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FATIGUE AFFECTS MLB STRIKE-ZONE JUDGMENT

 

Major League Baseball players may be struck out by fatigue as the 162-game season progresses, according to a new study.

 

In 24 of 30 teams, players‘ strike-zone judgment was much better when the season began in April than when coming to an end in September. A separate study found a significant link between sleepiness and MLB players‘ longevity in the league.

 

The findings recently appeared in an online supplement of the journal Sleep and will be presented this week at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, in Baltimore.

 

"Plate discipline -- as measured by a hitter‘s tendency to swing at pitches outside of the strike zone -- got progressively worse over the course of a Major League Baseball season, and this decline followed a linear pattern that could be predicted by data from the six previous seasons," principal study investigator Dr. Scott Kutscher, an assistant professor of sleep and neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said in an American Academy of Sleep Medicine news release.

 

How does sleep deprivation tie into to this worsening performance?

 

"We theorize that this decline is tied to fatigue that develops over the course of the season due to a combination of frequency of travel and paucity of days off," Kutscher said.

 

The researchers tracked how often MLB batters swung at pitches outside of the strike zone during the 2012 season. They sorted the data by month for all 30 teams and compared the first month with the last month of the season.

 

The information collected on each team was also compared to a statistical model based on the 2006 through 2011 MLB seasons, which predicted a linear decline in strike-zone judgment each month. The researchers noted that their findings contradict the belief that plate discipline should improve over the course of the season due to frequent practice.

 

"Teams on the East or West Coast, with good or bad records, they all follow the same pattern of worsening plate discipline," Kutscher said. "This study suggests hitters always demonstrate the best judgment when at bat in the first month of the season."

 

The researchers suggested that teams could gain a competitive advantage from focusing on how to manage fatigue among their players.

 

"A team that recognizes this trend and takes steps to slow or reverse it -- by enacting fatigue-mitigating strategies, especially in the middle and late season, for example -- can gain a large competitive advantage over their opponent," Kutscher said. "This may have already occurred, as the San Francisco Giants -- an outlier in the study in that their plate discipline improved during the 2012 season -- went on to win the World Series."

 

Meanwhile, the other study revealed that as players‘ self-reported sleepiness increased, the likelihood that they would still be in the league three seasons later decreased linearly. The greater their sleepiness score, the less likely they would still be playing at the time of the follow-up.

 

For instance, 72 percent of players with a score of 5 on a sleepiness-rating scale were still in the league at the follow-up point. In contrast, only 39 percent of players with a score of 10, and 14 percent of players with a score of 15 were also still playing three seasons later.

 

"We were shocked by how linear the relationship was," study principal investigator Dr. W. Christopher Winter, medical director of the Martha Jefferson Hospital Sleep Medicine Center in Charlottesville, Va., said in the news release. "It is a great reminder that sleepiness impairs performance. From a sports perspective, this is incredibly important. What this study shows is that we can use the science of sleep to predict sports performance."

 

Winter said that MLB teams could easily implement sleepiness screening as part of their player evaluations.

 

"I can envision simple questions about sleep being a part of the battery of tests professional organizations use to evaluate prospects," Winter noted. He added that a player with a sleep disorder that causes excessive daytime sleepiness could benefit from treatment with a sleep specialist.

 

"That player may suddenly become far more valuable," Winter said.

 

Arugula, Asparagus, and White Bean Salad

by Angela Simpson

This recipe was contributed by Angela Simpson, the blogger behind Eat Spin Run Repeat. To learn more about Angela, check out her accompanying post and her bio on our Greatist Ambassador page!

As the temperature starts rising, so does the urge to hit the patio, invite some friends over for dinner, and enjoy the gorgeous sunshine. Potluck dinners and patio parties are two of my favorite things about summer, and when there’s delicious, good-for-you food involved, it makes these get-togethers even better. This salad is super easy to make and features plenty of in-season produce, including asparagus and arugula. It’s also vegan and vegetarian-friendly, so everyone at your next potluck can enjoy it!

