5 health benefits of line dancing – according to science
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Line dancing is enjoying a global resurgence, rising to a level of popularity not seen since Billy Ray Cyrus’ Achy Breaky Heart topped the charts in 1991.
But it’s no longer just for cowgirls and cowboys. While traditionally associated with country music, line dancing has evolved to include variations of waltz, swing, salsa, disco and rock’n’roll.
This kind of synchronised dance involves people in rows repeating choreographed steps. It doesn’t require a partner, so you can turn up solo and learn on the go. And its popularity is rising among people of all ages.
So, why has line dancing gone viral?
The craze is partly driven by social media users embracing line dancing’s easy-to-follow routines. But a post-COVID pandemic demand for gathering in community has also seen line dancing groups spring up in bars, clubs, community halls and outdoor areas.
It’s also nostalgic and accessible, with an emphasis on fun rather than skill.
While studying its health benefits, one of us (Danielle) decided to give line dancing a go. Unable to follow the steps at first, it was a lesson in humility. But a year later, Danielle is still happily pounding the floor each week in her line dancing group – and encouraging others to give this science-backed mood-booster a try.
Danielle was a coauthor on a new review that examined the findings of 16 studies about line dancing. Here are the health benefits it identified.
1. It’s a workout
Line dancing is good exercise: it incorporates coordination and balance with a cardiovascular workout.
The steps can also be adapted to match the dancers’ abilities. Energetic young people might bootscoot and boogie while more mature dancers can shuffle and sway – all to the same tune.
Research has shown regular physical activity help prevent many chronic conditions, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity and even some cancers.
In older people, line dancing has been shown to improve motor skills, flexibility and gait, reducing fall risk and helping to maintain good overall health.
2. Good for mental health
The new review showed line dancing boosts mental wellbeing, reduces anxiety and depression, and relieves stress.
This is largely due to endorphins, the pain-relieving chemicals the body releases during exercise. They improve mood and can leave dancers feeling elated and full of joy and self-confidence after a session.
But you don’t even have to participate to feel the benefits. There is evidence to suggest watching dancing can stimulate some of the body’s mood-boosting responses and reduce stress.
3. It’s social – but you don’t need a partner
With more than 43% of young people saying they feel persistently lonely, and elder isolation on the rise, finding connection with other people is more important than ever.
Research shows participating in sport – and particularly team activities – is a protective factor against loneliness.
Compared to partnered types of dance such as ballroom, line dancing might seem like a solitary activity. But this actually means people can show up alone and still connect with others, uniting around an activity. People get involved with a community and may even develop friendships.
Line dancing can also break down cultural and social barriers and expand social support networks, helping to develop a sense of belonging and unity.
4. A workout for your brain, too
The combination of stomps, backsteps and kicks can be overwhelming at first. But the sense of achievement when you master these steps is worth it.
Studies have shown that, as line dancers become more proficient, their memory and brain function improves.
There is evidence this can help prevent dementia and improve university students’ concentration.
5. Line dancing builds community
The research review found line dancing has benefits beyond the individual.
For example, in one 2008 study researchers interviewed 30 women aged over 60 about their involvement in line dancing. Many said it led them to become more engaged in the community, including volunteering.
But if you’re thinking of getting involved yourself, a word of warning: there may be no turning back. Line dancing can be profoundly addictive and seriously fun.
This article has been amended to clarify that only one of the two authors was also an author on the academic paper that underpins the article.
Danielle Le Lagadec, Senior Lecturer and Head of Course, Graduate Certificate in Nursing, CQUniversity Australia and Catherine Hungerford, Associate Professor and Head of College, Nursing and Midwifery, CQUniversity Australia
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Red Cabbage vs Red Lettuce – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing red cabbage to red lettuce, we picked the red cabbage.
Why?
It was close! But…
In terms of macros, red cabbage has more than 2x the fiber, more than 2x the carbs, and slightly more protein, making for an easy win for red cabbage in this round.
Note: this happens often, by the way, that something has the same numerical (factorial) increase in fiber and carbs, and we declare it the winner; it’s important to understand that these things do not cancel each other out when they’re scaling equally. By this we mean: if we say fiber is good, carbs are bad (the latter isn’t true; we need carbs to live, but carbs without fiber can indeed be bad), then let’s look at how much we need of each. Different advisory bodies say we need anywhere from 25g/day fiber to 40g/day fiber. Suffice it to say, we need a lot more than 40g/day carbs for regular maintenance of life. Which means that if carbs and fiber in a food are increased by the same amount, gram for gram, then this is increasingly good, because we’ll reach the daily requirement for fiber a lot sooner than we’ll reach the daily requirement for carbs.
