Just half of parents recognize screen time impact on children's eye health

July 18, 2022

Science Daily/Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan

In some homes, summer may mean more screen time for kids.

And among concerns that come with children spending more hours on digital devices, video games and televisions -- and less time outdoors -- harm to their eyes.

But just half of parents recognize that screen time has a major impact their child's eye health, suggests the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health at University of Michigan Health.

"Many parents may not be aware of both the short and long-term health issues linked to excessive screen time, including its effect on children's eyes," said Mott Poll co-director Sarah Clark.

"Our findings suggest that some parents may have inaccurate perceptions of activities that affect their child's eye health and vision and how to minimize risks."

The nationally-representative report was based on responses from 2,002 parents of children ages 3-18 surveyed in April.

Some experts have pointed to the combination of increased screen time and less time outdoors as factors that may put children at higher risk for developing myopia, or nearsightedness, which can lead to serious eye problems in the future. The rate of nearsightedness in children has increased dramatically in the past 30 years.

Research is ongoing but studies suggest outdoor time protects against myopia.

"Parents should encourage at least one to two hours of outdoor time per day because exposure to natural light benefits eye development," Clark said.

"Parents should enforce family rules to ensure children have a sustained period of non-screen time during the day. This is especially important during summer months when they're off from school and may have less structured downtime."

Some research has also indicated associations between working up close -- like reading or using a tablet -- increasing the odds of myopia.

"It's important time to think about myopia risks for children because kids with this condition often become more nearsighted over time," said Olivia Killeen, M.D., ophthalmologist at U-M Health Kellogg Eye Center who consulted on the report.

"The age of myopia onset is the most significant predictor of severe myopia later in life."

Using eyewear to minimize risks to children's eyes

Another overlooked area of eye health -- protecting little eyes from intense sunlight.

Less than a third of parents polled say wearing sunglasses when outdoors has a major impact on children's vision and eye health, with just two in five having their child wear eyewear when outdoors.

In fact, when children are outdoors, they should wear sunglasses or wide-brimmed hats to decrease the risks of ultraviolet radiation damage, which can contribute to eye problems in older age, Clark says.

"While parents often make sure their children's skin is protected with sunscreen, they may not think about protecting their eyes from the sun as well," Clark said.

Many parents polled also skip steps that help minimize eye injuries during activities that include a risk of objects hitting the child's eye at high speed or force, with less than a third of parents saying their child wears protective glasses or goggles during contact sports.

Clark recommends parents seek advice from their child's health provider for safe and comfortable eyewear for sports like lacrosse, tennis, baseball and softball, and basketball.

However, most parents polled say children and teens wear protective glasses or goggles when doing activities that pose a risk of eye injuries, including working with tools and playing shooting games like Nerf guns or paintball.

After time spent on screens, the most common factors parent identify as impacting children's vision and eye health are reading in poor light, how close children sit to the TV/screen, diet and blue light from screens.

"Some parents may still follow advice from past generations on protecting kids' eyes," Clark said. "Reading in poor light or sitting close to the TV can cause eye fatigue or strain, but they will not do any permanent damage or long-term eye problems."

Less than a third of parents say children wear glasses that block blue light. While the amount of blue light does not damage eyes, it may impact circadian rhythms and make it harder for children to fall asleep. Experts recommend children stop blue light screen use at least one hour before bedtime.

Regular eye checks to detect problems early

Four in five parents report their child has had a vision test during a visit to the pediatrician or family doctor while more than a fourth say kids were tested at school or daycare.

Most parents report their child's health insurance covers the full or partial cost of visits to an eye doctor while 9% say they are not covered and 7% are unsure. Parents who report no coverage for eye doctor visits are less likely than parents with full or partial coverage to say their child has seen an eye doctor in the last two years.

One in seven parents say their child has not had a vision test or seen an eye doctor in the past two years.

"Children should get vision tests at least every two years to make sure eyes are developing properly," Clark said.

"It's important to identify and treat vision problems as early as possible, because undiagnosed issues can lead to serious eye conditions in the future, including permanent vision loss."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220718094521.htm

Symptoms of insomnia may reduce likelihood of alcohol-induced blackout

Future work to test whether circadian misalignment, common among insomniacs, alters alcohol metabolism

August 8, 2022

Science Daily/Rutgers University

Heavy drinkers with symptoms of insomnia, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, may be less likely to suffer alcohol-induced blackouts, according to a study co-authored by a Rutgers researcher.

It's the opposite of what they expected when they began the study. Historically, research has suggested that insomnia worsens alcohol-related consequences.

"Because insomnia has been shown to impair memory and cognitive functioning, we thought that participants in our study with severe insomnia and high rates of alcohol use would also have the highest rates of blackout frequency," said Angelo M. DiBello, an assistant professor at the Rutgers Center of Alcohol and Substance Use Studies within the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology and a coauthor of the study published in the journal Addictive Behaviors. "What we found was exactly the opposite."

To measure alcohol-induced anterograde amnesia -- commonly referred to as a blackout -- among young adults, DiBello and colleagues from the University of Missouri (first author Mary Beth Miller) and the University of New Mexico (shared first author Cassandra L. Boness) used data collected from 461 college students from an introductory psychology course at a large Midwestern university.

Eligible participants were at least 18 years old and had reported heavy drinking in the past 30 days -- defined as five or more drinks on a single occasion or 14 or more drinks a week for men and more than four and seven drinks, respectively, for women.

Participants were asked about their drinking habits, whether and how often they experienced alcohol-induced blackouts and if they suffered symptoms of insomnia. About a third -- 146 -- met the criteria for insomnia.

Researchers, who believed that the opposite would occur, discovered as alcohol use increased among study participants who reported lower severity of insomnia, blackout frequency increased more than those who reported higher severity of insomnia.

DiBello said more work is needed to understand results that "are contrary to much of the established literature."

But the researchers already have a theory that they plan to test.

One potential explanation is that circadian misalignment, which is common among individuals with insomnia, alters the elimination process of alcohol metabolism, the researchers wrote. Many of the enzymes involved in alcohol metabolism demonstrate time-of-day-dependent variations in activity. If circadian misalignment alters the activity of these enzymes, then it may alter the rate at which alcohol is eliminated from the body.

"We're not saying that the consequences of heavy drinking are absent for those with severe insomnia," DiBello said. "This is not a license to drink heavily if you have trouble sleeping."

"What we are saying, however, is the effect is stronger for those who are low in insomnia," he said. "But of course, people who are high in insomnia who drink a lot still experience elevated blackout frequency compared to those who drink less."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220808162231.htm

Down on Vitamin D? It could be the cause of chronic inflammation

August 7, 2022

Science Daily/University of South Australia

Genetic research shows a direct link between low levels of vitamin D and high levels of inflammation, providing an important biomarker to identify people at higher risk of or severity of chronic illnesses with an inflammatory component.

Inflammation is an essential part of the body's healing process. But when it persists, it can contribute to a wide range of complex diseases including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and autoimmune diseases.

Now, world-first genetic research from the University of South Australia shows a direct link between low levels of vitamin D and high levels of inflammation, providing an important biomarker to identify people at higher risk of or severity of chronic illnesses with an inflammatory component.

The study examined the genetic data of 294,970 participants in the UK Biobank, using Mendelian randomization to show the association between vitamin D and C-reactive protein levels, an indicator of inflammation.

