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Readers response: What seems too expensive but is really worth the price?

We asked our readers what items or experience seem, too expensive but are really worth the price, and the response was overwhelming. Here's what our audience will always justify the price of. Robbie Kirkwood - Travel insurance. Elizabeth Foster - Business class on long haul flights. Jeanette Wallis - Coffee beans. Mandy O'Connor - A good pair of Levi jeans, and a good pair of boots. Pamela McDonald - I would say electricity! Seems lots complain about the cost until you lose power, then you realise how hard life would be without it. Tess Witchell - Real butter! Three ply toilet rolls, frappe iced coffee from McDonald’s, and proper bakery bread. Sue Yunker - Wine! Michael Schulze - A decent cup of coffee. Suzanne Jones - A holiday. Rose Niemack - Fruits and vegetables. Image credits: Shutterstock

Money & Banking

What does a good death look like when you’re really old and ready to go?

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/naomi-richards-182120">Naomi Richards</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-glasgow-1269">University of Glasgow</a> <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/hawaii-legalizes-assisted-suicide_us_5ac6c6f5e4b0337ad1e621fb">Hawaii</a> recently joined the growing number of states and countries where doctor-assisted dying is legal. In these jurisdictions, help to die is rarely extended to those who don’t have a terminal illness. Yet, increasingly, very old people, without a terminal illness, who feel that they have lived too long, are arguing that they also have a right to such assistance. Media coverage of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/09/this-104-year-old-plans-to-die-tomorrow-and-hopes-to-change-views-on-assisted-suicide/?utm_term=.b00a9036f9bc">David Goodall</a>, the 104-year-old Australian scientist who travelled to Switzerland for assisted dying, demonstrates the level of public interest in ethical dilemmas at the <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/361/bmj.k1891.full">extremities of life</a>. Goodall wanted to die because he no longer enjoyed life. Shortly before his death, he told reporters that he spends most of his day just sitting. “What’s the use of that?” he asked. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615002889?via%3Dihub">Research</a> shows that life can be a constant struggle for the very old, with social connections hard to sustain and health increasingly fragile. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25982088">Studies</a> looking specifically at the motivation for assisted dying among the very old show that many feel a deep sense of loneliness, tiredness, an inability to express their individuality by taking part in activities that are important to them, and a hatred of dependency. Of the jurisdictions where assisted dying is legal, some make suffering the determinant (Canada, for example). Others require a prognosis of six months (California, for example). Mainly, though, the focus is on people who have a terminal illness because it is seen as less of an ethical problem to hasten the death of someone who is already dying than someone who is simply tired of life. <h2>Why give precedence to physical suffering?</h2> Assisted dying for people with psychological or existential reasons for wanting to end their life is unlikely to be supported by doctors because it is not objectively verifiable and also potentially remediable. In the Netherlands, despite the legal power to offer assistance where there is no life-limiting illness, doctors are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25693947">seldom convinced</a> of the unbearable nature of non-physical suffering, and so will rarely administer a lethal dose in such cases. Although doctors may look to a physical diagnosis to give them confidence in their decision to hasten a patient’s death, physical symptoms are often not mentioned by the people they are assisting. Instead, the most common reason given by those who have received help to die is <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMms1700606">loss of autonomy</a>. Other common reasons are to avoid burdening others and not being able to enjoy one’s life – the exact same reason given by Goodall. This suggests that requests from people with terminal illness, and from those who are just very old and ready to go, are not as different as both the law – and doctors’ interpretation of the law – claim them to be. <h2>Sympathetic coverage</h2> It seems that the general public does not draw a clear distinction either. Most of the media coverage of Goodall’s journey to Switzerland was sympathetic, to the dismay of <a href="http://www.carenotkilling.org.uk/press-releases/centenarians-assisted-suicide/">opponents</a> of assisted dying. Media reports about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/sep/02/mary-berry-great-british-bake-off-centenarian-assisted-dying">ageing celebrities</a> endorsing assisted dying in cases of both terminal illness and very old age, blur the distinction still further. One of the reasons for this categorical confusion is that, at root, this debate is about what a good death looks like, and this doesn’t rely on prognosis; it relies on <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01459740.2016.1255610">personality</a>. And, it’s worth remembering, the personalities of the very old are as diverse as those of the very young. Discussion of assisted suicide often focuses on concerns that some older people may be exposed to coercion by carers or family members. But older people also play another role in this debate. They make up the rank and file <a href="http://www.ep.liu.se/ej/ijal/2012/v7/i1/a01/ijal12v7i1a01.pdf">activists</a> of the global right-to-die movement. In this conflict of rights, protectionist impulses conflict with these older activists’ demands to die on their own terms and at a time of their own choosing. In light of the <a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/worlds-older-population-grows-dramatically">unprecedented ageing</a> of the world’s population and increasing longevity, it is important to think about what a good death looks like in deep old age. In an era when more jurisdictions are passing laws to permit doctor-assisted dying, the choreographed death of a 104-year-old, who died listening to Ode to Joy after enjoying a last fish supper, starts to look like a socially approved good death.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96589/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/naomi-richards-182120">Naomi Richards</a>, Lecturer in Social Science (End of Life Studies), <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-glasgow-1269">University of Glasgow</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-a-good-death-look-like-when-youre-really-old-and-ready-to-go-96589">original article</a>.

Caring

How are racehorses really treated in the ‘sport of kings’?

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/cathrynne-henshall-572585">Cathrynne Henshall</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> It’s the time of year when shiny horses and colourful clothing fill our screens – the <a href="https://www.racing.com/spring-racing">Spring Racing Carnival</a>, which includes high profile races like The Everest, Melbourne Cup and Cox Plate. It’s also the time of year when questions are asked about the welfare of racehorses that compete in the so-called “<a href="https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/horse/how-we-shaped-horses-how-horses-shaped-us/sport/sport-of-kings#:%7E:text=Thoroughbred%20racing%20began%20around%20300,Asia%2C%20and%20the%20Middle%20East.">sport of kings</a>”. Previously, <a href="https://www.news.com.au/sport/superracing/punters-life/how-many-horses-have-died-in-the-melbourne-cup-the-real-numbers/news-story/5f7e29011a7fbf3da9e0611e902d1ee6">high profile deaths during races</a>, the <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0015622">use of whips</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-17/making-a-killing/6127124">what happens to horses after racing</a> have been the focus of community concern. But recently, as we’ve come to know more about what makes a <a href="https://www.worldhorsewelfare.org/advice/welfare-wednesdays/how-to-provide-a-good-life-for-horses-friends-freedom-and-forage">good life for a horse</a>, questions are being raised about the daily lives of racehorses. Industry participants will point to the <a href="https://www.mamamia.com.au/dont-tell-me-the-horse-racing-industry-doesnt-care/">high level care</a> that racehorses receive – comfortable stables, specially formulated diets, the latest vet treatments and added extras such as massages and swimming sessions. But does this care translate into good welfare? <h2>The theory of ‘telos’</h2> Firstly, a quick primer on the difference between care and welfare. Care includes all the things that make sure racehorses get fit, stay fit and stay healthy. This care helps maximise the chance a horse will win races. Welfare is the animal’s subjective or individual experience of its life – <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33066335/">how it feels</a> – and there are a number of ways to assess this. One way is the concept of “telos”, originally developed by Ancient Greek philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/">Aristotle</a>. Telos is a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10806-012-9422-y">species’ anatomical, physiological, behavioural and cognitive characteristics</a> that have been shaped by millions of years of evolution. Telos helps us to identify what matters to animals – their behavioural, psychological and physiological needs. So to consider if racehorse care actually translates to good welfare, we can assess how closely it provides the animal with the things that matter to them, based on their telos. Equine telos involves living in groups, forming long-lived social relationships, grazing fibrous plants and being on the move for up to 18 hours a day, as well as staying safe by sensing danger and then moving away. It also involves living in variable environments to solve challenges, learn, engage in curiosity and play. Let’s compare that to the daily life of a racehorse. <h2>Movement and feeding</h2> Firstly, the vast majority of racehorses live in stables – sometimes up to 23 hours a day. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17970632/">Multiple studies</a> have found continuous stabling harms horse welfare. Stables significantly restrict opportunities for voluntary movement, and studies show stabled horses spend <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37813129/">the majority of the time inactive</a>. Even though stables house horses communally, most designs limit horses’ opportunities for social interaction. Thirdly, there’s little for a horse to do in a stable other than eat, stand, drink or lie, and they often develop <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34670688/">abnormal behaviours</a> that are associated with stress. These are never seen in free-ranging horses. When racehorses do get to move, they have little say over how far, how fast and for how long they move. The kinds of physical exercise racehorses do are both significantly shorter in duration and at much higher speeds than horses voluntarily choose. It’s those speeds that place them at <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17910268/">risk of suffering a serious injury</a>. What about diet? Although a lot of time and effort is spent ensuring racehorses enjoy high quality diets, they are mostly comprised of concentrated energy sources such as grains, rather the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10135103/">fibre horses evolved to eat</a>. Horses are <a href="https://madbarn.com/slow-feeders-for-horses/#:%7E:text=Horses%20are%20trickle%20feeders%20that,to%2025%20miles%20per%20day.">trickle feeders</a> (grazers), with small stomachs that continuously secrete digestive juices. In the wild, grazing keeps those stomachs full, which prevents the stomach lining from being damaged by digestive acids. In comparison, racehorses often consume their food very quickly – instead of spending up to 75% of their day eating, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780702026348500137">they spend only 33%</a>. This means their stomachs are empty for most of the day, which is why up to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37048517/">65% will get painful gastric ulcers</a>. And having to wait to be fed rather than eating when hungry, as happens in free-ranging horses, <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/3/3/663">can lead to frustration</a>. <h2>Other difficulties</h2> Racehorses <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/does-whipping-hurt-race-horses-20211102-p595br.html">may be whipped</a>, and <a href="https://beva.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2042-3306.1982.tb02389.x">more than 50% </a>will experience some form of musculoskeletal injury during racing, of which between <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/11/2/270">7-49% are fatal</a>. Social relationships, in the limited form possible in a racing stable, are also frequently disrupted because horse populations are highly transient due to spelling, <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-caviars-death-has-prompted-uncomfortable-questions-about-how-champion-mares-spend-their-retirement-237039">retirement</a> or even just going to the races. So even if two horses are able to form a relationship of sorts, chances are one will be taken away. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=henshall+stress+repeated&size=200">Separation distress is a significant stressor</a> for horses. Then there’s the gear that’s used to control them. Horses, like most animal species, escape and avoid painful stimuli. However, in racing (and many other equestrian activties) it is <a href="https://www.racingnsw.com.au/wp-content/uploads/NSWRules.pdf">mandatory to use</a> “bits” to control horses’ behaviour during riding and handling. Bits work by causing uncomfortable pressure and pain and may lead to mouth injuries. Studies have shown many people don’t understand how <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08927936.2023.2166713#abstract">to minimise the harm they can cause</a>. In addition, people also vary widely in their ability to read and <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/9/12/1124">interpret behavioural responses to stress</a>. So, racehorses may be repeatedly exposed to pain from bits and perform a range of behaviours to try to escape that pain, like bolting, mouth opening or head tossing. To remedy this, additional items of restrictive equipment, such as <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34056705/">tongue ties</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/dressing-up-for-melbourne-cup-day-from-a-racehorse-point-of-view-104771">nosebands, lugging bits or bit burs</a> may be used to control the horse. Racehorses frequently show signs of difficulty coping with the stressors of racing life, including “going off their feed”, aggression towards handlers, becoming hard to control when ridden and a range of stress behaviours and health issues, <a href="https://avmajournals.avma.org/downloadpdf/view/journals/javma/260/15/javma.22.08.0358.pdf">such as bleeding from the lungs</a>. <h2>What about welfare?</h2> Racehorse care is often directed towards managing issues that are the direct result of the demands of the racing environment. Fancy stables and aqua sessions are not important to horses, and may even cause harm. What matters to horses are opportunities to make meaningful choices, such as the freedom to move, form friendships and graze for the majority of the day. Current racing industry practices often deny horses the chance to make these choices. There’s no doubt people in racing care deeply about their horses. But to experience good welfare during racing, racehorses need more than just good care.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/240998/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/cathrynne-henshall-572585">Cathrynne Henshall</a>, Post-doctoral Fellow, School of Agricultural, Environmental and Veterinary Sciences, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-are-racehorses-really-treated-in-the-sport-of-kings-240998">original article</a>.

Family & Pets

“Is it really that bad?”: New mum slammed for baby name choice

One woman has taken to social media to explain her dilemma after people around her made her second-guess the name she and her husband chose for their unborn son. The woman shared her situation on Reddit, and explained that the name has a special family significance to her, but so far people around her have absolutely hated it. "My grandpa was my favourite person in the whole world. Growing up, I always loved his name because I thought it was unique and I loved him. I always said if I had a son I would name him after my grandpa," she explained in the post. "Now I'm pregnant, and the very few people I've told the name to HATE IT. The name is Earl. Is it really that bad?" She added that she doesn't want her son to grow up hating his name, but she still wants to use it as it is so special to her. "Few other things: husband is on board and loves it, and it does sound really nice with our last name," she added. Many of the commenters urged her to go with the name if she loves it and to disregard what anyone else says. "This. Is. Your. Baby You don't need to poll the audience or tell anyone the baby's name before he is born. Protect your peace, and Earl's," replied one person. "I love Earl! Easy to say and spell. Uncommon but not made up. The emotional connection is wonderful too!" commented another. "It's a lovely name!!! Don't let other people shame you out of using it because you'll regret listening to them later," a third person assured her. "Earl is dated and country but it's cute and it means something to you and you both love it. It will be fine," another woman said. Some suggested that if she was really struggling with the name after the hate she received, there are other ways to incorporate it. "It's extremely dated but not bad. I personally think it's better as a middle name," replied one person. Image: Shutterstock

Family & Pets

Does eating ham, bacon and beef really increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes?