Another way of looking at it would be if instead of looking at the grams of fiber or carbs, we look at how much each food provides of the RDA, then it becomes very clear very quickly why we prioritize the fiber figure, because each gram increase of fiber is a much bigger %-of-RDA increase, than the equivalent per-gram figure for carbs. Thus, much more relevant for health considerations.
Ok, back to the usual format of comparisons:
Moving on to the vitamins next, red cabbage has more of vitamins B3, B5, B6, C, and choline, while red lettuce has more of vitamins A, B2, B9, E, and K. That’s a 5:5 tie with a similar average margin of difference, so we’ll call this round a respectable tie and point to them both having very good, but different, merits.
Looking at minerals, red cabbage mas more calcium, magnesium, manganese, and potassium, while red lettuce has more copper, iron, and selenium. A marginal win for red cabbage here.
When it comes to phytochemicals, they each boast a comparable array of polyphenols, so it’s a tie in this round.
Adding up the sections makes for an overall win for red cabbage, but by all means enjoy either or both; diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Enjoy!
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Improve Your Kidney Health By Around 10% With This One Change
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How healthy are your kidneys? Most people don’t know, unless a problem has already been identified.
There are clinical tests that can be done (they’ll just need a urine sample from you; ask your doctor about it), but there’s some screening that can be done at home already:
Are Your Kidneys Healthy? Take This One-Minute Quiz To Find out
👆 this is about medical indicators; there are also non-medical factors that affect risk, including:
- Where someone lives
- Where they work
- The foods they eat
- How much exercise they do
- If they are able to get the medical care they need
For more information on this, see: Keeping Your Kidneys Healthy (Especially After 60) ← there’s a lot more to it than just hydration!
So, what about that “the foods they eat” item?
The greener choice
It’s well-established that most people should eat more plants, and generally speaking, less meat. For a more general overview (rather than specifically kidney health), check out: Do We Need Animal Products To Be Healthy?
Most recently, a team of researchers (Dr. Sisi Yang et al.) analyzed data from 179,508 participants in the UK Biobank who were aged 40–69 and did not have chronic kidney disease (CKD) at the start of the study, and found that people who more closely followed the EAT–Lancet planetary health diet had around a 10% lower risk of developing CKD.
You may be wondering what that diet involves, so, for your information: the EAT–Lancet planetary health diet focuses on fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and low amounts of animal products while especially avoiding red or processed meat, added sugars, and unhealthy fats (e.g. most animal fats especially from mammals, and some processed other fats).
You can read more about it here: Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems
As for how it happens, the study found 122 metabolites and 143 proteins linked to the diet pattern that were also associated with lower CKD risk, including markers related to inflammation and kidney injury such as interleukin-18 receptor 1 and kidney injury molecule 1.
Further, the protective effect of the diet appeared even stronger in people with lower* exposure to residential green space and in people carrying a specific genetic variant known to its friends as rs2010352 GG.
*Not because lower exposure to residential green space is a beneficial thing in and of itself, but rather because those who have the worst starting point will tend to see greater improvements.
CKD affects about 10% of adults worldwide and is projected to become the fifth leading cause of death globally by 2040, so the researchers argue that the EAT–Lancet diet could be a useful strategy for kidney disease prevention while also supporting environmental sustainability.
You can read the paper in full, here: The EAT–Lancet planetary health diet and risk of incident chronic kidney disease
Want to learn more about different dietary approaches?
Check out:
Which Diet? Top Diets Ranked By Experts ← a panel of 69 doctors and nutritionists examine the evidence for 38 diets, and score them in 21 categories (e.g. best for weight loss, best for heart, best against diabetes, best for the liver, etc).
Choose wisely!
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Prevent & Reverse Heart Disease – by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn
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This is not a book of moderation. Indeed, it has a chapter entitled “moderation kills”. So, what does it advise? The dietary requirements are simple:
- No animal products
- No oils
- No oily plants (e.g. nuts, avocados)
You may be wondering: aren’t nuts and avocados healthy? What about olive oil? And the answer is that yes, for most people they are indeed healthy, but Dr. Esselstyn makes a compelling argument for their elimination in the case of someone needing to take drastic actions to prevent or reverse heart disease.
