Staying Healthy Archive

News briefs

Here's an idea to make vegetables more enticing: give them names that make them seem indulgent. An observational study published online June 12, 2017, by JAMA Internal Medicine found that diners in a large university cafeteria were more likely to put vegetables on their plates when the foods had less health-conscious names. Each weekday during the fall academic quarter, researchers took a batch of cooked vegetables and labeled them in one of four ways: basic (such as simply "green beans"); healthy restrictive (such as "light 'n' low-carb green beans and shallots"); healthy positive (such as "healthy energy-boosting green beans and shallots"); or indulgent (such as "sweet sizzlin' green beans and crispy shallots"). During the study period, diners usually went for vegetables with less healthy labels: 25% more people chose the indulgent option over basic labeling, 35% more people selected indulgent instead of healthy positive labeling, and 41% more people chose indulgent over healthy restrictive labeling. The indulgent label also led to people piling up to 33% more vegetables on their plates. The study didn't prove that the labels triggered the vegetable selections, and didn't prove that people actually ate their veggies. But the authors say using enticing food names appears to be a simple strategy to promote healthy eating.

News briefs

Need a little motivation to get more active? Owning a dog may help, suggest authors of a small observational study published June 9, 2017, in BMC Public Health. Researchers looked at the self-reported activities of 43 pairs of dog owners and non-owners, all of them ages 65 or older. Three times during the yearlong study, participants wore fitness monitors for a week and noted their activities. Compared with non-owners, dog owners took an extra 2,760 steps per day and got an extra 22 minutes of moderate-intensity walking per day. Scientists didn't notice a difference between the groups when it came to the total amount of time spent sitting. But 22 minutes of daily walking meets the public health guidelines of a minimum 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity activity. If you have trouble with balance or walking, however, owning a dog that can potentially get in your way could be a fall hazard.

Image: © Ljupco/Thinkstock

Scientists used to think that brain connections developed at a rapid pace in the first few years of life, until you reached your mental peak in your early 20s. Your cognitive abilities would level off at around middle age, and then start to gradually decline. We now know this is not true. Instead, scientists now see the brain as continuously changing and developing across the entire life span. There is no period in life when the brain and its functions just hold steady. Some cognitive functions become weaker with age, while others actually improve.

Some brain areas, including the hippocampus, shrink in size. The myelin sheath that surrounds and protects nerve fibers wears down, which can slow the speed of communication between neurons. Some of the receptors on the surface of neurons that enable them to communicate with one another may not function as well as they once did. These changes can affect your ability to encode new information into your memory and retrieve information that's already in storage.

Sleeping less doesn't have to be a consequence of growing older. A few adjustments to your sleep habits can help you sleep longer and better.

 Image: © Wavebreakmedia/Thinkstock

If worries that you're not getting enough sleep are keeping you up at night, it's little wonder. A steady stream of reports has linked inadequate sleep to cognitive decline. Studies have also shown that people with sleep debts accrued by consecutive nights of sleeping too little are at higher risk of cardiovascular disease, depression, diabetes, high blood pressure, and weight gain.

Sleep is essential to good health, and not just because it knits up the raveled sleeve of care. It restores physical and mental performance, immune function, and metabolism. But how much sleep is necessary for those functions? It varies from person to person, says Dr. Elizabeth Klerman, a physiologist and physician at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital who studies sleep.