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/duane-mellor-136502">Duane Mellor</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/aston-university-1107">Aston University</a> That lunchtime staple, the humble ham sandwich, has come in for a bashing in the press recently. According to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/aug/20/two-slices-of-ham-a-day-can-raise-type-2-diabetes-risk-by-15-research-suggests">many</a> <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13761253/Eating-ham-daily-linked-increase-risk-diabetes.html">reports</a>, eating two slices of ham a day can increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. But what’s the science behind these headlines? The research offers a more complex picture. <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(24)00179-7/fulltext">A new study</a> from the University of Cambridge highlighted an association between developing type 2 diabetes and eating processed meat like ham and bacon, and red meat such as beef and lamb. This led to headlines suggesting the risk was mainly linked to <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/21/ham-sandwich-processed-meat-fresh-risk-link-type-2-diabetes/">ham sandwiches</a>. This seems to have come from the <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/red-and-processed-meat-consumption-associated-with-higher-type-2-diabetes-risk">press release</a>, which used ham as the example to quantify the amount of processed meat associated with a 15% increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes over ten years. The research found that this risk was linked to eating an extra 50g of processed meat every day, which happens to equate to two slices of ham. A useful example thus appears to have been taken up by the media as the main cause, perhaps ignoring some of the key messages coming from the study. So, can processed and red meat really increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes? The <a href="https://www.diabetes.org.uk/diabetes-the-basics/types-of-diabetes/type-2/diabetes-risk-factors">biggest risk factors</a> linked to developing type 2 diabetes are being over 40, having family members with type 2 diabetes, being of South Asian or African descent, or having a higher body weight – and especially a larger waist. <figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EsOBcx2bJqU?wmode=transparent&start=0" width="440" height="260" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></figure> The Cambridge study used data from nearly 2 million people from 31 studies. Participants were followed for an average of ten years. During this time, around one in 20 people developed type 2 diabetes. The research suggested that a 10% increase in the probability of developing type 2 diabetes was associated with every 100g of additional red meat eaten daily. Eating half as much extra processed meat every day was linked to an even greater increased risk of developing the disease. This is not the <a href="https://ajcn.nutrition.org/article/S0002-9165(23)66119-2/abstract">first time</a> that both processed and red meats have been linked with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. However, the key strength of the Cambridge study was that it tried to control for many of the other factors linked to the disease, including smoking, having a higher body weight, dietary intake and exercise. However, the size of the increased risk is modest, considering few people included in the study ate 50g or more processed meat per day – meaning moderate ham consumption is likely to have <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9908545/">no meaningful effect</a> on your risk. <h2>What’s the link?</h2> Processed meat has been linked to increased risk of type 2 diabetes because of its nitrate and salt content – additives that are used to cure many processed meats. Nitrates and salt in processed meats have also <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6893523/">been linked to</a> an increased risk of developing colon cancer. In fact, the World Health Organization classifies the additives as <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/cancer-carcinogenicity-of-the-consumption-of-red-meat-and-processed-meat">group 1 carcinogens</a>, which means they can cause a range of cancers. The mechanism linking processed meat to cancer seems to be similar to how it might be linked to type 2 diabetes. During digestion, processed meat produces <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6294997/">N-nitroso chemicals</a>, which can damage cells. This can lead to inflammation and affects how insulin, the hormone that controls blood glucose (sugar), works. This in turn can lead to <a href="https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diabetes/overview/what-is-diabetes/prediabetes-insulin-resistance">insulin resistance</a>, when cells in your muscles, fat and liver don’t respond well to insulin and can’t easily take up glucose from your blood. Red meat, meanwhile, is <a href="https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/healthy-iron-rich-foods">rich in iron</a>. Research suggests that people with <a href="https://www.diabetes.org.uk/diabetes-the-basics/related-conditions/haemochromatosis-diabetes#:%7E:text=So%20a%20rise%20of%20iron,GP%20as%20soon%20as%20possible.">high levels of iron</a> are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes. However, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8744124/#:%7E:text=The%20WHO%20has%20recognised%20iron,being%20affected%20with%20this%20condition.">low levels of iron</a> are more of a health concern for the general population. Another potential link regarding red meat could be the way it is cooked. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5521980/">Previous studies</a> have suggested that charred meat, cooked over an open flame or at high temperature, is also linked to an increased risk of developing <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5911789/">type 2 diabetes</a>. Charring meat leads to formation of toxic chemicals such as <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/pharmacology-toxicology-and-pharmaceutical-science/heterocyclic-amine#:%7E:text=Heterocyclic%20amines%20are%20aromatic%20compounds,of%20reactions%20called%20Maillard%20reactions.">heterocyclic aromatic amines</a> and harmful compounds like <a href="https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/advanced-glycation-end-products">advanced glycation end products</a>, both of which have been linked to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21709297/">insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes</a>. <h2>Bye-bye barbecues and bacon butties?</h2> The key message is reduction, rather than avoidance. The UK government nutritional recommendations offer sound advice: limit your combined intake of red and processed meat to no more than <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-types/meat-nutrition/#:%7E:text=Red%20meat%20and%20processed%20meat&text=If%20you%20currently%20eat%20more,%2C%20veal%2C%20venison%20and%20goat.">an average of 70g per day</a>. But these guidelines also suggest that red meat can be a valuable source of iron. So, if you decide to stop eating red meat, you should eat alternative sources of iron such as beans, lentils, dark green vegetables and fortified cereals. This needs to be done as part of a carefully planned diet. Non-meat sources of iron are more difficult for our bodies to absorb so should be eaten with a source of vitamin C, found in green vegetables and citrus fruit. The best advice to reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes is to maintain a healthy weight – consider losing weight if you have a higher body weight – and be as physically active as possible. A healthy diet should be based on plenty of vegetables, fruit, beans, peas, lentils, nuts and seeds, along with some wholegrain foods, some dairy products, fish and white meat (or vegetarian alternatives) – plus moderate amounts of red meat and minimal processed meat. This will help reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes, <a href="https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/support/healthy-living/healthy-eating">heart disease</a>, and <a href="https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/diet-and-cancer/does-having-a-healthy-diet-reduce-my-risk-of-cancer">many cancers</a> – as well being more <a href="https://www.bda.uk.com/static/539e2268-7991-4d24-b9ee867c1b2808fc/a1283104-a0dd-476b-bda723452ae93870/one%20blue%20dot%20reference%20guide.pdf">environmentally sustainable</a>. But if you have a penchant for ham sandwiches, rest assured you can continue to indulge as an occasional treat. It’s your overall lifestyle and diet that really matter for your health and risk of developing type 2 diabetes.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/237346/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/duane-mellor-136502">Duane Mellor</a>, Visiting Academic, Aston Medical School, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/aston-university-1107">Aston University</a> This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-eating-ham-bacon-and-beef-really-increase-your-risk-of-developing-type-2-diabetes-237346">original article</a>. </div>

Body

All the reasons a cup of coffee really can be good for you

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/justin-stebbing-1405462">Justin Stebbing</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/anglia-ruskin-university-1887">Anglia Ruskin University</a> Consuming too much caffeine is definitely bad for your health, and there may be good reasons why some people want to <a href="https://theconversation.com/caffeine-heres-how-quitting-can-benefit-your-health-220746">quit it altogether</a>. But if you despair at the idea of giving up your morning coffee, fear not. There’s lots of research out there to show that moderate coffee intake is linked with all sorts of benefits. As well as well-known pluses improving heart health, a daily cup of coffee even seems to be good for your brain and may help prevent mental illness. For a start, coffee contains several essential nutrients beneficial to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37764216/">overall health</a>. A typical eight-ounce cup of coffee provides small amounts of B <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8073624/">vitamins</a> – riboflavin, pantothenic acid, thiamine and niacin – as well as minerals <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25415479/">potassium, manganese, and magnesium</a>. The nutrients in coffee can contribute significantly to daily intake when multiple cups are consumed. It’s also rich in <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36361861/">antioxidants</a>. In fact, many people – especially in the west – will probably get more antioxidants from coffee than from fruit and vegetables. So what does drinking coffee actually mean for the body? One of the most <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK209050/">well-known</a> potential benefits of coffee is its ability to <a href="https://theconversation.com/nope-coffee-wont-give-you-extra-energy-itll-just-borrow-a-bit-that-youll-pay-for-later-197897">boost energy levels</a> and improve mental <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5608989/">alertness</a>, especially first thing in the morning or during an afternoon slump. This is primarily due to caffeine, a natural stimulant found in coffee, which blocks the brain’s <a href="https://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-Adenosine.aspx#:%7E:text=In%20the%20brain%20adenosine%20is,the%20brain%20rise%20each%20hour.">inhibitory neurotransmitter adenosine</a>, which promotes sleep and suppresses arousal. This leads to increased neuronal firing and the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1356551/">release</a> of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4462609/">neurotransmitters</a> like <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK223808/">dopamine</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK537259/">norepinephrine</a>, which enhance mood, reaction time and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8202818/">cognitive function</a>. However, sometimes it’s difficult to work out cause and effect here. People drink coffee at work, for example, and in social settings with friends so research has to tease out the effects of the coffee and those of the social aspect of sharing time with friends and colleagues. <figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/I9xzgV7z1Bg?wmode=transparent&start=0" width="440" height="260" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></figure> <h2>Chronic diseases</h2> In the long term, moderate coffee consumption can help reduce your risk of developing a host of chronic diseases. 1. Cardiovascular diseases Moderate coffee consumption is associated with a reduced risk of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10262944/">heart disease and stroke</a>. Studies indicate that drinking one to two cups of coffee daily may lower the risk of heart failure. Additionally, <a href="https://www.acc.org/About-ACC/Press-Releases/2022/03/23/17/55/Good-News-for-Coffee-Lovers-Daily-Coffee-May-Benefit-the-Heart">coffee consumption</a> has been linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular mortality and disease. Interestingly, even when someone has abnormal heart rhythms, <a href="https://www.heart.org/en/news/2024/03/01/can-people-with-an-irregular-heartbeat-drink-coffee">coffee is not harmful</a> according to <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2204737">recent</a> data. 2. Type 2 diabetes Coffee may enhance the body’s ability to process glucose, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0939475321002374">reducing the risk</a> of developing type 2 diabetes. Research has shown that people who consume more coffee have a <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/coffee-s-effect-diabetes">lower likelihood</a> of developing this condition. 3. Liver diseases Coffee seems to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5440772/">help protect</a> the liver appears to have protective. Both regular and decaffeinated coffee have been associated with healthier liver enzyme levels, and coffee drinkers have a <a href="https://britishlivertrust.org.uk/coffee-report/">significantly lower risk</a> of liver cirrhosis and liver cancer. 4. Cancer Coffee consumption has been linked to a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9916720/">reduced risk</a> of several other types of cancer, including colorectal and womb cancers. A systematic review found that high coffee consumption is associated with an 18% lower risk of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5696634/">cancer</a>. 5. Neurodegenerative diseases <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7773776/">Caffeine</a> is associated with a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7353179/">lower risk</a> of developing Parkinson’s disease and may help those with the condition manage their movements better. Additionally, coffee consumption may reduce the risk of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5690364/">Alzheimer’s disease</a> and other forms of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7478584/">dementia</a>. <h2>Mental health</h2> As if the physical benefits aren’t enough, coffee has also been shown to have <a href="https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20230915/moderate-coffee-intake-lowers-risk-of-anxiety--depression">positive</a> effects on <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8467199/">mental health</a>. Studies suggest that coffee drinkers have a lower risk of depression, with some findings indicating a 20% reduced risk of becoming depressed. What’s more, coffee consumption has been associated with a decreased risk of suicide. Research has found that people who drink four or more cups a day are 53% less likely to commit <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23819683/">suicide</a>. <figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/62wEk02YKs0?wmode=transparent&start=0" width="440" height="260" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></figure> <h2>Lifespan</h2> With all these benefits, it’s not surprising that <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2686145">research suggests</a> that coffee drinkers tend to live longer than non-drinkers. A large study involving over 400,000 people found that coffee consumption over a period of 12 to 13 years was linked to a lower risk of death – with the strongest effect observed at four to five cups per day. This longevity <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa1112010">benefit</a> could be due to the cumulative effects of coffee’s protective properties against various diseases. <h2>Moderation required</h2> While coffee offers numerous <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5696634/">health benefits</a>, it is essential to consume it in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5696634/">moderation</a>. It’s also advisable to limit added sugars and creams to avoid unnecessary calorie intake. <a href="https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/caffeine-side-effects">Excessive caffeine</a> intake can lead to negative side effects such as jitteriness, anxiety and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6292246/">sleep disturbances</a>. Some people who are especially sensitive to caffeine may need to limit their coffee intake or avoid it altogether, as even decaffeinated coffee <a href="https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/caffeine-in-decaf">contains caffeine</a>. As with any dietary component, balance is key. By understanding the potential benefits and limitations of coffee, people can make informed decisions about incorporating it into their daily routine. I, for one, will be sticking to my morning cup.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/236852/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/justin-stebbing-1405462">Justin Stebbing</a>, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/anglia-ruskin-university-1887">Anglia Ruskin University</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/all-the-reasons-a-cup-of-coffee-really-can-be-good-for-you-236852">original article</a>. </div>

Body

Is Paris 2024 really achieving its goals for gender equality?

