By Ariana Eunjung Cha One of the most controversial ideas in medical science today is whether people can really be fat and fit. That is, is weight in itself a marker of health – or simply a suggestion of a person’s physical fitness? A key study in this debate was published in 2012 by a team of researchers from the United States and Europe in the European Heart Journal. They argued that overweight and obese people were at no greater risk of heart disease or cancer as compared with those of… Read more ‘Fat but fit’ may be a myth, researchers say →
Aaron E Carrol New York Times AUG. 24, 2015 If there is one health myth that will not die, it is this: You should drink eight glasses of water a day. It’s just not true. There is no science behind it. And yet every summer we are inundated with news media reports warning that dehydration is dangerous and also ubiquitous. These reports work up a fear that otherwise healthy adults and children are walking around dehydrated, even that dehydration has reached epidemic proportions. Let’s put these claims under scrutiny. I… Read more No, You Do Not Have to Drink 8 Glasses of Water a Day →
Objective: The aim of the present study is to highlight the beneficial effects of yoga practice on bio-parameters, such as oxidative stress, antioxidant components, immune functions, and secretion of stress hormones, in healthy young people. Study Design: This study was conducted on healthy volunteers recruited from among university students, who were divided into two groups: a control (no yoga intervention, n=13) group and a yoga (n=12) group. Yoga practice was with an instructor for 90 minutes once a week spread over 12 weeks, with recommendations to practice daily at home for 40 minutes… Read more Regular Yoga Practice Improves Antioxidant Status, Immune Function, and Stress Hormone Releases in Young Healty People: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Controlled Pilot Study →
University of Queensland researcher Dr Beben Benyamin from the Queensland Brain Institute collaborated with researchers at VU University of Amsterdam to review almost every twin study across the world from the past 50 years, involving more than 14.5 million twin pairs. The findings, published in Nature Genetics, reveal on average the variation for human traits and diseases is 49 per cent genetic, and 51 per cent due to environmental factors and/or measurement errors. “There has still been conjecture over how much variation is caused by genetics and how much is… Read more Nature vs Nuture results in a draw, according to Twins Meta-study →
Objectives To evaluate the association between a simple lifestyle index based on the recommendations for five lifestyle factors and the incidence of colorectal cancer, and to estimate the proportion of colorectal cancer cases attributable to lack of adherence to the recommendations. Design Prospective cohort study. Setting General population of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark. Participants 55 487 men and women aged 50-64 years at baseline (1993-7), not previously diagnosed with cancer. Main outcome measure Risk of colorectal cancer in relation to points achieved in the lifestyle index (based on physical activity, waist… Read more Cohurt study shows a healthy lifestyle reduces risk of colorectal cancer →
This diagram from visualcomplexity.com illustrates the complexity of obesity. Obesity is not simply eating the wrong foods or eating too much and it is not simply fixed by changing diet… Read more Why diet doesn’t cure obesity →
