MATT LISTER
Fitness in focus
With so many life hacks out there, Matt Lister comes up with three that actually have a scientifi c basis
I’ ve been travelling a lot recently, and each airport and plane journey off ers ample time to cram in some essential ( yeah, right) internet scrolling and trawling of endless clickbait columns. There are plenty of ridiculous, troll- worthy “hacks” to be found in every corner of the web, but there are also a few with at least some research to back them up.
MIND YOUR TONGUE
This might sound ridiculous but Nathan Bryan, an assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine, in Texas, says that brushing your tongue for 10 seconds per day allows new “good bacteria” to grow. This in turn facilitates the production of nitric oxide, a molecule that helps to slow ageing, regenerate old cells and keep you looking younger.
WAKE UP — YOU NEED SLEEP
We Brits need to get more kip. According to the Royal Society for Public Health, on average, we’re losing an hour of sleep per night ( of the seven to nine recommended) possibly from binge- watching our favourite series or playing video games late into the night. It may not sound like a lot, but it adds up to an entire night’s sleep each week — more than two weeks a year. A study of 13,000 people in 2017 indicated that poor sleep is associated with forms of heart disease and stroke.
ZERO TO HERO?
Cheat day may not be all that bad for you after all! According to research performed on 200 people at Tottori University in Japan, monosodium glutamate ( MSG), the ingredient found in some Chinese food, could play a role in fi ghting dementia. The additive, also known as E621 and sometimes also found in hot dogs and crisps, has fallen out of favour in the past few decades because of health concerns but now test subjects consuming MSG daily — in dishes such as sweet and sour prawns and chicken chow mein — showed noticeable improvements in memory versus those on an MSG- free diet. It’s thought that about 850,000 people in the UK are living with dementia.