Chew more to lose weight
When it comes to ways to burn calories, few people think of chewing. A new study published in Science Advances found that about 3% of the energy we consume each day comes from chewing gum, crispy bones and other delicacies. If you prefer crude fiber foods like salads and celery, you may burn more energy.
The University of Manchester team used special helmets to measure the amount of oxygen consumed and the amount of carbon dioxide exhaled by 21 participants. Participants were given a tasteless, odorless, calorie-free gum and had them chew for 15 minutes. When chewing, the carbon dioxide levels in the participants’ breaths rose, indicating that their bodies were working harder; participants’ metabolism rose by an average of 10 percent when chewing the softer gum and 15 percent when chewing the harder gum.
Chewing gum consumed less than 1% of the participants’ daily energy expenditure. But the study suggests that early humans may have spent more time chewing before culinary tool use emerged.
The room is well-lit and has a strong sense of happiness
When people are looking for a place to live, most people prefer open, airy spaces. Architects at the University of Chile and the University of Sheffield in the UK found that rooms with better light make residents happier.
The researchers launched a virtual experiment using 25 different 3D building models. Each model offers a different home design with different amounts of natural light entering the living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. For example, the design of a home varies depending on the number and size of windows and whether the home faces north or south. Next, 750 participants viewed various building models in random order, after which each person ranked the different spaces from 1 to 10. The lowest end means the space environment has no effect on their sadness or happiness, while the highest end means the space makes them feel very sad or very happy.
The final results showed that the more natural light that entered the home, the happier the participants felt. Specifically, those homes with windows covering at least 40 percent of a dwelling’s wall space had the highest happiness among residents, especially young people and women.
The findings, published in the Journal of Architecture and Environment, suggest that the longer a person is at home, the greater the effect light has on mood. To make life happier for residents, maximize window area, increase the distance between blocks to reduce shadows, and use wall materials and colors that reflect light better.
Dark Chocolate Improves Memory
People tend to shy away from chocolate because it is high in calories, fat, and sugar. In fact, the “fault” mainly lies in the large amount of sugar, oil, butter, etc. added to make chocolate delicious, and cocoa, the main ingredient of chocolate, has been proven to contain a variety of beneficial ingredients. Pure cocoa is nutritious and a powerful source of antioxidants that can prevent or slow cellular damage caused by free radicals. Therefore, consuming dark chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa is a healthy option.
A few days ago, “Nutrition Neuroscience” published the latest research by a team from Isfahan Medical University in Iran. Using mice as experimental subjects, the research team tested the effects of different amounts of dark chocolate in the diet on the brain and body functions of mice. The results showed that ingesting dark chocolate was effective in suppressing food intake and body weight in mice. The study also found that ingesting dark chocolate affects synaptic organization in the brain’s hippocampus, helps relieve chronic stress from social isolation, and has beneficial effects on memory and learning.
