T.G.I.F.

House Panel Reaches Deal on Health-Care Bill

The chairman of a pivotal House committee announced Friday that he had reached an agreement with other Democrats that would allow the panel to approve sweeping health legislation later in the day. The chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said the agreement supplements a deal struck Wednesday with the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of fiscally conservative Democrats on his panel, the Energy and Commerce Committee.

To avoid cutting subsidies for low-income people, Mr. Waxman said, Democrats would find additional savings elsewhere in the bill.

Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, said the Blue Dog deal would hold down costs. But she said, "It was paid for on the backs of people who cannot afford health insurance," so liberals raised concerns.

Representative Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin, said some of the additional savings would come from pharmaceutical companies.

Source and More
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/health/policy/01health.html?_r=1&ref=health
___________________________________________________________________________
Slovenia to launch generic version of Viagra

Krka, the biggest drugmaker in Slovenia, said Friday that its generic version of the impotency drug Viagra would be launched in September and priced 30 percent cheaper than the original.

"We'll launch it first in Slovenia and later on, when the patents expire in other countries (in 2012), we'll offer it in central, eastern and western Europe as well," Krka chief executive Joze Colaric told the Internet news site, Zurnal24.

Russia, in particular, was seen as an important market.

Krka's version of the erectile dysfunction drug would be marketed under the name "vizarsin" and, unlike the blue pills made by US drug giant Pfizer, would be white in colour, Colaric said.

The European Medicines Agency EMEA authorised the marketing of Krka's generic version of Viagra on June 25.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news168271655.html
___________________________________________________________________________
New Study Finds Organic Doesn’t Mean More Nutritious

Organic food, which was once only available in small stores or farmers’ markets, is now the fastest growing sector of the American food marketplace, despite its higher costs. In 2008, the value of retail sales of organic food was estimated to be more than $28 billion, up from $1 billion in 1990. And, according to the Food Marketing Institute, more than half of Americans now buy organic food at least one a month. So why this surge in popularity? Why pay more for food because it’s organically grown? Do organic foods offer more nutritional value than their traditionally grown counterparts?

Whether or not organically grown foods are more nutritious has become a hotbed of debate, and the answer would likely depend on who one asked. For instance, The Organic Center (TOC), a pro-organic nonprofit research organization in Foster, Rhode Island recently concluded that organic foods, on average, offer a 25 percent higher nutrient level over conventional ones. And researchers at University of California at Davis claim to have found higher levels of nutrients in organic tomatoes, kiwifruit, corn, and strawberries grown side-by-side with conventional versions.

Source and More:
http://www.healthnews.com/nutrition-diet/n...tious-3513.html

___________________________________________________________________________
Preventing Mental, Emotional And Behavioral Disorders In Young People

Around one in five young people in the U.S. have a current mental, emotional, or behavioral disorder. About half of all adults with mental disorders recalled that their disorders began by their mid-teens and three-quarters by their mid-20s. Early onset of mental health problems have been associated with poor outcomes such as failure to complete high school, increased risk for psychiatric and substance problems, and teen pregnancy.

A new article by Mary E. Evans, RN, PhD, FAAN, published in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing assesses the recently released government report on preventing these disorders among young people. Dr. Evans' paper concludes that using certain interventional programs in schools, communities and health care settings, risk for mental illness can be better identified and treated.

The article highlights the fact that specific risk and protective factors have been identified for many disorders. For example, certain thinking and behavioral patterns are risks for the development of depression. Nonspecific factors that increase risk for developing disorders also include poverty, marital conflict, poor peer relations, and community violence. Also, certain neurobiological factors contribute to the development of disorders in youth, but this is also influenced by environmental factors.

Source and More
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/159357.php
___________________________________________________________________________
Risk Factors for Disordered Eating

A new research effort has identified factors that may increase the risk of eating disorders among overweight teens.

Eating disorders for extreme weight control include self-induced vomiting, the use of diet pills, laxatives, and diuretics, as well as binge eating.

University of Minnesota researchers discovered overweight youth with certain socio-environmental, psychological, and behavioral tendencies, such as reading magazine articles about dieting, reporting a lack of family connectedness, placing a high importance on weight, and reporting having participated in unhealthy weight control behaviors, are more likely to suffer from eating disorders.

Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.D., School of Public Health, and colleagues used data from Project Eating Among Teens (EAT), an ongoing study that assessed eating and weight-related behaviors in 4,746 adolescents from 31 urban Minneapolis-St. Paul schools during the 1998-99 academic year.

Youth were surveyed at two time points; the first occurring when participants were in middle school and high school, and the second occurring five years later.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/31/risk-factors-for-disordered-eating/7460.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Medical Risks Associated With Bipolar

An extensive analysis of insurance claims data underscores the additional medical complications that may arise among individuals with bipolar disease.

The new study demonstrated that patients with a bipolar diagnosis were at greater risk for a wide range of comorbid conditions.

Patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder were 3.13 times more likely than the control group to have a trauma or an incident related to the treatment of the disorder (such as craniocerebral injury or lithium toxicity).

Additionally, bipolar patients were 1.68 times more likely to have an endocrine or metabolic disorder than were patients with no mental health diagnoses.

Medications to treat bipolar disorder such as mood stabilizers and antipsychotic medication have been associated with increased risk for endocrine disorders including hypothyroidism, diabetes, and hyperparathyroidism.

Studies have shown bipolar disorder is associated with poor health behaviors such as overeating and smoking. Obesity is an established risk factor for diabetes mellitus and other metabolic disorders.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/31/medical-risks-associated-with-bipolar/7465.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Is Rorschach Inkblot Test Outdated?

A well-established psychological test is coming under the gun as a new research effort reviews the test’s reliability and validity.

The Rorschach Inkblot Test involves a viewer looking at ten inkblots, one at a time, and describing what they see.

The rationale behind this test is that certain aspects of the subject’s personality will be exposed as they are interpreting the images, allowing for the possible diagnosis of various psychological disorders.

The new review, published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, determined that despite its popularity, the Rorschach may not be the best diagnostic tool and that practitioners need to be cautious in how they use this technique and interpret their results.

The Rorschach Inkblot Test was developed in the 1920s, but was already mired in controversy within 30 years. Critics argued that it was not always administered in a standardized way and evidence for its reliability was lacking.

However, the Rorschach was revived in the 1970s with the publication of John Exner’s Comprehensive System (CS), which detailed standards and norms for analyzing results. The CS was credited with providing a concrete, scientific basis for the Rorschach test and it became widely used in clinical and forensic settings.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/31/is-rorschach-inkblot-test-outdated/7467.html

Site of the day

This site has been such a wealth of knowledge and great stories I have brought here since this blog began I want to make it our Site Of The Day today.

There are so many great articles in today's online release:

Psychology & Mental Health News
http://psychcentral.com/news/

Have a great day and O hope you enjoy this site as much as I do.

Wacked Wednesday

Research shows rates of severe childhood obesity have tripled

Rates of severe childhood obesity have tripled in the last 25 years, putting many children at risk for diabetes and heart disease, according to a report in Academic Pediatrics by an obesity expert at Brenner Children's Hospital, part of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news168093796.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Diabetes gene raises odds of lower birth weight

Pediatric researchers have found that a gene previously shown to be involved in the development of type 2 diabetes also predisposes children to having a lower birth weight. The finding sheds light on a possible genetic influence on how prenatal events may set the stage for developing diabetes in later childhood or adulthood.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news168093004.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Errors in diagnosis of depression lead to over and under diagnosis in primary care

A meta-analysis of more than 50,000 patients has shown that general practitioners (GPs) have great difficulty separating those with and without depression, with substantial numbers of missed and misidentified.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news168092624.html
___________________________________________________________________________
If bipolar disorder is over-diagnosed, what are the actual diagnoses?

A year ago, a study by Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University researchers reported that fewer than half the patients previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder received an actual diagnosis of bipolar disorder after using a comprehensive, psychiatric diagnostic interview tool --the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID). In this follow-up study, the researchers have determined the actual diagnoses of those patients. Their study is published in the July 28 ahead of print online edition of The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news168084800.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Baby with two heads born in Philippines



Doctors at a Philippine hospital were Wednesday trying to save a baby girl born with two heads, officials said.

The baby was born late Tuesday and is now under observation at the neo-natal intensive care unit of the Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila.

A hospital spokeswoman said the baby was stable at the moment, but said she may die if tests proved both heads shared only one set of vital organs.

"The rate of survival will depend on the shared organ. If they only have one heart, they will not survive," the unidentified spokeswoman told local radio.

Reports said the father Salvador Arganda was a tricycle driver. He and his wife, Chateria, already have five other children and there was no known history of twins in the family.

Officials at the hospital said the extra head appeared to be a twin of the girl who failed to fully separate during the development stage in early pregnancy.

"This is the first case of its kind here in the hospital," one Fabella doctor said, but said other hospitals in Manila have in the past recorded similar cases.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news168072930.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Health Professionals Experience Difficulty Treating Patients With Dual Mental Health Diagnoses

The Washington Post tells the story of Danny Watt, who drowned in April 2008 after a lifelong struggle with mental health. Watt had a dual diagnosis: a serious mental illness along with abuse of drugs or alcohol.

"Danny Watt was a walking symbol of a phenomenon called co-occurring disorders, or dual diagnosis, which is estimated to affect 7 million adults in the United States. … About half of all adults who are seriously mentally ill are also thought to be addicted. The mental health community calls this 'self-medication.' The federal government estimates that 90 percent of people with co-occurring disorders do not get the treatment they need."

According to officials interviewed by the Post, "'He is responsible for his care, and he has decisions and choices to make,' said William H. Williams Jr., the agency's director of alcohol and drug services. 'When you look at the number of challenges that faced this particular case, I think we did an exceptional job in trying to resolve this young man's issues.'"

Source and More
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/159145.php
___________________________________________________________________________
Cloudy Days Slow Mental Abilities in Depressed Individuals

A new research effort links a lack of sunlight with reduced cognitive function among depressed individuals.

Researchers used weather data from NASA satellites to measure sunlight exposure across the United States and linked this information to the prevalence of cognitive impairment in depressed people.

The report is found in the BioMed Central’s open access journal Environmental Health.

Shia Kent, from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, led a team of U.S. researchers who used cross-sectional data from 14,474 people in the NIH-NINDS-funded REGARDS study, a longitudinal study investigating stroke incidence and risk factors, to study associations between depression, cognitive function and sunlight.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/29/cloudy-days-slow-mental-abilities-in-depressed-individuals/7413.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Management Techniques To Improve Mental Health

A new research project will investigate the efficacy of an innovative training program that calls for supervisors to better support their employees’ work and family demands.

Researchers from Michigan State University and Portland State University will publish the scientific-based program in the Journal of Management.

The researchers also have been awarded a $4.1 million federal grant to refine and expand the program. The grant is part of a $30 million initiative of the Work, Family and Health Network – jointly funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – examining how company policies affect the health and wellbeing of employees and their families.

MSU’s Ellen Ernst Kossek, who created the training program with Portland State’s Leslie Hammer, said the research is timely given the nation’s current economic crisis.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/29/management-techniques-to-improve-mental-health/7409.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Cancer Survivors Face Mental Health Risk

Surviving cancer is more than surmounting the physical assault of a malignant disease.

A new study reveals that long-term survivors of adult cancer are at increased risk of experiencing serious psychological distress.

This research is found in the Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

The estimated 12 million cancer survivors in the United States represent approximately 4 percent of the population, according to background information in the article.

“The number of cancer survivors has steadily increased over the last three decades and is expected to continue to increase with the implementation of improved cancer screening, the adoption of more efficacious cancer treatment and the aging of the population,” the authors write.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/29/cancer-survivors-face-mental-health-risk/7411.html

Scientists Foresee Breakthroughs with Stem Cells

Friday, July 24, 2009
By: Anne Underwood, Newsweek

http://www.missouricures.com/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5959&news_iv_ctrl=1003

It's a chilling thought. In the coming year, 130,000 people worldwide will suffer spinal-cord injuries--in a car crash, perhaps, or a fall. More than 90 percent of them will endure at least partial paralysis. There is no cure. But after a decade of hype and controversy over research on embryonic stem cells—cells that could, among other things, potentially repair injured spinal cords—the world's first clinical trial is about to begin. As early as this month, the first of 10 newly injured Americans, paralyzed from the waist down, will become participants in a study to assess the safety of a conservative, low-dose treatment. If all goes well, researchers will have taken a promising step toward a goal that once would have been considered a miracle—to help the lame walk.

Despite the considerable hype surrounding stem cells in recent years, the possibilities now appear to be broader than most people realize. In addition to helping replace damaged cells in patients with diseases like diabetes or Parkinson's, stem cells have the potential to change how we develop drugs and unravel the biology of disease. They may even be used one day to create replacement organs. "There's been a massive injection of optimism into the field," says stem-cell biologist Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. "It's remarkable how fast it's progressing."

Much of the excitement comes from the development of a new type of stem cells, called "induced pluripotent" stem cells, or iPS. Shinya Yamanaka first concocted the cells in his Kyoto University lab by inserting four genes into fully formed adult skin cells. They began to behave like embryonic stem cells, capable of forming unlimited copies of any of the body's 220 cell types. Because iPS cells can be derived from a patient's own adult cells, they do not carry the risk of rejection by the immune system. Equally important, because iPS cells are not derived from embryos, they skirt a major ethical and religious problem.

