Learn why you should think twice before using Adderall as a study tool; 3 things gym class got wrong; and the healthiest number of cups of coffee to drink per day, according to a huge umbrella review. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: Adderall Doesn't Make Everyone "Smarter" 3 Things Gym Class Got Wrong This Is the Healthiest Number of Cups of Coffee to Drink Per Day Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Learn why you should think twice before using Adderall as a study tool; 3 things gym class got wrong; and the healthiest number of cups of coffee to drink per day, according to a huge umbrella review.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron!
Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/how-adderall-hurts-studying-3-gym-class-mistakes-and-how-much-coffee-you-should-drink
CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got three stories from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn why you should think twice before using Adderall to study, three things gym class got wrong, and the healthiest number of cups of coffee to drink per day according to a lot of research.
CODY GOUGH: Plus we'll tell you about some fun stuff we have planned for the weekend and why you might find an extra podcast episode in your feed. Let's satisfy some curiosity. If you've spent any time in school over the last 15 years or so, then you may have known someone who used Adderall as a study drug.
Adderall is a drug that's often prescribed to treat symptoms of ADHD and narcolepsy, but Adderall also gets abused by people without ADHD, hoping it will make them smarter or better able to concentrate on their studies. Well, a new study looked into whether this actually works. And it turns out Adderall does not make everyone smarter. Did you have friends like this?
ASHLEY HAMER: I never knew anybody who used Adderall, but it was something I definitely heard about.
CODY GOUGH: The current Adderall brand was introduced in 1996. So it's been around for a really long time.
ASHLEY HAMER: Wow. That is a lot older than I thought it was.
CODY GOUGH: Right. I feel like it just kind of caught on as this study thing in the last few years.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: But it might not be this study hack that people think it is. Now this study looked at 13 participants between 18 and 24 years old who had no chronic medical issues. Basically, your average healthy college age student. The students were given a variety of cognitive tests, sometimes after they had taken Adderall. Other times, after they had taken a placebo.
Researchers tested each subject's heart rate and blood pressure every half hour and asked participants to describe how they felt physically and emotionally. The researchers found that compared to the placebo, Adderall had significant effects on participants' cognitive abilities. But the effects weren't all positive. Adderall significantly boosted performance on a simple test that tested reaction times, but it significantly hindered performance on a number recall task.
So even if it made students more attentive in the moment, they didn't necessarily remember what they had paid such close attention to when they were on the drug in the first place. Adderall also had strong non-cognitive effects. Participants reported feeling high on Adderall and enjoying the sensation, along with feeling positive emotions, higher heart rate, and higher blood pressure on the drug. That's not surprising considering that Adderall is a stimulant made from amphetamine, which is chemically similar to methamphetamine.
Overall, the study suggests that Adderall made participants feel good and pay attention, but it didn't help them learn in a meaningful, long term way. Now this was a small study, and it was done in a distraction-free environment, which isn't exactly like your typical college life. But it's worth at least considering the possibility that a drug sometimes used as a study aid could actually make it harder to remember what you're studying. Stick to getting a good night's sleep. And in case of emergency, there's always coffee.
ASHLEY HAMER: Did anyone actually have fun in gym class when they were growing up? I know I didn't. And it's not just that you didn't have fun. You also may have been misled on some of the science. Today, we're going to talk about three things gym class got wrong. Just a little remedial education.
CODY GOUGH: I just hated that day when they had everybody do pull-ups.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: Right? And like two kids in the class could do it. And everybody else is like, why are we even here?
ASHLEY HAMER: I was just talking about this with one of our coworkers. And he was saying that if the girls just tried to do a pull-up, they were good. They got an A. But the boys had to do like 10, which seems unfair.
CODY GOUGH: I would have gotten many Fs.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: Because I couldn't do a pull-up ever. I could do my first chin-up when I was like 24 maybe.
ASHLEY HAMER: Nice.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. Took a long time to get there.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Me too. Well, the first thing gym class got wrong was sit-ups. Remember the Presidential Physical Fitness Test? That was the day where you had to go in and do curl-ups and pull-ups, and you just like hated every moment of it? That test was originally designed to ensure young Americans were ready for the physical demands of military service.
The test was in place from 1966 all the way to 2012. It changed over the years, but a longstanding part of it was doing sit-ups. That was replaced by the curl-up or crunch after many years. But all of those exercises have proven to be a back injury risk and an inefficient way to build your abs. According to a 2005 study, 56% of soldiers who sustained injuries during the army physical fitness test did so while doing sit-ups. To build stronger core muscles, most fitness experts agree that stabilizing exercises like planks are the way to go.
The second thing gym class got wrong was static stretching. That's when you stretch a muscle, and you hold it for 10 or 20 seconds. In the early 2010s, research started to show that static stretching before athletic activity actually makes you weaker and did not make you much less likely to get injured. If you're getting ready for a workout, experts recommend dynamic stretching, which keeps your muscles in motion. Think jumping jacks, straight leg kicks, and lungs, which do a better job prepping your body for a workout.
