Posts tagged with 'mortality'
Strength training exercises improve both physical & psychological health
5th May 2019
Poor muscle strength predicts increased vulnerability to both physical & psychological health problems and earlier death, in addition to the contribution of poor aerobic, heart-lung fitness. This is true for both men & women and for all assessed age ranges. Mechanisms underlying these effects are probably multifactorial, including metabolic/biochemical, neurological …
European positive psychology conference: love, national happiness comparison tables, & life satisfaction assessment (2nd post)
3rd July 2014
I wrote yesterday about the two pre-European Conference on Positive Psychology (ECPP) workshops I went to on "Positive supervision" and on "Positive relationships". Then in mid-afternoon on Tuesday, the conference proper began. It was heralded by Taiko drummers and a cluster of brief welcoming speeches. Apparently there are 920 people …
Purpose in life: reduces dementia risk, increases life expectancy, treats depression and builds wellbeing
23rd May 2012
I was struck by a paper published this month in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry - "Effect of purpose in life on the relation between Alzheimer disease pathologic changes on cognitive function in advanced age". The authors wrote "In recent years, systematic examination has shown that purpose in life …
Is short duration sleep a problem or is it just disturbed sleep that leads to increased mortality risk? A personal exploration.
3rd January 2012
It is clear that there is a U-shaped association between sleep duration and mortality, with both short and long sleep linked with increased death rates. This finding is underlined by two major recent research overviews - Gallicchio & Kalesan "Sleep duration and mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis" and Cappuccio …
15 minutes of exercise daily reduces mortality by 14% - and each additional 15 minutes gives 4% additional mortality benefit
21st August 2011
There has been a ripple of media interest - and rightly so - in the recent Lancet article "Minimum amount of physical activity for reduced mortality and extended life expectancy: a prospective cohort study." The article's abstract reads "The health benefits of leisure-time physical activity are well known, but whether …
New meta-analysis tells it like it is: television viewing damages our health
14th July 2011
A new meta-analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association tells it like it is: television viewing damages our health. The paper's title is "Television viewing and risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality" and its abstract reads: "Context: Prolonged television (TV) viewing is the most …
How much should I weigh if I don't want to die early?
8th June 2011
How does my weight affect my risk of dying? One of the best recent research papers to address this question is the 2010 New England Journal of Medicine article "Body-mass index and mortality among 1.46 million white adults". The paper's abstract reads: Background: A high body-mass index (BMI, the weight …
BABCP spring meeting: the conference - an overview & why no uproar (over Ost's findings)?
17th April 2011
So Friday was the "conference proper" - seven talks and a plethora of 'introducers'. Sometimes 'introducers' introducing chair people who then introduced the speakers. What a lot of different faces/different voices. Professor Andrew Steptoe of University College, London, spoke about "Depression, anxiety and physical illness". He talked about the three …
Recent research: six lifestyle & health studies - two on sleep, two on smoking, one on diet & one on weight
13th January 2011
Here are half a dozen recent research papers on lifestyle and health - fuller details, abstracts & links to all studies mentioned are listed further down this post. The first couple are on sleep. I live a pretty healthy life, but I do "short change" myself a bit on sleep …
Strong relationships improve survival as much as quitting smoking
5th September 2010
The August 11th edition of the British Medical Journal reported: "Having strong social relationships seems to have an effect on survival comparable to that of quitting smoking and larger than controlling traditional risk factors, such as obesity or hypertension. A meta-analysis of social relationships and mortality looked at 308,849 participants …