The first iPS cells, however, will not be used as replacement tissue for spinal cords and other organs. Because iPS cells have subtle (and potentially dangerous) differences from true embryonic stem cells, many doctors are leery of putting them directly into patients until more research is done. But the cells could be immensely important in helping scientists understand and treat genetically based diseases.

By the time a full-blown disease has emerged, says Harvard stem-cell biologist Konrad Hochedlinger, it's like an airplane that has crashed. You can examine the wreckage for clues, but what you really want is the plane's black boxes—the flight-data and cockpit voice recorders that tell you exactly how electrical systems failed, hardware malfunctioned, and pilots made crucial errors. That's what doctors think iPS cells could provide. By coaxing some iPS cells into becoming the cell types affected in Huntington's disease, type 1 diabetes, or ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), scientists will be able to watch in the lab as the disease unfolds. They'll be able to understand how the disease starts, which could lead to new ways of blocking it.

Embryonic stem cells are still regarded as the gold standard. That's why there is intense interest in the U.S. spinal-cord-injury trial. Sponsored by Geron Corp. in California, the trial will recruit patients within one to two weeks of their injuries, before scar tissue has formed. Doctors will inject a derivative of stem cells, called progenitor cells, that manufacture myelin, the substance that coats the long, spindly projections on nerve cells, much the same way that insulation coats electrical wires. Damage to cells that make and maintain the myelin sheath, as happens in spinal-cord injuries, prevents nerves from conveying messages from the brain. Although it's not clear yet whether the treatment is effective or safe, the restoration of even partial function would be a huge advance.

Geron's CEO, Dr. Thomas Okarma, thinks that spinal injury is a logical place to begin. Because patients will be completely paralyzed from the waist down, any improvement will be the result of the therapy, not chance. And the spinal cord is an "immune-privileged site," meaning that the attack cells of the immune system cannot get in and destroy the embryo-derived cells. "If the therapy is safe and effective, the potential impact will extend way beyond spinal-cord injury," says Okarma. "It will mark the start of a new era in medical therapeutics."

Other companies aren't waiting for the results. The U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is pursuing two other embryonic-stem-cell-based therapies, which it hopes to have in clinical trials by 2011. In April the company partnered with University College London to pursue a therapy for macular degeneration, the principal cause of blindness in the elderly. The disease leads to the gradual destruction of the macula, the sensitive central portion of the retina. But Peter Coffey, professor of cellular therapy and visual sciences at UCL, is using embryonic cells to make the same type of support cells that lie just behind the retina, providing it with nutrients. The goal is to implant a disc-shaped layer of the cells behind the retina. Immune rejection should not be a problem, since the eye is also immune-privileged.

Pfizer's other collaboration, with Novocell in California, aims to devise a treatment for some of the 100 million patients worldwide with insulin-dependent diabetes. Novocell is using embryonic stem cells to help regenerate all five of the pancreas's cell types. But there's a hitch. Unlike the eye or the spinal cord, the pancreas has no immune protection. For this, Novocell has devised a clever solution. It encases the stem-cell-derived progenitor cells in a capsule that can be implanted in the body. The pore size of the fabric is large enough to allow oxygen, glucose, and insulin to pass through but small enough to keep out big immune cells. "If problems should develop, the surgeon can easily remove the capsule," says Liz Bui, director of intellectual property for Novocell.

Some researchers aren't interested in just replacing impaired cells. They're using adult stem cells—which exist within organs to help with minor repairs—to grow entire replacement organs and tissues. Dr. Anthony Atala, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, has made human bladders in this way. He starts by taking a small bladder biopsy from the patient and extracting his or her stem cells. After allowing the cells to multiply in the lab for about a month, he spreads them onto a collagen scaffold fashioned in the shape of a bladder. He then incubates the would-be organ in a bioreactor that provides the same temperature, oxygen level, growth factors, and nutrients that would be found in the body. In two weeks, he has a small but functional organ, ready for a patient.

In the early 2000s, Atala completed the procedure on seven children with spina bifida, who never developed fully functional bladders. He has now followed these patients for eight years to make sure there are no drastic failures or side effects. And he has moved on to other possible replacement parts. "We're working on 22 tissues and organs, including kidneys, heart valves, and cartilage," he says.

Because any new therapy is inherently risky, researchers are careful about creating false hopes that cures are just around the corner. Therapies that succeed in the idealized world of the lab can fail in real life or take decades to put into practice. As doctors and regulators begin to consider treating patients, they still have basic questions. Will the cells survive for long in the body? Will they integrate to form functioning tissue? Will the benefits outweigh risks that may become apparent only decades from now? Scientists are daring to hope, though, that after a decade of hype, real progress is imminent. Millions of patients worldwide could one day be the beneficiaries.

.Learn about other stem cell advances at www.MissouriCures.com

Tid Bit Tuesday

Carded for your care? Docs begin checking IDs
New FTC rule requires physicians, hospitals to help deter identity theft

Elena Castro was finishing the paperwork to buy her first home when the bank called to warn her of a problem — nearly $10,000 in unpaid hospital bills on her credit report. The charges were for several ear, nose and throat procedures done at hospitals in her region.

But they weren’t for her. And, at the time, Castro was an insured medical student. The charges had been quietly festering for several years, the bank told her, eating away at her credit score.

"It was very, very upsetting and overwhelming. We were about to get married and buy our first home," she remembers. Castro soon discovered that a thief had used her personal information to obtain medical care.

Source and More
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32175003/ns/health-health_care/
___________________________________________________________________________
New Hampshire Officials: Need For Mental Health Services Increasing

In New Hampshire, Foster's Daily Democrat reports: "As unemployment statistics increase and the economic climate deteriorates, a large group of people who would otherwise likely not need mental health services are finding themselves at an increased risk for depression, anxiety, compulsive behaviors and substance abuse, according (to) the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services."

Fosters reports: "The circumstances are exacerbated when considering that many of those people are unable to pay for basic mental health services, either through insurance or otherwise. At the same time, community-based programs, designed to be the "safety net" for the uninsured, are facing across-the-board funding cuts both public and private contributors."

Foster's examines Community Partners in Strafford County to show how the crisis is affecting care including strains put on basic mental health services, like non-emergency counseling, as funding falls short (Modica, 7/27).

This information was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at kaiserhealthnews.org.

Source and More
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/158974.php
___________________________________________________________________________
Diabetic Side-Effects From Antipsychotic Meds

A new study discovers older persons with diabetes are at risk for elevated blood sugars if they are taking an antipsychotic medication.

The risk is most pronounced soon after beginning treatment, according to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

An increasing number of older adults are being prescribed antipsychotic drugs for dementia and other conditions, according to background information in the article.

However, these medications may be associated with adverse effects—including Parkinson’s disease symptoms, stroke and diabetes—in the older population.

“The risk of diabetes may be partly related to chronic effects of the weight gain associated with antipsychotic agents,” the authors write.

“However, case reports of acute hyperglycemia after the initiation of therapy with these drugs suggest that they may also be associated with acute glycemic [blood glucose level] changes.”

Lorraine L. Lipscombe, M.D., M.Sc., of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, University of Toronto and Women’s College Research Institute at Women’s College Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and colleagues studied 13,817 individuals age 66 and older (average age 78) with diabetes who began treatment with antipsychotics between April 1, 2002, and March 31, 2006.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/28/diabetic-side-effects-from-antipsychotic-meds/7390.html

Manic Monday

Most older long-term cancer survivors have poor health habits

A new study finds that most older long-term cancer survivors who are interested in diet and exercise actually have poor health habits. The study also reveals that those survivors who do exercise and watch their diet have improved physical health and quality of life. Published in the September 1, 2009 issue of Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the research indicates that greater efforts are needed to encourage elderly cancer survivors to live healthier lives.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news167904590.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Holes in the safety net: Medicaid falls short just as some need it most

For weeks now, 2-year-old Ashley Soto's hair has been falling out in clumps and bunches.

Doctors at the Maple City Health Care Center, a neighborhood clinic where the toddler's family receives most care, couldn’t diagnose the problem. The child needed to see a specialist, but no local dermatologist would agree to accept Medicaid, the government’s safety net plan. Instead, Antonia Mejorado, 33, has to drive nearly two hours to see a dermatologist willing to treat her daughter's potentially serious illness.

“There is not a doctor around here that takes Medicaid,” said Mejorado, whose husband, Osvaldo Soto, 33, has recently seen his hours cut to almost nothing at a local mechanic shop.

Source and More
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32127373/ns/us_news-the_elkhart_project/
___________________________________________________________________________
Human Rationality Questioned

For decades, health educators have bemoaned a flaw of humanity – that despite our sophistication, humans make irrational decisions, especially when it comes to their own health and wellbeing.

A new study supports this notion showing that ants can accomplish a task more rationally than our multimodal, tool-using, bipedal, opposing-thumbed selves.

The report, released online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, is the product of researchers at Arizona State University and Princeton University.

This is not the case of humans being “stupider” than ants. Humans and animals simply often make irrational choices when faced with very challenging decisions, note the study’s architects Stephen Pratt and Susan Edwards.

“This paradoxical outcome is based on apparent constraint: most individual ants know of only a single option, and the colony’s collective choice self-organizes from interactions among many poorly-informed ants,” says Pratt, an assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/27/human-rationality-questioned/7358.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Watch for Preschool Depression

As health professionals learn more about depression, knowledge of the far-reaching prevalence or spread of the mental disorder is finally emerging.

Significant focus has been placed on mood disorders and depression in adults and teens but now experts warn that even young, preschool-aged children can experience early signs of depression.

Preschooler depression is much more than just being a “quirky” or “shy” child. Children as young as 3 years old show early, age-adjusted signs of clinical depression, says Joan Luby, M.D., professor of child psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/27/watch-for-preschool-depression/7366.html

U.S. Adults Dying of Preventable Diseases

Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Kill More Americans Than Car Wrecks

Diseases easily preventable by adult vaccines kill more Americans each year than car wrecks, breast cancer, or AIDS.

Yet relatively few in the U.S. know much about these diseases -- and far too few adults get vaccinated, find surveys by the CDC and the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID).

"It may surprise you to learn that over 50,000 adults die each year of diseases that are potentially vaccine preventable," NFID president-elect William Schaffner, MD, said at a news conference held to announce the survey results.

"We have a chronic disease epidemic in the U.S. It is taxing our families and taxing our economy," the CDC's Anne Schuchat, MD, said at the news conference. "We have a need for culture change in America. We worry about things when they are really bad rather than focusing on prevention, which can keep us out of the hospital and keep our families thriving."

Source and More:
http://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/news/20090724/us-adults-dying-of-preventable-diseases

T.G.I.F.

Improved Definition of Depression

A group of researchers proposes the definition for major depressive disorder (MDD) should be shortened to include only mood and cognitive symptoms.

If accepted, the 35-year-old definition found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) would not include symptoms that are associated with medical illness.

The proposal is based on a study that appears in the online first edition of the journal Psychological Medicine.

The current definition of major depressive disorder includes nine symptoms — a definition that has remained essentially unchanged since the 1970s.

As preparations for a new edition of the DSM are underway, the researchers state that there are two practical problems with the symptom criteria: the length of the definition and the difficulty in applying some of the criteria to patients who have an additional mental illness.

The researchers’ proposal recommends a shortened list of symptom criteria that includes only low mood, loss of interest or pleasure, guilt/worthlessness, impaired concentration/indecision and suicidal thoughts.

It would remove fatigue, appetite disturbance and sleep disturbance (increased sleep or insomnia) as these may be associated with medical illnesses other than depression. Their proposal is called the “simpler definition of MDD.”

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/24/improved-definition-of-depression/7333.html

Cognitive Training for Kids with ADHD

A new study reviews how cognitive training and stimulant medication address working memory impairments in children with ADHD.

Working memory is the brain’s ability to hold and process critical information related to the present moment.

The UK study continues a series of investigations on the impact of software-based training programs for individuals with disorders of memory and attention.

Joni Holmes, Ph.D., and Susan Gathercole, Ph.D. lead the research that will appear in the August 2009 edition of Applied Cognitive Psychology . The study evaluated the effects of both working memory training and medication on 25 children with ADHD.

Each child performed a battery of tests to assess different aspects of working memory twice before training, once when the children were taking their medication for ADHD and once when they were not.

Tests measuring the same aspects of working memory were also administered immediately after training with a software program called Cogmed, as well as six months after training as a followup.

The results show that stimulant medication significantly increases visual-spatial working memory, but that software training leads to significant improvements in all four critical measures of working memory; verbal and visual-spatial short-term and verbal and visual-spatial working memory. The training effects remained six months after training.

Source and More:
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/23/cognitive-training-for-kids-with-adhd/7289.html

Wacked Wednesday

Challenge to Health Bill: Selling Reform

On the subject of health care reform, most Americans probably don’t have a good answer to the question. And that, obviously, is a problem for the White House and for Democratic leaders in Congress.

Current bills would expand the number of insured — but 90 percent of voters already have insurance. Congressional leaders say the bills would cut costs. But experts are dubious. Instead, they point out that covering the uninsured would cost billions.

So the typical person watching from afar is left to wonder: What will this project mean for me, besides possibly higher taxes?

