How green space can reduce violent crime
Researchers seek to enhance public safety by harnessing nature
February 27, 2020
Science Daily/University of Virginia Health System
Properly designed and maintained outdoor green space has the potential to reduce violent crime and gun violence, to make communities safer and keep residents healthier, a new study suggests. Conversely, green space that is poorly designed and inadequately maintained can help crime take root and spread.
The findings come from a team of scientists that has assembled a big-picture review of research on the complicated relationship between nature and crime in urban areas. They identified several patterns that can help inform public policy, guide urban design and promote neighborhoods that are safe and pleasant to live in.
The project came about because members of the research team had been touched by crime, either directly or indirectly. "All of us had some sort of experience, personally or through family members. And we thought maybe we can do something about it," said Hessam Sadatsafavi, PhD, of the School of Medicine. "How to control violent crime is a polarizing issue. We are interested to see, as designers whose work is to shape the physical environment, if it's possible for us to contribute to this conversation and to take some actions to see if we, personally, can contribute to reducing crime."
The Weed of Crime Bears Bitter Fruit
The research, initiated at Cornell University, sought to synthesize the findings of many previous studies that looked at the effects of various forms of green space on crime and criminal behavior. "We said, OK, we have to start by understanding what is out there in terms of theory, what other people have found," Sadatsafavi said. "Green space can be a source of or increase the risk of crime in a neighborhood through some mechanism, and it can also reduce the risk. So why is that happening? Is there any way to find a solution to make the risk reduction more effective?"
The initial review was challenging because the topic is vast and can be approached from many angles. "You might talk about community gardens, you might talk about people's lawns," Sadatsafavi explained. "People who do the studies might go out and count the number of trees on sidewalks, or examine satellite images. Or look at the number of vacant lots that were turned into green space."
That, combined with the wide variety of crime examined and how it was reported, made it difficult for the researchers to draw specific conclusions. "But," Sadatsafavi said, "there are definitely patterns."
For example, nine studies looked at the effect of green space on gun violence. Six found that such interventions reduced crime, while three were inconclusive. "There is evidence that greening interventions at the urban level reduces violent crime, specifically gun violence," said Sadatsafavi, of UVA's Department of Emergency Medicine.
"By looking at all these studies, we were able to propose possible pathways [to reduce crime and] put together an overall picture of why this is happening, both in terms of gun violence and in terms of overall crime rate."
Sadatsafavi hopes that the researchers' findings, outlined in a paper in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, will lead to community interventions that keep people safe, decrease crime and promote better quality of life.
"The dream scenario for me, personally, is to raise awareness about the effectiveness and the cost effectiveness of these strategies," he said. "Our next goal as a team is to develop design guidelines for, say, how a community garden or small community park should be designed, to improve the positive effects of the green space and provide practical, hands-on information for people who are in the field, whether landscape architects or people who are starting their own community garden."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200227144253.htm
Scientists find link between genes and ability to exercise
February 26, 2020
Science Daily/King's College London
A team of researchers have discovered a genetic mutation that reduces a patient's ability to exercise efficiently.
In a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, a team including researchers from King's College London have found a link between a genetic mutation that affects cellular oxygen sensing and a patient's limited exercise capacity.
The team identified a patient who had a reduced rate of growth, persistent low blood sugar, a limited exercise capacity and a very high number of red blood cells.
The team carried out genetic and protein analysis of the patient, examined their respiratory physiology in simulated high altitude, measured their exercise capacity, and performed a series of metabolic tests.
The von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) gene is fundamental for cells to survive when oxygen availability is reduced. Following genetic analysis, an alteration on the VHL gene was identified and associated with impaired functionality in the patient's mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell that uses oxygen to fuel cellular life. This reduced mitochondrial function efficiency limits the patient's aerobic exercise capacity compared to people without the mutation.
Dr Federico Formenti, School of Basic & Medical Biosciences, one of the leading authors of the study, comments: "The discovery of this mutation and the associated phenotype is exciting because it enables a deeper understanding of human physiology, especially in terms of how the human body senses and responds to reduced oxygen availability."
A new syndrome has been discovered that can alter the regulation of human metabolism and skeletal muscle function. This research puts the basis for the study of new mutations that affect the oxygen sensing pathways and the way these mutations are associated with the integrative function of the human body as a whole. Improving our understanding of these mechanisms may also contribute to the treatment of hypoxic conditions.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200226171112.htm
Alzheimer risk genes converge on microglia
March 18, 2020
Science Daily/VIB (the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology)
Our DNA determines a large part of our risk for Alzheimer's disease, but it remained unclear how many genetic risk factors contribute to disease. A team led by Prof. Bart De Strooper (VIB-KU Leuven) and Dr. Mark Fiers now show that many of risk factors affect brain maintenance cells called microglia, and more particularly their response to amyloid-beta, one of the proteins aggregating in the brains of Alzheimer patients. The individual effects of small genetic variations are likely small, but the combination of hundreds of such subtle alterations might tip the balance and cause disease.
Why do some people get Alzheimer's disease while others do not, even when growing very old? Despite decades of research, we still don't know the full answer to this question. Epidemiological studies show that about two-thirds of a person's risk for Alzheimer's disease is genetically determined. A few dozen risk genes have been identified, however, recent evidence shows that there could be hundreds of additional genetic variants that each contribute in a small but significant way to disease risk.
From risk gene to disease mechanism
Bart De Strooper (VIB-KU Leuven) has been studying the mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease for decades. His team tries to find out what this combined genetic risk can teach us about how the disease develops in our brain: "Two crucial questions arise from the myriad of genetic studies. First, what is the link between these Alzheimer risk genes and the amyloid-beta plaques or tau tangles we find in Alzheimer brains; and second, are they all involved in one central cellular or molecular pathway, or do they define many parallel pathways that all lead to Alzheimer's?"
The researchers set out to understand when these genes are expressed and in particular, whether they respond to tau or amyloid?beta pathology. "When it comes to risk, you always need to take the context into account," explain Mark Fiers, co-lead author of the study. "If you don't wear your seatbelt in the car, there is no problem as long as you don't have an accident."
With this in mind, the researchers aimed to understand under which circumstances genetic risk for Alzheimer's comes into play. Fiers: "Almost every person develops some degree of Alzheimer pathology in the brain, i.e. amyloid-beta plaques and tau tangles. However, some people remain cognitively healthy despite a high pathology load, while others develop Alzheimer symptoms quite rapidly."
"To gain more insight we checked gene expression in two different mouse models of Alzheimer's, one displaying amyloid-beta and the other tau pathology, at different ages," says Annerieke Sierksma, a postdoctoral researcher in De Strooper's lab. "We identified that many of the genes linked to Alzheimer's risk are particularly responsive to amyloid-beta but not to tau pathology."
Microglia activation
The team identified 11 new risk genes that are significantly upregulated when facing increased amyloid-beta levels. All these genes are expressed in microglia, cells that play a key role in brain maintenance.
Ashley Lu, a PhD student closely involved in the analysis: "We could confirm that microglia exposed to amyloid-beta drastically switch to an activated status, something that occurs to a much lesser extent in the tau mice. These new insights indicate that a large part of the genetic risk of Alzheimer's disease involves the microglial response to amyloid-beta."
Understanding genetic risk
Should we rethink the classical gene?based view, where certain mutations or genetic variants lead to disease? De Strooper thinks so: "One single genetic variant within a functional network will not lead to disease. However, multiple variants within the same network may tip the balance to a disease?causing disturbance. Such a hypothesis could also explain the conundrum that some /individuals with a lot of amyloid-beta in their brain do not develop clinical symptoms."
