Here is what I am reading today:
“By knocking down the expression of a protein in rat brains known to stimulate eating, Johns Hopkins researchers say they not only reduced the animals’ calorie intake and weight, but also transformed their fat into a type that burns off more energy. The finding could lead to better obesity treatments for humans, the scientists report.”
“People shop for high status items when they’re feeling low, and they’re more likely to make those expensive purchases on credit, according to a study in the current Social Psychological and Personality Science (published by SAGE).”
“Those who are easily distracted from the task in hand may have “too much brain”. So says Ryota Kanai and his colleagues at University College London, who found larger than average volumes of grey matter in certain brain regions in those whose attention is readily diverted. To investigate distractibility, the team compared the brains of easy and difficult-to-distract individuals.”
“Depression may have an analytical upside. People hospitalized for this mood disorder display a flair for making good choices when many options must be considered one at a time, a new study finds.
Depression may prompt an analytical thinking style suited to solving sequential problems, such as deciding when to stop a house hunt and purchase a property or when to stop playing the field and marry a suitor, say psychologist Bettina von Helversen of the University of Basel in Switzerland and her colleagues.”
“The people we associate with can have a powerful effect on our behavior—for better or for worse. This holds true for human health and body mass, too. The heavier our close friends and family, the heavier we are likely to be.”
4 Comments
noheli20 · May 8, 2011 at 6:31 pm
in the article “Thinking better with depression” i thought this was a rather interesting study, i feel like sometimes we disregard the effects of depression, and no one would really see depression in a positive light, but the fact that people who are depressed think more caustiously before jumping into a decision says to me that perhaps people who are depressed are more realistic, in the idea that they see things for what they are, they never try to sugar coat anything, and they are prepared to see the worst
noheli20 · May 8, 2011 at 7:43 pm
are your friends making you fat?
my grandma always used to tell me ” you are who your friends are” she used to follow that with.. don’t make friends with ugly people because that will rub off on you.. of course she was joking but, i couldnt help but think that this can be applied to being friends with people who are overweight. People create habits for one another, and either those habits can be a positive thing or they can be negative. I imagine the same is true if a person were to have friends that are very active, they would make you want to create a habit of going to the gym with them.
jwestend · May 9, 2011 at 10:10 am
On the “Are your friends making you fat?” and “Turning bad into good, fat that is!” articles.
As someone who has struggled with obesity for the majority of my life, I know how much hard work and dedication it takes to melt the excess pounds off. But it is possible! And I think that the answer to the obesity epidemic is not some miracle drug that rewires our fat cells but lies in real societal change and determination to be healthy by the obese. Our society is not organized to help people lose weight. Americans work too much, eat unhealthy too much, and expect immediate results from the tiny changes they do make, if at all. Only through dedication and a willingness to change your lifestyle and hopefully one day the American lifestyle in general can we expect real improvement.
mdean · May 13, 2011 at 6:37 pm
I really found the article on turning white fat into brown fat and decreasing appetite to be very interesting. As someone who is interested in the medical field, it is impossible to ignore the many health problems that come with obesity. The statistics of obese and overweight Americans is disturbing, so I think the more research we get to try and fight this epidemic, the better. The NPY drug seems great because of its ability to reduce appetite as well as turn fat into brown adipose which is easier to burn and considered “good fat”
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