Barack Obama was able to rise from the Illinois State Senate to the presidency in large measure because of his ability to explain complex issues and then to make a persuasive argument. He now has a challenge worthy of his skills.

Our health care system is engineered, deliberately or not, to resist change. The people who pay for it — you and I — often don’t realize that they’re paying for it. Money comes out of our paychecks, in withheld taxes and insurance premiums, before we ever see it. It then flows to doctors, hospitals and drug makers without our realizing that it was our money to begin with.

Source and More
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/business/economy/22leonhardt.html?_r=1&ref=health
___________________________________________________________________________
Local Mind Shop Makes Handbags From Gladrags

Mental health charity Mind's Ipswich shop is launching 'Piece of Mind' next Monday (27 July), a range of eco-friendly bags designed and made by volunteers at the shop, many of whom have direct experience of mental distress, using items donated to the shop as raw materials.

Each bag is unique and has been made from scratch using items donated by the public. Curtains, clothes, bedding and even blinds have all been transformed into bespoke bags that are embellished with everything from buttons to appliqué. They come in a variety of sizes, from a small clutch bag right through to roomy shoppers and totes.

The idea came from one of the shop volunteers who used to customise her own bags and wanted to share her talents. The creative team has now produced over 50 one-off bags and is already planning to branch out into making other items such as jewellery and knitwear from reclaimed yarn they get from unravelling knitted goods.

Gill Dibben, Manager of the shop, said:

"This has been a team effort from start to finish and I'm so proud of what we've achieved, the bags look fantastic. I hope people come in to see what we've made and buy our designs, that way they'll be doing there bit to support Mind and also to help the environment by using recycled bags."

Source and More
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/158347.php
___________________________________________________________________________
African-American Machismo Puts Health at Risk

A lean and fit African-American world leader may or may not improve the health of other African-American men.

A new research effort suggests African-American men could be putting their health at risk by avoiding disease screening, in the belief that the results might threaten their masculinity.

Because they prove their masculinity through their sexuality and sexual performance, seeking medical advice including HIV/AIDS testing goes against their notion of masculinity.

Waverly Duck, a postdoctoral associate from the Department of Sociology at Yale University argues that current leading theories of gender and masculinity and health behavior models are not relevant enough to African-American men and their distinctive notion of masculinity.

His results are published online in Springer’s Journal of African American Studies.

Duck studied how African-American men conceptualize masculinity and how it relates to their health behaviors. Through a combination of focus groups and in-depth interviews, he asked African-American men about their own understanding of their gender identity and examined how that identity, as well as how it is achieved and maintained, relates to their health.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/22/african-american-machismo-puts-health-at-risk/7264.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Depression Screening In 2nd Grade

A new study suggests screening children for symptoms of depression, the most common mental health disorder in the United States, can begin a lot earlier than previously thought, as early as the second grade.

University of Washington researchers followed nearly 1,000 children from the second to the eighth grades. During the investigation they discovered five distinct patterns for the way symptoms of depression develop among adolescents.

“Some children are reporting that they don’t have as many friends, feel lonelier and are more anxious than their peers,” said James Mazza, a UW professor of educational psychology and lead author of the study.

“They are telling us that they feel different from the typical happy- go-lucky second grader.

“We can start to build a profile of children’s mental health in the second grade. This is important because children who are experiencing depression symptoms early on may be at great risk for mental health concerns during adolescence, based on other research studies.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/22/depression-screening-in-2nd-grade/7259.html

Economic Insomnia Can Be a Health Hazard

The current economic downturn has affected more than just our net worth. According to a poll from the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), 27 percent of Americans say personal finances, the economy or unemployment concerns are keeping them awake at night.

Physicians are warning that “stress and anxiety can definitely impact sleep,” says Sunil Mathews, M.D., medical director of the Sleep Center at Baylor Medical Center at Irving. “And unfortunately, insomnia can turn into a vicious cycle.”

For example, according to the NSF poll, 47 percent of the sleepless are very likely to use caffeinated beverages like coffee, tea and sodas during the day to compensate for their sleepiness. But the use of artificial stimulants and insomnia are correlated. The majority of people who have difficulty sleeping report using those substances.

Dr. Mathews describes these habits as “poor sleep hygiene,” or behaviors that will delay sleep onset. Examples include going to bed at irregular times, watching TV late at night, exercising too close to bedtime, and of course consuming caffeine and alcohol.

Another aspect of poor sleep hygiene includes worrying while in bed.

“Some people can develop an unhealthy habit of using the bed to plan for the next day. The mind won’t shut down, which delays sleep onset.”

Source and More:
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/21/economic-insomnia-can-be-a-health-hazard/7240.html

Cell Discovery May Bring Science Closer to Diabetes Cure

http://www.missouricures.com/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5955&news_iv_ctrl=1003

Monday, July 20, 2009
By: HealthDay News, Forbes

'Sox17' gene could further pancreatic research, study suggests

In early embryonic development, a specific gene plays an important role in directing cells to become part of the pancreas or part of the biliary system, and researchers say this finding could help efforts to find a cure for type 1 diabetes.

Research in mouse embryos found that the Sox17 gene "acts like a toggle or binary switch that sets off a cascade of genetic events," the study's senior investigator, James Wells, a researcher in the developmental biology division at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, said in a hospital news release.

"In normal embryonic development, when you have an undecided cell, if Sox17 goes one way, the cell becomes part of the biliary system," Wells explained. "If it goes the other way, the cell becomes part of the pancreas."

The discovery could prove important in guiding embryonic stem cells to become pancreatic beta cells, which scientists believe could be used to treat or cure type 1 diabetes. The disease occurs when insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas are attacked by the immune system.

"With this study showing that turning one gene on or off in a mouse embryo instructs a cell to become pancreatic or biliary, now we'll see if that same gene, Sox17, can be used to direct an embryonic stem cell to become a biliary cell instead of a pancreatic cell," said Wells, who is also an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. "This might be used one day to replace a diseased pancreas or bile duct in people."

The study appears in the July 21 issue of Developmental Cell.

Learn about other stem cell advances at MissouriCures.com

Skin-like Tissue Developed from Human Embryonic Stem Cells

http://www.missouricures.com/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5956&news_iv_ctrl=1003

Tuesday, July 21, 2009
By: Tufts University

BOSTON -- Dental and tissue engineering researchers at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts have harnessed the pluripotency of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) to generate complex, multilayer tissues that mimic human skin and the oral mucosa (the moist tissue that lines the inside of the mouth).

The proof-of-concept study is published online in advance of print in Tissue Engineering Part A.

“For the first time, we have established that a single source of hESC can provide the multiple cell types needed to interact within a three-dimensional tissue model to generate complex, multilayer tissues. We are a step closer to a practical therapy to help with diseases of the skin and mouth,” said Jonathan Garlick, DDS, PhD, professor of oral and maxillofacial pathology at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and a member of the cell, molecular & developmental biology program faculty at the Sackler School of Biomedical Sciences at Tufts.

“Researchers have been seeking methods to grow skin-like tissues outside of the body using new sources of stem cells such as hESC, with the goal of advancing regenerative medicine as a new therapy to replace or repair damaged or diseased tissue. Little is known about how hESC can be developed into the multilayer tissues similar to those that line the gums, cheeks, lips, and other areas in the mouth. We used in vitro tissue engineering techniques to produce skin-like tissues that mimic the lining tissues found in the oral cavity,” said Garlick.

Using a combination of chemical nutrients and specialized surfaces for cell attachment, an hES cell line (H9) was directed to form two distinct specialized cell populations. The first population forms the surface layer (ectodermal, the precursor to epithelial tissue), while the second is found beneath the surface layer (mesenchymal).

Following the isolation and characterization of these cell populations, the researchers incorporated them into an engineered, three-dimensional tissue system where they were grown at an air-liquid interface to mimic their growth environment in the oral cavity. Within two weeks, tissues developed that were similar in structure to those constructed using mature cells derived from newborn skin, which are the current gold standard for tissue fabrication.

“These engineered tissues are remarkably similar to their human counterparts and can be used to address major concerns facing the field of stem cell biology that are related to their clinical use. We can now use these engineered tissues as ‘tissue surrogates’ to begin to predict how stable and safe hESC-derived cells will be after therapeutic transplantation. Our goal is to produce functional tissues to treat oral and skin conditions, like the early stages of cancer and inflammatory disease, as well as to accelerate the healing of recalcitrant wounds,” said Garlick.

First author Kyle Hewitt is a graduate student in cell, molecular & developmental biology program at the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Science at Tufts and is a member of Garlick’s lab.

This study was supported by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research at the National Institutes of Health.

Garlick is also director of the Center for Integrated Tissue Engineering (CITE) at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, which is dedicated to furthering the understanding of regenerative medicine through the investigation of three-dimensional tissue models. He has written more than over 60 articles and book chapters on this and related subjects. CITE is now using hESC as a pre-clinical paradigm that now serves as as a translational modality to provide more meaningful correlations between in vitro screening assays for toxicity and efficacy and in vivo tissue outcomes in human clinical trials.

Learn about other stem cell advances at MissouriCures.com

Manic Monday

Governors Fear Medicaid Costs in Health Plan

The nation’s governors, Democrats as well as Republicans, voiced deep concern Sunday about the shape of the health care plan emerging from Congress, fearing that Washington was about to hand them expensive new Medicaid obligations without money to pay for them.

The role of the states in a restructured health care system dominated the summer meeting of the National Governors Association here this weekend — with bipartisan animosity voiced against the plan during a closed-door luncheon on Saturday and in a private meeting on Sunday with the health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius.

“I think the governors would all agree that what we don’t want from the federal government is unfunded mandates,” said Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont, a Republican, the group’s incoming chairman. “We can’t have the Congress impose requirements that we are forced to absorb beyond our capacity to do so.”

The governors’ backlash creates yet another health care headache for the Obama administration, which has tried to recruit state leaders to pressure members of Congress to wrap up their fitful negotiations. Both Ms. Sebelius, who was Kansas’ governor before she joined the cabinet in April, and the federal Medicaid chief, Cindy Mann, made appearances at the meeting on Sunday. Meanwhile, other administration officials spent the day pushing President Obama’s proposal on television talk shows.

Source and More
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/health/policy/20health.html?_r=1&ref=health
___________________________________________________________________________
Kids' lower IQ scores linked to prenatal pollution

Researchers for the first time have linked air pollution exposure before birth with lower IQ scores in childhood, bolstering evidence that smog may harm the developing brain.

The results are in a study of 249 children of New York City women who wore backpack air monitors for 48 hours during the last few months of pregnancy. They lived in mostly low-income neighborhoods in northern Manhattan and the South Bronx. They had varying levels of exposure to typical kinds of urban air pollution, mostly from car, bus and truck exhaust.

At age 5, before starting school, the children were given IQ tests. Those exposed to the most pollution before birth scored on average four to five points lower than children with less exposure.

That's a big enough difference that it could affect children's performance in school, said Frederica Perera, the study's lead author and director of the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health.

Dr. Michael Msall, a University of Chicago pediatrician not involved in the research, said the study doesn't mean that children living in congested cities "aren't going to learn to read and write and spell."

But it does suggest that you don't have to live right next door to a belching factory to face pollution health risks, and that there may be more dangers from typical urban air pollution than previously thought, he said.

"We are learning more and more about low-dose exposure and how things we take for granted may not be a free ride," he said.

While future research is needed to confirm the new results, the findings suggest exposure to air pollution before birth could have the same harmful effects on the developing brain as exposure to lead, said Patrick Breysse, an environmental health specialist at Johns Hopkins' school of public health.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news167278462.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Starting to get crowded in 100-year-olds' club

It's starting to get crowded in the 100-year-olds' club. Once virtually nonexistent, the world's population of centenarians is projected to reach nearly 6 million by midcentury. That's pushing the median age toward 50 in many developed nations and challenging views of what it means to be old and middle-age.

The number of centenarians already has jumped from an estimated few thousand in 1950 to more than 340,000 worldwide today, with the highest concentrations in the U.S. and Japan, according to the latest Census Bureau figures. Their numbers are projected to grow at more than 20 times the rates of the total population by 2050, making them the fastest growing age segment.

Demographers attribute booming long-livers to decades of medical advances and improved diets, which have reduced heart disease and stroke. Genetics and lifestyle also play a factor. So, too, do doctors who are more willing to aggressively treat the health problems of people once considered too old for such care.

"My parents are 86 and 87 and they're going strong, with my dad driving all over the place, so I've already told my financial planners that I'm going to live to at least 96," said Susan Ryckman, 61, as she walked around New York City, an iPod and iPhone in hand.

"As long as I'm not mentally and physically infirm, I'd like to live as long as I can," she said.

Japan, known for its low-fat staple of fish and rice, will have the most centenarians in 2050 - 627,000, or nearly 1 percent of its total population, according to census estimates.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news167236907.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Mental Health Issues Among Veterans Increase Dramatically

A new study finds more veterans being diagnosed with mental health issues. The study was posted Thursday on the web site of The American Journal of Public Health.

The New York Times reports: "A new study has found that more than one-third of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who enrolled in the veterans health system after 2001 received a diagnosis of a mental health problem, most often post-traumatic stress disorder or depression. The study by researchers at the San Francisco Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco, also found that the number of veterans found to have mental health problems rose steadily the longer they were out of the service. The study, released Thursday, was based on the department health records of 289,328 veterans involved in the two wars who used the veterans health system for the first time from April 1, 2002, to April 1, 2008."

