Eating a lot of fish may help curb depression risk -- at least in Europe Association equally significant among men and women, pooled data analysis shows
September 10, 2015
Science Daily/BMJ
Eating a lot of fish may help curb the risk of depression -- at least in Europe -- suggests a pooled analysis of the available evidence. Depression affects an estimated 350 million people worldwide, and is projected to become the second leading cause of ill health by 2020.
The association between a fishy diet and mental health appears to be equally significant among men and women, the first analysis of its kind indicates.
Depression affects an estimated 350 million people worldwide, and is projected to become the second leading cause of ill health by 2020.
Several previous studies have looked at the possible role of dietary factors in modifying depression risk, but the findings have been inconsistent and inconclusive.
The researchers therefore pooled the data from relevant studies published between 2001 and 2014 to assess the strength of the evidence on the link between fish consumption and depression risk
After trawling research databases, they found 101 suitable articles, of which 16 were eligible for inclusion in the analysis. These 16 articles included 26 studies, involving 150, 278 participants.
Ten of the studies were cohort studies, which involve monitoring a group of people who don't have the condition in question for a period of time to see who develops it. The remainder were cross-sectional: these look at the association between a condition and other variables of interest in a defined population at a single point in time or over a brief period.
Ten of the studies involved participants from Europe; 7 those from North America; the rest involved participants in Asia, Oceania, and South America.
After pooling all the data together, a significant association emerged between those eating the most fish and a 17% reduction in depression risk compared with those eating the least. This was found in both cohort and cross-sectional studies, but only for the European studies.
When the researchers looked specifically at gender, they found a slightly stronger association between high fish consumption and lowered depression risk in men (20%). Among women, the associated reduction in risk was 16%.
This is an observational study so no definitive conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect, added to which fish consumption was measured using different dietary assessment methods across the various studies. But there may be a plausible biological explanation for the link, suggest the researchers.
For example, it has been suggested that the omega 3 fatty acids found in fish may alter the microstructure of brain membranes and modify the activity of the neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin, both of which are thought to be involved in depression.
Furthermore, the high quality protein, vitamins, and minerals found in fish may help stave off depression, while eating a lot of fish may be an indicator of a healthy and more nutritious diet, suggest the researchers.
"Higher fish consumption may be beneficial in the primary prevention of depression," they conclude, adding: "Future studies are needed to further investigate whether this association varies according to the type of fish."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150910185034.htm
Long sleep and high blood copper levels go hand in hand
September 14, 2015
Science Daily/University of Eastern Finland
People who sleep fewer than 6 hours or more than 10 hours per night suffer from low-grade inflammation more often than people who sleep 7-8 hours per night. Earlier studies have found a relation between reduced sleep and low-grade inflammation, according to one of the study researchers. Furthermore, low-grade inflammation occurs in overweight, depression and diabetes. This new study is the first to analyze the association between sleep duration and serum micronutrient concentrations in a large sample, and it found a link between high serum copper concentration and long sleep duration.
"Earlier studies have found a relation between reduced sleep and low-grade inflammation," says Maria Luojus, MHSc, one of the study researchers.
Furthermore, low-grade inflammation occurs in overweight, depression and diabetes.
The study is the first to analyse the association between sleep duration and serum micronutrient concentrations in a large sample, and it found a link between high serum copper concentration and long sleep duration. Serum micronutrient concentrations are affected by many factors, including an individual's general health and diet.
"Based on this study, however, it is impossible to say whether sleeping long results in high serum copper concentrations or vice versa," Luojus says.
It has been suggested that high serum copper concentration associates with pro-oxidative stress.
"Pro-oxidative stress is found in many chronic diseases, such as coronary artery disease. Nevertheless, when the study participants' cardiovascular diseases were taken account for, our results remained unchanged. The association between serum copper concentration and sleep duration persisted independently of cardiovascular diseases," Luojus says.
In addition to, the study participants' age, cumulative smoking history, alcohol consumption, depressive symptoms, physical activity and metabolic syndrome were taken into account in the data analysis.
The study involved 2,682 men living in Eastern Finland, participating the Kuopio Ischemic Heart Disease Risk Factor (KIHD) study. The KIHD study has been ongoing at the University of Eastern Finland in the Institute of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition since 1984.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150914093054.htm
Controlling brain cells with sound waves
September 15, 2015
Science Daily/Salk Institute
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For the first time, sound waves are used to control brain cells. Salk scientists developed the new technique, dubbed sonogenetics, to selectively and noninvasively turn on groups of neurons in worms that could be a boon to science and medicine. So far, sonogenetics has only been applied to C. elegans neurons but the method may also work in humans.
Credit: Salk Institute
Salk scientists have developed a new way to selectively activate brain, heart, muscle and other cells using ultrasonic waves. The new technique, dubbed sonogenetics, has some similarities to the burgeoning use of light to activate cells in order to better understand the brain.
This new method--which uses the same type of waves used in medical sonograms--may have advantages over the light-based approach--known as optogenetics--particularly when it comes to adapting the technology to human therapeutics. It was described September 15, 2015 in the journal Nature Communications.
"Light-based techniques are great for some uses and I think we're going to continue to see developments on that front," says Sreekanth Chalasani, an assistant professor in Salk's Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory and senior author of the study. "But this is a new, additional tool to manipulate neurons and other cells in the body."
In optogenetics, researchers add light-sensitive channel proteins to neurons they wish to study. By shining a focused laser on the cells, they can selectively open these channels, either activating or silencing the target neurons. But using an optogenetics approach on cells deep in the brain is difficult: typically, researchers have to perform surgery to implant a fiber optic cable that can reach the cells. Plus, light is scattered by the brain and by other tissues in the body.
Chalasani and his group decided to see if they could develop an approach that instead relied on ultrasound waves for the activation. "In contrast to light, low-frequency ultrasound can travel through the body without any scattering," he says. "This could be a big advantage when you want to stimulate a region deep in the brain without affecting other regions," adds Stuart Ibsen, a postdoctoral fellow in the Chalasani lab and first author of the new work.
Chalasani and his colleagues first showed that, in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, microbubbles of gas outside of the worm were necessary to amplify the low-intensity ultrasound waves. "The microbubbles grow and shrink in tune with the ultrasound pressure waves," Ibsen says. "These oscillations can then propagate noninvasively into the worm."
Next, they found a membrane ion channel, TRP-4, which can respond to these waves. When mechanical deformations from the ultrasound hitting gas bubbles propagate into the worm, they cause TRP-4 channels to open up and activate the cell. Armed with that knowledge, the team tried adding the TRP-4 channel to neurons that don't normally have it. With this approach, they successfully activated neurons that don't usually react to ultrasound.
