Color-Coded Nutrition Facts May Confuse Rather Than Inform Consumers

by Natalie Shoemaker

The obesity epidemic is well-known and countries are trying to do what they can to fight it. Peter Ubel of Forbes highlights a UK food labeling system that hopes to teach consumers to make healthier choices through color-coded labels. But some companies may be able to use this easy system to only further confuse and distract consumers from the real facts.

Nutrition labels require you to understand how much sugar is ok, the difference between saturated and monosaturated fats, and pay attention to serving size. Grocery shopping could easily become and all-day event if you stopped to read, compare, and research every item. Thankfully, British food companies are adopting what Ubel calls a kind of “stoplight system” for nutrition facts—an at-a-glance method of grouping the important nutrition bullet points and color-coding them. Red, yellow, and green labels will color certain nutrition categories to let buyers know what values are considered good, bad, or so-so.

The idea is if you buy a food with all or mostly green labels next to each category, you've made a healthy choice. However, there's a flaw in this quick and easy system. Ubel asks people to consider Coca Cola, for instance, which will be adopting the voluntary labels. Diet Coke and Coca Cola Zero products display all-green labels. These products are low in fat, sodium, and saturated fat, making it “[look] healthier than kale juice!” according to Ubel.

To him, the UK stoplight system is a step in the right direction to level the playing field for the health conscious and uninformed. But the truth is there's more nuance to nutrition than whether a product has lots of sugar or fat. In fact, he points to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that shows a diet low in carbohydrates is far more effective than one that's low in fat. After all, carbohydrates are broken down into sugar.

This system may not be perfect, but hardly anything is the first time around. The hope is the system will continue to evolve, and become more refined to meet consumer's informational and nutritional needs.

Read more at Forbes

Photo Credit: Julia Lamphear/Flickr

Patients Prescribed Opiates Use More of Them Longer

by Natalie Shoemaker

One cannot underestimate opiates addictive nature. Americans make up less than 5 percent of the global population, and yet we're able to consume around 80 percent of the opioid supply, according to a recent study. Narcotic painkillers are designed as a short-term crutch to deal with the pain of a recent injury—not as a solution to chronic ailments. But the study reveals, patients that don't stop using within 30 day are at a higher risk to abuse them for a longer period of time.

Kate Thomas of the New York Times reported on the recent study from Express Scripts, a pharmacy benefits manager. She explains there has been some success in reducing the number of people taking addictive painkillers, thanks to a major health campaign. However, patients who are getting these drugs are using them for longer than prescribed.

The report looked at 6.8 million pharmaceutical claims for fillings of opiates, like oxycodone, morphine, codeine, and hydrocodone, between 2009 and 2013. Dr. Glenn Stettin, a Senior Vice President at Express Scripts, sat down with Thomas to explain the findings.

“Not only are more people using these medications chronically, they are using them at higher doses than we would necessarily expect. And they are using them in combinations for which there isn’t a lot of clinical justification.”

Out of 60 percent of patients taking an opioid to treat long-term pain mixed their medications with others. Two-thirds of these people got a second medication from two or more doctors, and 40 percent of those had their prescriptions filled at more than one pharmacy. The concoctions these people were taking matched opiates with benzodiazepine (anti-anxiety medication)--a cocktail that's considered a common cause for drug overdose deaths. Others took their opiates with a muscle relaxant, or even used all three—an opiate, muscle relaxant, and benzodiazepine to make, what Thomas calls a “Houston cocktail.” This combination is supposed to give users a high similar to heroin.

The study also found that close to half of patients who took an opiate for more than 30 days continued their use for three years or more. The point of addiction comes when users start to use these short-acting medications to treat long-term pain. However, doctors need to take some responsibility.

“It’s our hope that physicians remain reluctant to start people on an opioid pain medication when they’re not necessary, and that there’s an increase in public awareness that people shouldn’t want to get involved with these medications if they don’t need them.”

The lesson here is if you take an opiate after surgery or an accident, stop using as quickly as possible.

Read more at New York Times

Photo: Credit: Shutterstock

Kids Lie More When Threatened with Punishment for Bad Behavior

by Natalie Shoemaker

Parents who threaten to punish their kids for bad deeds may be encouraging their children to lie. Max Ufberg of Pacific Standard points to a recent study that shows encouraging honesty without punishment results in more truth-telling. The new study by McGill researchers was led by Victoria Talwar, a Child Psychology Professor, has research to show that a child's need to appease adults is why they lie. So, instead, encourage them to tell the truth.