The Times reports: "The researchers found that 37 percent of those people received mental health diagnoses. Of those, the diagnosis for 22 percent was post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, for 17 percent it was depression and for 7 percent it was alcohol abuse. One-third of the people with mental health diagnoses had three or more problems, the study found. The increase in diagnoses accelerated after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the researchers found. Among the group of veterans who enrolled in veterans health services during the first three months of 2004, 14.6 percent received mental health diagnoses after one year. But after four years, the number had nearly doubled, to 27.5 percent. The study's principal author, Dr. Karen H. Seal, attributed the rising number of diagnoses to several factors: repeat deployments; the perilous and confusing nature of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, where there are no defined front lines; growing public awareness of PTSD; unsteady public support for the wars; and reduced troop morale" (Dao, 7/16).

Source and More
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/158034.php
___________________________________________________________________________
Misdiagnosis of ADHD

Children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) have a high risk of psychiatric problems, particularly attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), conduct disorder, or both.

Often children with FASD are initially diagnosed with ADHD. A new study is the first to examine a range of cognitive factors and social behavior in children with FASD and ADHD, finding that those with FASD have significantly weaker social cognition and facial emotion-processing abilities.

Results will be published in the October issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.

“Behaviorally, FASD and ADHD can look quite similar, particularly with respect to problems with very limited attention, physical restlessness, and extreme impulsivity,” explained Rachel Greenbaum, a clinical psychologist with the Children’s Mental Health Team at Surrey Place Centre in Toronto.

“However, social deficits in children with neurodevelopmental disorders may have different underlying mechanisms,” noted Piyadasa W. Kodituwakku, associate professor of pediatrics and neurosciences at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.

“For example, children with ADHD experience social problems because of poor self-regulation rather than deficient knowledge of appropriate social behavior. In other words, a child with ADHD may accurately recite social rules, but fail to apply them.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/20/misdiagnosis-of-adhd/7208.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Once-Daily Trazodone Rejected by FDA

A once-daily form of trazodone, a second-generation antidepressant that has been available for the treatment of depression for decades, has been rejected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today.

Labopharm, the Montreal-based maker of the novel form of trazodone, said the FDA denial letter cited deficiencies at its manufacturing facility for the new form of the drug.

Trazodone is an antidepressant known for having beneficial therapeutic effects felt within a few weeks, while the more popularly-prescribed, third-generation selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants can take months.

Because trazodone’s half-life is only 3 to 6 hours, it must be taken more than once a day. A once-a-day formulation would make the antidepressant more easy to take and make it more compatible with other modern antidepressant prescriptions.

The FDA letter states: “Satisfactory resolution of these deficiencies is required before this application may be approved.” No efficacy or safety issues were raised.

The active ingredient contained in the treatment is manufactured by a contract drug manufacturer called Angelini.

“We intend to work closely with the FDA and Angelini to resolve these issues as rapidly as possible,” James Howard-Tripp, president and chief executive at Labopharm, said in a news release.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/20/once-daily-trazodone-rejected-by-fda/7229.html
___________________________________________________________________________
New Rankings of the Best U.S. Hospitals
Johns Hopkins Hospital Once Again Tops Magazine's List of America's Best Hospitals

U.S. News & World Report has released its annual "honor roll" of America's best medical centers, and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore is at the top of the list for the 19th straight year.

The top 21 hospitals all earned high scores in at least six of 16 specialties, ranging from cancer and geriatric care to orthopaedics and urology.

Scores were based on both objective measures -- such as mortality rates, patient safety, and other care-related factors -- and subjective measures, such as reputation.

"I think these rankings are extremely meaningful to an extremely small number of patients, relatively speaking, who represent a very small piece of the patient population but whose need for a very high quality of care is extreme," Avery Comarow, the U.S. News & World Report statistician who compiled and analyzed the data, tells WebMD. "These rankings are not at all intended for those who need relatively routine procedures."

Source and More
http://www.webmd.com/news/20090717/new-rankings-of-the-best-us-hospitals

T.G.I.F.

Teen Drinking Linked to Behavior Problems

Heavy-drinking adolescents are more likely than their peers to have behavioral and attention problems and suffer from anxiety and depression.

Investigators from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) reviewed a survey of nearly 9000 Norwegian teenagers aged 13-19 years.

Their findings are published in the online journal Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health.

Fully 80 percent of the teenagers said they had tried alcohol, while 29 percent said they had been drunk more than 10 times in their lives.

Boys who drank frequently were more likely to report conduct problems, while girls who drank frequently reported attention and conduct problems, along with depression and anxiety.

Forty-three percent of students who reported behavioral or other problems also reported having been drunk more than 10 times in their lives, while only 27 percent of students who reported few or no conduct problems had been drunk more than 10 times. But boys were only slightly more likely than girls to report drinking heavily.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/17/teen-drinking-linked-to-behavior-problems/7181.html

Violence On Campus

While attending university, men are equally likely as women to have been victims of physical or emotional violence, and that violence is often linked to drinking, according to a new study.

The study, first published online in the Journal of Adolescent Health last month and scheduled for print publication this fall, found 17 percent of men and 16 percent of women reported emotional or physical violence in the past six months.

It’s the first multi-site study covering both the U.S. and Canada that focuses on recent violence while attending university.

“Whether it’s from intimate partners or relative strangers, violence has a significant effect on young people’s health,” says Elizabeth Saewyc, a professor in the School of Nursing and lead author of the study.

“At university, the stress from experiencing violence can affect students’ grades, their mental health, even their long-term physical health. When nearly one in five young people report recent violence, that’s a serious concern for campus health services.”

Almost half of the emotional violence and 20 per cent of the physical violence reported by both genders came from intimate partners.

“It appears that young men in college are as likely to experience violence as young women, and much of that violence is from their intimate partners,” says Saewyc.

Source and More:
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/16/violence-on-campus/7155.html

Wacked Wednesday

Parents fail to recognize their children's burgeoning weight

Despite constant warnings about childhood obesity, too many Australian parents are still oblivious to the fact their children are overweight, according to the findings of the national MBF Healthwatch survey.

The disturbing results showed that only 7.9% of children were considered to be overweight by their parents. However, this is a gross underestimation according to the recent Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report , which showed almost a quarter of all children (aged two to 12) are overweight or obese.

Bupa Australia* Chief Medical Officer Dr Christine Bennett said, "Parents need to be extremely conscious that their failure to recognise these weight problems can be potentially damaging to their children in the long-term.

"Even taking into account recent suggestions that measures of overweight might be including some children on the border, many parents don't pick up on the risk.

"And once children become overweight, it's often extremely difficult for them to shed these excess kilos, particularly if their diet is incorrect and they are living a sedentary lifestyle.

"Therefore, it's incumbent upon us as parents to help ensure our children embrace healthier lifestyles," she said.

Dr Bennett also expressed dismay that parents' inability to recognise weight issues was markedly more pronounced with their sons.

This was typified by the fact that considerably more parents believe their daughters are overweight (10.3%), compared to their male siblings (5.5%).

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news166876046.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Senate committee passes health bill, first to act
House Democratic leaders are offering a $1.5 trillion plan

The Senate health committee cast a milestone vote Wednesday to approve legislation expanding insurance coverage to nearly all Americans, becoming the first congressional panel to act on President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.

The 13-10 party line vote advanced a $600 billion measure that would require individuals to get health insurance and employers to contribute to the cost. Democratic leaders are driving for floor votes in the House and Senate before Congress goes on its August break.

The health committee bill calls for the government to provide financial assistance with premiums for individuals and families making up to four times the federal poverty level, or about $88,000 for a family of four, a broad cross-section of the middle class. The legislation is but one piece of a broader Senate bill still under development.

Source and More
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31921017/ns/politics-capitol_hill/
___________________________________________________________________________
Green Paper Funding Proposals "Disastrous" For People With Mental Health Problems

People with mental health problems could find themselves without adequate help and support under proposals set out in today's green paper on adult social care, warns leading mental health charity Rethink.

Plans to make individuals contribute to the funding of their social care services via co-payment schemes and private insurance policies could leave people with mental illness unable to afford the services they need.

This is because it may be difficult for people with mental health problems to stump up the necessary financial contributions. People with mental health problems tend to live on lower than average incomes, with three quarters surviving on benefits alone. Those who are able to work often face workplace discrimination and can find it hard to stay in employment because of their fluctuating health. Moreover, enforcing a system based on private insurance policies is inherently problematic as many insurance companies impose blanket bans on people with a history of mental illness, preventing them from buying cover.

Paul Corry, Rethink's director of public affairs, says: "With more people living in the community for longer, we know that a social care economic crisis is looming and so we welcome the green paper and its debate on future funding. The postcode lottery currently in operation results in too many people missing out on the essential care and support they need.

Source and More
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/157598.php
___________________________________________________________________________
Search For an Early ADHD Diagnosis

A new Canadian study of eye movements may aid in understanding childhood brain development and healthy aging.

The tests, developed by Queen’s University researchers, may also help in the diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and detecting the early onset of Parkinson’s disease.

“An important aspect of what makes us human is the ability to control our behavior,” says physiology professor Douglas Munoz, who leads the study.

“Our project investigates how the brain provides this control by observing eye movements. Our experiments have been designed to combine high speed eye movement recording with modern brain imaging techniques to identify brain regions that control our behaviour.”

To test this, the team designed a simple yet ingenious experiment. Participants from a wide range of age groups were placed in a magnetic resonance imaging unit that measured their brain activity.

While in the unit, they were shown a series of lights and asked to move their eyes toward or away from the lights. The speed and accuracy of their eye movements were recorded and correlated to the activity being documented in specific areas of their brains.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/15/search-for-an-early-adhd-diagnosis/7120.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Technique Gives Insight on Psychopathic Disorders

A research group from the University of Granada has developed a method to analyze the personality of people with psychopathologic disorders by means of their drawings.

The method consists of a series of Graphic Projective Tests (TPG) where patients draw what a psychologist says. Each element of the picture has a meaning and it will give information about conscious and unconscious aspects of the individual.

Dr. José María Cid and colleagues developed a methodology that systematically categorizes all elements that appear in the drawing. This system eases evaluation and interpretation of technical specifications used to determine a personality profile.

Also, it is possible to foresee a diagnosis whose therapeutic action guidelines will be indicated for that person.

This study is the first arranged system of variables supported by a psychological theory easy to evaluate and interpret. That is why it can be used by professionals as well as all those who wish to know a little bit more about themselves.

Researchers have described this methodology in a book titled Personalidad y conflictos en el dibujo (personality and conflicts on drawings), which includes the person test, the person under the rain test and the couple test.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/15/technique-gives-insight-on-psychopathic-disorders/7125.html
___________________________________________________________________________
U.S. Homes Losing Battle of the Germs
Study Shows Housecleaning Habits of Americans Leave Something to Be Desired

Your home is loaded with disease-causing germs, including some that migrate from bathrooms, a new study shows.

The study by the Hygiene Council found that Americans and people in seven other countries are losing the battle of the bugs, mainly because we don't clean up well enough, or we don't wipe down the right stuff.

For example, in the U.S., television remote controls are a lot cleaner than kitchen taps or toilet handles, council member Philip M. Tierno Jr., MD, associate professor of microbiology and pathology at the New York University School of Medicine, tells WebMD.

The council was formed in 2006 as a disease-fighting initiative involving public health experts around the world. Sponsored by an educational grant from Reckitt Benckiser, maker of Lysol brand products, its goals are to formulate easy and practical recommendations for better hygiene.

The council sent teams of germ detectives armed with swabs into houses in the U.S., U.K, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Australia, South Africa, India, and Malaysia. The teams sent samples from the homes to labs for microscopic analysis.

Source and More
http://www.webmd.com/news/20090714/us-homes-losing-battle-of-the-germs

Stem Cell Decision Opens New Doors, May Spur More Research

Wednesday, July 15, 2009
By: Serena Gordon, U.S. News & World Report

http://www.missouricures.com/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5951&news_iv_ctrl=1003

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced last week their new guidelines for stem cell research funding, including allowing some previously ineligible stem cell lines to receive federal grants, provided they were obtained in an ethical manner.

But, will these new rules really expand the field of stem cell research and help find new treatments, possibly even cures, for devastating diseases?

"I think that everybody felt that when President Obama issued the executive order [on stem cell research in March], the most important thing was to expand the ability to investigate more lines," said Story Landis, head of the NIH stem cell task force, and director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. And, estimates place the number of potential new stem cell lines at around 700.

Stem cells -- embryonic and adult -- offer promise in the treatment of numerous diseases, such as macular degeneration, spinal cord injury, Parkinson's disease, type 1 diabetes, Lou Gehrig's disease and heart disease, among others.

Alan Lewis, president and CEO of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, said, "At JDRF, we've long been supporters of encouraging stem cell research. Opening up the opportunities to get grant funding is really going to be critical to great progress in diabetes and other diseases."

One good example of how these new guidelines may help researchers is the inclusion of what's known as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, Landis said.

