Hugging your dog is stressful for the dog. Late night snacking can damage your memory side of the brain. Sugar fuels growth of cancer. Drinking a red glass of wine is like spending an hour at the gym. Coffee can revert liver damage.
What do all these have in common?
Science it seems! Or at least scientists conducting these scientific studies!
And now a new study, as in only two days ago...
Women who are early risers have almost half the breast cancer risk of night owls who are more active in the evening and go to bed later.
So then I should ignore the last study that came out in the summer which suggested that people under the age of 65, who slept for five hours or less every night, all week, did not live as long as those who consistently slept seven hours a night.
In the new study, University of Bristol scientists found that morning larks are 40 to 48 per cent less likely to develop breast cancer than their more nocturnal peers.
This amounts to roughly one fewer cancer case among every 100 women who have a morning preference.
It also found an additional breast cancer risk for women who slept more than the recommended seven to eight hours a night – equivalent to an extra 20pc risk for each hour.
The trial used information from nearly 400,000 women who had their genetic information recorded in the UK Biobank or as part of the Breast Cancer Association Consortium study.
In the former study Stockholm University Stress Research Institute psychologist Torbjorn Akerstedt tracked more than 38,000 people in Sweden over 13 years, with a focus on their weekend vs. weekday sleeping habits.
He found that people under the age of 65 who slept for five hours or less every night, all week, did not live as long as those who consistently slept seven hours a night.
But weekend snoozers lived just as long as the well-slept. People who slept for fewer than the recommended seven hours each weekday, but caught an extra hour or two on weekends, lived just as long as people who always slept seven hours.
Short sleepers slept for less than five hours per night. Medium sleepers slept the typical seven hours. Long sleepers, per the new study, snoozed for nine or more hours. (The “consensus recommendation,” per the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society, is seven-plus hours a night for adults ages 18 to 60.)
A short-short sleeper got less than five hours a night all week long. They had increased mortality rates. A long-long sleeper slept nine or more hours every night. They too had increased mortality rates.
The short-medium sleepers, on the other hand, slept less than five hours on weeknights but seven or eight hours on days off. Their mortality rates were not different from the average.
Oh boy I don’t know whether I am the short-short or the medium short, or short-long sleeper, or just a bad sleeper, but I do know that I am getting the short end of the stick with these studies!