So far, sonogenetics has only been applied to C. elegans neurons. But TRP-4 could be added to any calcium-sensitive cell type in any organism including humans, Chalasani says. Then, microbubbles could be injected into the bloodstream, and distributed throughout the body--an approach already used in some human imaging techniques. Ultrasound could then noninvasively reach any tissue of interest, including the brain, be amplified by the microbubbles, and activate the cells of interest through TRP-4. And many cells in the human body, he points out, can respond to the influxes of calcium caused by TRP-4.
"The real prize will be to see whether this could work in a mammalian brain," Chalasani says. His group has already begun testing the approach in mice. "When we make the leap into therapies for humans, I think we have a better shot with noninvasive sonogenetics approaches than with optogenetics."
Both optogenetics and sonogenetics approaches, he adds, hold promise in basic research by letting scientists study the effect of cell activation. And they also may be useful in therapeutics through the activation of cells affected by disease. However, for either technique to be used in humans, researchers first need to develop safe ways to deliver the light or ultrasound-sensitive channels to target cells.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150915135412.htm
Fruit and vegetables aren't only good for a healthy body; they protect your mind too
September 16, 2015
Science Daily/BioMed Central
Eating a Mediterranean diet or other healthy dietary pattern, comprising of fruit, vegetables, legumes, and nuts and low in processed meats, is associated with preventing the onset of depression, according to research. A large study of 15,093 people suggests depression could be linked with nutrient deficits.
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A healthy diet heavy in vegetables, fruits and nuts is associated with preventing the onset of depression.
Credit: © vpardi / Fotolia
Following extensive research into diet and its effect on our physical health, researchers are now exploring the link between nutrition and mental health. This is the first time that several healthy dietary patterns and their association with the risk of depression have been analyzed together.
The researchers compared three diets; the Mediterranean diet, the Pro-vegetarian Dietary Pattern and Alternative Healthy Eating Index-2010. Participants used a scoring system to measure their adherence to the selected diet, i.e. the higher the dietary score indicated that the participant was eating a healthier diet.
Food items such as meat and sweets (sources of animal fats: saturated and trans fatty acids) were negatively scored, while nuts, fruits and vegetables (sources of omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins and minerals respectively) were positively scored.
Lead researcher, Almudena Sanchez-Villegas, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, says "We wanted to understand what role nutrition plays in mental health, as we believe certain dietary patterns could protect our minds. These diets are all associated with physical health benefits and now we find that they could have a positive effect on our mental health."
"The protective role is ascribed to their nutritional properties, where nuts, legumes, fruits and vegetables (sources of omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins and minerals) could reduce the risk of depression."
The study included 15,093 participants free of depression at the beginning of the study. They are former students of the University of Navarra, Spain, registered professionals from some Spanish provinces and other university graduates. All are part of the SUN (Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra) Project, a cohort study started on 21st December 1999. The cohort has been used to identify dietary and lifestyle determinants of various conditions, including diabetes, obesity and depression.
Questionnaires to assess dietary intake were completed at the start of the project and again after 10 years. A total of 1,550 participants reported a clinical diagnosis of depression or had used antidepressant drugs after a median follow-up of 8.5 years.
The Alternative Healthy Eating Index-2010 was associated with the greatest reduction of risk of depression but most of the effect could be explained by its similarity with the Mediterranean Diet. Thus, common nutrients and food items such as omega-3 fatty acids, vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts and moderate alcohol intake present in both patterns (Alternative Healthy Eating Index-2010 and Mediterranean diet) could be responsible for the observed reduced risk in depression associated with a good adherence to the Alternative Healthy Eating Index-2010.
Almudena Sanchez-Villegas says, "A threshold effect may exist. The noticeable difference occurs when participants start to follow a healthier diet. Even a moderate adherence to these healthy dietary patterns was associated with an important reduction in the risk of developing depression. However, we saw no extra benefit when participants showed high or very high adherence to the diets.
So, once the threshold is achieved, the reduced risk plateaus even if participants were stricter with their diets and eating more healthily. This dose-response pattern is compatible with the hypothesis that suboptimal intake of some nutrients (mainly located in low adherence levels) may represent a risk factor for future depression."
A limitation of this study was that the results are based on self-reported dietary intake and a self-reported clinical diagnosis of depression. More research is needed to predict the role of nutrient intake for neurophysiological requirements and identify whether it is minerals and vitamins or proteins and carbohydrates that cause depression.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150916215535.htm
Caffeine at night delays human circadian clock Double espresso before bedtime induces 40-minute time delay in internal clock
September 16, 2015
Science Daily/University of Colorado at Boulder
For the first time, research shows that evening caffeine delays the internal circadian clock that tells us when to get ready for sleep and when to prepare to wake up.
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The results of this study may help to explain why caffeine-drinking "night owls" go to bed later and wake up later and may have implications for the treatment of some circadian sleep-wake disorders.
Credit: © patcharaporn1984 / Fotolia
It's no secret that slugging down caffeinated drinks in the evening can disrupt sleep.
But a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder and the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England shows for the first time that evening caffeine delays the internal circadian clock that tells us when to get ready for sleep and when to prepare to wake up. The research team showed the amount of caffeine in a double espresso or its equivalent three hours before bedtime induced a 40-minute phase delay in the roughly 24-hour human biological clock.
The study also showed for the first time how caffeine affects "cellular timekeeping" in the human body, said CU-Boulder Professor Kenneth Wright, who co-led the study with John O'Neill of the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge. While it has been known that caffeine influences circadian clocks of even primitive creatures like algae and fruit flies, the new study shows that the internal clocks in human cells can be impacted by caffeine intake.
"This is the first study to show that caffeine, the mostly widely used psychoactive drug in the world, has an influence on the human circadian clock," said Wright, a professor in CU-Boulder's Department of Integrative Physiology. "It also provides new and exciting insights into the effects of caffeine on human physiology."
A paper on the subject led by Wright and O'Neill is being published online in the Sept 16 issue of Science Translational Medicine.
For the study the team recruited five human subjects, three females and two males, who went though a double-blind, placebo-controlled 49-day protocol through CU-Boulder's Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory, which is directed by Wright. The subjects were tested under four conditions: low light and a placebo pill; low light and the equivalent of a 200-milligram caffeine pill dependent on the subject's weight; bright light and a placebo pill; and bright light and the caffeine pill.