"The 21 lines that were eligible under President Bush only included embryos from people who were genetically normal," he said. "But since then, a number of investigators have generated lines from pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) that were determined to carry a gene defect, which is important for studying diseases like cystic fibrosis. In PGD, a couple prepares for in-vitro fertilization, and it's possible to take one cell from a really early embryo to let you know which embryos are fine, and which carries two copies, in this case of a cystic fibrosis gene. While it's been possible to make lines from those embryos prior to this decision, they weren't eligible for federal money before, but they are now."

Added Meri Firpo, an assistant professor at The Stem Cell Institute at the University of Minnesota: "Now everyone can work with these PGD lines, and this will bring a lot more people into doing research with these cells, which may move progress faster."

Under the Bush administration rules, because so few stem cell lines were available for federal research funding, separate laboratories had to be set up, as well as separate accounting systems to ensure that equipment costs and salaries for research paid for by federal money weren't used to conduct research on unapproved stem cell lines. Not surprisingly, some researchers decided to forgo stem cell research because of these restrictions.

However, the actual creation of stem cell lines is still something that can't be done with federal funding, Firpo said. Once the lines have been created -- if they're deemed to have been created in an ethical manner and they pass NIH review -- then the lines can be used for federal research.

Additionally, researchers can't use federal money for research from embryos created solely for research.

"The federal government is opening the door, but the door isn't wide open," said Susan Solomon, chief executive officer of the New York Stem Cell Foundation, a private organization that funds stem cell research.

Whether the NIH ever revisits its decision on controversial techniques for creating stem cells, Solomon said there will always likely be a need for private and state funding for stem cell research because obtaining a federal grant is a slow process.

"We have urgent patient needs right now. Every day that goes by, the clock is ticking for people with chronic illness and the federal government isn't designed to respond to that kind of urgency," she said.

Kevin Eggan, chief scientific officer for the New York Stem Cell Foundation, and an assistant professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard University, agreed with Solomon, adding, "Federal money isn't responsive to immediate needs and short timelines. Sometimes, with small, strategic infusions of money, there can be a massively changing shift in research."

More information
For a primer on stem cells, visit the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Visit MissouriCures.com to read other important news

What Is Amnesia? What Causes Amnesia?

When people lose their ability to memorize data they have amnesia. Amnesia also refers to an inability to recall information that is stored in memory. In simple terms, amnesia is the loss of memory. The causes of amnesia may be organic or functional.

Organic causes may include brain damage through injury, or the use of specific drugs - usually sedative drugs. Amnesia may be one of the symptoms of some degenerative brain diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease.

Functional causes are psychological factors, such as defense mechanisms.

People with amnesia also find it hard to imagine the future, because our constructions of future scenarios are closely linked to our recollections of past experiences. Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis used advanced brain imaging techniques to show that remembering the past and envisioning the future may go hand-in-hand, with each process sparking strikingly similar patterns of activity within precisely the same broad network of brain regions.

Source and More:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/9673.php

Manic Monday

Swine flu 'unstoppable', all countries will need vaccine: WHO (Update)

All countries will need access to vaccines against swine flu as the pandemic is "unstoppable," a senior World Health Organisation official said Monday.

A group of vaccination experts concluded after a recent meeting that "the H1N1 pandemic is unstoppable and therefore all countries would need to have access to vaccines," said Marie-Paul Kieny, WHO director on vaccine research.

Health workers should be at the top of the queue for vaccination, since they are required to keep health systems going while people continue to fall sick, she added.

Countries would be free to decide on their national priorities, but other groups should include pregnant women and anyone over six months-old who has chronic health problems.

Children are another group that would need vaccination as they are "amplifiers" of the spread of the disease, particularly when they are gathered in schools, Kieny added.

The WHO official said a swine flu vaccine should be available as early as September.

Experts should also decide during a meeting in September whether the vaccine should be one of the strains incorporated into the next seasonal vaccine for the southern hemisphere.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news166701337.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Support Grows For New Home Based Service For Challenging Mental Patients

A new national service which will provide comprehensive care and support for challenging mental health patients in their own homes following discharge from hospital is being welcomed by lead clinicians and patient advocates.

Vicky Wadsworth, head of the mental health department at Roebucks solicitors in Blackburn, which acts on behalf of hundreds of patients, said: "There is a huge gap in care provision that this service can help fill.

Health service outreach teams are desperately overstretched and cannot provide the sustained intensive treatment and rehabilitation support that many patients require. In some cases, this means that patients can't be moved on into the community and so remain confined in secure facilities unnecessarily."

Dr Christopher Findlay, a leading community psychiatrist working in Runcorn, said: "There are limits to what Community Mental Health Teams can provide. There are also limited in-patient beds. Any service that offers to work alongside established NHS services to provide intensive safe alternatives to in-patient care is to be welcomed, particularly those that are individually tailored and committed to improved outcomes and the safe social inclusion of patients with mental health difficulties. Working alongside and not replacing existing services is an advantage for responsible clinicians who hope to establish a long term relationship through the journey towards recovery."

Source and More
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/157290.php
___________________________________________________________________________
Positive Emotions Increase Resilience, Happiness

Cultivating daily positive emotions can help build resilience and increase a person’s happiness according to new research.

“This study shows that if happiness is something you want out of life, then focusing daily on the small moments and cultivating positive emotions is the way to go,” said Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D., Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology in University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s College of Arts and Sciences and the principal investigator of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory.

“Those small moments let positive emotions blossom, and that helps us become more open. That openness then helps us build resources that can help us rebound better from adversity and stress, ward off depression and continue to grow.”

In the month long study, 86 participants were asked to submit daily report on their emotions, rather than answering general questions like, “Over the last few months, how much joy did you feel?”

Getting those daily reports helped us gather more accurate recollections of feelings and allowed us to capture emotional ups and downs.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/13/positive-emotions-increase-resilience-happiness/7086.html
___________________________________________________________________________
New MRI Helps Dementia Diagnosis

A new study may help physicians differentially diagnose three common neurodegenerative disorders in the future.

In this study, Mayo Clinic researchers developed a framework for MRI-based differential diagnosis of three common neurodegenerative disorders: Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal lobar degeneration, and Lewy body disease using Structural MRI.

Currently, examination of the brain at autopsy is the only way to confirm with certainty that a patient had a specific form of dementia. The framework, which is called “STructural Abnormality iNDex” or STAND-Map, shows promise in accurately diagnosing dementia patients while they are alive.

The rationale is that if each neurodegenerative disorder can be associated with a unique pattern of atrophy specific on MRI, then it may be possible to differentially diagnose new patients. The study looked at 90 patients from the Mayo Clinic database who were confirmed to have only a single dementia pathology and also underwent an MRI at the time of clinical diagnosis of dementia.

Using the STAND-Map framework, researchers predicted an accurate pathological diagnosis 75 to 80 percent of the time.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/13/new-mri-helps-dementia-diagnosis/7064.html

What Is An Alcoholic? What Is Alcoholism? What Is Alcohol Abuse?

An alcoholic is a person who suffers from alcoholism - the body is dependent on alcohol. An alcoholic is addicted to alcohol. Alcoholism is a chronic (long-term) disease. People who suffer from alcoholism are obsessed with alcohol and cannot control how much they consume, even if it is causing serious problems at home, work and financially. Alcohol abuse generally refers to people who do not display the characteristics of alcoholism but still have a problem with it - these people are not as dependent on alcohol as an alcoholic is; they have not yet completely lost their control over its consumption.

Consuming moderate quantities of alcohol will not usually cause any physical or psychological harm. Unfortunately, for some people social drinking eventually leads to heavier drinking, which can cause devastating health and psychological problems. According to the National Health Service (NHS), UK, approximately 1 in every 13 people in the UK is an alcoholic - a sizable proportion of the UK population drinks excessively. According to the NIH (National Institutes of Health), 15% of people in the United States are problem drinkers, and about 5% to 10% of male drinkers and 3% to 5% of female drinkers could be diagnosed as alcohol dependent. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) there are at least 140 million alcoholics in the world, and the majority of them are not treated. A US study estimated that about 30% of Americans report having an alcohol disorder at some time in their lives.

Source and More:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/157163.php

Judge Rejects 'Frivolous' Lawsuit Filed by Stem Cell Opponents

Anti-stem cell activists lost another round in court last month when a Cole County judge dismissed all claims in a lawsuit filed earlier this year.

Among other things, Missouri Roundtable for Life accused elected officials of conspiring against one of Roundtable’s latest attempts to stifle medical research in our state.

Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce not only called the group’s claims “without merit,” she wrote that they “rise to the level of being frivolous.”

That’s strong language coming from a judge, but appropriate. Opponents of stem cell research are looking for any tactic to force their will — no matter the cost to families that are relying on stem cell research to help find treatments for Parkinson’s, sickle cell disease, macular degeneration and other afflictions.

Source and More:
http://www.missouricures.com/site/PageServer

Wacked Wednesday

Mothers of children with autism have higher parental stress, psychological distress

Ask any mother and she'll tell you that raising a preschooler is no easy task. Now imagine what it must be like to bring up a child with autism or a developmental delay.

Researchers at the University of Washington's Autism Center asked mothers about their experiences and found that moms of children with autism had higher levels of parenting-related stress and psychological distress than mothers of children with developmental delay. Children's problem behavior was associated with increases in both parenting-related stress and distress in both groups, but this relationship was stronger in mothers of children with autism.

"Both groups of women are dealing with children who need high levels of care-giving. But there is something about autism that is making a difference and adding stress and psychological distress to these mothers," said Annette Estes, lead author of a new study and associate director of the UW Autism Center.

Surprisingly, the research also found no link between a child's decreased daily living skills and increased parental stress and psychological distress.

"This finding was counterintuitive," said Estes, who is also a research assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. "If a child has more needs in getting dressed and in other daily living skills, that means the parents are working harder and seemingly would be under stress. But it is not the hard work that is stressing the mothers. Our findings really pointed to the behavior problems that can occur with autism. Children with autism had significantly higher levels of problem behaviors than children with developmental delay."

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news166282302.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Link between obesity and diabetes discovered

A Monash University study has proven a critical link between obesity and the onset of Type 2 diabetes, a discovery which could lead to the design of a drug to prevent the disease.

The findings were published today in respected journal Cell Metabolism.

The team, led by Associate Professor Matthew Watt, discovered that fat cells release a novel protein called PEDF (pigment epithelium-derived factor), which triggers a chain of events and interactions that lead to development of Type 2 diabetes.

"When PEDF is released into the bloodstream, it causes the muscle and liver to become desensitised to insulin. The pancreas then produces more insulin to counteract these negative effects, " Associate Professor Watt said.

This insulin release causes the pancreas to become overworked, eventually slowing or stopping insulin release from the pancreas, leading to Type 2 diabetes."

"It appears that the more fat tissue a person has the less sensitive they become to insulin. Therefore a greater amount of insulin is required to maintain the body's regulation of blood-glucose," Associate Professor Watt said.

"Our research was able to show that increasing PEDF not only causes Type 2 diabetes like complications but that blocking PEDF reverses these effects. The body again returned to being insulin-sensitive and therefore did not need excess insulin to remain regulated."

Associate Professor Watt said identifying the link is a significant breakthrough in explaining the reasons why obesity triggers the onset of Type 2 Diabetes.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news166270497.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Post-traumatic stress disorder: Psychological treatments may not prevent PTSD

Psychological interventions intended to prevent the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the early stages after a traumatic experience have not been shown to be effective, Cochrane Researchers have concluded. This systematic review focused on multiple-session treatments for everyone involved, irrespective of the presence of symptoms. Two previous reviews found single session interventions to be ineffective.

"It is important to note that these interventions were for everyone involved in a traumatic event rather than just those who had symptoms, which may account for the results. We found no benefit associated with any of the multiple session interventions studied, and there was some evidence that multiple session interventions may result in worse outcome than no intervention for some individuals," says lead researcher Neil Roberts of the Traumatic Stress Service at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, UK. "Our recommendation is, therefore, that these interventions should not be used as a blanket approach for everyone involved in traumatic events."

PTSD is a condition that affects people who undergo extremely stressful experiences, such as earthquakes, violent crimes and military combat. They may suffer long-lasting psychological difficulties as a result. Experts have been trying to develop effective treatments to prevent PTSD from developing for 25 years, but there is little evidence that those used routinely offer any benefit.

The review encompassed people of all risk levels. Researchers looked at data from eleven studies involving a total of 941 people exposed to traumatic events. These studies offered interventions, which included cognitive behavioural therapy and individual and group counselling, to people whether or not they were experiencing symptoms of PTSD. None of these was effective at preventing PTSD. Patients given the treatments were more likely to report symptoms of PTSD after three to six months than patients who were not.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news166252659.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Veterans Call For Greater Improvements For Veteran Services

Services for veterans have improved recently, but many veterans say more improvements still need to be made.

The Detroit News reports: "Services for returning military veterans have improved dramatically in the last two years, including faster assistance for mental health issues, homelessness and job training, a panel of experts on veterans benefits said Monday. But they still aren't where they need to be for the 1 million GIs returning from conflicts across the globe, local veterans told officials. As the U.S. House of Representatives considers this week Veterans Affairs funding for fiscal year 2010, a group of metro Detroit veterans and their families gathered in Berkley on Monday with U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield, and retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark to consider the needs of veterans in Michigan and across the nation." Some of the issues discussed included the VA claim backlog, veteran hiring and the new GI Bill that will take effect Aug. 1. A new veteran appropriations budget bill calls for an 11.5 percent increase in spending for veteran health care services and hiring more workers to address the backlog.

