Research Archive

Unlike abdominal fat, which is known to be harmful, it appears that fat stored on the thighs actively protects against heart disease and diabetes. UK authors have reviewed the evidence and potential mechanisms for a protective role of gluteofemoral body fat on metabolic health. Recent publications have reported that gluteofemoral fat and a larger hip circumference have been shown to promote health ...

A study by Swedish researchers has revealed that with regular exercise, teenagers genetically predisposed towards obesity can lose weight and keep it off. The study was carried out in ten European countries over 14 months and involved 753 teenagers. The A allele of a gene called FTO (fat mass and obesity associated gene) is known to be linked with high body mass index (BMI), such that possession o ...

Two US studies suggest that performing actions that have a moral implication, whether good or bad, may increase people’s capacity for willpower and physical endurance.  In the first study, participants were given a dollar which they could either keep or donate to charity. They were then asked to hold up a 5lb weight for as long as possible. Those who donated to charity held up the weigh ...

A US study has revealed that people behave in a more ethical manner in an environment that smells clean. The study was designed to test levels of honesty and charity in a group of volunteers who were exposed to citrus-scented window cleaner, compared with a group that was not. All the volunteers were asked to perform the same variety of tasks; some were in rooms sprayed with the cleaning product, ...

The popular belief that anger provokes a rush of blood to the head has been proved by new research. Experiments in an American lab showed that blood flow to the brain increased significantly in people experiencing mental stress. Fifty-eight volunteers, half healthy and half suffering from high blood pressure, were put through a series of tasks designed to cause mental strain, including recalling m ...

Chinese medicine links the health of the bones and the ear via the Kidney organ system. Now Western medicine is making this link. Sufferers of osteoporosis (low bone density) and its preceding condition, osteopaenia, are more likely to also develop vertigo, according to new Korean research. Benign positional vertigo (BPV) can result from ear surgery or head trauma and can be caused by crystals of ...

Psychology researchers have determined that a gene linked with physical pain is also associated with sensitivity to social rejection. The US study indicates that variation in the mu-opioid receptor gene (OPRM1), associated with response to physical pain, is related to how much pain a person feels in response to social rejection. People with a rare form of the gene, who were shown in previous work ...

Breastfeeding a baby can significantly reduce a woman's chances of developing metabolic syndrome, a cluster of risk factors that makes heart disease and diabetes more likely in later life. Previous research has shown that lactating women have improved blood glucose and triglyceride levels shortly after giving birth. The new study suggests that the beneficial effects of breastfeeding are long-lasti ...

People who get divorced or who are widowed are more likely to suffer chronic health problems, even if they go on to remarry. According to an American study of 8,652 people aged between 51 and 61, divorced people have 20% more chronic health conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes or cancer than married people. They are also 23% more likely to suffer from mobility problems. Previous studies hav ...

Drinking coffee when you're drunk won't sober you up. In fact a cup of coffee may make it harder for people to realise they're drunk and therefore more likely to feel competent enough to try potentially dangerous things such as driving while intoxicated. An American laboratory study investigated how alcohol, caffeine or a combination of both affected the ability of mice to negotiate a maze and lea ...

Exposure to phthalate, a toxic chemical used as a plasticiser in a wide variety of personal care products and children's toys might contribute to low birth weight in babies. Low birth weight is the leading cause of death in children under five and is a risk factor for cardiovascular and metabolic disease in adulthood. Phthalate exposure can begin while the foetus is in the womb and has been associ ...

A team of American scientists has reported that regions of the brain involved in emotional regulation are larger in long-term meditators than in non-meditators. The group used high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of 22 participants, all of whom had extensively practiced meditation. They compared the scans with those of age-matched controls. Those who meditated had be ...

People who are prone to anxiety are more likely to develop asthma, according to German investigators. The team used a questionnaire to evaluate tendencies to hysteria, anxiety and depression in 4010 adults without asthma. When they reassessed participants nine years later, they found that those who had high levels of neurosis were three times as likely to have developed asthma as those with low sc ...

Excessive exercise can be as addictive as heroin, according to US scientists, and stopping can lead to withdrawal symptoms. The scientists believe that extreme exercise causes increases in endogenous opioid peptides (endorphins), which act in the brain a manner similar to chronic administration of opiate drugs. The psychologists observed a group of rats, some of which exercised excessively on a wh ...

Canadian psychologists have found that people with low self-esteem can actually feel worse after repeating positive statements about themselves. The researchers asked people with high and low self-esteem to repeat a positive self-statement ("I am a lovable person"). They then measured the participants' moods and their feelings about themselves. The low self-esteem group felt worse afterw ...

Radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation (RF-EMR) in the range emitted by mobile phones can cause damage to human spermatozoa. When an Australian team exposed sperm to RF-EMR they found that their motility and vitality were significantly reduced, while mitochondrial generation of reactive oxygen species and DNA fragmentation were significantly elevated. The researchers conclude that their finding ...

Smoking both tobacco and marijuana increases the risk of developing respiratory symptoms and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Canadian clinicians surveyed a random sample of 878 people aged 40 years or older living in Vancouver about their respiratory history and their history of tobacco and marijuana smoking. Concurrent use of marijuana and tobacco was associated with increased risk ...

Ovulation-inducing drugs may increase the risk of women later developing uterine cancer. Israeli scientists have compared cancer incidence in a group of 15,030 Israeli women 30 years after they gave birth. Of the 567 women who had been given ovulation-inducing fertility drugs, five developed uterine cancer, which is about three times the incidence of members of the group who had not been given the ...

A US-study has suggested that some forms of post-menopausal hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can cause brain areas involved in thinking and memory to shrink slightly. The researchers carried out brain scans on 1,400 women aged 71 to 89 who had taken part in an earlier HRT trial. They found that two key areas of the brain were smaller in women who had taken conjugated equine oestrogen orally than ...

Children who spend more than two hours a day watching TV have double the risk of developing asthma, a UK study has found. 3,000 children were tracked from birth to age 11. Their parents were questioned annually about incidence of wheeze and diagnosed asthma among their children. They were also asked to assess children's television viewing habits from age three-and-a-half onwards. None of the child ...