The BBC visits Leicester Royal Infirmary to witness first-hand how it’s coping with an early surge in cases of winter bugs.
Flu wave hits England’s busiest A&E – hundreds of patients are arriving a day
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Last minute offer may avert strike by resident doctors
Deal put forward by ministers includes rapid expansion of training posts, but no promises on pay.
Trump’s ‘Absolutely Crazed’ Threat To Those Who Question His Health Sparks Outrage
Donald Trump flipped out in a post on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday as he issued an ominous warning to anyone who questions his health, suggesting “it’s seditious, perhaps even treasonous” and libelous.
Trump – apparently still fuming from an article in The New York Times that highlighted his recent lightened workload and asked about his energy levels – insisted in a furious, lengthy screed there “has never been a President that has worked as hard as me” with his hours “the longest” and results “among the best.”
Trump touted some of his administration’s purported accomplishments that he claimed had “created an ‘aura’ around the United States of America that has led every Country in the World to respect us more than ever before.”
On his health, he then wrote:
“In addition to all of that, I go out of my way to do long, thorough, and very boring Medical Examinations at the Great Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, seen and supervised by top doctors, all of whom have given me PERFECT Marks — Some have even said they have never seen such Strong Results. I do these Tests because I owe it to our Country. In addition to the Medical, I have done something that no other President has done, on three separate occasions, the last one being recently, by taking what is known as a Cognitive Examination, something which few people would be able to do very well, including those working at The New York Times, and I ACED all three of them in front of large numbers of doctors and experts, most of whom I do not know. I have been told that few people have been able to ‘ace’ this Examination and, in fact, most do very poorly, which is why many other Presidents have decided not to take it at all.”
“Despite all of this, the time and work involved, The New York Times, and some others, like to pretend that I am ‘slowing up,’ am maybe not as sharp as I once was, or am in poor physical health, knowing that it is not true, and knowing that I work very hard, probably harder than I have ever worked before. I will know when I am ‘slowing up,’ but it’s not now!”
The president then warned:
“After all of the work I have done with Medical Exams, Cognitive Exams, and everything else, I actually believe it’s seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean ‘THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.’ They are true Enemies of the People, and we should do something about it.”
Critics on social media slammed the post as “absolutely crazed” and pointed out the hypocrisy, given Trump’s repeated attacks on the health of his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.
Ask A GP: What Is ‘Superflu’, And How Can I Tell It From ‘Normal’ Flu?
Though the influenza H3N2 strain, a variant of the flu currently making headlines, has sometimes been termed a “superflu,” Dr Suzanne Wylie, GP and medical adviser for IQdoctor, told HuffPost UK that “the term ‘superflu’ isn’t a recognised medical diagnosis.”
Instead, she said, it usually describes, “A combination of genuine influenza, circulating Covid-19 variants, RSV, and other viral illnesses that overlap in symptoms and timing.
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“This can make the overall picture feel more intense and prolonged than a typical flu season.”
This is not to say, however, that the NHS is not experiencing an extraordinarily busy flu season (they are), or that patients are not “experiencing symptoms that persist longer than usual”.
Here, the GP shared how to spot “normal” flu from what some might term a “superflu,” as well as why influenza might be so rife right now.
How can I tell a “normal” flu from a “superflu”?
Dr Wylie explained that her definition of what some might term a “superflu” is “co-infection with more than one virus, or catching a second virus before fully recovering from the first”.
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In that context, she explained, “true influenza tends to come on very suddenly, often within the space of a few hours.
“High fever, profound fatigue, muscle aches, headaches, a dry cough and a sense of being completely ‘wiped out’ are characteristic. People often describe being unable to get out of bed or perform basic tasks.”
She added, “What’s sometimes labelled this year as ‘superflu’ is essentially this classic influenza picture, but with the added complication that many individuals are experiencing symptoms that persist longer than usual, lingering coughs, extended fatigue, and a slower return to normal activity.”
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And, the GP said, many cases of what people believe to be flu are actually a bad cold or another respiratory infection. These “develop more gradually” than flu, “with runny noses, sore throats, congestion and milder fevers.”
