The dangers of using the phone while walking

A recent study of college students found that a quarter of people crossing intersections were using their phones.

“I don't think people realize how distracted they are and how much their situational awareness changes when they walk and use a phone,” said Wayne Giang, an assistant professor of engineering at the University of Florida.

In fact, our devices can cause what some experts call “inattentional blindness.” The screen in your hands can change your mood, the way you walk, and your body position.

When we walk and use our phone at the same time, we reflexively adjust how we move, Gyang said. Video footage of pedestrians showed that people using phones walked about 10% slower than their non-distracted counterparts.

“You see a number of changes in gait that reflect a slowdown,” said Patrick Crowley, a project manager at the Technical University of Denmark, who has studied the biomechanics of walking while using a phone. “People are taking shorter steps and spending more time with both feet on the ground.”

These changes can impede traffic on the sidewalk.

Looking at a smartphone while walking, rather than standing up straight, can also increase the amount of load or force on the neck and upper back muscles.”

One experiment found that the more people used a phone while walking on a treadmill, the higher their levels of cortisol, the stress hormone.

A 2023 study looked at the psychological effects of walking in an outdoor park while looking at a phone.

“In general, when people go for a walk, they feel better afterward, and that's what we saw in the phone-free walking group,” said Elizabeth Broadbent, study co-author and professor of health psychology.

She added: “In the walking and phone use groups, these effects were reversed. Instead of feeling more positive after walking, people felt less positive.”

The negative effects are due to decreased contact with the surrounding environment.

Dangers of distracted walking

Most of us realize that walking with a phone can be risky.

Dr. Giang's studies investigated the relationship between "phone-related distracted walking" and emergency department visits.

Nearly 30,000 injuries were discovered while walking caused by phones. While many of these incidents occurred on streets and sidewalks, approximately a quarter of them occurred at home.

One gene that could be turned off could allow people to eat whatever they want without becoming obese!

Disabling a single gene may allow people to eat whatever they want without becoming obese, a study suggests.

By conducting experiments on mice, experts from the University of California San Diego discovered that one gene is responsible for fat cells losing their ability to burn energy.

They found that when rodents are fed a high-fat diet, their cells break down and become less effective at burning fat, which may explain why obesity causes metabolism to slow in humans.

The researchers discovered that this process is controlled by a single gene, which when removed via gene editing, prevents the rodents from gaining excess weight, even while eating the same high-fat diet.

The team wanted to examine how obesity affects our mitochondria and find out why obesity slows down metabolism, making it easier to stay fat.

The mitochondrion, or mitochondria, is a double-membrane cellular organelle found in most eukaryotic organisms. It produces the energy needed to operate the body's cells, and aging is associated with a decline in the function of this organelle.

“Excess calories from overeating can lead to weight gain and also trigger a cascade of metabolic processes that reduce energy expenditure, making obesity worse,” said Dr. Alan Salthill, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego and lead author of the study. "Worse. The gene we identified is an important part of this shift from healthy weight to obesity."

When people consume more calories than they burn, the ability of fat cells to burn energy begins to fail, which is one reason why it is difficult for obese people to lose weight. But how fat cell failure begins has been one of obesity's biggest mysteries.

The researchers measured the effect of a high-fat diet on mice's mitochondria, the powerhouse of cells that help burn fat.

After eating the diet, the mice's mitochondria divided into smaller, inefficient mitochondria, which led to them burning less fat.

This is accomplished by a single gene called RaIA, which has several functions, one of which is helping to break down the mitochondria when they break down.

The researchers' findings indicate that when this gene is overactive, it hinders the normal functioning of the mitochondria, leading to fat cells not burning energy as well.

"In essence, chronic activation of RaIA appears to play a crucial role in reducing energy expenditure in obese adipose tissue," said Dr. Saltiel. "By understanding this mechanism, we are one step closer to developing targeted therapies that can address weight gain." and associated metabolic imbalances by increasing fat burning.”

The researchers found that some of the proteins affected by RaIA in mice resemble human proteins associated with obesity and insulin resistance, suggesting that similar mechanisms may have a role in humans.

Dr. Saltiel said: “The direct comparison between the basic biology we discovered and real clinical results underscores the importance of the findings for humans, and suggests that we may be able to help treat or prevent obesity by targeting the RaIA pathway with new therapies. We are just beginning to understand the process of "The metabolism of this disease is complex, but the future possibilities are exciting."

Future treatments may include gene therapies or CRISPR, a technology used by scientists to modify DNA in living organisms, to eliminate RaIA and its effects in the body.

The study was published in the journal Nature Metabolism.