The paper notes: "Dr. John Grabowski, associate chief of staff for mental health at the VA Medical Center in Detroit, said there has been a tremendous expansion of services for veterans in the last two years, including a new program that will work with criminal courts to get veterans into treatment instead of jail. Yet he agreed that one-on-one services for veterans could improve" (Chambers, 7/7).

Source and More
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/156729.php
___________________________________________________________________________
Increases In Suicides And Murders Linked To Economic Crisis

An article published Online First and in a future edition of The Lancet reports that the rising rates of suicide and murders in the population are directly associated to the growing unemployment rates originated by the economic downturn. Another effect is the decline in road-traffic accidents. Active labor market programs aiming to maintain and reintegrate workers in jobs could tone down some of these unfavorable effects. The article is the work of Dr David Stuckler, of the University of Oxford, UK, and Professor Martin McKee, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and their team.

It is acknowledged that economic trouble can lead to adverse effects in health because of its impact on mental health, addiction problems, increased stress and suicides. On the other hand, some people argue that recessions can lead people to be healthier, because they engage in more healthy behavior, such as for instance walking instead of driving, and less over-consumption of food and alcohol. In order to find out more about the effects of economic downturns on public health, the authors evaluated how economic changes have affected mortality rates in twenty six European Union (EU) countries in the last thirty years. They identified how governments might reduce adverse effects.

Source and More
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/156690.php
___________________________________________________________________________
Stressful Weight Gain

Stressing out can cause people to gain weight, according to a new study.

This new study is believed to be one of the first of its kind to look at the relationship between weight gain and multiple types of stress—job-related demands, difficulty paying bills, strained family relationships, depression or anxiety disorder—in the U.S. population.

The article will appear in the July 15 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

“Today’s economy is stressing people out, and stress has been linked to a number of illnesses —such as heart disease, high blood pressure and increased risk for cancer. This study shows that stress is also linked to weight gain,” according to Jason Block, M.D., M.P.H., who conducted the research.

Women’s waistlines are affected by more types of stress, according to the study, “Psychosocial Stress and Change in Weight Among U.S. Adults.”

In addition to weight gain associated with financial problems or a difficult job, women also added pounds when grappling with strained family relationships and feeling limited by life’s circumstances.

For men, the numbers on the scale did not go up when facing difficult family relationships or feeling constrained by life circumstances. Among men, lack of decision-making authority at work and lack of skill discretion was associated with greater weight gain. Skill discretion can be defined as the ability to learn new skills on the job and to perform interesting job duties.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/08/stressful-weight-gain/6974.html

Tight Rope Tuesday

Childhood Obesity: A National Health Disaster in the Making?

Despite aggressive public efforts to curb the rise in obesity, Americans in most states are becoming more obese with each passing year, according to the most recent in a series of annual reports from the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). This discouraging trend emphasizes the failure of policies aimed at healthful nutrition and physical activity, and suggests the country is unlikely to achieve the health goals set forth by Healthy People 2010—an effort aimed at reducing the prevalence of overweight and obesity to less than 15 percent among adults and to less than 5 percent among children by the year 2010.

The report, F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America 2009, finds that obesity rates for adults in the U.S. rose in 23 states over the past year, and did not decrease in a single state. Sixteen states experienced an increase for the second year in a row, and 11 states experienced an increase for the third straight year. The number of obese adults now exceeds 25 percent in 31 states and exceeds 20 percent in 49 states. To put these numbers into perspective, in 1991, no state had an obesity rate above 20 percent, and in 1980, the national average of obese adults was 15 percent.

Source and More
http://www.healthnews.com/family-health/child-health/childhood-obesity-a-national-health-disaster-making-3421.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Death Penalty And Mental Illness: Families Of Victims Speak Out At National Convention; "Double Tragedies" Report Released

For the first time, families of murder victims have joined with families of persons with mental illness who have been executed to speak out against the death penalty.

Double Tragedies, a report being released today at a special session on the first day of the annual convention of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), calls the death penalty "inappropriate and unwarranted" for people with severe mental disorders and "a distraction from problems within the mental health system that contributed or even directly lead to tragic violence."

The report calls for treatment and prevention, not execution. It is available online at http://www.nami.org/doubletragedies.

The report, a joint project of NAMI and Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights (MVFHR), is based on extensive interviews with 21 family members from 10 states: California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

"Family opposition to the death penalty is grounded in personal tragedy," said MVFHR executive director Renny Cushing. "In the public debate about the death penalty and how to respond in the aftermath of violent crime, these are the voices that need to be heard."

Source and More
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/156548.php
___________________________________________________________________________
Dementia On the Rise

Current statistics paint a grim picture of aging beyond the norm as roughly 50 percent of people who reach 85 will become demented.

For many, the knowledge that the mind is not as sharp as it used to be is a source of frustration and embarrassment.

In response, the University of Michigan is sponsoring research designed to better diagnose and treat dementia before it escalates.

“This is an explosive disease,” says Sid Gilman, M.D., director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at University of Michigan Health System, who conducts community research.

“It’s a horrible disease that robs people of their humanity. They forget their families and friends.”

By age 100, the number of demented individuals spikes to 60 percent. Of those who develop dementia, roughly 60 percent will prove to have Alzheimer’s disease. It’s predicted that the current number of patients with Alzheimer’s disease in the United States is roughly 5 million.

By the year 2050, it will grow to about 30 million, presenting a significant financial burden to the healthcare system.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/07/dementia-on-the-rise/6944.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Vegetable Protein Lowers Blood Pressure
Amino Acid in Vegetables May Lower High Blood Pressure

A new study shows that an amino acid known as glutamic acid, which is found in greater amounts in vegetable protein, is associated with lower blood pressure.

This builds on other research linking higher intake of vegetable protein to lower blood pressure.

Researchers say the finding may also help explain in more detail why the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet works at lowering high blood pressure. The DASH diet is low in sodium and high in vegetables, whole grains, and beans, which are also rich sources of vegetable protein.

Amino acids are the building blocks of protein, and glutamic acid was the most common amino acid found in the study. It accounted for 23% of the protein in people who were mainly vegetable protein eaters, and 18% in who were mainly animal protein eaters.
How Vegetables Help Heart

In the study, researchers analyzed data from 4,680 middle-age people participating in an international population study on the effects of dietary nutrients on high blood pressure. Participants were from the U.S., U.K., China, and Japan.

The results, published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, showed that a nearly 5% higher intake of glutamic acid as a percent of total protein in the diet was linked to lower average blood pressure. Systolic blood pressure was lower by an average of 1.5 to 3.0 points and diastolic blood pressure was lower by 1.0 to 1.6 points.

Systolic blood pressure is the top number in a blood pressure reading and refers to the force when the heart contracts. Diastolic blood pressure is the lower number in a blood pressure reading and refers to the pressure when the heart is at rest.

Source and More
http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/news/20090706/vegetable-protein-lowers-blood-pressure

Manic Monday

Dogs Sniffing Out Health Problems

Catching up on my weekend Web reading, I came across an interesting video from National Geographic, about dogs who sniff out cancer and health problems associated with diabetes.

One of the dogs featured, a collie named Tinker, began whining and barking when his owner, who has diabetes, experienced dangerous drops in blood sugar. Although Tinker wasn’t trained at first, his reactions to the hypoglycemic attacks led to further training as a qualified “hypo alert” dog. The video also features the work of the British research center, Cancer and Bio-Detection Dogs.

The center has 17 rescue dogs at various stages of training that will be paired up with diabetic owners, including many children, reports Reuters.

Source and More
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/dogs-sniffing-out-health-problems/
___________________________________________________________________________
Clinical trial shows quadriplegics can operate powered wheelchair with tongue drive system

An assistive technology that enables individuals to maneuver a powered wheelchair or control a mouse cursor using simple tongue movements can be operated by individuals with high-level spinal cord injuries, according to the results of a recently completed clinical trial.

"This clinical trial has validated that the Tongue Drive system is intuitive and quite simple for individuals with high-level spinal cord injuries to use," said Maysam Ghovanloo, an assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "Trial participants were able to easily remember and correctly issue tongue commands to play computer games and drive a powered wheelchair around an obstacle course with very little prior training."

At the annual conference of the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) on June 26, the researchers reported the results of the first five clinical trial subjects to use the Tongue Drive system. The trial was conducted at the Shepherd Center, an Atlanta-based catastrophic care hospital, and funded by the National Science Foundation and the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.

The clinical trial tested the ability of these individuals with tetraplegia, as a result of high-level spinal cord injuries (cervical vertebrae C3-C5), to perform tasks related to computer access and wheelchair navigation -- using only their tongue movements.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news166097287.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Delirium in hospitalized adults: Situation critical, no relief available

Every year as many as seven million adults in the United States experience delirium during hospitalization. In a systematic review of the scientific literature on delirium prevention and treatment, investigators from Indiana University School of Medicine, the Regenstrief Institute and Wishard Health Services found that despite the significant health and financial burdens of delirium for hospitalized adults, no effective way to prevent or treat the condition has been identified.

"Having delirium prolongs the length of a hospital stay, increases the risk of post-hospitalization transfer to a nursing home and doubles the risk of death. We need to identify a safe and effective drug to prevent and treat delirium. With our review we are challenging the scientific community to come up with new therapeutic options," said Malaz Boustani, M.D., senior author of the study which appears in the July 2009 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Dr. Boustani is a Regenstrief Institute investigator and associate professor of medicine at the IU School of Medicine.

Delirium, experienced by a significant number of older patients in surgical and critical care units and over half of older adults who are hospitalized for broken hips, is a state of confusion in which the individual has undergone a sudden alteration of mental status. Delirium is not dementia, but individuals with dementia are more susceptible to developing delirium during hospitalization than individuals without dementia.

The researchers found that only 13 randomized controlled studies on promising drugs for delirium were conducted from January 1966 to October 2008. These studies identified and evaluated 15 drugs including first and second generation antipsychotics, the drugs currently prescribed by most physicians for patients with delirium. The researchers found that neither older agents nor newer, more expensive medications were effective in preventing delirium. The study also found no difference between antipsychotics in treating delirium. To date, there are no U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved drugs to prevent or manage delirium according to Dr. Boustani.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news166097419.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Mental Health Risks with Popular Stop-Smoking Drugs

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns that patients taking the popular stop-smoking drugs Chantix and Zyban should be watched closely for signs of serious mental illness. The warning was issued following mounting reports of bizarre behavior, including suicide, among users of the drugs. Pfizer is the maker of Chantix (varenicline), and GlaxoSmithKine is the manufacturer of Zyban (buproprion). Buproprion is also sold under the brand name Wellbutrin, as a treatment for depression.

Both of the drugs will now be required to carry “black box” labels warning that people who take the drugs should be closely monitored for signs of suicidal thoughts, depression, hostility, and other behavioral changes. In addition, both drug companies will be required to conduct clinical trials for the purpose of assessing the mental health risks associated with the uses of the drugs. Unlike the clinical trials leading to the FDA approval of the drugs, the new trials will enroll smokers with underlying psychiatric disorders. Pfizer has already begun enrollment of schizophrenia patients in a trial.

Source and More
http://www.healthnews.com/family-health/mental-health-risks-popular-stop-smoking-drugs-3415.html

Harvard Scientists Find Master Human Heart Cell

http://www.missouricures.com/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5929&news_iv_ctrl=1003
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
By: Carolyn Y. Johnson, The Boston Globe

Harvard scientists announced today they had discovered a master human heart cell that gives rise to three major types of heart tissue, providing new tools for drug development and an important advance toward the ultimate goal of repairing damaged hearts.

Using human embryonic stem cells, the researchers have unraveled part of the process by which the human heart is built during development -- insights they hope could be used to understand congenital heart disease and create new therapies for cardiovascular disease, the top cause of death in the United States.

"Since these [cells] are entirely human, you can use this system now to study the role of specific genes in human heart disease, and as ways to screen drugs for cardiotoxicity and for therapeutic effect," said Dr. Kenneth R.

Chien, director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and principal faculty member at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. He is senior author of the paper, published in Nature today.

The work points to new applications for regenerative medicine. For years, attempts to repair damaged heart tissue using different types of cells have come back with "ambiguous, disappointing, marginal, and in certain cases negative" results, Chien said. Locally, for example, Cambridge-based Genzyme Corp. stopped enrolling patients in a clinical trial for a heart cell therapy three years ago because it was deemed to have little chance of success.

Because the new work reveals progenitor cells that naturally create specific types of heart tissue during development, Chien thinks they may have a better chance of repairing damaged hearts.

But the greatest near-term promise of the work may be in routine drug development. It could now be possible to, for example, create large numbers of heart muscle cells to test drugs.

"Add one drug, two drugs, or all combinations of drugs a heart patient would take" to test how effective or toxic compounds are in actual human heart cells, said Christine Mummery, a professor of developmental biology at Leiden University Medical Center who was not involved with the work. "It's really a kind of tool to bring us a step further."

Drug companies are especially interested in such applications. Using the actual human cells affected by a disease -- instead of mice, dogs, or other stand-ins -- could potentially speed up drug development by giving companies a more accurate template for screening potential drugs. Animal cells and other types of assays have been invaluable for testing and screening drugs, but the new cells could give scientists a chance to see how the human cells they are interested in react to drugs.