And the final gym class foul is your body mass index or BMI. BMI is a simple height to weight ratio and was and is used to tell where a person falls on the spectrum, from underweight to obese. But a growing body of research is showing that BMI is a lousy indicator of health. That's because weight is made up of fat and muscle. So particularly athletic or muscular people might have overweight BMIs, while normal weight individuals with a dangerous amount of belly fat might be marked as perfectly healthy.
Research is showing that your waist to hip ratio may be a better health measure than your BMI. Measuring your body fat percentage is also useful, especially if you're tracking weight loss. So there you go. We hope all you gym teachers out there found this helpful.
CODY GOUGH: Today's episode is sponsored by Purple Mattress. Sleep is important. The quality of your sleep affects the quality of your daily life, like a lot. I can tell you that no amount of coffee I've ever had at work has ever been able to actually make up for lost sleep. At best, I pound an energy drink. Then I feel really awful, it messes up my stomach, and then I'm just kind of a mess. You've got to get sleep. And if you're struggling to get a good night's sleep, you've got to try a Purple Mattress.
ASHLEY HAMER: The Purple Mattress will probably feel different than anything you've ever experienced because it uses this brand new material that was developed by an actual rocket scientist. The purple material feels unique because it's both firm and soft at the same time. So it keeps everything supported, while still feeling really comfortable. Plus it's breathable, so it sleeps cool.
CODY GOUGH: And right now with Purple Mattress, you can get a 100-night risk-free trial. If you're not fully satisfied, you can return your mattress for a full refund. And if you keep it, your Purple Mattress is backed by a 10-year warranty. Not to mention free shipping and returns, and free in-home setup, and old mattress removal.
ASHLEY HAMER: You're going to love purple. And right now, our listeners will get a free purple pillow with a purchase of a mattress. That's in addition to the great free gifts they're offering sitewide. Just go to purple.com, and use our promo code Curious at checkout.
CODY GOUGH: That's purple.com, code Curious. The only way to get this free pillow is to use our code, Curious, and check out.
ASHLEY HAMER: One more time. That's purple.com, code, Curious.
CODY GOUGH: To wrap up today, we've got a quick story on the healthiest number of cups of coffee to drink per day according to research. We briefly mentioned this as a Curiosity challenge question on an earlier episode of our show, but I thought this was worth revisiting, especially now that pumpkin spice latte season is here, Ashley.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, yeah. How many pumpkin spice lattes per day is healthy?
CODY GOUGH: Probably zero.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Probably zero.
CODY GOUGH: It's down to the amount of syrup they put in there.
ASHLEY HAMER: I mean, you can get the little 12-ouncer, right? You can get the little tall one and just enjoy it as a treat in the afternoon. Like that's about as much as a pastry.
CODY GOUGH: I'm going to get one.
ASHLEY HAMER: I'm all right, Cody.
CODY GOUGH: I don't care how unhealthy it is. It's going to happen. Pumpkin spice lattes aside, back to actual science. In October, 2017, researchers at the University of Southampton and University of Edinburgh performed an umbrella review. That means they looked at more than 200 meta analyzes of different health outcomes associated with coffee consumption and combined the results.
This is a little tricky since different studies used different cup sizes and brew strengths. But at the end of the day, they settled on a recommended range. The ideal number of cups of coffee to drink is three or four cups. More than that won't hurt you by the way. You just might see less pronounced benefits.
Three to 4 cups a day was also associated with a lower risk of heart disease and of death from any cause. Of course, listen to your doctor if you need to cut back on your coffee habit. And if you're pregnant, you might want to stick to the recommended amount of about 200 milligrams of caffeine per day or roughly one small cup of Joe.
That's all for today. But Curiosity has big plans for the weekend, and I mean, big. Ashley and I had the opportunity to interview Hank Green. He created the YouTube channels Crash Course and SciShow, and he co-stars in the super popular Vlogbrothers YouTube channel with his brother, author John Green. Hank just published his first book, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. And tomorrow, we're going to release a Saturday episode with our conversation with him about the book.
We're at least in this on a Saturday because we really just focus on the book. So you're not going to learn about a lot of different science and research, like we usually talk about. But Hank is awesome and one of the most important science communicators in the country, if not the world. So we wanted to put it out there as a special Saturday bonus for you big science nerds like us out there. We hope you like it. And if that's not your cup of tea, then don't worry. We'll be back Sunday with another Curiosity Daily, just the way you expect.
ASHLEY HAMER: And in the meantime, this weekend, you can visit curiosity.com to learn about possible solutions to the Fermi paradox, inventors who regretted their inventions, that time astronomers watched a distant star turn into a black hole, ice hotels, bizarre prehistoric versions of modern animals, and more.
CODY GOUGH: And if there's something else you're curious about, then email your question to podcast@curiosity.com, and we might answer it on Sunday or some other day.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's podcast@curiosity.com. Come hang out with us again Sunday on the Curiosity Daily, and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough. Have a great weekend.
ASHLEY HAMER: And stay curious.
ANNOUNCER: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.