Rate of bipolar spectrum disorders worldwide, according to a survey of 61,392 adults in 11 countries. Bipolar disorder is responsible for the loss of more disability-adjusted life-years than all forms of cancer or major neurologic conditions such as epilepsy and Alzheimer disease, the authors of the study write, and fewer than half of affected people receive mental health treatment.
Source.
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Trying brain pacemakers to zap psychiatric disease
WASHINGTON -- Call them brain pacemakers, tiny implants that hold promise for fighting tough psychiatric diseases -- if scientists can figure out just where in all that gray matter to put them.Deep brain stimulation, or DBS, has proved a powerful way to block the tremors of Parkinson's disease. Blocking mental illness isn't nearly as easy a task.
But a push is on to expand research into how well these brain stimulators tackle the most severe cases of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and Tourette's syndrome -- to know best how to use them before too many doctors and patients clamor to try.
"It's not a light switch," cautions Dr. Michael Okun of the University of Florida.
Read the rest of the article here.
Hazards: Misuse of Drugs Crowds Emergency Rooms
By RONI CARYN RABIN
Published: March 3, 2011
Some 700,000 Americans are taken to the hospital each year after ingesting drugs, both legal and illegal, a new study reports. And the care costs nearly $1.4 billion in emergency room charges alone.
The study, published in the March issue of The American Journal of Emergency Medicine, was based on data from the 2007 Nationwide Emergency Department Sample, a government database that includes information on 27 million visits to 970 emergency rooms in 27 states.
Children younger than 6 had a higher rate of emergency visits for accidental drug poisoning than any other age group, but most of the visits were precautionary, said the study’s lead author, Dr. Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio: the children did not ingest toxic levels of medication.
Read the rest of the article here.
Published: March 3, 2011
Some 700,000 Americans are taken to the hospital each year after ingesting drugs, both legal and illegal, a new study reports. And the care costs nearly $1.4 billion in emergency room charges alone.The study, published in the March issue of The American Journal of Emergency Medicine, was based on data from the 2007 Nationwide Emergency Department Sample, a government database that includes information on 27 million visits to 970 emergency rooms in 27 states.
Children younger than 6 had a higher rate of emergency visits for accidental drug poisoning than any other age group, but most of the visits were precautionary, said the study’s lead author, Dr. Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio: the children did not ingest toxic levels of medication.
Read the rest of the article here.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Behavior: Distracted Eating Adds More to Waistlines
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Published: January 3, 2011
Published: January 3, 2011
Catching up with e-mail while you eat lunch? Watching television? You may end the day eating more than you think.ColumnsResearchers had 22 volunteers eat a meal while playing computer solitaire and 22 others eat the same meal in the same amount of time while undistracted. They told the subjects it was a test of the effect of food on memory, but actually they were testing how full people felt after a meal, how much they ate at a “taste test” 30 minutes later, and how successfully they could recall exactly what they ate. Their results appear online in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Not only were distracted eaters worse at remembering what they had eaten, but they felt significantly less full just after lunch, even after the researchers controlled for height and weight. And at the taste-test session a half-hour later, they ate about twice as many cookies as those who had lunch without playing games.
Go Easy on Yourself, a New Wave of Research Urges
February 28, 2011, 5:26 pm
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Do you treat yourself as well as you treat your friends and family?
That simple question is the basis for a burgeoning new area of psychological research called self-compassion — how kindly people view themselves. People who find it easy to be supportive and understanding to others, it turns out, often score surprisingly low on self-compassion tests, berating themselves for perceived failures like being overweight or not exercising.
The research suggests that giving ourselves a break and accepting our imperfections may be the first step toward better health. People who score high on tests of self-compassion have less depression and anxiety, and tend to be happier and more optimistic. Preliminary data suggest that self-compassion can even influence how much we eat and may help some people lose weight.
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Do you treat yourself as well as you treat your friends and family?That simple question is the basis for a burgeoning new area of psychological research called self-compassion — how kindly people view themselves. People who find it easy to be supportive and understanding to others, it turns out, often score surprisingly low on self-compassion tests, berating themselves for perceived failures like being overweight or not exercising.
The research suggests that giving ourselves a break and accepting our imperfections may be the first step toward better health. People who score high on tests of self-compassion have less depression and anxiety, and tend to be happier and more optimistic. Preliminary data suggest that self-compassion can even influence how much we eat and may help some people lose weight.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
ABSTRACT: Caffeine alters circadian rhythms and expression of disease and metabolic markers.
Int J Biochem Cell Biol. 2011 Feb 22.
Sherman H, Gutman R, Chapnik N, Meylan J, le Coutre J, Froy O.