You will typically still be able to function somewhat with a cold, she continued.
“The distinction can blur, especially when multiple viruses are circulating, but influenza tends to be more abrupt and systemically draining.”
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Why is flu so bad this winter?
“Immunity in the population fluctuates year to year, depending on which strains have circulated previously and how closely the current strains match the [flu] vaccine,” she explained.
“If the circulating strain is one the community has not been exposed to recently, or if vaccine uptake has been lower, more people are left susceptible, leading to higher case numbers and more severe symptoms.”
The BBC notes that many people have not been exposed to the mutated H3N2 strain much in the past few years.
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This is partly, Dr Wylie said, “the after-effects of the pandemic: reduced exposure to seasonal viruses over several years means people’s baseline immunity to common respiratory pathogens may be lower than it once was.”
And increased strain on healthcare may mean that people are waiting longer to get help for the flu, meaning they’re worse off by the time they’re seen, she added.
“Environmental and behavioural factors also play a role: winter gatherings, indoor living, and schools acting as hubs for virus transmission all contribute to a more intense season,” she continued.
“Many patients are also experiencing simultaneous stresses, poor sleep or chronic conditions that can make any viral illness feel harder to shake off.”
So, “the combination of genuine influenza, overlapping viruses, reduced background immunity and a challenging winter has created the sense of a particularly tough respiratory season.”
And while Dr Wylie is sceptical of the use of the word “superflu,” she advised: “If someone is unsure whether their symptoms are typical of a cold, flu or something more serious, it’s always sensible to seek medical advice, especially if symptoms are severe, prolonged or worsening.”
People Are Just Realising Stuart Little Isn’t A Mouse, And I Need To Lie Down
There are some things I thought I could take for granted. I always assumed paprika came from some spicy variety of pepper, but while traditional ones can contain varying degrees of heat, many large manufacturers use a type of sweet bell pepper instead.
I’d believed “wi-fi” stood for something, like “wifeless fidelity,” too. Nope: its name “doesn’t stand for anything. It is not an acronym. There is no meaning”.
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But even I, a person who could fairly be described as “professionally bemused,” was uniquely surprised to learn that Stuart Little is not actually a mouse.
And looking at the responses to an X post from film critic and editor of Slash Film, Chris Evangelista, it seems I’m not alone.
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In the books, Stuart Little is a human
The film Stuart Little is based on the book Stuart Little by EB White (also the author of Charlotte’s Web).
And I sincerely regret to inform you that the first chapter of that cursed tome novel, “In The Drain,” begins in this haunting manner:
“When Mrs Frederick C. Little’s second son arrived, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse. The truth of the matter was, the baby looked very much like a mouse in every way. He was only about two inches high; and he had a mouse’s sharp nose, a mouse’s tail, a mouse’s whiskers, and the pleasant, shy manner of a mouse. Before he was many days old he was not only looking like a mouse but acting like one, too – wearing a grey hat and carrying a small cane. Mr and Mrs Little named him Stuart, and Mr Little made him a tiny bed out of four clothespins and a cigarette box.
So, while publisher Harper Collins markets the children’s book as a “classic novel about a small mouse… born to a family of humans,” the perhaps less invested Britannica is more alive to its body horror realities.
It is, they point out, about a “two-inch-tall boy who resembles a mouse”.
Which begs the question, A24 Stuart Little remake when?
People had… thoughts
In response to the recent X post, one netizen called the news “disturbing”.
Another pointed to the historical myth of sooterkins. These were believed to be the rat-like afterbirth of some Dutch women (great! Normal!).
But it is not the first time innocent internet users have become aware of the fact.
A post shared to Reddit’s r/todayilearned pointed out the “mouse”’s true species in 2018.
“He also tries to get frisky/date a girl who is tiny like him and looks like a human,” wrote u/Atoning_Unifex.
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Yup, that’d be Harriet Ames, who does not look like a mouse. Stuart got the hots for her after hearing that she was a little “shorter” than him, and after a shopkeeper “gave [him] a most favourable report of [her] character and appearance”.