Lead researcher, UniSA's Dr Ang Zhou, says the findings suggest that boosting vitamin D in people with a deficiency may reduce chronic inflammation.

"Inflammation is your body's way of protecting your tissues if you've been injured or have an infection," Dr Zhou says.

"High levels of C-reactive protein are generated by the liver in response to inflammation, so when your body is experiencing chronic inflammation, it also shows higher levels of C-reactive protein.

"This study examined vitamin D and C-reactive proteins and found a one-way relationship between low levels of vitamin D and high levels of C-reactive protein, expressed as inflammation.

"Boosting vitamin D in people with deficiencies may reduce chronic inflammation, helping them avoid a number of related diseases."

Supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council and published in the International Journal of Epidemiology the study also raises the possibility that having adequate vitamin D concentrations may mitigate complications arising from obesity and reduce the risk or severity of chronic illnesses with an inflammatory component, such as CVDs, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases.

Senior investigator and Director of UniSA's Australian Centre for Precision Health, Professor Elina Hyppönen, says these results are important and provide an explanation for some of the controversies in reported associations with vitamin D.

"We have repeatedly seen evidence for health benefits for increasing vitamin D concentrations in individuals with very low levels, while for others, there appears to be little to no benefit." Prof Hyppönen says.

"These findings highlight the importance of avoiding clinical vitamin D deficiency, and provide further evidence for the wide-ranging effects of hormonal vitamin D."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220807161657.htm

The many ways nature nurtures human well-being

New study identifies the multiple intersecting pathways linking the nonmaterial contributions of ecosystems to human well-being

August 5, 2022

Science Daily/University of Tokyo

A systematic review of 301 academic articles on "cultural ecosystem services" has enabled researchers to identify how these nonmaterial contributions from nature are linked to and significantly affect human well-being. They identified 227 unique pathways through which human interaction with nature positively or negatively affects well-being. These were then used to isolate 16 distinct underlying mechanisms, or types of connection, through which people experience these effects. This comprehensive review brings together observations from a fragmented field of research, which could be of great use to policymakers looking to benefit society through the careful use and protection of the intangible benefits of nature.

Do you ever feel the need for a bit of fresh air to energize yourself, or to spend time in the garden to relax? Aside from clean water, food and useful raw materials, nature provides many other benefits that we might overlook or find it hard to grasp and quantify. Research into cultural ecosystem services (CESs), the nonmaterial benefits we receive from nature, aims to better understand these contributions, whether they emerge through recreation and social experiences, or nature's spiritual value and our sense of place.

Hundreds of CESs studies have explored the connections between nature and human well-being. However, they have often used different methods and measurements, or focused on different demographics and places. This fragmentation makes it difficult to identify overarching patterns or commonalities on how these intangible contributions really affect human well-being. Better understanding them could aid real-world decision-making about the environment, which could benefit individuals and the wider society.

To try and get a "big-picture" view, graduate student Lam Huynh from the Graduate Program in Sustainability Science at the University of Tokyo and team conducted a systematic literature review of 301 academic articles. After a critical reading, they were able to identify hundreds of links. "We identified 227 unique linkages between a single CES (such as recreation or aesthetic value) and a single constituent of human well-being (such as connectedness, spirituality, or health). We knew that there are many linkages, but we were surprised to find quite so many of them," said Huynh. "Then, through further critical reading, we could identify major commonalities."

In particular, they identified 16 distinct underlying "mechanisms," or types of connection, which refer to the different ways that people's interaction with nature affects their well-being. For example, there can be positive interactions through "cohesive," "creative" and "formative" mechanisms, but also negative interactions through "irritative" and "destructive" mechanisms. Previous studies had identified some of these mechanisms, but 10 were newly defined, including the more negative effects, clearly showing that our well-being is linked to the intangible aspects of nature in many more ways than previously thought.

According to the paper, the negative contributions to human well-being came mainly through the degradation or loss of CESs, and through ecosystem "disservices," such as annoyance at wildlife noise, which can affect some people's mental health in particular. However, on the other hand, the highest positive contributions of CESs were to both mental and physical health, which were generated mainly through recreation, tourism and aesthetic value.

"It is particularly interesting to note that the identified pathways and mechanisms rather than affecting human well-being independently, often interact strongly," explained co-author Alexandros Gasparatos, associate professor at the Institute for Future Initiatives (IFI) at the University of Tokyo. "This can create negative trade-offs in some contexts, but also important positive synergies that can be leveraged to provide multiple benefits to human well-being."

Despite the comprehensiveness of the review, the researchers acknowledge that there may still be more links that have not yet been identified, especially as the review revealed gaps in the current research landscape. "We hypothesize that missing pathways and mechanisms could be present in ecosystem-dependent communities, and especially traditional and Indigenous communities, considering their very unique relations with nature," said Gasparatos.

"Another of the knowledge gaps we identified is that the existing literature on these nonmaterial dimensions of human-nature relationships mainly focuses on the well-being of individuals rather than on collective (community) well-being," explained Huynh. "This significant gap hinders our capacity to identify possible synergies and trade-offs in ecosystem management research and practice."

The team has now received a grant to explore the effects of CESs provision to human well-being in the urban spaces of Tokyo. "This project is a logical follow-up to test whether and how some of the identified pathways and mechanisms unfold in reality and intersect with human well-being," said Gasparatos.

The researchers hope that this study and similar efforts will make it possible to apply the key findings from this complex and diverse body of knowledge to enable real-world impact. Professor Kensuke Fukushi from IFI and study co-author summarized their hope that "an improved understanding of nature's many connections to human well-being and the underlying processes mediating them, can help policymakers to design appropriate interventions. Such coordinated action could leverage the positive contributions of these connections and become another avenue to protect and manage ecosystems sustainably."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220805154349.htm

How measuring blood pressure in both arms can help reduce cardiovascular risk and hypertension

August 3, 2022

Science Daily/University of Exeter

Blood pressure should be measured in both arms and the higher reading should be adopted to improve hypertension diagnosis and management, according to a new study.

The research, led by University of Exeter, analysed data from 53,172 participants in 23 studies worldwide to examine the implications of choosing the higher or lower arm pressure.

The study, published in Hypertension, found that using the higher arm blood pressure reading reclassified 12 per cent of people as having hypertension, who would have fallen below the threshold for diagnosis if the lower reading arm was used.

Although International guidelines advise checking blood pressure in both arms, the practice is currently not widely adopted in clinics.

Study lead Dr Christopher Clark, from the University of Exeter, said: "High blood pressure is a global issue and poor management can be fatal. This study shows that failure to measure both arms and use the higher reading arm will not only result in underdiagnosis and undertreatment of high blood pressure but also under-estimation of cardiovascular risks for millions of people worldwide."

The team found that using the higher arm measurement compared to using the lower arm resulted in reclassification of 6572 (12.4%) of participants' systolic blood pressures from below to above 130 mm Hg, and 6339 (11.9%) from below to above 140 mm Hg, moving them above commonly used diagnostic thresholds for hypertension.

Dr Clark continued: "It's impossible to predict the best arm for blood pressure measurement as some people have a higher reading in their left arm compared to right and equal numbers have the opposite. Therefore, it's important to check both arms as detecting high blood pressure correctly is a vital step towards giving the right treatment to the right people."