The researchers gathered a group of 372 children, ranging in ages from four to eight. The kids were put in a room with their back turned to a noise-making stuffed toy. Researchers ask the child to identify the toy twice, making child perceive the experiment as a kind of guessing game. A new toy was then placed behind the child's back and the researcher would leave the room, stating that the game would continue when he/she returned. The children were told one of two things: that there would be consequences for peeking or that if you do peek, it's good to tell the truth.

Two-thirds of the kids broke the rule and peeked at the toy. But the majority of those who looked at the toy and were told there would be consequences, lied about peeking. Whereas the ones who peeked and were told honesty is the right thing to do, appeased the adult by telling the truth about their wrong-doing.

Talwar explains its all about kids need to appease adults at that stage in their life.

“Because children at a young age are most concerned about pleasing adults, external appeals may have the greatest potency in motivating children to tell the truth.”

She went on to explain her findings in a press release for McGill, writing:

“The bottom line is that punishment does not promote truth-telling. In fact, the threat of punishment can have the reverse effect by reducing the likelihood that children will tell the truth when encouraged to do so.”

Read more at Pacific Standard

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Reindeer May Live on Only in Christmas Stories as Population Plummets

by Natalie Shoemaker

Reindeer populations are declining, and if their numbers continue to plummet, Santa's iconic sleigh pullers may only be remembered in Christmas stories.

Discovery New's Jennifer Viegas writes on a recent study published in the Journal for Nature Conservation that shows the reindeer population in China is on the decline. Through this research, the authors hope to make a strong case for why the government should update its conservation status. The country's Threatened Species of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) classifies reindeer as an animal of “least concern” when they should be at risk, according to researchers. They argue that by updating the IUCN's Red List to a more urgent condition, it could help increase conservation efforts.

In the study, researchers noticed the decline from comparing historical to current distribution numbers throughout China. They cite that the reindeer population peaked in the 1970s with over 1,080 reindeer, but from 1998 onward their numbers have dwindled as much as 28 percent.

There are several factors contributing to their decline. Their populations are already low, so genetic variance among mates becomes less and less. The biggest risk right now is inbreeding that may result in genetic deterioration, which would result in birth complications, furthering their decline. There's also issues with poachers killing the reindeer for their antlers, as the last remaining herders move toward more populated areas to get in on the tourist trade. Natural predators are also a threat, and kill as many as “a third of reindeer calves each year,” according to researchers.

The research team hopes their data is enough to convince the IUCN to update their information and begin conservation efforts for the reindeer in China. However, reindeer populations that make up parts of North America, other portions of Asia, norther Europe, and the Arctic are also threatened, but for different reasons. In northern Canada, for example, reindeer have trouble foraging for food because of changing weather patterns. Their decline has sent ripples that have affected northern tribes, which rely on these animals for food and clothing, according to a story on the site Living on Earth.

Perhaps being a Christmas icon doesn't have as many perks as one would think, since stories of their decline keep circulating around the same time only once every year.

Read more at Discovery News

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MIT Physicist Proposes New "Meaning of Life"

by Orion Jones

MIT physicist Jeremy England claims that life may not be so mysterious after all, despite the fact it is apparently derived from non-living matter. In a new paper, England explains how simple physical laws make complex life more likely than not. In other words, it would be more surprising to find no life in the universe than a buzzing place like planet Earth.

What does all matter—rocks, plants, animals, and humans—have in common? We all absorb and dissipate energy. While a rock absorbs a small amount of energy before releasing what it doesn't use back into the universe, life takes in more energy and releases less. This makes life better at redistributing energy, and the process of converting and dissipating energy is simply a fundamental characteristic of the universe.

According to England, the second law of thermodynamics gives life its meaning. The law states that entropy, i.e. decay, will continuously increase. Imagine a hot cup of coffee sitting at room temperature. Eventually, the cup of coffee will reach room temperature and stay there: its energy will have dissipated. Now imagine molecules swimming in a warm primordial ocean. England claims that matter will slowly but inevitably reorganize itself into forms that better dissipate the warm oceanic energy.

