A spicy meal before bed can disrupt sleep

Research has shown over the years that a spicy meal at night can indeed lead to poor sleep. The most direct study to show this was published in The International Journal of Psychophysiology by a team of Australian researchers. The scientists recruited a group of young, healthy men and had them consume meals that contained Tabasco sauce and mustard shortly before they turned in on some evenings and nonspiced control meals on other evenings. On the nights that included spicy meals, there were marked changes in the subjects’ sleep patterns. They spent less time in both the light phase of sleep known as Stage 2 and the deep, slow-wave Stages 3 and 4. All of which meant that they experienced less sleep over all and took longer to drift off.

Diabetes linked to depression risk
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore analysed data on 6,814 subjects who underwent three examinations between 2000 and 2005. Among 4,847 participants without depression at the start of the study, the researchers report, rates of occurrence of depression symptoms during follow-up were similar for people without diabetes and those with untreated type 2 diabetes, but about twice as high in people being treated for type 2 diabetes. They also found that participants who had symptoms of depression were about 30 per cent more likely to develop diabetes during the study than people without depression. The link between depression and diabetes onset was partially due to lifestyle factors, such as caloric intake and physical activity.

Teen eating disorders fueled by anxiety
Eating disorder symptoms are only temporary for many adolescents, according to the results of a self-reported survey conducted in Finland. However, among teens with persistent or recurring symptoms, anxiety appears to be an underlying factor. The researchers followed 372 boys and girls 15 to 17 years old for a year to determine whether certain factors could help identify individuals who would have more long-lasting eating problems. At the initial assessment, 13 percent of the study participants reported having some eating disorder symptoms on the first or second survey, while 5 percent reported symptoms on both surveys. While five times as many girls as boys had persistent eating disorder symptoms, the proportion of boys who had the symptoms at just one point in time was larger, with just twice as many girls as boys. The students who reported eating disorder symptoms at both time points were more likely than their peers to also have several other psychological and health problems.