"Our study now provides the first evidence that the higher reading arm blood pressure is the better predictor of future cardiovascular risk."

The study also revealed that higher arm blood pressure readings better predicted all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, and cardiovascular events, compared to the lower arm reading. The authors stressed the importance of assessing both arms in the diagnosis and management of hypertension and cardiovascular diseases.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220803123133.htm

Perceived choice in music listening is linked to pain relief

New findings could help inform music listening-based strategies for reducing acute pain

August 3, 2022

Science Daily/PLOS

A new study explores the use of music-listening to relieve acute pain, finding that people who were given the impression that they had control over the music they heard experienced more pain relief than people who were not given such control. Dr. Claire Howlin of Queen Mary University of London, U.K., and colleagues from University College Dublin, Ireland, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on August 3, 2022.

Music listening can be used for pain relief, especially for chronic pain, i.e., pain lasting more than 12 weeks. However, the underlying mechanisms of these benefits are unclear, especially for acute pain, i.e., pain lasting less than 12 weeks. Basic musical features, such as tempo or energy, seem to be less important for pain relief; instead, feeling able to make decisions about the music may be key for pain relief. However, previous work has largely focused on findings from lab-based samples that did not explore real-world, pre-existing acute pain.

To improve understanding, Howlin and colleagues asked 286 adults experiencing real-world acute pain to rate their pain before and after listening to a music track. The track was specially composed in two different versions of varying complexity. Participants were randomly assigned to hear either the low- or high-complexity version, and some were randomly selected to be given the impression that they had some control over the musical qualities of the track, although they heard the same track regardless of their choice.

The researchers found that participants who felt they had control over the music experienced greater relief in the intensity of their pain than participants who were not given such an impression. In questionnaires, participants reported enjoying both versions of the track, but no links were found between music complexity and amount of pain relief. Additionally, participants who engage more actively with music in their everyday life experienced even greater pain-relief benefits from having a sense of control over the track used in this study.

These findings suggest that choice and engagement with music are important for optimizing its pain-relief potential. Future research could further explore the relationship between music choice and subsequent engagement, as well as strategies for boosting engagement to improve pain relief.

The authors add: "Now we know that the act of choosing music is an important part of the wellbeing benefits that we see from music listening. It's likely that people listen more closely, or more carefully when they choose the music themselves."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220803141240.htm

An effective new treatment for chronic back pain targets the nervous system

August 2, 2022

Science Daily/University of New South Wales

People challenged with chronic back pain have been given hope with a new treatment that focuses on retraining how the back and the brain communicate, a randomised controlled trial run by researchers at UNSW Sydney and Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) and several other Australian and European universities has shown.

The study, funded by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), was described today in a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study, carried out at NeuRA, divided 276 participants into two groups: one undertook a 12-week course of sensorimotor retraining and the other received a 12-week course of sham treatments designed to control for placebo effects, which are common in low back pain trials.

Professor James McAuley from UNSW's School of Health Sciences, and NeuRA said sensorimotor retraining alters how people think about their body in pain, how they process sensory information from their back and how they move their back during activities.

"What we observed in our trial was a clinically meaningful effect on pain intensity and a clinically meaningful effect on disability. People were happier, they reported their backs felt better and their quality of life was better. It also looks like these effects were sustained over the long term; twice as many people were completely recovered. Very few treatments for low back pain show long-term benefits, but participants in the trial reported improved quality of life one year later."

The new treatment challenges traditional treatments for chronic back pain, such as drugs and treatments that focus on the back such as spinal manipulation, injections, surgery and spinal cord stimulators, by viewing long-standing back pain as a modifiable problem of the nervous system rather than a disc, bone or muscle problem.

"If you compare the results to studies looking at opioid treatment versus placebo, the difference for that is less than one point out of 10 in pain intensity, it's only short term and there is little improvement in disability. We see similar results for studies comparing manual therapy to sham or exercise to sham," Prof. McAuley said.

"This is the first new treatment of its kind for back pain -- which has been the number one cause of the Global Disability Burden for the last 30 years -- that has been tested against placebo."

How it works

Prof. McAuley said the treatment is based on research that showed the nervous system of people suffering from chronic back pain behaves in a different way from people who have a recent injury to the lower back.

"People with back pain are often told their back is vulnerable and needs protecting. This changes how we filter and interpret information from our back and how we move our back. Over time, the back becomes less fit, and the way the back and brain communicate is disrupted in ways that seem to reinforce the notion that the back is vulnerable and needs protecting. The treatment we devised aims to break this self-sustaining cycle," he said.

Professor Lorimer Moseley AO, Bradley Distinguished Professor at the University of South Australia said, "This treatment, which includes specially designed education modules and methods and sensorimotor retraining, aims to correct the dysfunction we now know is involved in most chronic back pain and that's a disruption within the nervous system. The disruption results in two problems: a hypersensitive pain system and imprecise communication between the back and the brain."

The treatment aims to achieve three goals. The first is to align patient understanding with the latest scientific understanding about what causes chronic back pain. The second is to normalise the way the back and the brain communicate with each other, and thirdly, to gradually retrain the body and the brain back to a normal protection setting and a resumption of usual activities.

Professor Ben Wand of Notre Dame University, the clinical director on the trial, emphasised that by using a program of sensorimotor training, patients can see that their brain and back are not communicating well, but can also experience an improvement in this communication. He said, "We think this gives them confidence to pursue an approach to recovery that trains both the body and the brain."

Training the body and the brain

Traditional therapies concentrate on fixing something in your back, injecting a disc, loosening up the joints or strengthening the muscles. What makes sensorimotor retraining different, according to Prof. McAuley is that it looks at the whole system -- what people think about their back, how the back and brain communicate, how the back is moved, as well as the fitness of the back.

The study authors say that more research is needed to replicate these results and to test the treatment in different settings and populations. They also want to test their approach in other chronic pain states that show similar disruption within the nervous system. They are optimistic about rolling out a training package to bring this new treatment to clinics and have enlisted partner organisations to start that process.

Once the new treatment is available via trained physiotherapists, exercise physiologists and other clinicians -- Prof. McAuley hopes this to occur in the next six to nine months -- people with chronic back pain should be able to access it at a similar cost to other therapies offered by those practitioners.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220802121722.htm

Some types of stress could be good for brain functioning

Low to moderate levels of stress may help build resilience while reducing risk of mental illness

July 28, 2022

Science Daily/University of Georgia

It may feel like an anvil hanging over your head, but that looming deadline stressing you out at work may actually be beneficial for your brain, according to new research from the Youth Development Institute at the University of Georgia.

Published in Psychiatry Research, the study found that low to moderate levels of stress can help individuals develop resilience and reduce the risk of developing mental health disorders, like depression and antisocial behaviors. Low to moderate stress can also help individuals to cope with future stressful encounters.

"If you're in an environment where you have some level of stress, you may develop coping mechanisms that will allow you to become a more efficient and effective worker and organize yourself in a way that will help you perform," said Assaf Oshri, lead author of the study and an associate professor in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

The stress that comes from studying for an exam, preparing for a big meeting at work or pulling longer hours to close the deal can all potentially lead to personal growth. Being rejected by a publisher, for example, may lead a writer to rethink their style. And being fired could prompt someone to reconsider their strengths and whether they should stay in their field or branch out to something new.