Recipe: Arugula, Asparagus, and White Bean Salad

Makes 2 large salads
 

What You’ll Need:

4 cups arugula
1 cup white navy beans,  cooked (or canned, rinsed and drained)
10 spears of asparagus (the thicker, the better), bottom ends trimmed off
1/2 cup red onion, very thinly sliced
1 carrot
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
 

For the dressing:
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/4 an orange, juiced
2 teaspoons orange zest
1 clove garlic, minced
A few pinches of sea salt and black pepper
 

What to Do:

1. Using a vegetable peeler, shave asparagus into long, thin ribbons. This is most easily done if you place the asparagus on a cutting board, holding the stem end with your fingers. Run the peeler down the length of each spear.
2. Use the same peeler to cut the carrot into ribbons, twisting as you go to keep the pieces thin.
3. In a large bowl, combine the arugula, beans, asparagus, carrot, and red onion. Set aside.
4. In a separate small bowl, combine all ingredients for the dressing. Drizzle it on top of the salad and toss to coat.
5. Divide salad between 2 large bowls and enjoy!

 

10 Brain Facts

The Greatist Table: 5 Healthy Cherry Recipes from Around the Web

by Sophia Breene

If you‘ve never had real, natural cherries (aka not artificially-flavored lollipops or bright-red maraschinos), get yourself to the market, ASAP! Cherries have a super-short growing season — in North America and Europe, they‘re ready for pickin‘ during the month of June alone. Real cherries are infinitely better than the sickly-sweet fake cherry flavoring many of us are used to. The natural taste is slightly sweet, a bit tart, and super refreshing. Get the most out of cherry season with these five summery recipes.  

Fig + Cherry Paleo Bites via The Clever Carrot
Serve these no-bake bites for a healthy dessert or a quick snack while traveling or picnicking. The best part of the recipe is its flexibility. Choose a dried fruit (cherries, cranberries, or even chopped apricots) and a nut (hazelnuts, walnuts, etc.) and go to town. Cinnamon, vanilla, coconut, maple syrup, and a tiny sprinkling of chocolate chips add flavor and hold everything together. 

Photo: Emilie / The Clever Carrot

Grilled Chicken and Fresh Cherry Salsa via Iowa Girl Eats
Spice up weekday grilled chicken with this fruity and flavorful salsa. Combine fresh raw cherries with diced red onions, lemon, basil, honey, and balsamic vinegar for a sweet and sour topping that makes any grilled meat (or veggies or tofu) a summer all-star.  

Photo: Kristin / Iowa Girl Eats

Cherry Coconut Porridge via Greedy Gourmand
Start the day off right with this indulgent but healthy breakfast. Coconut milk, raw cacao, coconut and chocolate shavings, and cherries make this morning dish extra-special (and delicious).  

Photo: Greedy Gourmand

Cherry-Berry Frozen Mojitos via Just Putzing Around the Kitchen

Strawberries, cherries, lime juice, and rum — sounds like the recipe for a perfect summery cocktail. It calls for frozen fruit, but you can easily sub in fresh berries (just add more ice). Even without alcohol these drinks are festive, refreshing, and ideal for hot summer nights.

Photo: Just Putzin‘ Around the Kitchen

Black Rice Salad with Cherries, Baby Kale, Halloumi, and Mint via Feasting at Home
This colorful salad would make a great side dish at a barbecue or pot-luck dinner. Honestly, we can‘t decide what the best part is — kale, cherries, black rice, halloumi cheese, and fresh mint are all so tasty! Be sure to massage the kale (yes, that‘s a real thing) to make it extra-tender before digging in.   

Photo: Sylvia Fountaine / Feasting at Home

Did we miss any of your favorite cherry recipes?

Healthier Chocolate Cake with Chef Danny Boome

Recipe Rehab Challenge: Healthier Chocolate Cake

by Shana Lebowitz

Mac ’n cheese. Chocolate cake. Some readers might have already started drooling, but few are probably thinking about the word “healthy.”

 

That’s where Chef Danny Boome comes in. Alongside a team of expert chefs, Boome stars in the T.V. show “Recipe Rehab,” where he transforms traditional comfort food (like that cheesy and chocolate-y stuff) into nutritious, even more delicious dishes. (A new cookbook by the same name has also just come out with recipes from the test kitchen.)

 

Boome may call himself a “gastronaut” (i.e. someone who really appreciates food), but he actually started out as a professional ice hockey player. After a brief stint nannying — and cooking — for a family in the Swiss Alps, he took on an apprenticeship in Canada and traveled all over the world as a chef. Since then he’s appeared on shows including “Chew Crew Correspondent,” “The Chew,” and “Rescue Chef,” helping viewers create healthier, tastier meals.

 

We caught up with Boome to talk pizza, the value of simplicity, the challenges of cooking nutritious food, and what makes a meal “healthy” in the first place. And the best part? We put the chefs at Recipe Rehab to the ultimate challenge: rehabbing a chocolate cake recipe with only healthy ingredients. Check out the recipe at the bottom of the post and see if it meets your standards for delicious and nutritious!