The single most important deciding factor, he says, is whether our total cholesterol is above or below 150mg/dL. Below that, he considers we need not worry. Above that, time for serious action.
So, if (like this reviewer!) you’re enjoying a Mediterranean diet with cholesterol well under that level, this book might not be for you.
For those with total cholesterol above 150mg/dL, however, Dr. Esselstyn presents a wealth of evidence for his approach working. On the one hand, this is mostly based on case studies rather than randomized controlled trials, but on the other hand, he’s accumulated so many of them that unless he’s hiding a lot of evidence to present only the successes, it’s safe to assume this way of eating really does prevent and reverse heart disease.
If you can’t imagine cooking without oil, and especially if you’re not vegan so that’d be several big changes at once, fear not, he provides recipes, with an emphasis on flavor and enjoyment; indeed, part two of the book (which is full of these recipes) is entitled “the joy of eating”.
The style is quite narrative; this is a man with a story to tell and he will tell it at length. But, there’s a lot of information therein that comes thick and fast, and it’s all well-referenced.
Bottom line: if you’re very sure you’re not in the danger zone for heart disease, this one’s probably not for you. If it’s a risk for you, however (or perhaps a known reality already), then this book presents a fix that seems somewhat drastic, but has a good record of working.
Click here to check out Prevent & Reverse Heart Disease, and prevent or reverse heart disease!
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Tretinoin: Because Prevention Is Better Than Cure
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The skin is an important organ to keep young and healthy, because a lot follows from it:
Protect, preserve, prevent
Jennifer Myers (now 43) began prescription retinoids not for beautifying but to treat a terrible case of cystic acne, starting with Duac and Benzaclin, then Tazorac, then Renova, then Retin-A Micro, then Retin-A cream and gel, eventually landing on Atralin, which transformed her skin. Quite a journey!
As you might imagine, the acne was physically painful and emotionally damaging during her late teens and early 20s, and the long search for something that worked required patience, distress tolerance, and persistence.
She wants to make clear that while she inherited her facial features, she did not inherit clear skin; quite to the contrary, she inherited severe acne from her mother—and her clear, smooth complexion today is earned through decades of consistency.
Consequently, she finds it frustrating that the skincare market overwhelms people into buying “shiny” new products; she encourages ignoring trends and sticking to what already works for at least 12 weeks, ideally one to two years, before judging results, because meaningful changes from tretinoin take months; in her case, it took a full year before she had the “new face” she maintains today, and many people quit too early because they expect overnight transformation.
In terms of what it will and won’t do: it improves skin turnover (which is its main mechanism of action), boosts collagen, smooths texture, brightens skin, and delays premature visible signs of aging, but it does not erase wrinkles, eliminate pores, or reverse established structural changes.
Aside from that, she attributes part of her result to diet, avoiding sugar, not smoking, and of course protecting against UV exposure.
Why is she telling us this? She wants to model what healthy, non-modified, naturally aging skin in one’s 40s can look like—she does not aim to look younger than she is, only to look like a well-cared-for 43-year-old woman.
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Undo The Sun’s Damage To Your Skin ← because while prevention is much better than cure, tretinoin can help with this, too
Take care!
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Eat to Beat Your Diet – by Dr. William Li
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We previously reviewed Dr. Li’s excellent “Eat To Beat Disease”, so you may be wondering how much overlap there is. While he does still cover such topics as angiogenesis, organ regeneration, microbiome health, DNA protection, and immunological considerations, and much of the dietary advice is similar, most of the explanation is different.
Because, this time, rather than looking at beating disease in general, there’s a much stronger focus on metabolic disease in particular, and yes, for those who want to do so, losing fat.
The scientific explanations are in-depth, such that you come way with not merely “I should eat an avocado once in a while”, but a comprehensive understanding of the body’s metabolic processes, from the chemistry to the organs involved, from the cellular to the systemic.
The style is on the hard end of pop-science. It’s approachably readable, while having a lot of densely-packed information with minimal fluff. You will be more than getting your money’s worth out of its 496 pages.
Bottom line: if you’d like to perk up your metabolism with a dietary approach that’s enjoyable and very restrictive, then this book will arm you with the knowledge to do that.
Click here to check out Eat To Beat Your Diet, and eat to beat your diet!
