Bored? Zipping through online videos isn’t going to help you, a new study shows. Watching short snippets of videos or fast-forwarding through them makes people more bored rather than less, according to the results of seven experiments involving more than 1,200 Americans and Canadians. Such “digital switching” is less edifying than sticking with one video and watching it all the way through, said lead researcher Katy Tam, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Toronto. “If people want a more enjoyable experience when watching videos, they can try to stay focused on the content and minimize digital switching,” Tam said. “Just like paying for a more immersive experience in a movie theater, more enjoyment comes from immersing oneself in online videos rather than swiping through them.”  Watching short videos on social media has become a common pastime, particularly as people spend more time on their smartphone, researchers said. Study participants predicted they would feel less bored by switching videos instead of watching them in their entirety, researchers said. But people allowed to freely switch between seven different videos within 10 minutes reported themselves more bored than when they watched a single 10-minute YouTube video all the way through. The participants found the longer viewing experience to be more satisfying, engaging and meaningful than flipping through a number of videos, results showed. Participants reported similar results…  read on >  read on >

There are clues that red and processed meats could be driving the increased risk of colon cancer in young adults, a new study claims. Younger colon cancer patients typically have higher levels of metabolites created by the digestion of an amino acid called arginine, researchers reported recently in the journal NPJ Precision Oncology. They also have higher metabolite levels tied to the urea cycle — the process by which ammonia produced by protein digestion is filtered out of the blood and excreted. Long-term overconsumption of red meat and processed meat could explain these elevated metabolite levels in young people with colon cancer, researchers said. “Our data clearly shows that the main driver is diet,” said researcher Naseer Sangwan, director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Microbial Sequencing & Analytics Resource Core. “We already know the main metabolites associated with young-onset risk, so we can now move our research forward in the correct direction.” For the study, researchers compared blood tests performed on 20 colon cancer patients aged 50 or younger with those of patients 60 and older. The analysis revealed that differences in diet accounted for many of the differences observed between younger and older colon cancer patients. This actually is good news, because researchers had thought that a large-scale alteration of a person’s gut microbiome might be needed to lower their risk of colon cancer. The…  read on >  read on >

Kids considering suicide after receiving mental health care at a hospital can be helped by automated text messages that help them feel hopeful and supported, a new study finds. Children receiving the texts as part of a program called Caring Contacts said they felt more positive after receiving the messages. “Prior research has shown that patients are around 300 times more at risk of suicide in the first week after hospital discharge, and 200 times more at risk over the first month compared to the general population,” said senior researcher John Ackerman, a child clinical psychologist and suicide prevention clinical manager for the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio. “Reaching patients where they are in their day-to-day lives is crucial in supporting them before, during and after a crisis,” Ackerman added in a hospital news release. “That also means ensuring messages of hope and validation are accessible with the technology they use most — their phones.” Caring Contacts include supportive text messages with accompanying images meant to promote hope, inclusivity and connection, researchers said. The messages also include contacts for crisis resources. These texts were sent to more than 1,700 kids after their discharge from Nationwide Children’s following a suicidal crisis, for a four-month period. About 83% of the children said they felt moderately to very hopeful after receiving…  read on >  read on >

Painting, woodworking, writing: Whatever you turn to creatively, it could equal or exceed work in terms of maintaining mental health, new research shows. “Crafting and other artistic activities showed a meaningful effect in predicting people’s sense that their life is worthwhile,” said study lead author Dr. Helen Keyes, of Anglia Ruskin University in the U.K. “Indeed, the impact of crafting was bigger than the impact of being in employment,” she added. “Not only does crafting give us a sense of achievement, it is also a meaningful route to self-expression. This is not always the case with employment.” The new study was published Aug. 16 in the journal Frontiers in Public Health. It involved almost 7,200 participants in the annual Taking Part survey, conducted by the UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Folks were asked about their level of participation in cultural, digital and sporting activities. People were also queried about their levels of loneliness and “sensations of happiness, anxiety and life satisfaction, and to give their impression of whether life is worthwhile,” according to a journal news release. More than a third (37.4%) of respondents said they’d been involved in some kind of arts or crafts activity over the past month. People who engaged in a creative pursuit scored higher in terms of happiness, life satisfaction and the sense that life is worthwhile, compared…  read on >  read on >

Back-to-school can feel like a rushed jumble, as kids leave behind summer fun for the next step in their education. But there are specific ways parents can help students show up sharper, get young athletes ready to compete, and have anxious kids settled down and ready to learn, experts say. Prioritize sleep Kids will have a good start to the school year if they enter it with sound sleep hygiene, experts say. “We spend a third of our life sleeping, so a regular sleep/wake schedule leads to better sleep and a healthier life,” said Dr. Tara Thomas, an assistant professor of sleep psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine. “Growth hormones are secreted during different stages of sleep, and sleep helps with growth, development and recall and memory storage.”   The recommended sleep duration for kids of various ages includes: Ages 3 to 5: 10 to 13 hours Ages 6 to 13: 9 to 11 hours Teenagers: 8 to 10 hours A wind-down routine prior to bedtime can help kids settle down for the evening. This routine can include bathing, brushing teeth and reading a bedtime story, Thomas said. A technology curfew also is essential, as light emitted from smartphones and tablets suppresses the sleep hormone melatonin. Devices can also be an overstimulating distraction that robs kids of sleep. Athletic support Parents should make sure that their…  read on >  read on >

