This Week In Wellness

This Week In Wellness a Bolivian hunter gatherer tribe famous for its impeccable heart health has seen an increase in their levels in recent years as their levels of cooking oil intake have gone up. The Tsimane’ isolated population have traditionally eaten a whole food omnivorous diet including lean meats, fish, fruits and vegetables and occasional honey. Along with an active lifestyle this has le...

And This Week In Wellness a study of 7000 US adults over the age of 50 has shown that those with the lowest sense of life purpose were twice as likely to die in the following 5 years, even when adjusting for socio-economic status, health characteristics and psychological well-being. In a confirmation of findings from previous studies this 2019 report published in the Journal of the American Medica...

This Week In Wellness the European Commission has decided not to renew approval for a pesticide linked to harming bees, meaning farmers will not be allowed to use Bayer’s insecticide known as thiacloprid, sold under brands Calypso and Biscaya, after April 30 this year. “There are environmental concerns related to the use of this pesticide, particularly its impact on groundwater, but also related t...

This Week In Wellness sunscreen lotions and sprays may leach up to 360 times more of one chemical alone than the FDA allows, whilst the other 5 chemicals tested also gathered in the blood in levels higher than the recommended amount even days after application. Strangely the FDA and American Academy of Dermatology stresses the chemicals are safe despite the levels being above their own recommendat...

This Week In Wellness research has found that “wounds” caused by insects may actually make fruit healthier for human consumption showing that the stress response mounted by the fruit actually increases the levels of anti-oxidants. Principle investigator of the study Luis Cisneros-Zevallos, Ph. D.,said that “There was the existing idea proposed by others that insects present in the field in organic...

This Week In Wellness research published in the journal Science has shown that humans consumed high carb roasted potatoes as long ago as 170,000 years and that it may have played a significant role in our evolution. While some proponents of the ‘Paleo Diet’ recommend followers cut out carbs in favour of high protein or high-fat foods citing our evolutionary past as evidence, new research has shown...

This Week In Wellness people who nap longer than 90 minutes, people who sleep longer than 9 hours and people who sleep poorly are all at increased risk of stroke according to a study in Neurology, the online journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Whilst napping for less than an hour seemed fine, those napping for over 90 minutes had a 25% increase in their risk of stroke according to the st...

This Week In Wellness a study from Johns Hopkins Medicine suggests that kids exposed to dogs prior to the age of 12 were significantly less likely (as much as 24%) to develop schizophrenia later in life. Robert Yolken, M.D., chair of the Stanley Division of Pediatric Neurovirology and professor of neurovirology in pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, and lead author of the paper says...

This Week In Wellness, in what will not be a very timely announcement for many, the NHMRC’s new draft guidelines recommend that people drink “no more than 10 standard drinks per week” to reduce the health risks, especially cancer. The NHMRC have also retained the recommendation to not drink more than four drinks in one sitting. They state that the link between drinking and developing a number of d...

This Week In Wellness JAMA paediatrics has published a study linking maternal fluoride exposure during pregnancy with lower IQ scores at 3 to 4 years of age. Fluoride has long been a hotly debated topic due to it’s potential neurotoxicity and that fast that the dosage when included in the water supply is hard to control. Fluoride is known to cross the placenta, accumulates in brain regions involve...

This Week In Wellness An international team of researchers, clinicians, regulators, and citizen advocates from the British Medical Journal (BMJ) are launching a campaign to separate medicine from Big Pharma. Citing a 2009 Institute of Medicine report, that identified widespread financial conflicts of interest across medical research, education, and practice, the BMJ team say that “endemic financia...

This Week In Wellness a new study has estimated that almost 41% of cancers can be linked to lifestyle and environmental factors. The study, published in Canada by the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) looked at 24 lifestyle and environment-related risk factors for cancer such as smoking, obesity, low fruit and vegetable intake, lack of exercise, alcohol and air pollution just to name a f...