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Sweeteners & Your Appetite
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Sugar is famously not great for the health. See for example: Is Sugar The New Smoking? ← the answer is “no, but it’s still very bad, just not in the same league of badness as smoking”!
Of course, there are some important circumstantial things to bear in mind, such as:
From Apples to Bees, and High-Fructose Cs: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
But even without sugar, simply sweetness itself can cause problems: we can build tolerance to sweetness. Many sugar substitutes are many times (in some cases, hundreds of times) sweeter than sugar. This leads to people craving increasingly sweeter foods for the same experiential sweetness level.
Because of this, the World Health Organization has released a report offering guidance regards the use of sugar-free sweeteners.
In a nutshell, the guidance is: don’t
- Here’s the report itself: Use of non-sugar sweeteners: WHO guideline
- And it was based on this huge systematic review: Health effects of the use of non-sugar sweeteners: a systematic review and meta-analysis
- Here’s the WHO’s own press release about it: WHO advises not to use non-sugar sweeteners for weight control in newly released guideline
Nevertheless, if you really want to, we previously did a rundown on:
- Sucrose (metabolic problems)
- Sucralose (genotoxic)
- Erythritol (ischemiagenic)
- Xylitol (gut disruptor)
- Acesulfame K (gut disruptor)
- Stevia (strong risk of sweetness tolerance problem)
- Glycine (beneficial in moderation, sweetness problem though)
For more details than those one-or-few-word summaries, see: What’s The Healthiest Sweetener?
We’ve also talked about: The Fascinating Truth About Aspartame, Cancer, & Neurotoxicity
…which covers how the most popular beliefs about aspartame are myths, and in large part stemming from a single viral hoax chain letter in the 90s!
But sweeteners really increase your appetite?
That’s the question that Dr. Sabina Anderson et al. put to the test all so recently, using a mixture of acesulfame K and acesulfame cyclamate (Ace-K/Cyc).
What they found, in few words:
- No, there was no increase in food intake: participants didn’t eat more after consuming artificial sweeteners compared with water, even when allowed to eat freely later.
- No, there was no meaningful effect on hunger overall: hunger, fullness, and satiety were the same between sweeteners and water across all time points during the study.
- In fact, the participants enjoyed reduced sweet cravings: the sweetened drink lowered the desire to eat something sweet, and this effect persisted even after adjusting for taste differences.
You may be thinking: what happened to that up top about tolerance spiralling and craving more and more sweet things?!
And the answer is: that’s in the big picture; this was a 265-minute study, done three times in a row. So, it’s less about what it does in the long term, and more about what it does in the moment.
Specifically,
❝Subjective appetite sensations were measured using visual analogue scales while fasting and nine times during a 250-min postprandial period. During this period, a standardized breakfast (0–10 min) was served and, 2 h later, a test drink containing either Ace-K/Cyc or water (120–130 min) was given. After 265 min, an ad libitum test meal was served.❞
Read in full: Acute and Prolonged Effects of Sweeteners and Sweetness Enhancers on Postprandial Appetite Sensations, Palatability, and Ad Libitum Energy Intake in Humans: A SWEET Sub-Study (yes, they say “and prolonged”, but when they say “prolonged”, they’re referring to t=265 min, as opposed to immediately after drinking the drink)
That does mean, of course, that while helpful to know about in the moment, the results may not be extrapolated to the long term.
It’s also worth noting that the sample size was small (n=26), so in terms of strength of evidence it’s more of an indicative “jumping-off point” for future studies, rather than anything that should necessarily shape policy (including your personal policy) in the meantime.
One other important limitation is that obviously the results are for acesulfame-K and cyclamate, which means the results cannot necessarily be assumed to apply to all artificial sweeteners.
In fact, there is some science to the opposite for at least one sweetener, sucralose:
The Sweetener That Interferes With Hunger/Satiety Signals
Of course, sucralose is not technically a non-sugar sweetener, as it is chemically a sugar. But in practical terms, sucralose is a sugar in the same way that coffee is a fruit, i.e. it’s true, but for most purposes we can disregard that information as it’s not how we usually use those words in daily parlance.
Want to learn more?
This recommendation’s tangential to our main topic today, but it’ll be relevant for a lot of people who use sweeteners as a blood sugar control tool, so:
Stop Overeating During Low Blood Sugars With Diabetes – by Ginger Vieira
Take care!
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