TL;DR: A 2026 study in Science of the Total Environment followed nearly 295,000 Southern California births and linked extreme nighttime heat in early and late pregnancy to higher autism diagnosis by age 5, while daytime heat was not associated. Key Findings A large Southern California cohort anchored the estimate: The retrospective Kaiser Permanente Southern California …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in the Journal of Eating Disorders found that higher sensation seeking, a personality trait involving pursuit of novel or intense experiences, was linked to more restraint and overeating in 400 German adolescents, with stronger disordered-eating links in teens with higher BMI, hyperactivity/inattention, emotional symptoms, or peer problems. Key Findings 400 adolescents: …
TL;DR: A 12-month four-wave longitudinal study in Psychological Science (N=2,149 adults across the UK, US, Canada, and Australia) found that feeling more emotionally isolated predicted higher chatbot use four months later — and that higher chatbot use, in turn, predicted further increases in emotional isolation at the next wave. Key Findings Bidirectional link with emotional …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in JAMA Network Open tracked 1,338 older adults from the Rush Memory and Aging Project for up to 19 years using objective wrist-actigraphy and found that each additional hour of daytime napping per day was linked to ~13% higher mortality, each extra nap per day to ~7% higher mortality, and morning …
TL;DR: A 2026 longitudinal study in Appetite following 491 Quebec children found that infants breastfed for at least three to six months showed better inhibitory control — the ability to suppress an automatic response — at age three and a half than infants who were never breastfed, with the largest behavioral benefits in those breastfed …
How Five-Animal Play Matched Probiotics in Prediabetes TL;DR: 4 weeks of Huatuo Five-Animal Play improved glucose control and insulin resistance about as much as bifidobacterium capsules, outperforming low-intensity cycling on several metabolic markers, including Wnt5a. Key Findings Exercise shifted glucose and GLP-1: Researchers randomized 90 people with impaired glucose tolerance to bifidobacterium triple viable capsules, …
Vigorous Activity Linked to Lower Dementia Risk in UK Biobank TL;DR: In UK Biobank accelerometer data, the vigorous share of daily movement accounted for 32% of dementia’s population-attributable fraction versus just 8% for total activity volume — suggesting brief breathless bursts carry brain-health information that step counts miss. Key Findings Dementia favored intensity over volume: …
Old Autonomy Wounds Made COVID Conspiracies Stickier TL;DR: COVID conspiracy beliefs became stronger when restrictive situations reactivated memories of lost autonomy, suggesting that misinformation can feel persuasive because it repairs an old sense of being controlled. Key Findings 141 Quebec adults linked restriction to later belief: In Study 1, participants read a mask-rule scenario, described …
Meat Intake Linked to Lower Dementia Risk in APOE4 Carriers TL;DR: In APOE4 carriers, higher total meat intake tracked with lower observed dementia risk over 15 years, while a higher processed-to-total meat ratio moved in the unfavorable direction. Key Findings 2,157 dementia-free adults: The study used the Swedish National Study on Aging and Care-Kungsholmen cohort …
TL;DR: A 2019 county-level analysis found that income, SSI, SNAP, education, commute, and work patterns explained about 70% of U.S. variation in frequent poor mental health days. Key Findings 70% county variation explained: The overall model explained 70.0% of between-county variation in adults reporting more than 14 poor mental health days in the past month. …