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rachael-jefferson-297850">Rachael Jefferson</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> The <a href="https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024">Paris Olympics</a> has proudly proclaimed to be the first games in 128 years to offer gender equality. This has been achieved by the <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/news/genderequalolympics-paris-2024-making-history-on-the-field-of-play">International Olympic Committee (IOC)</a> providing an equal number of quota places for female and male athletes, while also increasing the number of women in coaching, broadcasting and sport governance roles. However, gender equality in sport is not just about the numbers – it involves dismantling systemic patriarchy piece by piece. <figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uaCIpFiN6us?wmode=transparent&start=0" width="440" height="260" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><figcaption>The Paris games will feature the highest proportion of women in the history of the Olympics.</figcaption></figure> <h2>Female athlete participation</h2> The ratio of female-to-male athlete parity is significant in the Paris Olympics, given <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/28/the-guardian-view-on-women-and-the-olympics-the-athletes-caught-up-now-the-ioc-must">women were banned from the first games in 1896</a> and only permitted to compete in small numbers in “female-appropriate” events four years later. There was a steady increase in female participation as the games became more popular through the 20th century. However, it was not until 1979 that the right of women to participate in sport was formally included in the first international convention (United Nations) on <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/ProfessionalInterest/cedaw.pdf">the elimination of all forms of discrimination</a> against women. It took another 33 years for women to be allowed to <a href="https://library.olympics.com/default/zoom-femme-et-sport.aspx?_lg=en-GB">compete in all events</a> on the Olympic program in 2012. At the Paris Olympics, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1090616/olympics-share-athletes-by-gender-since-1896/">50% of competing athletes are women</a>, and the Australian team has its <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/ministers/the-hon-anika-wells-mp/media/australia-supports-unesco-push-for-gender-equality-in-sport?language=en">highest ever proportion of women (55%)</a>. <h2>Women’s visibility</h2> The IOC has been working hard at shaking off its patriarchal reputation for the past three decades or so. Two major milestones were the establishment of the <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/gender-equality/gender-equality-through-time">Women and Sport Working Group</a> in 1995, and the <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2019/635560/EPRS_BRI(2019)635560_EN.pdf">amending of the Olympic Charter</a> a year later to include advancing women in sport as an Olympic principle. Despite this progress, women’s Olympic events have often been <a href="https://revista-apunts.com/en/media-representation-of-women-athletes-at-the-olympic-games-a-systematic-review/">sidelined by the media</a>, enabling male athletes to enjoy greater publicity (and associated sponsorship) than their female counterparts. The long-established scheduling of events <a href="https://www.jou.ufl.edu/insights/gender-based-sports-coverage-a-quarter-century-of-prime-time-summer-olympics/">offers male athletes peak viewing times</a> across the globe, thereby consigning many women to the margins. In Paris, this <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/news/genderequalolympics-paris-2024-making-history-on-the-field-of-play">gender discrimination</a> has been disrupted to better the balance. Combat and strength sports are now based on weight categories, permitting the women’s and men’s events to alternate instead of having men’s events available in the popular evening slot. The women’s marathon – only introduced to the Olympics in 1984 – will <a href="https://worldathletics.org/news/news/key-information-athletics-paris-2024-olympic-games">also conclude the athletics program</a> instead of the men’s for the first time. <h2>Media representation</h2> Amplifying women’s voices and stories from the games has been a key objective for the Paris Olympics. The IOC has been instrumental in this endeavour via its <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/gender-equality/portrayal-guidelines">2024 Portrayal Guidelines:</a> gender-equal, fair and inclusive representation in sport. These guidelines have led to a large increase in the number of female staff in broadcast roles and production teams in Paris. And <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/news/olympic-broadcasting-more-women-in-key-broadcast-roles-at-paris-2024">female-targeted training camps</a> in 2023 provided by the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) have been a timely institutional transformation. Improved media representation of female athletes is also a priority, focusing on how they are visually captured and presented in all forms of media and communication. This helps to reframe persistent patriarchal narratives about how sportswomen must <a href="https://theconversation.com/uniform-discontent-how-women-athletes-are-taking-control-of-their-sporting-outfits-164946">maintain their femininity</a> to be worthy recipients of the <a href="https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1269&context=grad_rev">male gaze</a>. Regrettably, this is still a work in progress for some commentators such as <a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/business/media/you-know-what-women-are-like-eurosport-commentator-bob-ballard-sacked-for-sexist-remark-after-australias-freestyle-relay-win/news-story/739bc7a0efaf9d7007250ab0c4313f15">Bob Bollard, whose recent sexist “makeup” remark</a> went viral when he was reporting on the gold medal win for the Australian women’s 4x100m freestyle relay team. After the Bollard incident, Yiannis Exarchos, the <a href="https://www.scmp.com/yp/discover/news/sports/article/3272286/paris-olympics-camera-operators-told-avoid-filming-women-sexist-way">OBS chief, swiftly reminded</a> mostly male camera operators to refrain from any sexist filming of female athletes. He said the problem was mainly down to “unconscious bias”, with camera operators and TV editors tending to show more close-up shots of women than men. <h2>Leadership and infrastructure</h2> Female under-representation in the IOC is well documented. There were <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2019/635560/EPRS_BRI(2019)635560_EN.pdf">no women in the IOC from 1896 to 1981</a> before Flor Isava Fonseca (Venezuela) and Pirjo Häggman (Finland) were co-opted as the <a href="https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Documents/Olympic-Movement/Factsheets/Women-in-the-Olympic-Movement.pdf">first two female IOC members in 1981</a>. In the IOC’s most recent election in July, the number of <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/news/ioc-session-in-paris-elects-two-new-vice-presidents-and-eight-ioc-members">female members rose to 42.3%</a> – more than a 100% increase in the past decade. Following a long overdue <a href="https://unwomen.org.au/paris-2024-olympics-a-new-era-for-women-in-sport/">IOC rule change in 2020</a>, the traditional male flag bearer in the Olympics Opening Ceremony was accompanied by a female. Gender issues arise with elite sport coaches too – <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/female-coaches">only 13% of coaches</a> at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics were women. In Paris, it is estimated <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/olympics/2024/07/27/female-coaches-misogyny-olympics-paris-2024-equality-wish/#:%7E:text=At%20the%20Tokyo%20Olympics%20in,10%20coaches%20will%20be%20female.">one in ten coaches are female</a>. Outrage about <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/nikes-olympic-track-womens-uniforms-criticized-athletes-sexism/story?id=109267006">sexist Nike uniforms</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-olympics-and-fifa-are-trying-to-better-support-mum-aletes-what-are-australian-sports-doing-233218">lack of facilities for “mum-aletes”</a> until the 2024 games both highlight the incessant institutional hurdles elite sportswomen encounter. <h2>A new era for female athletes</h2> The Paris games are a springboard for much needed systemic change in the minutiae of Olympic policies and practices. Female athletes are no longer victims of vast patriarchal conspiracies to lock them out of this male-dominated arena. They’ve gained ground and are kicking sexism to the touchline with relish. We all need to welcome in this new era.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/235665/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rachael-jefferson-297850">Rachael Jefferson</a>, Lecturer in Human Movement Studies (Health and PE) and Creative Arts, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-paris-2024-really-achieving-its-goals-for-gender-equality-235665">original article</a>. </div>

Caring

Nude athletes and fights to the death: what really happened at the ancient Olympics

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/konstantine-panegyres-1528527">Konstantine Panegyres</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/the-university-of-melbourne-722">The University of Melbourne</a> The first recorded victor at the Olympics was <a href="https://anastrophe.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/perseus/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekNov21&getid=1&query=Paus.%205.8.8#:%7E:text=This%20I%20can%20prove%3B%20for%20when%20the%20unbroken%20tradition%20of%20the%20Olympiads%20began%20there%20was%20first%20the%20foot%2Drace%2C%20and%20Coroebus%20an%20Elean%20was%20victor.%20There%20is%20no%20statue%20of%20Coroebus%20at%20Olympia%2C%20but%20his%20grave%20is%20on%20the%20borders%20of%20Elis.">Coroebus of Elis</a>. A cook by profession, Coroebus won the event called the “stadion” – a footrace of just under 200 metres, run in a straight line. Coroebus was victorious in the year 776 BC, but this was probably not the year of the first Olympic games. A few ancient writers, such as the historian <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/acl3129.0001.001/320">Aristodemus of Elis</a> (who lived in the 2nd century AD or earlier), <a href="https://www.attalus.org/translate/eusebius2.html#:%7E:text=Aristodemus%20of%20Elis,in%20between%20them.">believed</a> there had been as many as 27 Olympic contests prior to 776 BC, but the results had never been recorded because people before that time did not care about recording the names of the winners. The games were held every four years at <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Olympia-ancient-site-Greece">Olympia</a>, a site in Western Greece that had a famous temple to the god <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zeus">Zeus</a>. The games started in mid-August and were part of a religious festival dedicated to Zeus. <figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VdHHus8IgYA?wmode=transparent&start=25" width="440" height="260" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><figcaption>The Olympics began as part of a religious festival honouring the Greek god Zeus.</figcaption></figure> <h2>Competing for glory</h2> In the early days of the Olympics, there was only one event (the “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/sports/stade-footrace#:%7E:text=ancient%20Olympic%20Games&text=The%20race%2C%20known%20as%20the,the%20diaulos%2C%20roughly%20similar%20to%E2%80%A6">stadion</a>”) and one victor. Over the centuries, other events were added, like chariot races, wrestling, long-distance running and boxing. The Roman emperor <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nero-Roman-emperor">Nero</a> (37-68 AD) even “introduced a musical competition at Olympia”, as the biographer <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780198606413.001.0001/acref-9780198606413-e-6117">Suetonius</a> (1st/2nd century AD) <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL038/1914/volume.xml">informs</a> us. Victors at Olympia won a wreath of wild olive. Unlike today, there were no prizes for second or third. The athlete <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DI%3Aentry+group%3D2%3Aentry%3Diccus-bio-1">Iccus of Tarentum</a>, who lived in the 5th century BC and won victory in the pentathlon at the Olympics of 476 BC, apparently <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL448/1959/volume.xml">said</a> that for him “the prizes meant glory, admiration in his lifetime, and after death an honoured name”. Mostly men competed for the prizes but some women took part. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43610326">Cynisca</a>, daughter of King <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Archidamus-II">Archidamus II of Sparta</a>, was the first woman to achieve an Olympic victory. She got the prize because the horses she trained won the chariot racing event in the year 396 BC, as the traveller <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pausanias-Greek-geographer">Pausanias</a> (2nd century AD) <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL188/1926/volume.xml">writes</a>: <blockquote> Cynisca was exceedingly ambitious to succeed at the Olympic games and was the first woman to breed horses and the first to win an Olympic victory. After Cynisca, other women have won Olympic victories but none of them was more distinguished for their victories than her. </blockquote> But competing in the games could be dangerous. <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100454522">Lucius Annaeus Seneca</a> (c. 50 BC-c. 40 AD) <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL463/1974/volume.xml">describes</a> how a father lost both sons in the “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/sports/pankration">pancration</a>”, a type of combat sport that was a violent mixture of boxing and wrestling: <blockquote> A man trained his two sons as pancratists, and presented them to compete at the Olympic games. They were paired off to fight each other. The youths were both killed together and had divine honours decreed to them. </blockquote> <h2>Going to the games</h2> People travelled far to see the athletes competing in the famous games. The rhetorician <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780198606413.001.0001/acref-9780198606413-e-4094">Menander</a> (3rd/4th century AD) <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL539/2019/volume.xml">said</a> of the Olympic games: “the journey there is very difficult but nevertheless people take the risk”. In 44 BC, the Roman statesman <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cicero">Cicero</a> (106-43 BC) <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=BzJsGtpNTwMC&pg=PA125&dq=%22A+winter+voyage+is+disagreeable,+and+that+is+why+I+asked+you%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjd5ca9m62HAxXKSWwGHf13DPEQ6AF6BAgKEAI#v=onepage&q=%22A%20winter%20voyage%20is%20disagreeable%2C%20and%20that%20is%20why%20I%20asked%20you%22&f=false">wrote</a> a letter to his friend Atticus about planning a trip to Greece to see the games: <blockquote> I should like to know the date of the Olympic games […] of course, as you say, the plan of my trip will depend on chance. </blockquote> Cicero never made it to the Olympics – he was interrupted by other business. If he had gone, the trip would have involved a voyage by sea from Italy to Greece, then a carriage ride to Olympia. Once at Olympia, travellers stayed at lodging houses with other travellers. There they mixed with strangers and made new friends. There is a famous story about what happened when the philosopher <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plato">Plato</a> (428/427-348/347 BC) stayed at Olympia for the games. Plato lived there with others who did not realise he was the celebrated philosopher and he made a good impression on them, as the Roman writer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aelian#:%7E:text=Aelian%20(born%20c.,%22Honey%2Dtongued%22).">Claudius Aelian</a> (2nd/3rd century AD) <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL486/1997/volume.xml">recalled</a>: <blockquote> The strangers were delighted by their chance encounter […] he had behaved towards them with modesty and simplicity and had proved himself able to win the confidence of anyone in his company. </blockquote> Later on, Plato invited his new friends to Athens and they were amazed to find out he was in fact the famous philosopher who was the student of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Socrates">Socrates</a>. It’s unclear how many people actually visited the ancient games each time they were held, although some modern scholars <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/ancient-olympic-games/spectators">think</a> the number could have been as high as 50,000 in some years. <h2>Watching the games</h2> The Greek writer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Chariton-Greek-author">Chariton</a> (1st century AD) in his novel Callirhoe <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL481/1995/volume.xml">wrote</a> how athletes – who had often also made a long journey to get to the games – arrived at Olympia “with an escort of their supporters”. Athletes competed naked, and women were usually not permitted to watch. But there were some exceptions. For example a woman called Pherenice, who lived in the 4th century BC, was permitted to attend the Olympics as a spectator. As Claudius Aelian <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL486/1997/volume.xml">explains</a>: <blockquote> Pherenice brought her son to the Olympic festival to compete. The presiding officials refused to admit her as a spectator but she spoke in public and justified her request by pointing out that her father and three brothers were Olympic victors, and she was bringing a son who was a competitor. She won over the assembly and she attended the Olympic festival. </blockquote> As the contest was held in the middle of summer, it was usually extremely hot. According to Claudius Aelian, some people <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL486/1997/volume.xml">thought</a> watching the Olympics under “the baking heat of the sun” was a “much more severe penalty” than having to do manual labour such as grinding grain. The site at Olympia also had problems with freshwater supply. According to the writer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lucian">Lucian of Samosata</a> (2nd century AD), visitors to the games sometimes <a href="https://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/lucian/peregrinus.htm#:%7E:text=Coming%20at%20last,that%20same%20water!">died of thirst</a>. This problem was fixed when <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Herodes-Atticus">Herodes Atticus</a> built an <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/artifact?name=Olympia%2C+Nymphaeum&object=Building">aqueduct</a> to the site in the middle of the 2nd century AD. The atmosphere of the crowd was electric. The Athenian general and politician <a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Themistocles*.html">Themistocles</a> (6th/5th century BC) apparently <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL486/1997/volume.xml">said</a> the most enjoyable moment of his life was “to see the public at Olympia turning to look at me as I entered the stadium”. They praised him when he visited the games at Olympia because of his recent victory against the Persians at the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Salamis">battle of Salamis</a> (480 BC). When the games were over, winning athletes returned home to a hero’s welcome. According to Claudius Aelian, when the athlete <a href="https://ia801308.us.archive.org/18/items/PWRE09-10/Pauly-Wissowa_V1_1151.png">Dioxippus</a> (4th century BC) <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL486/1997/volume.xml">returned to Athens</a> after being victorious in the pancration at Olympia, “a crowd collected from all directions” in the city to celebrate him. <h2>The end of the ancient games</h2> The Roman historian <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803115406219">Velleius Paterculus</a> (born 20/19 BC) <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL152/1924/volume.xml">called</a> the Olympic games “the most celebrated of all contests in sports”. Current research <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/end-of-greek-athletics-in-late-antiquity/DF60B2B859B4F1A7FE7549B17B61E9A1">suggests</a> the ancient games probably ended in the reign of the Roman emperor Theodosius II (reigned 408-450 AD). There may have been a number of reasons for the demise but some ancient sources specifically <a href="http://ancientolympics.arts.kuleuven.be/sourceEN/D219EN.html#:%7E:text=Scholia%20in%20Lucianum%2041.9.42%2D46%3A%0AThe%20Olympic%20games%20%C3%AF%C2%BF%C2%BD%20existed%20for%20a%20long%20time%20until%20Theodosius%20the%20younger%2C%20who%20was%20the%20son%20of%20Arcadius.%20After%20the%20temple%20of%20Olympian%20Zeus%20had%20been%20burnt%20down%2C%20the%20festival%20of%20the%20Eleans%20and%20Olympic%20contest%20were%20abandoned.">say</a> it was caused by a fire that destroyed the temple of Zeus at Olympia during Theodosius II’s reign: <blockquote> After the temple of Olympian Zeus had been burnt down, the festival of the Eleans and the Olympic contest were abandoned. </blockquote> The Olympics were not revived again until 1896, the year of the first <a href="https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/athens-1896">modern Olympics</a>.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/234912/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/konstantine-panegyres-1528527">Konstantine Panegyres</a>, McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/the-university-of-melbourne-722">The University of Melbourne</a> Image: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/nude-athletes-and-fights-to-the-death-what-really-happened-at-the-ancient-olympics-234912">original article</a>.

