Research has shown our thoughts and cognition influence our eating habits and our relationship with food. Some studies suggest we respond faster to words linked to food, especially when we’re hungry, and others have focused on the particular preference many of us have for energy-dense foods that are high in calories, fat, and sugar. Enter the donut.

According to a small study conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and published in the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, donuts and other high-fat, high-sugar foods are a more of a distraction than low-calorie foods and everyday objects, even when we’re busy with a task that isn’t related to food and are not even thinking about eating.

This study involved three experiments.

In the first experiment, 18 participants were shown four symbols with no connection to food on a computer screen and were asked to classify the symbols as digits or letters. Randomly during this task, pictures of food with varying nutritional content and other objects flashed on the screen. The researchers determined that participants were more distracted by images of energy-dense foods than low-energy snacks or other objects. The researchers then repeated this experiment with 18 new volunteers, but they gave participants two “fun-sized” candy bars beforehand. These participants were not as distracted by the energy-rich images the participants in the first experiment.

In the third experiment, which involved 64 people, images of low-energy food were replaced by faces showing fear and disgust. When the participants had had nothing to eat beforehand, they were more distracted by images of energy-dense foods than by any other image, including the highly emotional faces. When they were given a snack before the experiment, this was not the case.

Sourced from: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

There have been a number of studies examining the effects of losing an hour of sleep in the spring and gaining of an hour in the fall as a result of daylight saving time. Now, a study from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia suggests the rate of assaults increases by about 3 percent in the day immediately after daylight saving time ends, which is November 5 this year.

Researchers were surprised by these results and instead had expected to learn the opposite: that aggression increases when daylight saving time begins in the spring – when we theoretically lose an hour of sleep – and decreases in the fall when we gain an hour of sleep. They based these expectations on research suggesting there are more car accidents and injuries at work, greater stock market losses, lower test scores, and higher suicide rates on the Monday after daylight saving time begins in the spring.

One theory for these somewhat surprising results is that people are better rested on the Monday after daylight saving time ends – and more able and likely to act on our feelings of aggression.

Sourced from: ScienceDaily

About 45 percent of all adults with food allergies who were surveyed reported at least one adult-onset food allergy, according to new research presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting in Boston. These findings are surprising, as food allergies usually develop during childhood.

Other recent studies also indicate that food allergy incidence is increasing in children and adults of all ethnicities. The most common adult food allergy is to shellfish, which affects 3.6 percent of U.S. adults, an increase of 44 percent since 2004. Tree-nut allergies have also increased in adults – by 260 percent since 2004 – to 1.8 percent.

In the United States, adult food allergies are more common in African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics than in whites. According to researchers, many adults do not recognize adult-onset food allergies and mistakenly attribute reactions to a specific food as a food intolerance.

Sourced from: American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology