Health & WellnessS


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Cognition Improved by Mindfulness Meditation

James Hathaway
Medical News Today
Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Getty Images
Some of us need regular amounts of coffee or other chemical enhancers to make us cognitively sharper. A newly published study suggests perhaps a brief bit of meditation would prepare us just as well.

While past research using neuroimaging technology has shown that meditation techniques can promote significant changes in brain areas associated with concentration, it has always been assumed that extensive training was required to achieve this effect. Though many people would like to boost their cognitive abilities, the monk-like discipline required seems like a daunting time commitment and financial cost for this benefit.

Surprisingly, the benefits may be achievable even without all the work. Though it sounds almost like an advertisement for a "miracle" weight-loss product, new research now suggests that the mind may be easier to cognitively train than we previously believed.

Psychologists studying the effects of a meditation technique known as "mindfulness "found that meditation-trained participants showed a significant improvement in their critical cognitive skills (and performed significantly higher in cognitive tests than a control group) after only four days of training for only 20 minutes each day.
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ADHD Linked to Interaction of Genetics and Psychology


ScienceDaily
Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:00 UTC
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© Getty Images
ADHD may be caused by alterations in the serotonin neurotransmission system combined with a tendency to experience psychosocial distress.

Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Behavioral and Brain Functions found that ADHD behaviors in children and adolescents were associated with interactions between low and high serotonin activity and self-blame in relation to inter-parental conflict.

Molly Nikolas, from Michigan State University, USA, worked with a team of researchers to study a key serotonin genetic region, 5HTTLPR, and the tendency for children to blame themselves for parental arguments in 304 youths. They found that those children who reported more self-blame, and had variants of the region associated with both high and low serotonergic activity, had more ADHD symptoms.

According to the authors, "To date, studies have mostly focused on the effects of genetic and environmental influences on ADHD separately. Our work examines the interaction between a specific gene variant and a family environmental risk factor in order to determine their roles in the development of ADHD via behavioral and emotional dysregulation in children."
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Young People More Understanding of Psychological Disorders When Sentencing


Medical News Today
Thu, 15 Apr 2010 05:00 UTC
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© J. Adam Fenster⁄The Gazette
Young jurors may be more likely to be lenient towards defendants with psychological disorders, such as borderline personality disorder, than older jurors.

This is the finding of a study presented on the 15th April 2010 at the British Psychological Society Annual Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The study by Sandie Taylor and Emily Alner from Bath Spa University, two groups of participants (the first aged 18 to 30 and the second 50 plus) were shown videos of courtroom scenes depicting female defendants, either displaying overt behavioural symptoms of borderline personality disorders or not displaying any symptoms to examine whether the two age groups had different attitudes towards the defendants.

When symptoms were displayed an expert witness was shown saying that the defendant had either borderline personality or didn't have borderline personality and likewise when no symptoms were displayed.
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Women more likely to die giving birth in Britain than Albania

Katherine Faulkner
UK Daily Mail
Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:30 UTC
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British women are more likely to die in childbirth than those in the former communist state of Slovenia, new research has shown.

Just as many British women are dying in pregnancy and childbirth as they were 20 years ago, according to a study in the Lancet.

It blames the high death rate on a rise in obesity which can cause complications, the growing number of older mothers and the high immigrant population, who often attend antenatal classes later.

Eight out of every 100,000 pregnant women die shortly before, during or after giving birth in the UK.

The UK's death rate is worse than that of Albania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

And it is twice that of Italy, which is the lowest in the world.
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Alarm Clock

9 Surprising Symptoms of Stress

Sarah Jio
Woman's Day
Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:29 UTC
neck pain
© Unknown
See if your body is telling you that you're too anxious and what you can do about it
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8 Invented Diseases Big Pharma Is Banking on

Martha Rosenberg
AlterNet
Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:23 UTC
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© Unknown
Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in 1997, pharma's credo has been When The Medication Is Ready, The Disease (and Patients) Will Appear. Who knew so many people suffered from restless legs?

