Community Magazine April 2013

MONEY TALKSWHEN IT COMES TO LOSINGWEIGHT How’d you like to get paid to lose weight? Financial incentives can help improve your odds of dropping pounds, according to a new study. Researchers at theMayo Clinic followed 100 Mayo employees over the course of a year as they took educational classes on how to eat healthy and lose weight. The employees were broken up into several groups - some of which got financial incentives to shed the pounds and others that just got the classes. “We found that people who receive financial incentives tended to stick with the healthy behaviors we all wish we would do more often,” said lead study author Dr. Stephen Driver, an internal medicine resident at Mayo Clinic. “At 52 weeks, those in the financial arm of the study had lost an average of about 9 pounds,” he said, “as compared to those who didn’t receive financial incentives, who lost about 2 pounds.” This study is not the first to show the link between financial incentives and improved weight loss, but with one year of follow up, it is the longest. UMBRELLAS – GOOD FOR RAINOR SHINE If it’s streaming sunshine outdoors and the sunscreen isn’t handy, grab an umbrella, researchers say. It could help shield skin from ultraviolet (UV) rays, according to a new study by dermatologists at Emory University in Atlanta. They found that any fully-functioning handheld umbrella can block more than three- quarters of UV light on a sunny day. Black ones seem to do the job especially well, blocking at least 90 percent of rays. For their study, Dr. Suephy Chen and her colleagues wanted to test more rigorously whether handheld umbrellas - used for sun protection by many women in Asia and the Middle East and a popular accessory for American women in past centuries - really do block UV light. Chen and her colleagues used UV devices to measure radiation just under each umbrella’s fabric and by the nose of the person using it. They compared those numbers to umbrella-less radiation readings. All but one of the umbrellas was a standard, handheld rain umbrella. The other was a travel sun umbrella. The sun umbrella lived up to its billing, blocking more than 99 percent of UV rays. But devices originally intended to protect the user from rain worked well too, blocking at least 77 percent of UV light - and more among the darker-colored umbrellas. DRIVINGWHILE DROWSY Most of us are familiar with the dangers of drunken driving, but drowsy driving can be just as deadly. Studies estimate 15% to 33% of fatal crashes involve tired drivers, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Being sleep-deprived slows our reaction time, said Dr. Michael Howell, a sleep expert with the University of Minnesota. That can mean hitting something we might otherwise avoid, like a child on a bicycle who suddenly veers off the sidewalk. We’re also more impulsive when we’re tired, Howell said. It’s like our brains revert to being teenagers. “We respond to things without thinking them through,” he says. “... Road rage happens because people are sleep deprived.” The CDC report analyzed data from a 2009-2010 national behavioral telephone survey of more than 147,000 respondents. Approximately 4.2% of those surveyed reported having fallen asleep while driving at least once during the last month. That’s one out of every 24 people! SUGARY BEVERAGES CONSUMPTION LINKED TO 180,000 DEATHS PER YEAR New research reveals that drinking sugary soft drinks is responsible for close to 180,000 deaths worldwide every year. The finding comes from research presented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology and Prevention/Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism 2013 Scientific Sessions. Consuming drinks with lots of sugar is associated with serious health risks as it can drastically increase a person’s body weight, which can lead to diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases. Even the company Coca-Cola, the most powerful and well known soft drinks company in the world, addressed the link between sugary drink consumption and weight gain. According to theAmerican HeartAssociation, adults shouldn’t consume more than 450 calories from sugary drinks, per week. However, many consume far more than that, in fact, a previous study identified that people ages 20 to 39 who drink sugary beverages consume around 336 calories a day from them alone. Over the past thirty years, the global consumption of sugary beverages has shot up considerably. A previous report, published by The Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, said that sugary drinks are the number one source of calories among American adolescents. $$$ NISSAN - EYAR 5773 APRIL 2013 93