Newsletter #69: Why We Need Sleep, and How Dark Chocolate Fights Depression 🍫
Hello Friends!
Welcome to the Labor Day Weekend edition of the humanOS newsletter 🏈 Here, as always, is where we share our work, plus the various studies and media that caught our attention this week. 🤓
This Week’s Research Highlights
📺 Eating while consuming some form of media may increase energy intake.
Participants recorded food intake and media use over a 3-day period. Meals that were consumed while participants watched some form of media (TV, computer, smartphone, book, anything) contained almost 150 more calories on average, compared to meals consumed without accompanying distractions. Furthermore, there was no evidence of dietary compensation in subsequent meals (eating less to make up for it), suggesting that effects may be additive.
⛹ Physical activity, even at a very modest intensity, is linked to reduced risk of death.
Researchers analyzed data from eight studies, involving 36383 adults, whose physical activity was measured objectively using accelerometers. Activity levels were categorized into quartiles, from least to most active, and subjects were followed for an average of 5.8 years. Individuals who engaged in 300 or more minutes of light activity, or 24 minutes of moderate activity, had half the risk of death, compared to those engaging in little to no physical activity.
🍫 Consumption of dark chocolate is associated with reduced risk of depression.
Researchers analyzed data from 13626 participants in NHANES. Subjects’ chocolate consumption was assessed against their scores on the Patient Health Questionnaire, which assesses depressive symptoms. After adjusting for a wide range of potential confounders, the researchers found that individuals who reported eating any dark chocolate had 70% lower odds of depressive symptoms, compared to those who reported not eating chocolate at all. Importantly, it has to be dark - researchers found no link between non-dark chocolate consumption and clinically relevant depressive symptoms.
🍽 Dietary restriction may rejuvenate the gut microbiota.
Researchers divided matched mice into two groups — one fed ad libitum (as much as they want) and one a diet providing 70% the average amount of food they would consume. After two months of this regimen, the researchers took fecal samples and sequenced the microbiota. The group on the restricted diet showed a dramatic restructuring of their microbiota toward a more balanced composition, resembling that of young mice. According to the researchers, an equivalent change in humans would roughly be a 66–72 year old’s intestinal flora reverting back to a similar state to when they were around 23 years of age.
New humanOS Content
- humanOS Radio: Sleep and DNA Repair. Podcast with Lior Appelbaum.
😴 What is the fundamental purpose of sleep? This is a question that has bedeviled researchers and philosophers for many years. But research seems to be gradually pulling us closer to an answer.
🧠 In this episode of humanOS Radio, Dan speaks with Lior Appelbaum. Dr. Appelbaum is an associate professor of Life Sciences at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. He and his team devised a series of elegant experiments, which seem to suggest that our brain may require sleep in order to repair DNA damage accumulated while we are awake.
🧬 This makes sense - we know, from previous research, that on-call doctors who are required to work overnight show greater DNA damage and reduced DNA repair gene expression, compared to doctors who worked normal hours. To learn what Lior and his team did, and more about what they found, check out the interview!
Podcasts We Loved This Week
- Lyle McDonald: Strategies for effective fat loss.Via Revolutionary You.
- Christopher Barnes: Sleep, ethical behavior and the workplace.Via Sleep Junkies.
- Sara Lewis and Sarah Lower: Are firefly populations “blinking out?”Via Science Friday.
Products We Are Enjoying
Cleveland Kraut.
Ginny says: This might be the best sauerkraut I have ever had, and I’ve tried a ton of different types over the years. My favorite variety is the Gnar Gnar (yeah, no idea why it is called that). It’s the perfect balance of spicy and tangy, and of course it is naturally fermented so it’s full of healthy bugs. I’ve been adding it to everything.
humanOS Catalog Feature of the Week
Want to watch this course with us this week? First lesson is just 42 seconds. If you are not yet a Pro user of humanOS, this initial module is available for everyone, so go ahead and check it out!