This is a preview of a member’s only post for the public.
Meal Timing For Appetite Control
Study Title: Early Time‐Restricted Feeding Reduces Appetite and Increases Fat Oxidation But Does Not Affect Energy Expenditure in Humans
Study Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/oby.22518
Quick Geek: Altering your meal timing may allow you to control your appetite better but doesn’t alter energy expenditure. This lines up with what we keep seeing in meal timing studies.
Not In The Study: Anecdotal evidence suggests individuals have an ideal meal timing schedule which could support energy expenditure increase and appetite decrease. Usually when one goes up the other does too. The goal? Finding the perfect balance with each one.
Baths For Better Sleep
Study Title: Before-bedtime passive body heating by warm shower or bath to improve sleep: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Study Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31102877
Quick Geek: This was a seriously pretty meta-analysis and review of all things pre-bed/sleep bath. Here are the studies practice points:
Practice Points
– Warming of hands and feet achieved by warm shower or foot or body baths for a duration as short as 10 min scheduled 1e2 h before bedtime is associated with shortened sleep onset latency and increased sleep efficiency.
– Warm shower or foot or body baths can enhance subjective sleep quality, perhaps not only through shortened sleep onset latency and increased sleep efficiency, but through increased slow-wave sleep and improvement of other sleep parameters, such as wake after sleep onset and total sleep time.
– Passive body heating effects on sleep readiness and sleep onset latency seem to be most strongly associated with achieved extent of decline in core body temperature rather than achieved level of core body temperature.
Not in the Study: Some evidence suggests adding magnesium to the equation could improve sleep quality to those with poor sleep. There still is little research to support transdermal magnesium (Epsom) but I still like it. It’s silky. It’s buoyant. Maybe it’s nothing more than that. More studies, please.
Rats, Only So Much We Will Do
Study Title: A Paranigral VTA Nociceptin Circuit that Constrains Motivation for Reward
Study Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31348890
Quick Geek: Yes, it’s a rat study and not a human study but as these type of studies go, what rats are willing to do with simple knowledge and what humans are willing to do with simple knowledge seem to be similar.
The researchers provide the rats with sucrose if they hit a button. Slowly, they increased the amount of time the rats had to hit the button to get the sucrose. Eventually, all the rats were like, “Screw it.” They gave up.
Researchers studied the neurotransmitters involved and are hoping to use it to develop drugs, reward systems, etc. for abuse and behavior issues.
Not In The Study: The big take-home here (and what we see in other studies) is we don’t like to do what we feel isn’t working. In short, if you have a goal you’re trying to achieve, make sure success and reassurance are frequent enough to keep momentum but not so frequent you procrastinate. Fun, right?
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