"While amyloid-beta might be the trigger of the disease, it is the genetic make?up of the microglia, and possibly other cell types, which determines whether a pathological response is induced," adds Fiers. "Identifying which genetic variants are crucial to such network disturbances and how they lead to altered gene expression will be the next big challenge."
Why mice?
"Profiling of postmortem brain tissue only provides insights into the advanced stages of the disease and does not allow to delineate cause-consequence relationships," explains De Strooper. "Genetically modified mouse models on the other hand only partially recapitulate the disease, but they allow for detailed insights into the initial steps of disease, which is of high relevance for preventative therapeutic interventions."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200318104501.htm
Marine training may take more mental than physical grit
June 26, 2020
Science Daily/University of Southern California - Health Sciences
The United States military has a constant need for service members who can serve in elite and specialized military units, such as the Marine Corps. However, because the training courses for these forces is so rigorous, the dropout rate is high.
To help determine predictors of success or failure in elite military training, Leslie Saxon, MD, executive director of the USC Center for Body Computing, and fellow Center for Body Computing researchers monitored the physical and psychological activity of three consecutive classes of Marines and sailors enrolled in a 25-day specialized training course.
The results were published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research mHealth and uHealth.
A total of 121 trainees participated. Only slightly more than half (64) successfully completed the course.
Researchers found there was no correlation between finishing and performance on physical training standards, such as hikes or aquatic training. Physical markers such as heart rate or sleep status also did not play a role.
Rather, the biggest determinant was mental. Trainees who identified themselves as extroverted and having a positive affect -- the ability to cultivate a joyful, confident attitude -- were most likely to complete the course.
"These findings are novel because they identify traits not typically associated with military performance, showing that psychological factors mattered more than physical performance outcomes," says Saxon, who is also a cardiologist with Keck Medicine of USC and a professor of medicine (clinical scholar) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.
Researchers were also able to pinpoint psychological stressors that triggered dropping out of the course. Trainees typically quit before a stressful aquatic training exercise or after reporting an increase in emotional or physical pain and a decrease in confidence. This led researchers to be able to predict who would drop out of the course one to two days in advance.
While Saxon has been studying human performance in elite athletes for 15 years, this was her first study involving the military. She partnered with the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, which has established military research programs, to run the study with a training company in Camp Pendleton, Calif. that trains Marines in amphibious reconnaissance. Typically, only around half of the participants finish the training.
The study authors collected baseline personality assessments of the trainees before the recruits began the course, assessing personality type, emotional processing, outlook on life and mindfulness. Researchers next provided subjects with an iPhone and Apple Watch, and a specially designed mobile application to collect continuous daily measures of trainees' mental status, physical pain, heart rate, activity, sleep, hydration and nutrition during training.
The mobile application also prompted trainees to answer daily surveys on emotional and physical pain, well-being and confidence in course completion and instructor support.
"This study, the first to collect continuous data from individuals throughout a training, suggests that there may be interventions the military can take to reduce the number of dropouts," says Saxon. "This data could be helpful in designing future training courses for Marines and other military units to increase the number of elite service members, as well as provide insights on how to help athletes and other high performers handle challenges."
Saxon is already testing whether or not various psychological interventions or coaching might encourage more trainees to stay the course.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200626092737.htm
Female Gulf War combat veterans have persistent symptoms more than 25 years later
May 26, 2020
Science Daily/Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University
More than a quarter century after the Gulf War, female veterans who saw combat have nearly a twofold risk of reporting more than 20 total medical symptoms, like cognition and respiratory troubles, than their fellow female veterans who were not deployed, investigators report.
A sizeable percentage of the female combat veterans still report neurological symptoms; about two-thirds report difficulty remembering new information and trouble concentrating, investigators report in the Journal of Women's Health.
An association with more headaches among the combat veterans also was reported and there were "strong associations" between deployment status and respiratory symptoms with 39% of combat veterans still reporting difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. More than half also report a low tolerance for heat and cold.
"It's been over 25 years since the war ended and these are very persistent health outcomes," says Dr. Steven S. Coughlin, interim chief of the Division of Epidemiology in the Medical College of Georgia Department of Population Health Sciences. "This tells us that the way the Gulf War illness manifests itself may be different in female than male veterans, so it's important to take gender into account," says Coughlin.
Twenty years ago, female Gulf War veterans were reporting similar problems, investigators say. The newly reported findings indicate the women are showing increased frequency of symptoms over time and above the rate that would be expected with normal aging, the investigators say. Their reported symptoms correspond with higher rates of diabetes, osteoporosis, thyroid problems, asthma and irritable bowel syndrome in this and similar groups.
Additional studies are needed to find biomarkers of Gulf War illness in these former soldiers and effective treatments, they write.
"We think this has a lot of importance for the health of these veterans and hopefully, when combined with information from other studies, it will lead to improved treatment," Coughlin says.
Three hundred-and-one female Gulf War veterans from all military branches participated in the study, including 203 who were deployed and 98 who were not sent directly into a war zone.
Other persistent problems war zone veterans report include about a third saying they frequently cough when they do not have a cold. Many of their reported symptoms fit the definition of Gulf War illness, which includes having at least three of six symptom categories that include fatigue, neurological/cognitive/mood problems, pain as well as respiratory, gastrointestinal and skin problems. Younger, non-white, female Army veterans were likely to report the most symptoms, they say.
Their significant symptom burden would likely impact the veterans' quality of life and require medical evaluation and treatment, Coughlin and his colleagues write.
"We are trying to fill in this gap in the published literature about Gulf War illness among women veterans because they have been greatly understudied," Coughlin says, referencing the first conflict in which the United States included a sizeable female contingent directly in warfare.
The gender differences they are finding are consistent with earlier studies as well as other current ones coming out of Florida-based Nova Southeastern University, for example, where they are conducting a clinical trial to try to reverse some of the ill effects, he says.
The findings also are more evidence that the female veterans of the Gulf War may have more chronic health issues and conditions than other groups of women generally or female veterans specifically.
Coughlin theorizes that females may be more susceptible to some of the wartime hazards because on average their body size is smaller and because of other differences in physiology. "We can only speculate," he adds.
When troops started to come home from the Middle East following the conflict that lasted from August 1990 through February 1991, they reported a constellation of symptoms, including headaches, gastrointestinal complaints, skin ailments, forgetfulness, fatigue, particularly after exertion, and musculoskeletal pain, says Coughlin, who served as a senior epidemiologist with the Department of Veterans Affairs Central Office in Washington, D.C. The leading theory early on was that it was a psychogenic illness, somewhat similar to the PTSD experienced by many Vietnam War veterans. Now the consensus is that much of it results from the neurological impact of neurotoxins soldiers on the frontline were exposed to, Coughlin says.
"They were inundated with pesticides, there are a lot of biting flies and pests in that part of the world so they had uniforms infused with pesticides, a lot of them even wore a dog's flea collar for extra protection," he says. Soldiers also were asked to take pyridostigmine bromide, a drug given to patients with myasthenia gravis to improve muscle strength, prophylactically to help protect them from nerve agents in field, but the drug itself is mildly toxic to nerves and there is some evidence that, in combination with some of the insecticides used, it becomes more potent.
"Every time the alarms went off, they would have to take these little white pills," Coughlin says. There were other environmental toxins as well, like blown up munitions factories and low dose exposure to sarin nerve gas and others. "It's similar to what you see among agricultural workers exposed to pesticides," he notes. The veterans also were exposed to hazards such as smoke from oil well fires and burn pits used to incinerate waste, the investigators write.
The new study looked at the frequency and patterns of health symptoms in the female veterans as well as military service and lifestyle. The investigators theorized that symptoms associated with Gulf War illness would be more prominent in the women who saw conflict.
