Night owls are at greater risk of poor metabolic health

Whether you are an early bird or a night owl, your sleep patterns can tell a lot about a person’s eating habits and subsequently the potential health risks.

Professor Rozanne Kruger from Griffith University’s School of Allied Health, Sport and Social Work studied 287 European and Pacific New Zealand women aged between 18-45 years and assessed if they were morning chronotypes (early bird) or an evening chronotype (night owl).

“Chronotypes influences our preferences for food intake, our behaviours and our metabolism,” Professor Kruger said.

“Both Morning-types and Evening-types consumed similar amounts of food or energy across the day, but it was the timing of eating that was crucial.”

Evening-types consumed less food between 3am and 9:59am but more food between 8pm and 2:59am, while the opposite was true for Morning-types.

Night owls were more likely to consume lower energy and protein intakes in the morning, and ate foods that were high in energy, carbohydrates and fats late at night.

This Evening-type eating and sleeping pattern was associated with greater body fat percentage, belly fat, and higher blood sugar and lipids.

Consuming food at night, when we are supposed to be fasting and sleeping, means we store more food rather than use it, which may increase susceptibility to obesity and cause worse health outcomes.

Women who naturally preferred a later bedtime and wake time were also more likely to have a higher Body Mass Index and Body Fat percentage, poorer lipid profiles, and less favourable indicators of glucose regulation than Morning-types.

“The research highlights that when people eat may be just as important as what they eat,” Professor Kruger said.

“Targeting meal timing, particularly reducing late-night eating, could be an important strategy for improving health amongst people with an evening chronotype.

“It reinforces the role of chrononutrition and the role it plays in obesity and metabolic disease prevention.”

The paper ‘Chronotype and associations with dietary intake, meal timing, body composition, and metabolic biomarkers’ has been published in Frontiers in Nutrition.

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Journal

Frontiers in Nutrition

DOI

10.3389/fnut.2026.1862060 

Muscles matter for diabetes risk

 A major new international study led by Curtin University, has found diabetes risk is about more than just body weight or obesity, revealing muscle health also likely plays a big role in whether people will develop the condition.

 

Published in one of the world’s leading diabetes journals, Diabetes Care, the study saw researchers from the Curtin School of Population Health and Dementia Centre of Excellence at the Curtin enAble Institute analyse health data from nearly 480,000 adults over 14 years - all of whom were diabetes-free at the beginning of the study.

 

The team found people with both excess body fat and poor muscle health – a condition known as sarcopenic obesity - were more than three-and-a-half times as likely to develop type 2 diabetes than people with healthy body composition.

 

It also found people with sarcopenic obesity were 19 per cent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than people with obesity alone and 91 per cent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than people with low muscle mass and strength (sarcopenia) alone.

 

Lead author and PhD candidate Zhongyang Guan said the findings challenge the common perception diabetes risk is primarily driven by body weight.

 

"Most people know carrying excess weight can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, but our findings show muscle health is also an important piece of the puzzle," Mr Guan said.

 

"People with both excess body fat and low muscle mass had a substantially higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those with obesity alone.

 

"This suggests we need to look beyond the number on the scales when assessing diabetes risk, as maintaining muscle strength and muscle mass may be just as important as managing body weight."

 

The study found nearly 15 per cent of people with sarcopenic obesity developed type 2 diabetes within 10 years, compared with around 11 per cent of people with obesity alone and just 3 per cent of people without sarcopenia or obesity.

 

The link was particularly strong among women and adults under the age of 60.

 

Project senior lead Professor Mario Siervo said the results supported a broader approach to diabetes prevention.

 

"Healthcare professionals routinely monitor body weight and obesity, but our findings suggest assessing muscle health could help identify people at high risk earlier," Professor Siervo said.

 

"As populations age and rates of obesity continue to rise, preserving muscle health through regular physical activity and healthy lifestyle habits could play an important role in reducing the burden of type 2 diabetes."

 

Diabetes WA Clinical Services Manager Jessica Weiss said the findings highlighted the important role muscle plays in controlling blood sugar levels and reflected what health practitioners were seeing firsthand.

 

"We know our muscles use a lot of our glucose for fuel and working them during physical activity is a great way to help use up glucose from our blood and regulate glucose levels,” Ms Weiss said.

 

“Physical activity also reduces our body's resistance to insulin, an important element to type 2 diabetes.

 

“The more muscle we have and the more regularly we use them, the better equipped our body is to prevent or manage type 2 diabetes.”

