Wellness

A new review of 45 studies from Imperial College London concludes that eating 90 grams of whole grains a day significantly cuts the risk of cancer, coronary heart disease, respiratory disease, infectious disease and diabetes. Compared with eating no whole grains, it reduced the risk of early death by 17 percent. Current guidelines recommend at least 48 grams of whole grains daily, and a slice of 100-percent whole grain bread contains about 16.

It’s long been proven that meditation calms children, but a new wave of research is measuring its diverse benefits on elementary school children. For instance, a new Korean study showed that eight weeks of a school meditation program led to significantly lower anxiety, stress and cortisol levels.

A new study shows that you can get big benefits from a single minute of intense exercise. Testing out-of-shape men on stationary bicycles, one group did 45 minutes of cycling at a moderate pace (multiple sessions over three weeks), while the other group sprinted all-out in three, 20-second bursts. The surprising finding: both groups had identical gains. Endurance improved 20 percent, and insulin resistance, energy production and oxygen consumption in the muscles all jumped the same amount.

A new meta-analysis of European and North American studies by Oxford University researchers found that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MCBT) was more effective at reducing relapses and recurrences of depression than ongoing antidepressant medication. Also, mindfulness was particularly effective for people with more severe depressive symptoms.

We’ve all seen the studies that show exercise improves mental power in older people. But new research from UCLA is some of the first to track people over a span of several years using brain scans. The findings are crucial in a world where dementia is predicted to triple in the next 35 years. Because, whether you walk, swim, ballroom dance, or even garden (just a few times a week), keeping moving means significantly more gray matter – and 50 percent less risk of experiencing memory decline or Alzheimer’s.

Chronic back pain is an epidemic, and there has been a surge in painkiller prescriptions. But a new study found that mindfulness-based stress reduction (including meditation and yoga) led to a bigger reduction in pain (for 44% of participants) than usual care/painkillers (27% saw meaningful pain reduction). As The Observer put it, “It’s pretty striking to see a journal like JAMA endorsing meditation… considering that not so very long ago it would have been dismissed as woo-woo.”