About: Alan Carpenter

Recent Posts by Alan Carpenter

A Companion Dog Can Enrich Your Life

A Companion Dog Can Enrich Your Life
Dogs as social catalysts In the latter part of the 20th Century, research suggested that dog ownership predicted better health and well-being. In particular, companion dogs seemed to function as social catalysts. In 2000, two British researchers conducted two experiments to clarify whether the social interactions depended on the attributes of the dog or the…
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Psychological Stress and Sleep

Evidence begins to accumulate You might think it obvious that psychological stress would affect your ability to get a good night’s sleep. But it wasn’t that long ago (2004) when researchers at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit first showed that individuals who had stronger perceptions that psychological stress impaired sleep took longer to fall…
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Effects of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes

Effects of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes
Reduced sugar consumption projected to improve health High consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) predicts increased risks of type 2 diabetes and obesity, among other negative health outcomes. Researchers at Columbia University and the University of California – San Francisco used the Coronary Heart Disease Policy Model to estimate the effect of a nationwide 1 cent-per-ounce…
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Measures of Cardiovascular Health

Measures of Cardiovascular Health
Total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, apolipoprotein-B, apolopoprotein-A1, For years, the concentration of low-density lipoprotein (LDL-cholesterol) in blood serum has served as the go-to measure of cardiovascular disease risk. However, researchers have noted that LDL-cholesterol contains several constituents (small, dense vs. large, buoyant particles), which predict higher and lower risks for cardiovascular disease, respectively. More recently, researchers have…
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