Lifestyle « Weekly Gravy

Tinder, Grindr and other dating apps have a reputation for encouraging casual hookups, but a new study suggests app users may be looking for — and finding — love in all the right places after all. Unlike more traditional dating sites such as Match.com and EHarmony, these apps are largely based on rating photos. You swipe right if you like what you see, or left if you don’t. It’s that simple, which is why many felt they would foster shallow relationships. That wasn’t the case for Los Angeles publicist Anthoni Allen-Zouhry, who swiped right when she first saw her now husband’s photo on Tinder. They have now been married for close to two years and are expecting their first child. “Love found me,” she said. “I was looking for a relationship, but I was also just casually dating and not putting too much pressure on myself. It took a few months before we actually got serious.” And there are many couples just like Allen-Zouhry and her husband, according to a study published recently in the journal PLOS ONE. Study author Gina Potarca, a researcher at the Institute of Demography and Socioeconomics at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, examined data from a 2018 family survey by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office to find out more about relationships formed online and offline. The survey included more… read on > read on >

Food as medicine: New research suggests that a healthy Mediterranean diet might lower the risk of prostate cancer progressing to a more advanced state. The relative lack of saturated fat in these diets might be a major reason why. The Mediterranean diet is “known for its lower consumption of saturated fats,” said Dr. Phillip Vigneri, a prostate cancer specialist unconnected to the new study. He heads the department of radiation medicine at Staten Island University Hospital in New York City. For example, “it has been known for some time that while Japan has a similar incidence of prostate cancer, it has a lower metastatic rate and mortality,” Vigneri pointed out. And while it’s not possible to prove clear cause and effect, “this difference is usually attributed to a [Japanese] diet that is lower in fat,” he said. The new study involved 410 prostate cancer patients and was led by Dr. Justin Gregg, assistant professor of urology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston. Because most prostate cancer cases are low-risk and have favorable outcomes, many men do not need immediate treatment and opt for “active surveillance.” That was the case for the participants in this study. The Houston team found that those who stuck to meals rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, cereals and fish — hallmarks of a Mediterranean diet —… read on > read on >

The COVID-19 pandemic may feel like it’s been going on forever, but it’s important to keep up safety measures, a mental health expert says. Dr. Olusinmi Bamgbose, a psychiatrist at Cedars-Sinai in Southern California — an area that’s facing an unprecedented surge in coronavirus cases — offered some tips for keeping up with pandemic safeguards and some theories about why people may be backsliding into unsafe behaviors. “People definitely have pandemic fatigue,” said Bamgbose, who is on the Cedars-Sinai Reproductive Psychology team. “I think people miss their families and miss doing what they want to do. I think they want their life to feel normal again, so they’re looking for ways to go and do that.” Among the reasons people are making riskier choices is peer pressure, Bamgbose said. “You might be faced with people around you who are pressuring you to push your boundaries, like a mother who wants you to come over for a holiday dinner where several people are coming over and getting together inside,” Bamgbose said. “It can be very difficult to stick to your guns and say, ‘I don’t feel comfortable doing that.’” Confirmation bias also plays a role. If a person engages in risky behavior and doesn’t get COVID-19, or gets the virus and has a mild case, they’re more likely to do the same behavior again, she explained… read on > read on >

If you’re a Black man, your risk of getting prostate cancer is 75% higher than it is for a white man, and it’s more than twice as deadly. Now, research is helping to bring genetic risks for people of various racial and ethnic groups into focus. In doing so, dozens more risk factors that could better help pinpoint the odds of developing prostate cancer have been uncovered. And that could potentially lead to better screening protocols and earlier detection for men of all races, experts said. “The potential utility of this is that it can be used to define men who are at elevated risk of developing prostate cancer,” said lead author Christopher Haiman, professor of preventive medicine at Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. “This is knowledge that men could find out, I hate to say it, but at birth,” he added. More likely, men would get this information later in life, Haiman said, but clinicians could use it to determine when blood tests to screen for prostate cancer should begin and how often screening should occur. Researchers from the USC Center for Genetic Epidemiology in Los Angeles and the Institute of Cancer Research in London led the study. They noted that past prostate cancer studies included an overrepresentation of white men, making it more difficult… read on > read on >

If your children are well-behaved, do they stand a greater chance of having healthy, happy lives as adults? A new study says yes. After tracking just over 1,000 New Zealanders from birth to the age of 45, investigators found that kids who were goal-oriented and better able to restrain their thoughts, behavior and emotions turned out to have healthier bodies and brains by the time they hit middle age. “We found that as adults, at age 45, children with better self-control aged more slowly,” said study author Leah Richmond-Rakerd, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. “Their bodies and brains were healthier and biologically younger. We also found that they had developed more health, financial and social reserves for old age.” Why? Richmond-Rakerd said her team thinks it has to do with having “better emotional regulation to deal with life. They plan better so that they experience fewer crises and challenges. And their response to challenges is more measured and thoughtful when crises do arise.” James Maddux is a senior scholar with the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being at George Mason University in Virginia. Though not a part of the study team, he suggested that the findings might stem from a youthful ability to delay gratification. “So many behaviors that contribute to poor health are the result of… read on > read on >