiety medications or alcohol; driving long hours with few or no breaks, driving alone or with sleeping passengers; and having undiagnosed or untreated sleep disorders. There are a number of things you can do to reduce the risk of drowsy driving, Rudaraju said. Don’t consume alcohol and don’t take sedatives. If you feel drowsy when driving, find a safe place to pull over and nap. But even though a short nap can help, it’s best to get proper sleep. Talk to your doctor about problems falling or staying asleep, especially if you are tired after a… read on >

Feel yourself being pulled in a million directions and losing track of what’s really important? The meditative practice called mindfulness can help you get centered and re-focus on what’s meaningful to you. And it doesn’t take time that’s already in short supply on your busy schedule. You can reap the benefits in less time than it takes for a coffee break. Mindfulness shows you how to block out distractions and replace stress and other negative emotions with a sense of well-being. You accomplish this by focusing on the here-and-now — your present thoughts and feelings, not past concerns or future worries. You also learn to accept these thoughts and feelings without passing judgment on them, such as labeling them as good or bad, right or wrong. Practicing mindfulness is easier than you might think. At the start of each day, you might take 10 minutes to do a few yoga stretches — yoga incorporates mindfulness because it teaches you to focus on your breathing as you move through poses. Or spend 10 minutes at lunch or anytime during your workday to do a head-to-toe de-stress. Breathe in and out as you zero in on each part of your body, going from toes to the top of your head. To unwind at night, consider more formal “guided” mindfulness, maybe with a podcast you can listen to… read on >

Next time you struggle to put a name to a face, go easy on yourself. You probably recognize thousands of people. Participants in a British study recognized 1,000 to 10,000 faces, with the average number being an astonishing 5,000. The faces included people they knew from their personal lives, as well as famous people. “Our study focused on the number of faces people actually know — we haven’t yet found a limit on how many faces the brain can handle,” said Rob Jenkins, a reader in the department of psychology at the University of York in England. “The ability to distinguish different individuals is clearly important — it allows you to keep track of people’s behavior over time, and to modify your own behavior accordingly,” he said in a university news release. The findings offer a baseline for comparing the “facial vocabulary” of people with facial-recognition software now used to identify people in airports and police investigations. Jenkins offered several possible explanations for the large range in number of faces people recognized. Some people may have a natural aptitude for remembering faces, he said. People also differ in how much attention they pay to faces, and how efficiently they process information. “Alternatively, it could reflect different social environments — some participants may have grown up in more densely populated places with more social input,” Jenkins… read on >

New research suggests there is no perfume a man loves more than the scent of a fertile woman. Researchers in Switzerland determined that women who are the “fittest” for reproduction have a distinctive scent that makes them particularly appealing to men. “Women with high estrogen and low progesterone levels are most attractive to men in an olfactory sense,” said study leader Daria Knoch, from the social psychology and social neuroscience department at the University of Bern. Knoch added that these hormone levels signal high fertility, suggesting that men are more attracted to women who can reproduce successfully. The study involved 28 women and 57 men. The women were asked to follow strict guidelines to isolate their scent and minimize any outside influence from things like detergents, soaps, alcohol or spicy foods. The women were also told to avoid hormonal contraceptives, to sleep alone and use unscented products during the study period. When the women were most fertile, they collected their scent overnight by placing cotton pads in their armpits. The men included in the study were asked to sniff these cotton pads in a lab and rate their smell on a scale of 0 to 100. The researchers also collected saliva samples from the women to measure their hormone levels. The investigators also considered other factors that could influence a woman’s scent, including the stress… read on >