The best advice for living a healthy, well-adjusted life – eat your vegetables, get a good night’s sleep, politely decline when the Jägerbombs appear – never really changes. Other nuggets, such as how much protein you should be eating or how to maximise workouts, seem to change every year. But as we wonder whether we should really give sauerkraut another go, science marches on, making tiny strides towards improving our understanding of what’s helpful. Here’s what you might have missed in the research this year, from the best reason to eat beetroot, to how to ruin your five-a-side performance before the game even starts. There’s still time to break out the pickle juice shots before 2026 …
Collagen might help you jump higher
Collagen’s effects on your skin might be slightly overstated – a 2023 review of more than two dozen trials concluded that supplementation has benefits for hydration and elasticity, but the effects aren’t huge. However, there’s another reason to take it: a 16-week trial on healthy young men, the results of which were published in July, found it can enhance muscle-tendon stiffness, which appears to improve explosive strength. Start with 10g a day: you might not look any younger on the pickleball court, but there’s a chance you’ll improve your Erne shot.
Hot baths might be the next best thing to training up a mountain …
If you want to do altitude training to improve your endurance in the UK, you’re out of luck – even Ben Nevis, at 1,345 metres (4,413ft) tall, is a bit short of the 2,000 metres or so where oxygen really starts to thin. But there might be another option: a study published in May on cross-adaptation, where the training effects from one stressor (such as heat) might carry over to another (such as altitude), put 20 well-trained adults on a high-intensity interval training programme and then dunked half of them in hot water after their sessions. After six weeks, they tested the athletes under low-oxygen conditions and found the hot-bath gang’s time to exhaustion was 25% longer than the control group’s. Jumping in a 42C bath after a bunch of sprint intervals probably isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time – and proper hydration is crucial – but if you’re training for an altitude-based race, it’s worth trying.
… and cold after training is probably bad
If you’ve spent time on Fitstagram, you’ll have seen people jumping into everything from Alpine lakes to wheelie bins full of ice to boost post-training recovery – but evidence is mounting that it might have the opposite effect. A study published in September found that when young athletes plunged one leg into chilly water after a resistance workout it reduced blood flow and the delivery of amino acids – which would actually stunt, rather than promote, muscle growth.
Beetroot juice is good (again)
Remember the beetroot juice craze of 2012? It’s fine if you don’t: the short version is that it’s a natural source of dietary nitrate, which the body converts to nitric oxide, improving blood flow and lowering the “oxygen cost” of exercise. Top-flight athletes started taking it, and so did part-time Pelotonians – but the benefits for most people weren’t huge so the fad fizzled out. Now, the purple elixir is making a comeback: in a study published in August by researchers at the University of Exeter, taking concentrated juice “shots” twice a day lowered blood pressure in older adults after just two weeks. Adults in their 60s and 70s saw improvements in their oral microbiome – beneficial bacteria increased while harmful ones decreased – helping to convert nitrate to nitric oxide, which is key to healthy blood vessels. The same effect didn’t seem to occur in younger volunteers, so if you aren’t a fan of beetroot you can put it off until later – or try nitrate-rich alternatives such as spinach, rocket, fennel, celery and kale.
Exercise seems to help with internet addiction
We should be trying to cut down on TikTok and YouTube Shorts – a meta-analysis published in September suggests increased use of shortform video and scrolling interfaces are associated with poorer cognition, reduced attention and more stress. Quitting is easier said than done, but physical activity might help. In a different analysis, published in January, exercise interventions reduced internet addiction and improved the psychological symptoms of college students suffering from it. It’s important to note that “open” motor skills – where you’re forced to make quick decisions – are more effective than “closed” ones, such as lifting weights or swimming laps. Time to sign up for that Brazilian jiu-jitsu class …
Gargling with pickle juice can stop cramps
Sportspeople have been glugging pickle juice for a while – the England men’s football team reportedly used it to treat cramps during Euro 2024 – but it really had a moment during this summer’s French Open, with Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner knocking it back during their five-set final. It’s a source of electrolytes – sodium and potassium in particular – but the anti-cramp effect seems to come from the sour taste, which stimulates reflex signals that make muscles relax. The good news is that you don’t even need to drink the juice for it to do the job – swilling it around in your mouth can work, with a previous study suggesting it can take effect in 35 seconds.