The strength of England's theory is that it provides an underlying physical basis for Darwin's theory of evolution and helps explain some evolutionary tendencies that evolution cannot. Adaptations that don't clearly benefit a species in terms of survivability can be explained thusly: "the reason that an organism shows characteristic X rather than Y may not be because X is more fit than Y, but because physical constraints make it easier for X to evolve than for Y to evolve."

If you're hungry for more, have a look at Michio Kaku's concise explanation of the entire physical universe:

Read more at Business Insider

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BPA in Canned Food Linked to High Blood Pressure

by Natalie Shoemaker

High blood pressure has another contributor and this one has more to do with the containers housing your food than its content. You may want to consider how many canned goods you've been consuming, and it's not all about the sodium. It may also be the BPA that's lining those cans and various plastic containers that could be raising your blood pressure.

Alice Park of Time has pointed to a recent study out of South Korea that reveals more concerning evidence about the dangers of BPA. Previous studies have linked the chemical Bisphenol A or BPA to higher risks of asthma, obesity, and brain development issues in children. There's also some studies that even link it to reproductive issues. The list goes on, and Yun-Chul Hong from the department of Preventive Medicine and the Environmental Health Center at Seoul National University is about to add one more.

The study, published in Hypertension, took 60 participants who were aged 60 years or older. The researchers instructed the participants to visit the the study site three times, during that time they would drink the same beverage from either two glass bottles, two cans, or one can and one glass bottle at a time. Researchers then measured the BPA levels from their urine, blood pressure, and heart rate two hours after consumption.

Participants who drank from the two canned beverages had an acute increase of about 4.5mmHG in blood pressure and their BPA levels were over 1,600 percent. An increase of 20mmHG would double the risk of heart disease, and while it did not go that high, Hong still sees it as a cause for concern.

In an email to Time discussing the results, Hong wrote:

“Because hypertension is a well-known risk factor for heart disease, our study showing the link of BPA exposure to elevation in blood pressure strongly suggests that BPA exposure may increase the risk of heart disease.”

“Clinicians and patients, particularly hypertension or heart disease patients, should be aware of the potential clinical problems for blood pressure elevation when consuming canned foods or using plastics containing BPA.”

If you're doctor notes your blood pressure is high next visit, perhaps it's time to think about a change of diet in addition to examining the make-up of your food containers.

Read more at Time

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How to Get Better Feedback at Your Next Performance Review

by Natalie Shoemaker

Feedback saves you from the person you once were and gives you insight into how you're perceived by others. If given good feedback from observant peers and leaders, it can help you become better at your job. Without it you're doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes, and you may not even realize it. The trick is getting honest feedback.

Peter Bregman helps advise CEOs and leaders, he recently wrote an article on the Harvard Business Review summarizing the best ways to get and receive feedback. The first way to deter that good, honest feedback is by getting defensive. It's tough hearing about our flaws, no matter if it's from a boss or a peer at work, but making excuses for your shortcomings is a quick way to deter any helpful feedback. But you have to resist pushing back. People will defer to niceties, as they don't want to jeopardize their working relationship with you, and they'll be hesitant to offer any real critiques in the future.

“...your colleagues are less likely to push past your defensiveness and more willing to write you off if they have a hard time working with you. If that happens, you’ll never know why--since you won’t have heard the feedback--so you’ll keep repeating the same mistakes.”

In order to get the best out of your next performance review, Bregman suggests to start off the conversation by asking for honesty—not niceties to appease you. This requests helps encourage the reviewer to open up and lets them know that a polite review won't yield a better output from you going forward. Bringing a pen and pad of paper, and writing down what's said during the review only helps your cause. It lets the speaker know you value what they're saying and gives them time while you scribble away to think on and develop more thoughtful points.

Another helpful tactic Bregman suggests is to focus the conversation on the future—what could you be doing better. This tactic helps the reviewer be more honest and lessens the blow to you about hearing past errors. It gives you a goal to strive for rather than dwell on a past indiscretion that you can't change.

Bregman reminds that not all reviews are a true reflection of who you really are as a worker, but it's how this person perceives you. It doesn't mean that this feedback isn't valuable. For instance, if you're boss tells you that you're not taking on enough, but you're working throughout the day, you may need to communicate your schedule better to your superiors.

Few of us are born leaders, we need to learn to become that person through the feedback of our peers and supervisors. It may be a tough pill to swallow at times, but the end results, if you choose to act on that feedback, may make it well worth any temporary discomfort you may suffer.

Read more at Harvard Business Review

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