Simon Crox Sitting through the first lecture of our research internship program, the lecturer invited us to introduce our subjects. After Pietje (for the sake of anonymity) had spoken about his subject, the lecturer smilingly said ‘ah, one of the sitters’. Apparently, five out of 20 students were involved in the popular research topic of sedentary behaviour (i.e. sitting and lying down). You probably know the phrase “sitting is the new smoking”, but you probably did not know “the chair … [Lees meer...]
Whole body cryotherapy: Ingenious or insane?
Tanja Reutelingsperger This time of year, the temperature drops below zero and together with the bleak wind this results in a freezing cold winter. However, these temperatures are nothing compared to the temperatures people are voluntarily exposing themselves to in whole body cryotherapy (WBC). They even pay big bucks for three minutes in -110 degrees of Celsius in wellness centers. Is this something we should all try or should we leave these crazy colds up to Wim Hof, the … [Lees meer...]
Is the “man flu” really worse than a woman’s flu?
Jamie Hulzebos I was browsing the website of the BMJ Christmas editions, and my attention was caught by an article about ‘The science behind man flu’ written by Kyle Sue [1]. Recently, this article was in the Dutch papers NRC and Volkskrant and called unscientific [2, 3]. However, I was curious about the concept of the “man flu” and did some research. I think every woman in a relationship with a man can relate to the concept of the “man flu”. The Oxford dictionary defines it as: “A … [Lees meer...]
Hypnotise the abdominal pain away
By Mylène Gorissen When being tense about a presentation or the coming Christmas holidays, many children experience abdominal pain as an expression of stress. Once the presentation is over or the gifts have finally been received, this belly pain has vanished. In some of these children however, the abdominal pains take the form of functional abdominal pain (FAP) or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Unfortunately, these types of pain can not be treated by opening a present. Abdominal pain is … [Lees meer...]
Fine particle pollution: not so fine
By Nena Rokx Last summer I visited Bangkok, where I noticed many people wear mouth caps. I wondered why and downloaded the application AirVisual to check the United-States Air Quality Index (AQI). The AQI value was 137 at that moment and marked as orange and unhealthy for sensitive groups. This value was more than twice as high as the highest value in the Netherlands, which was 63 in Amsterdam. This value was marked as yellow and moderate. In some other cities around the world, the AQI value … [Lees meer...]