Creatine might help your brain (or make up for a bad night’s sleep)
Though it’s often used by bodybuilders and athletes to let them push harder during workouts, evidence is mounting that creatine might bolster your brain. It can help cognition in older adults, according to a study published in September, and might improve clinical outcomes in menopausal women, according to one out in August.
Sex is a mood booster … for up to two days
There are a few benefits to regular rolls in the hay – from better sleep to a lowered risk of death from heart disease – and new research suggests that it can also give you a mood boost that lasts for up to 48 hours. A study published in January using diary data from almost 600 volunteers found that “sexual afterglow lasted at least one day on average, particularly following partner-initiated and mutually-initiated sex”, and might last up to two days.
Eating more fruit might protect your lungs from pollution
It’s not ideal that 90% of the global population is exposed to air pollution levels that exceed WHO guidelines. If you’re looking to offset the effects of dirty air, new research suggests that diet could offer a backup. A study out in September, using UK Biobank data from about 200,000 people, found that a healthy diet is linked to better lung function regardless of air pollution exposure – and that women who ate four or more portions of fruit a day appeared to have smaller reductions in lung function associated with air pollution than those who ate less. “This may be partly explained by the antioxidant and anti-inflammation compounds,” noted study lead Pimpika Kaewsri. “These could help mitigate oxidative stress and inflammation caused by fine particles, potentially offsetting some of the harmful effects.” Write to your MP, but have an apple in the meantime.
Sitting for hours isn’t good for your brain
Bad news if you’re a fan of front-loading your daily exercise – staying sedentary for hours is associated with neurodegeneration as you age, even if your physical activity levels are high. Established back in 2012, the Vanderbilt Memory and Aging Project is a longitudinal study investigating vascular health and brain ageing, and data collected from more than 400 of its participants, and published in May, suggests that more sedentary time is associated with worse executive function, memory and cognitive function.
Going on your phone before five-a-side might ruin your first touch …
Doomscrolling before Monday night football might seem sensible: a bit of aggression never hurts on the pitch, so why not get angry about everything? Sadly, a study of volleyball players, published in February, suggests otherwise: when a group of teenage athletes went on social media before training, their attack efficiency diminished, so being “too online” can actually harm concentration before a match.
… and being dehydrated might make you more stressed
Got a few horrible days in the office coming up? It might be time to invest in one of those big water jugs. In a study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology in September, volunteers were labelled as “low fluid” (if they drank less than 1.5 litres of fluid per day) or “high fluid” (if they regularly met the daily water intake recommendations – 2 litres for women and 2.5 litres for men). Then they took the Trier Social Stress test, a way of provoking anxiety in subjects by putting them through a mock job interview and mental arithmetic questions. The low fluid group showed a cortisol response to stress more than 50% higher than those who met daily water intake recommendations – which could, over the long term, be harmful to health.
Drinking coffee helps your heart – if you do it in the morning
If you haven’t already been browbeaten into not drinking coffee after 1pm by the sleep-optimisation lobby, there’s one more reason to keep your mochas for the morning: it seems to be better for heart health. Analysis of more than 40,000 adults published in January found that morning coffee drinkers were 31% less likely to die from cardiovascular disease during a 10-year follow-up period than those who went without – but there was no significant reduction in mortality for all-day drinkers compared with those who avoided coffee. There was already research to suggest that up to three cups of coffee a day can help heart health, but it’s unclear why the effect disappears for afternoon drinks – one possible explanation is that it disrupts sleep, with all of the negative effects that entails. There’s also hope for people who just love the taste of an after-lunch americano: if coffee’s protective effects come from anti-inflammatory compounds, as some researchers speculate, then decaf would have similar benefits … without ruining your shut-eye.