They found the deployed veterans were significantly more likely to report seven symptoms consistent with Gulf War illness, including low tolerance for heat or cold, difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, frequent coughing without having a cold, difficulty concentrating and remembering recent information, feeling down or depressed and anxious, the investigators write. Those deployed were more than twice as likely to report more total symptoms and nonwhites -- including American Indians, Alaska natives as well as Asian Americans and Pacific Islands Americans -- were four times more likely to report symptoms than whites. Older women were less likely than younger women to report symptoms and those enlisted in the Air Force and Navy were significantly less likely to report more symptoms than those in the Army.
Participants in the study were a mean age of early 50s and other demographics, like race, ethnicity and education, were similar, but those who saw combat were more likely to have served in the Army or Navy and less likely to have served in the Air Force.
They were taken from a national cohort of 1,318 Gulf War veterans created from the Veterans Affairs Cooperative Studies Program 585 Gulf War Era Cohort and Biorepository pilot study. Outcomes of female veterans in the group have not been reported separately. Women comprised 7% of the 700,000 military personnel to serve in the Gulf War, the largest number of women to serve in a war zone in U.S. military history at that time. The influx of the some 50,000 female Gulf War veterans resulted in the establishment of specialty clinics for them at VA hospitals. Evidence indicates about 19% of women veterans still have delayed or unmet health care needs, possibly because of expanded military roles for women, including increased exposure to combat, the investigators write.
Female veterans who have been involved in conflicts since the Vietnam War report higher rates of poor sleep quality, fatigue, insomnia, chronic pain, including headache and musculoskeletal complaints, respiratory problems and skin problems, as well as cognitive and mood related complaints, Coughlin and his colleagues write.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200526091406.htm
How associative fear memory is formed in the brain
March 13, 2020
Science Daily/University of California - Riverside
How does the brain form "fear memory" that links a traumatic event to a particular situation? A pair of researchers at the University of California, Riverside, may have found an answer.
Using a mouse model, the researchers demonstrated the formation of fear memory involves the strengthening of neural pathways between two brain areas: the hippocampus, which responds to a particular context and encodes it, and the amygdala, which triggers defensive behavior, including fear responses.
Study results appear today in Nature Communications.
"It has been hypothesized that fear memory is formed by strengthening the connections between the hippocampus and amygdala," said Jun-Hyeong Cho, an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Systems Biology and the study's lead author. "Experimental evidence, however, has been weak. Our study now demonstrates for the first time that the formation of fear memory associated with a context indeed involves the strengthening of the connections between the hippocampus and amygdala."
According to Cho, weakening these connections could erase the fear memory.
"Our study, therefore, also provides insights into developing therapeutic strategies to suppress maladaptive fear memories in post-traumatic stress disorder patients," he said.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, affects 7% of the U.S. population. A psychiatric disorder that can occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event, such as war, assault, or disaster, PTSD can cause problems in daily life for months, and even years, in affected persons.
Cho explained the capability of our brains to form a fear memory associated with a situation that predicts danger is highly adaptive since it enables us to learn from our past traumatic experiences and avoid those dangerous situations in the future. This process is dysregulated, however, in PTSD, where overgeneralized and exaggerated fear responses cause symptoms including nightmares or unwanted memories of the trauma, avoidance of situations that trigger memories of the trauma, heightened reactions, anxiety, and depressed mood.
"The neural mechanism of learned fear has an enormous survival value for animals, who must predict danger from seemingly neutral contexts," Cho said. "Suppose we had a car accident in a particular place and got severely injured. We would then feel afraid of that -- or similar -- place even long after we recover from the physical injury. This is because our brains form a memory that associates the car accident with the situation where we experienced the trauma. This associative memory makes us feel afraid of that, or similar, situation and we avoid such threatening situations."
According to Cho, during the car accident, the brain processes a set of multisensory circumstances around the traumatic event, such as visual information about the place, auditory information such as a crash sound, and smells of burning materials from damaged cars. The brain then integrates these sensory signals as a highly abstract form -- the context -- and forms a memory that associates the traumatic event with the context.
The researchers also plan to develop strategies to suppress pathological fear memories in PTSD.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200313112137.htm
How hearing loss in old age affects the brain
April 23, 2020
Science Daily/Ruhr-University Bochum
If your hearing deteriorates in old age, the risk of dementia and cognitive decline increases. So far, it hasn't been clear why. A team of neuroscientists has examined what happens in the brain when hearing gradually deteriorates: key areas of the brain are reorganized, and this affects memory.
Daniela Beckmann, Mirko Feldmann, Olena Shchyglo and Professor Denise Manahan-Vaughan from the Department of Neurophysiology of the Medical Faculty worked together for the study.
When sensory perception fades
The researchers studied the brain of mice that exhibit hereditary hearing loss, similar to age related hearing loss in humans. The scientists analysed the density of neurotransmitter receptors in the brain that are crucial for memory formation. They also researched the extent to which information storage in the brain's most important memory organ, the hippocampus, was affected.
Adaptability of the brain suffers
Memory is enabled by a process called synaptic plasticity. In the hippocampus, synaptic plasticity was chronically impaired by progressive hearing loss. The distribution and density of neurotransmitter receptors in sensory and memory regions of the brain also changed constantly. The stronger the hearing impairment, the poorer were both synaptic plasticity and memory ability.
"Our results provide new insights into the putative cause of the relationship between cognitive decline and age-related hearing loss in humans," said Denise Manahan-Vaughan. "We believe that the constant changes in neurotransmitter receptor expression caused by progressive hearing loss create shifting sands at the level of sensory information processing that prevent the hippocampus from working effectively," she adds.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200423130446.htm
Vegetarians tend to be slimmer and less extroverted than meat eaters
June 15, 2020
Science Daily/Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
The less animal products someone consumes, the lower his body mass index on average and the less he tends to be extroverted. A connection with depressive moods as other studies had found could not be confirmed.
According to a survey by the Allensbach Institute, more than 6.1 million Germans stated last year that they were vegetarians, 400,000 more than two years earlier. A large-scale study at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) in cooperation with the University Hospital of Leipzig has now examined in almost 9,000 people how this form of nutrition is related to the body and the psyche -- regardless of age, gender and level of education.
It was found that the rarer the proportion of animal food in a person's diet, the lower their body mass index (BMI) on average and thus their body weight. One reason for this could be the lower proportion of heavily processed foods in the plant diet. "Products that are excessively rich in fat and sugar are particularly fattening. They stimulate the appetite and delay the feeling of satiety. If you avoid animal foods, you consume fewer such products on average," explains Evelyn Medawar, first author of the underlying publication, which has now been published in the journal Nutrients. In addition: Vegetarian food contains dietary fibres and has a positive effect on the microbiome in the intestine. This is another reason why they could fill you up earlier than those made from animal ingredients. "People who eat predominantly vegetable foods may therefore absorb less energy," Medawar adds. In addition to a changed feeling of satiety, lifestyle factors such as more sport and greater health awareness could also play a decisive role.
For the BMI it also seems to make a difference which animal products a person feeds on. If it is predominantly so-called primary animal products, i.e. meat, sausage and fish, the person usually has a higher BMI than someone who eats primarily secondary animal products, i.e. eggs, milk, dairy products, cheese and butter. In the former case the correlation is statistically significant.
Medawar uses an example to illustrate what this could mean for nutrition: "A person with a 1.2 point lower BMI on average either completely avoids certain animal products, such as the primary ones, and is on a vegetarian diet. Or she continues to eat meat and fish, but less often. Whether nutrition is ultimately the cause of lower body weight or whether other factors are responsible for it cannot be determined from the data. A follow-up study in cooperation with the University Hospital Leipzig will now shed light on this.
