Undead Astronauts

from reuters:

LONDON (Reuters) – Intelligence comes second only to smoking as a predictor of heart disease, scientists said on Wednesday, suggesting public health campaigns may need to be designed for people with lower IQs if they are to work.

Research by Britain’s Medical Research Council (MRC) found that lower intelligence quotient (IQ) scores were associated with higher rates of heart disease and death, and were more important indicators than any other risk factors except smoking.

the less intelligent u are, the less likely u are to understand that eating healthy and working out help u live longer. but being sickly also probably lowers ur IQ. there’s also the factor of future time orientation. ppl w/ lower IQ tend to have lower future time orientation and so even if u understand the risk factors, u don’t have the willpower to defer gratification.

i thought this line was the best however:

“Public health campaigns should focus on early life factors that have been shown to influence IQ levels and tackle social inequalities,” she said in a comment on the study.

“At the same time, the public health messages for known risk factors such as diet may need to be simplified.”

hahaha! ouch… b/c obviously it doesn’t already make enough sense that unhealthy eating and not working out lead to health problems.

Springing forward in time as daylight savings rolls into effect. I hope that as daylight lingers longer, less people are inclined to fall prey to the perils of the night. Fairly quiet thus far, we have been able to settle down after a little work tonight. Much appreciated.

As I hope to enjoy the extended sunlight, I am reminded of an interesting article I came across last year(MI=myocardial infarction, a.k.a heart attack):

Researchers reporting a link between acute MI and daylight saving time say their findings may also explain why more heart attacks occur on Mondays.

AMI rates among Swedish men and women, recorded in the Swedish AMI registry, increase by 5% during the first three weekdays after daylight saving time begins in the spring but decrease slightly, by 1.5%, for one day after the end of daylight saving time in the fall (as compared with weekdays two weeks before and two weeks after the time changes). The net effect of this time shift is likely negative, they say, since the increased risk in the spring is greater and persists longer than the slight reduction in AMI rates in the autumn.

Their data are published in the October 30, 2008 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

http://www.theheart.org/article/914557.do

Sometimes we take for granted the many layers of autoregulation that occur constantly, as well as the abuse that the body endures.  Watch yourself.