But the line between the right amount of stress and too much stress is a thin one.

"It's like when you keep doing something hard and get a little callous on your skin," continued Oshri, who also directs the UGA Youth Development Institute. "You trigger your skin to adapt to this pressure you are applying to it. But if you do too much, you're going to cut your skin."

Good stress can act as a vaccine against the effect of future adversity

The researchers relied on data from the Human Connectome Project, a national project funded by the National Institutes of Health that aims to provide insight into how the human brain functions. For the present study, the researchers analyzed the project's data from more than 1,200 young adults who reported their perceived stress levels using a questionnaire commonly used in research to measure how uncontrollable and stressful people find their lives.

Participants answered questions about how frequently they experienced certain thoughts or feelings, such as "in the last month, how often have you been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly?" and "in the last month, how often have you found that you could not cope with all the things that you had to do?"

Their neurocognitive abilities were then assessed using tests that measured attention and ability to suppress automatic responses to visual stimuli; cognitive flexibility, or ability to switch between tasks; picture sequence memory, which involves remembering an increasingly long series of objects; working memory and processing speed.

The researchers compared those findings with the participants' answers from multiple measures of anxious feelings, attention problems and aggression, among other behavioral and emotional problems.

The analysis found that low to moderate levels of stress were psychologically beneficial, potentially acting as a kind of inoculation against developing mental health symptoms.

"Most of us have some adverse experiences that actually make us stronger," Oshri said. "There are specific experiences that can help you evolve or develop skills that will prepare you for the future."

But the ability to tolerate stress and adversity varies greatly according to the individual.

Things like age, genetic predispositions and having a supportive community to fall back on in times of need all play a part in how well individuals handle challenges. While a little stress can be good for cognition, Oshri warns that continued levels of high stress can be incredibly damaging, both physically and mentally.

"At a certain point, stress becomes toxic," he said. "Chronic stress, like the stress that comes from living in abject poverty or being abused, can have very bad health and psychological consequences. It affects everything from your immune system, to emotional regulation, to brain functioning. Not all stress is good stress."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220728143014.htm

People with poor sleep behaviors may be at risk for fatty liver disease

Study shows people who stay up late, snore and nap are at highest risk

July 28, 2022

Science Daily/The Endocrine Society

People with sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy sleep behaviors could develop fatty liver disease, according to new research published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Fatty liver disease is the leading chronic liver disease worldwide, affecting about a quarter of the adult population. This type of liver disease is fueled by metabolic disorders such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. Fatty liver disease may progress to end-stage liver disease, posing a major health and economic burden to society.

"People with poor nighttime sleep and prolonged daytime napping have the highest risk for developing fatty liver disease," said Yan Liu, Ph.D., of the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Food, Nutrition and Health and Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. "Our study found a moderate improvement in sleep quality was related to a 29% reduction in the risk for fatty liver disease."

The researchers analyzed self-reported sleep behaviors from 5,011 Chinese adults with fatty liver disease and found late bedtime, snoring and daytime napping for over 30 minutes were significantly associated with an increased risk of fatty liver disease. A moderate improvement in sleep quality led to a 29% reduction in fatty liver disease risk. People with a sedentary lifestyle and central obesity experienced more prominent adverse effects from poor sleep quality than others.

"Our study provides evidence that even a moderate improvement in sleep quality is sufficient to reduce the risk for fatty liver disease, especially in those with unhealthy lifestyles," Liu said. "Given that large proportions of subjects suffering from poor sleep quality are underdiagnosed and undertreated, our study calls for more research into this field and strategies to improve sleep quality."

Other authors of this study include: Jialu Yang, Shiyun Luo, Rui Li, Jingmeng Ju, Zhuoyu Zhang, Jiahua Fan and Min Xia of the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Food, Nutrition and Health and Sun Yat-sen University; and Jichuan Shen, Minying Sun and Wei Zhu of the Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Guangzhou, China.

The study received funding from the National Key R&D Program of China, Sun Yat-sen University, the Key Project of Medicine Discipline of Guangzhou, the Basic Research Project of the Key Laboratory of Guangzhou and the Natural Science Foundation of the Guangdong Province.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220728091037.htm

Study shows link between frequent naps and high blood pressure

July 25, 2022

Science Daily/American Heart Association

Frequent or usual daytime napping in adults was associated with a 12% higher risk of developing high blood pressure and a 24% high risk of having a stroke compared to never napping. Experts say napping, though not unhealthy, may be a sign of poor sleep quality. A higher percentage of frequent nappers were men, had lower education and income levels, and reported cigarette smoking, daily drinking, insomnia, snoring and being an evening person compared to people who reported napping sometimes or never. The Mendelian randomization result shows that if napping frequency increased by one category (from never to sometimes or sometimes to usually) high blood pressure risk increased 40%.

Napping on a regular basis is associated with higher risks for high blood pressure and stroke, according to new research published today in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal.

Researchers in China examined whether frequent naps could be a potential causal risk factor for high blood pressure and/or stroke. This is the first study to use both observational analysis of participants over a long period of time and Mendelian randomization -- a genetic risk validation to investigate whether frequent napping was associated with high blood pressure and ischemic stroke.

"These results are especially interesting since millions of people might enjoy a regular, or even daily nap," says E Wang, Ph.D., M.D., a professor and chair of the Department of Anesthesiology at Xiangya Hospital Central South University, and the study's corresponding author.

Researchers used information from UK Biobank, a large biomedical database and research resource containing anonymized genetic, lifestyle and health information from half a million UK participants. UK Biobank recruited more than 500,000 participants between the ages of 40 and 69 who lived in the United Kingdom between 2006 and 2010. They regularly provided blood, urine and saliva samples, as well as detailed information about their lifestyle. The daytime napping frequency survey occurred 4 times from 2006 -- 2019 in a small proportion of UK Biobank participants.

Wang's group excluded records of people who had already had a stroke or had high blood pressure before the start of the study. This left about 360,000 participants to analyze the association between napping and first-time reports of stroke or high blood pressure, with an average follow-up of about 11 years. Participants were divided into groups based on self-reported napping frequency: "never/rarely," "sometimes," or "usually."

The study found:

• A higher percentage of usual-nappers were men, had lower education and income levels, and reported cigarette smoking, daily drinking, insomnia, snoring and being an evening person compared to never- or sometimes-nappers;

• When compared to people who reported never taking a nap, people who usually nap had a 12% higher likelihood of developing high blood pressure and 24% higher likelihood of having a stroke;

• Participants younger than age 60 who usually napped had a 20% higher risk of developing high blood pressure compared to people the same age who never napped. After age 60, usual napping was associated with 10% higher risk of high blood pressure compared to those who reported never napping;

• About three-fourths of participants remained in the same napping category throughout the study;

• The Mendelian randomization result showed that If napping frequency increased by one category (from never to sometimes or sometimes to usually) high blood pressure risk increased 40%. Higher napping frequency was related to the genetic propensity for high blood pressure risk.

"This may be because, although taking a nap itself is not harmful, many people who take naps may do so because of poor sleep at night. Poor sleep at night is associated with poorer health, and naps are not enough to make up for that," said Michael A. Grandner, Ph.D., MTR, a sleep expert and co-author of the American Heart Association's new Life's Essential 8 cardiovascular health score, which added sleep duration in June 2022 as the 8th metric for measuring optimal heart and brain health. "This study echoes other findings that generally show that taking more naps seems to reflect increased risk for problems with heart health and other issues." Grander is director of the Sleep Health Research Program and the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Clinic and associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

The authors recommend further examination of the associations between a healthy sleep pattern, including daytime napping, and heart health.