International Travel

Cranberry juice really can help with UTIs – and reduce reliance on antibiotics

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/christian-moro-121754">Christian Moro</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/bond-university-863">Bond University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/charlotte-phelps-1187658">Charlotte Phelps</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/bond-university-863">Bond University</a> Cranberry juice has been <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92762/">used medicinally for centuries</a>. Our new research indicates it should be a normal aspect of urinary tract infection (UTI) management today. While some benefits of cranberry compounds for the prevention of UTIs have been suspected for <a href="https://theconversation.com/cranberry-juice-can-prevent-recurrent-utis-but-only-for-some-people-203926">some time</a>, it hasn’t been clear whether the benefits from cranberry juice were simply from drinking <a href="https://bjgp.org/content/70/692/e200">more fluid</a>, or something in the fruit itself. For our <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405456924001226">study</a>, published this week, we combined and collectively assessed 3,091 participants across more than 20 clinical trials. Our analysis indicates that increasing liquids reduces the rate of UTIs compared with no treatment, but cranberry in liquid form is even better at reducing UTIs and antibiotic use. <h2>Are UTIs really that bad?</h2> Urinary tract infections affect more than <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1756287219832172">50% of women</a> and <a href="https://bjgpopen.org/content/bjgpoa/5/2/bjgpopen20X101140.full.pdf">20% of men</a> in their lifetime. Most commonly, UTIs are caused from the bug called Escherichia coli (E.coli). This bug lives harmlessly in our <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK562895/">intestines</a>, but can cause infection in the <a href="http://doi.org/10.33235/anzcj.30.1.4-10">urinary tract</a>. This is why, particularly for women, it is recommended people wipe from front to back after using the toilet. An untreated UTI can move up to the kidneys and cause even more serious illness. Even when not managing infection, many people are anxious about contracting a UTI. Sexually active women, pregnant women and older women may all be at <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK436013/">increased risk</a>. <h2>Why cranberries?</h2> To cause a UTI, the bacteria need to attach to the wall of the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-44916-8">urinary bladder</a>. Increasing fluids helps to flush out bacteria before it attaches (or makes its way up into the bladder). Some beneficial compounds in cranberry, such as <a href="https://www.cochrane.org/CD001321/RENAL_cranberries-preventing-urinary-tract-infections">proanthocyanidins</a> (also called condensed tannins), prevent the bacteria from attaching to the wall itself. While there are treatments, over 90% of the bugs that cause UTIs exhibit some form of <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antimicrobial-resistance">microbial resistance</a>. This suggests that they are rapidly changing and some cases of UTI might be left <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/antibiotic-resistant-utis-are-common-and-other-infections-may-soon-be-resistant-too/">untreatable</a>. <h2>What we found</h2> Our analysis <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405456924001226">showed</a> a 54% lower rate of UTIs from cranberry juice consumption compared to no treatment. This means that significantly fewer participants who regularly consumed cranberry juice (most commonly around 200 millilitres each day) reported having a UTI during the periods assessed in the studies we analysed. Cranberry juice was also linked to a 49% lower rate of antibiotic use than placebo liquid and a 59% lower rate than no treatment, based on analysis of indirect and direct effects across six studies. The use of cranberry compounds, whether in drinks or tablet form, also reduced the prevalence of symptoms associated with UTIs. While some studies we included presented conflicts of interest (such as receiving funding from cranberry companies), we took this “high risk of bias” into account when analysing the data. <h2>So, when can cranberry juice help?</h2> We found three main benefits of cranberry juice for UTIs. 1. Reduced rates of infections Increasing fluids (for example, drinking more water) reduced the prevalence of UTIs, and taking cranberry compounds (such as tablets) was also beneficial. But the most benefits were identified from increasing fluids and taking cranberry compounds at the same time, such as with cranberry juice. 2. Reduced use of antibiotics The data shows cranberry juice lowers the need to use antibiotics by 59%. This was identified as fewer participants in randomised cranberry juice groups required antibiotics. Increasing fluid intake also helped reduce antibiotic use (by 25%). But this was not as useful as increasing fluids at the same time as using cranberry compounds. Cranberry compounds alone (such as tablets without associated increases in fluid intake) did not affect antibiotic use. 3. Reducing symptoms Taking cranberry compounds (in any form, liquid or tablet) reduced the symptoms of UTIs, as measured in the overall data, by more than five times. <h2>Take home advice</h2> While cranberry juice cannot treat a UTI, it can certainly be part of UTI management. If you suspect that you have a UTI, see your GP as soon as possible.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/235314/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/christian-moro-121754">Christian Moro</a>, Associate Professor of Science & Medicine, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/bond-university-863">Bond University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/charlotte-phelps-1187658">Charlotte Phelps</a>, Senior Teaching Fellow, Medical Program, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/bond-university-863">Bond University</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/cranberry-juice-really-can-help-with-utis-and-reduce-reliance-on-antibiotics-235314">original article</a>.

Body

Does screen use really impact our thinking skills? Our analysis suggests it could

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/michoel-moshel-1433565">Michoel Moshel</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/macquarie-university-1174">Macquarie University</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jennifer-batchelor-1485101">Jennifer Batchelor</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/macquarie-university-1174">Macquarie University</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/joanne-bennett-1485102">Joanne Bennett</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/australian-catholic-university-747">Australian Catholic University</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/wayne-warburton-402810">Wayne Warburton</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/macquarie-university-1174">Macquarie University</a> Screens have become seamlessly integrated into our daily lives, serving as indispensable tools for work, education and leisure. But while they enrich our lives in countless ways, we often fail to consider the potential impact of screen time on our cognitive abilities. In a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11065-023-09612-4">new meta-analysis</a> of dozens of earlier studies, we’ve found a clear link between disordered screen use and lower cognitive functioning. The findings suggest we should exercise caution before advocating for more screen time, and before introducing screens into even more aspects of daily life. <h2>Young people’s screen time is increasing</h2> In 2020, a UNSW Gonski Institute for Education report <a href="https://www.gie.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/documents/UNSW%20GIE%20GUD%20Phase%201%20Technical%20Report%20MAR20%20v2.pdf">noted a concerning statistic</a>: about 84% of Australian educators believe digital technologies are distracting in a learning environment. And according to the ABC, a recent Beyond Blue <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-18/mental-health-depression-anxiety-support-coming-for-schools/102831464">survey</a> of Australian teachers identified excessive screen time as the second-most significant challenge for young people, just behind mental health issues. Despite mounting concerns, more than half of Australian schools have embraced a “<a href="https://www.linewize.io/anz/blog/the-rise-of-byod-in-australian-schools">bring your own device</a>” policy. Students are spending more time online than <a href="https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/students-computers-and-learning_9789264239555-en#page46">ever before</a> and starting at increasingly younger ages. A 2021 report by <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/8-18-census-integrated-report-final-web_0.pdf">Common Sense Media</a> estimated tweens spend an average of 5 hours and 33 minutes using screen-based entertainment each day, while teenagers devote a whopping 8 hours and 39 minutes. A surge in screen use has led to some individuals, including children, adolescents and adults, developing screen-related addictions. One example is gaming disorder, for which <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0004867420962851">2–3% of people</a> meet the criteria. <h2>What is ‘disordered screen use’?</h2> The impact of screens on our cognitive abilities – that is, our thinking skills such as attention, memory, language and problem-solving – has sparked much debate. On one hand, some researchers and reporters claim screen use can have negative effects, such as <a href="https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-022-12701-3">health problems</a>, shortened attention <a href="https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/">spans</a> and hindered <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312489265_The_relationship_between_television_exposure_and_children's_cognition_and_behaviour_A_systematic_review">development</a>. On the other, schools are <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/education/tech-takeover-classrooms-crowded-with-digital-devices-20200125-p53ul1.html">increasingly adopting</a> technology to boost student engagement. Tech companies are also marketing their products as tools to help you enhance your problem-solving and memory skills. Our <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11065-023-09612-4">recent study</a> sought to understand the potential cognitive consequences of “disordered screen-related behaviours”. This is a broad category of problematic behaviours that may include screen dependency, and persisting with screen use even when it’s harmful. We conducted a meta-analysis of 34 studies that explored various forms of screen use (including gaming, internet browsing, smartphone use and social media use) and compared the cognitive performance of individuals with disordered screen use to those without it. Our findings paint a concerning picture. <h2>Differences in cognitive function</h2> Across these rigorously peer-reviewed studies, individuals with disordered screen use consistently demonstrated significantly poorer cognitive performance compared to others. The most affected cognitive domain was attention, and specifically sustained attention, which is the ability to maintain focus on an unchanging stimulus for an extended period. The second-most notable difference was in their “executive functioning” – particularly in impulse control, which is the ability to control one’s automatic responses. Interestingly, the type of screen activity didn’t make a difference in the results. The trend also wasn’t confined to children, but was observed across all age groups. <h2>Two ways to interpret the results</h2> Why do people with disordered screen-related behaviours have poorer cognitive functioning? The first explanation is that disordered screen use actually leads to poorer cognitive function, including poorer attention skills (but we’ll need more experimental and longitudinal studies to establish causality). If this is the case, it may be the result of being constantly bombarded by algorithms and features designed to capture our attention. By diverting our focus outward, screen use may weaken one’s intrinsic ability to concentrate over time. Crucially, impaired attention also <a href="https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2006/10/1/article-p77.xml">makes it harder to disengage</a> from addictive behaviours, and would therefore make it harder to recognise when screen use has become a problem. The second explanation is that people who already have poorer cognitive functioning (such as less inhibitory control) are more likely to engage in disordered screen use. This could be a result of the plethora of addictive cues designed to keep us glued to our screens. Being bombarded by these could make it harder to <a href="https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2006/9/4/article-p990.xml">pull the brakes</a> on screen use. Although the literature doesn’t seem to favour this explanation – and does seem to suggest that cognitive functioning is impaired as a result of disordered screen use – it’s still a possibility we can’t rule out. Attention is the bedrock of everyday tasks. People with weakened attention may struggle to keep up in less stimulating environments, such as a static workplace or classroom. They may find themselves turning to a screen as a result. Similarly, people with less inhibitory control would also find it more challenging to moderate their screen use. This could be what drives them towards problematic screen-related behaviours in the first place. <h2>Who should shoulder the responsibility?</h2> Research indicates people with impaired cognitive functioning usually aren’t as well equipped to moderate their own screen time. Many users with disordered screen use are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563220302326?casa_token=BQv_N_MFffYAAAAA:AsGkAfdwXjCZHJB463G40Mx-ckS2Q1c8jSOn2SWR_9iW64eWaQsru1IJAZBDCgSPXwhZ3Qwl">young</a>, with mainly males engaging in internet gaming and mainly females engaging in social media use. Neurodiverse people are <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5587">also at greater risk</a>. Tech companies are driven by the goal of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/18/netflix-competitor-sleep-uber-facebook">capturing our attention</a>. For instance, Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings acknowledged the company’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/18/netflix-competitor-sleep-uber-facebook">most formidable competitor was sleep</a>. At the same time, researchers find themselves struggling to keep up with the pace of technological innovation. A potential path forward is to encourage open-access data policies from tech companies, so researchers can delve deeper into the study of screen use and its effect on individuals. <img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216828/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/michoel-moshel-1433565">Michoel Moshel</a>, PhD/Masters Clinical Neuropsychology Candidate, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/macquarie-university-1174">Macquarie University</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jennifer-batchelor-1485101">Jennifer Batchelor</a>, Associate Professor, School of Psychological Sciences, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/macquarie-university-1174">Macquarie University</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/joanne-bennett-1485102">Joanne Bennett</a>, Lecturer, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/australian-catholic-university-747">Australian Catholic University</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/wayne-warburton-402810">Wayne Warburton</a>, Associate Professor, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/macquarie-university-1174">Macquarie University</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-screen-use-really-impact-our-thinking-skills-our-analysis-suggests-it-could-216828">original article</a>.

Mind

Is it really possible to have Alzheimer’s yet no symptoms?

