Health & Fitness

Eight hours is no longer the ideal duration of sleep each night in middle age, according to science. Cambridge University researchers are now recommending people get seven hours — which they say is the sweet spot for general health and warding off dementia. The downgrade comes after studying the sleep pattern of half a million Britons aged 38 to 73. People who got more or less than seven hours per night scored worse in tests for thinking speed, attention span, memory and problem-solving. Until now, getting eight hours of undisrupted sleep was thought to be the Goldilocks zone for sleep, providing the best overall health benefits. But disruption to sleep — which happens to both those who sleep too little and for too long — is associated with a buildup of plaque in the brain — a tell-tale s...

Ever get the feeling you're talking to a brick wall when trying to communicate with your children? Well, a new study suggests there may be some science to it, after finding that teenagers' brains start tuning out their mothers' voices around the age of 13. This is because they no longer find it 'uniquely rewarding', researchers said, and instead tune into unfamiliar voices more. The study by the Stanford School of Medicine used functional MRI brain scans to give the first detailed neurobiological explanation for how teenagers begin to separate from their parents. It suggests that when your teenagers don't seem to hear you, it's not simply that they don't want to clean their room or finish their homework — their brains aren't registering your voice the way they did in pre-teenage years.  ...

Would you do it for money? Twenty-six-year-old Jake Eberts agreed to drink a life-threatening concoction of a cloudy, salty liquid containing Shigella bacteria, which are usually found in the “poop” of people who are infected — all in the name of science. He downed a shot-glass amount of the liquid, knowing it would produce a miserable case of dysentery for the sake of research, he told Insider. Eberts was one of 16 healthy young adults participating in the 11-day inpatient trial at the University of Maryland in an attempt to test the effectiveness of a Shigella vaccine and received a payday in exchange. Eberts said the symptoms from the trial resulted in the “worst eight hours of my life” — but would do it all again, if he was paid. For this trial, the un...

Environment ‘Zoonotic spillovers’ expected to rise with at least 15,000 instances of viruses leaping between species over next 50 years There will be at least 15,000 instances of viruses leaping between species over the next 50 years, with the climate crisis helping fuel a “potentially devastating” spread of disease that will imperil animals and people and risk further pandemics, researchers have warned.As the planet heats up, many animal species will be forced to move into new areas to find suitable conditions. They will bring their parasites and pathogens with them, causing them to spread between species that haven’t interacted before. This will heighten the risk of what is called “zoonotic spillover”, where viruses transfer from animals to people, potentially triggering another pandem...

Agriculture Laborers worked for a month disposing of birds killed in a gruesomely inhumane manner. Then they found they too were disposable Thu 28 Apr 2022 05.00 EDT Labourers at the one of the world’s largest egg factories arrived at the plant in Rembrandt, Iowa, early one morning in March to discover they were about to work themselves out of a job.As they gathered at the huge barns housing stacks of caged hens, the workers were told to forget about their usual routine of collecting eggs and feeding the birds. Overnight, the factory had begun slaughtering more than 5 million chickens using a gruesome killing method after detecting a single case of avian influenza. Even supervisors were assigned to the arduous task of dragging dead hens out of packed cages as Rembrandt Enterprises race...

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! China's health authority said Tuesday that it recorded its first human infection with the H3N8 strain of avian influenza.  In a statement, the National Health Commission (NHC) said the variant was found in a 4-year-old boy from Henan province.  NEARLY 60% OF AMERICANS HAVE BEEN INFECTED BY COVID-19, CDC REPORTS The boy, who lives in the city of Zhumadian, had raised chickens and crows at home.  He showed fever and other symptoms on April 5. according to the NHC, and was admitted to a local medical institution for further treatment five days later. FILE PHOTO: Workers vaccinate chicks with the H9 bird flu vaccine at a farm in Changfeng county, Anhui province, China, April 14, 2013.  (REUTERS/Stringer) The NHC noted that...

Results of a new weight loss study were published this week, leading to headlines proclaiming intermittent fasting "isn't a magic diet trick after all". The researchers aimed to test whether adding a restriction on what time of day you were allowed to eat (or not) to the usual low calorie (or kilojoule) diet led to greater weight loss compared to just following a low calorie diet.   They recruited 139 adults whose average weight was 88 kilograms (194 lbs) and age 32 years. The participants were randomized to follow either the low calorie diet that had reduced their usual daily energy intake by 25 percent, or the same low calorie diet with the addition of a time period during which they were allowed to eat in an eight-hour window between 8am and 4pm each day. This approach is called "...

Over the next 50 years, climate change will drive thousands of viruses to jump from one species of mammal to another, according to a study published in Nature on Thursday. The shuffling of viruses among animals may increase the risk that one will jump into humans and cause a new pandemic, the researchers said. Scientists have long warned that a warming planet may increase the burden of diseases. Malaria, for example, is expected to spread as the mosquitoes that carry it expand their range into warming regions. But climate change might also usher in entirely new diseases, by allowing pathogens to move into new host species. “We know that species are moving, and when they do, they’re going to have these chances to share viruses,” said Colin Carlson, a biologist at Georgetown University and...

Summary: From helping to improve attention and staving off cognitive decline, to improving immune system function, researchers explore the many health benefits tea has to offer. Source: Pollack Communications Leading nutrition scientists from around the world convened yesterday to present the latest evidence supporting the role of tea in promoting optimal health. With new findings from the international scientific community consistently lending credibility to tea’s healthy properties, speakers at the symposium provided a comprehensive update of recent research on the benefits of tea consumption on human health. As the second most consumed beverage in the world next to water, over 159 million Americans are drinking tea on any given day.   “There is a growing body of research from around t...

Summary: Immune system mediated injury rather than the virus entering and killing brain cells may explain why people experience long-term consequences associated with COVID-19 infection. Source: Yale COVID-19 may be primarily a respiratory illness, but its reach extends far beyond the lungs. Since the pandemic’s onset, it has become clear to neurologists that the pervasive disease can impact even our most precious organ—the brain. The neurologic and psychiatric complications of COVID-19 are incredibly diverse and sometimes persist long after patients recover from their initial infections. Studying the mechanisms behind how these complications arise is urgently needed for helping those struggling with lingering symptoms, writes Serena Spudich, MD, Gilbert H. Glaser Professor of Neurology, ...