Nutrition and personality
The researchers also found out that vegetarian or vegan nutrition is also related to personality. Especially with one of the five major personality factors, extroversion. It was shown that people with predominantly plant-based foods on their diet are more introverted than those who mainly fed on animal products. "It is difficult to say what the reason for this is," says Veronica Witte. "It could be because more introverted people tend to have more restrictive eating habits or because they are more socially segregated because of their eating habits." Here, again, further studies should follow on how people identify with the characteristics of their diet.
However, they could not confirm that a plant-based diet is associated with a tendency towards neurotic behaviour, as other studies suggested. "Earlier analyses had found that more neurotic people were generally more likely to avoid certain groups of foods and to behave more restrictively. We focused here solely on the avoidance of animal products and could not observe any correlation," explains study leader Veronica Witte.
In a third part, they finally concentrated on the question of whether a predominantly plant-based diet is more often associated with depressive moods. Here previous studies had also suggested a relationship between the two factors. "We could not detect this correlation," says Witte. "It is possible that in previous analyses other factors had blurred the results, including the BMI or conspicuous personality traits that are known to be associated with depression. We accounted for them," said Witte explaining a possible reason for the different results. In addition, the plant-based diet is now more common and more accepted and not anymore restricted to a certain group.
The scientists had investigated these connections within the so-called LIFE project, a broad-based study in cooperation with the University Hospital of Leipzig. They determined the personal diets by means of questionnaires in which the participants were asked to fill in how often they had eaten the individual animal products in the last 12 months -- from "several times a day" to "never." The personality traits such as extroversion and neuroticism were assessed by means of a so-called personality inventory (NEOFFI), while depression was assessed by means of the so-called CESD test, a questionnaire that records various symptoms of depression.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200615115748.htm
Our ability to focus may falter after eating one meal high in saturated fat
Fatty food concept (stock image). Credit: © anaumenko / stock.adobe.com
Study also looks at effect of leaky gut on concentration
May 12, 2020
Science Daily/Ohio State University
Fatty food may feel like a friend during these troubled times, but new research suggests that eating just one meal high in saturated fat can hinder our ability to concentrate -- not great news for people whose diets have gone south while they're working at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The study compared how 51 women performed on a test of their attention after they ate either a meal high in saturated fat or the same meal made with sunflower oil, which is high in unsaturated fat.
Their performance on the test was worse after eating the high-saturated-fat meal than after they ate the meal containing a healthier fat, signaling a link between that fatty food and the brain.
Researchers were also looking at whether a condition called leaky gut, which allows intestinal bacteria to enter the bloodstream, had any effect on concentration. Participants with leakier guts performed worse on the attention assessment no matter which meal they had eaten.
The loss of focus after a single meal was eye-opening for the researchers.
"Most prior work looking at the causative effect of the diet has looked over a period of time. And this was just one meal -- it's pretty remarkable that we saw a difference," said Annelise Madison, lead author of the study and a graduate student in clinical psychology at The Ohio State University.
Madison also noted that the meal made with sunflower oil, while low in saturated fat, still contained a lot of dietary fat.
"Because both meals were high-fat and potentially problematic, the high-saturated-fat meal's cognitive effect could be even greater if it were compared to a lower-fat meal," she said.
The study is published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Madison works in the lab of Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, professor of psychiatry and psychology and director of the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research at Ohio State. For this work, Madison conducted a secondary analysis of data from Kiecolt-Glaser's study assessing whether high-fat meals increased fatigue and inflammation among cancer survivors.
Women in the study completed a baseline assessment of their attention during a morning visit to the lab. The tool, called a continuous performance test, is a measure of sustained attention, concentration and reaction time based on 10 minutes of computer-based activities.
The high-fat meal followed: eggs, biscuits, turkey sausage and gravy containing 60 grams of fat, either a palmitic acid-based oil high in saturated fat or the lower-saturated-fat sunflower oil. Both meals totaled 930 calories and were designed to mimic the contents of various fast-food meals such as a Burger King double whopper with cheese or a McDonald's Big Mac and medium fries.
Five hours later, the women took the continuous performance test again. Between one and four weeks later, they repeated these steps, eating the opposite meal of what they had eaten on the first visit.
Researchers also analyzed participants' fasting baseline blood samples to determine whether they contained an inflammatory molecule that signals the presence of endotoxemia -- the toxin that escapes from the intestines and enters the bloodstream when the gut barrier is compromised.
After eating the meal high in saturated fat, all of the participating women were, on average, 11 percent less able to detect target stimuli in the attention assessment. Concentration lapses were also apparent in the women with signs of leaky gut: Their response times were more erratic and they were less able to sustain their attention during the 10-minute test.
"If the women had high levels of endotoxemia, it also wiped out the between-meal differences. They were performing poorly no matter what type of fat they ate," Madison said.
Though the study didn't determine what was going on in the brain, Madison said previous research has suggested that food high in saturated fat can drive up inflammation throughout the body, and possibly the brain. Fatty acids also can cross the blood-brain barrier.
"It could be that fatty acids are interacting with the brain directly. What it does show is the power of gut-related dysregulation," she said.
The statistical analysis accounted for other potential influences on cognition, including depressive symptoms and the participants' average dietary saturated fat consumption. The women in the study ate three standardized meals and fasted for 12 hours before each lab visit to reduce diet variations that could affect their physiological response to the high-fat meals.
The findings suggest concentration could be even more impaired in people stressed by the pandemic who are turning to fatty foods for comfort, Kiecolt-Glaser said.
"What we know is that when people are more anxious, a good subset of us will find high-saturated-fat food more enticing than broccoli," she said. "We know from other research that depression and anxiety can interfere with concentration and attention as well. When we add that on top of the high-fat meal, we could expect the real-world effects to be even larger."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200512134433.htm
Certain foods common in diets of US adults with inflammatory bowel disease
May 6, 2020
Science Daily/Georgia State University
Foods, such as French fries, cheese, cookies, soda, and sports and energy drinks, are commonly found in the diets of United States adults with inflammatory bowel disease, according to a new study by researchers in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University.
The researchers analyzed the National Health Interview Survey 2015 to determine the food intake and frequency of consumption for U.S. adults with inflammatory bowel disease. The survey assessed 26 foods. The findings, published in the journal PLOS One, reveal that foods typically labeled as junk food were associated with inflammatory bowel disease.
Inflammatory bowel disease, which is characterized by chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, affects three million U.S. adults. There are two types of conditions, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Common symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease include persistent diarrhea, abdominal pain, rectal bleeding or bloody stools, weight loss and fatigue, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
This study found fries were consumed by a greater number of people with inflammatory bowel disease, and they also ate more cheese and cookies and drank less 100 percent fruit juice compared to people who did not have inflammatory bowel disease.
Intaking fries and sports and energy drinks and frequently drinking soda were significantly associated with having been told one has inflammatory bowel disease. Consuming milk or popcorn was less likely associated with receiving this diagnosis.
"While foods typically labeled as junk food were positively associated with inflammatory bowel disease, we found the eating patterns of people with and without this disease to be very similar," said Dr. Moon Han, the study's first author who completed the work as a Ph.D. student in Dr. Didier Merlin's lab in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences and now works as a Health Scientist ORISE Fellow at the CDC. "However, it's unclear whether the survey results reflect a potential change in the food intake of people with inflammatory bowel disease long before the survey was conducted."
To fully understand the role of food intake in inflammatory bowel disease risk and prevalence, it's important to explore environmental factors (for example, food deserts), food processing (such as frying) and potential bioactive food components that can induce intestinal inflammation and increase susceptibility to inflammatory bowel disease, the researchers concluded.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200506162150.htm#
Which foods do you eat together? How you combine them may raise dementia risk
Study finds 'food networks' centered on processed meats, starches may raise risk
April 22, 2020
Science Daily/American Academy of Neurology
t's no secret that a healthy diet may benefit the brain. However, it may not only be what foods you eat, but what foods you eat together that may be associated with your risk of dementia, according to a new study published in the April 22, 2020, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study looked at "food networks" and found that people whose diets consisted mostly of highly processed meats, starchy foods like potatoes, and snacks like cookies and cakes, were more likely to have dementia years later compared to people who ate a wider variety of healthy foods.