They did not work out. But notably, Stuart Little began a letter to her by saying, “I am a young person of modest proportions” (italics mine).
All in all, I’m with u/MattheJ1: “If I were Mr Little, I’d be asking some questions”.
Scientists discover a new state of matter at Earth’s center
Beneath Earth’s molten outer core is a dense central region — the inner core, a compact sphere made of an iron and light-element alloy squeezed by more than 3.3 million atmospheres and heated to temperatures comparable to the Sun’s surface. For many years, researchers have struggled to explain its unusual behavior. Even though the inner core is solid, it behaves like a softened metal, slowing seismic shear waves and displaying a Poisson’s ratio more similar to butter than to steel. This paradox raised a fundamental question: how can the planet’s solid center appear firm yet strangely pliable?
A major study published in National Science Review offers a strong explanation. The research team reports that Earth’s inner core is not behaving like a conventional solid — instead, it exists in a superionic state in which light elements move through a stable iron framework as if they were liquid. This finding reshapes our picture of the planet’s deepest layer.
The investigation, led by Prof. Youjun Zhang and Dr. Yuqian Huang of Sichuan University, together with Prof. Yu He from the Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, demonstrates that iron-carbon alloys shift into a superionic phase under the inner core’s extreme conditions. In this environment, carbon atoms zip through the iron lattice at high speeds, greatly reducing the alloy’s stiffness.
“For the first time, we’ve experimentally shown that iron-carbon alloy under inner core conditions exhibits a remarkedly low shear velocity.” said Prof. Zhang. “In this state, carbon atoms become highly mobile, diffusing through the crystalline iron framework like children weaving through a square dance, while the iron itself remains solid and ordered. This so-called “superionic phase” dramatically reduces alloy’s rigidity.”
Experimental Evidence Confirms Previous Predictions
Although computer simulations in 2022 suggested the inner core might take on this exotic form, confirming it in the laboratory had proven difficult — until now. Using a dynamic shock compression platform, the researchers propelled iron-carbon samples to 7 kilometers per second, achieving pressures of up to 140 gigapascals and temperatures near 2600 kelvin, closely reproducing the environment found in the inner core.
By pairing in-situ sound velocity measurements with advanced molecular dynamics simulations, the team detected a dramatic loss of shear wave speed and a sharp increase in Poisson’s ratio. These results align with the unexpectedly soft seismic characteristics recorded within Earth. On an atomic level, the data showed carbon atoms moving freely through iron’s orderly structure, weakening it without causing the lattice to collapse.
A Superionic Core That Shapes Earth’s Dynamics
The superionic model not only accounts for long-standing seismic anomalies but also expands our understanding of how the inner core contributes to Earth’s internal processes. The motion of light elements may explain seismic anisotropy — directional variations in seismic wave speeds — and could also play a role in sustaining Earth’s magnetic field.
“Atomic diffusion within the inner core represents a previously overlooked energy source for the geodynamo,” said Dr. Huang. “In addition to heat and compositional convection, the fluid-like motion of light elements may help power Earth’s magnetic engine.”
The study also clarifies debates over the behavior of light elements under extreme pressure. Earlier research focused mainly on compounds or substitutional alloys, but this work highlights the key role of interstitial solid solutions (especially those involving carbon) in controlling the core’s physical properties.
A Shift in How Scientists View Earth’s Center
According to Prof. Zhang, these findings represent a major change in how scientists interpret the inner core. “We’re moving away from a static, rigid model of the inner core toward a dynamic one,” he explained.
The implications extend beyond Earth. Identifying a superionic phase in the inner core could also improve our understanding of magnetic and thermal evolution in other rocky planets and exoplanets. As Zhang notes, “Understanding this hidden state of matter brings us one step closer to unlocking the secrets of Earth-like planetary interiors.”
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Sichuan Science and Technology Program, and the CAS Youth Interdisciplinary Team.