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Journal

Diabetes Care

DOI

10.2337/dc26-0797 

Acupuncture to the ear may help to lessen pain from migraines

 Acupuncture to the ear may help to lessen pain from migraines and their impact on daily life, according to new research presented today (Friday) at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) Forum 2026 [1].

A randomised clinical trial of the treatment, called auriculotherapy, found that migraines were less painful immediately after the treatment and 30 days later, compared with the pain experienced before treatment. The impact of migraines on daily life also improved.

In addition, the researchers, led by Fernanda Belle, a physiotherapist in the Experimental Neuroscience laboratory at the University of Southern Santa Catarina (UNISUL), Palhoça, Brazil, observed changes in oxygenation levels in the prefrontal cortex of the brain over the course of the study, as measured by hemoencephalography (HEG®), which is a non-invasive technology using near-infrared spectroscopy to measure blood flow in the brain, and is an indirect measure of neural activity.

However, although these were all statistically significant improvements when comparing the 68 women in the trial before and after the treatment, there was no statistically significant difference between the 34 women receiving auriculotherapy and the 34 who received the sham treatment.

Ms Belle said: “Both groups improved over time, which may suggest that auricular stimulation, even when non-specific, can influence pain-related outcomes. However, at this stage, we cannot conclude that auriculotherapy was superior to the sham procedure.

“In the HEG® assessment, we identified changes in the average oxygenation levels of the prefrontal cortex over the course of the study, as well as differences between the groups, but the pattern of change over time was not clearly distinct between the two groups. However, the results are important because they show that it is possible to objectively monitor aspects of brain function in women with chronic migraine.

“Overall, these results are encouraging, especially because we observed improvement in clinical outcomes during follow-up, with a more consistent effect on pain in the group that received auriculotherapy. This suggests that auriculotherapy may be an interesting complementary strategy in the care of chronic migraine. We are reassessing these preliminary results in a larger group of women.”

Ms Belle has personal experience of migraines as she and members of her family suffer from them. So she wanted to explore options for improving the care for other people facing the same problem.

“Migraine is a highly prevalent and disabling condition, and many patients do not achieve adequate symptom control with conventional treatments alone. It also affects women approximately three times more often than men, probably due in part to hormonal influences, and it represents an important cause of disability,” she said.

Ms Belle recruited 68 women to her study who had had a clinical diagnosis of migraine for at least one year. All the patients experienced migraines on 15 or more days a month. Migraines were characterised by recurrent moderate to severe headaches, accompanied by other symptoms such as nausea, sensitivity to light and sound, and sometimes aura – a neurological symptom that can include visual disturbances such as flashing lights or zigzag lines.

The researchers assessed pain via the McGill Pain Questionnaire, and the impact on daily life using the Headache Impact Test (HIT-6) at three time points: before the patients started treatment, immediately after the treatment, and 30 days later.

The patients were randomly assigned to receive eight sessions of auriculotherapy or the sham treatment over eight weeks. Auriculotherapy involved the use of semi-permanent needles to stimulate specific points on the ear selected according to the protocol for migraine. Afterwards, mustard seeds were applied to the same points to maintain the stimulation until the next session. The sham procedure involved the application of semi-permanent needles to ear points that were not related to migraine, but corresponded to the fingers, wrist, knee, arm, shoulder, lung, lower limbs and spine. Mustard seeds were also applied to these points.

Patients did not know which procedure they were having, the therapist did, but the outcome assessors and those conducting the statistical analysis were blinded as to which group the women had been allocated. The researchers carried out physiological assessments in the brain using HEG®, which involves having small sensors attached to the patients’ heads to measure blood flow and oxygenation.

In the auriculotherapy group, the average pain score decreased from 50.5 before the sessions, to 44.7 immediately after the sessions, and to 41 after 30 days. This represented a reduction in pain of approximately 11% at the end of the treatment and 18% at the 30-day follow-up.

In the group receiving the sham procedure, the pain scores also decreased from 50.2 before the sessions to 44.3 immediately after the sessions and to 43.9 after 30 days, representing reductions of approximately 12% and 13%, respectively. At the 30-day follow-up, pain scores were significantly lower than before treatment in both groups. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the groups, meaning that the study could not show that auriculotherapy was superior to the sham procedure.

“We also observed a reduction in the impact of migraine on daily life,” said Ms Belle. “In the auriculotherapy group, the average HIT-6 score decreased from 66.1 before the sessions to 60.7 immediately after the sessions and to 59.5 at 30 days. In the sham group, the average score decreased from 65.8 to 59.2 after the sessions and was 59.3 at 30 days. Across both groups, this represents reductions of approximately 8% to 10%.