The study has several important limitations to consider. Researchers only collected daytime napping frequency, not duration, so there is no information how or whether the length of nap affects blood pressure or stroke risks. Additionally, nap frequency was self-reported without any objective measurements, making estimates nonquantifiable. The study's participants were mostly middle-aged and elderly with European ancestry, so the results may not be generalizable. Finally, researchers have not yet discovered the biological mechanism for the effect of daytime napping on blood pressure regulation or stroke.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220725105620.htm

A healthy lifestyle can offset a high genetic risk for stroke

July 20, 2022

Science Daily/University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

People who are genetically at higher risk for stroke can lower that risk by as much as 43% by adopting a healthy cardiovascular lifestyle, according to new research led by UTHealth Houston, which was published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

The study included 11,568 adults from ages 45 to 64 who were stroke-free at baseline and followed for a median of 28 years. The levels of cardiovascular health were based on the American Heart Association's Life's Simple 7 recommendations, which include stopping smoking, eating better, getting activity, losing weight, managing blood pressure, controlling cholesterol, and reducing blood sugar. The lifetime risk of stroke was computed according to what is called a stroke polygenic risk score, with people who had more genetic risk factors linked to the risk of stroke scoring higher.

"Our study confirmed that modifying lifestyle risk factors, such as controlling blood pressure, can offset a genetic risk of stroke," said Myriam Fornage, PhD, senior author and professor of molecular medicine and human genetics at the Institute of Molecular Medicine at UTHealth Houston. "We can use genetic information to determine who is at higher risk and encourage them to adopt a healthy cardiovascular lifestyle, such as following the AHA's Life's Simple 7, to lower that risk and live a longer, healthier life." Fornage is The Laurence and Johanna Favrot Distinguished Professor in Cardiology at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston.

Each year, 795,000 people in the U.S. suffer a stroke, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That equates to someone having a stroke every 40 seconds, and someone dies from a stroke every 3.5 minutes. Stroke is a leading cause of long-term serious disability with stroke reducing mobility in more than half of stroke survivors age 65 and older. But stroke also occurs in younger adults -- in 2014, 38% of people hospitalized for stroke were less than 65 years old.

People in the study who scored the highest for genetic risk of stroke and the poorest for cardiovascular health had the highest lifetime risk of having a stroke at 25%. Regardless of the level of genetic risk of stroke, those who had practiced optimal cardiovascular health lowered that risk by 30% to 45%. That added up to nearly six more years of life free of stroke.

Overall, people with a low adherence to Life's Simple 7 suffered the most stroke events (56.8%) while those with a high adherence had 71 strokes (6.2%).

A limitation of the paper is the polygenic risk score has not been validated broadly, so its clinical utility is not optimal, particularly for people from diverse racial or ethnic backgrounds.

Co-authors from UTHealth Houston were Nitesh Enduru, MPH; a graduate research assistant with UTHealth Houston School of Biomedical Informatics; and Eric Boerwinkle, PhD, dean of UTHealth School of Public Health. Other contributors were Adrienne Tin, PhD; Michael E. Griswold, PhD; and Thomas H. Mosley, PhD, from the University of Mississippi in Jackson, Mississippi; and Rebecca F. Gottesman, MD, PhD, from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). First author of the paper was Emy A. Thomas, formerly with UTHealth Houston.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220720080124.htm

Vitamin B6 supplements could reduce anxiety and depression

July 19, 2022

Science Daily/University of Reading

Trial participants reported feeling less anxious or depressed after taking high doses of Vitamin B6 for a month. The trial provides evidence that the calming effect B6 has on the brain could make it effective in preventing or treating mood disorders.

Taking high-dose Vitamin B6 tablets has been shown to reduce feelings of anxiety and depression by new research.

Scientists at the University of Reading measured the impact of high doses of Vitamin B6 on young adults and found that they reported feeling less anxious and depressed after taking the supplements every day for a month.

The study, published in the journal Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental, provides valuable evidence to support the use of supplements thought to modify levels of activity in the brain for preventing or treating mood disorders.

Dr David Field, lead author from the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences at the University of Reading, said: "The functioning of the brain relies on a delicate balance between the excitatory neurons that carry information around and inhibitory ones, which prevent runaway activity.

"Recent theories have connected mood disorders and some other neuropsychiatric conditions with a disturbance of this balance, often in the direction of raised levels of brain activity.

"Vitamin B6 helps the body produce a specific chemical messenger that inhibits impulses in the brain, and our study links this calming effect with reduced anxiety among the participants."

While previous studies have produced evidence that multivitamins or marmite can reduce stress levels, few studies have been carried out into which particular vitamins contained within them drive this effect.

The new study focused on the potential role of Vitamins B6, which is known to increase the body's production of GABA (Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid), a chemical that blocks impulses between nerve cells in the brain.

In the current trial, more than 300 participants were randomly assigned either Vitamin B6 or B12 supplements far above the recommended daily intake (approximately 50 times the recommended daily allowance) or a placebo, and took one a day with food for a month.

The study showed that Vitamin B12 had little effect compared to placebo over the trial period, but Vitamin B6 made a statistically reliable difference.

Raised levels of GABA among participants who had taken Vitamin B6 supplements were confirmed by visual tests carried out at the end of the trial, supporting the hypothesis that B6 was responsible for the reduction in anxiety. Subtle but harmless changes in visual performance were detected, consistent with controlled levels of brain activity.

Dr Field said: "Many foods, including tuna, chickpeas and many fruits and vegetables, contain Vitamin B6. However, the high doses used in this trial suggest that supplements would be necessary to have a positive effect on mood.

"It is important to acknowledge that this research is at an early stage and the effect of Vitamin B6 on anxiety in our study was quite small compared to what you would expect from medication. However, nutrition-based interventions produce far fewer unpleasant side effects than drugs, and so in the future people might prefer them as an intervention.

"To make this a realistic choice, further research is needed to identify other nutrition-based interventions that benefit mental wellbeing, allowing different dietary interventions to be combined in future to provide greater results.

"One potential option would be to combine Vitamin B6 supplements with talking therapies such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to boost their effect."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220719091209.htm

Mindfulness meditation reduces pain by separating it from the self

UC San Diego study reveals neural circuitry supporting mindfulness-induced pain relief

July 8, 2022

Science Daily/University of California - San Diego

For centuries, people have been using mindfulness meditation to try to relieve their pain, but neuroscientists have only recently been able to test if and how this actually works. In the latest of these efforts, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine measured the effects of mindfulness on pain perception and brain activity.

The study, published July 7, 2022 in PAIN, showed that mindfulness meditation interrupted the communication between brain areas involved in pain sensation and those that produce the sense of self. In the proposed mechanism, pain signals still move from the body to the brain, but the individual does not feel as much ownership over those pain sensations, so their pain and suffering are reduced.

"One of the central tenets of mindfulness is the principle that you are not your experiences," said senior author Fadel Zeidan, PhD, associate professor of anesthesiology at UC San Diego School of Medicine. "You train yourself to experience thoughts and sensations without attaching your ego or sense of self to them, and we're now finally seeing how this plays out in the brain during the experience of acute pain."

