News

China's Forehead Nose, Peanut Butter Breast Cancer, And Artificial Sweeteners: Surprising Health News Of The Week

We don't know about you, but when we think cancer-busting technologies, we don't tend to picture a jar of Skippy.

According to Harvard and Washington University, we've got it all wrong. Apparently, peanut butter might go a long way to improve young girls' chances of not developing breast cancer later in life. Researchers monitored more than 9,000 girls throughout their adolescence, and found that the ones who regularly munched on peanut butter and/or nuts slashed their long-term risk of breast cancer by more than a third. The study's authors added that there was some evidence that soybeans, lentils, and corn might also improve breast health — but they admitted they were far more sure about the peanut butter.

by Jenny Hollander

Peanut Butter Might Protect You Against Breast Cancer

We don't know about you, but when we think cancer-busting technologies, we don't tend to picture a jar of Skippy.

According to Harvard and Washington University, we've got it all wrong. Apparently, peanut butter might go a long way to improve young girls' chances of not developing breast cancer later in life. Researchers monitored more than 9,000 girls throughout their adolescence, and found that the ones who regularly munched on peanut butter and/or nuts slashed their long-term risk of breast cancer by more than a third. The study's authors added that there was some evidence that soybeans, lentils, and corn might also improve breast health — but they admitted they were far more sure about the peanut butter.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News/Getty Images

You Can Re-Grow Your Nose. On Your Forehead.

Over in China, plastic surgeons have re-grown a man's nose onto his forehead. The guy in question had been in a car accident, and suffered permanent damage to his nose. (The resulting photograph is fairly explicit, but you can go see it for yourself here.)

It's not the first time doctors have taken skin from someone's forehead to re-build their nose — in fact, it's a pretty common procedure. What's not common is to grow said nose on someone's actual forehead. For the lucky guy in China, his new nose will be moved onto the, you know, "nose region" of his face once it's fully grown... and we'll say it again: fully grown, on his forehead.

Phil Walter/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images

Children Are Getting More Anxious

Kids these days! What with their ever-buzzing smartphones, crazy standardized testing, and decreasing amounts of playtime, you'd think they'd be cheery and chilled out... right? Yeah, no. Anxiety disorders in kids is at an all-time high.

The National Institute of Health found that up to 25 percent of today's kids have a diagnosable anxiety disorder, up from five percent a generation ago. That's five times more anxious children. No one's sure if the rise is due to over-diagnosing disorders, or, you know, our increasingly insane society. This week, Louis C.K. offered some wisdom of not giving his kids smartphones for the sake of letting them feel emotion, which you should really watch here.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Marriage Improves Your Chances of Surviving Cancer

More good news for single people: researchers in Boston have indicated that being married may be as effective as receiving chemotherapy. As in, if you weren't undergoing chemotherapy, but were married, you might be in a similar position health-wise to a single person receiving chemo. Come on, life.

Researchers tracked more than 700,000 cancer patients, and concluded that those who were single had their chances of receiving the best treatment slashed in half. Single people were also almost a fifth more likely to see their cancer metastasize. The study's authors suspect that a few factors made married couples more cancer-proof: you've got someone to exhaustively research your best options, someone to nag you to get the best treatment, and built-in social support, which has been repeatedly proven to improve health.

Still, we'd speculate that your best friend can pretty much do all of the above. So take that, science.

Doug Pensinger/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images

Artifical Sweeteners Might Make You Eat More

Artificial sweeteners: a tasty, calorie-free route to no-guilt snacking, right? Um... not at all. Turns out that artificial sweeteners in low-calorie products tend to make dieters consume more calories, because brands like Splenda induce cravings for more of that good sweet stuff.

Yale University researchers basically found that your brain is too smart to be fooled by Sweet'n'Low. It knows that stuff isn't sugar, and won't process it as such, meaning your brain will still want dopamine from real sugar. This tends to drive dieters to consume more sweetened products, which leads to more cravings. Artificial sweeteners have also been linked to heart disease, diabetes, and weight gain, which is probably the exact opposite of what you're going for.

Mario Tama/Getty Images News/Getty Images
15