Yule Heibel's Library tagged health →  View Popular, Search in Google

D'oh. Big surprise - not.
QUOTE
The activity of driving to work should be better thought of as inactivity, and all that time sitting on your butt is slowly eating away at your cardiovascular health – and probably adding to your waistline.
UNQUOTE

cars transportation health atlantic_cities

How to run:
QUOTE
The 100-Up consists of two parts. For the “Minor,” you stand with both feet on the targets and your arms cocked in running position. “Now raise one knee to the height of the hip,” George writes, “bring the foot back and down again to its original position, touching the line lightly with the ball of the foot, and repeat with the other leg.”

That’s all there is to it. But it’s not so easy to hit your marks 100 times in a row while maintaining balance and proper knee height. Once you can, it’s on to the Major: “The body must be balanced on the ball of the foot, the heels being clear of the ground and the head and body being tilted very slightly forward. . . . Now, spring from the toe, bringing the knee to the level of the hip. . . . Repeat with the other leg and continue raising and lowering the legs alternately. This action is exactly that of running.”
UNQUOTE

running jogging health nyt video

Meshes nicely with the research that shows sitting to be harmful to your health (whether in offices or in cars...)
QUOTE
Cars have so altered the way cities are planned that "it's arguable that zoning is now health averse," said Larry Frank, a professor at the University of B.C.'s school of community and regional planning. One of his studies found that for every hour spent in a car, there's a six-per-cent increase in the likelihood that you'll be obese.

Old cities are pedestrianfriendly because they had to be. But the rise of mega-cities makes that impossible, unless you consider public transit to be an extension of walking. Transit riders almost invariably walk to and from their bus or train to work or home. In fact, they are nearly 3.5 times more likely than drivers to meet minimum physical activity guidelines, according to another of Frank's studies.
UNQUOTE

vancouver walkability cities cars health walking

It seems like there's a lot to revise / recheck in this study. One thing it does perhaps prove is that amenities in cities/urban environments are absolutely crucial. Meanwhile, note this caveat, from the article:
QUOTE
While the work doesn’t prove that living in the city causes the changes in the brain, it could be used to help improve life for city dwellers.
UNQUOTE
--> i.e., bring on the amenities.

neuroscience brain cities density health

Going to be fraught territory...
QUOTE
I suspect that IARC’s tenuous conclusion — that cell phones “may” be linked to cancer — will be fully justified by the research. It also will be largely ignored by the public, since most people long ago learned to discount cancer risk stories when the chemical or technology involved is extremely popular.
UNQUOTE

science cell_phones health risk cancer

Fascinating. New approach to tackling melanoma cancer, and possibly all cancers: start with the cell.
QUOTE
Butler and his colleagues harvested immune cells from nine patients. They souped up the cells in their lab—in effect giving them the ability to remember cancer cells—multiplied them in number, and infused them back into the patients from whom they been taken. This technique, called adoptive t-cell therapy, primes the immune system to seek out and destroy cancer cells throughout the body.
UNQUOTE

mit_techreview cancer cells cellular_health health

Love this: Harvard Business Review (management nerd mag) telling people to get enough sleep. Will we finally see the end of "I only sleep [ridiculously few hours] each night" one-upmanship?
QUOTE
Say you decide to go on a fast, and so you effectively starve yourself for a week. At the end of seven days, how would you be feeling? You'd probably be hungry, perhaps a little weak, and almost certainly somewhat thinner. But basically you'd be fine.

Now let's say you deprive yourself of sleep for a week. Not so good. After several days, you'd be almost completely unable to function. That's why Amnesty International lists sleep deprivation as a form of torture.
UNQUOTE

sleep harvard_business tony_schwartz health

Why is Wal-Mart taking on a negative externality that no one is really forcing the company to address or fix? It's scale.
QUOTE
In a recent article in HBR, Chris Meyer and I argued that we'll see companies taking more and more ownership of externalities they could ignore because of changing sensibilities and better sensors (meaning detection and reporting of impacts by third parties). But we also identified a third driver: the scale of modern business. Whereas in the past, a single grocer could not have much impact on society, in today's highly consolidated market, Wal-Mart touches a significant percentage of the nation's food intake. Once you reach a scale where your decisions have ramifications for millions, it is hard to pretend that the impacts, even as distant ripples, are not your problem.
UNQUOTE

harvard_business walmart negative_externality scale health

Intro page from the Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds (RSPB) to a report by a Dr. William Bird (ha!) called "Natural Thinking," available as a PDF download. Bird's report is an "investigating [of] the links between the natural environment, biodiversity and mental health."

This could be a useful reference for urbanist writing, insofar as it underscores the importance of amenities as a necessary complement to density. You don't want to have density while simultaneously "automating" everything (no more walking, driving only, no interaction with nature, etc.). Even small "hot spots" of natural interaction will work, or more walking with actual natural elements at hand.

health mental_health nature amenities stress research rspb

brain health neurogenesis neuroscience

"When a Seattle writer tried to recruit some north-of-the-border help in her fight against cancer, she learned how different our countries really are." Seattle cancer blogger Jeanne Sather writes about the differences between Canadian and American health care (including, especially, cost, and access to). Her blog, The Assertive Cancer Patient (http://www.assertivepatient.com/) provides real time details and updates.

breast_cancer canada cancer crosscut health health_care jeanne_sather seattle usa

Geoff Manaugh puts a whole new spin on "getting the lead out" to stay young at heart and young in body.

ageing health lead_poisoning toxins

cognitive_function health kids neuroscience sleep