Is Every Study Worth Studying?

According to a study published in the "British Journal of Psychiatry", children who eat too much candy become violent as adults. More than 17,000 children born in 1970 were studied for almost 40 years. Of the children who ate candy daily at age 10, 69% were arrested for a violent offense by age 34. It wasn't the candy that caused the violence. Supposedly parents who use candy to bribe children to be good are teaching them to want immediate gratification, which supposedly leads to impulsive behavior and violence. Nevertheless, parents are free to consider this study to be sweet nothings.

According to a study published in the online journal "PLoS One", people become more alert to potential threat when breathing stress sweat. Stress sweat was taken from 144 people who tandem skydived for the first time. Twice samples of stress sweat and sweat from treadmill runners were given to 8 men and 8 women whose brains were being scanned. Although participants couldn't distinguish the sweats by smell, the stress sweat caused more activity in a brain area associated with emotion. In fact, discriminating between pictures of neutral and angry faces when breathing stress sweat was - no sweat.

According to a study done at Carolina State University, however, burning paraffin-based candles releases toxic chemicals into the air. Paraffin candles are petroleum-based. When they're burned, they release toluene, which can affect the nervous system and when inhaled in large doses by pregnant women, can cause birth defects. Paraffin candles also release benzene, which has been linked to cancer - especially leukemia. Although the Environmental Protection Agency is concerned about candles causing indoor pollution, it hasn't set standards for candle emissions. However, vegetable-based candles don't emit toxins; so you can breath easy.

According to research published in "Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery", certain behaviors make people look older. The research - based on 186 sets of identical twins - found that a twin who drank looked older than the non-drinking twin because excessive alcohol had damaged blood vessels and collagen. Every 10 years of smoking added 2.5 years to the smoking twin's looks. Unprotected UV exposure caused the exposed twin to have wrinkled, mottled skin. A divorced twin looked an average 1.7 years older than the married or single twin, but surprisingly a widowed twin looked 2 years younger. Of course, for those without an identical twin for mirror imaging, there are mirrors.