Youngest children in class more likely to be diagnosed with learning disability
May 6, 2021
Science Daily/University of Turku
Children born in December, in school districts with a December 31 cut-off date, are almost twice as likely to be diagnosed with a learning disorder as those born in January. ADHD was found not to affect the association between month of birth and the likelihood of a learning disability diagnosis.
The new, register based study included children born in Finland between 1996 and 2002. Of nearly 400,000 children, 3,000 were diagnosed with a specific learning disorder, for example, in reading, writing or math by the age of ten.
"We were familiar with the effects of the relative age to the general school performance, but there were no previous studies on the association between clinically diagnosed specific learning disorders and relative age, which is why we wanted to study it," says Doctoral Candidate, MD Bianca Arrhenius from the Centre for Child Psychiatry at the University of Turku, Finland.
In previous studies, children born later in the year, and therefore younger than their classroom peers, have been found to be at increased risk of psychiatric disorders, low academic achievement, and being bullied.
ADHD does not affect learning disabilities
Many children with learning disabilities are diagnosed with ADHD. The study compared children with both learning disability diagnosis and ADHD separately from children with learning disabilities but without ADHD, and ADHD was found not to affect the association between month of birth and the likelihood of a learning disability diagnosis.
"This finding was surprising. In children referred to specialist care, the problems are typically complex. We did not expect the impact of relative age on "pure" learning disorder to be so significant, given previous research findings on relative age to ADHD," says Dr Arrhenius.
"Diagnosing learning disorders with psychological tests also takes the exact age of the child better into account compared with the methods used in diagnosing ADHD. For this reason, too, we expected more moderate differences between the months of birth. It seems that relatively young children are more easily sent to specialized health care," Arrhenius ponders.
Aiming for equality
Research shows that teachers, health care personnel, and parents need to be aware of the phenomenon of relative age, especially when assessing a child's learning ability.
"There is a risk of both over- and under-diagnosis, meaning that the youngest in the class are proportionately diagnosed so much more that the older students in the class may even be deprived of the diagnosis and rehabilitation they need. A more systematic screening for learning disabilities could be one approach that would even out the effect of relative age on referrals to specialized health care," says Arrhenius.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210506104753.htm
Neighborhood disadvantage may be an environmental risk factor for brain development
Study suggests improving social and educational resources could alleviate risk
May 4, 2021
Science Daily/University of Southern California
A new USC study suggests that certain neighborhoods -- particularly those characterized by poverty and unemployment -- may pose an environmental risk to the developing brains of children, impacting neurocognitive performance and even brain size.
The research was published May 3 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
These findings highlight the importance of neighborhood environments for child and adolescent brain development, the researchers said, and suggest that policies, programs and investments that help improve local neighborhood conditions and empower communities could support children's neurodevelopment and long-term health.
"This is the first large, national study of neurodevelopment to determine that the role of neighborhood disadvantage is similar across all regions of the country, and we found that what mattered most were the local differences in neighborhood disadvantage within each city, rather than how cities differ from each other overall," said lead author Daniel Hackman, assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.
Researchers from the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work and the Keck School of Medicine of USC used data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, collected from October 2016 -- 2018. The ABCD Study is the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States.
Neighborhood disadvantage, after accounting for family socioeconomic status and perceptions of neighborhood safety, showed associations with multiple aspects of neurocognition and smaller total cortical surface area, particularly in the frontal, parietal and temporal lobes.
"Our findings aren't specific to the child's home life, as we adjusted for socioeconomic factors at each child's home. But the research suggests neighborhoods may have different levels of social and educational resources and opportunities that can impact a child's neurodevelopment," said senior author Megan Herting, assistant professor at the department of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at USC.
In addition, the researchers said, disadvantaged neighborhoods may lack quality health services, access to nutritional foods, and well-maintained parks and rec facilities; they may also expose residents to more pollutants or social stressors.
"This research is important as it not only highlights that neighborhoods matter, but it also suggests that promoting neighborhood equity based on the unique local conditions within cities may improve short and long-term health and development of children and adolescents," said Hackman.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210504191443.htm
Research delves into link between test anxiety and poor sleep
April 28, 2021
Science Daily/University of Kansas
College students across the country struggle with a vicious cycle: Test anxiety triggers poor sleep, which in turn reduces performance on the tests that caused the anxiety in the first place.
New research from the University of Kansas just published in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine is shedding light on this biopsychosocial process that can lead to poor grades, withdrawal from classes and even students who drop out. Indeed, about 40% of freshman don't return to their universities for a second year in the United States.
"We were interested in finding out what predicted students' performance in statistics classes -- stats classes are usually the most dreaded undergrad class," said lead author Nancy Hamilton, professor of psychology at KU. "It can be a particular problem that can be a sticking point for a lot of students. I'm interested in sleep, and sleep and anxiety are related. So, we wanted to find out what the relationship was between sleep, anxiety and test performance to find the correlation and how it unfolds over time."
Hamilton and graduate student co-authors Ronald Freche and Ian Carroll and undergraduates Yichi Zhang and Gabriella Zeller surveyed the sleep quality, anxiety levels and test scores for 167 students enrolled in a statistics class at KU. Participants completed an electronic battery of measures and filled out Sleep Mood Study Diaries during the mornings in the days before a statistics exam. Instructors confirmed exam scores. The study showed "sleep and anxiety feed one another" and can hurt academic performance predictably.
"We looked at test anxiety to determine whether that did predict who passed, and it was a predictor," Hamilton said. "It was a predictor even after controlling for students' past performance and increased the likelihood of students failing in class. When you look at students who are especially anxious, it was almost a five-point difference in their score over students who had average levels of anxiety. This is not small potatoes. It's the difference between a C-minus abd a D. It's the difference between a B-plus and an A-minus. It's real."
Beyond falling grades, a student's overall health could suffer when test anxiety and poor sleep reinforce each other.
"Studies have shown students tend to cope with anxiety through health behaviors," Hamilton said. "Students may use more caffeine to combat sleep problems associated with anxiety, and caffeine can actually enhance sleep problems, specifically if you're using caffeine in the afternoon or in the evening. Students sometimes self-medicate for anxiety by using alcohol or other sedating drugs. Those are things that we know are related."
Hamilton said universities could do more to communicate to students the prevalence of test anxiety and provide them with resources.
"What would be really helpful for a university to do is to talk about testing anxiety and to talk about the fact that it's very common and that there are things that can be done for students who have test anxiety," she said. "A university can also talk to instructors about doing things that they can do to help minimize the effect of testing anxiety."
According to Hamilton, instructors are hindered by the phenomenon as well: Anxiety and associated sleep problems actually distort instructors' ability to measure student knowledge in a given subject.
"As an instructor, my goal when I'm writing a test is to assess how much a student understands," she said. "So having a psychological or an emotional problem gets in the way of that. It actually impedes my ability to effectively assess learning. It's noise. It's unrelated to what they understand and what they know. So, I think it behooves all of us to see if we can figure out ways to help students minimize the effects of anxiety on their performance."