Low-paid employees under crushing work stress have a nearly doubled risk of developing a dangerous heart rhythm disorder, a new study finds. White-collar workers with high-stress, low-reward jobs have a 97% increased risk of developing atrial fibrillation, which increases a person’s risk of stroke and heart failure, researchers report. “Our study suggests that work-related stressors may be relevant factors to include in preventive strategies” targeting heart disease, said senior study author Xavier Trudel, an occupational and cardiovascular epidemiologist at Laval University in Quebec, Canada. For the study, Trudel and his colleagues analyzed data on more than 5,900 Canadian workers gathered during a research project from 1991 to 2018. The employees were asked about their work stress, and medical records revealed that 186 of the workers had developed atrial fibrillation, or A-Fib. About 19% of those with A-Fib said they had high job stress, while another 25% said their work wasn’t being adequately rewarded with recognition or better pay. About 10% said they had stress and also felt poorly rewarded for their work. Those with high job stress had an 83% increased risk of A-Fib compared those not stressed by work, results show. Likewise, those who felt poorly rewarded had a 44% increased risk of A-Fib, compared to those who felt work was treating them fairly. And those with both stressors had a 97% increased risk…  read on >  read on >

Black employees in a toxic workplace are more susceptible to depression and sleep loss than whites are, according to new research. Black workers being mistreated by employers got an estimated 100 fewer minutes of sleep per night than white workers or Black people not enduring mistreatment did, results showed. They also were more likely to develop symptoms of depression, researchers found. Follow-up research revealed this response could be due to America’s history of racial prejudice, the researchers said. Mistreated black employees were nearly eight times more likely to perceive prejudice attributed to their race than mistreated white employees were, researchers found. White employees were less likely to attribute mistreatment to race and were able to more easily shake it off, results showed. “Our findings are not intended to put the onus on Black employees for being too sensitive, but to inform organizations that mistreatment is experienced within the context of one’s identity,” said researcher Erik Gonzalez-Mule, chair of management and entrepreneurship with the Indiana University School of Business. “Organizations must strive to create an inclusive workplace for their Black employees and should find ways to reduce workplace mistreatment, for example, by implementing accountability measures or encouraging bystander intervention,” Gonzalez-Mule added in a university news release. For this study, the team first analyzed data gathered from more than 3, 500 people as part of a study…  read on >  read on >

Americans continue to rank dead last in life expectancy among English-speaking countries, a new study finds. People in the United States more often fall prey at younger ages to accidental deaths, homicides and chronic diseases, researchers reported Aug. 13 in the BMJ Open journal. On the other hand, Australians had the longest life expectancy of any English speakers, despite their country teeming with deadly sharks, spiders and snakes. Australian life expectancy is nearly four more years longer than the United States for women and five more years longer for men. The United States also trails Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and New Zealand in life expectancy, researchers found. However, they said the findings should be seen as an incentive for goal-setting for Americans. “Yes, we’re doing badly, but this study shows what can we aim for,” said senior researcher Jessica Ho, an associate professor of sociology and demography at Penn State. “We know these gains in life expectancy are actually achievable because other large countries have already done it.” For the study, researchers compared life expectancy between English-speaking nations using data from the World Health Organization and the international Human Mortality Database. The data showed that the United States has had the worst life expectancy among these countries since the early 1990s. U.S. women live an average of 81.5 years, and men 76.5 years, researchers…  read on >  read on >

Many nonsmokers have lung nodules that have been linked to lung cancer, a new study warns. About 42% of nonsmokers or former smokers have at least one lung nodule, which is a small mass of dense tissue that may be cancerous, according to chest CT scans performed on more than 10,400 people aged 45 and older. Further, about 11% of participants had larger lung nodules measuring 6 to 8 millimeters that will require close medical scrutiny, researchers said. “This was higher than we expected and even similar to the prevalence reported in high-risk populations of smokers,” said senior researcher Dr. Rozemarijn Vliegenthart, a professor of cardiothoracic imaging at the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands. The older people are, the greater their odds of having both more lung nodules and larger nodules, results showed. Men were more likely than women to both have lung nodules and have multiple nodules, researchers noted. Most of the lung nodules weren’t cancerous, Vliegenthart stressed. “The incidence of lung cancer in this population is very low, 0.3%, suggesting that most of the clinically relevant and even actionable nodules in a nonsmoking cohort are benign,” Vliegenthart said in a university news release. However, their presence will require follow-up scans and examination under current cancer screening guidelines, the researchers said. The new study was published Aug. 13 in the journal Radiology.…  read on >  read on >