Being Overweight Makes Your Brain Smaller

In a report on the US News website titled "As Waistlines Widen, Brain Shrinks" they write:

For every excess pound piled on the body, the brain gets a little bit smaller.

That's the message from new research that found that elderly individuals who were obese or overweight had significantly less brain tissue than individuals of normal weight.

"The brains of obese people looked 16 years older than their healthy counterparts while [those of] overweight people looked 8 years older," said UCLA neuroscientist Paul Thompson, senior author of a study published online in Human Brain Mapping.

Unfortunately the article doesn't state if a) reversing brain shrinkage is possible by losing weight or b) if underweight people develop super-massive brains. (Actually - size zero models put that theory to rest).

So, if you were looking for just one more motivator to get out and do something physical - keeping your grey matter in tact is a pretty good one.

> Read the full article here

Quick & Dirty Asset Allocation

Following on from yesterday's post on the financial health check on the CNN Money site - they included a couple of tips from Money Magazine on various ratios. One I liked was a quick and dirty formula for calculating how much of your investment portfolio should be invested in equities: =120-(your age).

So if you're 30 - you should have 90% of your investments in stocks and the rest in less risky investments, such as bonds. This means that as you approach retirement age you'll be better protected from getting thumped by down-swings in the stock market.

How Healthy Are You Finances?

A nice and simple financial health check over on CNN money. It doesn't ask for too much detail so you won't have to come armed with reams of statements.

I got a B+ (meh!) and was told that my grades could be improved in my retirement savings (which is true - and I'm working on it) and life insurance, which I am still to be convinced about.

Speed Up Your iPhone Usage With Pastie

I've been testing a handy new iPhone app recently called Pastie - which lets you store templates for texts and emails that saves you typing them out in full.

Once you've created the text that you want to use on a regular basis - the app then gives you two other options:

1. Assign that text to either email, text or just the phone's clipboard (for use somewhere else)
2. Assign the text to a specific contact.

When you open the app and select the text you'd like to use (say SMS) then then Pastie will automatically copy your text to the clipboard, open the Messages app and the right contact if you've assigned one...and...this is the only annoying feature...then requires you to actually paste the text into the text entry field before sending it.

I'm using the Lite version, which is free but only stores 3 templates.

The paid version costs US$1.99 and is made by manic wave productions

Can Diet Coke Cause Cancer?

Is the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about to pull the plug on aspartame - the key ingredient in NutraSweet? An article over on the Huffington Post seems to think so.

According to the author - Samuel Epstein M.D. - some research in 2007 has shown that aspartame can cause an increased indicence of cancer in test rats:

This evidence on the carcinogenicity of aspartame was strongly reinforced in a unique 2007 feeding test, based on maternal feeding of rats in early pregnancy, resulting in their lifelong exposure to aspartame, beginning in fetal life. This resulted in a still higher increase in the incidence of cancers at sites including those previously reported.

If this turns out to be true, then the FDA will be required to put an automatic ban on the use of aspartame under a US law preventing "carcinogenic food activities", which includes products like diet coke.

Personally, I used to drink quite a lot of the stuff and then stopped for several years, but recently started to drink Diet Coke more frequently - sometimes a couple of cans a day. This article has taken me right off the stuff though and I don't intend to go back this time.

I really should have known better though - Nutrasweet headaches anyone? Or even just reading the ingredients where Aspartame is listed 3rd. So after water and caramel coloring, the 3rd most prevelant ingredient in diet coke is a substance that's potentially carcinogenic and has been contraversial since it launched. Yikes!

I'll stick to coffee for the caffeine kick and water for the hydration from now on. Much simpler!