The KU researcher said testing itself isn't the problem and suggested an increase in regular tests might reduce anxiety through regular exposure. However, she said a few small changes to how tests are administered also could calm student anxiety.
"In classes that use performance-based measures like math or statistics, classes that tend to really induce a lot of anxiety for some students, encouraging those students to take five minutes right before an exam to physically write about what they're anxious about can help -- that's cheap, that's easy," Hamilton said. "Also, eliminating a time limit on a test can help. There's just really nothing to be gained by telling students, 'You have an hour to complete a test and what you don't get done you just don't get done.' That's really not assessing what a student can do -- it's only assessing what a student can do quickly."
Hamilton said going forward she'd like research into the link between test anxiety and poor sleep broadened to include a more diverse group of students and also to include its influence on remote learning.
"The students in this study were mostly middle-class, Caucasian students," she said. "So, I hesitate to say these results would generalize necessarily to universities that have a more heterogeneous student body. I also would hesitate to say how this would generalize into our current Zoom environment. I don't know how that shakes out because the demands of doing exams online are likely to be very different."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210428132955.htm
Childhood air pollution exposure linked to poor mental health at age 18
Risk factor is equivalent to lead exposure, study finds
April 28, 2021
Science Daily/Duke University
A multidecade study of young adults living in the United Kingdom has found higher rates of mental illness symptoms among those exposed to higher levels of traffic-related air pollutants, particularly nitrogen oxides, during childhood and adolescence.
Previous studies have identified a link between air pollution and the risk of specific mental disorders, including depression and anxiety, but this study looked at changes in mental health that span all forms of disorder and psychological distress associated with exposure to traffic-related air pollutants.
The findings, which will appear April 28 in JAMA Network Open,reveal that the greater an individual's exposure to nitrogen oxides across childhood and adolescence, the more likely they are to show any signs of mental illness at the transition to adulthood, at age 18, when most symptoms of mental illness have emerged or begin to emerge.
The link between air pollution exposure and young adult mental illness symptoms is modest, according to the study's first-author Aaron Reuben, a graduate student in clinical psychology at Duke University. But "because harmful exposures are so widespread around the world, outdoor air pollutants could be a significant contributor to the global burden of psychiatric disease," he said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) currently estimates that 9 out of 10 people worldwide are exposed to high levels of outdoor air pollutants, which are emitted during fossil fuel combustion in cars, trucks, and powerplants, and by many manufacturing, waste-disposal, and industrial processes.
In this study, air pollution, a neurotoxicant, was found to be a weaker risk factor for mental illness than other better-known risks, such as family history of mental illness, but was of equal strength to other neurotoxicants known to harm mental health, particularly childhood exposure to lead.
In a previous study in the same cohort, Helen Fisher of King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, and coauthor and principal investigator for this study, linked childhood air pollution exposure to the risk of psychotic experiences in young adulthood, raising concern that air pollutants may exacerbate risk for psychosis later in life.
When combined with studies showing increased hospital admissions for many psychiatric illnesses during "poor" air quality days in countries like China and India, the current study builds on past findings to reveal that "air pollution is likely a non-specific risk factor for mental illness writ large," said Fisher, who noted that exacerbations of mental illness risk may show up differently in different children.
The subjects of this study are a cohort of 2,000 twins born in England and Wales in 1994-1995 and followed to young adulthood. They have regularly participated in physical and mental health evaluations and have provided information about the larger communities in which they live.
Researchers measured exposure to air pollutants -- particularly nitrogen oxides (NOx), a regulated gaseous pollutant, and fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a regulated aerosol pollutant with suspended particles below 2.5 microns in diameter -- by modeling air quality around study member's homes at ages 10 and 18 years using high-quality air dispersion models and data provided by the UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory and the Imperial College's UK road-traffic emissions inventory. Twenty-two percent of the study members were found to have had exposure to NOx that exceeded WHO guidelines, and 84% had exposure to PM2.5 that exceeded guidelines.
The research team, based at Duke and King's IoPPN, also assessed participant mental health at age 18. Symptoms associated with ten different psychiatric disorders -- dependence on alcohol, cannabis, or tobacco; conduct disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and eating disorder; and thought disorder symptoms related to psychosis -- were used to calculate a single measure of mental health, called the psychopathology factor, or "p-factor" for short.
The higher an individual's p-factor score, the greater the number and severity of psychiatric symptoms identified. Individuals can also differ on their mental health across sub-domains of psychopathology, which group together symptoms of distress or dysfunction that are manifested in outwardly visible ways (externalizing problems, like conduct disorder), experienced largely internally (internalizing problems, like anxiety), and via delusions or hallucinations (thought disorder symptoms). Air pollution effects on mental health were observed across these subdomains of psychopathology, with the strongest links to thought disorder symptoms.
Unique to this study, the researchers also assessed characteristics of children's neighborhoods to account for disadvantageous neighborhood conditions that associate with higher air pollution levels and greater risk of mental illness, including socioeconomic deprivation, physical dilapidation, social disconnection, and dangerousness. While air pollution levels were greater in neighborhoods with worse economic, physical, and social conditions, adjusting the study results for neighborhood characteristics did not alter the results, nor did adjustment for individual and family factors, such as childhood emotional and behavioral problems or family socioeconomic status and history of mental illness.
"We have confirmed the identification of what is essentially a novel risk factor for most major forms of mental illness," said Reuben, "one that is modifiable and that we can intervene on at the level of whole communities, cities, and or even countries."
In the future, the study team is interested in learning more about the biological mechanisms that link early life air pollution exposure to greater risk for mental illness at the transition to adulthood. Previous evidence suggests that air pollutant exposures can lead to inflammation in the brain, which may lead to difficulty regulating thoughts and emotions.
While the findings are most relevant to high-income countries with only moderate levels of outdoor air pollutants, like the US and the UK, there are also implications for low-income, developing countries with higher air pollution exposures, like China and India. "We don't know what the mental health consequences are of very high air pollution exposures, but that is an important empirical question we are investigating further," said Fisher.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210428113756.htm
More sleep or more exercise: the best time trade-offs for children's health
April 28, 2021
Science Daily/University of South Australia
More sleep could offset children's excess indulgence over the school holidays as new research from the University of South Australia shows that the same decline in body mass index may be achieved by either extra sleep or extra exercise.
The striking new finding is part of a study that shows how children can achieve equivalent physical and mental health benefits by choosing different activity trade-offs across the 24-hour day.
Conducted in partnership with the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, and supported by the National Heart Foundation of Australia, the team examined the optimal balance between children's physical activity, sleep, and sedentary time across the 24-hour day to better inform tailored lifestyle choices.
On a minute-for-minute basis, moderate-to-vigorous physical exercise was shown to be 2-6 times more potent than sleep or sedentary time.
While exercise has a greater and faster impact on physical health and wellbeing, children may be able to achieve the same 7.4% reduction in body mass index (BMI) by either:
exercising 17 more minutes (moderate-to-vigorous exercise) OR
sleeping an extra 52 minutes OR
reducing their sitting or sedentary time by an extra 56 minutes.