"There is a complex inter-connectedness of foods in a person's diet, and it is important to understand how these different connections, or food networks, may affect the brain because diet could be a promising way to prevent dementia," said study author Cécilia Samieri, PhD, of the University of Bordeaux in France. "A number of studies have shown that eating a healthier diet, for example a diet rich in green leafy vegetables, berries, nuts, whole grains and fish, may lower a person's risk of dementia. Many of those studies focused on quantity and frequency of foods. Our study went one step further to look at food networks and found important differences in the ways in which food items were co-consumed in people who went on to develop dementia and those who did not."
The study involved 209 people with an average age of 78 who had dementia and 418 people, matched for age, sex and educational level, who did not have dementia.
Participants had completed a food questionnaire five years previously describing what types of food they ate over the year, and how frequently, from less than once a month to more than four times a day. They also had medical checkups every two to three years. Researchers used the data from the food questionnaire to compare what foods were often eaten together by the patients with and without dementia.
Researchers found while there were few differences in the amount of individual foods that people ate, overall food groups or networks differed substantially between people who had dementia and those who did not have dementia.
"Processed meats were a 'hub' in the food networks of people with dementia," said Samieri. "People who developed dementia were more likely to combine highly processed meats such as sausages, cured meats and patés with starchy foods like potatoes, alcohol, and snacks like cookies and cakes. This may suggest that frequency with which processed meat is combined with other unhealthy foods, rather than average quantity, may be important for dementia risk. For example, people with dementia were more likely, when they ate processed meat, to accompany it with potatoes and people without dementia were more likely to accompany meat with more diverse foods, including fruit and vegetables and seafood."
Overall, people who did not have dementia were more likely to have a lot of diversity in their diet, demonstrated by many small food networks that usually included healthier foods, such as fruit and vegetables, seafood, poultry or meats.
"We found that more diversity in diet, and greater inclusion of a variety of healthy foods, is related to less dementia," said Samieri. "In fact, we found differences in food networks that could be seen years before people with dementia were diagnosed. Our findings suggest that studying diet by looking at food networks may help untangle the complexity of diet and biology in health and disease."
One limitation of the study was that participants completed a food questionnaire that relied on their ability to accurately recall diet rather than having researchers monitor their diets. Another limitation was that diets were only recorded once, years before the onset of dementia, so any changes in diet over time were unknown.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200422214038.htm
Link between obesity and sleep loss
Energy conservation may be a major function of sleep, according to new study in worms
April 22, 2020
Science Daily/University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Can staying up late make you fat? A growing body of research has suggested that poor sleep quality is linked to an increased risk of obesity by deregulating appetite, which in turn leads to more calorie consumption.
But a new study published this week in PLOS Biology found that the direction of this reaction might actually be flipped: It's not the sleep loss that leads to obesity, but rather that excess weight can cause poor sleep, according to researchers from the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine and the University of Nevada, Reno, who discovered their findings in the microscopic worm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans).
"We think that sleep is a function of the body trying to conserve energy in a setting where energetic levels are going down. Our findings suggest that if you were to fast for a day, we would predict you might get sleepy because your energetic stores would be depleted," said study co-author David Raizen, MD, PhD, an associate professor of Neurology and member of the Chronobiology and Sleep Institute at Penn.
Raizen emphasized that while these findings in worms may not translate directly to humans, C. elegans offer a surprisingly good model for studying mammalian slumber. Like all other animals that have nervous systems, they need sleep. But unlike humans, who have complex neural circuitry and are difficult to study, a C. elegans has only 302 neurons -- one of which scientists know for certain is a sleep regulator.
In humans, acute sleep disruption can result in increased appetite and insulin resistance, and people who chronically get fewer than six hours of sleep per night are more likely be obese and diabetic. Moreover, starvation in humans, rats, fruit flies, and worms has been shown to affect sleep, indicating that it is regulated, at least in part, by nutrient availability. However, the ways in which sleeping and eating work in tandem has remained unclear.
"We wanted to know, what is sleep actually doing? Short sleep and other chronic conditions, like diabetes, are linked, but it's just an association. It's not clear if short sleep is causing the propensity for obesity, or that the obesity, perhaps, causes the propensity for short sleep," said study co-author Alexander van der Linden, PhD, an associate professor of Biology at the University of Nevada, Reno.
To study the association between metabolism and sleep, the researchers genetically modified C. elegans to "turn off" a neuron that controls sleep. These worms could still eat, breathe, and reproduce, but they lost their ability to sleep. With this neuron turned off, the researchers saw a severe drop in adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels, which is the body's energy currency.
"That suggests that sleep is an attempt to conserve energy; it's not actually causing the loss of energy," Raizen explained.
In previous research, the van der Linden lab studied a gene in C. elegans called KIN-29. This gene is homologous to the Salt-Inducible Kinase (SIK-3) gene in humans, which was already known to signal sleep pressure. Surprisingly, when the researchers knocked out the KIN-29 gene to create sleepless worms, the mutant C. elegans accumulated excess fat -- resembling the human obesity condition -- even though their ATP levels lowered.
The researchers hypothesized that the release of fat stores is a mechanism for which sleep is promoted, and that the reason KIN-29 mutants did not sleep is because they were unable to liberate their fat. To test this hypothesis, the researchers again manipulated the KIN-29 mutant worms, this time expressing an enzyme that "freed" their fat. With that manipulation, the worms were again able to sleep.
Raizen said this could explain one reason why people with obesity may experience sleep problems. "There could be a signaling problem between the fat stores and the brain cells that control sleep," he said.
While there is still much to unravel about sleep, Raizen said that this paper takes the research community one step closer to understanding one of its core functions -- and how to treat common sleep disorders.
"There is a common, over-arching sentiment in the sleep field that sleep is all about the brain, or the nerve cells, and our work suggests that this isn't necessarily true," he said. "There is some complex interaction between the brain and the rest of the body that connects to sleep regulation."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200422091205.htm
Diet may help preserve cognitive function
April 14, 2020
Science Daily/NIH/National Eye Institute
According to a recent analysis of data from two major eye disease studies, adherence to the Mediterranean diet -- high in vegetables, whole grains, fish, and olive oil -- correlates with higher cognitive function. Dietary factors also seem to play a role in slowing cognitive decline. Researchers at the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health, led the analysis of data from the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) and AREDS2. They published their results today in the journal Alzheimer's and Dementia.
"We do not always pay attention to our diets. We need to explore how nutrition affects the brain and the eye" said Emily Chew, M.D., director of the NEI Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Applications and lead author of the studies.
The researchers examined the effects of nine components of the Mediterranean diet on cognition. The diet emphasizes consumption of whole fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes, fish, and olive oil, as well as reduced consumption of red meat and alcohol.
AREDS and AREDS2 assessed over years the effect of vitamins on age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which damages the light-sensitive retina. AREDS included about 4,000 participants with and without AMD, and AREDS2 included about 4,000 participants with AMD. The researchers assessed AREDS and AREDS2 participants for diet at the start of the studies. The AREDS study tested participants' cognitive function at five years, while AREDS2 tested cognitive function in participants at baseline and again two, four, and 10 years later. The researchers used standardized tests based on the Modified Mini-Mental State Examination to evaluate cognitive function as well as other tests. They assessed diet with a questionnaire that asked participants their average consumption of each Mediterranean diet component over the previous year.
