Prevention February 2022

AS YOU MIGHT EXPECT, I get a lot of emails about diet plans that want some space in this magazine (Do this! Eat that! Here’s the secret!), but a recent letter from a reader stopped my delete finger cold. Paul Socken told me about his amazing weight loss—55 pounds!—but the better and more interesting news was this: It took him two and a half years to do it, and he doesn’t have a diet plan he thinks you should follow. Wait, what? It turns out Paul’s slow, steady, and healthy weight loss is rooted in this philosophy: “Every plan, even the best, is for a mass audience, and we are individuals,” he wrote when I pressed him for more. “Unless we focus on our needs and wants, we will succeed on…

Hug It Out The season of love isn’t just about couples and romance. Spreading love in general is always good for the soul, and one of the best ways to do that is with a simple hug. Science says hugging is good for us both mentally and physically: It’s been shown to help relieve stress and anxiety by ramping up the body’s production of oxytocin, which has a calming effect and may reduce blood pressure and steady your heart rate. Physical touch also lowers levels of cortisol, a stress hormone. That’s important because chronic stress can put you at increased risk for conditions like obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. We might not be able to hug at random just yet, but you can still hold a family…

Skimping on sleep may make us klutzier, says new research in Scientific Reports: Sleep-deprived people were less able to match stepping rhythms than those who snoozed enough. But logging a few extra hours of shut-eye on weekends fixed the problem. Is playing catch-up OK? Here’s what Raj Dasgupta, M.D., a pulmonary and sleep specialist, has to say: “Sleeping late here and there is fine, but don’t make it a habit. Your circadian rhythm will get out of sync; this can mess with hormones, mood, eating habits, and disease risk.”…

Stem cell transplant is often used to treat leukemia, lymphoma, and other blood cancers. But it’s not an option if a patient is too fragile to undergo the intensive chemotherapy (and sometimes radiation) needed to eliminate their own stem cells to make way for a donor’s. That’s why the discovery of transplantation without chemo is so exciting. In a study in mice by Washington University School of Medicine researchers, immunotherapy drugs trained the immune system to get rid of its own stem cells and prevented it from rejecting donor cells.…

Want an easy way to make kids’ screen time both enjoyable and beneficial? Talk it out. Preschoolers who chatted with their parents while watching television together showed more curiosity in kindergarten than children who rarely spoke while watching, says a Michigan Medicine study. Higher curiosity has been shown to be good for kids’ overall development and early academic achievement. Tricks for engaging: Share characters you love, discuss funny or scary scenes, or point out colors or objects.…

Vahdam Matcha Green Tea With Cocoa Get a big dose of antioxidants with each steamy sip—100% pure Japanese ground green tea powder (a.k.a. matcha) is laced with rich cocoa. $9, vahdamteas.com Bliss Bomb Doughnuts These mini doughnuts are baked, not fried, and there are flavors for any level of chocolate lover: Brooklyn Blackout (chocolate on chocolate), Café Mocha (coffee and chocolate), Chocolate Salted Caramel (enough said?!), and rotating seasonal flavors. $48 for 12, bliss-bomb.com Candid Noons Cacao Bites Made from the whole cacao pod and free of added sugars, these poppable bites come in many yummy flavors. $20 for six boxes, eatcandid.com Elements Truffles Ashwagandha Infused Dark Hot Chocolate Mix Creamy dark chocolate is infused with ashwagandha, an herb prized in Ayurvedic medicine for its stress relieving, energizing properties. $15,…