Such cells could also prevent companies from spending too much time on a drug that ultimately fails. According to John D. McNeish, executive director of Pfizer Regenerative Medicine, one big concern at pharmaceutical companies is that drugs may have a side effect on the heart that only emerges late in the drug development process. Testing the drug on human heart cells might alert scientists to side effects before they begin administering the drug to patients in clinical trials.

"I think this is in many ways a groundbreaking work," McNeish said, because of both its short and long-term implications. "It is fair to say in the future, stem cell technology could develop highly predictive cell-based assays for cardiotoxicity that could one day replace" the current models, such as using cells from cadaver hearts or animals.

GlaxoSmithKline, the pharmaceutical company that made a $25 million investment in the Harvard Stem Cell Institute last year, is also interested in using stem cells as drug discovery tools.

"Stem cells would allow pharmaceutical researchers to see the effects of new compounds on human cells, and so ultimately replace current testing on non-human cells, and help improve the accuracy of screening to improve therapeutic efficacy and reduce risks to patients," Aaron Chuang, scientific manager for stem cell research at GSK, wrote in an e-mail.

Chien and his colleagues began their work by searching in fetal human hearts for master cells, grandfather cells that give rise to three major types of tissue.

His team confirmed the presence of master cells in fetal hearts, but found that they decrease in number as the heart develops. They turned to human embryonic stem cells to better understand the cells and their potential applications.

Using stem cells, which are capable of turning into any cell in the human body, they created the master stem cells. Then, they tagged those cells, and confirmed that the master cells gave rise to three types of cells. They also identified a family of "intermediate" cells, each of which is a mother to a single kind of tissue -- giving rise to heart muscle tissue, smooth muscle tissue that contracts to regulate blood flow, or endothelial cells that line blood vessel walls.

Chien is already pushing the work forward. Future plans include turning back the clock of adult cells to create embryonic-like stem cells that could create cardiac master cells. A major question is whether such cells would be equivalent to the ones made from embryonic stem cells. If it works, that could offer the possibility of creating patient-specific cells to model different diseases. Chien is also interested in understanding the role progenitor cells play in congenital heart disease.

But ultimately, he wants to use the basic understanding of the cell to treat heart disease.

"My interest," Chien said, "is taking the disease out."

Learn about other stem cell advances by visiting MissouriCures.com

Scientists Find Differences in Embryonic Stem Cells and Reprogrammed Skin Cells

http://www.missouricures.com/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5930&news_iv_ctrl=1003
Wednesday, July 1, 2009

By: Newswise

UCLA researchers have found that embryonic stem cells and skin cells reprogrammed into embryonic-like cells have inherent molecular differences, demonstrating for the first time that the two cell types are clearly distinguishable from one another.

The data from the study suggest that embryonic stem cells and the reprogrammed cells, known as induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, have overlapping but still distinct gene expression signatures. The differing signatures were evident regardless of where the cell lines were generated, the methods by which they were derived or the species from which they were isolated, said Bill Lowry, a researcher with the Broad Stem Cell Research Center and a study author.

“We need to keep in mind that iPS cells are not perfectly similar to embryonic stem cells,” said Lowry, an assistant professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology. “We’re not sure what this means with regard to the biology of pluripotent stem cells. At this point our analyses comprise just an observation. It could be biologically irrelevant, or it could be manifested as an advantage or a disadvantage.”

The study appears in the July 2, 2009 issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell.

The iPS cells, like embryonic stem cells, have the potential to become all of the tissues in the body. However, iPS cells don’t require the destruction of an embryo.

The study was a collaboration between the labs of Lowry and UCLA researcher Kathrin Plath, who were among the first scientists and the first in California to reprogram human skin cells into iPS cells. The researchers performed microarray gene expression profiles on embryonic stem cells and iPS cells to measure the expression of thousands of genes at once, creating a global picture of cellular function.

Lowry and Plath noted that, when the molecular signatures were compared, it was clear that certain genes were expressed differently in embryonic stem cells than they were in iPS cells. They then compared their data to that stored on a National Institutes of Health data base, submitted by laboratories worldwide. They analyzed that data to see if the genetic profiling conducted in other labs validated their findings, and again they found overlapping but distinct differences in gene expression, Lowry said.

“This suggested to us that there could be something biologically relevant causing the distinct differences to arise in multiple labs in different experiments,” Lowry said. “That answered our first question: Would the same observation be made with cell lines created and maintained in other laboratories?”

Next, UCLA researchers wanted to confirm their findings in iPS cell lines created using the latest derivation methods. The cells from the UCLA labs were derived using an older method that used integrative viruses to insert four genes into the genome of the skin cells, including some genes known to cause cancer. They analyzed cell lines derived with newer methods that do not require integration of the reprogramming factors. Their analysis again showed different molecular signatures between iPS cells and their embryo-derived counterparts, and these signatures showed a significant degree of overlap with those generated with integrative methods.

To determine if this was a phenomenon limited to human embryonic stem cells, Lowry and Plath analyzed mouse embryonic stem cells and iPS lines derived from mouse skin cells and again validated their findings.

They also analyzed iPS cell lines made from mouse blood cells with the same result

"We can’t explain this, but it appears something is different about iPS cells and embryonic stem cells,” Lowry said. “And the differences are there, no matter whose lab the cells come from, whether they’re human or mouse cells or the method used to derive the iPS cells. Perhaps most importantly, many of these differences are shared amongst lines made in various ways.”

Going forward, UCLA researchers will conduct more sophisticated analyses on the genes being expressed differently in the two cell types and try to understand what is causing that differential expression. They also plan to differentiate the iPS cells into various lineages to determine if the molecular signature is carried through to the mature cells. In their current study, Lowry and Plath did not look at differentiated cells, only the iPS and embryonic stem cells themselves.

Further study is crucial, said Mark Chin, a postdoctoral fellow and first author of the study.

"It will be important to further examine these cells lines in a careful and systematic manner, as has been done with other stem cell lines, if we are to understand the role they can play in clinical therapies and what effect the observed differences have on these cells," he said.

Learn about other stem cell advances by visiting MissouriCures.com

MU scientists successfully convert pig tissue into stem cells

Stem cell research has been considered by some to be the next area in science that could potentially produce life-saving cures, but controversy over the issue has limited research opportunities.

An MU researcher thinks he has found a way to avoid the controversy altogether.

R. Michael Roberts, curator's professor of molecular biochemistry in MU's animal sciences division and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, is the head of an MU research team that has successfully created stem cells that "think" they are embryonic stem cells. The new cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells and are created from the cells of pigs' connective tissue. The group’s findings were published Tuesday in the serial Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The induced stem cells are very similar in appearance and behavior to embryonic stem cells from humans and mice and, like embryonic stem cells, have the potential to be converted into all the various types of tissue cells in the body. Roberts said the induced stem cells could then be used clinically as a substitute for embryonic stem cells for grafting particular types of tissue into pigs and then testing the safety of stem cell therapies before they are performed on humans.

Induced stem cells have many advantages over cells taken from embryos, Roberts said. For one, they allow researchers to avoid the controversial procedures utilized in the gathering of embryonic stem cells, he said; the method for creating induced stem cells does not involve cloning and does not utilize embryos.

"You may be able to get stem cells that way," Roberts said, referring to the embryonic stem cell procedure. "But the procedure scares the heck out of people because it is a form of cloning."

Source and More:
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/07/05/mu-scientists-make-stem-cells-pigs-connective-tissue/

FDA: Boxed Warning On Serious Mental Health Events To Be Required For Chantix And Zyban

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that it is requiring manufacturers to put a Boxed Warning on the prescribing information for the smoking cessation drugs Chantix (varenicline) and Zyban (bupropion). The warning will highlight the risk of serious mental health events including changes in behavior, depressed mood, hostility, and suicidal thoughts when taking these drugs.

"The risk of serious adverse events while taking these products must be weighed against the significant health benefits of quitting smoking," said Janet Woodcock, M.D., director, the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "Smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease, disability, and death in the United States and we know these products are effective aids in helping people quit."

Similar information on mental health events will be required for bupropion marketed as the antidepressant Wellbutrin and for generic versions of bupropion. These drugs already carry a Boxed Warning for suicidal behavior in treating psychiatric disorders.

Woodcock said health care professionals who prescribe Chantix and Zyban should monitor their patients for any unusual changes in mood or behavior after starting these drugs. She added that patients should immediately contact their health care professional if they experience such changes.

The FDA's request for the additional warnings is based on a review of reports submitted to the agency's Adverse Event Reporting System since the time the products were marketed and on an analysis of information from clinical trials and scientific literature.

Source and More:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/156258.php

National Alliance On Mental Illness Observes Minority Mental Health Awareness Month

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) reminds Americans that July is Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, a time for public education about serious mental illness in diverse communities.

In 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives designated July as Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month in honor of the leading African American novelist and journalist, who also was a voice for individuals and families affected by mental Illness. She died in 2006.

Campbell's best-selling books included Your Blues Ain't Like Mine (1992), Brothers and Sisters (1994), Singing in the Comeback Choir (1998) and 72-Hour Hold (2005). She was co-founder of NAMI Urban Los Angeles.

"NAMI is proud to honor Bebe Moore Campbell's legacy of public education and advocacy on behalf of people and their families who live with mental illness-especially those in diverse communities," said Michael Fitzpatrick, NAMI executive director.

"Disparities in mental health care still prevent people from getting the help they need. We must work to ensure that all Americans have access to culturally competent services and treatment."

Mental illness affects one in four American families and people in diverse communities are no exception.

Source and More:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/156333.php

Wrap Up On The Week

Calif. regulators warn of pot's cancer capability

It might take Californians a puff or two to get their heads around an apparent contradiction recently enshrined in state law. The same marijuana smoke that doctors can recommend to ease cancer patients' suffering must soon come with a warning saying it causes the disease.

State environmental regulators last month voted to place marijuana smoke on its list of hundreds of substances known to cause cancer. The decision could lead to warning signs in medical marijuana dispensaries and labels on packaged pot within a year.

A voter-approved measure made medical marijuana legal in California in 1996. Key backers included patients with serious illnesses such as cancer and AIDS who said pot helped them manage pain and nausea.

Medical marijuana advocates sought to downplay the significance of the state's decision, arguing researchers have long known that the smoke contains cancer-causing compounds.

"This does not mean in any way that those carcinogens that appear in smoked marijuana, smoked cannabis, have any kind of causal relationship to cancer," said Kris Hermes, spokesman for Americans for Safe Access, a pro-medical marijuana group.

Regulators disagree. Scientists with the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment reviewed 27 studies of the links between marijuana and cancer in humans. Though not all the studies showed a link, regulators found that "marijuana smoke was clearly shown, through scientifically valid testing according to generally accepted principles, to cause cancer," according to an agency statement.

Dr. Thomas Mack, a University of Southern California epidemiologist and chairman of the committee, said the decision to list marijuana smoke as a cancer-causing substance should not surprise anyone.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news165936031.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Are Persons with Down Syndrome Protected Against Some Forms of Cancer?

Down syndrome (DS), or Trisomy 21, is defined by an extra copy of chromosome 21 in all cells. In humans there are normally 2 copies of each of 23 chromosomes for a total of 46 in each cell; in DS there are 47.

An extensive review of literature available in 1998 showed that the distribution of cancer in DS in quite different than in the general population (GP). A number of epidemiological studies identified then, or published since, have confirmed that DS is associated with a marked increased risk of leukemia. Increased risks of incidence of or mortality from lymphomas and a few solid tumors have also been reported. On the other hand, a number of studies have suggested that other solid tumors are less common in persons with DS than in the general population. A potential DS-related protective effect against some cancers has been suggested, and this has encouraged a number of studies of a possible genetic mechanism of tumor suppression related to DS.

Source and More
http://www.healthnews.com/disease-illness/are-persons-down-syndrome-protected-against-some-forms-cancer-3404.html
___________________________________________________________________________
What Is Psychotherapy? What Are The Benefits Of Psychotherapy?

Psychotherapy consists of a series of techniques for treating mental health, emotional and some psychiatric disorders. Psychotherapy helps the patient understand what helps them feel positive or anxious, as well as accepting their strong and weak points. If people can identify their feelings and ways of thinking they become better at coping with difficult situations.

According to Medilexicon's medical dictionary, psychotherapy is "Treatment of emotional, behavioral, personality, and psychiatric disorders based primarily on verbal or nonverbal communication and interventions with the patient, in contrast to treatments using chemical and physical measures." Simply put, psychotherapy aims to alleviate psychological distress through talking, rather than drugs.

Psychotherapy is commonly used for psychological problems that have had a number of years to accumulate. It only works if a trusting relationship can be built up between the client and the psychotherapist (in psychology "client" can mean "patient"). Treatment can continue for several months, and even years. Psychotherapy may be practiced on a one-to-one basis, or in pairs, and even in groups. Generally, sessions occur about once a week and last one hour.

Source and More
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/156433.php

T.G.I.F.

FDA Adds Strong Warnings To Anti-Smoking Drug Labels

"The Food and Drug Administration announced (Wednesday) that it is requiring the smoking-cessation drugs Chantix and Zyban to carry the strongest type of safety warning possible to alert patients that the medications can cause serious mental health problems, including depression and suicide," the Washington Post reports (Stein, 7/1).