Saliva samples of each participant were tested periodically during the study for levels of the hormone melatonin, which is produced naturally by the pineal gland when directed to do so by the brain's "master clock." The master clock is re-set by exposure to light and coordinates cellular clocks throughout the human body. Melatonin levels in the blood increase to signal the onset of biological nighttime during each 24-hour period and decrease at the start of biological daytime, said Wright.
Those who took the caffeine pill under low-light conditions were found to have a roughly 40-minute delay in their nightly circadian rhythm compared to those who took the placebo pill under low light conditions, said Wright. The magnitude of delay from the caffeine dose was about half that of the delay induced in test subjects by a three-hour exposure to bright, overhead light that began at each person's normal bedtime.
The study also showed that bright light alone and bright light combined with caffeine induced circadian phase delays in the test subjects of about 85 minutes and 105 minutes respectively. There were no significant differences between the dim light/caffeine combination and the bright light/placebo combination. Nor were there significant differences between the bright light/placebo and bright light/caffeine combinations. The results may indicate a "ceiling" was reached in the phase delay of the human circadian clock due to the external factors, Wright said.
In addition, researchers at O'Neill's lab at the LMB in Cambridge used "reporter" genes that made cells glow when the clock genes were expressed to measure changes caused by caffeine. O'Neill's group showed that caffeine can block cell receptors of the neurotransmitter adenosine, which normally promotes sleep and suppresses arousal.
The results may help to explain why caffeine-drinking "night owls" go to bed later and wake up later and may have implications for the treatment of some circadian sleep-wake disorders, said Wright.
The new results could benefit travelers. Properly timed caffeine use could help shift the circadian clocks of those flying west over multiple time zones, said Wright.
In a 2013 study, Wright and his research team showed one week of camping in the Rocky Mountains with no artificial light, not even flashlights, synchronized the circadian clocks of the eight study subjects with the timing of sunrise and sunset.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150916161833.htm
Negative spiritual beliefs associated with more pain and worse physical, mental health
September 23, 2015
Science Daily/University of Missouri Health
Individuals who blame karma for their poor health have more pain and worse physical and mental health, according to a new study. Targeted interventions to counteract negative spiritual beliefs could help some individuals decrease pain and improve their overall health, the researchers said.
"In general, the more religious or spiritual you are, the healthier you are, which makes sense," said Brick Johnstone, a neuropsychologist and professor of health psychology in the MU School of Health Professions. "But for some individuals, even if they have even the smallest degree of negative spirituality -- basically, when individuals believe they're ill because they've done something wrong and God is punishing them -- their health is worse."
Johnstone and his colleagues studied nearly 200 individuals to find out how their spiritual beliefs affected their health outcomes. Individuals in the study had a range of health conditions, such as cancer, traumatic brain injury or chronic pain, and others were healthy. The researchers divided the individuals into two groups: a negative spirituality group that consisted of those who reported feeling abandoned or punished by a higher power, and a no negative spirituality group that consisted of people who didn't feel abandoned or punished by a higher power. Participants answered questions about their emotional and physical health, including physical pain.
Those in the negative spirituality group reported significantly worse pain as well as worse physical and mental health while those with positive spirituality reported better mental health. However, even if individuals reported positive spiritual beliefs, having any degree of negative spiritual belief contributed to poorer health outcomes, the researchers found.
"Previous research has shown that about 10 percent of people have negative spiritual beliefs; for example, believing that if they don't do something right, God won't love them," Johnstone said. "That's a negative aspect of religion when people believe, 'God is not supportive of me. What kind of hope do I have?' However, when people firmly believe God loves and forgives them despite their shortcomings, they had significantly better mental health."
Individuals with negative spiritual beliefs also reported participating in religious practices less frequently and having lower levels of positive spirituality and forgiveness. Interventions that help combat negative spiritual beliefs and promote positive spiritual beliefs could help some individuals improve their pain and their mental health, Johnstone said.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150923125336.htm
Sleep may strengthen long-term memories in the immune system
September 29, 2015
Science Daily/Cell Press
More than a century ago, scientists demonstrated that sleep supports the retention of memories of facts and events. Later studies have shown that slow-wave sleep, often referred to as deep sleep, is important for transforming fragile, recently formed memories into stable, long-term memories. Now, in a new article, researchers propose that deep sleep may also strengthen immunological memories of previously encountered pathogens.
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The immune system "remembers" an encounter with a bacteria or virus by collecting fragments from the bug to create memory T cells, which last for months or years and help the body recognize a previous infection and quickly respond.
Credit: © Sabphoto / Fotolia
"While it has been known for a long time that sleep supports long-term memory formation in the psychological domain, the idea that long-term memory formation is a function of sleep effective in all organismic systems is in our view entirely new," says senior author Jan Born of the University of Tuebingen. "We consider our approach toward a unifying concept of biological long-term memory formation, in which sleep plays a critical role, a new development in sleep research and memory research."
The immune system "remembers" an encounter with a bacteria or virus by collecting fragments from the bug to create memory T cells, which last for months or years and help the body recognize a previous infection and quickly respond. These memory T cells appear to abstract "gist information" about the pathogens, as only T cells that store information about the tiniest fragments ever elicit a response. The selection of gist information allows memory T cells to detect new pathogens that are similar, but not identical, to previously encountered bacteria or viruses.
Studies in humans have shown that long-term increases in memory T cells are associated with deep slow-wave sleep on the nights after vaccination. Taken together, the findings support the view that slow-wave sleep contributes to the formation of long-term memories of abstract, generalized information, which leads to adaptive behavioral and immunological responses. The obvious implication is that sleep deprivation could put your body at risk.
"If we didn't sleep, then the immune system might focus on the wrong parts of the pathogen," Born says. "For example, many viruses can easily mutate some parts of their proteins to escape from immune responses. If too few antigen-recognizing cells [the cells that present the fragments to T cells] are available, then they might all be needed to fight off the pathogen. In addition to this, there is evidence that the hormones released during sleep benefit the crosstalk between antigen-presenting and antigen-recognizing cells, and some of these important hormones could be lacking without sleep."
Born says that future research should examine what information is selected during sleep for storage in long-term memory, and how this selection is achieved. In the end, this research could have important clinical implications.