The circadian clock regulates many aspects of physiology, energy metabolism, and sleep. Restricted feeding (RF), a regimen that restricts the duration of food availability entrains the circadian clock. Caffeine has been shown to affect both metabolism and sleep. However, its effect on clock gene and clock-controlled gene expression has not been studied. Here, we tested the effect of caffeine on circadian rhythms and the expression of disease and metabolic markers in the serum, liver, and jejunum of mice supplemented with caffeine under ad libitum (AL) feeding or RF for 16weeks. Caffeine significantly affected circadian oscillation and the daily levels of disease and metabolic markers. Under AL, caffeine reduced the average daily mRNA levels of certain disease and inflammatory markers, such as liver alpha fetoprotein (Afp), C-reactive protein (Crp), jejunum alanine aminotransferase (Alt), growth arrest and DNA damage 45β (Gadd45β), Interleukin 1α (Il-1α), Il-1β mRNA and serum plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1). Under RF, caffeine reduced the average daily levels of Alt, Gadd45β, Il-1α and Il-1β mRNA in the jejunum, but not in the liver. In addition, caffeine supplementation led to decreased expression of catabolic factors under RF. In conclusion, caffeine affects circadian gene expression and metabolism possibly leading to beneficial effects mainly under AL feeding.
Sherman H, Gutman R, Chapnik N, Meylan J, le Coutre J, Froy O.
The circadian clock regulates many aspects of physiology, energy metabolism, and sleep. Restricted feeding (RF), a regimen that restricts the duration of food availability entrains the circadian clock. Caffeine has been shown to affect both metabolism and sleep. However, its effect on clock gene and clock-controlled gene expression has not been studied. Here, we tested the effect of caffeine on circadian rhythms and the expression of disease and metabolic markers in the serum, liver, and jejunum of mice supplemented with caffeine under ad libitum (AL) feeding or RF for 16weeks. Caffeine significantly affected circadian oscillation and the daily levels of disease and metabolic markers. Under AL, caffeine reduced the average daily mRNA levels of certain disease and inflammatory markers, such as liver alpha fetoprotein (Afp), C-reactive protein (Crp), jejunum alanine aminotransferase (Alt), growth arrest and DNA damage 45β (Gadd45β), Interleukin 1α (Il-1α), Il-1β mRNA and serum plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1). Under RF, caffeine reduced the average daily levels of Alt, Gadd45β, Il-1α and Il-1β mRNA in the jejunum, but not in the liver. In addition, caffeine supplementation led to decreased expression of catabolic factors under RF. In conclusion, caffeine affects circadian gene expression and metabolism possibly leading to beneficial effects mainly under AL feeding.
Friday, February 25, 2011
BBC: Happiness = Work, sleep and bicycles
Mark Easton
08:27 UK time, Friday, 25 February 2011
"Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?" We learned this week that that is one of four new questions being inserted into the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Household Survey as the UK's official number crunchers try to assess the well-being of the nation.
The purpose of this exercise is not to get Britain thinking happy thoughts as the axe falls: the determination to measure well-being pre-dates both the coalition and the age of austerity. The real point is to find a better way of measuring social progress than simply how much stuff we have got.
"While sleep quality seems a textbook case of a problem that can only be addressed in the private realm, former Harvard President Derek Bok has argued that the subjective well-being evidence means that it should to be treated as a policy priority. He suggests actions to address it across the spheres of public education, medical training, and research funding. Other research suggests that actions to address noise pollution and promoting the sleep-related benefits of exercise (e.g. through public health campaigns) would also result in improvements."
Below are some of the findings of the survey:
08:27 UK time, Friday, 25 February 2011
"Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?" We learned this week that that is one of four new questions being inserted into the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Household Survey as the UK's official number crunchers try to assess the well-being of the nation.
The purpose of this exercise is not to get Britain thinking happy thoughts as the axe falls: the determination to measure well-being pre-dates both the coalition and the age of austerity. The real point is to find a better way of measuring social progress than simply how much stuff we have got.
"While sleep quality seems a textbook case of a problem that can only be addressed in the private realm, former Harvard President Derek Bok has argued that the subjective well-being evidence means that it should to be treated as a policy priority. He suggests actions to address it across the spheres of public education, medical training, and research funding. Other research suggests that actions to address noise pollution and promoting the sleep-related benefits of exercise (e.g. through public health campaigns) would also result in improvements."
Below are some of the findings of the survey:
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Phys Ed: Should Children Run Marathons?
February 23, 2011, 12:01 am
With temperatures warming and the snows of 2011 finally dissolving into oatmeal slush, many people are feeling an insistent urge to get outside and run, perhaps even to start training for a spring marathon or other distance race. But for some of us, particularly those with young families, this laudatory goal can pose a problem. Should we take our kids with us? Can and should children, at any age, be runners?