“Both groups improved over time, which may suggest that auricular stimulation, even when non-specific, can influence pain-related outcomes. However, at this stage, we cannot conclude that the auriculotherapy protocol was superior to the sham procedure. As this is a preliminary analysis from an ongoing study, the findings should be interpreted with caution and will be reassessed in a larger sample.”

In addition to studying auriculotherapy in a larger group of women, Ms Belle and her colleagues are also investigating the mechanisms that may explain how auriculotherapy acts in the body.

“Migraine is a complex condition involving neurovascular, autonomic and neuroinflammatory changes. The ear has strong links to networks of nerve cells, including connections with the vagus nerve, the trigeminal nerve and cervical nerves, which are involved in pain regulation, autonomic activity and inflammatory responses,” she said. “One of our hypotheses is that auriculotherapy may influence the so-called neuroimmune axis – a two-way communication system between the nervous and immune systems, modulating processes related to pain sensitisation and inflammation.”

Professor Christina Dalla from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, is chair of the FENS Forum communication committee and was not involved in the research. she said: “Migraine is a debilitating condition that can have a major impact on people’s lives, especially women’s lives. Well-conducted, randomised controlled trials of the condition are rare so, as a neuropsychopharmacologist, I am pleased that this study is being presented at the FENS Forum, as it has a rigorous methodology and careful assessment of the participants throughout the follow-up period. I look forward to seeing the results of auriculotherapy in a larger number of participants. It is important to emphasise that this a potential treatment that is complementary to existing migraine therapies, and not a replacement for them.”

Sniffing chocolate could make your workout easier

“Exposing moderately trained men to chocolate odors right before and between sets of resistance exercise significantly increased their overall training volume without increasing their perceived exertion,” said senior author Dr Mohamed Nashrudin bin Naharudin, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Sports and Exercise Science at the University of Malaya. “Seeing a substantial increase in repetitions without the athletes feeling like they were exerting themselves any harder is a fascinating psychobiological outcome.”

Whiff of cocoa

The participant sample consisted of 23 healthy, moderately trained men in their early to mid-20s. Divided in three groups, they were provided one of three odor samples: liquified dark chocolate containing 90% cocoa, liquified milk chocolate containing 60% cocoa, or a water sample serving as a control.

“We know olfaction is powerfully wired into the brain’s appetite and emotion networks, but surprisingly, no study has systematically looked at the three-way interaction between smell, appetite, and actual resistance exercise capacity,” said Nashrudin Naharudin.

Participants had not eaten for at least 10 hours before performing leg extensions, a resistance training exercise that’s performed by sitting down and extending the lower legs to lift a weight upwards. Leg extension performance was assessed before and during their training. Hunger, fullness, desire to eat, and plans to eat in the near future were reported before the leg workout. During the sets only hunger and desire to eat were measured, each after 30 seconds of exposure to a scent sample.

These measurements showed that both chocolate types had clear but different effects on appetite related measures. Relative to the water control and milk chocolate samples, sniffing dark chocolate consistently led to participants reporting less hunger, reduced desire and intention to eat, and greater fullness before exercise. This smell predominantly suppressed appetite by reducing hunger and increasing fullness. In contrast, those smelling the milk chocolate sample reported higher odor pleasantness compared to dark chocolate and water samples, but no changes in hunger or appetite.

Smelling chocolate samples affected not only appetite-related measures, but also performance.

“Sniffing a 90% dark chocolate odor added about 18 more repetitions to participants’ leg extensions, while a 60% milk chocolate odor added about nine repetitions compared to the water control,” said Nashrudin Naharudin.

Ready, steady, eat

The researchers think these changes in appetite perception could be related to what we learn about smells from a young age. Learned cues, such as foods we’ve eaten before, generate expectations about what happens after eating and can cause a shift from hunger toward perceived fullness.

“The dark chocolate scent serves as a learned cue for a rich, bitter, and highly satiating food, which essentially tricks the system into an anticipatory state of fullness,” said Nashrudin Naharudin. “Conversely, the sweeter milk chocolate scent acts more like a hedonic reward cue, enhancing training volume by creating a highly pleasant sensory environment rather than by shifting basic metabolic hunger signals.”

These effects suggest that anticipation of food could have similar effects to its actual consumption, particularly because they’re observable when people haven’t eaten. Food scents might kickstart the digestive process or trigger changes in body and mind that occur in anticipation of a meal. These changes closely mimic some of the psychological and physiological shifts typically brought on by actual eating.