Similarly, children may significantly improve their mental health by either:
exercising 35 minutes more (moderate-to-vigorous exercise), OR
sleeping an extra 68 minutes OR
reducing their sitting or sedentary time by 54 minutes.
The study assessed 1179 children aged 11-12 years, from the cross-sectional Child Health CheckPoint Study. Physical wellbeing was measured via BMI, waist girth and body fat; mental wellbeing was measured via self-reported responses on the Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory.
Lead researcher, UniSA's Dr Dot Dumuid, says that the findings provide options for busy families looking to get the most value out of their day.
"There are many competing time demands in modern families ¬- whether it's after school soccer, music lessons, or simply walking the family dog, finding the time to fit everything into a single day, can be a challenge," Dr Dumuid says.
"International guidelines suggest that children need 9-11 hours' sleep, 60 minutes of physical exercise, and no more than two hours of recreational screen time per day, yet only seven percent of children are regularly meeting these goals.
"With so many competing priorities and commitments, it's helpful to know which activities deliver the greatest 'bang for your buck'.
"In this research we calculated how much sleep, sedentary time, light exercise, and moderate-to-vigorous exercise was associated with the same improvements in mental health, physical health and academic achievement.
"For families with very little available time, small increases in moderate-to-vigorous exercise could be an option to improve children's health and wellbeing; alternatively an earlier night could equally deliver the same health benefits -- importantly, it's the flexibility that these findings offer that make them so valuable.
"Exploring trade-offs between children's activities is a promising way for families to make healthy choices that suit their regular family schedule."
The Heart Foundation's Director of Physical Activity, Adjunct Professor Trevor Shilton, said the Heart Foundation was happy to support such an innovative approach to investigating children's physical health and mental wellbeing.
"This study confirms that physical activity is the quickest and most effective way to deliver benefits for children's physical health and mental wellbeing. But the findings also offer some flexibility for families," Professor Shilton says.
"Helping young people make healthy choices and helping families create an environment that supports them in these choices can improve their quality of life in the future, as well as reducing their risk of chronic diseases, such as heart disease."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210428100253.htm
Mental health may play big role in recovery after a heart attack
Psychological distress found to double the risk of subsequent cardiac events in younger adults
May 6, 2021
Science Daily/American College of Cardiology
Young and middle-aged adults who reported severe psychological distress -- such as depression or anxiety -- after suffering a heart attack were more than twice as likely to suffer a second cardiac event within five years compared with those experiencing only mild distress, according to a study presented at the American College of Cardiology's 70th Annual Scientific Session.
The study is the first to comprehensively assess how mental health influences the outlook for younger heart attack survivors, according to the researchers. The researchers also tracked inflammatory markers that appear to have a role in increasing cardiovascular risk among people experiencing distress. The findings align with previous studies focusing on older adults, bolstering the evidence for mental health as an integral part of a person's recovery after a heart attack.
"Our findings suggest that cardiologists should consider the value of regular psychological assessments, especially among younger patients," said Mariana Garcia, MD, a cardiology fellow at Emory University in Atlanta and the study's lead author. "Equally importantly, they should explore treatment modalities for ameliorating psychological distress in young patients after a heart attack, such as meditation, relaxation techniques and holistic approaches, in addition to traditional medical therapy and cardiac rehabilitation."
The researchers analyzed health outcomes in 283 heart attack survivors between the ages of 18 and 61, with an average age of 51 years. Study participants completed a series of validated questionnaires measuring depression, anxiety, anger, perceived stress and posttraumatic stress disorder within six months of their heart attack. Based on these questionnaires, the researchers established a composite score of psychological distress for each participant and grouped patients based on experiences of mild, moderate and high distress.
Within five years after their heart attack, 80 of the 283 patients suffered a subsequent heart attack or stroke, were hospitalized for heart failure or died from cardiovascular causes. These outcomes occurred in nearly half (47%) of patients experiencing high distress compared to 22% of those experiencing mild distress.
Previous studies suggest inflammation is one mechanism through which psychological distress may lead to heart problems. In the new study, patients who experienced high distress were also found to have higher levels of two inflammatory markers -- interleukin-6 and monocyte chemoattract protein-1 -- in their blood during rest and after mental stress. These markers, which increase during times of mental stress, are known to be associated with plaque buildup in the arteries and adverse cardiac events.
"It is thought that those who have had a heart attack may be particularly vulnerable to plaque rupture as a result of these inflammatory mechanisms at play," Garcia said. "The association we found was independent of known cardiovascular risk factors and suggests mechanisms involving systemic inflammation in response to stress may be implicated in the likelihood of a subsequent cardiac event."
The researchers also found that patients with high distress were more often Black, female and from a disadvantaged socioeconomic background and were more likely to smoke or have diabetes or high blood pressure.
"This finding highlights the importance of socioeconomic status in regard to higher distress and raises important questions about the role of race, sex and other factors," Garcia said.
The researchers plan to further investigate how socioeconomic and demographic factors may influence mental health among people who suffer a heart attack at a young age. Recent studies have suggested younger adults, especially women, account for an increasing proportion of the heart attacks occurring each year in the U.S., Garcia said, underscoring the importance of improving outcomes in this population.
"Outreach to the community has led to increased awareness of traditional heart disease risk factors and focus on things like diet and exercise, but many people, particularly younger people, may not be aware of the importance of mental health," Garcia said. "Our study offers a strong message to people recovering from a heart attack that ameliorating psychological distress is equally important."
Garcia cautioned that causation cannot be proven with an observational study and noted the possibility of recall bias among people with more severe disease, since psychological distress was self-reported in this study. While the study's sample size was relatively small, it did demonstrate a robust association using a prospective design.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210506105433.htm
Too much, too little sleep linked to elevated heart risks in people free from disease
Sleep should be assessed along with other factors that increase heart disease
May 5, 2021
Science Daily/American College of Cardiology
People who clock six to seven hours of sleep a night had the lowest chance of dying from a heart attack or stroke when compared with those who got less or more sleep, according to a study being presented at the American College of Cardiology's 70th Annual Scientific Session. This trend remained true even after the research team accounted for other known conditions or risk factors for heart disease or stroke.
The study, according to researchers, is the first to explore the association between baseline cardiovascular risk and duration of sleep and adds to mounting evidence that sleep -- similar to diet, smoking and exercise -- may play a defining role in someone's cardiovascular risk.
"Sleep is often overlooked as something that may play a role in cardiovascular disease, and it may be among the most cost-effective ways to lower cardiovascular risk," said Kartik Gupta, MD, resident, Division of Internal Medicine, Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and lead author of the study. "Based on our data, sleeping six to seven hours a night is associated with more favorable heart health."
For the study, Gupta and his team included data from 14,079 participants in the 2005-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Participants were followed for a median duration of 7.5 years to determine if they died due to heart attack, heart failure or stroke. Those surveyed were 46 years old on average, half were women and 53% were non-white. Less than 10% of participants had a history of heart disease, heart failure or stroke.