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/michael-hornberger-1507154">Michael Hornberger</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-east-anglia-1268">University of East Anglia</a> Some people seem to be more <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11003087/#:%7E:text=Some%20individuals%20are%20able%20to,into%20a%20widely%20debated%20concept.">resilient</a> to developing Alzheimer’s diseases, despite having the biological hallmarks of the devastating disease. For obvious reasons, scientists are very interested in studying this special group of people. Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, is thought to start because of a build-up of two proteins in the brain: amyloid and tau. Once these proteins accumulate, for yet-to-be-determined reasons, they become toxic to brain cells (neurons) and these cells start dying. As a result, people develop symptoms such as memory loss because the brain can’t function properly with all these dead neurons. This cascade of events has been known for many years and is how the disease progresses in most people with Alzheimer’s. Most people, except a special group who are more resilient. But why are they resilient? A recent study in the journal <a href="https://actaneurocomms.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40478-024-01760-9">Acta Neuropathologica Communications</a> investigated whether our genes might influence how resilient we are against Alzheimer’s disease symptoms when there are high levels of amyloid in our brain. The scientists conducted a study on the brains of three groups of people. The first group comprised people who had died with Alzheimer’s disease. The second were healthy people who died of natural causes. And the third comprised people who had high levels of Alzheimer’s proteins in the brain but never developed symptoms of the disease during their lifetime – or at least never had a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. The last group, they considered as being resilient to Alzheimer’s disease since they had the proteins in their brains but did not have the symptoms or a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease during their lifetime. The scientists found that genes related to the activity of the immune system seem to have been more active in the Alzheimer’s resilient group. This would make sense as it is well established that the immune system helps clear the excess proteins from the brain, so genes that help this process might make us more resilient to developing symptoms of the disease. <h2>How to become resilient – even if you don’t have the genes</h2> This is great if you have inherited these genes from your parents, but what does it mean for the rest of us who do not have those genes? Is there a way we can make ourselves more resilient to developing Alzheimer’s disease regardless of our genes? “Yes” is the short answer. There is now good scientific evidence that <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-alzheimers-really-be-reversed-as-a-new-documentary-claims-230705">lifestyle changes</a> and drugs allow us to reduce our risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease in the future. In particular, physical activity has been shown to reduce our risk of developing Alzheimer’s, probably because it has a well-known beneficial effect on our immune system and hence helps clear those rogue proteins accumulating in our brains. This means that being more physically active might have the same effect on our Alzheimer’s resilience as those lucky people who have the “right” genes. Interestingly, we do not know how physically active the resilient people in the study were and how this might have influenced their resilience to Alzheimer’s disease. As so often in science, it is not clear whether nature (genes) or nurture (lifestyle) contributed to their resilience. The other interesting aspect is that the resilient people in the study died of another cause than Alzheimer’s disease, but they might have developed Alzheimer’s disease eventually if they had lived longer.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/230334/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/michael-hornberger-1507154">Michael Hornberger</a>, Professor of Applied Dementia Research, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-east-anglia-1268">University of East Anglia</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-it-really-possible-to-have-alzheimers-yet-no-symptoms-230334">original article</a>.

Mind

Poor sleep is really bad for your health. But we found exercise can offset some of these harms

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/bo-huei-huang-1243280">Bo-Huei Huang</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sydney-841">University of Sydney</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/emmanuel-stamatakis-161783">Emmanuel Stamatakis</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sydney-841">University of Sydney</a> Despite the well-known links between poor sleep and poorer health, getting enough good quality sleep has become a luxury in modern society. Many of us struggle to improve our sleep, while amid the COVID pandemic and recurring lock-downs, <a href="https://theconversation.com/were-sleeping-more-in-lockdown-but-the-quality-is-worse-155797">our sleep has deteriorated</a>. But <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2021-104046">our new study</a>, published today in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, bears some encouraging news. We found doing enough physical activity (including exercise such as running or going to the gym) may counter some of the adverse health effects of unhealthy sleep patterns. Let us explain. <h2>Does poor sleep really harm our health?</h2> Unhealthy sleep patterns include: <ul> <li> not sleeping for long enough (less than seven hours per night for adults) </li> <li> sleeping for too long (more than nine hours per night for adults) </li> <li> snoring </li> <li> insomnia </li> <li> being a night owl, also known as “late chronotype”. This is people who naturally feel most awake and motivated in the evening, and are sluggish in the morning. </li> </ul> They are <a href="https://doi.org/10/ggjqrt">all associated</a> with poorer health. Recent research shows poor sleep may: <ul> <li> cause <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41577-019-0190-z">inflammation</a> </li> <li> impair the metabolism of glucose (also known as blood sugar) and reduce the number of calories burned, thereby increasing the risk of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-sleep-is-so-important-for-losing-weight-145058">obesity</a> </li> <li> increase the risk of <a href="https://doi.org/10/gg6x87">heart disease</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10/ggnw5h">premature death</a>. </li> </ul> However, very few studies have examined how sleep and physical activity interact and impact our health. We set out to answer the question: if I have poor sleep but I do quite a lot of physical activity, can that offset some of the harms of my poor sleep in the long-term? Or would this not make any difference? <h2>What did we do?</h2> We analysed the information provided by 380,055 middle-aged adults in the UK Biobank study, recruited between 2006 and 2010. Participants reported their level of physical activity and five aspects of their sleep. We grouped people based on their sleep behaviour into healthy, intermediate or poor. We categorised people’s level of physical activity based on <a href="https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/54/24/1451">the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines</a>. People who met the upper bounds of the guidelines did 300 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity a week, or 150 minutes of vigorous exercise, or a combination of both. Those who met the lower bound did 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a week, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, or a combination. Moderate intensity physical activity usually makes you slightly out of breath if sustained for a few minutes and includes brisk walking or cycling at a leisurely pace. Vigorous exercise usually makes you breath hard and can include running, swimming, and playing sports like tennis, netball, soccer or footy. <figure class="align-center "><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408096/original/file-20210624-15-1qfe1ay.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408096/original/file-20210624-15-1qfe1ay.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408096/original/file-20210624-15-1qfe1ay.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408096/original/file-20210624-15-1qfe1ay.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408096/original/file-20210624-15-1qfe1ay.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408096/original/file-20210624-15-1qfe1ay.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408096/original/file-20210624-15-1qfe1ay.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="" /><figcaption>Doing at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity a week, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, can offset some of the health harms of poor sleep. <a class="source" href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/336656/9789240015128-eng.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">World Health Organization, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO</a></figcaption></figure> <h2>What did we find?</h2> We followed up with the participants after 11 years. By May 2020, 15,503 participants had died, of which 4,095 died from heart disease and 9,064 died from cancer. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2021-104046">We found</a> that, compared to healthy sleepers, people with poor sleep had a 23% higher risk of premature death, a 39% higher risk of dying from heart disease, and a 13% higher risk of dying from cancer. We then compared the data of people who slept well with those who slept poorly, and how much they exercised. We found people who had the highest risk of dying from heart disease and cancer were those who had poor sleep and didn’t meet the WHO physical activity guidelines. On the other hand, those who had poor sleep but did enough physical activity to meet the WHO guidelines didn’t have as high a risk of dying from heart disease or cancer, compared to those who slept poorly and didn’t meet the physical activity guidelines. For example, let’s look at the risk of dying from cancer. Those who had poor sleep and did no physical activity had a 45% higher risk of dying from cancer compared to those who had healthy sleep and exercised a lot. But among those who met the physical activity guidelines, despite poor sleep, they didn’t really have a higher risk of dying from cancer any more. We found physical activity levels which met at least the bottom threshold of the WHO guidelines could reduce or eliminate some of the health harms of poor sleep. So people who did at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise per week were to some extent protected against the detrimental health effects of poor sleep. Those who had both poor sleep and did no moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity had the highest risks of premature death. Our study wasn’t designed to find out how and why physical activity may counteract some of the bad physiological impacts of poor sleep. But other research provides theories. For example, adequate physical activity may <a href="https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000001179">reduce inflammation, help maintain a healthy glucose metabolism</a>, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pcad.2018.07.014">increase the number of calories burned</a>. It’s important to note our study was what’s called an “observational study”. It shows an association between adequate physical activity and reduced harms from poor sleep, but we must be careful in interpreting causation. It can’t conclusively say adequate physical activity causes the reduction of harms from poor sleep, though there’s strong evidence for an association in the right direction. Our study offers a hopeful message, that even if you haven’t been able to improve your sleep, you can still offset some of the health harms by doing enough exercise. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S009174352030339X">Our previous research</a> has also shown physical activity may help improve poor sleep patterns, which are a serious health problem across the world. In addition to combating some of the negative outcomes of poor sleep, physical activity can also provide many other health benefits and extend our lives. For example, a 2019 study found people who met WHO’s physical activity target above <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-019-1339-0">lived three years longer on average</a> than those who didn’t. During lockdowns, access to parks, gyms, and swimming pools might be limited in many places. But there are still many ways to <a href="https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/health-emergencies/coronavirus-covid-19/publications-and-technical-guidance/noncommunicable-diseases/stay-physically-active-during-self-quarantine">to stay fit and active at home during the coronavirus</a>.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163270/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/bo-huei-huang-1243280">Bo-Huei Huang</a>, PhD candidate, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sydney-841">University of Sydney</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/emmanuel-stamatakis-161783">Emmanuel Stamatakis</a>, Professor of Physical Activity, Lifestyle, and Population Health, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sydney-841">University of Sydney</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/poor-sleep-is-really-bad-for-your-health-but-we-found-exercise-can-offset-some-of-these-harms-163270">original article</a>. </div>

Body

How often should you really weigh yourself?

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/nick-fuller-219993">Nick Fuller</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sydney-841">University of Sydney</a> Few topics are more debated in health than the value of the humble bathroom scale. Some experts advocate daily self-weigh-ins to promote accountability for weight management, particularly when we’re following a diet and exercise program to lose weight. Others suggest ditching self-weigh-ins altogether, arguing they can trigger negative <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13679-015-0142-2">psychological responses and unhealthy behaviours</a> when we don’t like, or understand, the number we see on the scale. Many, like me, recommend using scales to weigh yourself weekly, even when we’re not trying to lose weight. Here’s why. <h2>1. Weighing weekly helps you manage your weight</h2> <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2588640/?tool=pmcentrez&report=abstract">Research</a> confirms regular self-weighing is an effective weight loss and management strategy, primarily because it helps increase awareness of our current weight and any changes. A <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2588640/?tool=pmcentrez&report=abstract">systematic review of 12 studies</a> found participants who weighed themselves weekly or daily over several months lost 1–3 BMI (body mass index) units more and regained less weight than participants who didn’t weight themselves frequently. The weight-loss benefit was evident with weekly weighing; there was no added benefit with daily weighing. Self-weigh-ins are an essential tool for weight management as we age. Adults <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23638485/">tend to gain weight</a> progressively <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8363190/">through middle age</a>. While the average weight gain is typically between <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031938414001528">0.5–1kg per year</a>, this modest accumulation of weight can lead to obesity over time. Weekly weighing and keeping track of the results helps avoid unnecessary weight gain. Tracking our weight can also help identify medical issues early. Dramatic changes in weight can be an early sign of some conditions, including problems with our thyroid, digestion and diabetes. <h2>2. Weekly weighing accounts for normal fluctuations</h2> Our body weight can fluctuate within a single day and across the days of the week. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7192384/">Studies</a> show body weight fluctuates by 0.35% within the week and it’s typically higher after the weekend. Daily and day-to-day body weight fluctuations have several causes, many linked to our body’s water content. The more common causes include: The type of food we’ve consumed When we’ve eaten a dinner higher in carbohydrates, we’ll weigh more the next day. This change is a result of our bodies temporarily carrying more water. We <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25911631/">retain 3–4 grams of water</a> per gram of carbohydrate consumed to store the energy we take from carbs. Our water content also increases when we consume <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK50952/">foods higher in salt</a>. Our bodies try to maintain a balance of sodium and water. When the concentration of salt in our bloodstream increases, a mechanism is triggered to restore balance by retaining water to dilute the excess salt. Our food intake Whether it’s 30 grams of nuts or 65 grams of lean meat, everything we eat and drink has weight, which increases our body weight temporarily while we digest and metabolise what we’ve consumed. Our weight also tends to be lower first thing in the morning after our food intake has been restricted overnight and higher in the evening after our daily intake of food and drinks. Exercise If we weigh ourselves at the gym after a workout, there’s a good chance we’ll weigh less due to sweat-induced fluid loss. The amount of water lost varies depending on things like our workout intensity and duration, the temperature and humidity, along with our sweat rate and hydration level. On average, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4993146/">we lose 1 litre of sweat</a> during an hour of <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00421168">moderate-intensity exercise</a>. Hormonal changes <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-energy-levels-to-metabolism-understanding-your-menstrual-cycle-can-be-key-to-achieving-exercise-goals-131561">Fluctuations in hormones</a> within your menstrual cycle can also affect fluid balance. Women may experience <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3154522/">fluid retention</a> and temporarily gain 0.5–2kg of weight at this time. Specifically, the luteal phase, which represents the second half of a woman’s cycle, results in a shift of fluid from your blood plasma to your cells, and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3154522/">bloating</a>. Bowel movements Going to the bathroom can lead to small but immediate weight loss as waste is eliminated from the body. While the amount lost will vary, we generally eliminate <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1333426/">around 100 grams of weight</a> through our daily bowel movements. All of these fluctuations are normal, and they’re not indicative of significant changes in our body fat or muscle mass. However, seeing these fluctuations can lead to unnecessary stress and a fixation with our weight. <h2>3. Weekly weighing avoids scale obsession and weight-loss sabotage</h2> Weighing too frequently can create an obsession with the number on the scales and do more harm than good. Often, our reaction when we see this number not moving in the direction we want or expect is to further restrict our food intake or embark on fad dieting. Along with not being enjoyable or sustainable, fad diets also ultimately increase our weight gain rather than reversing it. This was confirmed in a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21829159/">long-term study</a> comparing intentional weight loss among more than 4,000 twins. The researchers found the likelihood of becoming overweight by the age of 25 was significantly greater for a twin who dieted to lose 5kg or more. This suggests frequent dieting makes us more susceptible to weight gain and prone to future weight gain. <h2>So what should you do?</h2> Weighing ourselves weekly gives a more accurate measure of our weight trends over time. Aim to weigh yourself on the same day, at the same time and in the same environment each week – for example, first thing every Friday morning when you’re getting ready to take a shower, after you’ve gone to the bathroom, but before you’ve drunk or eaten anything. Use the best quality scales you can afford. Change the batteries regularly and check their accuracy by using a “known” weight – for example, a 10kg weight plate. Place the “known” weight on the scale and check the measurement aligns with the “known” weight. Remember, the number on the scale is just one part of health and weight management. Focusing solely on it can overshadow other indicators, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-you-be-overweight-and-healthy-182219">how your clothes fit</a>. It’s also essential to pay equal attention to how we’re feeling, physically and emotionally. Stop weighing yourself – at any time interval – if it’s triggering anxiety or stress, and get in touch with a health-care professional to discuss this. <hr /> At the Boden Group, Charles Perkins Centre, we are studying the science of obesity and running clinical trials for weight loss. You can <a href="https://redcap.sydney.edu.au/surveys/?s=RKTXPPPHKY">register here</a> to express your interest.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223864/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/nick-fuller-219993">Nick Fuller</a>, Charles Perkins Centre Research Program Leader, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sydney-841">University of Sydney</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-often-should-you-really-weigh-yourself-223864">original article</a>.

