Waking up to music could make you more alert

Your choice of alarm sound could have an impact on your level of alertness after waking, reports an Australian study published at the end of January.

If you are not an early bird, hopping out of bed at dawn can be something of an ordeal. And the choice of the alarm that you use may be more important than you think. Researchers at the Royal Melbourne institute of Technology (RMIT, Australia), who recently published a study in the journal Plos One, have studied the impact of different types of alarm sounds and how they help dispel feelings of grogginess on waking.



The phenomenon of “sleep inertia,” as it is called, is a state of incomplete transition to wakefulness that can result in a groggy feeling that can last for up to four hours after getting out of bed. The goal of the new study was to understand how the decision to use a sound or music as an alarm can reduce the persistence of this state.

“If you don’t wake properly, your work performance can be degraded for periods up to four hours, and that has been linked to major accidents,” points out Stuart McFarlane, who led the study.

The study involved 50 adults who participated in an experiment that was specially designed for them to conduct at home. The principle consisted of recording the type of sound they used to wake up, and then assessing their level of alertness by answering specific questions related to sleep inertia.

Opt for a melody rather than a startling ‘beeping’ noise


The results showed that people who used music as an alarm had higher levels of alertness than those who opted for a strident “beep” sound. “You would assume that a startling ‘beep beep beep’ alarm would improve alertness, but our data revealed that melodic alarms may be the key element. This was unexpected,” remarks Stuart McFarlane.

“We think that a harsh ‘beep beep beep’ might work to disrupt or confuse our brain activity when waking, while a more melodic sound like the Beach Boys ‘Good Vibrations’ or The Cure’s ‘Close to Me’ may help us transition to a waking state in a more effective way,” adds Adrian Dyer, a co-author of the study.

While further research on a larger sample may be needed to support this theory, the findings of this study highlight the potential benefits of waking up to music in the fight against sleep inertia.

“This is particularly important for people who might work in dangerous situations shortly after waking, like firefighters or pilots, but also for anyone who has to be rapidly alert, such as someone driving to hospital in an emergency,” points out Stuart McFarlane. JB

AFP Relaxnews

Software that can predict athletic performance created by researchers

Researchers in Australia have developed prototype software that studies the impact of fatigue on athletic performance.

Published in the journal Plos One, the study measured athletes’ metabolic and neuromuscular fatigue. The software algorithm developed by the researchers enables athletes’ energy levels to be calculated and predictions to be made about how their level of fatigue might affect their performance.

“Let us say you have a game tomorrow and the model predicts you are going to be very fatigued, that might change the coach’s strategy,” said Dr. Paul Wu, a researcher at Australia’s Queensland University of Technology and the study’s lead author.

While metabolic fatigue requires only a few hours of recovery, the same is not true for neuromuscular fatigue, which can take up to 48 hours or more to recover from.

“In the elite sports setting, athletes often train twice a day, five days or more a week. If you develop neuromuscular fatigue and have training or competition the next day, you will still be fatigued and have an elevated risk of injury,” Dr. Wu said.

Comparing your performance to others


To design the software, Dr. Wu’s team subjected a dozen non-professional athletes to a “countermovement jump” test, which involves standing on a force plate, squatting and jumping as high as possible.

“In our study, we tested the athletes after low, moderate and high-intensity training sessions. We did many jumps over time, from just before training sessions, to right after, and then at regular intervals up to 48 hours later,” he explained.

The scientists then used a statistical analysis tool to process the athletes’ physiological data. “By doing a few jump tests up to 30 minutes after training, and then doing our analysis, we can predict the degree of neuromuscular fatigue,” said Dr. Wu, who also sees it as an opportunity for athletes to compare their performance with others. HM/JB

source: technology.inquirer.net

Carbs more harmful than saturated fats – study

WASHINGTON - Long-derided saturated fats—associated with an array of health problems such as heart disease—caught a break Friday when research revealed their intake could be doubled or even nearly tripled without driving up their level in a person's blood.

Carbohydrates, meanwhile, are associated with heightened levels of a fatty acid linked to increased risk for diabetes and heart disease, the same study showed.

"The point is you don't necessarily save the saturated fat that you eat, and the primary regulator of what you save in terms of fat is the carbohydrate in your diet," senior author Jeff Volek of Ohio State University, said in the report.

To conduct the study, which appeared in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists put 16 participants on a strict dietary regime that lasted four and a half months.


Every three weeks their diets were changed to adjust carbohydrate and total fat and saturated fat levels.

The scientists found that when carbs were reduced and saturated fat was increased, total saturated fat in the blood did not increase, and even went down in most people.

The fatty acid called palmitoleic acid, which is associated with "unhealthy metabolism of carbohydrates that can promote disease," went down with low-carb diets and gradually increased as carbs were re-introduced, the study said.

An increase in this fatty acid indicates that a growing proportion of carbohydrates is being converted into fat instead of being burned by the body, the researchers said.

"When you consume a very low-carb diet your body preferentially burns saturated fat," Volek said.

"We had people eat two times more saturated fat than they had been eating before entering the study, yet when we measured saturated fat in their blood, it went down in the majority of people," he said.

The finding "challenges the conventional wisdom that has demonized saturated fat and extends our knowledge of why dietary saturated fat doesn't correlate with disease," Volek added.

By the end of the trial, participants saw "significant improvements" in blood glucose, insulin and blood pressure and lost an average of 22 pounds (10 kilograms).

"There is widespread misunderstanding about saturated fat. In population studies, there's clearly no association of dietary saturated fat and heart disease, yet dietary guidelines continue to advocate restriction of saturated fat. That's not scientific and not smart," Volek said. — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

Scientists scour the genomes of people who live past 110

WASHINGTON - How do some people live past 110 years old? Is it superior genes, clean living, good luck or some combination of those?

Scientists studying these "supercentenarians" said on Wednesday they sequenced the genomes of 17 people ages 110 to 116 to try to determine whether they possess genetic traits that may account for their membership in this exclusive club that worldwide includes only about 75 individuals, nearly all women.

"This marks the beginning of the search for key genes for extreme longevity," said Stuart Kim, a professor of developmental biology and genetics at Stanford University whose study was published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.

The answer was not so simple. The study did not identify a common genetic characteristic in them, and the findings underscored the idea that living to extreme old age may involve lots of factors, the researchers said.

"Our hope was that we would find a longevity gene," Kim said. "We were pretty disappointed."

The study was the first to look at the genomes of multiple supercentenarians. Three prior studies looked at the genomes of either one or two such people, Kim said.

The research involved 16 women and one man, all of whom lived in the United States. Fifteen were white, with one black and one Hispanic. All have died since the study began.

Kim said he believes there is a genetic underpinning to extreme longevity but it probably is not as simple as a single gene mutation that slows the aging process in certain people.

"These supercentenarians have a different clock where they are staying really highly functional for a long time. We wanted to know what they had. It's pretty clearly genetic," said Kim, who collaborated with Stephen Coles of the Gerontology Research Group and other researchers.

"The results indicate that the genetic effect must be complex. It must be many genes, or different genes in each supercentenarian, that gives them the edge to live an extremely long time," Kim added.

Kim said the 17 supercentenarians did not report obvious health habits that explain their longevity. As a group, he said, they did not have especially healthy eating or exercise habits.

"About half of them were smokers," Kim added.

Misao Okawa, a 116-year-old Japanese woman born in 1898, is recognized as the world's oldest person. At her birthday this year in Osaka, she credited sushi and sleep for her longevity.  — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com