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There is evidence, for example, that exposure to morning light is associated with appetite and weight control, said Dr. Phyllis Zee.

She said the new experiments are important because they demonstrate just how powerful exposure to natural light — and darkness — can be.

“Just two days of summer camping reset people’s clocks,” said Zee, director of the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago.

There is evidence, for example, that exposure to morning light is associated with appetite and weight control, said Dr. Phyllis Zee.

She said the new experiments are important because they demonstrate just how powerful exposure to natural light — and darkness — can be.

“Just two days of summer camping reset people’s clocks,” said Zee, director of the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago.

Outside, “you are pretty constrained by natural light-dark cycles and the intensity and light spectrum that you see in nature,” says Dr. Phyllis Zee, director for the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University who was not involved with the study. Natural light, particularly morning sunshine, which is enriched with blue light, has a very powerful influence on setting internal clocks.

However, this Northwestern University study found that doing even about one-third of that amount is still beneficial. The study involved more than 1,600 adults 49 or older who had arthritic pain or stiffness in their hips, knees or feet.

The new metrics describe good-quality sleep, Sabra Abbott, a neurologist who specializes in circadian rhythm and sleep disorders at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, told HuffPost. But not everyone’s sleep looks the same, she added. “Just because you aren’t able to perfectly meet these four guidelines, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have poor-quality sleep,” Abbott said. The metrics “are useful as an initial target.”

Dr. Joel Shalowitz, professor of preventive medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, says understanding how another nation’s health system works enriches your outlook on your own country’s health care system by allowing you to compare and contrast the two.

Dr. Mamta Swaroop, 39, a trauma surgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, created the Chicago South Side Trauma First Responders Course and wants to give all trainees basic knowledge of what to do in a situation like the one Jacobs faced so that they don’t have to rely on vaguely remembered movie scenes for medical guidance. Swaroop came up with the idea for the course after having multiple patients bleed out to death before they could be saved at the hospital. She noticed many had wounds in their arms and legs that, if properly bandaged, may have been survivable.

Similarly, a second study published in the same journal found factors that put people at risk for HIV and AIDS were more common among adults who spent time in the juvenile justice system than the general population. Like the general population, Karen Abram and colleagues at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago write that the prevalence of those risk factors declined over time.

Skipping across time zones might be more than just tiring for pro baseball players: The resulting jet lag may actually harm their performance on the field, a new study suggests. The Northwestern University researchers said they found that jet lag slowed the base running of home teams but not away teams. And both home and away pitchers gave up more home runs when jet-lagged

The Chicago Cubs weren’t just fighting against 108 years of history on their journey to the World Series win last year. They also apparently were battling jet lag. Traveling even just two or three time zones can cause jet lag that hurts Major League Baseball players’ performance, according to a Northwestern University study set to be released this week.