Body

Wellness is not women’s friend. It’s a distraction from what really ails us

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kate-seers-1131296">Kate Seers</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rachel-hogg-321332">Rachel Hogg</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> Wellness is mainly marketed to women. We’re encouraged to eat clean, take <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CYqaatWPxvy/">personal responsibility</a> for our well-being, happiness and life. These are the hallmarks of a strong, independent woman in 2022. But on the eve of International Women’s Day, let’s look closer at this <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-neoliberalism-colonised-feminism-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-94856">neoliberal feminist</a> notion of wellness and personal responsibility – the idea women’s health and well-being depends on our individual choices. We argue wellness is not concerned with actual well-being, whatever wellness “guru” and businesswoman Gwyneth Paltrow <a href="https://goop.com/wellness/">suggests</a>, or influencers say on Instagram. Wellness is an industry. It’s also a seductive distraction from what’s really impacting women’s lives. It glosses over the structural issues undermining women’s well-being. These issues cannot be fixed by drinking a turmeric latte or #livingyourbestlife. <h2>What is wellness?</h2> Wellness <a href="https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/press-room/statistics-and-facts/">is an</a> unregulated US$4.4 trillion global industry due to reach almost $7 trillion by 2025. It promotes self-help, self-care, fitness, nutrition and spiritual practice. It <a href="https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/what-is-wellness/">encourages</a> good choices, intentions and actions. Wellness is alluring because it feels empowering. Women are left with a sense of control over their lives. It is particularly alluring in times of great uncertainty and limited personal control. These might be during a relationship break up, when facing financial instability, workplace discrimination or a global pandemic. But wellness is not all it seems. <h2>Wellness blames women</h2> Wellness implies women are flawed and need to be fixed. It demands women resolve their psychological distress, improve their lives and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1360780418769673?journalCode=sroa">bounce back from adversity</a>, regardless of personal circumstances. Self-responsibility, self-empowerment and self-optimisation underpin how women are expected to think and behave. As such, wellness <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CZs2iIxrSwb/">patronises women</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CT3bw_Yhsp6/">micro-manages their daily schedules</a> with journaling, skin care routines, 30-day challenges, meditations, burning candles, yoga and lemon water. Wellness encourages women to improve their appearance through diet and exercise, manage <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CZ7IO7qJHZ_/">their surroundings</a>, <a href="https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5489-female-leadership-advice.html">performance at work</a> and their capacity to <a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/covid-19/working-women-balance">juggle the elusive work-life balance</a> as well as <a href="https://medium.com/authority-magazine/having-a-positive-mental-attitude-and-thinking-process-is-a-successful-key-to-healthy-wellbeing-ae11e303969c">their emotional responses</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/planning-stress-and-worry-put-the-mental-load-on-mothers-will-2022-be-the-year-they-share-the-burden-172599">to these pressures</a>. They do this with support from costly life coaches, psychotherapists and self-help guides. Wellness demands women <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CaFc2o7OHSf/">focus on their body</a>, with one’s body a measure of their commitment to the task of wellness. Yet this ignores how much these choices and actions cost. Newsreader and journalist Tracey Spicer <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CaDh28nBp4k/">says</a> she has spent more than A$100,000 over the past 35 years for her hair to “look acceptable” at work. Wellness keeps women <a href="https://www.hercampus.com/school/bu/the-male-gazes-effect-from-beauty-ideals-to-mental-health/">focused on their appearance</a> and keeps them spending. It’s also <a href="https://medium.com/artfullyautistic/the-dark-reality-of-wellness-culture-and-ableism-307307fcdafb">ableist</a>, <a href="https://www.byrdie.com/wellness-industry-whitewashing-5074880">racist</a>, <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2020/07/16/tools-of-the-patriarchy-diet-culture-and-how-we-all-perpetuate-the-stigma/">sexist</a>, <a href="https://www.self.com/topic/anti-aging">ageist</a> and <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/422517/the-pursuit-of-wellness-wellness-is-for-the-wealthy">classist</a>. It’s aimed at an ideal of young women, thin, white, middle-class and able-bodied. <h2>But we can’t live up to these ideals</h2> Wellness assumes women have equal access to time, energy and money to meet these ideals. If you don’t, “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/08/the-self-help-cult-of-resilience-teaches-australians-nothing">you’re just not trying hard enough</a>”. Wellness also <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1360780418769673?journalCode=sroa">implores women</a> to be “adaptable and positive”. If an individual’s #positivevibes and wellness are seen as <a href="https://ideas.ted.com/why-we-should-say-no-to-positivity-and-yes-to-our-negative-emotions/">morally good</a>, then it becomes morally necessary for women to engage in behaviours framed as “investments” or “self-care”. For those who do not achieve self-optimisation (hint: most of us) this is a personal, shameful failing. <h2>Wellness distracts us</h2> When women believe they are to blame for their circumstances, it hides structural and cultural inequities. Rather than questioning the culture that marginalises women and produces feelings of doubt and inadequacy, wellness provides solutions in the form of superficial empowerment, confidence and resilience. Women don’t need wellness. They are unsafe. <a href="https://www.ourwatch.org.au/quick-facts/">Women are</a> <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/personal-safety-australia/latest-release">more likely</a> to be murdered by a current or former intimate partner, with reports of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-governments-can-do-about-the-increase-in-family-violence-due-to-coronavirus-135674">pandemic increasing</a> the risk and severity of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/dec/01/the-worst-year-domestic-violence-soars-in-australia-during-covid-19">domestic violence</a>. Women are more likely to be employed in unstable <a href="https://lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/april-2020/Pandemics-economic-blow-hits-women-hard">casualised labour, and experience economic hardship and poverty</a>. Women are also bearing the brunt <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/womens-work/">of the economic fallout from COVID</a>. Women are more likely to be juggling a career with <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n1972">unpaid domestic duties</a> and more likely <a href="https://www.mercyfoundation.com.au/our-focus/ending-homelessness/older-women-and-homelessness/">to be homeless</a> as they near retirement age. In their book <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/confidence-culture#:%7E:text=They%20argue%20that%20while%20confidence,responsible%20for%20their%20own%20conditions.">Confidence Culture</a> UK scholars Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill argue hashtags such as #loveyourbody and #believeinyourself imply psychological blocks, rather than entrenched social injustices, are what hold women back. <h2>What we should be doing instead</h2> Wellness, with its self-help rhetoric, <a href="http://www.consultmcgregor.com/documents/research/neoliberalism_and_health_care.pdf">absolves the government</a> of responsibility to provide transformative and effectual action that ensures women are safe, delivered justice, and treated with respect and dignity. Structural inequity was not created by an individual, and it will not be solved by an individual. So this International Women’s Day, try to resist the neoliberal requirement to take personal responsibility for your wellness. Lobby governments to address structural inequities instead. <a href="https://www.mindful.org/why-women-should-embrace-their-anger/">Follow your anger</a>, not your bliss, call out injustices when you can. And in the words of sexual assault survivor and advocate Grace Tame, “make some noise”. <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kate-seers-1131296">Kate Seers</a>, PhD Candidate, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rachel-hogg-321332">Rachel Hogg</a>, Lecturer in Psychology, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/wellness-is-not-womens-friend-its-a-distraction-from-what-really-ails-us-177446">original article</a>.

Mind

‘Sleeping on it’ really does help and four other recent sleep research breakthroughs

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/dan-denis-158199">Dan Denis</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-york-1344">University of York</a> Twenty-six years. That is roughly <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34624-8">how much of our lives</a> are spent asleep. Scientists have been trying to explain why we spend so much time sleeping since at least the <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/alcmaeon/">ancient Greeks</a>, but pinning down the exact functions of sleep has proven to be difficult. During the past decade, there has been a surge of interest from researchers in the nature and function of sleep. New experimental models coupled with advances in technology and analytical techniques are giving us a deeper look inside the sleeping brain. Here are some of the biggest recent breakthroughs in the science of sleep. <h2>1. We know more about lucid dreaming</h2> No longer on the fringes, the neuroscientific study of dreaming has now become mainstream. US researchers in a 2017 study woke their participants up at regular intervals during the night and asked them what was going through their minds prior to the alarm call. Sometimes participants couldn’t recall any dreaming. The study team then looked at what was <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.4545">happening in the participant’s brain</a> moments before waking. Participants’ recall of dream content was associated with increased activity in the posterior hot zone, an area of the brain closely <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05097-x">linked to conscious awareness</a>. Researchers could predict the presence or absence of dream experiences by monitoring this zone in real time. Another exciting development in the study of dreams is research into lucid dreams, in which <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-ability-to-control-dreams-may-help-us-unravel-the-mystery-of-consciousness-52394">you are aware that</a> you are dreaming. A 2021 study established <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00059-2?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982221000592%3Fshowall%3Dtrue">two-way communication</a> between a dreamer and a researcher. In this experiment, participants signalled to the researcher that they were dreaming by moving their eyes in a pre-agreed pattern. The researcher read out maths problems (what is eight minus six?). The dreamer could respond to this question with eye movements. The dreamers were accurate, indicating they had access to high level cognitive functions. The researchers used <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/polysomnography/about/pac-20394877">polysomnography</a>, which monitors bodily functions such as breathing and brain activity during sleep, to confirm that participants were asleep. These discoveries have dream researchers excited about the future of “interactive dreaming”, such as practising a skill or solving a problem in our dreams. <h2>2. Our brain replays memories while we sleep</h2> This year marks the centenary of the first demonstration that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1414040?origin=crossref">sleep improves our memory</a>. However, a 2023 review of recent research has shown that memories formed during the day <a href="https://portlandpress.com/emergtoplifesci/article/7/5/487/233796/Neural-reactivation-during-human-sleep">get reactivated</a> while we are sleeping. Researchers discovered this using machine learning techniques to “decode” the contents of the sleeping brain. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24357-5">A 2021 study</a> found that training algorithms to distinguish between different memories while awake makes it possible to see the same neural patterns re-emerge in the sleeping brain. A different study, also in 2021, found that the more times these patterns re-emerge during sleep, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-23520-2">the bigger the benefit</a> to memory. In other approaches, scientists have been able to reactivate certain memories by <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)31035-8?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982219310358%3Fshowall%3Dtrue">replaying sounds</a> associated with the memory in question while the participant was asleep. A <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7144680/">2020 meta-analysis of 91 experiments</a> found that when participants’ memory was tested after sleep they remembered more of the stimuli whose sounds were played back during sleep, compared with control stimuli whose sounds were not replayed. Research has also shown that sleep strengthens memory for the <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2202657119">most important aspects</a> of an experience, restructures our memories to form <a href="https://www.jneurosci.org/content/40/9/1909">more cohesive narratives</a> and helps us come up with <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797619873344">solutions to problems</a> we are stuck on. Science is showing that sleeping on it really does help. <h2>3. Sleep keeps our minds healthy</h2> We all know that a lack of sleep makes us feel bad. Laboratory sleep deprivation studies, where researchers keep willing participants awake throughout the night, have been combined with <a href="https://www.open.edu/openlearn/body-mind/health/health-sciences/how-fmri-works">functional MRI brain scans</a> to paint a detailed picture of the sleep-deprived brain. These studies have shown that a lack of sleep severely disrupts the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2017.55">connectivity between</a> different brain networks. These changes include a breakdown of connectivity between brain regions <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11682-018-9868-2">responsible for cognitive control</a>, and an amplification of those involved in <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)30761-4?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982219307614%3Fshowall%3Dtrue">threat and emotional processing</a>. The consequence of this is that the sleep-deprived brain is worse at <a href="https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/33/5/1610/6573958">learning new information</a>, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article/44/6/zsaa289/6053003">poorer at regulating emotions</a>, and unable to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2167702620951511">suppress intrusive thoughts</a>. Sleep loss may even make you less likely to <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001733">help other people</a>. These findings may explain why poor sleep quality is so <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsr.13930">ubiquitous in poor mental health</a>. <h2>4. Sleep protects us against neurodegenerative diseases</h2> Although we naturally <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34624-8">sleep less as we age</a>, mounting evidence suggests that sleep problems earlier in life <a href="https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/91/3/236">increase the risk</a> of dementia. The build-up of β-amyloid, a <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/alzheimers-disease/causes/">metabolic waste product</a>, is one of the mechanisms underlying Alzheimer’s disease. Recently, it has become apparent that deep, undisturbed sleep is good for <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aav5447">flushing these toxins</a> out of the brain. Sleep deprivation increases the the rate of build-up of β-amyloid in parts of the brain involved in memory, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1721694115">such as the hippocampus</a>. A longitudinal study published in 2020 found that sleep problems were associated with a higher rate of β-amyloid accumulation at a follow-up <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)31171-4?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982220311714%3Fshowall%3Dtrue">four years later</a>. In a different study, published in 2022, sleep parameters <a href="https://elifesciences.org/articles/78191">forecasted the rate</a> of cognitive decline in participants over the following two years. <h2>5. We can engineer sleep</h2> The good news is that research is developing treatments to get a better night’s sleep and boost its benefits. For example, the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsr.14035">European Sleep Research Society</a> and the <a href="https://jcsm.aasm.org/doi/10.5664/jcsm.8986">American Academy of Sleep Medicine</a> recommend cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). <a href="https://www.cntw.nhs.uk/services/nctalkingtherapies/what-do-nc-talking-therapies-offer/cbt-i-cbt-for-insomnia/">CBT-I works by</a> identifying thoughts, feelings and behaviour that contribute to insomnia, which can then be modified to help promote sleep. In 2022, a CBT-I app became the <a href="https://www.nice.org.uk/news/article/nice-recommends-offering-app-based-treatment-for-people-with-insomnia-instead-of-sleeping-pills">first digital therapy</a> recommended by England’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence for treatment on the NHS. These interventions can improve other aspects of our lives as well. A <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1087079221001416?via%3Dihub">2021 meta-analysis</a> of 65 clinical trials found that improving sleep via CBT-I reduced symptoms of depression, anxiety, rumination and stress.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/230484/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/dan-denis-158199">Dan Denis</a>, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Senior Research Fellow, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-york-1344">University of York</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/sleeping-on-it-really-does-help-and-four-other-recent-sleep-research-breakthroughs-230484">original article</a>.