Researchers divided participants into three groups based on answers to a survey question about their average length of sleep -- less sleep (seven hours). Researchers then assessed participants' atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk scores and levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a key inflammatory marker known to be associated with heart disease.
The ASCVD risk score, which accounts for age, gender, race, blood pressure and cholesterol, is widely used to predict how likely someone is to have a heart attack or stroke or die from atherosclerosis, a hardening of the arteries, in the next 10 years. An ASCVD risk score less than 5% is considered low risk.
While the median ASCVD risk was 3.5% among all participants, there was a U-shape relationship based on sleep duration such that participants with six to seven hours had the lowest risk. The median 10-year ASCVD risk among people with less than six, six to seven and more than seven hours of sleep were 4.6%, 3.3% and 3.3%, respectively.
"Participants who slept less than six hours or more than seven hours had a higher chance of death due to cardiac causes. ASCVD risk score was, however, the same in those who sleep six to seven hours versus more than seven hours," Gupta said, adding that the ASCVD risk score may not adequately capture elevated cardiac risk in this subgroup and that results are perhaps stronger for participants sleeping less than six hours a night.
Levels of CRP, a protein made in the liver that rises when there is inflammation in the body, were also higher in participants with longer or shorter durations of sleep.
"Participants who sleep less or more than six to seven hours have higher ASCVD risk scores, which is likely driven by heightened inflammation as measured by CRP, which was found to be higher among those who had less or more sleep," Gupta said, adding that CRP levels were only collected at the start of the study. "The effect of sleep probably accrues over time; it takes time for the damage to happen."
According to the researchers, unlike some risk factors for heart disease that can't be changed, such as age or genetics, sleep habits can be adjusted and should be routinely asked about during medical visits.
"It's important to talk about not only the amount of sleep but the depth and quality of sleep too. Just because you are lying in bed for seven hours doesn't mean that you are getting good quality sleep," Gupta said, adding that this study is limited to sleep quantity, not quality or how well or deeply someone sleeps. For example, sleep apnea, which is a sleep disorder that results in frequent awakenings, is increasingly associated with cardiovascular disease.
The amount of sleep found to be favorable to heart health in this study differs slightly from national recommendations by the National Sleep Foundation and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, which recommend most adults get seven to nine hours or seven or more hours of sleep a night, respectively. But, as Gupta explains, individuals were limited to choosing hour blocks (six, seven or eight hours, for example) when noting sleep time.
More research is needed to further validate these results.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210505090300.htm
Circadian rhythm research could turn early birds into night owls
May 4, 2021
Science Daily/American Institute of Physics
How body clocks work could lead to science that can turn an early bird into a night owl or vice versa as well as other advances, like helping crops grow all year long.
In Applied Physics Reviews, by AIP Publishing, scientists at Penn State report on their work advancing knowledge about circadian rhythms, the natural process that governs sleep and waking patterns in humans, animals, and plants.
Researchers have identified a set of genes, called clock genes, that control these rhythms. But a more complicated network of genes than previously known appears related to circadian rhythms. More fully understanding this network is key to understanding how the rhythms work and could potentially be changed.
The authors detail a statistical model they are using to help identify all the genes involved in this network. With the help of scientists from other disciplines, they hope to fully understand how these genes work together to make one person more productive in the early morning while another thrives in the middle of the night.
Doing so could lead to the creation of medicines that would help someone who is naturally a day person but required to work nights, or one who struggles to be productive first thing in the morning.
"If we understand the gene for a night owl, we can develop a drug to activate that gene for an early bird who has to live a lifestyle like a night owl," said author Rongling Wu, director of the Center for Statistical Genetics at Penn State.
There are also possible health benefits. Disrupted circadian rhythms have been linked to health issues including depression, anxiety, weight gain, and cardiovascular disease.
And while most people probably think of circadian rhythms in humans, plants and animals have them, too. A breakthrough in understanding the clock-gene network could help increase crop production.
For example, wheat, which tends to "rest" during the middle of the day, could be modified to grow all day long and be harvested more quickly. Or a crop that does not grow well in northern areas with less daylight and colder temperatures could have genes altered to make it ignore those conditions.
"We can increase our production," Wu said. "If we can activate the correct gene, we can use all of that time. But we need to bring together different researchers from other fields to better understand such a complex problem."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210504112602.htm
Short-term exposure to air pollution may impede cognition; Aspirin could help
May 3, 2021
Science Daily/Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health
Exposure to air pollution, even over the course of just a few weeks, can impede mental performance, according to a new study led by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. However, these adverse effects were lessened in people taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like aspirin. The study is among the first to explore short-term air pollution exposures and the use of NSAIDs to mitigate their effects. The results are published in the journal Nature Aging.
Examples of events that would increase someone's exposure to air pollution over the short term could include forest fires, smog, second-hand cigarette smoke, charcoal grills, and gridlock traffic.
The researchers examined the relationship between exposures to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and black carbon, a component of PM, and cognitive performance in 954 older white males from the Greater Boston Area enrolled in the Normative Aging Study. They also explored whether taking NSAIDs could modify their relationships. Cognitive performance was assessed using the Global Cognitive Function (GCF) and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scales. Air pollution levels were obtained from a site in Boston.
Elevated average PM2.5 exposure over 28 days was associated with declines in GCF and MMSE scores. Men who took NSAIDs experienced fewer adverse short-term impacts of air pollution exposures on cognitive health than non-users, though there were no direct associations between recent NSAID use and cognitive performance. The researchers postulate that NSAIDs, especially aspirin, may moderate neuroinflammation or changes in blood flow to the brain triggered by inhaling pollution.
"Despite regulations on emissions, short-term spikes in air pollution remain frequent and have the potential to impair health, including at levels below that usually considered hazardous," says senior author Andrea Baccarelli, MD, PhD, chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences. "Taking aspirin or other anti-inflammatory drugs appears to mitigate these effects, although policy changes to further restrict air pollution are still warranted."
The link between long-term PM exposure and impaired cognitive performance in the aging population is well-established. Reported effects include reduced brain volume, cognitive decrements, and dementia development. Air pollution has also been associated with poor cognition of children and adults. Until now, however, little was known about the effects of short-term exposure to air pollution.
The researchers say future studies should investigate the specific effects of chemical components of air pollution on cognitive performance, exposure sources in the environment, and whether cognitive impairments due to short-term air pollution exposures are transient or persistent. Randomized clinical trials of NSAID use are needed to validate their protective effects.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210503135611.htm
Stress slows the immune response in sick mice
April 28, 2021
Science Daily/Cell Press
The neurotransmitter noradrenaline, which plays a key role in the fight-or-flight stress response, impairs immune responses by inhibiting the movements of various white blood cells in different tissues, researchers report April 28th in the journal Immunity. The fast and transient effect occurred in mice with infections and cancer, but for now, it's unclear whether the findings generalize to humans with various health conditions.