On the first day of the study, 40 participants had their brains scanned while painful heat was applied to their leg. After experiencing a series of these heat stimuli, participants had to rate their average pain levels during the experiment.

Participants were then split into two groups. Members of the mindfulness group completed four separate 20-minute mindfulness training sessions. During these visits, they were instructed to focus on their breath and reduce self-referential processing by first acknowledging their thoughts, sensations and emotions but then letting them go without judging or reacting to them. Members of the control group spent their four sessions listening to an audio book.

On the final day of the study, both groups had their brain activity measured again, but participants in the mindfulness group were now instructed to meditate during the painful heat, while the control group rested with their eyes closed.

Researchers found that participants who were actively meditating reported a 32 percent reduction in pain intensity and a 33 percent reduction in pain unpleasantness.

"We were really excited to confirm that you don't have to be an expert meditator to experience these analgesic effects," said Zeidan. "This is a really important finding for the millions of people looking for a fast-acting and non-pharmacological treatment for pain."

When the team analyzed participants' brain activity during the task, they found that mindfulness-induced pain relief was associated with reduced synchronization between the thalamus (a brain area that relays incoming sensory information to the rest of the brain) and parts of the default mode network (a collection of brain areas most active while a person is mind-wandering or processing their own thoughts and feelings as opposed to the outside world).

One of these default mode regions is the precuneus, a brain area involved in fundamental features of self-awareness, and one of the first regions to go offline when a person loses consciousness. Another is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which includes several sub regions that work together to process how you relate to or place value on your experiences. The more these areas were decoupled or deactivated, the more pain relief the participant reported.

"For many people struggling with chronic pain, what often affects their quality of life most is not the pain itself, but the mental suffering and frustration that comes along with it," said Zeidan. "Their pain becomes a part of who they are as individuals -- something they can't escape -- and this exacerbates their suffering."

By relinquishing the self-referential appraisal of pain, mindfulness meditation may provide a new method for pain treatment. Mindfulness meditation is also free and can be practiced anywhere. Still, Zeidan said he hopes trainings can be made even more accessible and integrated into standard outpatient procedures.

"We feel like we are on the verge of discovering a novel non-opioid-based pain mechanism in which the default mode network plays a critical role in producing analgesia. We are excited to continue exploring the neurobiology of mindfulness and its clinical potential across various disorders."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220708162754.htm

Research reveals how brain inflammation may link Alzheimer's risk, sleep disturbance

July 13, 2022

Science Daily/University of California – Irvine

A multisite research team from the University of California, Irvine, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Wake Forest University has discovered that brain inflammation may link Alzheimer's disease risk with sleep disturbance, which may aid early detection and prevention efforts by identifying novel treatment targets at preclinical stages.

Brain inflammation, sleep disturbance and disrupted brain waves have all been associated with Alzheimer's disease, but the interactions among them have not been investigated until now. The study, published online today in the journal Sleep, examined whether inflammation had any effect on specific brain waves called fast sleep spindles, which have been shown to promote long-term memory retention.

"Our findings indicate that age-related increases in brain inflammation have a downstream effect on Alzheimer's disease-related tau proteins and neuronal synaptic integrity. This results in deficits in the brain's capacity to generate fast sleep spindles, which contribute to age-related memory impairment in older adults. Discovering these mechanisms is an important step in identifying at-risk individuals as early as possible and developing targeted interventions," said Bryce Mander, Ph.D., UCI assistant professor of psychiatry & human behavior and the study's lead and co-corresponding author.

Chronic activation of the brain's immune cells, called "glial cells," increases with age, elevating production of beta-amyloid and tau proteins, the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. Independently, sleep disturbance has been linked to Alzheimer's disease pathology in the brain, and studies have also indicated an association between sleep disturbance and inflammation. Selectively disrupted fast sleep spindles have been identified in normal aging as well as preclinical stages of Alzheimer's disease, but it has not been clear what causes this and what it means for memory impairment in older at-risk adults.

For the study, 58 cognitively unimpaired adults in their 50s and 60s were examined at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. All had a parental history of Alzheimer's or a genetic risk factor for it, but none of them had beta-amyloid plaques or neurofibrillary tau tangles. Sleep was recorded overnight using high-density electroencephalography to map brain wave expression during sleep, and overnight memory retention was assessed. Participants also underwent a lumbar puncture so that cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers of central nervous system inflammation, beta-amyloid and tau proteins, and neuronal integrity could be examined.

Statistical tests were used to evaluate whether the effect of age on fast sleep spindles was mediated by Alzheimer's-related proteins. Researchers found that activation of two types of glial cells -- microglia and astrocytes, which trigger brain inflammation -- was associated with disrupted expression of fast sleep spindles. The fact that these relationships were identified in people without any accumulation of beta-amyloid plaques or neurofibrillary tangles indicates that sleep deficits and inflammation might be among the earliest warning signs of Alzheimer's disease.

"We don't yet know whether anyone in this study will develop Alzheimer's disease dementia, but one of the reasons that our studies enroll participants in midlife is so that we can potentially detect problems before people develop disease symptoms," said co-author Barbara Bendlin, Ph.D., professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"These findings show that the effects of brain inflammation on sleep spindles and memory occur through its effects on neuronal activity and Alzheimer's disease-related proteins and are apparent even before pathological positivity," said Dr. Ruth Benca, the study's senior and co-corresponding author and Wake Forest professor and chair of psychiatry and behavioral medicine. "This offers a promising therapeutic target to stop cognitive decline associated with aging and Alzheimer's."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220713143933.htm

Whether you're 18 or 80, lifestyle may be more important than age in determining dementia risk

July 13, 2022

Science Daily/Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care

Individuals with no dementia risk factors, such as smoking, diabetes or hearing loss, have similar brain health as people who are 10 to 20 years younger than them, according to a new Baycrest study. The study found that a single dementia risk factor could reduce cognition by the equivalent of up to three years of aging.

"Our results suggest lifestyle factors may be more important than age in determining someone's level of cognitive functioning. This is great news, since there's a lot you can do to modify these factors, such as managing diabetes, addressing hearing loss, and getting the support you need to quit smoking," says Dr. Annalise LaPlume, Postdoctoral Fellow at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute (RRI) and the study's lead author.

The study is one of the first to look at lifestyle risk factors for dementia across the entire lifespan.

"While most studies of this nature look at mid- and older-adulthood, we also included data from participants as young as 18, and we found that risk factors had a negative impact on cognitive performance across all ages. This is crucial as it means risk factors can and should be addressed as early as possible," says Dr. Nicole Anderson, Senior Scientist at the RRI, Associate Scientific Director of Baycrest's Kimel Family Centre for Brain Health and Wellness, and senior author of this study.

The study, published today in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment, and Disease Monitoring, a journal of the Alzheimer's Association, included data from 22,117 people aged 18 to 89 who completed the Cogniciti Brain Health Assessment, developed by Baycrest. Participants took the test in their own homes by going to the Cogniciti website (https://cogniciti.com/). The test takes around 20 minutes to complete and consists of a background questionnaire and four cognitive tasks.

