Oh really – retirement and sleep

You have got to admire those researchers, they keep coming up with ‘new’ ideas.  Apparently a new study in the journal Sleep shows that retirement is followed by a sharp decrease in the prevalence of sleep disturbances, particularly in men, management-level workers, employees who reported high psychological job demands, and people who occasionally or consistently worked night shifts.
No, really?  Guess why? Because the researchers have concluded that once you have no work-related stress it means you are likely to sleep better.  Who would have thought it?

Results showed that the odds of having disturbed sleep in the seven years after retirement were 26 percent lower than in the seven years before retiring and the greatest reduction in sleep disturbances was reported by those who had suffered depression or mental fatigue in their work life.
The study involved employees from the French national gas and electricity company, Electricité de France-Gaz de France, and research also indicated that the results were perhaps related to the fact that the participants had enjoyed employment benefits such as guaranteed job stability, a statutory retirement age between 55 and 60 years, and a company-paid pension that was 80 percent of their salary.
Not any more, I suspect and it doesn’t tally with my purely anecdotal research which indicates the opposite. Retirement with its sharp decline in income and adjustment to a different way of life can bring its own stresses.  Those working in a busy environment suddenly find life a little flat, with no one to exchange views with, discuss last night’s match or have their brains stretched solving a problem.
When I was working in my local library I found that the greatest number of books taken out by the elderly. Now although they are great readers, many also told me that they didn’t sleep as much as they used to so had given up trying and took out more books to see them through the night.

Has retirement affected your sleeping habits?

The Microsoft Burger hits Japan

If you own a computer you know that Microsoft has launched their new operating system Windows 7.  Japanese customers are so excited that a special Burger King hamburger is on offer for just 7 days around the launch and selling, not surprisingly, for 777 Yen.

Just a bit of harmless publicity? Well, this seven-decker beefburger clocks in at a staggering 1,000 calories and is five inches high.  Quite how you eat this true whopper is a mystery, to say nothing of the problems you are facing your digestive system with. It is estimated at around five times larger than a typical quarter pounder and environmentalists have estimated that due to the amount of water needed to produce factory beef this giant could have taken 7,000 gallons of water to produce.  AS we are being urged to conserve water by not cleaning our teeth under a running tap it seems somewhat ironic, and even a 7 day promotion seems like 7 days too long for the planet, and your stomach.

Oh really? What to wear in the sun

I love researchers, I really do. They inhabit the world of the bleeding obvious and that which has been known for years, and still get people to pay them to investigate it.

Now if you are planning to jet off for some winter sun I can offer some scientifically validated evidence on what colours your clothing should be to give you the best protection from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays.

Scientists in Spain have reported fabric dyed deep blue or red provide greater UV protection than shades of yellow. Strangely they didn’t test white, which is the colour of choice for those living in the hottest regions of the world such as India. The fact that it also makes you feel cooler has not yet been tested – give them time.

Dinosaurs killed by pigeons?

Well no, not really, but a study by a team of U.S. and Australian researchers has shown that T.rex’s relatives suffered from the potentially life-threatening disease trichomonosis, which is still carried by pigeons today.

Some of the world’s most famous T.rex specimens have holes in the lower jaw, which is a classic symptom of trichomonosis and they occur in exactly the same place as in modern birds with trichomonosis.

Trichomonosis is carried mainly by pigeons these days, but they are generally immune to the disease. Birds of prey are particularly susceptible to trichomonosis if they eat infected pigeons, and I wonder if that is why pigeon pie is no longer a fashionable menu item, except perhaps in Hector Blumenthal’s kitchens?

Oh really? Having enough sleep may reduce mistakes in memory!

We haven’t had one of these for a while but I always like to know that out there somewhere science never sleeps – especially if someone is paying them to research it.

Sleep is the subject here because Kimberley Fenn, a cognitive neuroscientist at Michigan State University, has studied on this and come to the conclusion that having enough sleep may reduce mistakes in memory.

No, really? If you don’t get enough sleep you are not going to be as sharp or able to remember things as well as if you got your full quota – don’t snicker, this lady got a lot of money to research this.

While previous research has shown that sleep improves memory, this study is the first to address errors in memory and although it isn’t known how sleep helps with this that hasn’t deterred Kimberley Fenn as she believes that further research is warranted, and plans to study different population groups, particularly the elderly, as she believes this could potentially improve their quality of life in some way.

Trust me, I do not make this up!

Hard to die from a heart attack today

I have always thought that you have to a touch arrogant to be a consultant, and proof is in this week from Barcelona where the European Society of Cardiology have been meeting. Their President, Roberto Ferrari MD, claimed that adults today can expect to live 10 years longer than the average adult 30 to 40 years ago. Nothing too surprising about that, but he has set the cat among the pigeons by claiming that most of that extra decade resulted from advances in cardiovascular medicine, especially the treatment of heart attacks. Fine if he had left it there, but he went on to say “In cardiology, we have contributed seven of those 10 years of life, while oncologists have contributed 2.4 months,” and we are awaiting a response from the various Cancer Societies in Europe and the USA on that one.

However it might reassure you to know that he is confident that “it is difficult to die from a heart attack today.” Let’s hope his own heart is a strong one or he might keel over from the adverse publicity if he ever did have a heart attack!

How competitive is your nose?

How competitive is your nose? Did you know, and do you care, that when the nose encounters two different scents simultaneously, the brain processes them separately through each nostril in an alternating fashion? This means your nostrils are competitive and act almost as rivals in tracking down different odours. We are indebted to those find fellows at Rice University in Houston for looking at this as part of a psychology study.