Rising temperatures are slowing early childhood development
Climate change, including extreme heat and frequent heat waves, is already known to harm ecosystems, agriculture, and human health. New evidence now suggests that increasing temperatures may also slow key aspects of early childhood development.
Published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, the study reports that children who experienced unusually warm conditions, specifically average maximum temperatures above 86 °F (30 °C), were less likely to reach expected literacy and numeracy milestones when compared to children living in cooler environments.
“While heat exposure has been linked to negative physical and mental health outcomes across the life course, this study provides a new insight that excessive heat negatively impacts young children’s development across diverse countries,” says lead author Jorge Cuartas, assistant professor of applied psychology at NYU Steinhardt. “Because early development lays the foundation for lifelong learning, physical and mental health, and overall well-being, these findings should alert researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to the urgent need to protect children’s development in a warming world.”
Large International Dataset Reveals Clear Patterns
Cuartas and his colleagues examined information from 19,607 children between the ages of three and four from Gambia, Georgia, Madagascar, Malawi, Palestine, and Sierra Leone. These countries were chosen because they provide detailed data on child development, household living conditions, and climate, allowing researchers to estimate the amount of heat each child experienced.
To evaluate development, the team used the Early Childhood Development Index (ECDI), which tracks milestones in four areas: reading and number-related skills (literacy and numeracy), social-emotional development, approaches to learning, and physical development. The researchers combined ECDI information with 2017-2020 data from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), which include demographic and well-being indicators such as education, health, nutrition, and sanitation. By merging these datasets with climate records showing average monthly temperatures, they explored potential connections between heat exposure and early development.
Higher Temperatures Linked to Missed Milestones
The researchers found that children who experienced average maximum temperatures above 86 °F (30 °C) were 5 to 6.7 percent less likely to meet basic literacy and numeracy benchmarks than children exposed to temperatures below 78.8 °F during the same season and in the same region. Children in economically disadvantaged households, homes with limited access to clean water, and densely populated urban areas showed the strongest impacts.
“We urgently need more research to identify the mechanisms that explain these effects and the factors that either protect children or heighten their vulnerability. Such work will help pinpoint concrete targets for policies and interventions that strengthen preparedness, adaptation, and resilience as climate change intensifies,” says Cuartas.
This study was co-authored by Lenin H. Balza of the Interamerican Development Bank, Andrés Camacho of the University of Chicago, and Nicolás Gómez-Parra of the Interamerican Development Bank.
Sperm from donor with cancer-causing gene was used to conceive almost 200 children
Some children have already died and only a minority who inherit the mutation will escape cancer in their lifetimes.
Scientists reveal a tiny brain chip that streams thoughts in real time
A new brain implant could significantly reshape how people interact with computers while offering new treatment possibilities for conditions such as epilepsy, spinal cord injury, ALS, stroke, and blindness. By creating a minimally invasive, high-throughput communication path to the brain, it has the potential to support seizure control and help restore motor, speech, and visual abilities.
The promise of this technology comes from its extremely small size paired with its ability to transmit data at very high speeds. Developed through a collaboration between Columbia University, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Stanford University, and the University of Pennsylvania, the device is a brain-computer interface (BCI) built around a single silicon chip. This chip forms a wireless, high-bandwidth link between the brain and external computers. The system is known as the Biological Interface System to Cortex (BISC).
A study published Dec. 8 in Nature Electronics outlines BISC’s architecture, which includes the chip-based implant, a wearable “relay station,” and the software needed to run the platform. “Most implantable systems are built around a canister of electronics that occupies enormous volumes of space inside the body,” says Ken Shepard, Lau Family Professor of Electrical Engineering, professor of biomedical engineering, and professor of neurological sciences at Columbia University, who served as one of the senior authors and led the engineering work. “Our implant is a single integrated circuit chip that is so thin that it can slide into the space between the brain and the skull, resting on the brain like a piece of wet tissue paper.”