"In order to design effective vaccines against HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis, which are based on immunological memory, the correct memory model must be available," Born says. "It is our hope that by comparing the concepts of neuronal and immunological memory, a model of immunological memory can be developed which integrates the available experimental data and serves as a helpful basis for vaccine development."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150929142022.htm
Happy head, happy heart: Positive emotions may promote heart-healthy behaviors
October 5, 2015
Science Daily/Penn State
People with heart disease may benefit from maintaining positive emotions, according to health researchers. The researchers assessed psychological well-being of participants at baseline and again at a five-year follow-up by asking the participants to rate the extent that they had felt 10 specified positive emotions, including "interested," "proud," "enthusiastic" and "inspired." Physical activity, sleep quality, medication adherence and alcohol and cigarette use were also measured at baseline and again five years later.
Over the course of five years the researchers tracked more than 1,000 patients with coronary heart disease. Patients who reported higher positive psychological states were more likely to be physically active, sleep better and take their heart medications and were also less likely to smoke, compared to patients with lower levels of positive states.
"Negative emotions and depression are known to have harmful effects on health, but it is less clear how positive emotions might be health-protective," said Nancy L. Sin, postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Healthy Aging and in the department of biobehavioral health at Penn State. "We found that positive emotions are associated with a range of long-term health habits, which are important for reducing the risk of future heart problems and death."
The researchers assessed psychological well-being of participants at baseline and again at a five-year follow-up by asking the participants to rate the extent that they had felt 10 specified positive emotions, including "interested," "proud," "enthusiastic" and "inspired." Physical activity, sleep quality, medication adherence and alcohol and cigarette use were also measured at baseline and again five years later. The researchers report their findings in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.
"Higher levels of positive emotions were associated with less smoking, greater physical activity, better sleep quality and more adherence to medications" at baseline, said the researchers. They found no correlation between positive emotions and alcohol use. The results took into account patients' demographic factors, depressive symptoms and the severity of their heart conditions.
Though positive emotions at baseline did not predict changes in health behaviors five years later, increases in positive emotions across the five-year period were associated with improvements in physical activity, sleep quality and medication adherence.
There are a number of reasons why positive emotions are linked to optimal health habits, the researchers suggest. People with greater positive well-being may be more motivated and persistent in engaging in healthy behaviors. They might have more confidence in their abilities to maintain routines such as physical activity and sleep hygiene. Positive emotions may also enable people to better adjust their health goals and to proactively cope with stress and setbacks.
"Efforts to sustain or enhance positive emotions may be promising for promoting better health behaviors," said the researchers.
This research sets the stage for future work on interventions to improve health habits, Sin noted. Further research with other chronic disease populations and with electronic tracking of health behaviors should be conducted, she said.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151005132621.htm
Exercise and stop smoking to improve depression after heart attack
October 10, 2015
Science Daily/European Society of Cardiology
Exercise and stop smoking to improve depression after a heart attack, experts urge.
"Depression is almost three times more common in people who have had a heart attack than in those who haven't," said Dr Manuela Abreu, a psychiatrist at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. "Cardiac rehabilitation with aerobic exercise can reduce depressive symptoms and improve cardiovascular fitness."
"Patients who are depressed after a heart attack have a two-fold risk of having another heart attack or dying compared to those who are not depressed," added Dr David Nanchen, head of the Prevention Centre, Department of Ambulatory Care and Community Medicine, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
Dr Nanchen's research shows that exercise and stopping smoking may improve depression after heart attack. He studied 1,164 patients who were part of the Swiss Acute Coronary Syndromes (ACS) cohort, a large prospective multicentre study of patients with ACS in Switzerland. Patients were enrolled between 2009 and 2013 and followed up for one year. Depression was assessed at enrolment and at one year.
The researchers investigated the impact of a number of factors on improvement of depression after heart attack. These included blood cholesterol management, blood pressure control, smoking cessation for smokers, reduction of alcohol for those consuming more than 14 drinks per week, intensification of physical activity, and guideline recommended medications.
The study found that at one year, 27% of heart attack patients had persistent or new depression and 11% had improved depression. Patients with depression were less frequently married, had more diabetes, and were more frequently smokers than those without depression.
At one year, smoking cessation had the strongest association with improvement of depression with a 2.3 greater chance of improving depression in quitters compared to those who continued smoking. Depressed patients who had higher physical activity at the beginning of the study were also more prone to improve their depression.
"Heart attack patients who smoke and are depressed are much more likely to improve their depression if they kick the habit," said Dr Nanchen. "While our observational study was unable to find an impact of exercise after heart attack on depressive symptoms, we did show that patients who were already physically active were more able to improve their depression. We believe that the benefits of exercise after heart attack would be shown in a randomised trial, but such a study is difficult to perform for ethical reasons."
"More than one-quarter of patients in our study reported symptoms of depression after their heart attack, which shows this is a big issue," said Dr Nanchen. "Some had chronic depression which started before their heart attack while others became depressed as an acute reaction to the hospitalisation and the event."
Depressive symptoms in cardiac patients often differ from those of psychiatric patients. "Frequently they don't say they feel sad or hopeless but instead complain of insomnia, fatigue or body pain," said Dr Abreu. "The different clinical presentation contributes to the underdiagnosis of depression in cardiac patients."
She added: "Depression after a heart attack can lead to poor adherence to treatment, skipping medical appointments, smoking, sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy diet, social isolation, and poor self esteem."
The behavioural changes associated with depression may be partly responsible for the worse outcomes in heart attack patients who are depressed. Biological mechanisms, including changes to the autonomic nervous system and inflammatory factors, and decreased heart rate variability, may also play a role.
Dr Nanchen advised heart attack patients to discuss smoking cessation with their doctor and to be physically active. "You should do moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise for 30 minutes at least three times a week to be within recommended levels. Make sure you are working hard enough to break out in a sweat," he said. "This level of physical activity is good for your mental and physical health."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151010225215.htm
How the brain controls sleep
Brain structure generates pockets of sleep within the brain
October 13, 2015
Science Daily/Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Neuroscientists have discovered a brain circuit that can trigger small regions of the brain to fall asleep or become less alert, while the rest of the brain remains awake. The researchers believe this may help the brain consolidate new memories by coordinating slow waves between different parts of the brain, allowing them to share information more easily.
http://images.sciencedaily.com/2015/10/151013182735_1_540x360.jpg
MIT neuroscientists have discovered a brain circuit that can trigger small regions of the brain to fall asleep or become less alert, while the rest of the brain remains awake.
Credit: Illustration by Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT
Sleep is usually considered an all-or-nothing state: The brain is either entirely awake or entirely asleep. However, MIT neuroscientists have discovered a brain circuit that can trigger small regions of the brain to fall asleep or become less alert, while the rest of the brain remains awake.