Participants with the greatest adherence to the Mediterranean diet had the lowest risk of cognitive impairment. High fish and vegetable consumption appeared to have the greatest protective effect. At 10 years, AREDS2 participants with the highest fish consumption had the slowest rate of cognitive decline.
The numerical differences in cognitive function scores between participants with the highest versus lowest adherence to a Mediterranean diet were relatively small, meaning that individuals likely won't see a difference in daily function. But at a population level, the effects clearly show that cognition and neural health depend on diet.
The researchers also found that participants with the ApoE gene, which puts them at high risk for Alzheimer's disease, on average had lower cognitive function scores and greater decline than those without the gene. The benefits of close adherence to a Mediterranean diet were similar for people with and without the ApoE gene, meaning that the effects of diet on cognition are independent of genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200414084316.htm
Larger thighs associated with lower risk of heart disease in obesity
April 4, 2020
Science Daily/Society for Endocrinology
A larger thigh circumference may be associated with lower blood pressure and a reduced risk of heart disease in people with obesity, according to a study published in Endocrine Connections. In overweight and obese Chinese men and women, larger thigh circumferences were associated with lower blood pressure. These findings suggest that carrying more weight on the thighs may be a marker of better heart health in Chinese obese and overweight people, who are at a greater risk of heart disease. Thigh circumference may be useful for targeting obese and overweight people for earlier detection high blood pressure.
High blood pressure is a major public health problem affecting more than 1 billion people worldwide and is the leading cause of mortality and disability globally. A number of factors can increase risk of high blood pressure, such as being overweight, lack of exercise, smoking, or a high amount of salt in the diet. Elevated blood pressure causes excess strain on the heart and arteries and can lead to build-up of fat in blood vessels, limiting blood flow. This increases the risk of serious health conditions such as heart disease and stroke.
Many people are unaware they have high blood pressure as it rarely has noticeable symptoms. Therefore, identifying high risk individuals early and employing intervention strategies such as monitoring diet or increasing exercise may help prevent further damage to blood vessels and the heart.
Circumference measurements are easy, low cost and previously effective at evaluating risk of certain diseases -- a large waist circumference is well known to be associated with elevated blood pressure and a small thigh circumference is associated with diabetes. However, there are currently no studies that examine the potential of thigh circumference as an indicator of high blood pressure in people with obesity.
Dr Zhen Yang from Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine investigated the association between thigh circumference and blood pressure in a population of 9,250 Chinese men and women aged 40 or older, of which 5,348 were overweight and obese, and 4,172 were normal weight.
A significant link between larger thigh circumference (more than 55cm in men and 54cm in women) and lower prevalence of high blood pressure was observed consistently in both men and women, independently of age, body mass index, and waist circumference. Whereas those with a small thigh circumference (less than 50cm for women and 51cm for men) were more likely to have elevated blood pressure.
"In contrast to stomach fat, leg fat may be beneficial for metabolism. The most likely cause of this association is that there is more thigh muscle and/or fat deposited under the skin which secretes various beneficial substances that help keep blood pressure in a relatively stable range." Dr Yang explains.
These findings suggest that thigh circumference could potentially be used as a convenient and inexpensive indicator for earlier detection and prevention of high blood pressure and other related complications, such as heart disease, in obese or overweight people. However, due to large differences in thigh circumferences among different races and different physical activity groups, the thigh circumference sizes in this study may not be a reference for other populations.
Dr Yang now plans to further investigate this association by measuring body composition including thigh fat mass, thigh muscle mass, thigh bone mass and thigh proteins. Different proportions of these components may provide clues to the association between thigh circumference and blood pressure and may help us develop future treatments.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200404155609.htm
To reap heart benefits of a plant-based diet, avoid junk food
Plant-based diet found to reduce cardiovascular risk, but only if foods are healthful
March 18, 2020
Science Daily/American College of Cardiology
Plant-based diets are becoming more popular in many areas of the world, but the health benefits of this dietary pattern may depend largely on the specific foods consumed. A new study being presented at the American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session Together with World Congress of Cardiology (ACC.20/WCC) suggests that people following a plant-based diet who frequently consumed less-healthful foods like sweets, refined grains and juice showed no heart health benefit compared with those who did not eat a plant-based diet.
"Based on these results, it seems that simply following a plant-based or vegetarian diet is not enough to reduce cardiovascular disease risk," said Demosthenes Panagiotakos, PhD, professor of biostatistics, research methods and epidemiology at Harokopio University of Athens, Greece and the study's lead author. "It is also important to focus on specific, healthful plant-based food groups to see a benefit in terms of reducing cardiovascular disease."
Researchers tracked eating behavior and the development of heart disease among more than 2,000 Greek adults over a 10-year period, beginning in 2002. Participants were asked to complete a detailed food frequency survey at the time of enrollment, after five years and after 10 years.
At the end of the study period, researchers analyzed the relationship between diet and the development of cardiovascular disease using a dietary index that divided participants into three groups based on the number of animal-based foods (which included meats as well as animal-derived products such as eggs and dairy) they consumed per day. Overall, men eating fewer animal-based foods were 25% less likely to develop heart disease compared to men eating more animal-based foods. The same overall trend was seen in women, but the relationship was less strong, with an overall risk reduction of about 11% among women eating the fewest animal-based foods.
Even though the difference in cardiovascular disease risk was significant between these groups, the overall difference in consumption of animal-based foods was relatively small. Those following a more plant-based diet consumed, on average, three animal-based foods daily while those following a less plant-based diet consumed five.
"These findings highlight that even a small reduction in the daily consumption of animal-based products -- principally the less healthy foods, such as processed meat products -- accompanied by an increase in healthy plant-based foods may contribute to better cardiovascular health," Panagiotakos said.
Focusing in on participants who followed a more plant-based diet, researchers then categorized each participant's diet as either healthful (reflecting increased consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes, oils and tea or coffee) or unhealthful (reflecting increased consumption of juices,
sweetened beverages, refined grains, potatoes and sweets). Only participants following a healthful plant-based diet had a significant reduction in cardiovascular risk compared to those who ate more animal-based products.
Differences in eating patterns -- and associated cardiovascular risk reduction -- were also observed between women and men. In general, men ate about three times per day while women tended to snack more, eating four to five times daily. At the same time, women showed a more dramatic increase in heart disease risk when eating an unhealthful plant-based diet and a more dramatic reduction in risk when eating a healthful plant-based diet compared to men who fell into the same two categories. This suggests that snacking on healthful foods can be beneficial while snacking on unhealthful foods can bring higher risks, Panagiotakos said.
The study was limited by its reliance on questionnaires to track participants' diets. However, the findings bolster evidence for the heart health benefits of a plant-based diet and could help inform future dietary guidance for prevention of cardiovascular disease.
"In the future, I believe it will be useful if cardiovascular disease prevention guidelines offer clearer and specific nutrition suggestions, in terms of the types of foods that are recommended and the portions that should be consumed," Panagiotakos said.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200318104449.htm
Daily avocado consumption improves attention in persons with overweight, obesity
March 10, 2020
Science Daily/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau
A diet including daily avocado consumption improves the ability to focus attention in adults whose measurements of height and weight are categorized as overweight or obese, a new randomized control trial found.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign conducted the 12-week study, published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology.
"Previous work has shown that individuals with overweight and obesity are at higher risk for cognitive decline and dementia in older age," said kinesiology and community health professor Naiman Khan, who led the study. "We are interested in whether dietary approaches may have benefits for cognitive health, especially in midlife."
The Hass Avocado Board and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture supported this work.
