Roughly half of households worldwide own a pet. And pet ownership continues to climb. There's a lot written to say pets make you healthier, but is that really the case? In this episode we discuss whether pets make people healthy, what are the down sides of owning a pet and the biology behind how your pet affects you.

What to spice up your sex life? Try exercise. Exercise does more than just strengthen your body, it can also strengthen your connections with others, including that special somone just in time for Valentine's Day. In this episode, we discuss how exercise can make you more attractive to others, how it improves connections (enhances new and existing ones) and what's going on in your body to make that happen.

Select references cited in this podcast:

Effects of Exercise Interventions on Body Image: A Meta-analysis: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1359105309338977

Snychrony and Physiological Arousal Increase Cohersion and Cooperation in Large Naturalistic Groups: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-18023-4

Marital Benefits of Daily Individual and Conjoint Exercise Among Older Couples: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/fare.12307

It's the dark days of winter in the Northern Hemisphere in which the sun shines less and is lower in the sky. That means your body has less of a chance of making vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin. Vitamin D is an essential nutrient, meaning your body can't produce it on its own. In this episode, we discuss what vitamin D is and what it does in your body, how you can get vitamin D and how using sunscreen affects how much you have, and what vitamin D defficiency means to your health.

Select references cited in this podcast:

Effect of Vitamin D3 Supplements on Development of Advanced Cancer: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2773074

The Role of Water-Soluble Viatmins and Vitamin D in Prevention and Treatment of Depression and Seasonal Affective Disorder in Adults: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/16/12/1902

Supplemental Vitamin D and Incident Fractures in Midlife and Older Adults: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2202106