This circuit originates in a brain structure known as the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), which relays signals to the thalamus and then the brain's cortex, inducing pockets of the slow, oscillating brain waves characteristic of deep sleep. Slow oscillations also occur during coma and general anesthesia, and are associated with decreased arousal. With enough TRN activity, these waves can take over the entire brain.
The researchers believe the TRN may help the brain consolidate new memories by coordinating slow waves between different parts of the brain, allowing them to share information more easily.
"During sleep, maybe specific brain regions have slow waves at the same time because they need to exchange information with each other, whereas other ones don't," says Laura Lewis, a research affiliate in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and one of the lead authors of the new study, which appears in the journal eLife.
The TRN may also be responsible for what happens in the brain when sleep-deprived people experience brief sensations of "zoning out" while struggling to stay awake, the researchers say.
The paper's other first author is Jakob Voigts, an MIT graduate student in brain and cognitive sciences. Senior authors are Emery Brown, the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience at MIT and an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Michael Halassa, an assistant professor at New York University. Other authors are MIT research affiliate Francisco Flores and Matthew Wilson, the Sherman Fairchild Professor in Neurobiology and a member of MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory.
Local control
Until now, most sleep research has focused on global control of sleep, which occurs when the entire brain is awash in slow waves -- oscillations of brain activity created when sets of neurons are silenced for brief periods.
However, recent studies have shown that sleep-deprived animals can exhibit slow waves in parts of their brain while they are still awake, suggesting that the brain can also control alertness at a local level.
The MIT team began its investigation of local control of alertness or drowsiness with the TRN because its physical location makes it perfectly positioned to play a role in sleep, Lewis says. The TRN surrounds the thalamus like a shell and can act as a gatekeeper for sensory information entering the thalamus, which then sends information to the cortex for further processing.
Using optogenetics, a technique that allows scientists to stimulate or silence neurons with light, the researchers found that if they weakly stimulated the TRN in awake mice, slow waves appeared in a small part of the cortex. With more stimulation, the entire cortex showed slow waves.
"We also found that when you induce these slow waves across the cortex, animals start to behaviorally act like they're drowsy. They'll stop moving around, their muscle tone will go down," Lewis says.
The researchers believe the TRN fine-tunes the brain's control over local brain regions, enhancing or reducing slow waves in certain regions so those areas can communicate with each other, or inducing some areas to become less alert when the brain is very drowsy. This may explain what happens in humans when they are sleep-deprived and momentarily zone out without really falling asleep.
"I'm inclined to think that happens because the brain begins to transition into sleep, and some local brain regions become drowsy even if you force yourself to stay awake," Lewis says.
Natural sleep and general anesthesia
Understanding how the brain controls arousal could help researchers design new sleep and anesthetic drugs that create a state more similar to natural sleep. Stimulating the TRN can induce deep, non-REM-like sleep states, and previous research by Brown and colleagues uncovered a circuit that turns on REM sleep.
Brown adds, "The TRN is rich in synapses -- connections in the brain -- that release the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA. Therefore, the TRN is almost certainly a site of action of many anesthetic drugs, given that a large classes of them act at these synapses and produce slow waves as one of their characteristic features."
Previous work by Lewis and colleagues has shown that unlike the slow waves of sleep, the slow waves under general anesthesia are not coordinated, suggesting a mechanism for why these drugs impair information exchange in the brain and produce unconsciousness.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151013182735.htm
'Paleo' sleep? Sorry, pre-modern people don't get more Zzzzs than we do
October 15, 2015
Science Daily/Cell Press
http://images.sciencedaily.com/2015/10/151015131832_1_540x360.jpg
This photo shows two San people in Tsumkwe, Namibia, taken at the start of the study.
Credit: Josh Davimes
It's tempting to believe that people these days aren't getting enough sleep, living as we do in our well-lit houses with TVs blaring, cell phones buzzing, and a well-used coffee maker in every kitchen. But new evidence reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on October 15 shows that three ancient groups of hunter-gatherers--living in different parts of the world without any of those trappings of modern life--don't get any more sleep than we do.
Those traditional people sleep a little under 6.5 hours a night on average. They don't take regular naps. They don't go to sleep at dark, either. In other words, their sleep habits don't look so different from ours, although they usually do wake up before the sun rises.
"The short sleep in these populations challenges the belief that sleep has been greatly reduced in the 'modern world,'" says Jerome Siegel of the University of California, Los Angeles. "This has important implications for the idea that we need to take sleeping pills because sleep has been reduced from its 'natural level' by the widespread use of electricity, TV, the Internet, and so on."
To get a handle on how people slept before the modern era, Siegel and his colleagues looked to three traditional human hunter-gatherer societies: the Hadza of Tanzania, the San of Namibia, and the Tsimane of Bolivia. The researchers recorded the sleeping habits of 94 individuals around the clock to collect data representing 1,165 days in all.
What they found was a surprising similarity across those three groups. "Despite varying genetics, histories, and environments, we find that all three groups show a similar sleep organization, suggesting that they express core human sleep patterns, probably characteristic of pre-modern-era Homo sapiens," Siegel says.
Group sleep time averaged between 5.7 and 7.1 hours, with between 6.9 and 8.5 hours between the beginning and end of the sleep period. Those amounts are at the low end of durations reported in "industrial societies."
Hunter-gatherers sleep an hour more in the winter than they do in the summer. Although they lack electric lights, none of the groups went to sleep with the sun. On average, they stayed up a little over three hours after the sun went down and woke up before sunrise.
It appears that their sleep time may have more to do with temperature than with light. Those ancient groups all went to sleep as the temperature fell and slept through the coldest part of the night.
There is one important way in which hunter-gatherers aren't like us: very few of them suffer from chronic insomnia--a common complaint in the US. That raises an interesting possibility, the researchers say.
"Mimicking aspects of the natural environment experienced by these groups might be effective in treating certain modern sleep disorders, particularly insomnia, a disorder affecting more than 20 percent of the US population," Siegel says.
The authors were supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute on Aging, the National Research Foundation of South Africa, and the National Science Foundation.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151015131832.htm
Let your head do the talking Head movements play an important role in conveying emotions through speech and music
October 27, 2015
Science Daily/McGill University
When people talk or sing, they often nod, tilt or bow their heads to reinforce verbal messages. But how effective are these head gestures at conveying emotions? Very effective, according to researchers.
http://images.sciencedaily.com/2015/10/151027132930_1_540x360.jpg
Visual information about emotional states available in head movements could aid in the development of automated emotion recognition systems or human-interaction robots, the researchers say.