Body

Who really was Mona Lisa? More than 500 years on, there’s good reason to think we got it wrong

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/darius-von-guttner-sporzynski-112147">Darius von Guttner Sporzynski</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/australian-catholic-university-747">Australian Catholic University</a> In the pantheon of Renaissance art, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa stands as an unrivalled icon. This half-length portrait is more than just an artistic masterpiece; it embodies the allure of an era marked by unparalleled cultural flourishing. Yet, beneath the surface of the Mona Lisa’s elusive smile lies a debate that touches the very essence of the Renaissance, its politics and the role of women in history. <h2>A mystery woman</h2> The intrigue of the Mona Lisa, also known as <a href="https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/4207/1/Zoellner_Leonardos_portrait_of_Mona_Lisa_1993.pdf">La Gioconda</a>, isn’t solely due to Leonardo’s revolutionary painting techniques. It’s also because the identity of the subject is unconfirmed to this day. More than half a millennium since it was first painted, the real identity of the Mona Lisa remains one of art’s greatest mysteries, intriguing scholars and enthusiasts alike. The painting has traditionally been associated with Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. But another compelling theory suggests a different sitter: Isabella of Aragon. Isabella of Aragon was born into the illustrious House of Aragon in Naples, in 1470. She was a princess who was deeply entwined in the political and cultural fabric of the Renaissance. Her 1490 marriage to Gian Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan, positioned Isabella at the heart of Italian politics. And this role was both complicated and elevated by the ambitions and machinations of Ludovico Sforza (also called Ludovico il Moro), her husband’s uncle and usurper of the Milanese dukedom. <h2>Scholarly perspectives</h2> The theory that Isabella is the real Mona Lisa is supported by a combination of stylistic analyses, historical connections and reinterpretations of Leonardo’s intent as an artist. In his <a href="https://www.bookstellyouwhy.com/pages/books/51791/robert-payne/leonardo-1st-edition-1st-printing">biography of Leonardo</a>, author Robert Payne points to <a href="https://emuseum.hydecollection.org/objects/94/study-of-the-mona-lisa?ctx=760b87fd-efbf-4468-b579-42f98e9712d2&idx=0">preliminary studies</a> by the artist that bear a striking resemblances to Isabella around age 20. Payne suggests Leonardo captured Isabella <a href="https://emuseum.hydecollection.org/objects/94/study-of-the-mona-lisa?ctx=760b87fd-efbf-4468-b579-42f98e9712d2&idx=0">across different life stages</a>, including during widowhood, as depicted in the Mona Lisa. US artist Lillian F. Schwartz’s <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0097849395000317">1988 study</a> used x-rays to reveal an initial sketch of a woman hidden beneath Leonardo’s painting. This sketch was then painted over with Leonardo’s own likeness. Schwartz believes the woman in the sketch is Isabella, because of its similarity with a cartoon Leonardo made of the princess. She proposes the work was made by integrating specific features of the initial model with Leonardo’s own features. This hypothesis is further supported by art historians Jerzy Kulski and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owjJWxcnKrE">Maike Vogt-Luerssen</a>. According to Vogt-Luerssen’s <a href="https://www.kleio.org/de/buecher/wer-ist-mona-lisa/">detailed analysis</a> of the Mona Lisa, the symbols of the Sforza house and the depiction of mourning garb both align with Isabella’s known life circumstances. They suggest the Mona Lisa isn’t a commissioned portrait, but a nuanced representation of a woman’s journey through triumph and tragedy. Similarly, Kulski highlights the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/40147186/The_Mona_Lisa_Portrait_Leonardos_Personal_and_Political_Tribute_to_Isabella_Aragon_Sforza_the_Duchess_of_Milan">portrait’s heraldic designs</a>, which would be atypical for a silk merchant’s wife. He, too, suggests the painting shows Isabella mourning her late husband. The Mona Lisa’s enigmatic expression also captures Isabella’s self-described state post-1500 of being “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1468-0424.12683">alone in misfortune</a>”. Contrary to representing a wealthy, recently married woman, the portrait exudes the aura of a virtuous widow. Late professor of art history <a href="https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789004304130/B9789004304130_014.xml?language=en">Joanna Woods-Marsden</a> suggested the Mona Lisa transcends traditional portraiture and embodies Leonardo’s ideal, rather than being a straightforward commission. This perspective frames the work as a deeply personal project for Leonardo, possibly signifying a special connection between him and Isabella. Leonardo’s reluctance to part with the work also indicates a deeper, personal investment in it. <h2>Beyond the canvas</h2> The theory that Isabella of Aragon could be the true Mona Lisa is a profound reevaluation of the painting’s context, opening up new avenues through which to appreciate the work. It elevates Isabella from a figure overshadowed by the men in her life, to a woman of courage and complexity who deserves recognition in her own right. Through her strategic marriage and political savvy, <a href="https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85147429412&origin=resultslist">Isabella played a crucial role in the alliances and conflicts</a> that defined the Italian Renaissance. By possibly choosing her as his subject, Leonardo immortalised her and also made a profound statement on the complexity and agency of women in a male-dominated society. The ongoing debate over Mona Lisa’s identity underscores this work’s significance as a cultural and historical artefact. It also invites us to reflect on the roles of women in the Renaissance and challenge common narratives that minimise them. In this light, it becomes a legacy of the women who shaped the Renaissance.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220666/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/darius-von-guttner-sporzynski-112147">Darius von Guttner Sporzynski</a>, Historian, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/australian-catholic-university-747">Australian Catholic University</a> Image credits: Xinhua News Agency/Shutterstock Editorial This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-really-was-mona-lisa-more-than-500-years-on-theres-good-reason-to-think-we-got-it-wrong-220666">original article</a>.

Art

Does hosting the Olympics, the World Cup or other major sports events really pay off?

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ivan-savin-678930">Ivan Savin</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/escp-business-school-813">ESCP Business School</a> After a long battle, <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20240213-paris-booksellers-stay-olympics-macron-bouquiniste-france">Paris’s beloved bouquinistes will be staying put</a> this summer. The decision, announced on 13 February by the French government, came after considerable public backlash to the police prefecture’s original plan to move part of the iconic Seine booksellers elsewhere for the inauguration of the Olympics Games on 26 July. Meanwhile, less than six months away from the event, Parisians continue to grumble over a <a href="https://www.ouest-france.fr/jeux-olympiques/cest-aberrant-ce-maire-vient-dapprendre-que-sa-ville-accueillera-les-jeux-de-paris-ab1fa968-cfd1-11ee-89c0-6cefac77e04a">lack of consultations</a> with locals, warnings of <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20231130-paris-vehicle-traffic-to-be-heavily-restricted-during-2024-olympic-games">gridlocked traffic</a>, closed metro stations, extensive video surveillance and other grievances. So for host countries, what was the point of the Olympics, again? In academia, the debate about the potential positive and negative effects of large-scale sporting events is ongoing. Although these events are often associated with substantial economic losses, the long-term benefits are the main argument in favour of hosting them. These include the development of material and soft infrastructure such as hotels, restaurants or parks. Big games can also help put the host region on the map as an attractive place for sports and cultural events, and inspire a better entrepreneurial climate. <h2>The pros and the cons of big sporting events?</h2> The cost of these benefits, as the Parisians have realised, is steep. Host countries appear to suffer from increased tax burdens, low returns on public investments, high construction costs, and onerous running cost of facilities after the event. Communities can also be blighted by noise, pollution, and damage to the environment, while increased criminal activity and potential conflicts between locals and visitors can take a toll on their quality of life. As a result, in the recent past several major cities, including Rome and Hamburg, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/6-cities-that-rejected-the-olympics/a-46289852">withdrew their bids to host the games</a>. A common feature of the economics of large-scale sporting events is that our expectations of them are more optimistic than what we make of them once they have taken place. Typically, expenditure tends to tip over the original budget, while the revenue-side indicators (such as the number of visitors) are rarely achieved. When analysing the effect of hosting large-scale sporting events on tourist visits, it is important to take into consideration both the positive and negative components of the overall effect. While positive effects may be associated with visitors, negative effects may arise when “regular” tourists refuse to visit the location due to the event. This might be because of overloaded infrastructure, sharp increases in accommodation costs, and inconveniences associated with overcrowding or raucous or/and violent visitors. On top of that, reports of poverty or crime in the global media can actually undermine the location’s attractiveness. <h2>When big sporting events crowd out regular tourists</h2> In an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1527002523120639">article published in the Journal of Sports Economics</a> with Igor Drapkin and Ilya Zverev, I assess the effects of hosting large-scale sporting events, such as Winter and Summer Olympics plus FIFA World Cups, on international tourist visits. We utilise a comprehensive dataset on flow of tourists covering the world’s largest destination and origin countries between 1995 and 2019. As a first step, we built an econometric model that effectively predicts the flow of tourists between any pair of countries in our data. Subsequently we compared the predicted tourist inflow in a hypothetical scenario where no large-scale sporting event would have taken place with the actual figures. If the actual figures exceed the predicted ones, we consider the event to have a net positive impact. Otherwise, we consider that it had a “crowding out” effect on “regular” tourists. While conducting this analysis, we distinguished between short-term (i.e., focusing just on the year of the event) and mid-term (year of the event plus three subsequent years). Our results show that the effects of large-scale sporting events vary a lot across host countries: The World Cup in Japan and South Korea 2002 and South Africa 2010 were associated with a distinct increase in tourist arrivals, whereas all other World Cups were either neutral or negative. Among the Summer Olympics, China in 2008 is the only case with a significant positive effect on tourist inflows. The effects of the other four events (Australia 2000, Greece 2004, Great Britain 2012, and Brazil 2016) were found to be negative in the short- and medium-term. As for the Winter Olympics, the only positive case is Russia in 2014. The remaining five events had a negative impact except the one-year neutral effect for Japan 1998. Following large-scale sporting events, host countries are therefore typically less visited by tourists. Out of the 18 hosting countries studied, 11 saw tourist numbers decline over four years, and three did not experience a significant change. <h2>The case for cautious optimism</h2> Our research indicates that the positive effect of hosting large-scale sporting events on tourist inflows is, at best, moderate. While many tourists are attracted by FIFA World Cups and Olympic games, the crowding-out effect of “regular” tourists is strong and often underestimated. This implies that tourists visiting for an event like the Olympics typically dissuade those who would have come for other reasons. Thus, efforts to attract new visitors should be accompanied by efforts to retain the already existing ones. Large-scale sporting events should be considered as part of a long-term policy for promoting a territory to tourists rather than a standalone solution. Revealingly, our results indicate that it is easier to get a net increase in tourist inflows in countries that are less frequent destinations for tourists – for example, those in Asia or Africa. By contrast, the United States and Europe, both of which are traditionally popular with tourists, have no single case of a net positive effect. Put differently, the large-scale sporting events in Asia and Africa helped promote their host countries as tourist destinations, making the case for the initial investment. In the US and Europe, however, those in the last few decades brought little return, at least in terms of tourist inflow.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222118/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ivan-savin-678930">Ivan Savin</a>, Associate professor of quantitative analytics, research fellow at ICTA-UAB, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/escp-business-school-813">ESCP Business School</a> Image credits: Getty Images This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-hosting-the-olympics-the-world-cup-or-other-major-sports-events-really-pay-off-222118">original article</a>.

