ScienceDaily: Living Well News

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• Intake of dietary methyl donors in first trimester affects asthma risk in children
• I like your genes: People more likely to choose a spouse with similar DNA
• Why you need olive oil on your salad
• Favoritism, not hostility, causes most discrimination
• Could texting and autocorrect affect kids' writing skills?
• Taste test: Could sense of taste affect length of life?
• Does birth control impact women's choice of sexual partners?
• Children who exercise have better body-fat distribution, regardless of their weight
• Keywords hold our vocabulary together in memory
• E-cigarette awareness goes up, as (apparently) so does skepticism

Intake of dietary methyl donors in first trimester affects asthma risk in children Posted: 19 May 2014 03:45 PM PDT Maternal intake of dietary methyl donors during the first trimester of pregnancy modulates the risk of developing childhood asthma at age 7, according to a new study. Methyl donors are nutrients involved in a biochemical process called methylation, in which chemicals are linked to proteins, DNA, or other molecules in the body. This process is involved in a number of important functions in the body, and dietary intake of methyl donors has been shown to affect the risk of developing a number of diseases, including heart disease and cancer.

I like your genes: People more likely to choose a spouse with similar DNA Posted: 19 May 2014 01:07 PM PDT Individuals are more genetically similar to their spouses than they are to randomly selected individuals from the same population, according to a new study. Scientists already knew that people tend to marry others who have similar characteristics, including religion, age, race, income, body type and education, among others. Scientists now show that people also are more likely to pick mates who have similar DNA.

Why you need olive oil on your salad Posted: 19 May 2014 01:07 PM PDT A diet that combines unsaturated fats with nitrite-rich vegetables, such as olive oil and lettuce, can protect you from hypertension, suggests a new study. The findings help to explain why some previous studies have shown that a Mediterranean diet can reduce blood pressure. The Mediterranean diet typically includes unsaturated fats found in olive oil, nuts and avocados, along with vegetables like spinach, celery and carrots that are rich in nitrites and nitrates.

Favoritism, not hostility, causes most discrimination Posted: 19 May 2014 01:06 PM PDT Most discrimination in the U.S. is not caused by intention to harm people different from us, but by ordinary favoritism directed at helping people similar to us, according to a theoretical review.

Could texting and autocorrect affect kids' writing skills? Posted: 19 May 2014 01:05 PM PDT An English teacher sees the effects of students' growing up in an age when communication is done in an abbreviated text language and where they depend on autocorrect to automatically solve the "i before e" literary dilemma.

Taste test: Could sense of taste affect length of life? Posted: 19 May 2014 01:05 PM PDT Perhaps one of the keys to good health isn't just what you eat but how you taste it. Taste buds -- yes, the same ones you may blame for that sweet tooth or French fry craving -- may in fact have a powerful role in a long and healthy life -- at least for fruit flies. Bitter tastes could have negative effects on lifespan, sweet tastes had positive effects, and the ability to taste water had the most significant impact -- flies that could not taste water lived up to 43% longer than other flies.

Does birth control impact women's choice of sexual partners? Posted: 19 May 2014 10:48 AM PDT Birth control is used worldwide by more than 60 million women. Since its introduction, it has changed certain aspects of women's lives including family roles, gender roles and social life. New research also found a link between birth control and women's preferences for psychophysical traits in a sexual mate.

Children who exercise have better body-fat distribution, regardless of their weight Posted: 19 May 2014 10:48 AM PDT Maybe the numbers on the scale aren't alarming, but that doesn't mean that healthy-weight children get a pass on exercising, according to a new study. "The FITKids study demonstrates the extent to which physical activity can improve body composition, and that's important because it matters to your health where fat is stored. But the study is also interesting for what happened in the control group to the kids who didn't exercise," said the study's lead author.

Keywords hold our vocabulary together in memory Posted: 19 May 2014 07:47 AM PDT Like key players in social networks, scientists have found evidence that there are keywords in word networks that hold together groups of words in our memory. The existence of keywords opens up many possible real-life applications such as helping individuals with word finding after stroke. Conversely, removing a keyword through psycholinguistic tasks, could actually disrupt language processing - fracturing our word network.

E-cigarette awareness goes up, as (apparently) so does skepticism Posted: 15 May 2014 10:22 AM PDT National survey of 3,600 Americans finds awareness of e-cigarettes is up, but so is skepticism. Also, just knowing about e-cigarettes is no incentive to quit smoking tobacco products. The researchers say that increasing prevalence of e-cigarettes in the market and presence in the media could pose a public health threat because the evidence is not yet clear on whether these products will ultimately help or hurt efforts to reduce rates of smoking.

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