Mindfulness Meditation Offers Real Pain Relief; Not a Placebo Mindfulness meditation, used for pain management in various cultures for centuries, has long been thought to work by activating the placebo response. However, a 2024 study from University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers showed that this appears not to be the case: the practice engages separate neural pathways from the well-documented “placebo effect.”…
Catching Up on Sleep on Weekends Associated With 20% Lower Risk of Heart Disease A study presented at the 2024 European Society of Cardiology meeting examined data from 90,903 adults in the UK Biobank project, a database holding medical and lifestyle records of 500,000 people in the UK. Of these, 19,816 met the criteria for being sleep deprived. Over a follow-up period of 14 years, the…
Work Stress Linked to 97% Increased Risk of Irregular Heart Rhythm (AFib) A 2024 study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that adults in white-collar jobs with high job strain and for whom significant efforts are met with low rewards (such as low salary or recognition) may face a 97% increased risk for developing the irregular heart rhythm condition known as atrial fibrillation…
Psilocybin Causes “Massive Changes” in the Network of Neurons in the Brain A small 2024 study from Washington University School of Medicine revealed huge changes in the brain-network patterns of study participants that took a large dose of psilocybin. The effects were so strong that Shan Siddiqi, psychiatric neuroscientist at Harvard School of Medicine, explained that their neural patterns “resembled those of a different person entirely.” Seven…
Study: Women Who Do Strength Training Live Significantly Longer A new study from Cedars–Sinai and other global researchers (using data from 400,000 people) evaluated the differences in the effects of exercise between men and women. It found that women who do strength training exercises two to three days a week are more likely to live longer and have a 30% lower risk of death from…
Study: Long-Term Success of Weight Loss Drugs Depends on Exercise An important, new study (by the University of Copenhagen, published in The Lancet) of people who used and then quit a weight loss drug revealed that those who exercised while using the drugs kept off far more weight after quitting the medication than people who didn’t work out. Those who had taken the drug without…