Q&A with Chef Danny

Has there been one recipe that’s been especially hard to turn from unhealthy to nutritious?

I always go back to the mac ’n cheese. The chefs that day, when they revamped the mac n cheese recipe, they actually made it more tasty. There were maybe 2,000 [or] 3,000 calories in the whole dish [865 calories per serving], and we were all surprised that there was less cheese in it than before, but it tasted better. [The two revamped dishes had 512 and 356 calories per serving.] Normally, in the chef’s world, fat equals flavor, but this time it was a case of less is more. I think somebody had put 25 dollars worth of cheese in the original recipe and the revamped recipe was only five dollars worth of cheese.

 

Chefs need a voice like this. They’re always asked to do the most indulgent things, but a lot of chefs really like to cook healthy... And cooking healthy is just using fresher, seasonal ingredients... Basically, we’re using not full fat, we’re using probably half fat, and the cooking method is generally baked or sautéed or steamed instead of fried. So there’s a few less ingredients, [simpler] techniques, a lot more seasonal fresh ingredients — that’s what makes a successful rehab.

 

Do you have a favorite healthy recipe?

I eat clean, so I don’t really eat too much processed food. I like to eat fish and I like to eat meat and I like to see it in its own packaging. And then basically if I add ingredients to things I just use half. I don’t really use butter, I use olive oil; I don’t use a lot of cream, I use half [the recommended amount]; or I use two-percent milk or cream cheese or cottage cheese instead of cream. And when it comes to healthy recipes it’s just something like steamed broccoli or sautéed broccoli with a little bit of chili sprinkled on top… [or] roasted cauliflower with a little bit of chili and it’s brilliant! It tastes fresh!

 

We like to ask the people we interview if they have a favorite cheat meal.

Pizza would be my weakness. I eat healthier because I have arthritis. I had to change my diet instead of being medicated; I wanted to do it holistically. So pizza was like my trifecta of badness for people with arthritis: It has dairy, it has pork, it has yeast in it, and it’s very bad for your immune system and it inflames your body. So I found that making whole-wheat, cauliflower-based pizza is just a godsend.

 

Is there one particular chef you admire?

He’s a friend of mine, Mario Batali. And Spike Mendelsohn. Those two guys are the kings of keeping it simple. They have so much flavor and so much simplicity in their menus that it’s part genius because we are all trying to complicate everything way too much.

Chocolate Cake: Before and After

Chef Danny and the whole Recipe Rehab team are pros at taking the guilt out of typically unhealthy recipes. We asked our readers (that‘s you!) to submit their favorite less-than-healthy recipes and chose one to have Chef Danny put his healthy twist on. 

The original chocolate cake recipe (submitted by Greatist reader Oliver Shreeve) had more than a cup of butter, a cup of sugar, and a cup of white flour — plus more in the icing! Check out how the Recipe Rehab team transformed it to be lower in sugar, fat, and calories.

 

The "Rehabbed" Recipe: Dark Chocolate Chip Cake with Mocha Frosting

 

Recipe by Mareya Ibrahim

 

What You‘ll Need:

For the Cake:
1 can nonstick cooking spray
1 cup canned red beets (drained)
1 cup xylitol natural sugar substitutes
1 cup unsweetened vanilla soy milk
2 large egg whites
2 all-purpose whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (at least 70% cocoa powder)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the Frosting: 
3/4 cup unsweetened vanilla soy milk
6 ounces chopped dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa)
1 tablespoon instant coffee
1/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 cup fresh raspberries (or any berry you like)
1 teaspoon powdered sugar          

What to Do: 

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Coat two 8- or 9-inch round cake pans with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.
2. Make the batter: Place the beets in a food processor or blender and process until completely smooth. Pour the pureed beets into a mixing bowl; add the xylitol and soy milk.
3. Using a hand-held electric mixer, beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about three minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
4. Add the egg whites and vanilla and beat until smooth.
5. Reduce the mixer speed to low. Add the flour, cocoa powder, chocolate chips, baking soda, and salt. Mix until well-combined and there are no visible lumps.
6. Divide the batter between the cake pans, smoothing the surface with a spatula. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the cakes are springy and fairly firm to the touch.
7. Cool for about 10 minutes. Loosen the cakes from the sides of the pan by running a thin metal spatula around the edges. Turn them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
8. Now, prepare the frosting: Combine the soy milk, chocolate, coffee, and powdered sugar in a pot and place over medium heat.
9. Cook, stirring gently with a rubber spatula, until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool. (If the frosting is too runny, place in the freezer to firm up; it should be spreadable consistency.)
10. Once cook, use a metal spatula to spread about ½ cup of the frosting on top of one of the cake rounds.
11. Carefully place the other cake on top. Frost the top and sides of the cake with the remaining frosting. Finish with raspberries on top of cake and sprinkle powdered sugar.

