WELLNESS EVIDENCE A new study that tracked 829 teens for sleep time and quality found that a good night’s sleep seems to be crucial for their metabolic health. Shorter sleep time was associated with higher glucose levels, systolic blood pressure and triglycerides and lower HDL cholesterol—all signs of poor metabolic health. While other studies have linked bad sleep with obesity, this study is notable because…
A large new study (analyzing roughly 18,000 people) found that men and women who are more physically fit at midlife have a much lower risk of depression and death from cardiovascular disease later in life. Compared with those in the lowest fitness category, people in the highest were 16 percent less likely to have depression, 61 percent less likely to have cardiovascular illness without depression,…
How Millennials Became the World’s Most Powerful Consumers—Financial Times, June 6, 2018 This Financial Times’ “big read” explains in vivid terms how the biggest global generation (2 billion millennials are coming of age) will upend business from the US to China. Their choices differ markedly from those of their predecessors (the baby boomers). In a nutshell, the millennials don’t want bland, mass-market products shipped from…
A new study from Yale University showed that foods that combine fats and carbs make the brain go haywire, triggering our brain’s rewards center in ways far beyond what people get from foods that contain either ingredient alone. The researchers noted that modern fat + carb foods, such as cheeseburgers, pizza and donuts, befuddle the brain, which evolved when people foraged for food and rarely…
A Stockholm University and Karolinska Institute survey of 38,000 adults shows that people getting five hours of sleep or less a night have a 65 percent higher mortality rate than those that consistently get 6–8. But that weekend sleep-in seems to cancel out the mortality risk: People who only got a few hours of sleep during the week, but then had a regular long weekend…
A new study found that people with a disrupted body clock had higher rates of major depression and more mood instability.
