Mental Attitude: Food Insecurity Can Spur Migraines.
The Department of Health and Human Services defines food insecurity as, “The disruption of food intake or eating patterns because of lack of money and other resources.” A recent study involving 15,000 young adults found that migraines are nearly twice as common among those experiencing food insecurity.
JAMA Neurology, June 2019
Health Alert: Watching TV for Over Four Hours a Day Is Really Bad for You.
Researchers followed nearly 3,600 adults for nine years and found that those who watched TV four or more hours per day had a 50% higher risk for heart attack, stroke, and early death than participants who watched TV less than two hours a day.
Journal of the American Heart Association, June 2019
Diet: Diet Tied to Frailty in Older Adults.
Frailty is a condition characterized by weakness, slowness, physical inactivity, self-reported exhaustion, and unintentional weight loss. In a recent study involving 2,154 seniors, researchers found that those with a poor-quality diet were over 40% more likely to be considered as frail four years later than older adults with healthier diets.
Journal of the American Geriatric Society, July 2019
Exercise: How Does Exercise Improve Motor Skills?
Exercise is well-known to improve motor skills, and now researchers believe they know how. In the study, investigators compared the brains of mice that ran on a treadmill for an hour a day for three weeks and mice that did not exercise. Investigators observed that the mice in the treadmill group exhibited significantly more evidence of spinogenesis (development of dendritic spines in neurons) and stronger neural connections in the motor cortex (area of brain that generate neural impulses that control the execution of movement).
Science Advances, July 2019
Chiropractic: Heart Rate Variability and Neck Pain.
Heart rate variability is the measure of specific changes in time between successive heart beats. Current research suggests that low heart rate variability is associated with aging, decline, illness, and mortality. In a study involving 15 chronic neck pain patients and 15 healthy controls, researchers found that neck pain patients are more likely to exhibit low heart rate variability, particularly if they reported higher levels of pain intensity and disability. Further study is needed to determine how heart rate variability plays a role in neck pain or vice versa.
Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, June 2019
Wellness/Prevention: Take a Walk!
Taking a daily walk has been linked to several positive health benefits. The results of a new study suggest that adults who take daily walks have better pain tolerance than those who do not.
Scandinavian Journal of Pain, June 2019
