health briefs

Use Sunlight and Sleep to Lower COVID-19 Risk

Two readily available natural strategies— sunlight exposure and sufficient sleep—appear to lower the risks of suffering and dying from COVID-19, report two new studies. Researchers from the UK University of Edinburgh examined records of 2,474 U.S. counties from January to April 2020 to compare numbers of COVID-related deaths to levels of UVA rays from the sun. They found that people living in counties with the highest UVA levels had on average, a 29 percent lower chance of dying from the coronavirus. They ruled out the vitamin D factor by not including counties with UVB levels that would produce the vitamin. Repeating the analysis in England and Italy produced the same results. The researchers theorized that nitric oxide released by the skin when in sunlight may reduce the ability of that virus to replicate.

A second study of 2,884 high-risk healthcare workers in five European countries and the U.S. found that every additional hour of sleep reduces the risk of COVID-19 infection by 12 percent. However, insomnia, disrupted sleep and daily burnout are linked to a heightened risk of becoming infected with the coronavirus, having more severe symptoms and a longer recovery period, reports the researchers in BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health. People that had problems like difficulty falling or staying asleep or regularly using sleeping pills were 88 percent more likely to be infected with COVID-19 than those without such issues.

Refrain from Spanking to Avoid Harming Young Brains

About half of U.S. parents spank their children on occasion, and a third have reported having done so in the previous week, although numerous studies have found that corporal punishment is linked to mental health issues, anxiety, depression, behavioral problems and substance abuse in children. A new Harvard study has further clarified the harm with a finding that spanking alters children’s brain development. The scientists tested 147 children ages 10 and 11 that had been spanked and used MRI to measure their neurological responses to photos of people with angry or neutral faces. Compared to peers that had not been spanked, the children had greater activation in multiple regions of the prefrontal cortex region of the brain to angry faces—a fearful response similar to that of abused children. Those areas of the brain respond to environmental cues that could be consequential, such as a threat, and may affect decision-making and processing of situations. “While we might not conceptualize corporal punishment to be a form of violence, in terms of how a child’s brain responds, it’s not all that different than abuse,” says senior researcher Katie A. McLaughlin. “It’s more a difference of degree than of type.”