The researchers looked at participants' performance on memory and attention tests, and how this was impacted by eight modifiable risk factors for dementia: low education (less than a high school diploma), hearing loss, traumatic brain injury, alcohol or substance abuse, hypertension, smoking (currently or in the past four years), diabetes and depression.

Each factor led to a decrease in cognitive performance by as much as three years of aging, with each additional factor contributing the same amount of decline. For example, having three risk factors could lead to a decrease in cognitive performance equivalent to as much as nine years of aging. The effects of the risk factors increased with age, as did the number of risk factors people had.

"All in all, our research shows that you have the power to decrease your risk of cognitive decline and dementia," says Dr. LaPlume. "Start addressing any risk factors you have now, whether you're 18 or 90, and you'll support your brain health to help yourself age fearlessly."

This research was supported by the Alzheimer Society of Canada, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

With additional funding, the researchers could look further into the differences between normal agers and "super agers" -- people who have identical cognitive performance to those several decades younger than them.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220713114643.htm

Link between air pollution and child brain development strengthened

July 14, 2022

Science Daily/University of Washington

Air pollution is not just a problem for lungs. Increasingly, research suggests air pollution can influence childhood behavioral problems and even IQ. A new study led by the University of Washington has added evidence showing that both prenatal and postnatal exposure to air pollution can harm kids.

The study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, found that children whose mothers experienced higher nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposure during pregnancy, particularly in the first and second trimester, were more likely to have behavioral problems.

Researchers also reported that higher exposures to small-particle air pollution (PM2.5) when children were 2 to 4 years old was associated with poorer child behavioral functioning and cognitive performance.

"Even in cities like Seattle or San Francisco, which have a lot of traffic but where the pollution levels are still relatively low, we found that children with higher prenatal NO2 exposure had more behavioral problems, especially with NO2exposure in the first and second trimester," said Yu Ni, lead author and a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences.

The study involved data gathered from 1,967 mothers recruited during pregnancy from six cities: Memphis, Tennessee; Minneapolis; Rochester, N.Y.; San Francisco; and two in Washington, Seattle and Yakima. Originally, these participants were enrolled as part of three separate studies: CANDLE, GAPPS and TIDES. The three studies have been combined under a major NIH initiative called ECHO, which brings together multiple pregnancy cohorts to address key child health concerns. These three combined cohorts are known as the ECHO PATHWAYS consortium.

The study employed a state-of-the-art model of air pollution levels in the United States over time and space that was developed at the University of Washington. Using participant address information, the researchers were able to estimate each mother and child's exposures during the pregnancy period and early childhood.

Exposure to NO2 and PM2.5 pollution in early life is important to understand, Ni said, because "there are known biological mechanisms that can link a mother's inhalation of these pollutants to effects on placenta and fetal brain development."

Furthermore, once the child is born, the first few years are a critical time of ongoing brain development as the number of neural connections explodes and the brain reaches 90% of its future adult size, the researchers write. For young children, inhaled pollutants that invade deep in the lung and enter the central nervous system can cause damage in areas relevant for behavioral and cognitive function.

"This study reinforces the unique vulnerability of children to air pollution -- both in fetal life where major organ development and function occurs as well as into childhood when those processes continue. These early life perturbations can have lasting impacts on lifelong brain function. This study underscores the importance of air pollution as a preventable risk factor for healthy child neurodevelopment," said senior author Dr. Catherine Karr, a professor in the UW School of Public Health and School of Medicine.

More specifically, the researchers found that exposure to PM2.5pollution was generally associated with more behavioral problems in girls than in boys, and that the adverse effect of PM2.5 exposure in the second trimester on IQ was stronger in boys.

"We hope the evidence from this study will contribute to informed policymaking in the future," Ni said. "In terms of reducing air pollution, the U.S. has gone a long way under the Clean Air Act, but there are threats to continued improvement in the nation's air quality. The evidence suggests there is reason to bring the level of air pollution down even further as we better understand the vulnerability of pregnant women and children."

Co-authors include Christine Loftus, Michael Young and Marnie Hazlehurst, UW Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences; Sheela Sathyanarayana, UW School of Public Health and School of Medicine; Adam Szpiro, UW Department of Biostatistics; Laura Murphy, Frances Tylavsky and W. Alex Mason, University of Tennessee; Kaja LeWinn and Nicole Bush, University of California San Francisco; and Emily Barrett, Rutgers University. This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health through the ECHO-PATHWAYS consortium.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220714145232.htm

Scientists pinpoint reason why women may not respond to depression treatments the same as men

July 13, 2022

Science Daily/University of California - Davis

Although treatments for depression exist, sometimes these treatments don't work for many who use them. Furthermore, women experience higher rates of depression than men, yet the cause for this difference is unknown, making their illnesses, at times, more complicated to treat.

University of California, Davis, researchers teamed up with scientists from Mt. Sinai Hospital, Princeton University, and Laval University, Quebec, to try to understand how a specific part of the brain, the nucleus accumbens, is affected during depression. The nucleus accumbens is important for motivation, response to rewarding experiences and social interactions -- all of which are affected by depression.

Previous analyses within the nucleus accumbens showed that different genes were turned on or off in women, but not in men diagnosed with depression. These changes could have caused symptoms of depression, or alternatively, the experience of being depressed could have changed the brain. To differentiate between these possibilities, the researchers studied mice that had experienced negative social interactions, which induce stronger depression-related behavior in females than males.

"These high-throughput analyses are very informative for understanding long-lasting effects of stress on the brain. In our rodent model, negative social interactions changed gene expression patterns in female mice that mirrored patterns observed in women with depression," said Alexia Williams, a doctoral researcher and recent UC Davis graduate who designed and led these studies. "This is exciting because women are understudied in this field, and this finding allowed me to focus my attention on the relevance of these data for women's health."

The study "Comparative transcriptional analyses in the nucleus accumbens identifies RGS2 as a key mediator of depression-related behavior," was published this month in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

After identifying similar molecular changes in the brains of mice and humans, researchers chose one gene, regulator of g protein signaling-2, or Rgs2, to manipulate. This gene controls the expression of a protein that regulates neurotransmitter receptors that are targeted by antidepressant medications such as Prozac and Zoloft. "In humans, less stable versions of the Rgs2 protein are associated with increased risk of depression, so we were curious to see whether increasing Rgs2 in the nucleus accumbens could reduce depression-related behaviors," said Brian Trainor, UC Davis professor of psychology and senior author on the study. He is also an affiliated faculty member with the Center for Neuroscience and directs the Behavioral Neuroendocrinology Lab at UC Davis.

When the researchers experimentally increased Rgs2 protein in the nucleus accumbens of the mice, they effectively reversed the effects of stress on these female mice, noting that social approach and preferences for preferred foods increased to levels observed in females that did not experience any stress.

"These results highlight a molecular mechanism contributing to the lack of motivation often observed in depressed patients. Reduced function of proteins like Rgs2 may contribute to symptoms that are difficult to treat in those struggling with mental illnesses," Williams said.

Findings from basic science studies such as this one may guide the development of pharmacotherapies to effectively treat individuals suffering from depression, the researchers said.

