Reader’s Digest Canada – September 2019

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TV AND THE AGING BRAIN

Curling up in front of the TV can be relaxing and

even educational. Nevertheless, watching the tube

for more than 3.5 hours each day was associated

with moderately more verbal-memory decline in

a six-year-long study of British seniors. This link

remained after accounting for physical-activity

levels, so it wasn’t due solely to sitting too much.

One possible explanation: spending hour after

hour with the TV came at the expense of activities

that would have been less passive and more cogni-

tively beneficial, such as reading or socializing.

BY Samantha Rideout

Foods: “Good or

Bad” Too Simplistic

Balanced overall eating

habits matter more

than including or

excluding any one

food, as illustrated by

a recent Harvard-led

meta- analysis. It

encompassed 36 trials

that compared diets

high in red meat to

diets that swapped it

out for other foods. On

average, trial partici-

pants who ate plant

proteins (nuts, beans)

in lieu of red meat saw

their cardiovascular risk

factors change more

favourably than their

counterparts did. How-

ever, red-meat eaters

tended to fare better

than comparison

groups who substituted

extra carbs instead. The

analysis didn’t look

beyond cardiovascular

risk to other aspects of

well- being, but it’s still

safe to conclude that

cutting something out

doesn’t necessarily

make you healthier:

that depends on what

you replace it with.

reader’s digest

22 september 2019

News from the

WORLD OF

MEDICINE