Credit: © stockyimages / Fotolia
Very effective, according to researchers from McGill University in Montreal. Steven R. Livingstone and Caroline Palmer, from McGill's Department of Psychology, found that people were highly accurate at judging emotions based on head movements alone, even in the absence of sound or facial expressions.
This finding suggests that visual information about emotional states available in head movements could aid in the development of automated emotion recognition systems or human-interaction robots, the researchers say. Expressive robots could potentially serve a range of functions, particularly where face-to-face communication is important, such as at hotel reception desks and as interactive care robots for the elderly.
Tracking movement, not sound
Using motion-capture equipment to track people's head movements in three dimensions, Livingstone and Palmer recorded vocalists while they spoke or sang with a variety of emotions. The researchers then presented these video clips to viewers without any sound, with the facial expressions of vocalists hidden so that only their head movements were visible. Viewers were then asked to identify the emotions that the vocalists intended to convey.
"We found that when people talk, the ways in which they move their head reveal the emotions that they're expressing. We also found that people are remarkably accurate at identifying a speaker's emotion, just by seeing their head movements," says Palmer, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience of Performance.
Research idea emerged from a noisy pub
"While the head movements for happy and sad emotions differed, they were highly similar across speech and song, despite differences in vocal acoustics," says Livingstone, a former postdoctoral fellow in the Palmer lab and now a postdoctoral fellow at McMaster University. "Although the research was based on North American English speakers, the focus on head movements creates the possibility for studying emotional communication in contexts where different languages are spoken."
The idea for the study emerged from a noisy pub. "One night in Montreal I was in a bar with my lab mates," explains Livingstone, "It was a lively evening, with lots of people, dim lights, and some very loud music. At one point my friend started to talk me; I knew he was excited though I couldn't make out what he was saying or see his face clearly. Suddenly I realized it was the animated way that he was bobbing his head that told me what he was trying to say."
Adds Palmer, "Our discovery may lead to new applications in situations where sound is not available, such as automated recognition of emotional states in crowd behavior or in hearing impairments, by making use of head movements when watching someone talk. It also has applications in computing and robotics, where the addition of expressive head movements may help make humanoid robots more lifelike and approachable."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151027132930.htm
Soothing words do more than pills to calm anxious patients
October 27, 2015
Science Daily/American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA)
Anxious patients heading into surgery often receive medication to ease their fears, but a few calming words from their physicians might actually be more effective medicine. In fact, “conversational hypnosis” as the approach is known, may do a better job than pills for relaxing patients before anesthesia and surgery.
"The anesthesiologist uses calm, positive words to divert the patient's attention and help him or her feel more comfortable," said Emmanuel Boselli, M.D., Ph.D., lead author of the study and a physician anesthesiologist at Édouard Herriot Hospital, Lyons, France. "It reflects a change in the way the physician interacts with the patient and takes just a few minutes."
Researchers used conversational hypnosis, which consists of talking quietly and positively to the patient (e.g. "Keep calm and quiet" vs. "Please don't move") and focusing the patient's attention on something other than the preparations for surgery and anesthesia procedure. They compared the results of hypnosis to the use of a standard medication called hydroxyzine, which is taken orally to relax patients before their procedure. To measure the effects of both, they asked patients to provide a subjective measurement of their comfort on a scale ranging from 0 (no comfort) to 10 (maximal comfort), as well as used an objective test called the Analgesia/Nociception Index (ANI), a 100-point index that is based on heart rate variability. When patients are extremely anxious and stressed the ANI is zero and when they are completely relaxed, the ANI is 100.
In the study of 100 patients undergoing hand surgery, 50 had conversational hypnosis while being given regional anesthesia, and 50 were given 25 mg of oral hydroxyzine 30 minutes to an hour before the induction of anesthesia. Their levels of relaxation were assessed using the ANI as well as the comfort scale, both prior to and after receiving hypnosis or medication and anesthesia.
Patients measured an average ANI of 51 before and 78 after hypnosis, whereas those who had medication averaged 63 before and 70 after. The average comfort scale of those who had received hypnosis was 6.7 before and 9.3 after, while patients who had medication averaged 7.8 before and 8.3 after.
According to Dr. Boselli, the study suggests that conversational hypnosis might increase patient self-reported comfort during regional anesthesia without medication, and that this effect might be objectively monitored using the ANI. "Conversational hypnosis can be used prior to surgery in conscious patients having local or regional anesthesia," said Dr. Boselli. "It also could be beneficial before general anesthesia to decrease patient anxiety."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151027213824.htm
Lack of 'sleep' may zap cell growth, brain activity
October 30, 2015
Science Daily/University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Lack of adequate sleep can do more than just make you tired. It can short-circuit your system and interfere with a fundamental cellular process that drives physical growth, physiological adaptation and even brain activity, according to a new study.
Albrecht von Arnim, a molecular biologist based in the Department of Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Biology, studied plants but said the concepts may well translate to humans.
His team examined how protein synthesis--the process that determines how organisms grow and how cells renew themselves--changes over the course of the daily day-night cycle. He also explored whether any such changes are controlled by the organism's internal time keeper, the circadian clock.
Proteins are newly created in every cell by translating messages made from the cell's own DNA, the genome.
Von Arnim's findings, published in the journal Plant Cell, show not only that protein synthesis activity changed over the course of the day, but also that it was under the influence of the circadian clock.
"When we misalign our behavior with our circadian clock, for example by creating jet lag, or by working as a night owl, we do not only disrupt normal physiological processes such as cycles of appetite and body temperature," von Arnim said. "This work in plants suggests that we may also be interfering with a more fundamental cellular process, protein synthesis."
Muscle action, brain activity, growth and development are functions all performed by proteins whose synthesis is carefully regulated, he said. "For example, when cells are stressed by high temperatures or from a virus infection, they drastically reduce their protein synthesis activity," von Arnim said.
The findings could also have implications for agricultural production as farmers and companies seek to better cultivate land and maximize outputs from plants required to sustain human life.
"Protein synthesis is part of the basis for crop yield," von Arnim said.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151030153115.htm
Sleep interruptions worse for mood than overall reduced amount of sleep
October 30, 2015
Science Daily/Johns Hopkins Medicine
A new study suggests that awakening several times throughout the night is more detrimental to people's positive moods than getting the same shortened amount of sleep without interruption.
As they report in the November 1 issue of the journal Sleep, researchers studied 62 healthy men and women randomly subjected to three sleep experimental conditions in an inpatient clinical research suite: three consecutive nights of either forced awakenings, delayed bedtimes or uninterrupted sleep.
