Is bacon makin’ you manic?
When a reporter asked Oprah Winfrey what makes some celebrities act like jerks, she said, “If you were a jerk before the fame, you just become a jerk with a bigger spotlight. Whoever you are really comes through.” Jerks are like that, and so is jerky — beef jerky that is.
It’s been around for centuries (the Conquistadors called the Incas’ dried, smoked llama “charqui,” from their word “ch’arki”; in North America, it became “jerky”). But lately it’s gotten a bigger spotlight — and what Johns Hopkins researchers have brought into focus will jerk you to attention.
Many processed meats, including most jerky, bacon, hotdogs, salami and sausages, are preserved with nitrates. The Hopkins scientists’ first study with mice found that after a few weeks on a diet laced with added nitrates, the animals developed mania-like hyperactivity. That got the researchers wondering about the chemical’s effect on human behaviour.
So their recent study looked at 1,000 people with and without psychiatric disorders. It showed that over a 10year period, those folks who had been hospitalized for mania were 3.5 times more likely to have eaten cured meats as the group without a psychiatric disorder. One theory: The nitrates alter gut bacteria and that affects neurotransmitters (they’re not just in your brain), leading to changes in mood, perception and behaviour.
We’ve long warned you off processed meat, because studies linked nitrates to some cancers, and the meats’ fat content is heart-stopping. Now, another reason to dodge added nitrates: they’ll jerk your mood around.
Eating too late in the day could up your cancer risk
In a scene from the hit TV show “Mad Men,” Don Draper and Harry Crane go to White Castle for a late-night snack after a Rolling Stones concert. Don watches in disgust as Harry downs 20 sliders and doesn’t save any to bring to his family. “Let them get their own,” Harry says. “You bring home a bag of food and they go at it and there’s nothing left for you? Eat first.” Harry may have thought he was looking out for himself, but he really was doing his kids a favour by preventing them from latenight eating fests, and tanking his health (he consumed about 2,800 calories and 120 grams of fat in that one sitting).
A new study from Barcelona published in the International Journal of Cancer looked at more than 4,000 people and found those who ate their last meal before 9 p.m. (or at least two hours before they went to bed) had a 20 per cent lower risk of breast or prostate cancer.
The researchers think eating late boosts cancer risks because going to sleep soon after eating affects your ability to metabolize food — and that can trigger cancer-promoting inflammation. They also suggest it’s no healthier to eat late and then push your natural bedtime later. Past research has found disruption in circadian rhythm is also linked to a higher risk of cancer.
Research indicates the ideal break between dinner and breakfast may be 13-plus hours.
What a pro’s poop might do for you
Katie Ledecky, Tom Brady, Venus Williams — all amazing athletes. But researchers at Harvard University aren’t interested in studying their performances. Nope. For a current study, what they want is a sample of elite athletes’ poop!
Why? Because they believe that if they can identify the special mix of bacteria living in the guts of top performers, they may be able to make a probiotic pill that will help the average weekend warrior up his or her game. What kind of microbes with superpowers do they think they’ll find? Perhaps ones that convert food to energy quickly, regulate glucose efficiently and reduce excessive inflammatory responses.
That sounds great, but a new analysis uncovers the fact that there’s not much research on the risks associated with taking probiotics. Researchers looked at nearly 400 studies on the effects of probiotics and found nearly onethird didn’t report whether there were harmful side effects. A full 80 per cent didn’t report how many serious adverse events took place. Maybe none did. That’s why, say the researchers, this doesn’t mean probiotics are dangerous, just that we need more information — and people with compromised immune systems should steer clear of them altogether.
The smart move: If you’re healthy and want to take one, look for a probiotic that contains lactobacillus and/or Bifidobacterium strains. They have the most evidence backing them up. And don’t eat saturated fats, added sugars or overly processed foods; they do serious harm to your overall health and those elite gut bacteria that protect your heart, brain, immune system and gastro-system.
It’s all in the music
When Robert Preston (Professor Harold Hill) and Shirley Jones (Marian Paroo) made theatrical/film music history in 1962 with “The Music Man,” it was the most popular feel-good production of its day. That was more than 45 years ago, and today we’re still discovering the power music has to take care of your troubles whether you live “right here in River City” or not.
A new study from MIT and researchers working in Beijing found musical training — specifically piano — improves language-learning skills for children and is possibly more beneficial than offering children extra reading lessons.
Looking at three test groups of 74 kids four to five years old, researchers found giving them piano lessons at the age when they’re developing their vocabulary “uniquely enhanced cortical responses to pitch changes in music and speech ...
[T]he piano group demonstrated unique advantages over the reading and control groups in consonant-based word discrimination.” In short, musical training helped the preschoolers with speech-sound processing.
This follows a report this year in Neuron on a National Institutes of Health/Kennedy Center workshop on Music and the Brain that says musical training in children can foster the development of a variety of nonmusical skills, may have cognitive-sharpening abilities, and could relieve stress and help treat depression. So, to paraphrase Professor Hill — you’ve got “P” and that stands for “Proof.”
But if your child doesn’t care for piano lessons, see what he or she thinks about trying out the trombone (at least you won’t have to listen to 76 of them all at once). Marching bands need them!
How to choose and use your sunscreen
On an episode of “Seinfeld,” Jerry and Newman discover Kramer asleep on the roof, shirtless, on a very sunny day. “Oh man,” Kramer says when they wake him up. “I think I cooked myself.” “Kramer! Look at your skin!” Jerry exclaims. “Oh, stick a fork in me, Jerry. I’m done,” he replies.
Bad sunburns may fuel funny TV scenes, but you know they’re no fun to experience and they can do long-term damage.
A new study out of St. John’s Institute of Dermatology in London offers important info: The thin sheen of sunblock most of you put on provides only about 40 per cent of the cream’s labelled protection, so harmful rays can still damage your skin’s DNA. The rating you see on the bottle is the protection you get when you apply two milligrams of sunscreen on every square centimetre of skin. That turns out to be a pretty thick layer, and most of you don’t use that amount.
From now on, choose a sunscreen with micronized zinc and/or titanium oxide and an SPF of 30 to 50 — and lay it on thick. That gives you the best protection against UVA rays, the kind that penetrate deeper into the skin. Don’t get products with any other chemical sunscreens. Make sure to lather up toddlers. And infants shouldn’t get sunscreen or direct sun.