Slimming by Cooling
Why living in a colder home could help you lose weight; The newly opened African Cancer Institute in South Africa; Examining the onset of childhood amnesia
How warm do you have your house in winter? Could your central heating be making you fat? Researchers in the Netherlands had some brave volunteers spend six hours every day for ten days indoors in temperatures of just 15 to 16 degrees Celsius whilst wearing t-shirts and shorts. They not only became accustomed to the cold, but their metabolism sped up, leading them to expend more energy. In longer experiments in Japan this has led to weight loss. So could turning the thermostat down be the secret to slimming down? Dr Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt is a biologist at Maastricht University Medical Center.
African Cancer Institute
The diseases well known to affect the continent of Africa tend to be infectious or communicable such as HIV, Malaria and sleeping sickness. Recent years have seen a rise in non-communicable conditions such as stroke, diabetes, and obesity which have all received increasing attention, but of these non-communicable diseases one remains somewhat neglected by health services - cancer. It is often overlooked as symptoms can be assumed to be due to an infection. The 大象传媒鈥檚 Meera Senthilingam has been out at the site of a new institute that is planning to change that.
Childhood Amnesia
For a long time psychologists thought that for the first three or four years of life children simply could not form autobiographical memories. But now new research suggests that it is not that we never form those memories, but that at around the age of seven we forget them. Patricia Bauer is a psychologist at Emory University in the United States and has conducted the first study looking at what children forget, so-called childhood amnesia, and at what ages. Her results have just been published in the journal Memory.
(Picture: Adjusting a thermostatic radiator valve. Credit: Science Photo Library)
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Slimming by cooling
Could exposure to colder temperatures aid weight loss?
Duration: 07:55
African Cancer Institute
A newly opened collaborative centre set up in South Africa
Earliest memories
A new study examining the onset of childhood amnesia
Duration: 08:21
Broadcasts
- Wed 29 Jan 2014 20:32GMT大象传媒 World Service Online
- Thu 30 Jan 2014 02:32GMT大象传媒 World Service Online
- Thu 30 Jan 2014 09:32GMT大象传媒 World Service Online
- Sun 2 Feb 2014 05:32GMT大象传媒 World Service Online
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