It’s not just your imagination–gloomy weather can make you sick, or at least prolong your illness.  A Norwegian study found that winter flu epidemics are 20 to 600 times more deadly than summer flu epidemics partly because sunlight is in short supply during the winter months.  According to the findings, vitamin D gives the body’s immune system an added boost.  When a flu virus, or any virus, attacks a body with enough vitamin D in its system, the immune system is better able to battle the virus,

During the winter months, however, sunlight can be in short supply and many people are to, some degree, vitamin D deficient.  So, when the annual winter flu season hits, the body’s’ immune system is not as prepared to fight the virus, resulting in prolonged illnesses and higher death rates.

Sourced from: Medical News Today, Vitamin D Deficiency Likely Responsible For Flu Epidemic

The pressure for teens to look a certain way may start much closer to home than parents realize.  According to a study published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, peer groups have a greater influence on teenage girls’ body image than the media.

For the study, researchers at Texas A & M International University asked 237 Hispanic girls between 10 and 17 years old about their favorite television shows and how attractive they thought the female characters in the show were.  They also asked the girls about their own body image and if they felt inferior to other girls their age.

After six months, 101 of the girls were surveyed again and researchers found that peer competition and comparison determined if a girl developed an eating disorder much more often than media pressure. However, both peer competition and heavy social media use were linked to lower life satisfaction.

Sourced from: Science Daily, Peer Pressure Trumps ‘Thin’ Ideals in the Media

Too many drinks in one sitting can lead to more than a rough morning after.  Research published in the journal Science Translational Medicine found that frequent binge drinking could increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by causing insulin resistance. That’s the hallmark metabolic defect behind type 2 diabetes.

For the study, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York found that rats that were fed alcohol for three straight days – to mimic the effects of binge drinking – showed signs of insulin resistance and glucose intolerance after the alcohol wore off.  Rats that were given no alcohol, but the same amount of calories as the first group of rats, had no trace of either insulin resistance or glucose intolerance.

Researchers concluded that people who binge drink even once a week over an extended period of time could put their body into a prolonged state of insulin resistance and eventually develop type 2 diabetes.

Sourced from: Science Daily, Binge Drinking Increases Risk of Type 2 Diabetes by Causing Insulin Resistance