Recently Clipped Reports on Health and Longevity
Recently, while reading medical news reports, I clipped out some parts I felt were useful, and now I share them with all readers.
Researchers from the University of St Andrews in the UK observed the reactions of 30 subjects after being hurt to a certain degree. They ultimately found that the subjects who made the decision to forgive were able to forget the hurt more quickly, and that this had a positive effect on their health.
Those subjects who could not make the decision to forgive were less able to forget the experience of being hurt, were vulnerable to lasting harm, and their health was adversely affected.
Researchers have conducted a large number of experiments on the psychological activity of forgiveness and found that forgiveness can improve cardiovascular function, reduce chronic pain, relieve stress, and improve quality of life, which is conducive to maintaining a healthy state. Failure to forgive, on the other hand, easily leads to high excitation of the brain and nerves, causing nervous tension, vasoconstriction, elevated blood pressure, gastrointestinal spasms, and inhibition of digestive juice secretion, thereby increasing the risk of mental illness, heart disease, and certain other diseases.
Experiments show that a tolerant person is indeed more likely to achieve health and longevity than a person who haggle over every detail.
2. Reducing Food Intake Can Extend Lifespan
The People's Daily Overseas Edition reported on September 12 that scientists Julie Mattison of the U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA) and her colleagues, after a comprehensive analysis of multiple studies, concluded that reducing food intake can extend life.
Nutritionist Susan Roberts of Tufts University and her research team studied 218 subjects aged 21–50 and found that people who reduced food intake by 25% had a significant rise in good cholesterol in their blood, a 25% reduction in tumor necrosis factors (TNFs), a 40% reduction in insulin resistance, and lower overall blood pressure.
Overall, the high-fat, high-protein foods modern people love to eat are harder to digest, and excess nutrients accumulate in the body, causing a series of diseases of affluence.
This study proves that the saying that old Chinese doctors often quote—that a person's total amount of food in a lifetime is limited, that the fuller you eat the shorter your life, and that those who stop at 70% fullness live longer—has a sound scientific basis.
This study was derived from a follow-up survey of 475,000 middle-aged British people from 2006 to 2014. It analyzed their diets and the diseases they later developed; among those surveyed, about 23,000 developed cancer. In a paper published in the British monthly Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, the researchers wrote: "Poultry intake is positively correlated with the risk of malignant melanoma, prostate cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. This positive correlation requires further study."
This study shows that the white meat previously thought to be safe is not safe either.
4. The Effect of Education on Longevity Is Underestimated
Recently, at the 2019 academic congress of the European Society of Cardiology held in France, the large global observational study—the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study—announced another important result: by changing 12 risk factors, more than 70% of cardiovascular disease and deaths can be prevented. The findings were simultaneously published in the world-renowned medical journal The Lancet.
Among these twelve risk factors, the one with the greatest impact was low education (12.5%), followed by smoking (11.3%), unhealthy diet (11.1%), and high blood pressure (8.8%). In addition, dyslipidemia, ambient air pollution, low physical activity, abdominal obesity, excessive alcohol, depression, high-salt diet, and indoor air pollution are also related to cardiovascular disease and death.
This study and survey were based on an average 9.5-year follow-up of 155,137 residents aged 35–70 without cardiovascular disease, across nearly 900 urban and rural communities in 21 countries on five continents. During the follow-up there were 10,234 deaths, of which 7,980 died mainly from cardiovascular disease; the data from this survey are reliable.
The study shows that people who were physically active during adolescence (exercising more than 60 minutes a day) had a 7% lower risk of adenoma; those who began exercising in adulthood (ages 23–64) had a 9% lower risk; those who persisted in exercise throughout both adolescence and adulthood had a 24% lower risk.
It is clear that no matter when you start exercising, it helps reduce the chance of developing cancer.
6. The Number and Types of Moles Are Related to Melanoma
Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia, writing in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, have identified a new method to help dermatologists determine a patient's risk of melanoma.
Associate Professor Rick Sturm of the Diamantina Institute at the University of Queensland said they had found specific genetic variants that affect the number and types of moles on the body and their role in causing skin cancer.
Under a dermatoscope, researchers magnified three key categories of moles: reticular moles, globular moles, and non-specific moles. They found that the more non-specific moles a person carries, the higher the risk of melanoma; each additional non-specific mole raises the risk of melanoma by 2%. As people age, they tend to increase the number of non-specific moles on their bodies, and the risk of melanoma also rises.
Melanoma is a malignant tumor that can be prevented and detected early by examining the moles on one's own body. Melanoma detected early is very easy to cure. But the later it is found, the smaller the chance of cure; once melanoma invades the dermis, most cases progress rapidly and are very hard to cure.
So paying attention to the non-specific moles and border moles on your body helps reduce the risk of developing mid-to-late-stage melanoma.