The authors pointed out that their claims remain inferential, as no blood hormones or neural pathways were measured. Additionally, there may have been slight variations in smell intensity between the chocolate samples, and the water sample was odorless, which could have given participants clues about whether they were part of the control group. Finally, more diverse participant samples are needed to confirm these findings.

This leads to the question of whether chocolate is the only food that can trigger such responses.

“We don’t think chocolate is entirely unique, though it is a food cue with incredibly strong, universally recognized reward associations,” Nashrudin Naharudin concluded. Although this hasn’t been tested yet, other foods strongly linked to satiety could show similar effects. “A person likely needs to find the odor familiar and appealing – or at least not repulsive – to trigger the psychological shift in appetite that’s needed to see a performance boost.”

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Robust evidence supports paracetamol’s (acetaminophen - Tylenol) safety during pregnancy

 Researchers from the LKS Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed) have found that using a commonly used pain killer (paracetamol or acetaminophen) during pregnancy does not increase the risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or attention‑deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children. This represents the first study in Hong Kong to apply a rigorous sibling-matched approach to compare siblings from the same mother to effectively account for shared genetic and environmental influences. The findings, published in JAMA Internal Medicine [link to the publication], offer timely reassurance for expectant mothers and clinicians in Hong Kong and globally regarding the safety of paracetamol use during pregnancy.

Addressing global anxiety: the paracetamol debate
Paracetamol is the most widely used medication for pain and fever during pregnancy. However, concerns about its potential association with ASD and ADHD have intensified following overseas reports and policy discussions. While international health authorities, including the World Health Organization and the Department of Health in Hong Kong, have reaffirmed its safety profile, robust local evidence was previously lacking – a gap that this study has now filled.

Sibling-matched analysis accounts for shared familial factors
Some previous studies suggested a modest increase in ASD and ADHD risk in offspring but did not fully account for differences between mothers who did and did not use paracetamol, such as underlying health status, lifestyle or familial factors. To address these methodological limitations, the HKUMed team analysed electronic medical records from 708,020 mother–child pairs in Hong Kong between 2000 and 2023, allowing a more comprehensive and accurate assessment.

Initial analyses without sibling matching reproduced earlier findings of a slight increase in risk. However, when the researchers applied a sibling-matched design—comparing siblings exposed and unexposed to paracetamol during mothers’ pregnancy—no association was observed between prenatal paracetamol exposure and the risk of ASD or ADHD in their offspring. These findings remained consistent regardless of dosage, timing of exposure (across all trimesters), and pattern of use (sporadic, intermittent or persistent).

Robust evidence supports paracetamol’s safety during pregnancy
Dr April Luo Shan, Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care, School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed, said: ‘I had herpes zoster during my pregnancy, but I did not take paracetamol at that time because of concerns raised in the media. As both a researcher and a mother, I deeply understand the anxiety many women face. Our study provides the reassurance I wish I had and would have helped me manage the pain I was experiencing.’

Professor Peter Tanuseputro, Clinical Professor in the same department, added, ‘Previous conflicting studies generated doubt and unnecessary stress for expectant parents, leading many mothers to endure untreated pain or resort to other medications that may be less safe. Our sibling-matched study within a massive Chinese cohort provides robust evidence that paracetamol is safe during pregnancy.’

Professor Ian Wong Chi-kei, Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacy, HKUMed, added. ‘Monitoring the long-term outcomes of children with in-utero drug exposure requires an incredibly robust data infrastructure. Thanks to the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health (D24H) at AIR@InnoHK, the Research Grants Council and Hospital Authority, we were able to rapidly address this urgent drug safety question with the necessary precision and scale.’

Mediterranean diet is associated with better psychological well-being

Following a Mediterranean diet may provide additional benefits for mental health. A new study has now linked it to greater psychological well-being among people over the age of 50. The research is the result of a collaboration between University College London and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the ”la Caixa” Foundation, and has been published in BMJ Open.

To date, numerous studies have shown that the Mediterranean diet—rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, fish and olive oil—is an effective shield against physical decline and the development of disorders such as depression. However, this new study goes a step further by focusing on positive psychological well-being, which encompasses dimensions such as control, autonomy, pleasure and self-realisation, and includes questions relating to independence, enjoyment of life, sense of purpose, energy levels and future outlook. The study suggests that the benefits of following a Mediterranean diet for well-being are independent of the presence of depressive symptoms or the participants’ socioeconomic status.

The study analysed data from 3,296 individuals aged between 50 and 90 years who were participating in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). Dietary habits were assessed between 2018 and 2019 using an online platform, where participants reported everything they had eaten and drunk on two non-consecutive days. Psychological well-being was evaluated through questionnaires administered on up to two occasions between 2018 and 2020.