Transforming the Cortex Into a High-Bandwidth Interface
Shepard worked closely with senior and co-corresponding author Andreas S. Tolias, PhD, professor at the Byers Eye Institute at Stanford University and co-founding director of the Enigma Project. Tolias’s extensive experience training AI systems on large-scale neural recordings, including those collected with BISC, helped the team analyze how well the implant could decode brain activity. “BISC turns the cortical surface into an effective portal, delivering high-bandwidth, minimally invasive read-write communication with AI and external devices,” Tolias says. “Its single-chip scalability paves the way for adaptive neuroprosthetics and brain-AI interfaces to treat many neuropsychiatric disorders, such as epilepsy.”
Dr. Brett Youngerman, assistant professor of neurological surgery at Columbia University and neurosurgeon at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, served as the project’s main clinical collaborator. “This high-resolution, high-data-throughput device has the potential to revolutionize the management of neurological conditions from epilepsy to paralysis,” he says. Youngerman, Shepard, and NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia epilepsy neurologist Dr. Catherine Schevon recently secured a National Institutes of Health grant to use BISC in treating drug-resistant epilepsy. “The key to effective brain-computer interface devices is to maximize the information flow to and from the brain, while making the device as minimally invasive in its surgical implantation as possible. BISC surpasses previous technology on both fronts,” Youngerman adds.
“Semiconductor technology has made this possible, allowing the computing power of room-sized computers to now fit in your pocket,” Shepard says. “We are now doing the same for medical implantables, allowing complex electronics to exist in the body while taking up almost no space.”
Next-Generation BCI Engineering
BCIs function by connecting with the electrical signals used by neurons to communicate. Current medical-grade BCIs typically rely on multiple separate microelectronic components, such as amplifiers, data converters, and radio transmitters. These parts must be stored in a relatively large implanted canister, placed either by removing part of the skull or in another part of the body like the chest, with wires extending to the brain.
BISC is built differently. The entire system resides on a single complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuit that has been thinned to 50 μm and occupies less than 1/1000th the volume of a standard implant. With a total size of about 3 mm3, the flexible chip can curve to match the brain’s surface. This micro-electrocorticography (µECoG) device contains 65,536 electrodes, 1,024 recording channels, and 16,384 stimulation channels. Because the chip is produced using semiconductor industry manufacturing methods, it is suitable for large-scale production.
The chip integrates a radio transceiver, a wireless power circuit, digital control electronics, power management, data converters, and the analog components necessary for both recording and stimulation. The external relay station provides power and data communication through a custom ultrawideband radio link that reaches 100 Mbps, a throughput at least 100 times higher than any other wireless BCI currently available. Operating as an 802.11 WiFi device, the relay station effectively bridges any computer to the implant.
BISC incorporates its own instruction set along with a comprehensive software environment, forming a specialized computing system for brain interfaces. The high-bandwidth recording demonstrated in this study allows brain signals to be processed by advanced machine-learning and deep-learning algorithms, which can interpret complex intentions, perceptual experiences, and brain states.
“By integrating everything on one piece of silicon, we’ve shown how brain interfaces can become smaller, safer, and dramatically more powerful,” Shepard says.
Advanced Semiconductor Fabrication
The BISC implant was fabricated using TSMC’s 0.13-μm Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS (BCD) technology. This fabrication method combines three semiconductor technologies into one chip to produce mixed-signal integrated circuits (ICs). It allows digital logic (from CMOS), high-current and high-voltage analog functions (from bipolar and DMOS transistors), and power devices (from DMOS) to work together efficiently, all of which are essential for BISC’s performance.
Moving From the Lab Toward Clinical Use
To transition the system into real-world medical use, Shepard’s group partnered with Youngerman at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. They developed surgical procedures to place the thin implant safely in a preclinical model and confirmed that the device produced high-quality, stable recordings. Short-term intraoperative studies in human patients are already underway.
“These initial studies give us invaluable data about how the device performs in a real surgical setting,” Youngerman says. “The implants can be inserted through a minimally invasive incision in the skull and slid directly onto the surface of the brain in the subdural space. The paper-thin form factor and lack of brain-penetrating electrodes or wires tethering the implant to the skull minimize tissue reactivity and signal degradation over time.”