"We found that stress can cause immune cells to stop moving and prevents immune cells from protecting against disease," says senior study author University of Melbourne's Scott Mueller (@SMuellerLab) of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute). "This is novel because it was not known that stress signals can stop immune cells from moving about in the body and performing their job."
One main function of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is to coordinate the fight-or-flight stress response -- a group of changes that prepare the body to fight or take flight in stressful or dangerous situations to protect itself from possible harm. Most tissues, including the lymph nodes and spleen, are innervated by SNS fibers. Stress-induced activation of the SNS can suppress immune responses, but the underlying mechanisms have been poorly characterized. "We hypothesized that SNS signals might modify the movement of T cells in tissues and lead to compromised immunity," Mueller says.
White blood cells, also known as leukocytes, travel constantly throughout the body and are highly motile within tissues, where they locate and eradicate pathogens and tumors. Although the movement of leukocytes is critical for immunity, it has not been clear how these cells integrate various signals to navigate within tissues. "We also speculated that neurotransmitter signals might be a rapid way to modulate leukocyte behavior in tissues, in particular during acute stress that involves increased activation of the SNS," Mueller says.
To test this idea, the researchers used advanced imaging to track the movements of T cells in mouse lymph nodes. Within minutes of being exposed to noradrenaline, T cells that had been rapidly moving stopped in their tracks and retracted their arm-like protrusions. This effect was transient, lasting between 45 and 60 minutes. Localized administration of noradrenaline in the lymph nodes of live mice also rapidly halted the cells. Similar effects were observed in mice that received noradrenaline infusions, which are used to treat patients with septic shock -- a life-threatening condition that occurs when infection leads to dangerously low blood pressure. This finding suggests that therapeutic treatment with noradrenaline might impair leukocyte functions.
"We were very surprised that stress signals had such a rapid and dramatic effect on how immune cells move," Mueller says. "Since movement is central to how immune cells can get to the right parts of the body and fight infections or tumors, this rapid movement off-switch was unexpected."
Other experiments revealed that SNS signals inhibit the migration of distinct immune cells, including B cells and dendritic cells, exerting these effects in different tissues such as skin and liver. Additional results suggest that the effects of SNS activation on cell motility may be mediated by the constriction of blood vessels, reduced blood flow, and oxygen deprivation in tissues, resulting in an increase in calcium signaling in leukocytes.
"Our results reveal that an unanticipated consequence of modulation of blood flow in response to SNS activity is the rapid sensing of changes in oxygen by leukocytes and the inhibition of motility," Mueller says. "Such rapid paralysis of leukocyte behavior identifies a physiological consequence of SNS activity that explains, at least in part, the widely observed relationship between stress and impaired immunity."
Moreover, SNS signals impaired protective immunity against pathogens and tumors in various mouse models, decreasing the proliferation and expansion of T cells in the lymph nodes and spleen. For example, treatment with SNS-stimulating molecules rapidly stopped the movements of T cells and dendritic cells in mice infected with herpes simplex virus 1 and reduced virus-specific T cell recruitment to the site of the skin infection. Similar effects were observed in mice with melanoma and in mice infected with a malarial parasite.
"Our data suggest that SNS activity in tissues could impact immune outcomes in diverse diseases," Mueller says. "Further insight into the impact of adrenergic receptor signals on cellular functions in tissues may inform the development of improved treatments for infections and cancer."
The degree to which SNS activation affects leukocyte behavior or disease outcomes in humans remains to be determined. Notably, increased SNS activity is prominent in patients with obesity and heart failure, while psychological stress can cause blood vessel constriction in patients with heart disease. An unappreciated impact of increased SNS activity, particularly in individuals with underlying health conditions, might be impaired leukocyte behavior and functions. The findings may also have important health implications for patients who use SNS-activating drugs to treat diseases such as heart failure, sepsis, asthma, and allergic reactions.
Moving forward, the researchers will further examine the mechanisms by which immune cells are affected by SNS stress signals and explore relevant strategies to boost anti-cancer responses in patients. "This knowledge will allow us to test the impact of drugs that block the sympathetic stress pathway, such as beta blockers, on the outcomes of vaccination and cancer treatments," Mueller says. "These types of drugs might be safe treatment options for patients where stress could contribute to poor immune function."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210428113807.htm
Research shows consuming prebiotic supplements once a day has a positive impact on anxiety levels
April 27, 2021
Science Daily/University of Surrey
In a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers from Surrey investigated whether the daily consumption of a prebiotic food supplement could improve overall wellbeing in a group of 18 to 25 year-olds. The study found that those who received a daily dose of prebiotics improved mental wellbeing by reducing anxiety levels and had better gut health than the control group.
Researchers studied a group of 64 healthy female participants with no current or previous clinical diagnoses of anxiety. Participants received either a daily dose of the prebiotic galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) or a placebo for 28 days.
All those involved in the trial completed surveys about their health experiences, including mood, anxiety and sleep quality and provided a stool sample for gut microbiome sequencing analysis.
Dr Kathrin Cohen Kadosh, Reader in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Surrey and Head of the Social Brain and Development Lab, said:
"This new research marks a significant step forward in that we were able to show that we can use a simple and safe food supplement such as prebiotics to improve both the abundance of beneficial gut bacteria in the gut and to improve mental health and wellbeing in young women."
Dr Nicola Johnstone, Research Fellow from the University of Surrey, said:
"This is an exciting study that brings together different dimensions in mental health research; finding prebiotic effects in a sub-clinical group shows promise for translational clinical research on multiple markers of mental health."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210427122408.htm
Men's loneliness linked to an increased risk of cancer
April 27, 2021
Science Daily/University of Eastern Finland
A recent study by the University of Eastern Finland shows that loneliness among middle-aged men is associated with an increased risk of cancer. According to the researchers, taking account of loneliness and social relationships should thus be an important part of comprehensive health care and disease prevention. The findings were published in Psychiatry Research.
"It has been estimated, on the basis of studies carried out in recent years, that loneliness could be as significant a health risk as smoking or overweight. Our findings support the idea that attention should be paid to this issue," Project Researcher Siiri-Liisi Kraav from the University of Eastern Finland says.
The study was launched in the 1980s with 2,570 middle-aged men from eastern Finland participating. Their health and mortality have been monitored on the basis of register data up until present days. During the follow-up, 649 men, i.e. 25% of the participants, developed cancer, and 283 men (11%) died of cancer. Loneliness increased the risk of cancer by about ten per cent. This association with the risk of cancer was observed regardless of age, socio-economic status, lifestyle, sleep quality, depression symptoms, body mass index, heart disease and their risk factors. In addition, cancer mortality was higher in cancer patients who were unmarried, widowed or divorced at baseline.
"Awareness of the health effects of loneliness is constantly increasing. Therefore, it is important to examine, in more detail, the mechanisms by which loneliness causes adverse health effects. This information would enable us to better alleviate loneliness and the harm caused by it, as well as to find optimal ways to target preventive measures."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210427094811.htm
Should You Start A Keto Diet?