Protection against the mental health effects of COVID-19

Data collected through the ELSA cohort show that the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictive measures that followed had a negative emotional impact on study participants. However, the decline in emotional well-being was less pronounced among individuals with greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet, suggesting a protective effect.

“Our study is observational and, therefore, the results should be interpreted with caution, since we cannot draw causal conclusions,” says Camille Lassale, ISGlobal researcher and senior author of the study. “Nevertheless, the questionnaires administered during the pandemic allowed us to follow participants over time, which is a major strength of the study. Although the biological mechanisms underlying the relationship between the Mediterranean diet and better mental health are still being investigated, the evidence suggests that its foundational foods and components help regulate key processes such as stress responses, inflammation, gut health and brain function”, she adds.

“This study provides further evidence of the relationship between what we eat and our mental health, an emerging field of research that we hope will generate substantial new evidence in the years to come,” says Alanna Shand, research psychologist and co-author of the study.

“Although many questions remain open, there is no doubt about the need to promote healthy lifestyles, prioritising a balanced diet rich in plant-based foods and low in foods such as processed meats and sweets, particularly among older adults,” says Andrew Steptoe, researcher at University College London and first author of the study.

Reference

Steptoe A, Shand AJ, Lassale C. Adherence to the Mediterranean diet and psychological wellbeing before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a prospective analysis of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. BMJ Open. 2026; 16(6): e109599. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2025-109599

Study links birth control pills to more binge eating

 

Emotional eating increased when women were taking hormone-containing birth control pills compared to the hormone-free pills taken at the end of each monthly cycle

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Birth control pills are safe and effective for millions of women, but researchers are still working to understand how the hormones they contain may influence eating behavior.

A new study in JAMA Network Open followed 422 women who were already using combined oral contraceptives, tracking their eating patterns daily for 49 consecutive days. The goal: to examine whether binge-related eating changes depending on whether women are taking hormone-containing pills or hormone-free pills within the same cycle.

In a typical birth control pack, women take about three weeks of “active” pills that contain hormones, followed by about a week of “inactive” pills that contain no hormones.

“Because we tracked the same women day to day, we could see how eating changed with hormone exposure,” said Dr. Shaunna Clark, a co-author and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Texas A&M University’s Naresh K. Vashisht College of Medicine.

How birth control hormones may increase binge-eating risk

The study used a within-person design, meaning each participant served as her own comparison. Researchers measured emotional eating (overeating in response to negative emotions) while tracking whether each day corresponded to an active or inactive pill.

They found a consistent pattern:

Emotional eating was significantly higher during active pill days than during inactive pill days.

This pattern appeared:

• across two full pill cycles
• in the full sample of 422 women
• and in a subset of women with diagnosed binge eating

Clark says the findings held even after accounting for negative mood, suggesting the change was not fully explained by emotional distress.

“That tells us the hormones themselves may be playing a role, rather than those changes being driven by mood or other factors,” she said.

Why birth control may increase binge-eating risk for some women, but not others

The analysis focused on average changes across the group, but the study emphasizes that not all women experience these shifts in the same way.

“Participants ranged in age from late adolescence to young adulthood and were all using the same type of pill, monophasic combined oral contraceptives, which provide a consistent dose of hormones during active pill days,” said Clark, part of the research team led by Dr. Kelly Klump at Michigan State University.

Because the study examined within-person changes, it shows that eating behavior can shift alongside hormone exposure, even if the magnitude of that shift differs between individuals.

“These findings show a pattern at the group level,” she said, “but individual responses can vary.”

Birth control pills linked to binge eating, but not mood or body image

The study does not establish that birth control pills cause binge eating. Instead, it identifies a specific association between hormone exposure and increased emotional eating within individuals.

Importantly, researchers also tested other outcomes:

• Weight preoccupation did not change across pill type
• Mood changes in response to pill type were smaller and less consistent than the changes in eating

Clark says that suggests the effect is relatively specific to binge-related eating behavior, rather than a general shift in mood or body image concerns.

How this study changes what we know about birth control and binge eating

Previous research has shown that binge‑related eating tends to increase after ovulation, when both estrogen and progesterone are elevated.

This study extends that work by showing that synthetic hormones in birth control pills are linked to similar patterns.

By comparing hormone-containing and hormone-free days within the same individuals, the study provides some of the clearest evidence to date that binge-related eating increases during periods of hormone exposure in the birth control cycle.

“Findings like these can help us better understand how different hormone exposures affect eating behavior,” Clark said. “Over time, that could help clinicians and patients make more informed decisions about care.”