Author: healthadmin

Thanks to advances in AI, popular calorie tracking apps can now use photos of your meals to estimate the nutritional content of what you’re eating. While these apps are useful, a new study found that four photo-based apps underestimated the calorie and fat content of meals by about a third. Photo-based calorie tracking uses AI image recognition to identify foods in meal photos and estimate portion sizes. This information is compared to nutritional databases to calculate estimated calories and nutrients. Photo-based calorie tracking apps are extremely popular, especially among people looking to manage their health or lose weight. However, many…

Recent research published in journals psychophysiology We suggest that natural sighs act as a physical reset button for your breathing patterns during long periods of work. This study provides evidence that sighs help regulate both respiratory fluctuations and physiological arousal when people engage in monotonous activities. These findings suggest that occasional deep breathing plays a fundamental role in maintaining physical balance during sustained alertness. A research team consisting of Ralph W.G. Andrews, Michael C. Melnichak, and Paul M. Dockley sought to understand how voluntary deep breathing relates to human alertness. Daily breathing is rarely completely stable or completely even. It…

New research suggests that subtle patterns of background electrical brain activity are associated with everyday verbal communication skills in young people with autism. Scientists have found that high levels of background electrical activity, often described as neural noise, tend to make real-world communication more difficult for children with autism spectrum disorders. The study was published in a scientific journal scientific report. Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by unique social interactions, communication differences, and repetitive behaviors. Although structural language abilities vary widely across the autism spectrum, everyday communication challenges remain common and significantly impact social outcomes. To understand…

Recent research shows that attending graduate school with racially diverse peers leads to higher median starting salaries upon graduation. This large-scale study examined decades of data from business and law schools across the United States. The results were published in the journal Nature. In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Justices who opposed this practice argued that the educational benefits of diversity were too abstract for courts to objectively evaluate. They argued that goals such as developing future leaders and breaking stereotypes had no visible connection to university admissions policy. This legal change…

It is believed that adipose tissue is something that the body is better off without. However, scientists now know that adipose tissue is an active and essential organ that supports many important processes such as energy storage, hormone production, and metabolic regulation. Too much fat can increase your risk of diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems. However, the opposite can be dangerous. In rare genetic and autoimmune diseases such as familial partial lipodystrophy type 2 (FPLD2), abnormal fat loss and uneven fat distribution can lead to diabetes and other metabolic diseases. The longstanding mystery of fat loss Dr. Elif…

The brain systems that help children maintain focus appear to function on a single, shared spectrum, regardless of whether the child has an attention disorder. A large new study shows that neurological markers of attentional abilities do not differ between children with and without a diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. This study was published in the *Journal of Attenders*. Attention is not simply an “all or nothing” quality. People have varying levels of what psychologists call “inhibitory attentional control.” This is a cognitive skill that allows you to focus on a specific task or stimulus while eliminating surrounding distractions. This…

AI-powered calorie tracking apps can estimate the nutritional content of a meal from a single photo. The technology offers a quick and convenient alternative to manually entering every food item and portion, but new research shows the results may be significantly lower than what’s actually on your plate. In testing four photo-based apps, researchers found that the calorie and fat estimates were on average about a third too low. How AI estimates calories from food photos Photo-based calorie tracking relies on AI image recognition to identify foods shown in photos and estimate the size of each portion. The app then…

Prostate cancer is notoriously difficult to treat with immunotherapy, a type of cancer treatment that helps the immune system identify and destroy tumors. Now, researchers have developed an experimental RNA targeting technique that could make prostate tumors much more vulnerable to immune attack. Most prostate tumors are considered “immune colds” because they attract few T cells (a type of immune cell). Without enough T cells infiltrating the tumor, immunotherapy is unlikely to be effective. In laboratory studies, scientists used CRISPR-based tools to alter RNA within prostate cancer cells, effectively making the tumors more visible and attractive to cancer-fighting immune cells.…

Research published in JAMA network open Our findings suggest that the implementation of state-level abortion bans is associated with an increase in suicidal ideation among high school girls. The findings indicate that severe legal restrictions on abortion care can negatively impact the mental health of adolescents in affected areas. This study highlights a potential link between major changes in reproductive health care policy and the psychological well-being of young people across the United States. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death for youth ages 10 to 24 in the United States. In recent years, public health experts have…

Two devastating wildfires in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains in 2020 and 2021 killed thousands of giant sequoia trees. A new study from the University of California, Davis suggests that losses would have been even worse without prescribed burns. Published in nature communicationsa study found that giant sequoias exposed to prescribed fire in the past 10 years were nearly four times more likely to survive the 2020 Castle Fire and 2021 KNP Complex Fire than nearby untreated trees. “Prescribed burns are effective in reducing mortality in giant sequoias, even in today’s extreme wildfires,” said lead author Dan Dixon, who was a…