This question, though commonly voiced by athletic parents (I hear it all the time), has received surprisingly little scientific scrutiny. Injury patterns and other issues in youth football, basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer have been extensively studied, but not in youth running. Two new studies, however, have looked squarely at what happens when young people run. Unfortunately they seem to have produced, on first reading, incompatible results.
Read the rest of the article here.
With temperatures warming and the snows of 2011 finally dissolving into oatmeal slush, many people are feeling an insistent urge to get outside and run, perhaps even to start training for a spring marathon or other distance race. But for some of us, particularly those with young families, this laudatory goal can pose a problem. Should we take our kids with us? Can and should children, at any age, be runners?This question, though commonly voiced by athletic parents (I hear it all the time), has received surprisingly little scientific scrutiny. Injury patterns and other issues in youth football, basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer have been extensively studied, but not in youth running. Two new studies, however, have looked squarely at what happens when young people run. Unfortunately they seem to have produced, on first reading, incompatible results.
Read the rest of the article here.
The Claim: A Fake Smile Can be Bad for Your Health
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR
Published: February 21, 2011
When was the last time you flashed a fake smile at the office?
For some, it may be just another mundane aspect of work life — putting on a game face to hide your inner unhappiness. But new research suggests that it may have unexpected consequences: worsening your mood and causing you to withdraw from the tasks at hand.
In a study published this month in the Academy of Management Journal, scientists tracked a group of bus drivers for two weeks, focusing on them because their jobs require frequent, and generally courteous, interactions with many people.
The scientists examined what happened when the drivers engaged in fake smiling, known as “surface acting,” and its opposite, “deep acting,” where they generated authentic smiles through positive thoughts, said an author of the study, Brent Scott, an assistant professor of management at Michigan State University.
Read the rest of the article here.
Published: February 21, 2011
When was the last time you flashed a fake smile at the office?For some, it may be just another mundane aspect of work life — putting on a game face to hide your inner unhappiness. But new research suggests that it may have unexpected consequences: worsening your mood and causing you to withdraw from the tasks at hand.
In a study published this month in the Academy of Management Journal, scientists tracked a group of bus drivers for two weeks, focusing on them because their jobs require frequent, and generally courteous, interactions with many people.
The scientists examined what happened when the drivers engaged in fake smiling, known as “surface acting,” and its opposite, “deep acting,” where they generated authentic smiles through positive thoughts, said an author of the study, Brent Scott, an assistant professor of management at Michigan State University.
Read the rest of the article here.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Brain's 'reward' center responds to bad experiences too
2011-02-23
Scientists have found that the so-called reward center not only responds to good experiences but also to bad ones.
The finding may help explain the 'thrill' of thrill-seeking behavior or maybe just the thrill of surviving it, according to scientists at Georgia Health Sciences University and East China Normal University.
Eating chocolate or falling off a building-or just the thought of either-can evoke production of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that can make the heart race and motivate behavior, said Joe Z. Tsien, Co-Director of GHSU's Brain and Behavior Discovery Institute.
Scientists looked at dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area of the mouse brain, widely studied for its role in reward-related motivation or drug addiction.
Read the full article here.
Scientists have found that the so-called reward center not only responds to good experiences but also to bad ones.The finding may help explain the 'thrill' of thrill-seeking behavior or maybe just the thrill of surviving it, according to scientists at Georgia Health Sciences University and East China Normal University.
Eating chocolate or falling off a building-or just the thought of either-can evoke production of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that can make the heart race and motivate behavior, said Joe Z. Tsien, Co-Director of GHSU's Brain and Behavior Discovery Institute.
Scientists looked at dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area of the mouse brain, widely studied for its role in reward-related motivation or drug addiction.
Read the full article here.
Cell Phone Use Impacts Brain Activity
By Catherine Donaldson-Evans
Feb 22nd 2011 4:00PM
Talking on a cell phone for close to an hour has an impact on brain activity, according to the latest research on the subject -- but the long-term health effects remain unclear.
A preliminary study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that using the cell for 50 minutes was associated with a spike in brain glucose metabolism, which is a marker for brain activity.
The increased glucose metabolism happened in the area of the brain closest to the phone antenna, said scientists from the National Institutes of Health. What the results mean from a health standpoint isn't yet known.
Read the rest of the article here.
Feb 22nd 2011 4:00PM
Talking on a cell phone for close to an hour has an impact on brain activity, according to the latest research on the subject -- but the long-term health effects remain unclear.A preliminary study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that using the cell for 50 minutes was associated with a spike in brain glucose metabolism, which is a marker for brain activity.
The increased glucose metabolism happened in the area of the brain closest to the phone antenna, said scientists from the National Institutes of Health. What the results mean from a health standpoint isn't yet known.
Read the rest of the article here.
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