Peak Health Wellness Insights Issue 38

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Mental Resilience

Music synchronises the brains of performers and their audience
A new study has shown that the brain activities of a performer and his/her audience synchronise and the degree of synchrony reflects how much the audience enjoys the music.

Listening to music causes increased blood flow to areas of the brain responsible for understanding patterns, interpersonal intentions and expression. These findings further support why music influences our cognition, activates our brain to recognise patterns and promotes positive social behaviour.

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Sleep

A link between sleep deprivation, the gut, and premature death

A study on fruit flies has identified that reactive oxygen species (ROS) molecules always accumulated in the gut of sleep-deprived fruit flies prior to their premature death. This is because when ROS molecules accumulate in large amounts, they can damage DNA and cell components that leads to death. However, if the sleep-deprived fruit flies were given an antioxidant compound that cleared the ROS molecules from the gut, they were able to live a normal lifespan. 

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Nutrition

A new molecule might be able to burn fat, a potential treatment of obesity

Researchers have identified a molecule, BAM15, that decreases body fat mass without any change in food intake, muscle mass or body temperature. This molecule also decreases insulin resistance and improves oxidative stress and inflammation. The molecule works by uncoupling the mitochondria’s mechanisms, making it so that the cells burn more energy than normal. While these studies are still preliminary, this could be a promising future treatment to prevent obesity and diabetes. 

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Fitness

What happens in our body molecularly when we exercise

A new study tracked molecular markers in the body associated with biological processes such as metabolism, immunity, oxidative stress and cardiovascular function, before and after exercising. Interestingly, they found that physically fit people have similar molecular compositions in their blood before exercise - there were a collection of molecular markers for immunity, metabolism and muscle activity that seem to correlate to an individuals level of fitness. They also found that 2 minutes after exercise, the molecular markers of inflammation, tissue healing and oxidative stress increased significantly. Interestingly, also 2 minutes after exercise, individuals used amino acids for metabolism, but after 15 minutes they switched to glucose metabolism.

These researchers are hoping that with these findings, they will soon be able to develop a blood test that will be able to determine a person’s fitness level. 


Productivity Tip

Schedule everything
To maintain structure in your day, try to be extra vigilant about creating a schedule that includes both your work and non-work activities

Habit Hack of the week

Try not to rely on your scale for feedback on your health
Signs you are making healthy progress will not always show up on the scale in the way you would expect. Remember that this number is just one piece of the big picture and rarely reflects your health level

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