Avocados are high in lutein, a dietary component associated with cognitive benefits. Though avocado consumption's benefits have been studied in older adults and children, no randomized controlled trials had studied its cognitive effects on adults with overweight or obesity, despite 70% of the American adult population falling into that category, said graduate student Caitlyn Edwards, the first author of the study.
In the new study, the researchers provided 12 weeks of daily meals to 84 adults with overweight or obesity. The meals were identical in calories and macronutrients, but one group's meals included a fresh avocado every day, while the control group had no avocado in their meals.
At the beginning and end of the study, the participants completed three cognitive tests to measure attention and inhibition. In addition, the researchers measured lutein levels in the participants' serum and in their retinas, which is associated with the lutein concentration in the brain.
They found that the participants whose diets included avocados improved their performance on one of the cognitive tests, called the Flanker task, which measures attentional inhibition -- the ability to maintain focus on the task at hand even in the face of distraction. However, there was no difference in the other two cognitive tests.
"It could be that nutrients in avocados have a specific action in the brain that supports the ability to do this task in particular, or they could be more beneficial for certain cognitive abilities over others," Khan said. "It's also possible that with a longer study or different tests, we could see other effects. Other studies have found broader effects in other populations, so it is interesting to see a more specific benefit for this population."
Another unexpected finding was that, while the participants who ate avocados had higher levels of lutein at the end of the study, the changes in lutein levels were not correlated with their cognitive changes.
"Avocados also are high in fiber and monounsaturated fats. It is possible that these other nutrients may have played a role in the cognitive effects we saw, but we focused on the lutein in our analyses," Edwards said. "Future analyses may focus on other nutrients found in avocados, or avocado consumption's impact on other measures such as weight status, inflammation and potential changes in the microbiome."
Although this study focused on avocados, other dietary sources of lutein, fiber and unsaturated fats -- such as green leafy vegetables or eggs -- also have potential cognitive and health benefits. The researchers say their study shows that small dietary changes, such as eating avocados, can have measurable impacts on cognitive performance, even when other health behaviors remain the same.
"Our mission is to give people options. There are multiple ways people can eat to optimize brain health," Khan said. "What we're learning is that avocados may be one of those fruits that may be neuroprotective in certain ways. This work provides some evidence behind one option people have from a plethora of healthful foods that we can consume."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200310124711.htm
Implicit bias against women: Men more likely than women to be seen as brilliant
New global study finds an unconscious stereotype linked to gender
July 2, 2020
Science Daily/New York University
Men are more likely than are women to be seen as "brilliant," finds a new study measuring global perceptions linked to gender. The work concludes that these stereotyped views are an instance of implicit bias, revealing automatic associations that people cannot, or at least do not, report holding when asked directly.
The research, which appears in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, was conducted by scientists at New York University, the University of Denver, and Harvard University.
"Stereotypes that portray brilliance as a male trait are likely to hold women back across a wide range of prestigious careers," observes Daniel Storage, an assistant professor in the University of Denver's Department of Psychology and the paper's lead author.
"Understanding the prevalence and magnitude of this gender-brilliance stereotype can inform future efforts to increase gender equity in career outcomes," adds Andrei Cimpian, an associate professor in NYU's Department of Psychology and the paper's senior author.
Previous work by Cimpian and his colleagues has suggested that women are underrepresented in careers where success is perceived to depend on high levels of intellectual ability (e.g., brilliance, genius), including those in science and technology.
Less understood are the factors that explain this phenomenon. To address this, the new Journal of Experimental Social Psychologystudy explored the potential impact of stereotypes. For example, perhaps the qualities of genius and brilliance are associated in people's minds with men more than with women -- and, as a result, women are less encouraged to pursue these fields -- or the atmosphere of these fields is less welcoming to women.
However, accurately measuring stereotyping is a challenge. People are often reluctant to admit they have stereotypes, so asking directly about these beliefs is unlikely to provide an accurate measure of whether they endorse the idea that brilliance is more common among men than it is among women.
To overcome this methodological obstacle, the researchers adopted a test that is geared to measure stereotyping indirectly. Here, the aim is to capture implicit stereotypes -- or the automatic associations that come to mind between certain traits (e.g., brilliance) and certain groups (e.g., men). This is in contrast to explicit stereotyping, in which we knowingly and verbally ascribe traits to groups of people.
The team employed a long-established tool, the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which measures the degree of overlap between concepts (e.g., brilliant and male) without explicitly asking subjects whether or not they hold stereotyped views.
The IAT is essentially a speeded sorting task. In the study, participants saw a series of stimuli (such as a picture of a woman or the word "brilliant") on a computer screen and were asked to sort them into two categories by pressing either the E or the I key on their keyboard. For example, in some trials participants were asked to press E if they saw a stimulus that is related to either the category male or the trait brilliant. On other trials, the sorting rule was different. For example, the gender categories were swapped such that participants had to press E if they saw a stimulus that is related to either the category female or the trait brilliant.
The logic of the IAT, the authors explain, is as follows: If brilliant is more associated with male than with female in people's minds, then participants will be faster to sort the stimuli when brilliant and male are paired with the same response key -- because the stereotype makes these two concepts seem like they "go together" -- than when brilliant and female are paired.
Across a series of five studies, which included U.S. women and men, U.S. girls and boys (ages 9 and 10), and women and men from 78 other countries, the researchers consistently found evidence for an implicit stereotype associating brilliance with men more than with women. The magnitude of this stereotype was striking as well -- for example, it was similar in strength to the implicit stereotype that associates men more than women with careers (and women more than men with the family), which was identified in earlier work.
The team also gauged explicit stereotypes, directly asking subjects whether they believed that men are more brilliant than women. In marked contrast to the implicit stereotyping measures, subjects reported disagreeing with this idea -- and, in one study, explicitly associated the quality of being "super smart" with women more than with men. The finding is consistent with previous scholarship showing that people are unlikely admit to stereotyping, reinforcing the importance of measuring such perceptions through more subtle means.
Tessa Charlesworth, a doctoral student at Harvard University and co-author of the paper, notes that "a particularly exciting finding from this work is that, if anything, people explicitly say that they associate women with brilliance. Yet implicit measures reveal a different story about the more automatic gender stereotypes that come to mind when thinking about brilliance."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200702100533.htm
Does 'mommy brain' last? Study shows motherhood does not diminish attention
June 23, 2020
Science Daily/Purdue University
"Mommy brain" is a long-held perception that mothers are more forgetful and less attentive.
"In most studies, however, attention and memory tests are given to mothers very early postpartum," said Valerie Tucker Miller, a Ph.D. student in Purdue University's Department of Anthropology department. Miller is studying the effects of motherhood on attention, memory and other psychological processes.
"There are few issues with that," she added. "When you first have a child, you have a cascade of hormones and sleep deprivation that might be affecting attention and memory processes in the brain."
In a new study testing the prevalence of "mommy brain," Miller used a revised version of the Attention Network Test (ANT), called the ANT-R, to compare reaction times among 60 mothers, all of whom were at least one year postpartum, and 70 non-mothers. The results, published online in the journal Current Psychology, show that mothers performed equally as well or better compared with women who had never been pregnant or had children.
"For this particular study, we recruited moms who were past that first year postpartum because we wanted to see the long-term effects of maternity," she said. "Overall, moms did not have significantly different attention than non-mothers, so we did not find evidence to support 'mommy brain' as our culture understands it. It's possible, if anything, that maternity is related to improved, rather than diminished, attentiveness."
Co-author Amanda Veile, an assistant professor of anthropology at Purdue, said the mixed-method study may be the first to investigate the long-term effects of biological motherhood on real-life attention network functioning. Lisa A. VanWormer, a Purdue University alumna and visiting associate professor of psychology at St. Norbert College, also is a co-author.
