Apologies to those of you who have already read these reports in last weeks’ Week but their Health & Science pages not only informed but induced such a pleasant chortle that I wanted ‘to share’….. In brief:
Eggs make us nicer!
Dutch researchers have concluded that the moderately large dose of the amino acid tryptophan to be found in eggs boosts serotonin levels making their eaters feel happier, and therefore more generous. They tested out their theory by feeding egg powder or a placebo to 32 people and then asking them to donate part of the fee they were given for taking part in the study to charity. The egg eaters were found to have given twice as much as the placebo eaters!
That red wine….
Older drinkers who enjoy just one 250ml glass of wine a day could be upping their risk of a stroke by a third, according to a Swedish study of 11,644 twins over the last 43 years…
As a regular imbiber of a healthy dose of organic rouge resveratrol (purely medicinal, of course, at it helps my electro-sensitivity) that was not encouraging news. However, recourse to Google and a few dozen more studies suggested that although my risk of stroke might be higher, because I was drinking red wine rather than anything else, I was much more likely to recover from that stroke. I suspect more research on my part might be needed here…
Wearing lipstick could bring forward the menopause by 3-4 years
I think that the headline was stretching credulity a little….
This was a Washington University study which suggested that women exposed to high levels of endocrine disrupting chemicals (found in hundreds of household products and some cosmetics – including some lipsticks) could have their menopause 2 to 4 years earlier than those who, when tested, had lower levels of these chemicals in their blood. The chemicals concerned were PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and phthalates, many of which have already been banned but which persist in the environment.
While the findings may well be true (although the researchers themselvs do not claim a causative effect and say that the findings need to be replicated) I suspect that lipstick played an extremely small part!
The one thing we can be totally certain about is that the relationship between life style and health is extremely complex, so anything as simplistic as a red wine stroke connection is likely to be wrong. For decades we were warned about the connection between saturated fats and heart disease and suddenly – whoops – maybe not. As to lipstick, the theory is that a healthy sex life delays the menopause, so if lipstick increases female allure, it could have a countervailing effect..?