Tag: health
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Health and Alcohol Intake (Men, Women, Wine)
A longitudinal study of almost 20,000 U.S. women is showing signs that moderate alcohol consumption (“one or two alcohol beverages a day”) can lower the risk for obesity and inhibit weight gain: Over the course of the study, 41 percent of the women became overweight or obese. Although alcohol is packed with calories (about 150…
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The Evidence For (and Against) Health Supplements: a Visualisation
After collating the results of over 1,500 studies and meta-studies (only “large, human, randomized placebo-controlled trials” were included), Information is Beautiful’s David McCandless collaborated with Andy Perkins to produce a comprehensive data visualisation mapping the the effectiveness (or not) of a wide range of health supplements (there’s a static image and interactive Flash version available).…
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The Efficacy of Hand Sanitizers
Given their prevalence in offices, hospitals and pharmacies (how naïve?), I would have thought the effectiveness of hand sanitizers would have been a lot greater than it is: In 2005, Boston-based doctors published the very first clinical trial of alcohol-based hand sanitizers in homes and enrolled about 300 families with young children in day care. For…
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Taxes (Not Subsidies) Control Calorie Intake
It’s not surprising to discover that in an experiment looking at how taxes and subsidies can be used to influence healthier food purchases it was the taxing of unhealthy food that improved choices, not the subsidisation of healthy options. Strangely, though, it turns out that the health food subsidies actually worsened choices (the study theorises that…
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Sleep and Weight Loss
While asleep our metabolic rate increases such that we lose more than three times the amount of weight than if we are awake (awake but lying dormant, of course): 1.9g/min compared to 0.6g/min. This increase in ‘caloric expenditure’ is not yet fully understood, but there are a number of reasons why we may lose more…
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The Cognitive Importance of Good Sleep
After a week of surviving on minimal sleep you may assume that a lazy weekend will allow you to recover in time for the coming days. Not so: research has shown that not even a full week of quality sleep can reverse the cognitive and physiological ‘damage’ just five days of poor sleep can inflict on…
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The Anti-Vaccine Movement and the Rejection of Science
Already covered to death, it’s been on my bookmarks list since I read the following from Wired editor Mark Horowitz on it’s day of publication: Best/worst day. Story I am proudest of assigning and editing at Wired goes live today. […] But I also lose job. Bummer! That story is a fantastically well written and researched article…
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Barriers, Not Calories, Influence Eating Habits
Informing consumers of the calorific value of their food options doesn’t change their ordering/eating habits (previously), but removing barriers and making the healthier options easy to order does. That’s the conclusion from Kevin Volpp’s lecture, ‘Using Behavioral Economics to Improve Health Behaviors’. Recent studies […] have indicated that providing nutritional information at restaurants and recommending…
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Calorie Counts Don’t Affect Food Decisions
After New York City passed a law requiring many chain restaurants to post the calorific value of all food they sold on their menus (in the same size and font as the price), researchers started looking at how the posting of calorie counts affect consumer decision making and food consumption. The study’s findings, as summarised…
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Healthy Food Boosts School Results
In 2004 UK TV chef Jamie Oliver ran an experiment at a school in Greenwich, London for an upcoming show of his, Jamie’s School Dinners. By various means Oliver attempted to improve the eating habits of the school’s students and, by-and-large, succeeded. Tracking his progress–and that of the children–were two Oxford economists, Michele Belot and Jonathan James.…