Researchers used a seven-point scale to measure participants' responses to survey questions such as, "How sleepy do you feel?" and "How do you think your attentiveness is?" Women's perceived attention functioning was strongly associated with their tested attention scores, regardless of motherhood status, Veile said.
"This means that women have accurate awareness of their cognitive state, and that their concerns regarding their perceived attentional functioning should be taken seriously," she said. "We also believe that 'mommy-brain' may be a culture-bound phenomenon, and that mothers will feel the most distracted and forgetful when they feel stressed, overextended and unsupported. Unfortunately, many U.S. moms feel this way, especially now in the midst of economic and political instability and pandemic."
During the computer test, a cue box flashes for 100 milliseconds in one of two possible locations where a target image will appear on the screen. Next, an image of five arrows, each pointing left or right in consistent or conflicting directions, flashes on the screen for 500 milliseconds. Participants are then asked to press a button that corresponds to the direction of only the middle arrow.
Miller said the test measures response times and provides scores for the three main networks of attention: The alerting network helps the brain prepare for incoming stimuli; the orienting network directs the brain's attention to something new; and the executive control network helps resolve conflicting information.
Mothers in the study were, on average, 10 years older than non-mothers. Even after controlling for age, however, the researchers found that mothers had similar alerting and orienting attention, and better executive control attention, compared to non-mothers.
"Moms were not as distracted by those outside, incongruent items," Miller said. "It makes perfect sense that moms who have brought children into this world have more stimuli that needs to be processed to keep themselves and other humans alive, and then to continue with all the other tasks that were required before the children."
Heightened attention isn't always a good thing. It could become amplified with feelings of stress and isolation, which many U.S. moms experience, causing them to develop anxiety, Veile said.
"We plan to do cross-cultural investigations to further examine how narratives of motherhood and social support are associated with maternal tested attention and well-being around the world," she said.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200623145352.htm
Early-life education improves memory in old age -- Especially for women
June 5, 2020
Science Daily/Georgetown University Medical Center
Education appears to protect older adults, especially women, against memory loss, according to a study by investigators at Georgetown University Medical Center, published in the journal Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition.
The results suggest that children -- especially girls -- who attend school for longer will have better memory abilities in old age. This may have implications for memory loss in Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.
The study tested declarative memory in 704 older adults (58-98 years of age). Declarative memory refers to our ability to remember events, facts, and words, such as where you put your keys or the name of that new neighbor.
Participants were shown drawings of objects, and then were tested several minutes later on their memory of these objects. The investigators found that their memory performance became progressively worse with aging. However, more years of early-life education countered these losses, especially in women.
In men, the memory gains associated with each year of education were two times larger than the losses experienced during each year of aging. However, in women, the gains were five times larger.
For example, the declarative memory abilities of an 80-year-old woman with a bachelor's degree would be as good as those of a 60-year-old woman with a high school education. So, four extra years of education make up for the memory losses from 20 years of aging.
"Simply said, learning begets learning" says the study's senior investigator, Michael Ullman, PhD, a professor in Georgetown's Department of Neuroscience and Director of the Brain and Language Lab. Ullman's research on the relationship between language, memory and the brain has been a cornerstone in the fields of language and cognitive neuroscience.
"Since learning new information in declarative memory is easier if it is related to knowledge we already have, more knowledge from more education should result in better memory abilities, even years later," adds the study's lead author, Jana Reifegerste, PhD, a member of the scientific staff at the University of Potsdam, Germany, who worked on this study as a postdoctoral researcher in Ullman's lab.
"Evidence suggests that girls often have better declarative memory than boys, so education may lead to greater knowledge gains in girls," says Ullman. "Education may thus particularly benefit memory abilities in women, even years later in old age."
The study tested individuals in a non-Western (Taiwanese) population. Participants varied in the number of years of education, from none at all to graduate studies. Future research is needed to test whether the findings generalize to other populations, Ullman says.
"These findings may be important, especially considering the rapidly aging population globally," Reifegerste says. "The results argue for further efforts to increase access to education."
"Education has also been found to delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease," Ullman says. "We believe that our findings may shed light on why this occurs."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200605003035.htm
Exposure to 'good bacteria' during pregnancy buffers risk of autism-like syndrome
Study in rats suggests prenatal microbial exposures influence neurodevelopment
May 27, 2020
Science Daily/University of Colorado at Boulder
Giving beneficial bacteria to stressed mothers during the equivalent of the third trimester of pregnancy prevents an autism-like disorder in their offspring, according to a new animal study by University of Colorado Boulder researchers.
The study, published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, marks the latest in a series of studies in animals and humans suggesting that exposure to certain immune-modulating microbes can dampen inflammation, positively impacting the brain and central nervous system.
It's among the first studies to suggest that such exposures during pregnancy influence neurodevelopment of a fetus and, while far more research is necessary, could open the door to new prenatal interventions.
"It suggests that you could develop microbial interventions that lower the risk of neurodevelopmental syndromes like autism," said co-author Christopher Lowry, an associate professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology.
In humans, research has long shown that maternal stress during pregnancy prompts systemic inflammation in both the mother and fetus and is a risk factor for autism, said senior author Daniel Barth, a professor of psychology and neuroscience.
In a previous study, Barth found that when rats were stressed and given a drug called terbutaline, which is often administered to women to delay preterm labor, their offspring demonstrated an autism-like syndrome -- including the two hallmark features of social deficits and repetitive behavior. They also developed an epilepsy-like seizure disorder.
"Our fundamental question with this new study was whether we could use an immunoregulatory microbe to prevent the long-term consequences of environmental stressors during pregnancy," said first author Zachariah Smith, a post-doctoral researcher in Barth's lab.
For the study, the researchers exposed rats to mild stressors and gave them terbutaline during what would be the equivalent of the third trimester of pregnancy in humans.
Half were also given a series of injections of a heat-killed preparation of a friendly bacterium known as Mycobacterium vaccae (M. vaccae), shown in previous studies to have lasting anti-inflammatory effects on the brain. A third control group of rats got no treatments.
At two and four months, the pups were given a series of tests assessing, among other things, their degree of social interaction and whether they exhibited repetitive behaviors.
As in the previous study, those whose mothers had been stressed and given terbutaline showed autism-like behaviors. But those who had been immunized with M. vaccae did not.
"Immunization with M. vaccae appears to provide some protection against the negative effects of environmental stressors during development, specifically against Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)-like behavior," said Smith.
The inoculation did not appear to protect against development of seizure disorders. But because epilepsy tends to develop later in life, the researchers intend to repeat the experiment with a larger sample size and longer treatment period.
Autism and epilepsy often manifest together in humans, with about 30% of autistic individuals exhibiting epileptic symptoms, such as seizures. Stress-induced inflammation likely plays a role in both, the researchers suspect.
"It could be that if we continue the treatment for longer we could also prevent the development of some cases of epilepsy, but much more research is necessary," said Lowry.
The researchers caution that they are not developing an "autism vaccine" and they are not suggesting that microbial interventions could reverse the disorder in children who already have it. But their study does reinforce the idea that exposure to beneficial microorganisms, sometimes referred to as "old friends," can play a critical role in brain development in utero.
Ultimately, Lowry envisions a day when stressed moms deemed particularly high risk of having a child with a neurodevelopmental disorder could be given a specially formulated probiotic or inoculation to support healthy brain development of their child.
"This is the first maternal intervention that I know of that has been able to prevent an autism-like syndrome, including the behavioral and social aspects," Lowry said. "If this could be replicated in humans, that would be pretty profound."
Meantime, they say, mothers should be cognizant of the potential risks of emotional and environmental stressors, including the drug terbutaline, during pregnancy.
And they should try to expose themselves to beneficial bacteria, through fermented foods like yogurt and sauerkraut and even time spent in nature.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200526173818.htm