Extensive preclinical work in the motor and visual cortices was carried out with Dr. Tolias and Bijan Pesaran, professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania, both recognized leaders in computational and systems neuroscience.
“The extreme miniaturization by BISC is very exciting as a platform for new generations of implantable technologies that also interface with the brain with other modalities such as light and sound,” Pesaran says.
BISC was developed through the Neural Engineering System Design program of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and draws on Columbia’s deep expertise in microelectronics, the advanced neuroscience programs at Stanford and Penn, and the surgical capabilities of NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
Commercial Development and Future AI Integration
To move the technology closer to practical use, researchers at Columbia and Stanford created Kampto Neurotech, a startup founded by Columbia electrical engineering alumnus Dr. Nanyu Zeng, one of the project’s lead engineers. The company is producing research-ready versions of the chip and working to secure funding to prepare the system for use in human patients.
“This is a fundamentally different way of building BCI devices,” Zeng says. “In this way, BISC has technological capabilities that exceed those of competing devices by many orders of magnitude.”
As artificial intelligence continues to advance, BCIs are gaining momentum both for restoring lost abilities in people with neurological disorders and for potential future applications that enhance normal function through direct brain-to-computer communication.
“By combining ultra-high resolution neural recording with fully wireless operation, and pairing that with advanced decoding and stimulation algorithms, we are moving toward a future where the brain and AI systems can interact seamlessly — not just for research, but for human benefit,” Shepard says. “This could change how we treat brain disorders, how we interface with machines, and ultimately how humans engage with AI.”
The Nighttime Routine Scientists, Dentists, And Longevity Experts Swear By
Longevity expert after longevity expert has said that the steps to a longer life are somewhat familiar, even boring; a good diet, enough sleep, and adequate physical activity are key.
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But exciting research is happening within those. Which is why some scientists have advised on everything from when you eat your dinner to the best bedtime for better ageing.
Here, we’ll share some studies which might make your nighttime routine as conducive as possible for the best, and even most longevity-boosting, results:
Speaking to GQ, Valter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California, said that the longest-living people he’s tracked stopped eating 12 hours before breakfast the following day.
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That may be, he said, because digesting food may interrupt your sleep and could mean food is stored in a different way.
So, if you’re an eight-hour sleeper, that could mean you stop eating four hours before you sleep and have breakfast right away.
Or you could stop eating three hours before sleep and wait an hour after waking to have brekkie.
Gum disease has been linked to a range of health issues, from heart conditions to tooth loss, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and even depression.
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We don’t know exactly whether worse gum health comes from people having preexisting health conditions, which can make looking after your teeth harder, or if they actually cause the problems to begin with.
But speaking to HuffPost UK, Dr Jenna Chimon, a cosmetic dentist at Long Island Veneers, explained that gums are “living tissue connected directly to your bloodstream… bacteria and the toxins they release create a constant state of inflammation”.
Low-grade chronic inflammation has been linked to faster ageing and worse health outcomes.
So while again, we still don’t know exactly in which direction the gum health/all-body health connection flows, experts reccomend flossing anyway ― worst case scenario, you’ll have happier gums.
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A 2024 paper listed sleep regularity as a “stronger predictor of mortality” than even sleep duration.
That means that when you go to bed might be more important than how long you sleep when it comes to your risk of death, though having either way too much or way too little sleep is also linked to an increased risk of premature death in the same paper.
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Speaking to HuffPost UK previously, registered dietician and longevity specialist Melanie Murphy Richter, who studied under longevity researcher Dr Valter Longo at the University of Southern California, said, “Sleep is one of the most powerful longevity tools we have, and timing matters.
“Going to bed between 10pm and midnight and waking with the sun supports circadian rhythms, hormone balance, and cellular repair – all critical for healthy ageing,” she added.
It is true that some of us have a later chronotype, or a natural “night owl” body clock.
But a 2024 study by Stanford researchers suggested that no matter your natural preference, sleeping after 1am was linked to worse ageing outcomes.
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“To age healthily, individuals should start sleeping before 1am, despite chronobiological preferences,” they wrote.