Participants subjected to eight forced awakenings and those with delayed bedtimes showed similar low positive mood and high negative mood after the first night, as measured by a standard mood assessment questionnaire administered before bedtimes. Participants were asked to rate how strongly they felt a variety of positive and negative emotions, such as cheerfulness or anger.
But the researchers say significant differences emerged after the second night: The forced awakening group had a reduction of 31 percent in positive mood, while the delayed bedtime group had a decline of 12 percent compared to the first day. Researchers add they did not find significant differences in negative mood between the two groups on any of the three days, which suggests that sleep fragmentation is especially detrimental to positive mood.
"When your sleep is disrupted throughout the night, you don't have the opportunity to progress through the sleep stages to get the amount of slow-wave sleep that is key to the feeling of restoration," says study lead author Patrick Finan, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Although the study was conducted on healthy subjects with generally normal sleep experiences, Finan says the results are likely to apply to those who suffer from insomnia.
Frequent awakenings throughout the night are common among new parents and on-call health care workers, he says. It is also one of the most common symptoms among people with insomnia, who make up an estimated 10 percent of the U.S. adult population. "Many individuals with insomnia achieve sleep in fits and starts throughout the night, and they don't have the experience of restorative sleep," Finan says.
Depressed mood is a common symptom of insomnia, Finan says, but the biological reasons for this are poorly understood. To investigate the link, he and his team used a test called polysomnography to monitor certain brain and body functions while subjects were sleeping to assess sleep stages.
Compared with the delayed bedtime group, the forced awakening group had shorter periods of deep, slow-wave sleep. The lack of sufficient slow-wave sleep had a statistically significant association with the subjects' reduction in positive mood, the researchers say. They also found that interrupted sleep affected different domains of positive mood; it reduced not only energy levels, but also feelings of sympathy and friendliness.
Finan says the study also suggests that the effects of interrupted sleep on positive mood can be cumulative, since the group differences emerged after the second night and continued the day after the third night of the study. "You can imagine the hard time people with chronic sleep disorders have after repeatedly not reaching deep sleep," Finan says. However, he says, further studies are needed to learn more about sleep stages in people with insomnia and the role played by a night of recovering sleep.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151030220514.htm
Feeling feverish? It might be stress
November 6, 2015
Science Daily/Taylor & Francis
Psychogenic fever is a stress-related, psychosomatic condition that manifests itself in a high body temperature. It is caused by exposure to emotional events or to chronic stress. A new review introduces recent findings from recent research and clinical experience regarding the disease.
"While this condition is known in the literature, only a few doctors in the world study it and treat patients with psychogenic fevers," says Professor Andrej Romanovsky, of St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Arizona, and the Editor-in-Chief of Temperature, "this is why we have invited Dr. Oka to share his unique experience."
According to Dr. Oka, there has been no epidemiological study of psychogenic fevers yet. Therefore, the number of affected patients is unknown. However, Dr. Oka relays that this condition is relatively widespread -- based on the available case reports and his own clinical practice. He has seen a high number of patients, especially amongst Japanese students due to academic stress. Dr. Oka explains that due to many doctors not fully understanding how stress can affect body temperature, patients with psychogenic fever are being diagnosed with cause unknown for their disabling symptoms.
Dr. Oka further describes that the complaints from patients are of the fever itself, along with the symptoms from the high temperature, symptoms from the stress, plus the symptoms from the psychiatric diseases that the patient may suffer from. "High body temperature is just one of the symptoms induced or exacerbated by stress," Dr. Oka says, "Patients ask for the treatment of fever not just their temperature be normalized, but all symptoms to be treated."
Several treatment options are currently available, but, in general, they are similar to the treatments of other stress-related diseases and not specific to psychogenic fever. However, Dr. Oka is convinced that a breakthrough in treatment will occur in the near future, as more research is conducted. He explains, "Because even their doctors did not believe the fever is caused by or related with psychological stress… Recent animal studies enable the doctors to be aware of this pathophysiology."
Instead of using the traditional term "psychogenic fever," Dr. Oka proposes to call this condition "functional hyperthermia." Using the word "functional" would prevent stigmatizing these patients, and in a clinical setting connotes both stress-related pathology and impaired functioning of the autonomic nervous system which is important to convey in treatment of the condition.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151106113950.htm
Moderate coffee drinking may be linked to reduced risk of death
November 16, 2015
Science Daily/American Heart Association
Drinking coffee daily was associated with a lower risk of deaths from Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and neurological diseases in nonsmokers. Regular consumption of coffee can be included as part of a healthy, balanced diet.
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Drinking a second or third cup of coffee may do more than get you through a long day -- it may also reduce your risk of death from heart disease and other illnesses.
In a study reported in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, people who regularly drank moderate amounts of coffee daily --less than 5 cups per day -- experienced a lower risk of deaths from cardiovascular disease, neurological diseases, Type 2 diabetes and suicide.
The benefit held true for drinking caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee, suggesting it's not just the caffeine providing health perks but possibly the naturally occurring chemical compounds in the coffee beans.
"Bioactive compounds in coffee reduce insulin resistance and systematic inflammation," said Ming Ding, M.D., the study's first author and doctoral student at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. "They might be responsible for the inverse association between coffee and mortality. However, more studies are needed to investigate the biological mechanisms producing these effects."
The findings are based on data from three large ongoing studies: 74,890 women in the Nurses' Health Study; 93,054 women in the Nurses' Health Study 2; and 40,557 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.
Researchers assessed coffee drinking every four years using validated food questionnaires and followed participants for up to 30 years. During the follow-up period, 19,524 women and 12,432 men died from a range of causes.
In general, people who frequently drank coffee were more likely to smoke and drink alcohol. To separate the effects of coffee from smoking, researchers repeated their analysis among never-smokers, and found that the protective benefits of coffee on deaths became even more evident.
"Regular consumption of coffee can be included as part of a healthy, balanced diet," said senior author Frank Hu, M.D., Ph.D., a Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at Harvard. "However, certain populations such as pregnant women and children should be cautious about high caffeine intake from coffee or other beverages."
The study was not designed to show a direct cause and effect relationship between coffee consumption and dying from illness. So the findings should be interpreted with caution, researchers said. One potential drawback of the study design was that participants were asked to report how much coffee they drank, however researchers found the assessment to be reliable.