Travel Tips

Do optimists really live longer? Here’s what the research says

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/fuschia-sirois-331254">Fuschia Sirois</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/durham-university-867">Durham University</a> Do you tend to see the glass as half full, rather than half empty? Are you always looking on the bright side of life? If so, you may be surprised to learn that this tendency could actually be good for your health. A <a href="https://content.apa.org/record/2020-71981-001">number of studies</a> have shown that optimists enjoy higher levels of wellbeing, better sleep, lower stress and even better cardiovascular health and immune function. And now, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35674052/">a recent study</a> has shown that being an optimist is linked to longer life. To conduct their study, researchers tracked the lifespan of nearly 160,000 women aged between 50 to 79 for a period of 26 years. At the beginning of the study, the women completed a <a href="https://local.psy.miami.edu/people/faculty/ccarver/availbale-self-report-instruments/lot-r/">self-report measure of optimism</a>. Women with the highest scores on the measure were categorised as optimists. Those with the lowest scores were considered pessimists. Then, in 2019, the researchers followed up with the participants who were still living. They also looked at the lifespan of participants who had died. What they found was that those who had the highest levels of optimism were more likely to live longer. More importantly, the optimists were also more likely than those who were pessimists to live into their nineties. Researchers refer to this as “exceptional longevity”, considering the average lifespan for women is about 83 years in developed countries. What makes these findings especially impressive is that the results remained even after accounting for other factors known to predict a long life – including education level and economic status, ethnicity, and whether a person suffered from depression or other chronic health conditions. But given this study only looked at women, it’s uncertain whether the same would be true for men. However, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1900712116">another study</a> which looked at both men and women also found that people with the highest levels of optimism enjoyed a lifespan that was between 11% and 15% longer than those who were the least optimistic. <h2>The fountain of youth?</h2> So why is it that optimists live longer? At first glance it would seem that it may have to do with their healthier lifestyle. For example, <a href="https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.117.310828">research from several studies</a> has found that optimism is linked to eating a healthy diet, staying physically active, and being less likely to smoke cigarettes. These healthy behaviours are well known to improve heart health and <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/noncommunicable-diseases">reduce the risk</a> for cardiovascular disease, which is a <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cardiovascular-diseases-(cvds)">leading cause of death</a> globally. Adopting a healthy lifestyle is also <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3857242/">important for reducing the risk</a> of other potentially deadly diseases, such as diabetes and cancer. But having a healthy lifestyle may only be part of the reason optimists live a longer than average life. This latest study found that lifestyle only accounted for 24% of the link between optimism and longevity. This suggests a number of other factors affect longevity for optimists. Another possible reason could be due to the way optimists manage stress. When faced with a stressful situation, optimists tend to deal with it head-on. They <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16859439/">use adaptive coping strategies</a> that help them resolve the source of the stress, or view the situation in a less stressful way. For example, optimists will problem-solve and plan ways to deal with the stressor, call on others for support, or try to find a “silver lining” in the stressful situation. All of these approaches are well-known to reduce feelings of stress, as well as the biological reactions that occur when we feel stressed. It’s these <a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/body">biological reactions to stress</a> –- such as elevated cortisol (sometimes called the “stress hormone”), increased heart rate and blood pressure, and impaired immune system functioning –- that can take a toll on health over time and increase the risk for developing <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889159115004316?via%3Dihub">life-threatening diseases</a>, such as cardiovascular disease. In short, the way optimists cope with stress may help protect them somewhat against its harmful effects. <h2>Looking on the bright side</h2> Optimism is typically viewed by researchers as a relatively stable personality trait that is determined by both <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/twin-research-and-human-genetics/article/sex-differences-in-the-genetic-architecture-of-optimism-and-health-and-their-interrelation-a-study-of-australian-and-swedish-twins/58F21AA11943D44B4BA4C63A966E6AC7">genetic</a> and early childhood influences (such as having a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6541423/">secure and warm relationship</a> with your parents or caregivers). But if you’re not naturally prone to seeing the glass as half full, there are some ways you can increase your <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17439760.2016.1221122?journalCode=rpos20">capacity to be optimistic</a>. Research shows optimism can change over time, and can be cultivated by engaging in simple exercises. For example, visualising and then writing about your “<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-matters-most/201303/what-is-your-best-possible-self">best possible self</a>” (a future version of yourself who has accomplished your goals) is a technique that studies have found can <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439760.2016.1221122">significantly increase optimism</a>, at least temporarily. But for best results, the goals need to be both positive and reasonable, rather than just wishful thinking. Similarly, simply <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3200/SOCP.149.3.349-364">thinking about positive future events</a> can also be effective for boosting optimism. It’s also crucial to temper any expectations for success with an accurate view of what you can and can’t control. Optimism is reinforced when we experience the positive outcomes that we expect, and <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1970-20680-001">can decrease</a> when these outcomes aren’t as we want them to be. Although more research is needed, it’s possible that regularly envisioning yourself as having the best possible outcomes, and taking realistic steps towards achieving them, can help develop an optimistic mindset. Of course, this might be easier said than done for some. If you’re someone who isn’t naturally optimistic, the best chances to improve your longevity is by <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003332">living a healthy lifestyle</a> by staying physically active, eating a healthy diet, managing stress, and getting a good night’s sleep. Add to this cultivating a more optimistic mindset and you might further increase your chances for a long life.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184785/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/fuschia-sirois-331254">Fuschia Sirois</a>, Professor in Social & Health Psychology, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/durham-university-867">Durham University</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/do-optimists-really-live-longer-heres-what-the-research-says-184785">original article</a>.

Caring

Do parolees really ‘walk free’? Busting common myths about parole

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/monique-moffa-1380936">Monique Moffa</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/alyssa-sigamoney-1375881">Alyssa Sigamoney</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/greg-stratton-161122">Greg Stratton</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jarryd-bartle-441602">Jarryd Bartle</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/michele-ruyters-18446">Michele Ruyters</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a> Parole is a hot topic in politics and in the media at the moment, fuelled by several high-profile parole applications. Recently, <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/no-parole-for-convicted-baby-killer-keli-lane/xoykrtvxe?cid=testtwitter">Keli Lane’s</a> attempt to be released on parole after years in jail for the murder of her baby daughter was unsuccessful. <a href="https://www.heraldsun.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-victoria/how-frankston-serial-killer-paul-denyer-will-apply-for-bail/news-story/4613d1b3fced1f4aeaa9c4e08e8b81e0">Paul Denyer</a>, known as the “Frankston Serial Killer” for murdering three women in the 90s was also denied parole. Meanwhile, Snowtown accomplice <a href="https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-sa/bodies-in-the-barrels-helper-mark-haydon-released-on-parole/news-story/fdfbbbe7b59267d8009c6910249de585">Mark Haydon</a> was granted parole with strict conditions, but is <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-01/snowtown-accomplice-mark-haydon-still-in-custody-after-parole/103653934">yet to be</a> released. Some media coverage of such well-known cases is littered with myths about what parole is, how it’s granted and what it looks like. Here’s what the evidence says about three of the most common misconceptions. <h2>Myth 1: people on parole walk free</h2> Parole is the conditional release of an incarcerated person (parolee) by a parole board authority, after they have served their non-parole period (minimum sentence) in jail. This isn’t always reflected in headlines. <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/snowtown-murders-bodies-in-barrels-murders-mark-haydon-release-south-australia/f4b62a72-ec3d-4238-94d2-64697fbcdef3">Some coverage</a> suggests people on parole are released early and “walk free” without conditions. This is not true. According to the <a href="https://www.adultparoleboard.vic.gov.au/what-parole/purpose-and-benefits">Adult Parole Board of Victoria</a>: "Parole provides incarcerated people with a structured, supported and supervised transition so that they can adjust from prison back into the community, rather than returning straight to the community at the end of their sentence without supervision or support." Parole comes with strict conditions and requirements, such as curfews, drug and alcohol testing, electronic monitoring, program participation, to name a few. People with experience of parole highlight its punitivism and continued extension of surveillance. <h2>Myth 2: most parolees reoffend</h2> Another myth is that the likelihood all parolees reoffend is high. Research over a number of years has consistently found parole reduces reoffending. For example, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0004865815585393?journalCode=anja">a 2016 study in New South Wales</a> found at the 12 month mark, a group of parolees reoffended 22% less than an unsupervised cohort. A <a href="https://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Publications/CJB/2022-Report-Effect-of-parole-supervision-on-recidivism-CJB245.pdf">2022 study</a> by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research found parole was especially successful in reducing serious recidivism rates among incarcerated people considered to be at a high risk of reoffending. More recently in Victoria, <a href="https://www.adultparoleboard.vic.gov.au/system/files/inline-files/Adult%20Parole%20Board%20Annual%20Report%202022-23_0.pdf">the Adult Parole Board</a> found over 2022–23, no parolees were convicted of committing serious offences while on parole. In contrast, unstructured and unconditional release increases the risk of returning to prison. <h2>Myth 3: parole is easy to get</h2> While the number of parolees reoffending has dropped, so too has the total number of people who are exiting prison on parole. Over a decade ago, Victoria underwent significant parole reforms, largely prompted by high-profile incidents and campaigns. In just five years following Jill Meagher’s tragic death in 2012, the Victorian government passed <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10345329.2018.1556285">13 laws reshaping parole</a>. The result is the number of people on parole in Victoria has halved since 2012, despite incarceration numbers remaining steady. <iframe id="maNRy" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" style="border: none;" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/maNRy/" width="100%" height="400px" frameborder="0"></iframe> These reforms have made it more difficult for people convicted of serious offences to get parole, as well as preventing individuals or specific groups from being eligible for parole (such as police killers, <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-body-no-parole-laws-could-be-disastrous-for-the-wrongfully-convicted-191083">“no body, no parole” prisoners</a>, and certain high-profile murderers). Similar laws can be found in other states. For example, no body, no parole was introduced in all other Australian states and territories, except for Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory. As a consequence, more people are being released at the end of their full sentence. This can be detrimental not only for the incarcerated person but the wider community, because they are not receiving the reintegration support parole provides. Aside from restricted access due to political intervention, parole is facing a new crisis, which has nothing to do with eligibility or suitability. Last year, 40% of Victorian parole applications were denied, often due to reasons <a href="https://www.adultparoleboard.vic.gov.au/system/files/inline-files/Adult%20Parole%20Board%20Annual%20Report%202022-23_0.pdf">unrelated to suitability</a>. Housing scarcity played a significant role, with 59% of rejections (or 235 applications) citing a lack of suitable accommodation as one of the reasons parole was denied. This is playing out <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-11/women-on-bail-parole-increased-risk-of-homelessness-qld/102717002">across the country</a>. Parole is vulnerable to community and media hype, and political knee-jerk reactions in response to high profile incidents involving a person on parole. Because of the actions of a few, parole as a process has been restricted for many. While the wider community are active in advocacy efforts to restrict parole from certain people or groups (for example, this petition for <a href="https://www.change.org/p/lyns-law-no-body-no-parole">Lyn’s Law in NSW</a>), public efforts to restrict parole seem at odds with its purposes. Despite this, research suggests when the public are educated about the purposes and intent of parole, they are more likely to be <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3125829">supportive of it</a>. The susceptibility of parole to media and community influence results in frequent, impactful changes affecting individuals inside and outside prisons. Headlines such as “walking free” have the potential to mislead the public on the purpose and structure of parole. Coverage should portray parole beyond mere early termination of a sentence by accurately reflecting its purpose and impact.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226607/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/monique-moffa-1380936">Monique Moffa</a>, Lecturer, Criminology & Justice, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/alyssa-sigamoney-1375881">Alyssa Sigamoney</a>, Associate Lecturer in Criminology and Justice Studies, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/greg-stratton-161122">Greg Stratton</a>, Lecturer - Criminology and Justice Studies, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jarryd-bartle-441602">Jarryd Bartle</a>, Associate Lecturer, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/michele-ruyters-18446">Michele Ruyters</a>, Associate Dean, Criminology and Justice Studies, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/do-parolees-really-walk-free-busting-common-myths-about-parole-226607">original article</a>.

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Eating some chocolate really might be good for you – here’s what the research says

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/dan-baumgardt-1451396">Dan Baumgardt</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-bristol-1211">University of Bristol</a> Although it always makes me scoff slightly to see Easter eggs making their first appearance in supermarkets at the end of December, there are few people who aren’t delighted to receive a bit of chocolate every year. It makes sense that too much chocolate would be bad for you because of the high fat and sugar content in most products. But what should we make of common claims that eating some chocolate is actually good for you? Happily, there is a fair amount of evidence that shows, in the right circumstances, chocolate may be both beneficial for your heart and good for your mental state. In fact, chocolate – or more specifically cacao, the raw, unrefined bean – is a medicinal wonder. It contains many different active compounds which can evoke pharmacological effects within the body, like medicines or drugs. Compounds that lead to neurological effects in the brain have to be able to cross the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-13443-2_7">blood-brain barrier</a>, the protective shield which prevents harmful substances – like toxins and bacteria – entering the delicate nervous tissue. One of these is the compound <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3672386/">theobromine</a>, which is also found in tea and contributes towards its bitter taste. Tea and chocolate also contain caffeine, which theobromine is related to as part of the purine family of chemicals. These chemicals, among others, contribute to chocolate’s addictive nature. They have the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier, where they can influence the nervous system. They are therefore known as <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15549276/">psychoactive</a> chemicals. <figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HloqayQdR6M?wmode=transparent&start=0" width="440" height="260" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></figure> What effects can chocolate have on mood? Well, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article/71/10/665/1931144?login=false">a systematic review</a> looked at a group of studies which examined the feelings and emotions associated with consuming chocolate. Most demonstrated improvements in mood, anxiety, energy and states of arousal. Some noted the feeling of guilt, which is perhaps something we’ve all felt after one too many Dairy Milks. <h2>Health benefits of cocoa</h2> There are other organs, aside from the brain, that might benefit from the medicinal effects of cocoa. For centuries, chocolate has been used as a medicine to treat a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10917925/">long list of diseases</a> including anaemia, tuberculosis, gout and even low libido. These might be spurious claims but there is evidence to suggest that eating cacao has a positive effect on the cardiovascular system. First, it can prevent <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8068178/">endothelial dysfunction</a>. This is the process through which arteries harden and get laden down with fatty plaques, which can in turn lead to heart attacks and strokes. Eating dark chocolate may also reduce <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1537189115001135?via%3Dihub">blood pressure</a>, which is another risk factor for developing arterial disease, and prevent formation of clots which block up blood vessels. <figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8VUcPCbSSCY?wmode=transparent&start=0" width="440" height="260" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></figure> Some studies have suggested that dark chocolate might be useful in adjusting ratios of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20968113/">high-density lipoprotein cholesterol</a>, which can help protect the heart. Others have examined insulin resistance, the phenomenon associated with Type 2 diabetes and weight gain. They suggest that the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0963996900000697#:%7E:text=Cocoa%20is%20rich%20in%20polyphenols%20particularly%20in%20catechins,and%20cocoa%20powder%20have%20been%20published%20only%20recently.">polyphenols</a> – chemical compounds present in plants – found in foodstuffs like chocolate may also lead to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29993262/">improved control of blood sugars</a>. <h2>Chocolate toxicity</h2> As much as chocolate might be considered a medicine for some, it can be a poison for others. It’s well documented that the ingestion of caffeine and theobromine is highly toxic for domestic animals. Dogs are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4801869/">particularly affected</a> because of their often voracious appetites and generally unfussy natures. The culprit is often dark chocolate, which can provoke symptoms of agitation, rigid muscles and even seizures. In certain cases, if ingested in high enough quantities, it can lead to comas and abnormal, even fatal heart rhythms. Some of the compounds found in chocolate have also been found to have potentially negative effects in humans. Chocolate is a source of oxalate which, along with calcium, is one of the main components of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20301742/">kidney stones</a>. Some clinical groups have advised against consuming oxalate rich foods, such as spinach and rhubarb – and chocolate, for those who suffer from recurrent kidney stones. So, what should all this mean for our chocolate consumption habits? Science points in the direction of chocolate that has as high a cocoa solid content as possible, and the minimum of extras. The potentially harmful effects of chocolate are more related to fat and sugar, and may counteract any possible benefits. A daily dose of 20g-30g of plain or dark chocolate with cocoa solids above 70% – rather than milk chocolate, which contains fewer solids and white chocolate, which contains none – could lead to a greater health benefit, as well as a greater high. But whatever chocolate you go for, please don’t share it with the dog.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226759/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/dan-baumgardt-1451396">Dan Baumgardt</a>, Senior Lecturer, School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-bristol-1211">University of Bristol</a> Image credits: Getty Images This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/eating-some-chocolate-really-might-be-good-for-you-heres-what-the-research-says-226759">original article</a>.

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