Health

From a press release from Queen's University:

A new study by Queen's University researchers shows for the first time that visceral fat in the abdomen is directly associated with a higher risk of mortality in men. According to Physical and Health Education doctoral student Jennifer Kuk, who is the first author of the study, these findings underline the importance of measuring abdominal fat to predict the risk of future disease and mortality. "This reinforces the need to target visceral fat in therapeutic strategies for dealing with obesity," she says. "Body weight alone is not a sufficient indicator of risk." Since visceral fat is strongly correlated with waist circumference, the researchers recommend that waist measurement be a routine measure in clinical practice. When looking at diet weight loss versus exercise weight loss, those who exercise tend to lose more visceral fat and maintain muscle fat better than those using strictly a diet approach, he points out. "This reinforces the importance of maintaining regular physical activity."

From a press release from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center:

In a study comparing the associations between faith and health, a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) physician has shown the improvements in life expectancy of those who attend religious services on a weekly basis to be comparable to those who participate in regular physical exercise and to those who take statin-type medications. These findings are published in the March-April issue of the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine. The study uses life expectancy tables to compare the impact of regular exercise, statin therapy and religious attendance, and shows that each accounts for an additional two-to-five years of life, suggesting that the real-world, practical significance of weekly religious attendance is of similar magnitude to this other widely recommended therapy or health behavior. "This is not to say that religious attendance should replace primary prevention such as exercise, or a proven drug therapy, such as statin therapy, but it does suggest that regular religious attendance is associated with a substantially longer life expectancy, and this warrants further research," cautions study author Daniel Hall, M.D., who is a resident in general surgery at UPMC and an Episcopal priest.

From an article on abcnews.com:

The more sexual content in television and magazines that teens are exposed to, the more likely they are to have sexual intercourse at an early age, a new study says. The University of North Carolina study, published in today's issue of the journal Pediatrics, concludes that white adolescents who view more sexual content than their peers are 2.2 times more likely to have sexual intercourse by the time they are 14 to 16 years old. "Some, especially those who have fewer alternative sources of sexual norms, such as parents or friends, may use the media as a kind of sexual superpeer that encourages them to be sexually active," the study authors state. And, as similar past studies have noted, "one of the strongest protective factors against early sexual behavior was clear parental communication about sex."

The article goes to discuss various limitations of the study, chicken-or-egg arguments, etc.

From a Reuters story on MSNBC.com titled "Light drinking may not be good for you after all":

Researchers poured cold water on the idea that moderate drinking helps prevent heart disease Friday, noting that many studies include teetotalers as a control group but don't ask why they did not drink. Several major studies have found that light to moderate drinking - up to two drinks a day on a regular basis - is associated with a lower risk of heart disease. Some have also found a lower risk of some cancers. But a team at the University of Victoria in British Columbia and the University of California San Francisco analyzed 54 studies and found that only seven of them differentiated between people who abstain from choice and those who may have quit drinking for health reasons. When such studies show a higher death rate for abstainers than for moderate drinkers, it may be because of the poor health of some abstainers who recently quit drinking and not because alcohol is good for health, they said. In the seven studies that included people who have not drunk alcohol for a long time, by choice, there was no difference in rates of heart disease between drinkers and non-drinkers.

From a story titled "Lose Weight by Following the Habits of Thin People" on abcnews.com:

Thin people favor bulky foods. Foods with a high-water content, such as fruits, vegetables, water-based soups and stews, and cooked whole grains fill you up but are low in calories. These types of food also tend to contain a lot of fiber, which also has a satiating effect. Start your meal with a soup or a salad... Thin people don't skip meals. When you're starving, it's much more difficult not to overeat. Thin people don't skip breakfast...A recent study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association showed that people who ate breakfast were less likely to be overweight than those who didn't. Thin people watch portion sizes. Thin people take a look at what's on their plate and make sure that what they see consists mostly of fruits, vegetables and lean proteins. They also make sure to limit the amount that they eat in one sitting by buying just a single serving's worth of food and using smaller-than-normal plates. Thin people don't sit still.