They took 12 volunteers and got them to sample smells from two bottles; one contained phenyl ethyl alcohol, which smells like a rose, and the other had n-butanol, which smells like a marker pen. The bottles were fitted with nosepieces so that volunteers could sample both scents simultaneously, one through each nostril. During 20 rounds of sampling, all 12 participants experienced switches between smelling predominantly the rose scent and smelling predominantly the marker scent. In the laboratory setting in which each nostril simultaneously received a different smell, the participants experienced an ‘olfactory illusion,’ so that instead of perceiving a constant mixture of the two smells, they perceive one of the smells, followed by the other, in an alternating fashion. It is as if the nostrils were competing with one another, and although both smells are equally present, the brain attends to predominantly one of them at a time.

This sort of rivalry is not new apparently as our eyes do the same thing. When they simultaneously view two different images, one for each eye, they are seen alternately one at a time. The same goes for your hearing as when alternating tones an octave apart are played out of phase to each ear, most people experience a single tone that goes back and forth.

This research is aimed long term at contributing to the assessment and cure of olfactory disorders in patients and, in particular, the elderly.

Dogs are as intelligent as a 2 year old

I have never met a pet owner yet who isn’t convinced of the intelligence of their own particular love object, whether it’s an Akita or an armadillo, but science has come down on the side of the dog.

Stanley Coren is the canine researcher at the University of British Columbia and presented his findings on “How Dogs Think” at the American Psychological Association’s 117th Annual Convention this month.

Apparently they can also understand more than 150 words (though heel doesn’t seem to be universally obeyed) and can be manipulative enough to intentionally deceive other dogs and people to get treats. Has this man never watched a dog sitting gazing soulfully at its owner during dinner? Did he really need a research project to tell him that?

He is the author of more than a half-dozen popular books on dogs and their behaviour, and his reviews of numerous studies led him to conclude that dogs have the ability to solve complex problems and are more like humans than previously thought.

According to several behavioural measures, Coren says dogs’ mental abilities are close to a child age 2 to 2.5 years. In my experience they are also as stubborn, as the ‘terrible two’s’ but he doesn’t go into that.

Before you enrol Fido in play school, it seems the intelligence of various types of dogs does differ according to breed. It seems there are three types of dog intelligence: instinctive (what the dog is bred to do), adaptive (how well the dog learns from its environment to solve problems) and working and obedience (the equivalent of ‘school learning’).

Who is top dog?

In order of intelligence they are:

** Border collies

** Poodles

** German shepherds

** Golden retrievers

** Dobermans

** Shetland sheepdogs

** Labrador retrievers

Although the average dog can learn 165 words, including signals, the best dogs (those in the top 20 percent of dog intelligence) can learn 250 words. They can also count up to four or five and have a basic understanding of arithmetic and will notice errors in simple computations, such as 1+1=1 or 1+1=3. So no trying to cheat on the dog biscuit allowance or they will report you to Carol Vorderman.

Four studies he examined looked how dogs model the behaviour of humans or other dogs to learn the location of treats or toys, route mapping to find the fastest way to a favourite chair, how to operate mechanisms (which is how they can open the back door) and the meaning of words and symbolic concepts like fetch although ‘no’ doesn’t seem to register too often.

The most amazing characteristic to me is that during play, dogs are capable of deliberately trying to deceive other dogs and people in order to get rewards. Not only capable, but are nearly as successful in deceiving humans as humans are in deceiving dogs.

Remember, it always pays to tell the truth to people, and your pets.

Oh really? Cocaine and heroin can harm the placenta

Prepare, as ever, to be astounded. Apparently cocaine and heroin can harm the placenta as they increase its permeability and so allow it to be passed through to the foetus. Well really, as it’s already well known that babies are born ‘addicted’ from their mothers who have a drug habit I wonder why anyone thought this needed proving? It seems that Antoine Malek from Zurich University Hospital’s Department of Obstetrics, felt the need to prove the obvious – and guess what, he managed it. Let’s be clear here, all drugs potentially could pass into the placenta which is why doctors are careful about what they prescribe to pregnant women and anyone who is a habitual drug user is usually aware of the risks, even if they ignore them or aren’t able to come off the drugs during the pregnancy. Often the solution is to go on methadone as a substitute, but users need to be aware that too much of it can also harm the foetus, and particularly if it is combined with any other drugs.

Losing your job makes you stressed? – Oh really?!

Good old Harvard, just goes to show that even the brightest and best seem to lack common sense. Would you have guessed that losing your job could affect your health? Think I will send them a copy of my ‘How To Cope Successfully With Stress’ book so they can see in black and white the relationship between stress and health.

This particularly researcher has ‘discovered’ that if you lose a job through no fault of your own then you are twice as likely to report developing a new ailment like high blood pressure, diabetes or heart disease over the next year and a half, compared to people who were continuously employed. More interesting to me, is the fact that these US statistics indicated that the risk was just as high for those who found new jobs quickly as it was for those who remained unemployed, leading me to believe their stress levels are just as high perhaps through uncertainty as to whether this job will last or not.

Being unemployed is stressful, and can cause serious physical and emotional responses which all affect health. Good habits like a healthy diet and regular exercise are often abandoned and comfort eating and increased alcohol and tobacco consumption are often evident. Though the research points up the obvious, if it can be leveraged so there is some more focus on the effect of the economic downturn on people’s health as well as the financial aspects then maybe it will be worthwhile.

Next Page »