But pharma's recent plan to move from mass-market molecules into more lucrative vaccines and biologics did not see the anti-vaxer movement coming: millions of Americans saying You Want to Vaccinate Me -- and My Child -- with WHAT?? and condemning vials of H1N1, rotavirus and MMR vaccines to sit, well, way past their expiration dates. Nor were fears of an international vaccine conspiracy helped by former CDC Director Julie Gerberding resurfacing as President of Merck Vaccines in December. (Nice revolving door if you can catch it.)
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Materialistic People Liked Less by Peers Than 'Experiential' People


ScienceDaily
Fri, 16 Apr 2010 07:00 UTC
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© Getty Images
People who pursue happiness through material possessions are liked less by their peers than people who pursue happiness through life experiences, according to a new study led by University of Colorado at Boulder psychology Professor Leaf Van Boven.

Van Boven has spent a decade studying the social costs and benefits of pursuing happiness through the acquisition of life experiences such as traveling and going to concerts versus the purchase of material possessions like fancy cars and jewelry.

"We have found that material possessions don't provide as much enduring happiness as the pursuit of life experiences," Van Boven said.

The "take home" message in his most recent study, which appears in this month's edition of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, is that not only will investing in material possessions make us less happy than investing in life experiences, but that it often makes us less popular among our peers as well.
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Artificial Sweeteners Alter How Body Handles Real Sugar

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Healingdaily
Artificial sweeteners may cause metabolic changes in how the body reacts to real sugar, according to a study conducted by researchers from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

Conventional scientific wisdom has been that because artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, aspartame and sucralose do not contain significant amounts of carbohydrates, they are simply ignored by the body's sugar-regulating functions. Researchers tested this premise by assigning 22 healthy young volunteers of normal weight to fast for several hours, then drink either a diet soda (about two-thirds of a can) or an equivalent amount of carbonated water. Ten minutes later, all participants drank a sugary beverage and their body's response was measured.

Increases in blood glucose levels were identical in both groups, but participants who had consumed the artificially sweetened drink first showed larger increases in circulating levels of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1). This hormone, which is released by the gut when food enters the stomach, signals the brain to create the sensation of "fullness." This reaction has not been observed in people consuming artificial sweeteners on their own.

"Our data demonstrate that artificial sweeteners synergize with glucose to enhance GLP-1 release in healthy volunteers," the researchers wrote.
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Over One in Six Older ER Patients Wrongly Given Potentially Harmful Drugs

Tony Isaacs
NaturalNews
Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© cahabalawgroup.com
A recent study at the University of Michigan has found that over 1 in 6 older patients receive the wrong medications in emergency room visits. According to the study, which was published in Academic Emergency Medicine, nearly 19.5 million patients age 65 and older received one or more potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) in emergency visits from 2000-2006.

Researchers found that doctors are not aware of the right drugs and dosages to give to older patients. As a result, the risks involved outweigh any benefits of the drugs. The researchers also noted that since the study did not explore the possibility of medication interactions, it is possible that the potential harm by medications is even greater than their study suggests.

Certain pain relievers and antihistamines are among most common drugs used in emergency visits, in spite of known risks from those drugs to patients over age 65. The study found that 10 medications accounted for 86.5 percent of PIMs used in emergency room treatment. The five most common ones used were promethazine, ketorolac, propoxyphene, meperidine, and diphenhydramine. Promethazine and ketorolac accounted for nearly 40% of the total.
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Want to Save the Planet? Eat Less Meat and Dairy

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Getty Images
The British government has released major recommendations for a diet that is good for both the planet and human health, and reducing consumption of animal products is one of its top priorities.

"So far we've had fragmented and contradictory thinking on what dietary intakes should be. Advice to consumers ought to change and stop compartmentalizing issues," said Tim Lang, commissioner of the independent Sustainable Development Commission, which issued the report. "Cutting down on meat and dairy [and] eating only sustainably sourced fish, fruit and vegetables, would all help reduce the impact of our food system as well as improving health."

In addition to substantially reducing rates of cardiovascular disease, cancer and foodborne illness, a population-wide shift away from meat and dairy would put a major dent in global water use, greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation, the report said. Farm land would be freed for more efficient and sustainable uses, food prices would go down and employment would go up.
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