Health

CNN - Over the past two decades, partisan gaps on all the issues included in a Gallup analysis have widened or remained roughly the same. Some argue that in this tumultuous landscape filled with social and political divisions, the United States is on the brink of a civil war.But that outlook is different from what social psychologist Sara Konrath found.

After studying and noting a decline in empathy in young people between 1979 and 2009, Konrath, director of the Interdisciplinary Program on Empathy and Altruism Research at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, and her coauthors updated their research in a recent report published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Empathy is the compassionate capacity to detect and feel others’ emotions coupled with an ability to understand another person’s perspective. This awareness is not a fixed trait.

The research team found that young American college students (average age of 20 years old) and American high school seniors are engaging in perspective-taking and empathic concern at higher rates compared with previous years of study. Perspective-taking (a form of cognitive empathy) measures people’s ability to imagine others’ viewpoints, while empathic concern (a form of emotional empathy) measures compassion and concern for others. The study included data collected from 1979 until 2018. The team’s analysis spanned that entire period. 

NY Times - For sausage, salami and steak lovers, the news has not been good. Scientists have been consistently finding links between red and processed meat consumption and heart disease, some types of cancer and earlier death.And now, two recent studies have added to the growing body of evidence that a meat-heavy diet may increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes.

In one of the studies, published today in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, researchers analyzed data from nearly two million adults participating in 31 studies across 20 countries, including the United States and parts of Europe and Asia.

The researchers reviewed survey data on participants’ diets and then looked at their health an average of 10 years later. After adjusting for other risk factors like smoking, a higher body mass index, physical inactivity and a family history of diabetes, they found that for every 1.8 ounces of processed meat the participants ate each day, their risk for Type 2 diabetes increased by 15 percent. (This is equivalent to a medium-sized sausage or two to three slices of bacon.) For every 3.5 ounces of unprocessed red meat they consumed daily, their risk increased by 10 percent. (This is about the size of a small steak.)