💪 Best time of day to workout for Fat Loss
A compelling reason to set that alarm clock earlier and hit the gym in the morning
Health Squeeze
September 22, 2023
In This Newsletter
🧠 Don’t face your fears. Contrary to popular belief, a new study suggests an alternative way to better mental health.
⏰ The optimal time of day to workout for weight management.
🦇 This discovery in bats could lead to advances in human health.
Health Q and A
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🧠 Suppress Negative Thoughts To Improve Mental Health
A surprising new study suggests that suppressing negative thoughts may positively impact your mental well-being. This discovery presents an alternative approach to traditional therapeutic methods, often encouraging individuals to confront their fears directly.
Furthermore, it challenges a widely held belief that attempting to suppress negative thoughts could be detrimental to one's mental health.
Conducted by researchers at the University of Cambridge, the study involved 61 participants tasked with listing future events that currently troubled them, while a control group of 59 individuals listed events they felt emotionally neutral about. In an exercise called "suppression training," participants were trained to identify thoughts related to these future events and were taught techniques to prevent themselves from dwelling on them.
The results, published in the journal Science Advances this week, revealed that those who successfully suppressed negative thoughts reported improved mental health. This positive outcome was observed across individuals displaying symptoms of anxiety, depression, or PTSD.
Three months after undergoing the suppression training, most participants reported that the fears they had suppressed were less vivid and caused less anxiety. Consequently, they experienced reduced overall anxiety, fewer negative emotions, and decreased depression.
Remarkably, during the three months between the training and the follow-up assessment, a significant proportion of participants (82%) continued to employ the suppression techniques they had learned. Moreover, 80% of respondents revealed that they had applied these skills to new fears they encountered.
Dr. Zulkayda Mamat, one of the researchers involved in the study, highlighted the overwhelmingly positive feedback from participants. Many individuals found the suppression techniques immensely helpful, with one participant noting how timely the study was, coinciding with a period of heightened negative thoughts, worries, and anxiety during the pandemic.
🏃♂️ Morning Workouts May Be Best for Weight Loss
A new study suggests a compelling reason to set that alarm clock earlier and hit the gym in the morning. The research indicates that exercising in the morning may offer more significant benefits for weight management than working out at other times of the day.
While the debate over the optimal timing for exercise continues, this study points towards the potential advantages of engaging in physical activity between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m.
This conclusion is based on an observational study that explored the exercise habits of 5,285 individuals who participated in the Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 2003 and 2006.
Individuals who engaged in morning exercise exhibited a lower average BMI (27.4) compared to those who worked out in the afternoon (28.4) or evening (28.2). Similarly, the morning exercise group had a smaller average waist circumference, measuring 95.9 centimeters (37.7 inches), compared to 97.9 (38.5 inches) for the afternoon group and 97.3 (38.3 inches) for the evening group.
Even more intriguingly, the researchers noted that the more exercise individuals did per week, the lower their average BMI tended to be. This trend was less pronounced in the afternoon and evening exercise groups.
What sets the morning exercise group apart is that they exercised less in terms of duration and also spent more time in sedentary activities compared to the other groups. Yet, they managed to maintain healthier BMIs and waist sizes.
While morning exercise appears promising for weight management, further research is needed to fully comprehend the underlying mechanisms and to determine whether these findings hold true across diverse populations.
Nonetheless, the study adds weight to the idea that timing might be a critical factor in optimizing exercise's impact on weight and overall health.
🦇 Bats Don’t Get Cancer and Why It Matters to Us
Bats possess remarkable abilities to ward off cancer and combat infections, and scientists may have uncovered the reasons behind their extraordinary resistance.
Rapid evolutionary adaptations in their genetics appear to make bats highly cancer-resistant, according to findings published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution on September 20.
Lead author Armin Scheben, a postdoctoral research fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Woodbury, N.Y., expressed the significance of these discoveries, emphasizing the potential for translating insights from bat biology into our understanding and treatment of aging and diseases like cancer in humans.
Bats stand out among mammals due to their unique attributes: they can fly, enjoy extended lifespans, maintain low cancer rates, and boast robust immune systems. This robust immunity, however, contributes to their role as viral vectors for diseases like COVID-19, as their tolerance to infections makes them ideal hosts for spreading viruses.
The study involved sequencing the genomes of two bat species—the Jamaican fruit bat and the Mesoamerican mustached bat.
A comprehensive comparative genomic analysis encompassing various bat species and other mammals unveiled specific adaptations in bats' DNA repair-related proteins and cancer-suppression proteins.
Astonishingly, bats possessed twice as many of these cancer-related genes compared to other mammals.
These findings make bats a compelling subject for research with potential implications for human health.
Understanding the mechanisms of the bat immune system may help prevent cross-species disease transmission from animals to humans.
Additionally, comparative genetic analyses between bats and more cancer-prone mammals could shed light on the origins of cancer and the intricate links between cancer and the immune system.
📝 Health Snippets
CDC Changing Mask Guidance. Concerns are mounting among nurses, researchers, and workplace safety officers over new guidelines from the CDC that could potentially reduce protection against the coronavirus and other airborne pathogens within hospitals. The CDC's advisory committee has been revising its 2007 infection control standards for hospitals, with a controversial draft suggesting that N95 masks are equivalent to surgical masks in certain scenarios, indicating that surgical masks alone are sufficient when treating patients with common viruses like the seasonal flu.
Artificial Wombs in the Works. FDA advisors are currently deliberating using artificial wombs for extremely premature human infants. The aim is to extend the survival of babies born before 28 weeks, who make up less than 1% of births. Artificial wombs would provide oxygen, nutrients, and hormones, complementing organ development typically occurring in late pregnancy. Despite successful animal trials and interest in human testing, challenges have arisen in various countries regarding artificial placenta technologies.
Pain-Relief Without Opioids. Researchers have made promising discoveries in mice, identifying a new signaling pathway in the brain that alleviates pain, even in opioid-tolerant animals. Published in Neuron in September, their study found that this approach provided pain relief without inducing tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, or activating reward systems, reducing the risk of addiction.
Surge in Syphilis. The United States is witnessing a surge in congenital syphilis cases, with Mississippi experiencing a staggering 1,000% increase in babies born with the infection from 2016 to 2022. The number of infected infants in the state rose from 10 in 2016 to 110 in 2022. Congenital syphilis occurs when an infected mother passes the disease to her unborn child. Congenital syphilis can have devastating consequences, with a 40% mortality rate for infected babies during pregnancy, making early detection and treatment essential.
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