Stub that cigarette or get ready for some kilos
Smoking leads to weight gain, smartphone apps may help your health, and violent video games make you more aggressivefacts to make you healthier, starting today
It is ok really to have fewer friends in your 30s
Social networks tend to follow predictable cycles throughout a person’s life, expanding in the 20s and shrinking in the 30s and beyond, a notion borne out by social-science research and popular trend pieces alike. Now, a new study takes this idea and fast-forwards several decades into the future, giving a hint about the long-term impact of this friendly ebb and flow. According to the study, led by Cheryl L. Carmichael of Brooklyn College and published recently in the journal Psychology and Aging, your middle-age happiness can be predicted by two things: the quantity of friends in your 20s, and the quality of friendships in your 30s. In a way, your 50-year-old self stands to benefit both from the endless rounds of flip cup with college pals and the long talks with close friends a decade later. Read more here
Stub that cigarette or get ready for some kilos
Smoking is really bad for you. It now turns out that the long-held assumption that cigarettes may be associated with weight loss may be incorrect. (So if that was your reason for lighting up, take this as a sign that maybe you should quit once and for all.) Although it’s true that people tend to put on pounds after they quit, smoking itself is also linked with increased weight gain, according to a study done at the Oregon Research Institute in Eugene. Of a group of young women tested, smokers gained three pounds in two years, while those who didn’t smoke gained two pounds. Read more here.
Smart phone apps may help people improve health behaviors
Smartphone applications and wearable sensors have the potential to help people make healthier lifestyle choices, but scientific evidence of mobile health technologies’ effectiveness for reducing risk factors for heart disease and stroke is limited, according to a scientific statement from the American Heart Association, published in the association’s journal Circulation. Some Smart phone apps and wearable sensors are promising for improving cardiovascular health behaviors and have the potential to encourage positive change. Self-monitoring is a key facet of changing behavior to prevent and manage heart health. Read more here.
Those violent video games are making you more aggressive
Playing violent video games is linked to increases in aggression and decreases in sensitivity to aggression, according to a review by the American Psychological Association (APA) of recent research. The review indicated that there is “insufficient evidence" about whether playing violent video games can also lead to criminal violence or delinquency, the APA announced today. “The research demonstrates a consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive cognitions and aggressive affect, and decreases in prosocial behavior, empathy and sensitivity to aggression," the report concludes. Read more here.
Women who work or lift a lot may struggle to get pregnant
Women who work more than 40 hours a week or routinely lift heavy loads may take longer to get pregnant than women who don’t, a US study suggests. Researchers followed 1,739 nurses who were trying to get pregnant and estimated 16% of them failed to achieve this goal within 12 months, and 5% still hadn’t conceived after two years. Working more than 40 hours a week was linked with taking 20% longer to get pregnant compared to women who worked 21 to 40 hours. Moving or lifting at least 25-pound loads several times a day was also tied to delayed pregnancy, extending the time to conception by about 50%. “Our results show that heavy work, both in terms of physical strain and long hours, appears to have a detrimental impact on female nurses’ ability to get pregnant," lead study author Audrey Gaskins, a researcher at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, said by email. Read more here.
Compiled by Pooja Chaturvedi
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