"About 100 suicides in patients taking Chantix have been reported to the FDA since 2006, said Curtis Rosebraugh, an FDA official. By comparison, there have been 14 reports of suicide in patients taking Zyban," the Wall Street Journal reports. "Both companies say there is no evidence that their drugs actually cause suicides or mood swings. And along with the FDA, they both note that smokers trying to quit often experience depression, anger and other psychiatric side effects." The FDA also stressed that the warnings aren't meant to advise smokers not to use the drugs (Mundy and Favole, 7/2).

This information was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at kaiserhealthnews.org.

Source and More
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/156327.php
___________________________________________________________________________
What Is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? What Is PTSD? What Causes PTSD?

PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) is triggered by a traumatic event - it is a kind of anxiety. The sufferer of PTSD may have experienced or seen an event that caused extreme fear, shock and/or a feeling of helplessness. Most of us experience a brief period of difficulty adjusting and coping with traumatic events. However, we gradually get better with time and healthy coping methods. On the other hand, there are times when symptoms get worse and may last for several months, or years. This study explains how PTSD can surface two years after a traumatic event. Another study found that one in eight Lower Manhattan residents likely had PTSD two to three years after the 9/11 attacks.

The sufferer's life may be completely disrupted - in such cases the person suffers from PSTD. To prevent PTSD from becoming a long-term illness it is crucial that the sufferer receive treatment as soon as possible.

Source and More
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/156285.php
___________________________________________________________________________
Loneliness and Anxiety Accompany Child Obesity

As childhood obesity rates continue to increase, experts agree that more information is needed about the implications of being overweight. Researchers believe this knowledge may represent a step toward reversing the current obesity trends.

A new study has found that overweight children, especially girls, show signs of the negative consequences of being overweight as early as kindergarten.

“We found that both boys and girls who were overweight from kindergarten through third grade displayed more depression, anxiety and loneliness than kids who were never overweight, and those negative feelings worsened over time,” said Sara Gable, associate professor of human development and family studies in the College of Human Environmental Sciences at the University of Missouri.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/03/loneliness-and-anxiety-accompany-child-obesity/6895.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Early Health Ed Reduces Risky Adult Behaviors

A new study explores the link between early education programs and adult health, and how early educational interventions affect health outcomes.

Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health researchers found that early education reduces health behavioral risk factors by enhancing educational attainment, health insurance coverage, income, and family environments.

However, since the follow-up survey was conducted at age 40, the cohort may still be too young for these reductions in behavioral risk factors to translate into improvements in overall physical health outcomes.

The study, available online in the American Journal of Public Health, will be published in the August 2009 issue.

The researchers followed children between the ages of 3 and 4 years and through the age of 40 years. Considered a critical window for children’s intellectual and socioemotional development, these prekindergarten years are thought to be especially important for children whose parents have a limited amount of education.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/03/early-health-ed-reduces-risky-adult-behaviors/6905.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Chantix and Zyban to Receive Boxed Warnings for Serious Neuropsychiatric Symptoms

The smoking-cessation drugs varenicline (Chantix, Pfizer) and bupropion (Zyban, GlaxoSmithKline) must carry a boxed warning in their labeling that use of the drugs has been associated with serious mental health events, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced today.

The drugs' makers must also develop patient medication guides highlighting the risk for serious neuropsychiatric symptoms in patients who use the products. Reported symptoms include changes in behavior, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, suicidality, and attempted suicide.

Similar warnings will be required for bupropion marketed as the antidepressant Wellbutrin and for generic versions of bupropion. They already have black box warnings for suicidal behavior in treating psychiatric disorders.

If patients report experiencing agitation, depressed mood, changes in behavior that are not typical of nicotine withdrawal, or if they experience suicidal thoughts or behavior, the FDA recommends that clinicians advise patients to stop taking varenicline or bupropion immediately.

The warnings are based on reviews of postmarketing adverse event reports for the drugs. Since its approval in 2006, varenicline has been associated with 98 completed suicides and 188 attempts. Bupropion, approved for smoking cessation in 1997, has been associated with 14 completed suicides and 17 attempts during its marketing history.

The reports include observations of a temporal link between use of the drugs and either suicidal events or the occurrence of suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior in patients who had no history of psychiatric illness, Curtis Rosebraugh, MD, director of the FDA’s Office of Drug Evaluation II, said during a media briefing.

Source and More
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/705163
___________________________________________________________________________
Study: Acid Reflux Drugs Cause Rebound Symptoms
Stopping PPI Drugs Can Lead to Increased Acid Reflux

Proton pump inhibitors are highly effective treatments for acid reflux symptoms, but taking prescription-strength dosages of the drugs for just a few months can lead to dependency, new research suggests.

Healthy adults in the study with no history of acid reflux symptoms -- such as chronic heartburn, indigestion, or acid regurgitation -- developed such symptoms when they stopped taking the drugs after eight weeks of treatment.

The findings provide the best evidence yet that withdrawal from acid-blocking proton pump inhibitor (PPI) therapy is associated with a clinically meaningful increase in acid production above pre-treatment levels, researchers say.

PPIs like Aciphex, Prilosec, Prevacid, Nexium, and Protonix are among the most widely used prescription medications in the world. By one estimate, 5% of adults in developed countries take the acid-reducing drugs.

“We have known for years that long-term treatment with PPIs induces a temporary increase in the secretion of acid, but the thinking has been that this probably wasn’t clinically relevant,” lead researcher Christina Reimer, MD, of Copenhagen University tells WebMD.

Source and More
http://www.webmd.com/heartburn-gerd/news/20090702/stopping-ppis-causes-acid-reflux-symptoms

Caregiver Stress Under Evaluation

Caring for an elderly family member can be stressful and can pose health threats to caregivers.

A new grant from the National Institute on Aging will study the effects of caregiving on familial caregivers.

Steven Zarit, a Penn State professor and department chair will look at people who care for family members with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. His study will focus on how adult day care impacts the stress levels of all individuals involved.

People with dementia experience progressive memory loss, which can lead them to act out in ways that are not always easy to handle. They may try to leave the house, struggle with dressing, reject help and become agitated.

This erratic behavior requires constant surveillance and any lapses in vigilance could lead to danger.

Trained professionals are more prepared to deal with these types of behaviors and often experience less stress than family members.

“Using adult day care can reduce stress for family members by lifting the burden of responsibility from them for a few hours,” said Zarit. “At the same time, day care provides stimulating activities that promote sleep and well-being in those being cared for.”

Source and More:
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/02/caregiver-stress-under-evaluation/6869.html

Paquin Tower program might get funding after all

After having its funding cut last year, the Adapted Community Recreation Program at Paquin Tower could have its funding restored.

Boone County Family Resources and the Department of Parks and Recreation have proposed a funding agreement, in which Family Resources would provide the program at Paquin Tower with $16,000, and the city will maintain its current funding of $72,000.

Mike Hood, Parks and Recreation director, said city staff is reviewing the agreement as part of the 2010 budget process.

“In essence, BCFR is looking to restore/replace the funds that were cut from the program’s budget during the FY09 budget approval process,” Hood said in a report about the proposed agreement.

Participants in the program have noticed a change since funds were cut last year. Paquin resident David Dollens, said he noticed when the activities became more limited, and there were fewer supplies and limited staff.

Staff recently conducted a survey, program supervisor Karen Ramey said, and there were suggestions for more activities after 3:30 p.m. to accommodate participants who work during the day. But they cannot currently provide all the activities suggested, because of lack of funding, she said.

“With the funding we have, we’re doing what we can,” Ramey said.

Les Wagner, executive director of Family Resources, said that if the agreement passes, it will evaluate the activities and participation at the end of the year with Parks and Recreation. He also said he’s open to a providing funding for a second year.

Wagner said “it made sense” to offer the funding after it was reduced last fall.

A few changes at Paquin Tower have already been made to improve the program. Parks and Recreation staff recently changed the name from the “Paquin Tower Recreation Program” in order to let people in the community know that it is open to everyone, not just Paquin Tower residents.

Hood said they had already been considering the name change before the proposed agreement. The program has always been available to anybody in the community.

“We’ve been working on it anyway to make sure people know what we have to offer,” Ramey said. “We have had calls from other groups, wanting to know more about the program.”

Don Burkett, a program participant and resident of Paquin Tower, said he would like to see more people who live in the building participate.

“There are a lot of people who live here who don’t come,” he said. “You can’t think for people. You can only think of ideas to get them interested.”

Ramey and Wagner both emphasized that coordination and communication is important for the success for this program.

“It’s just the beginning,” Ramey said. “It’s a work in progress. It always takes time to change things, and I think we’re working toward it."

Source:
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/07/02/bcfr-offers-funding-adapted-community-recreation-program/

Wacked Wednesday

Lack of sleep could be more dangerous for women than men

Women who get less than the recommended eight hours sleep a night are at higher risk of heart disease and heart-related problems than men with the same sleeping patterns.

Research by the University of Warwick and University College London has found that levels of inflammatory markers vary significantly with sleep duration in women, but not men.

The study, published today (Weds) in the American journal Sleep, found levels of Interleukin-6 (IL-6), a marker related to coronary heart disease, were significantly lower in women who reported sleeping eight hours as compared with 7hours.

A second marker, High-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), is predictive of future cardiovascular morbidity. Levels of hs-CRP were significantly higher in women who reported sleeping five hours or less.

Lead author of the study, Associate Professor of Biochemical Medicine at Warwick Medical School Michelle Miller said short-term sleep deprivation studies have shown that inflammatory markers are elevated in sleep-deprived individuals, suggesting that inflammatory mechanisms may play a role in the cardiovascular risk associated with sleep deprivation.

She said: "Our study may provide some insight into a potential mechanism for the observation in previous studies which indicates an increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease in individuals who have less than five hours sleep per night and increased risk of non-cardiovascular death in long sleepers."

This is the first large-scale study to describe the associations between measures of inflammation and sleep duration in both men and women.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news165668445.html
___________________________________________________________________________
ADA releases updated position paper on vegetarian diets

ADA releases updated position paper on vegetarian diets
July 1st, 2009

The American Dietetic Association has released an updated position paper on vegetarian diets that concludes such diets, if well-planned, are healthful and nutritious for adults, infants, children and adolescents and can help prevent and treat chronic diseases including heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes.

ADA's position, published in the July issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, represents the Association's official stance on vegetarian diets:

"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life-cycle including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence and for athletes."

ADA's position and accompanying paper were written by Winston Craig, PhD, MPH, RD, professor and chair of the department of nutrition and wellness at Andrews University; and Reed Mangels, PhD, RD, nutrition advisor at the Vegetarian Resource Group, Baltimore, Md.

The revised position paper incorporates new topics and additional information on key nutrients for vegetarians, vegetarian diets in the life cycle and the use of vegetarian diets in prevention and treatment of chronic diseases. "Vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle," according to ADA's position. "There are many reasons for the rising interest in vegetarian diets. The number of vegetarians in the United States is expected to increase over the next decade."

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news165668617.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Mississippi's still fattest but Alabama closing in

Mississippi's still king of cellulite, but an ominous tide is rolling toward the Medicare doctors in neighboring Alabama: obese baby boomers.

It's time for the nation's annual obesity rankings and, outside of fairly lean Colorado, there's little good news. Obesity rates among adults rose in 23 states over the past year and didn't decline anywhere, says a new report from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

And while the nation has long been bracing for a surge in Medicare as the boomers start turning 65, the new report makes clear that fat, not just age, will fuel much of those bills. In every state, the rate of obesity is higher among 55- to 64-year-olds - the oldest boomers - than among today's 65-and-beyond.

That translates into a coming jump of obese Medicare patients that ranges from 5.2 percent in New York to a high of 16.3 percent in Alabama, the report concluded. In Alabama, nearly 39 percent of the oldest boomers are obese.

Health economists once made the harsh financial calculation that the obese would save money by dying sooner, notes Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust, a nonprofit public health group. But more recent research instead suggests they live nearly as long but are much sicker for longer, requiring such costly interventions as knee replacements and diabetes care and dialysis. Studies show Medicare spends anywhere from $1,400 to $6,000 more annually on health care for an obese senior than for the non-obese.

Source and More
http://www.physorg.com/news165656393.html
___________________________________________________________________________
Pessimism Drives Risky Behavior In Teens

Researchers have discovered that one in seven adolescents believe that it is highly likely that they will die before age 35, and this belief predicted that the adolescents would engage in risky behaviors.

Lead investigator Iris Borowsky, M.D., Ph.D. of the University of Minnesota Medical School and colleagues analyzed data collected by the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a nationally representative sample of more than 20,000 youth in grades 7 through 12 during three separate study years.

In the first set of interviews, nearly 15 percent of adolescents predicted they had a 50/50 chance or less of living to age 35. Those who engaged in risky behaviors such as illicit drug use, suicide attempts, fighting, or unsafe sexual activity in the first year were more likely in subsequent years to believe they would die at a young age.

Those who predicted that they’d die young during the first interview were more likely in later years to begin engaging in these same risky behaviors and have poor health outcomes. Notably, these teens were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with HIV/AIDS just six years later, regardless of their sexual preference.

Source and More
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/07/01/pessimism-drives-risky-behavior-in-teens/6843.html