Your Mama Was Right!
Jul 10 at 7:07pm by Aileen
If your Mama was anything like mine, you no doubt grew up with the constant admonition that “you are what you eat.” And despite the silly position of the AMA back in the early 1980s that there was no evidence to support the idea that diet has any direct relationship with health, almost all mothers know better. Thus it’s not entirely unexpected that medical science should be learning about the many ways that diet does indeed affect health, but it is welcome to wise Moms everywhere.
First up, a paper published in the journal Science by a research team at the University of Wisconsin demonstrates that simply reducing the amount of food eaten works to blunt the effects of aging and significantly delay onset of age-relatted conditions like cancer, diabetes, heart disease and brain atrophy. The research was conducted over 20 years on Rhesus monkeys at the National Primate Research Center at UW-Madison.
Conclusion? A restricted calorie diet will help you live longer and stay healthier.
The American Dietetic Association has also released an updated position paper on vegetarian diets that concludes a well-planned meatless diet is both healthful and nutritionally adequate and can help prevent or even treat chronic conditions like diabetes, obesity, cancer and heart disease.
Vegetarian diets have long been associated with lower blood cholesterol levels, lower risk of heart disease, lower blood pressure and reduced risk of type 2 diabetes. Because such diets are low-fat and generally provide more vitamins and minerals than a meat-based diet, the ADA has concluded that a meatless diet is appropriate for all stages of the human life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy and for athletes.
With ever increasing evidence that fewer calories, less meat and more fruits and vegetables can lead to a longer and healthier life, the number of vegetarians or semi-vegetarians among the population is expected to increase significantly over the next decade. Perhaps the most important take-away lesson from the evidence and research is that indulging in high-calorie processed foods and fatty meats to the point where a majority of the population weighs twice what they should weigh causes a huge chunk of the medical issues people suffer in the U.S.
Popularity: 68% [?]
Addicted To Your Baby’s Smile
Jul 8 at 3:03pm by Aileen
Most parents know very well how heart-warming their baby’s smile can be, to the point where just doing something silly to get that smile-fix becomes a regular way of life. I’ve heard all sorts of weird philosophies about baby smiles – “it’s just gas,” “they’ve got the intelligence of rats,” etc., etc., things that only non-parents would ever think of.
So it’s cool that researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine have finally demonstrated the addictive quality of baby smiles, as reported recently in the journal Pediatrics. Turns out that baby smiles actually ‘light up’ the reward centers of the human brain, particularly in Moms – it’s what they call a “Natural High.”
Baby’s Smile Is A Natural High
The researchers hope their work will help scientists understand the unique mother-infant bonding so critical for proper child development (and mothers’ mental health).
No doubt this is fine research, and it’s gratifying to know that science is actually looking at phenomena they could have known all along if they’d just asked a Mom. Oh, well. That famous scientific skepticism needs physical ‘proof’ of physical phenomena before it will believe anything most regular people know from direct empirical experience. Maybe they’ll now come up with a pill that mimics this high, which will no doubt be a big item on the black market for pharmaceuticals…
Popularity: 21% [?]
Surprise! Human Babies Should Drink Human Milk
May 7 at 6:06pm by Aileen
Michael Kramer, a professor of pediatrics at McGill University reported this week that breastfeeding raises children’s IQ and improves their academic performance later in childhood.
Their study evaluated children in 31 Belarusian hospitals and clinics. Half of the women were directly encouraged to breastfeed exclusively, the other half did things the ‘normal’ way (for Belorussia). Six and a half years later the children’s IQs were tested and their teachers submitted academic performance ratings. Scores on both were significantly higher for the children of women encouraged to breastfeed, though there is no indication that the researchers confirmed how many of those mothers actually did breastfeed or for how long.
“Our study provides the strongest evidence to date that prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding makes kids smarter,” Kramer said.
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Popularity: 22% [?]
50 Weird Science Tidbits – 4
Feb 14 at 8:08pm by Aileen
Part 4: Items 31-40
More obscure facts and scientific oddities that most people haven’t filed in their brains…
31. How Crowded Are We, Really?
10% of all the humans who have ever lived are alive in the world right now.
32. And You Thought Stillness Was a Meditative Virtue…
The planet Earth travels through space in its journey around the sun at a stunning 67,000 miles per hour, and we’re all moving that fast along with it!
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Popularity: 31% [?]
Baby Talk for Monkeys
Aug 29 at 4:04pm by Aileen
That high pitched, musical sing-song gibberish that mothers use to engage their infants has a name I never knew, despite my extraordinary fluency in the language – it’s called “Motherese.” At least, according to researchers at the University of Chicago. Who report that observations of free-ranging macaque monkeys living on an island near Puerto Rico show these monkeys also speak Motherese!
Monkeys Use ‘Baby Talk’ to Interact With Infants reports:
“The calls appear to be used to elicit infants’ attention and encourage their behavior. They also have the effect of increasing social tolerance in the mother and facilitating the interactions between females with babies in general. Thus, the attraction to other females’ infants results in a relatively relaxed context of interaction where the main focus of attention is the baby.”
And you thought it was just pointless, silly gibberish, didn’t you?
Popularity: 9% [?]
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