Guest Post by John Mullen
*Note: AV Stim is not endorsing any products or services through guest posts, thanks.
With everyone wanting a new and healthy lifestyle, people are wondering if the Keto diet is worth investing in. While the doctors who created Keto have said that they only recommend it for extreme situations concerning health, new studies are being done to determine if it's safe. So far, they have concluded more investigation is needed. However, with a doctor and coach to guide you, many people have been able to succeed.
What Keto Is About
The Keto diet is meant to help your body in a new way. When wondering if you should start a Keto Diet, you will need to understand what it will do to you. A Keto diet is low carb, moderate protein, and tons of fat. The thought process behind this is that it is believed that you will be able to burn fat more effectively and offer your body additional benefits to utilize. Many doctors have said that this isn't a long-term solution, though others have said that it could be.
The hope is that by adopting a higher fat content diet, your body will be using it as an alternative way to have fuel. When you eat fewer carbs or fewer calories, your liver is believed to produce what is known as ketones. Those ketones are then supposed to be a fuel source for your body to function more healthily.
Who Should Never Attempt Keto
Because of how Keto burns fat and how it affects glucose, if you have diabetes or take medication for this disease, you should never attempt this diet because it can put you into a state of life-threatening ketoacidosis. High blood pressure is another condition that makes this diet a no-go. The same is true if you take medication for it, are pregnant, or breastfeeding, you should never attempt this diet either as it can cause harm to you and your child.
A Coach Can Help
Trusting a coach to help you through this journey will help you in the short and long term. A coach will guide you and allow you to make the best decisions for your body and mind while helping ensure that you stay in good health as long as possible. They will also ensure that you stop if your body can't take this diet. Exercise and watching your food will be another area that they can help. If you find this diet works for you, you may end up with a slimmer form.
Finding A Physical Therapist That Can Help You Heal
Guest Post: John Mullen, Training Cor, Santa Clara CA
Pain doesn't have to be a part of life, but it doesn't have to be. You can end the pain from long-term injuries and tension. If a physical therapist is what you need, you shouldn't wait for the pain to worsen. There are many injuries related to sports, activity from exercising, or injuries from accidents. Whatever the case may be, a physical therapist will be able to help you heal your injuries.
Price
One thing to consider is how it will affect your wallet. Finding a physical therapist that can help you heal shouldn't cause you to go broke. What they should do is clarify your liability while establishing the cost at the outset and establishing how you will be able to pay. Taking any form of payment will be standard and offer plans to ensure that you have an option you can utilize. Most therapy services are usually covered by your insurance as well.
Activities You Can Utilize
Physical therapy centers will each have unique and individualized programs, but they will also have activities in place for you to utilize to help yourself heal and gain strength. These can include things like the following.
Rock climbing
Soccer
Swimming
Bicycling
Weight loss
Committed to helping you in every way, the activities can strengthen joints and troubled areas. For example, swimming is easier on the knees than other activities and is often recommended to help support them.
Areas That Can Be Treated
There are many different areas on your body that can be injured. Another issue to consider is what happens post-partum. Luckily, a proper center will be able to take care of you during that time as well. Some of the different areas that the treatment center can help you with are these.
Hips
Knees
Feet
Ankles
Neck
It might surprise you, but incontinence is an issue that centers work with as well. In many cases, muscle exercises can help strengthen you and help with this particular issue, but they will help you heal in this way.
Choosing The Right Option
When you are looking for someone to help you heal, finding someone you can trust to give you the best treatment is vital. Make the best decision for yourself, and know that you know yourself better than anyone else. The proper therapist will put your needs first while helping you get stronger.
Overgrowth of gut yeast in newborns may increase asthma risk
April 20, 2021
Science Daily/eLife
An overgrowth of yeast in the gut within the first few months of life may cause changes to the immune system that increase the risk of asthma later on, shows a study published today in eLife.
Asthma is a common and sometimes difficult-to-manage, life-long lung condition that affects one in 10 children in developed countries. The findings explain a possible cause of asthma and may help scientists develop new strategies to prevent or treat the condition.
The period just after birth is a critical window for the development of a healthy immune system and gut microbiome. Disruptions to gut bacteria that produce anti-inflammatory compounds called short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) early in life have previously been linked to asthma.
"We recently showed that overgrowth of a type of gut yeast called Pichia kudriavzevii in newborns in Ecuador is associated with an increased risk of asthma," says first author Rozlyn Boutin, an MD/PhD student in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. "In this study, we wanted to see if we could replicate these findings in children from an industrialised setting and identify how fungi of the gut microbiota affect the development of the immune system."
Boutin and colleagues began with a study of 123 newborns in Canada, who are part of the CHILD Cohort Study. They again found that an overgrowth of Pichia kudriavzevii in the stools of the newborns during the first three months of life was associated with a higher risk of asthma.
To understand how this yeast overgrowth might contribute to asthma later in life, the team applied Pichia kudriavzevii to newborn mice with immature gut microbiota communities. In this mouse model of asthma, the team found that the newborns exposed to the yeast experienced more lung inflammation than those who were unexposed. Applying Pichia kudriavzevii to an adolescent mouse model, however, did not cause this excess inflammation.
"Our findings show that there is a critical window in early life where disruptions in the gut microbiota caused by Pichia kudriavzevii affect the development of the immune system and increase the risk and severity of asthma later in life," Boutin says.
Previous studies have shown that bacterial
Research shows pain relieving effects of CBD
April 25, 2021
Science Daily/Syracuse University
It's been hailed as a wonder drug and it's certainly creating wonder profits. By some estimates, the Cannabidiol (or CBD) market could be worth $20 billion dollars by 2024.
While users tout its effectiveness in pain relief, up until now there's been limited experimental human research on the actual effectiveness of the drug. However, a new study led by University researchers sheds light on the ability of CBD to reduce pain along with the impact that the so-called placebo effect may have on pain outcomes.
"For science and the public at large the question remained, is the pain relief that CBD users claim to experience due to pharmacological effects or placebo effects," says Martin De Vita, a researcher in the psychology department in the College of Arts and Sciences. "That's a fair question because we know that simply telling someone that a substance has the ability to relieve their pain can actually cause robust changes in their pain sensitivity. These are called expectancy effects."
De Vita, along with Stephen Maisto, research professor and professor emeritus of psychology, were uniquely prepared to answer that exact question. The pair, along with fellow lab member and doctoral candidate Dezarie Moskal, previously conducted the first systematic review and meta-analysis of experimental research examining the effects cannabinoid drugs on pain.
As the first experimental pain trial to examine CBD, their study yielded consistent and noteworthy results. Among other findings, the data showed that CBD and expectancies for receiving CBD do not appear to reduce experimental pain intensity, but do make the pain feel less unpleasant.
De Vita and Maisto used sophisticated equipment that safely induces experimental heat pain, allowing them to measure how the recipient's nervous system reacts and responds to it. "Then we administer a drug, like pure CBD, or a placebo and then re-assess their pain responses and see how they change based on which substance was administered," says De Vita.
