Clarissa Brincat, Author at ��è��Ƶ

Novels with a certain structure are more likely to be classics

Clarissa Brincat — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 16:00:52 +0000

Novels need a gripping story to stay popular as the decades pass, but it seems that other less-obvious factors may also contribute to their lasting success

Energy drinks could cause less dental damage with a simple addition

Clarissa Brincat — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 08:00:01 +0000

The acidity of drinks like Red Bull can erode dental enamel, but a lab experiment suggests this could be avoided via calcium fortification

Parkinson’s disease could be detected by listening to someone’s voice

Clarissa Brincat — Tue, 13 May 2025 09:00:21 +0000

The pitch and hoarseness of a person's voice often changes if they have Parkinson's disease, suggesting there could be a non-invasive way of screening for the condition

Reading for pleasure has plummeted over the past 20 years

Clarissa Brincat — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 13:00:16 +0000

People in the US are reading for pleasure less and less, despite it being linked to better sleep, improved mental health and even a longer life

Ozempic weight loss is deemed less praiseworthy than lifestyle changes

Clarissa Brincat — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 09:41:24 +0000

People seem to be less impressed when others lose weight with the drug Ozempic than when they achieve it via lifestyle changes

This surprisingly creative trick helps children eat more fruit and veg

Clarissa Brincat — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Weaving tales of magical fruit and vegetables into your children's stories may encourage them to eat healthy snacks

Eczema may sometimes be caused by eating too much salt

Clarissa Brincat — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 15:00:10 +0000

Too much salt is already known to raise blood pressure

towfiqu ahamed/iStockphoto/Getty Images

Eating too much salt has been linked to eczema after researchers found people with the skin condition have elevated levels of sodium in their urine.

worldwide have eczema, which causes dry, cracked and itchy skin. Common triggers include irritants found in soaps and detergents, as well as environmental or food allergens. Previous research has also in children.

To see if salt may play a role, at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and her colleagues examined urine sample data from more than 215,800 adults in the UK Biobank study, of whom more than 10,800 had eczema.

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The researchers used a urine sample from each participant to estimate their urinary sodium excretion over 24 hours. , making the waste product a relatively reliable way of gauging someone’s salt consumption.

Overall, the study participants excreted an estimated 3.01 grams of sodium in their urine over 24 hours, on average. The recommended sodium intake for adults , equivalent to 6 grams, or one teaspoon, of salt.

The researchers found that for every additional gram of sodium that the participants excreted, their odds of having been diagnosed with eczema rose by 11 per cent. Their risk of having eczema at that time also increased by 16 per cent.

The team acknowledges that a single urine sample may not accurately reflect a person’s typical salt intake. But in another part of their study, the researchers surveyed a separate group of more than 13,000 adults in the US about their daily diet, finding further correlations between a high salt intake and eczema.

Previous research has shown that , triggering some inflammatory pathways, says Abuabara. People with eczema have an overly active immune response to allergens or irritants, which causes skin inflammation and subsequent symptoms.

Although the study shows an association between high urinary sodium levels and eczema, further work is needed to establish that the former causes the latter, says team member , also at UCSF.

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It is too early to say that lowering dietary sodium levels can reduce eczema severity or the risk of developing it in the first place, says at King’s College London.

Abuabara says her team will soon start enrolling people to take part in a study funded by the US National Institutes of Health looking at the relationship between dietary sodium, levels of sodium on the skin and eczema severity.

Journal reference:

JAMA Dermatology

Intermittent fasting linked to a higher risk of heart disease death

Clarissa Brincat — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 20:00:53 +0000

Eating within an 8-hour window, commonly known as the 16:8 diet, is a popular form of fasting

CRISTINA PEDRAZZINI/Science Photo Library/Getty Images

Restricting your eating window to just 8 hours a day, a popular type of intermittent fasting, has been linked to a higher risk of dying from heart disease. But some scientists argue that people with pre-existing health conditions may unknowingly opt for intermittent fasting if their symptoms or treatments affect their appetite and the quality of our diet is probably more important than when we eat. Time-restricted eating has previously been linked to improved , and , but its long-term effects are unclear. To learn more, at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and his colleagues studied around 20,000 adults, roughly evenly split between men and women, who participated in the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Their average age was 49 and just under three-quarters of them were non-Hispanic white people.

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Every year from 2003 to 2018, the survey’s participants self-reported their dietary information. The researchers then matched this against the death records between 2003 to 2019 from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Participants were only included if they were aged 20 or older and had completed two diet questionnaires within their first year of the survey. Over an average follow-up period of eight years, the team found that those who ate during an 8-hour daily window didn’t live longer than those with a more traditional eating schedule of 12 to 16 hours, despite intermittent fasting often being lauded for its longevity benefits. The researchers also found that those who followed an 8-hour eating schedule were 91 per cent more likely to die from heart disease over the follow-up period than those who ate over 12 to 16 hours. For those diagnosed with heart conditions before the study, eating over an 8 to 10-hour window was linked to a 66 per cent higher risk of death from heart disease compared with those who ate over 12 to 16 hours. Among those diagnosed with cancer, eating over a window of more than 16 hours was associated with a lower risk of death from the condition than a more constricted eating schedule. The study – presented at the American Heart Association (AHA) Epidemiology and Prevention conference in Chicago – doesn’t prove that time-restricted eating caused any of these deaths, says Zhong. It is important to consider the participants’ reasons for practising time-restricted eating, says at the Intermountain Heart Institute in Salt Lake City, Utah. Some might have adopted this pattern intentionally, while others could have had limited eating windows due to health conditions or treatments that affected their appetite, he says.

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Some may have also had a restricted eating schedule because of limited access to food, says , former chair of the AHA nutrition committee. Research suggests that . “We also know nothing about the healthfulness of the foods they ate,” says Carson. In their paper, the authors acknowledge their research relied on self-reported dietary information that may be inaccurate. They plan to investigate if the findings apply to people of a broader range of ethnicities and how fasting might increase the risk of harmful health outcomes. People who want to reduce their likelihood of dying prematurely “should aim for an overall heart-healthy dietary pattern, regardless of the time of day they eat”, says Carson. Those who wish to start intermittent fasting should speak to their doctor beforehand, says Horne.

Clarissa Brincat, Author at ��è����Ƶ