Imperial College London

September 23, 2024

Night owls can hoot all they want! New research suggests that people who stay up and do their best work at night have higher cognitive function than early birds, who are—let’s face it—often seen in a far more positive light, reports Futurism.

An international team of scientists led by Imperial College London came to this intriguing conclusion in a new study published in the journal, BMJ Public Health, during which they also found that getting seven to nine hours of sleep is best for optimum brain function.

For the study, the scientists looked at the large-scale UK Biobank, which comprises biomedical data and other information from half a million Brits, analyzing 26,000 participants who had undergone cognitive tests and answered whether they were early birds or night owls.

After crunching the numbers, the researchers found that one group of night owls had significantly higher cognitive function than another group of morning folks—surpassing them with 13.5% higher scores. In another sampling, night owls still came up on top with 7.5% higher scores.

People who are considered intermediate sleepers—they can switch between night and morning habits—also topped pure early birds with higher scores at 10.6% and 6.3%, respectively, in two separate population samples.

Cognitive function was obtained using results from four tests that measured visual and working memory, reaction time, verbal and numerical intelligence, and other cognitive qualities.

Scientists used different groups of people for comparison because some participants only completed two cognitive function tests instead of the four. People who did only two and people who did all four all were included in the study order to “optimize the analysis and enhance the representativeness of our findings,” the researchers wrote.

“It’s important to note that this doesn’t mean all morning people have worse cognitive performance,” Imperial College London medical researcher and study lead author Raha West said. “The findings reflect an overall trend where the majority might lean towards better cognition in the evening types.”

But will this study change the overall impression of night owls, who are seen as being lazy and irresponsible? Maybe not. But if you’re a night owl, at least you can whip out this study and say you got the morning birds beat in one very important aspect.

Research contact: @futurism

July 1, 2020

Many of us can’t help but be confused by the constant barrage of dietary advice emanating from friends and family, doctors and wellness sources, social media, and advertising. But now, there’s a new type of urine test—designed by researchers at Imperial College London—that may help us to determine just what kind of diet would be best specifically for our own bodies, Study Finds reports.

The test takes only five minutes and measures a variety of metabolites present in urine. These metabolites can reveal important information about our diet, including consumption of citrus fruit, fructose (fruit sugar), glucose, vitamin C, red meats, and chicken.

Another key piece of information that the test reveals is whether the patient has a health condition. For example, the test measures salt intake, which is linked to obesity and high blood pressure.

“Diet is a key contributor to human health and disease, though it is notoriously difficult to measure accurately because it relies on an individual’s ability to recall what and how much they ate,” explains researcher Joram Posma in a statement.

“For instance,” Posma notes, “asking people to track their diets through apps or diaries can often lead to inaccurate reports about what they really eat. This research reveals this technology can help provide in-depth information on the quality of a person’s diet, and whether it is the right type of diet for their individual biological make-up.”

The researchers believe that the new technology can provide an individual urine “fingerprint” which varies from person to person. This information can then be used by dieticians to tailor dietary recommendations. The fingerprint helps to create a personal score, known as a Dietary Metabotype Score, or DMS—for each individual.

In their experiments, the authors instructed a group of 19 people to adhere to one of four diets, which ranged from very unhealthy to very healthy. They then calculated DMS scores for each individual. While higher DMS scores correspond with healthier diets and lower DMS scores signal not-so-healthy ones, researchers report variations in scores among people who strictly followed the same diet. These findings suggest that people metabolize the same food in different ways, and that these differences affect DMS scores.

Looking ahead, the researchers plan to examine how DMS scores are related to the risk of health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure.

“We show here how different people metabolize the same foods in highly individual ways. This has implications for understanding the development of nutrition-related diseases and for more personalized dietary advice to improve public health,” co-author John Mathers of Newcastle University explains.

The study is published in Nature Food.

Research contact: StudyFinds

Posts tagged with "Imperial College London"

Study: Night owls have superior cognitive function

New urine test assesses whether your diet is right for your body in just five minutes