In HumanaNatura’s natural health system, the fourth and final of our science-based health techniques is called Natural Communities. This health-critical practice begins with the idea that our social environment is essential to our health, and guides practitioners in the steps to either find or create a healthier community setting.

The science of healthy groups and communities, and the study of their important health and quality of life impacts, is quite broad – ranging from public health and city planning studies to management and political science research – making it difficult for health professionals and the general public to appreciate its full scope and importance. A new study by University of Chicago researchers is thus useful because it makes the power of place more tangible, and reminds us that we may naturally habituate to poor quality conditions and underestimate the power of community life on our health more generally.

The new study specifically investigated obesity and diabetes changes among families in poor U.S. neighborhoods who were given the opportunity to move to less poverty-prone areas in the 1990s. Some did so, while others did not, creating a natural experiment in the impact of relocation and background community quality. Ten years later, the research team found significant improvements in diabetes and obesity rates (of about 20%) among the group that had moved. This impact is reportedly about equal to the expected change from standard medical interventions, and the findings are important enough to warrant investigation of other health consequences in this group.

Do you want to consider the power of place in your life or more generally? Learn more about the new study at Change Your Neighborhood, Improve Your Health, and explore HumanaNatura’s guidelines for healthy communities via our unique and comprehensive Community Health Program.

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News channels have been buzzing the last few days with stories about new findings by Northwestern University researchers – who have concluded that married men undergo a significant “drop” in testosterone levels, when compared with their still-single cohorts. The researchers hypothesize that the lower hormone levels encourage sustained pair-bonding and child-rearing, and are a naturally selected human trait. Some commentators have used the study to mock the manliness of married men, while many more have felt compelled to stand up for men in committed relationships, as if their condition were less manly and somehow unnatural. But what is the real story, and who are the real men?

In our original life in nature, we would expect most adult men to be in relationships and raising children, and single men to be the exception. If their numbers grew too large, single men would have been a source of social instability and reduced general health, due to higher aggressiveness and competition (driven in part by psychological wanting and by the heightened testosterone the new study finds). Thus, the natural baseline in the study is married men, not single ones, and the real headline is that single men have “elevated” testosterone levels, as a consequence of being unnaturally single and encouraging them out of this condition and into stable relationships.

Overall, the heavily biased discussion of the new study, toward treating single men as the benchmark, is a great example of our general modern romance with the primitive “alpha male.” This is more of a problem than most of us realize, since the correct answer is that we are naturally far better served by more intelligent, cooperative, and adaptive “beta cycle” attitudes and behaviors, by both men and women. Learn more about the new study at Testosterone Dips and explore HumanaNatura’s strong emphasis on ensuring naturally healthier and superior beta-cycle life via Understanding Evolution and the Natural Living section of our Personal Health Program.

Researchers at Harvard University have found an interesting new recipe to significantly handicap children throughout their lives – smoke around them regularly. The new research examined over 50,000 children and concluded that ones exposed to significant secondhand smoke were 50 percent more likely to have an attention deficit, learning disorder, or behavioral problem. Although the new study is correlational only and does not prove causation, other research suggests that nicotine plays a role at least in attention disorders. The researchers estimate that attention, learning, and behavior problems in over 250,000 U.S. children could be prevented each year by eliminating smoke exposure. Learn more about the new study and related research at Secondhand Smoke In Kids.

A new United Nations report is a good reminder we are witnessing the end of an era in our lifetime – in our case, the end of the 10,000 year pre-industrial era. Though we may lament the loss of traditional cultures around the world and worry about the new global order that our changing times are bringing, a look at the data underscores that industrialization is overwhelmingly a positive long-term developmnent…reducing poverty, increasing education levels, encouraging equal rights, and setting the stage for much higher quality of life for all people. Learn more about the new UN report at Poverty Rates Halved or read the full report at MDG Report 2011.