What‘s your favorite not-quite-nutritious recipe, and how do you health-ify it? Let us know in the comments below or tweet the author at @ShanaDLebowitz.

Cancer Patients Want to Talk About Costs

 Although financial distress is common, even in insured patients, discussion of costs of cancer care with doctors rarely happens, according to research to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, held from May 31 to June 4 in Chicago. 

S. Yousuf Zafar, M.D., M.H.S., of Duke University in Durham, N.C., and colleagues performed a cross-sectional study of insured adults with solid tumors who had been receiving anticancer therapy for one month or longer. In-person interviews of consecutive patients were conducted at a referral center and three rural oncology clinics.

 

The researchers interviewed 302 participants (85 percent response rate) with a median age of 60 years and median income of $60,000 per year; most (78 percent) had incurable cancer. Even though the majority surveyed (58 percent) had private health insurance, the mean score for the group reflected moderate financial distress.

 

 The majority (52 percent) expressed any desire to talk about costs with their doctor, but only 19 percent said they had such discussions. Among 51 patients (17 percent) reporting high or overwhelming financial distress, only 13 (25 percent) had discussed financial concerns with the doctor. Overall, many (51 percent) claimed they wanted their doctors to consider costs in treatment decisions. Among those who discussed finances with their doctors, 57 percent thought that the discussion helped lower costs of care.

 

"With today‘s evolving health insurance landscape, cancer treatment-related costs to patients are more important than ever," Zafar said in a statement. "As providers, our team is convinced that cost discussions with our patients [are] important, and knowing that patients want to have these discussions should give us confidence in making this a routine practice."

Emotions in Alzheimer‘s Linked to Changes in Brain Size

 Emotional contagion, the tendency for two individuals to emotionally converge, increases as individuals progress from healthy to mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer‘s disease, which correlates with smaller structures in the temporal lobe, according to a study published online May 28 in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

 

Virginia E. Sturm, Ph.D., from the University of California San Francisco, and colleagues measured emotional contagion and depressive symptoms, and performed structural magnetic resonance imaging in 62 patients with mild cognitive impairment, 64 patients with Alzheimer‘s disease, and 111 healthy controls.

 

The researchers found that both emotional contagion and depressive symptoms significantly increased with increasing disease progression.

 

Only the higher emotional contagion significantly correlated with smaller volumes in the right inferior, middle, and superior temporal gyri, after correction for multiple comparisons. Higher emotional contagion also significantly correlated with smaller volumes in the right temporal pole, anterior hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, and left middle temporal gyrus, but the correlations did not survive correction.

 

"These findings suggest that in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer‘s disease, neurodegeneration of temporal lobe structures important for affective signal detection and emotion inhibition are associated with up-regulation of emotion-generating mechanisms," Sturm and colleagues conclude.

Men In Red

Male athletes who choose to wear the color red in competition have higher levels of the male hormone testosterone than men who pick the color blue, a British study suggests.

Men who wear red could be sending an unconscious signal about their competitiveness to their opponents, the researchers suggested in the study, which is to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science.

"The research shows that there is something special about the color red in competition, and that it is associated with our underlying biological systems," study leader Daniel Farrelly, a psychological scientist at the University of Sunderland, said in a news release from the Association for Psychological Science.

The researchers pointed out their findings may help explain why many high-profile athletes, such as golf great Tiger Woods, wear red clothing.

In conducting the study, the researchers told 73 men they would be completing a competitive task and their performance would be posted. The men were asked to choose between a red or blue symbol to represent themselves in the competition. They also answered questionnaires to help determine why they may have chosen one color over the other.

The researchers took saliva samples from the men at the beginning of the study and again at the end to measure their testosterone levels.

The study revealed that the men who selected red had higher testosterone levels. These men also believed red signified greater dominance and aggression than the men who chose blue.
Although the color athletes wear doesn‘t actually affect their performance, previous studies have shown it could provide an advantage by influencing how opponents perceive them, the researchers noted.