Researchers then took it a step farther by manipulating the information given to participants about which substances they received. In some cases, participants were told that they got CBD when they actually received a placebo, or told they would be getting a placebo when they actually got CBD.
"That way we could parse out whether it was the drug that relieved the pain, or whether it was the expectation that they had received the drug that reduced their pain," according to De Vita. "We hypothesized that we would primarily detect expectancy-induced placebo analgesia (pain relief). What we found though after measuring several different pain outcomes is that it's actually a little bit of both. That is, we found improvements in pain measures caused by the pharmacological effects of CBD and the psychological effects of just expecting that they had gotten CBD. It was pretty remarkable and surprising."
"The data is exciting but pretty complex in that different pain measures responded differently to the drug effect, to the expectancy, or both the drug and expectancy combined -- so we're still trying to figure out what is behind the differential data with different kinds of pain measures," said Maisto. "The next step is studying the mechanisms underlying these findings and figuring out why giving instructions or CBD itself causes certain reactions to a pain stimulus."
Most people think of pain as an on and off switch, you either have it or you don't. But pain, as De Vita describes it, is a complex phenomenon with several dimensions influenced by psychological and biological factors.
For example, whereas pain intensity reflects a "sensory" dimension of pain, unpleasantness represents an "affective," or emotional, aspect of pain. "If you think of pain as the noxious noise coming from a radio the volume can represent the intensity of the pain, while the station can represent the quality," says De Vita.
Results from his previous study showed that while cannabinoid drugs weren't reducing the volume of pain, they were "changing the channel making it a little less unpleasant." According to De Vita, "It's not sunshine and rainbows pleasant, but something slightly less bothersome. We replicated that in this study and found that CBD and expectancies didn't significantly reduce the volume of the pain, but they did make it less unpleasant -- it didn't bother them as much."
As part of the study De Vita and Maisto developed advanced experimental pain measurement protocols "to pop the hood and start looking at some of these other mechanistic pain processes," says De Vita. "It's not just pain, yes or no, but there are these other dimensions of pain, and it would be interesting to see which ones are being targeted. We found that sometimes pharmacological effects of CBD brought down some of those, but the expectancies did not. Sometimes they both did it. Sometimes it was just the expectancy. And so, we were going into this thinking we were going to primarily detect the expectancy-induced pain relief but what we found out was way more complex than that and that's exciting."
One important note to also consider is the source of the CBD. "What we used in our study was pure CBD isolate oil," says De Vita. "Commercially available CBD products differ in their content and purity, so results might be different for different CBD products, depending on what other compounds they may or may not contain."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210423130221.htm
Shift-work causes negative impacts on health, affects men and women differently
April 21, 2021
Science Daily/University of Waterloo
Shift-work and irregular work schedules can cause several health-related issues and affect our defence against infection, according to new research from the University of Waterloo.
These health-related issues occur because the body's natural clock, called the circadian clock, can be disrupted by inconsistent changes in the sleep-wake schedule and feeding patterns often caused by shift work. To study this, researchers at Waterloo developed a mathematical model to look at how a disruption in the circadian clock affects the immune system in fighting off illness.
"Because our immune system is affected by the circadian clock, our ability to mount an immune response changes during the day," said Anita Layton, professor of Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, Pharmacy and Biology at Waterloo. "How likely are you to fight off an infection that occurs in the morning than midday? The answer depends on whether you are a man or a woman, and whether you are among quarter of the modern-day labour force that has an irregular work schedule."
The researchers created new computational models, separately for men and women, which simulate the interplay between the circadian clock and the immune system. The model is composed of the core clock genes, their related proteins, and the regulatory mechanism of pro- and anti-inflammatory mediators. By adjusting the clock, the models can simulate male and female shift-workers.
The results of these computer simulations conclude that the immune response varies with the time of infection. Model simulation suggests that the time before we go to bed is the "worst" time to get an infection. That is the period of the day when our body is least prepared to produce the pro- and anti-inflammatory mediators needed during an infection. Just as importantly, an individual's sex impacts the severity of the infection.
"Shift work likely affects men and women differently," said Stéphanie Abo, a PhD candidate in Waterloo's Department of Applied Mathematics. "Compared to females, the immune system in males is more prone to overactivation, which can increase their chances of sepsis following an ill-timed infection."
The study, Modeling the circadian regulation of the immune system: sexually dimorphic effects of shift work, authored by Waterloo's Faculty of Mathematics' Layton and Abo, was recently published in the journal PLoS Computational Biology.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210421082937.htm
Heart health of shift workers linked to body clock
April 16, 2021
Science Daily/European Society of Cardiology
Working hours that deviate from an individual's natural body clock are associated with greater cardiovascular risk, according to research presented at ESC Preventive Cardiology 2021, an online scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).
"Our study found that for each hour the work schedule was out of sync with an employee's body clock, the risk of heart disease got worse," said study author Dr. Sara Gamboa Madeira of the University of Lisbon, Portugal.
At least 20% of European employees work atypical hours or shifts,2 and growing scientific evidence associates these with deleterious cardiovascular outcomes.3 A number of explanations have been proposed, including sleep disruption and unhealthy behaviours. This study focused on the role of circadian misalignment, which is the difference between the "social clock" (e.g. work schedules) and the individual "biological clock."
Dr. Gamboa Madeira explained: "We all have an internal biological clock which ranges from morning types (larks), who feel alert and productive in the early morning and sleepy in the evening, to late types (owls), for whom the opposite is true -- with most of the population falling in between. Circadian misalignment occurs when there is a mismatch between what your body wants (e.g. to fall asleep at 10pm) and what your social obligations impose on you (e.g. work until midnight)."
The study included 301 blue collar workers, all performing manual picking activity in the distribution warehouses of a retail company in Portugal. Staff always worked either early morning (6am-3pm), late evening (3pm-midnight), or night (9pm-6am) shifts. Participants completed a questionnaire on sociodemographic factors (age, sex, education), occupational factors (work schedule, seniority), and lifestyle factors and had their blood pressure and cholesterol measured.
The Munich ChronoType Questionnaire was used to assess sleep duration, and to estimate each individual's internal biological clock (also called chronotype). It was also used to quantify the amount of circadian misalignment (i.e. the mismatch between an individual's biological clock and working hours) -- referred to as social jetlag. Participants were divided into three groups according to hours of social jetlag: 2 hours or less, 2-4 hours, 4 hours or more.
The researchers used the European relative risk SCORE chart which incorporates smoking, blood pressure and cholesterol to calculate relative cardiovascular risk. Relative risk ranges from 1 (non-smoker with healthy blood pressure and cholesterol) to 12 (smoker with very high blood pressure and cholesterol). In this study, a relative risk of 3 or more was considered "high cardiovascular risk." The researchers then investigated the association between social jetlag and high cardiovascular risk.