Previous studies found inconsistent associations between coffee drinking and risk of total and cause-specific death. This study adds to the literature that moderate coffee consumption may confer health benefits. However, more research is needed to determine how coffee affects the body and whether different types of coffee may play a role.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151116181005.htm
Weekday sleep changes may raise risk of diabetes, heart disease Study first to find link between social jet lag, metabolism
November 18, 2015
Science Daily/The Endocrine Society
Monday mornings could be harmful to your health. Even routine sleep changes such as waking up early for work during the week may raise the risk of developing metabolic problems such as diabetes and heart disease, according to a new study.
Researchers have long recognized that shift work can contribute to metabolic risk because of the continual disruption to the circadian system. Shift workers are more likely to develop metabolic syndrome, coronary heart disease and Type 2 diabetes than employees with regular daytime shifts.
Sleep disruption is among the factors that have contributed to rising rates of diabetes and obesity. More than 29 million Americans have diabetes, and 35.1 percent of American adults are obese, according to the Endocrine Society's Endocrine Facts and Figures report.
"Social jetlag refers to the mismatch between an individual's biological circadian rhythm and their socially imposed sleep schedules. Other researchers have found that social jetlag relates to obesity and some indicators of cardiovascular function," said Patricia M. Wong, MS, of the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, PA. "However, this is the first study to extend upon that work and show that even among healthy, working adults who experience a less extreme range of mismatches in their sleep schedule, social jetlag can contribute to metabolic problems. These metabolic changes can contribute to the development of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease."
Researchers examined sleep patterns and cardiometabolic risk in a group of 447 men and women who took part in the Adult Health and Behavior Project Phase 2 study. The participants were between the ages of 30 and 54, and they worked at least 25 hours a week outside the home. Participants wore a wristband that measured their movement and sleep 24 hours a day for a week. The researchers used questionnaires to assess the participants' diet and exercise habits.
Among the participants, nearly 85 percent had a later halfway point in their sleep cycle -- a measurement known as midsleep -- on free days compared to work days. The other 15 percent had an earlier midsleep on free days than on work days.
Participants who had a greater misalignment between their sleep schedules on free and work days tended to have poorer cholesterol profiles, higher fasting insulin levels, larger waist circumference, higher body-mass index and were more resistant to insulin than those who had less social jetlag. The association persisted even when the researchers adjusted the measurements to account for variation in other sleep measures and health behaviors such as physical activity and calorie intake.
"If future studies replicate what we found here, then we may need to consider as a society how modern work and social obligations are affecting our sleep and health," Wong said. "There could be benefits to clinical interventions focused on circadian disturbances, workplace education to help employees and their families make informed decisions about structuring their schedules, and policies to encourage employers to consider these issues."
Other authors of the study include: Brant P. Hasler and Matthew F. Muldoon of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in Pittsburgh, PA; and Thomas W. Kamarck and Stephen B. Manuck of the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh. Dr. Manuck is the head principal investigator of the Adult Health and Behavior Project Phase 2 study.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151118155112.htm
Bright light treatment efficacious for nonseasonal major depressive disorder
November 18, 2015
Science Daily/The JAMA Network Journals
Bright light treatment either alone or combined with an antidepressant was an effective and well tolerated treatment for adults with nonseasonal major depressive disorder in a randomized clinical trial, according to a new article.
MDD is among the leading causes of disability worldwide and is associated with impaired quality of life and an increased risk of death. Treatments include psychotherapies and antidepressants but remission rates remain low so more therapeutic options are needed. Light therapy has been effective treatment for seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
Raymond W. Lam, M.D., of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, and coauthors conducted a double-blind and placebo-and-sham-controlled trial to test the efficacy of light treatment alone and in combination with fluoxetine hydrochloride compared with a placebo treatment involving an inactive device and a placebo pill.
The eight-week trial randomized 122 patients: light therapy (30 minutes/daily exposure to a fluorescent light box as soon as possible after awakening) and placebo pill (n=32); fluoxetine (20 mg/daily) and placebo device (a negative ion generator, n=31); combination light and fluoxetine treatment (n=29); or placebo device and placebo pill (n=30). The change in a common depression rating scale score was the study's primary outcomes.
The authors report combination therapy and light therapy alone were superior to placebo but fluoxetine alone was not superior to placebo.
Why light therapy appears to work is still unknown but hypotheses in SAD involve resynchronizing circadian rhythms. Nonseasonal MDD also may be associated with disturbances in the circadian rhythms, according to the authors.
The authors note limitations of the study including not measuring patients' natural light exposure.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151118125319.htm
Contact with nature may mean more social cohesion, less crime Human exposure to nature is linked to safer communities with better social, community interactions
November 25, 2015
Science Daily/American Institute of Biological Sciences
In a first-of-its-kind study, an international team tested social correlates of both objective and subjective contact with nature in a systematic way, revealing complex linkages between nature, social cohesion, and a variety of other factors.
Numerous studies have demonstrated the benefits of contact with nature for human well-being. However, despite strong trends toward greater urbanization and declining green space, little is known about the social consequences of such contact. In the December issue of BioScience, an international, interdisciplinary team reports on how they used nationally representative data from the United Kingdom and stringent model testing to examine the relationships between objective measures and self-reported assessments of contact with nature, community cohesion, and local crime incidence.
The results in the report, by Netta Weinstein of Cardiff University and others, were notable. After accounting for a range of possibly interfering factors, including socioeconomic deprivation, population density, unemployment rate, socioeconomic standing, and weekly wages, the authors determined that people's experiences of local nature reported via a survey could explain 8% of a measure of the variation, called variance, in survey responses about perceptions of community cohesion. They describe this as "a striking finding given that individual predictors such as income, gender, age, and education together accounted for only 3%" of the variance.
The relationship with crime was similarly striking. According to the study results, objective measures of the amount of green space or farmland accessible in people's neighborhoods accounted for 4% additional variance in crime rates. The authors argue that this predictive power compares favorably with known contributors to crime, such as socioeconomic deprivation, which accounts for 5% variance in crime rates. "The positive impact of local nature on neighbors' mutual support may discourage crime, even in areas lower in socioeconomic factors," they write. Further, given the political importance placed on past crime reductions as small as 2%-3%, the authors suggest that findings such as theirs could justify policies aimed at ameliorating crime by improving contact with nature.
Finally, the authors note that, unlike some easily measured ecosystem services (e.g., the provision of water or food), "the apparent benefits of contact with nature on social cohesion... are more challenging to tease apart and measure." However, they express the hope that their study "stimulates consideration of how best to ensure that nature, at many different levels, can continue to benefit individuals and society into the future."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151125125105.htm