"Our hope is that by doing studies such as these, which focus on elucidating mechanisms of specific symptoms of complex mental illnesses, we will bring science one step closer to developing new treatments for those in need," said Williams.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220713154246.htm

Maternal milk tied to better school-age outcomes for children born preterm

July 13, 2022

Science Daily/Brigham and Women's Hospital

Children who were born preterm are at heightened risk of lower academic achievement in math, reading and other skills and are also at greater risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). But a new study suggests that an intervention in the first weeks and months of a preterm infant's life may lead to better neurodevelopmental outcomes in later years. In a study that followed preterm infants for seven years, investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital together with collaborators at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute found that children who received greater quantities of maternal milk both during and after time in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) had greater academic achievement, higher IQs and reduced ADHD symptoms. Results are published in JAMA Network Open.

"Our study finds that there may be long-term neurodevelopmental benefits to providing maternal milk to preterm infants," said corresponding author Mandy Brown Belfort, MD, MPH, of the Department of Pediatric Newborn Medicine. "A lot of families are dedicated to the idea of providing maternal milk but may face steep challenges. Our findings emphasize the importance of providing support for initiating and sustaining lactation because maternal milk at this early age can provide benefits years later."

Belfort and colleagues looked at neurodevelopmental outcomes for 586 infants born at less than 33 weeks' gestation at one of five Australian perinatal centers. Children were evaluated at age 7 (corrected for prematurity). The team looked at data on maternal milk dose (volume of maternal milk infants received each day) and maternal milk duration (how long parents continued breastfeeding) predicted several neurodevelopmental outcomes. These outcomes included academic achievement, Verbal and Performance IQ, symptoms of ADHD, executive function, and behavior.

Overall, the team found that higher maternal milk intake was associated with higher Performance IQ and higher reading and math scores. Parents also reported fewer ADHD symptoms for children who consumed more maternal milk during infancy. Duration of maternal milk intake (up to 18 months corrected age) was also associated with higher reading, spelling and math scores. The researchers controlled for confounders, including clinical and social factors. These beneficial associations were stronger for infants born at the lowest gestational ages, particularly those born below 30 weeks of gestation.

The authors note that their study is observational -- they cannot determine causality as there may be other, unaccounted factors that influence both the ability to provide maternal milk and academic achievement. The study's strengths include its large size, the range of outcomes examined, and that the researchers could assess school-age outcomes. Other studies have only followed children through preschool age, making it difficult to assess the full range of neurodevelopmental outcomes.

Overall, Belfort sees the team's findings as an affirmation of guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics and World Health Organization, both of which recommend maternal milk for infants.

"Our study confirms recommended strategies for supporting parents to provide maternal milk for preterm infants," said Belfort. "And it strengthens the call for health policies and parental leave policies that support rather than work against parents. As a society, we need to invest in families -- it's an investment that will continue to benefit children when they reach school age."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220713114545.htm

Is stroke linked to depression before it occurs?

July 13, 2022

Science Daily/American Academy of Neurology

While depression is a common problem for people who have had a stroke, some people may have symptoms of depression years before their stroke, according to a study published in the July 13, 2022, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers foundthat, in people who developed a stroke, symptoms of depression preceded the onset of stroke and further worsened after the stroke.

"Depression is among the most pressing problems in people who have had a stroke and it is so common it is referred to as post-stroke depression," said study author Maria Blöchl, PhD, of the University of Münster in Germany. "But our study found depressive symptoms not only markedly increase after stroke, it found people already had developed some depressive symptoms before the stroke even occurred."

For the study, researchers looked at 10,797 adults with an average age of 65 and without a history of stroke at the start of the study. Participants were followed for up to 12 years. During that time, 425 people had a stroke. They were matched with 4,249 people who did not have a stroke but were similar in their age, gender, racial or ethnic identity, and other health conditions.

Participants took a survey every two years asking whether they experienced symptoms of depression in the past week, including: feeling depressed; feeling lonely; feeling sad; everything was an effort; and restless sleep. The more symptoms participants had, the higher their score.

Researchers found that six years before the time of the stroke, people who later had a stroke and those who did not had scores roughly the same, about 1.6 points. But at about two years before the stroke, scores of people who had a stroke started increasing, on average by 0.33 points. Following stroke, depressive symptoms increased an additional 0.23 points for this group, reaching a total of about 2.1 points and they stayed that high for 10 years after the stroke. In contrast, the scores of people who did not have a stroke remained roughly the same throughout the study.

When evaluating whether people could be considered clinically depressed, scoring three points or higher on the scale, researchers found a slightly different pattern of results emerged. At the assessment before the stroke, 29% of people who were about to have a stroke met the criteria for having probable depression, compared to 24% of those who did not have a stroke. But at the time of the stroke, 34% of the people who had a stroke met the criteria for having probable depression, compared to 24% of those who did not have a stroke. Those numbers were about the same six years after the stroke. "This suggests that increasing symptoms of depression before stroke are mostly subtle changes and may not always be clinically detectable. But even slight increases in depressive symptoms, especially mood and fatigue-related symptoms, may be a signal a stroke that is about to occur," noted Blöchl.

"Depression is not only a post-stroke issue, but also a pre-stroke phenomenon," said Blöchl. "Whether these pre-stroke changes can be used to predict who will have a stroke is unclear. Exactly why depressive symptoms occur pre-stroke needs to be investigated in future research. Also, the study underscores why doctors need to monitor for symptoms of depression long term in people who have had strokes."

A limitation of the study was that researchers did not have enough data on treatments for depression. So, it is possible that some people received antidepressants that could have improved their symptoms of depression following stroke.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220713163353.htm

Moderate drinking linked to brain changes and cognitive decline

July 14, 2022

Science Daily/PLOS

Consumption of seven or more units of alcohol per week is associated with higher iron levels in the brain, according to a study of almost 21,000 people publishing July 14 in the open access journal PLOS Medicine. Iron accumulation in the brain has been linked with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and is a potential mechanism for alcohol-related cognitive decline.

There is growing evidence that even moderate alcohol consumption can adversely impact brain health. Anya Topiwala of the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and colleagues explored relationships between alcohol consumption and brain iron levels. Their 20,965 participants from the UK Biobank reported their own alcohol consumption, and their brains were scanned using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Almost 7,000 also had their livers imaged using MRI to assess levels of systemic iron. All individuals completed a series of simple tests to assess cognitive and motor function.

Participants' mean age was 55 years old and 48.6% were female. Although 2.7% classed themselves as non-drinkers, average intake was around 18 units per week, which translates to about 7½ cans of beer or 6 large glasses of wine. The team found that alcohol consumption above seven units per week was associated with markers of higher iron in the basal ganglia, a group of brain regions associated with control of motor movements, procedural learning, eye movement, cognition, emotion and more. Iron accumulation in some brain regions was associated with worse cognitive function.

This is the largest study to date of moderate alcohol consumption and iron accumulation. Although drinking was self-reported and could be underestimated, this was considered the only feasible method to establish such a large cohort's intake. A limitation of the work is that MRI-derived measures are indirect representations of brain iron, and could conflate other brain changes observed with alcohol consumption with changes in iron levels.

Given the prevalence of moderate drinking, even small associations can have substantial impact across whole populations, and there could be benefits in interventions to reduce consumption in the general population.

Topiwala adds, "In the largest study to date, we found drinking greater than 7 units of alcohol weekly associated with iron accumulation in the brain. Higher brain iron in turn linked to poorer cognitive performance. Iron accumulation could underlie alcohol-related cognitive decline."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220714145141.htm