The average age of participants was 33 years and 56% were men. Just over half (51%) were smokers, 49% had high cholesterol, and 10% had hypertension. One in five (20%) were classified as high cardiovascular risk. Some 40% had a short sleep duration on workdays (6 hours or less). The average social jetlag was nearly 2 hours. In most workers (59%), social jetlag was 2 hours or less, while for 33% of staff it was 2-4 hours, and in 8% it was 4 hours or more.
A higher level of social jetlag was significantly associated with greater odds of being in the high cardiovascular risk group. The odds of being classified high cardiovascular risk increased by 31% for each additional hour of social jetlag, even after adjusting for sociodemographic, occupational, lifestyle, and sleep characteristics and body mass index.
Dr. Gamboa Madeira said: "These results add to the growing evidence that circadian misalignment may explain, at least in part, the association found between shift work and detrimental health outcomes. The findings suggest that staff with atypical work schedules may need closer monitoring for heart health. Longitudinal studies are needed to investigate whether late chronotypes cope better with late/night shifts and earlier chronotypes to early morning schedules, both psychologically and physiologically."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210416091053.htm
Mindfulness can make you selfish
A pioneering new study examines the social effects of mindfulness
April 14, 2021
Science Daily/University at Buffalo
Mindfulness is big business. Downloads of mindfulness apps generate billions of dollars annually in the U.S., and their popularity continues to rise. In addition to what individual practitioners might have on their phones, schools and prisons along with 1 in 5 employers currently offer some form of mindfulness training.
Mindfulness and meditation are associated with reducing stress and anxiety, while increasing emotional well-being. Plenty of scholarship supports these benefits. But how does mindfulness affect the range of human behaviors -- so-called prosocial behaviors -- that can potentially help or benefit other people? What happens when the research looks outwardly at social effects of mindfulness rather than inwardly at its personal effects?
It's within the area of prosocial behaviors that a new paper by University at Buffalo researchers demonstrates the surprising downsides of mindfulness, while offering easy ways to minimize those consequences -- both of which have practical implications for mindfulness training.
"Mindfulness can make you selfish," says Michael Poulin, PhD, an associate professor of psychology in the UB College of Arts and Sciences and the paper's lead author. "It's a qualified fact, but it's also accurate.
"Mindfulness increased prosocial actions for people who tend to view themselves as more interdependent. However, for people who tend to view themselves as more independent, mindfulness actually decreased prosocial behavior."
The results sound contradictory given the pop culture toehold of mindfulness as an unequivocal positive mental state. But the message here isn't one that dismantles the effectiveness of mindfulness.
"That would be an oversimplification," says Poulin, an expert in stress, coping and prosocial engagement. "Research suggests that mindfulness works, but this study shows that it's a tool, not a prescription, which requires more than a plug-and-play approach if practitioners are to avoid its potential pitfalls."
The findings will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science.
Poulin says independent versus interdependent mindsets represent an overarching theme in social psychology. Some people think of themselves in singular or independent terms: "I do this." While others think of themselves in plural or interdependent terms: "We do this."
There are also cultural differences layered on top of these perspectives. People in Western nations most often think of themselves as independent, whereas people in East Asian countries more often think of themselves as interdependent. Mindfulness practices originated in East Asian countries, and Poulin speculates that mindfulness may be more clearly prosocial in those contexts. Practicing mindfulness in Western countries removes that context.
"Despite these individual and cultural differences, there is also variability within each person, and any individual at different points in time can think of themselves either way, in singular or plural terms," says Poulin.
The researchers, which included Shira Gabriel, PhD, a UB associate professor of psychology, C. Dale Morrison and Esha Naidu, both UB graduate students, and Lauren M. Ministero, PhD, a UB graduate student at the time of the research who is now a senior behavioral scientist at the MITRE Corporation, used a two-experiment series for their study.
First, they measured 366 participants' characteristic levels of independence versus interdependence, before providing mindfulness instruction or a mind wandering exercise to the control group. Before leaving, participants were told about volunteer opportunities stuffing envelopes for a charitable organization.
In this experiment, mindfulness led to decreased prosocial behavior among those who tended to be independent.
In the next experiment, instead of having a trait simply measured, 325 participants were encouraged to lean one way or the other by engaging in a brief but effective exercise that tends to make people think of themselves in independent or interdependent terms.
The mindfulness training and control procedures were the same as the first experiment, but in this case, participants afterwards were asked if they would sign up to chat online with potential donors to help raise money for a charitable organization.
Mindfulness made those primed for independence 33% less likely to volunteer, but it led to a 40% increase in the likelihood of volunteering to the same organization among those primed for interdependence. The results suggest that pairing mindfulness with instructions explaining how to make people think of themselves in terms of their relationships and communities as they're engaging in mindfulness exercises may allow them to see both positive personal and social outcomes.
"We have to think about how to get the most out of mindfulness," Poulin says. "We have to know how to use the tool."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210414100147.htm
How to gain a sense of well-being, free and online
April 14, 2021
Science Daily/Yale University
In 2018, when Professor Laurie Santos introduced her course "Psychology and the Good Life," a class on the science of happiness, it became the most popular in the history of Yale, attracting more than 1,200 undergraduate enrollees that first semester. An online course based on those teachings became a global phenomenon. By latest count, 3.38 million people have enrolled to take the free Coursera.orgcourse, called "The Science of Well Being."
But the popularity of the course posed an interesting question. Does taking the course and participating in homework assignments -- which include nurturing social connections, compiling a gratitude list, and meditation -- really help improve a sense of well-being?
The answer is yes, according to two new studies that measured the psychological impact on individuals who took Santos's or a similar course. The findings suggest that free online courses that teach principles of positive psychology can enrich the lives of millions of people.
In the latest study, published April 14 in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Yale found that people who took the online "Science of Well Being" course reported a greater sense of well-being than those enrolled in another Yale Coursera course, "Introduction to Psychology." Although learners in both classes said they experienced significant improvement in their well-being after taking the courses, those who took the "Science of Well-Being" course reported greater mental health benefits than those learning about the basics of psychology.
Unlike the psychology course, "The Science of Well Being" requires participants to do exercises known to improve psychological health, such as improving sleep patterns, developing exercise routines, and practicing meditation, the authors say. Before and after taking the course, participants answered questions designed to measure factors related to psychological health such as positive emotions, engagement, and strength of relationships.
"Knowledge is great but it isn't enough. You also have to do the work," said lead author David Yaden, research fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins.
A similar study in Health Psychology Open, conducted by researchers at Yale and the University of Bristol, surveyed people who took either a live or an online credit-bearing course based on Santos's original class and found similar psychological benefits for enrollees.
Yaden stressed, however, that the classes are not a substitute for professional treatment for those who suffer from diagnosed mental illness. "These courses are not a panacea or replacement for psychotherapy or medication," he said.
However, both Yaden and Santos, who co-authored the study, say the findings show that massive open online courses can provide at least modest value to millions of people at no cost.
"We wanted to know if we could scale these benefits and we can," Santos said. "Even bringing a small mental health benefit to millions of people can have a huge value."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210414155014.htm