This Week In Wellness a study published in The Lancet has ranked Australian teens 140th out of 146 countries for the physical activity of our teens. The study examined 1.6 million adolescent school students across 146 countries and compared them using the World Health Organisation’s physical activity guidelines that for this age group recommend a minimum of one hour of vigorous physical activity o...

This Week In Wellness a study reviewing the available evidence supporting complementary and alternative (CAM) therapies to help babies with colic has suggested that probiotics, fennel extract and spinal manipulation, do appear to help. The Systematic Reviews were published by researchers from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) at the University of Bristol and the University of Manch...

This Week In Wellness research from the University of Adelaide suggests that microbes in dust may help improve gut health and by extension mental health. This contributes to a growing body of research linking time in nature with improved health outcomes. Especially from Japan where Forest Bathing or “shinrin-yoku”, which means “taking in the forest”, has been popular for decades and research has b...

And This Week In Wellness a study in the British Medical journal analysing Australian births has suggested that for low-risk pregnancies birthing at home is just as safe and has a 6 times higher chance of resulting in a “normal birth”. Professor Caroline Homer, director of the UTS Centre for Midwifery, Child and Family Health says “home births are associated with fewer incidences of induced labour...

This Week In Wellness high levels of trans fats in your blood may make you 50 to 75% more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease or dementia according to a new study in the journal Neurology. The study was run over 10 years and utilising over 1600 men and women and importantly measuring the actual trans fat levels in their blood over that time (rather than relying on dietary questionnaires) adding...

This Week In Wellness the Australian Chiropractic College (ACC) has announced it will open its doors in Adelaide’s CBD in January 2020 with a promise to deliver ‘job ready’ chiropractors. The ACC say that they will integrate science, philosophy, hands on experience and business studies to deliver a smoother transition from classroom to clinic. The ACC says one of the defining differences between t...

This Week In Wellness group of papers about red meat, processed meat and human health have been released by the Annals of Internal Medicine suggesting that they are OK to eat and that they couldn’t find any links to heart disease and cancer. Unsurprisingly given the vilification of red meat and processed meats in recent times this has created quite an uproar amongst the general population and rese...

This Week In Wellness the ACT Government has voted to legalise cannabis for personal use with residents over the age of 18 allowed to possess 50 grams of cannabis and grow 2 plants. Whilst the possession and growth of cannabis would remain a federal offence and the risk of prosecution is “not entirely removed” in practice the laws will not apply. ACT attorney-general, Gordon Ramsay, says it is tim...

This Week In Wellness, CSIRO (an independent Australian federal government agency responsible for scientific research) is recommending a low carbohydrate approach to help curb the obesity epidemic and reduce the risk of diabetes and heart disease in a dramatic shift from the high carbohydrate, low-fat approach recommended previously. With two in three Australians either overweight or obese, it is...

This Week In Wellness research suggests that a diet low in protein and high in carbohydrates may be the key to living a long life, despite the fact that they led to weight gain and that previous idea on the benefits of caloric restriction may not, in fact, hold up. Nutritional scientist Dr Samantha Solon-Biet suggests that the 2 million-plus Australians who go on a diet every year may be better of...

The British Dental Journal says that half of elite athletes have rotting teeth. 352 Olympic and professional athletes were examined and showed higher than usual rates of dental problems despite the fact that they brushed and flossed more than your average person. Researchers hypothesise that is is the high intake of sugary sports drinks, gels and bars that may be the culprit whilst the intense exe...

A study in the Journal of The American Medical Association (JAMA) has shown that your risk of developing coeliac disease may be increased if you consume gluten as a child. “Our study shows a clear association between the amount of gluten the children consumed and the risk of developing coeliac disease or pre-coeliac disease.”, says Daniel Agardh, associate professor at Lund University, and leader...

This Week In Wellness Oncologists are unlikely to offer lifestyle tips that improve the health and reduce the risk of recurrence in cancer patients according to a survey conducted by the journal Cancer. The survey of primary care physicians, specialists and oncologists from the Midwestern Health System in America showed that less than 10% of specialists and only ¼ of oncologists would recommend li...