By Tom Spears
The more scientists study us, the more they confirm that your mother was right.You should eat your veggies, wash your hands and play with friends outdoors.Here's a look at some motherly wisdom as the modern lab takes it apart at the molecular level:
EAT YOUR FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
"There are lots of compounds, lots of chemicals that lie within those fruits and vegetables, that we're discovering and that have effects in terms of our health and wellness," says Jeff Zidichouski, a neuroscientist with the National Research Council. "They have a lot of nutrients that we're just starting to understand (regarding) their biological activity," says the researcher at the NRC's Institute for Nutrisciences and Health in Charlottetown.Take resveratrol, an antioxidant in grapes and red wine, for instance. "They're just finding out now that it has an influence on genes that are important in the aging process."There's lycopene in cooked tomatoes, anthocyanins in blueberries. On and on, they're all being studied, because scientists have known for some years that these are good for you, but they don't always know why.
WASH YOUR HANDS
This is actually a big deal in hospitals, and among pandemic people. Just ask Dr. Allison McGeer of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, one of the senior people in charge of fighting Toronto's SARS epidemic a few years back.Handwashing prevents more than simple colds, she said at the time. It helps us prevent infection the simple way in a world where superbugs are evolving in response to all the antibiotics we slosh around: "Increasing handwashing reduces respiratory infections by an average of 40 per cent. If we did that, we'd have a huge impact on antibiotic use ... and not so much antibiotic resistance."
TAKE YOUR COD LIVER OIL
We go back to Zidichouski in Charlottetown. Once again, cod liver oil has been put through the modern lab. That's really the beginning of the omega-3 story in a way -- heavy consumption of that particular form of oil. There's a period of maybe the last couple of generations where it wasn't consumed all that much. "People didn't like the taste of it," he said. "And now you're starting to find that, OK, these compounds (in cod liver oil) are very beneficial to you.
GO PLAY WITH YOUR FRIENDS
Dr. Spock recommended two-plus hours of fresh air every day for kids. Your mother may simply have wanted you out from underfoot.Either way, it aligns with modern findings on cardiac fitness, obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and other ailments related to inactivity.The friendship is also healthy. And kids care more about their environment if they have thrown sticks in the local stream than if they stayed inside and memorized "save-the-planet" slogans.
SHARE NICELY
At the University of Chicago's psychology department, Boaz Keysar tested the common wisdom that if you're nice to others, they'll be nice to you. Results are published in the December issue of Psychological Science.Common wisdom "suggests that if you do something nice to me, I reciprocate in kind, and if you do something nasty to me, I also reciprocate in kind," he said. This turned out to be only half right. He tried some simple games in which two people take turns taking money from each other. Some of them were students with play money; some were people in downtown Chicago, who got to keep the money. The game gave players a chance to share generously, or to grab more for themselves at the other player's expense.Sharing does indeed cause other people to share on a similar scale, he found. But that wasn't true of hurting other people. "So if you do something not very nice to me, I turn around and respond more strongly. Then you think I'm overreacting and respond even more strongly, and there's escalation."
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
The more scientists study us, the more they confirm that your mother was right.You should eat your veggies, wash your hands and play with friends outdoors.Here's a look at some motherly wisdom as the modern lab takes it apart at the molecular level:
EAT YOUR FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
"There are lots of compounds, lots of chemicals that lie within those fruits and vegetables, that we're discovering and that have effects in terms of our health and wellness," says Jeff Zidichouski, a neuroscientist with the National Research Council. "They have a lot of nutrients that we're just starting to understand (regarding) their biological activity," says the researcher at the NRC's Institute for Nutrisciences and Health in Charlottetown.Take resveratrol, an antioxidant in grapes and red wine, for instance. "They're just finding out now that it has an influence on genes that are important in the aging process."There's lycopene in cooked tomatoes, anthocyanins in blueberries. On and on, they're all being studied, because scientists have known for some years that these are good for you, but they don't always know why.
WASH YOUR HANDS
This is actually a big deal in hospitals, and among pandemic people. Just ask Dr. Allison McGeer of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, one of the senior people in charge of fighting Toronto's SARS epidemic a few years back.Handwashing prevents more than simple colds, she said at the time. It helps us prevent infection the simple way in a world where superbugs are evolving in response to all the antibiotics we slosh around: "Increasing handwashing reduces respiratory infections by an average of 40 per cent. If we did that, we'd have a huge impact on antibiotic use ... and not so much antibiotic resistance."
TAKE YOUR COD LIVER OIL
We go back to Zidichouski in Charlottetown. Once again, cod liver oil has been put through the modern lab. That's really the beginning of the omega-3 story in a way -- heavy consumption of that particular form of oil. There's a period of maybe the last couple of generations where it wasn't consumed all that much. "People didn't like the taste of it," he said. "And now you're starting to find that, OK, these compounds (in cod liver oil) are very beneficial to you.
GO PLAY WITH YOUR FRIENDS
Dr. Spock recommended two-plus hours of fresh air every day for kids. Your mother may simply have wanted you out from underfoot.Either way, it aligns with modern findings on cardiac fitness, obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and other ailments related to inactivity.The friendship is also healthy. And kids care more about their environment if they have thrown sticks in the local stream than if they stayed inside and memorized "save-the-planet" slogans.
SHARE NICELY
At the University of Chicago's psychology department, Boaz Keysar tested the common wisdom that if you're nice to others, they'll be nice to you. Results are published in the December issue of Psychological Science.Common wisdom "suggests that if you do something nice to me, I reciprocate in kind, and if you do something nasty to me, I also reciprocate in kind," he said. This turned out to be only half right. He tried some simple games in which two people take turns taking money from each other. Some of them were students with play money; some were people in downtown Chicago, who got to keep the money. The game gave players a chance to share generously, or to grab more for themselves at the other player's expense.Sharing does indeed cause other people to share on a similar scale, he found. But that wasn't true of hurting other people. "So if you do something not very nice to me, I turn around and respond more strongly. Then you think I'm overreacting and respond even more strongly, and there's escalation."
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
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