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Survey Says: Fewer Americans Using Mental Health Professionals to Manage Stress


Medical News Today
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:00 UTC
Results of a recent survey reveal that, despite an increase in stress, fewer Americans use therapy as a way to manage it.

The results of the annual "Stress in America" survey by the American Psychological Association, released last week, found that while 85 percent of Americans say their stress level has remained the same or increased in the past year, just 4 percent of people use therapy as a way to combat that stress. This reflects a decrease in therapy usage related to stress. In 2008, 7 percent of people said they saw a mental health professional to manage their stress.

In fact, Americans are more likely to eat (28%), smoke (14%), shop (15%) or watch TV (36%) than see a therapist as a stress management technique.

"We need to make Americans aware that seeing a mental health professional such as a Marriage and Family Therapist is a wise, effective way to manage stress that's getting in the way of daily life," said Patsy Pinkney-Phillips, Ph.D., president of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists Board and a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. "If you're experiencing high levels of stress, talk therapy can help you get through it."
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Seattle Residents Continue to Report High Levels of Stress


Medical News Today
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:00 UTC
Work is causing stress for more Seattleites this year according to the American Psychological Association's (APA) Stress in America survey, while the number reporting money or the economy as significant stressors has dropped since last year. More than 50 percent of city residents remain stressed by one or more of these three sources, a cause of concern for psychologists who worry about the effects of long-term stress and how it can contribute to chronic health disorders.

The survey released today reported that the number of Seattle residents who cited work as a significant cause of stress grew from 74 percent in 2008 to 82 percent in 2009. And about two in five employed Seattleites (42 percent) said they typically feel tense or stressed out during the work day, compared to 36 percent last year. Additionally, one-quarter of Seattle residents rated their average stress levels as an 8, 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale. But the number of Seattleites reporting that their stress had decreased in the past year has gone up from 12 percent in 2008 to 20 percent this year.

These high and long-lasting levels of stress can contribute to serious physical health problems. Diabetes, heart disease, obesity and high blood pressure are just a few of the diseases linked to chronic stress. In the APA survey, 70 percent of Seattle residents said they have been told by a health provider that they have a chronic condition (vs. 66 percent nationally). More than the rest of the nation, they reported that they are overweight or obese (31 percent in Seattle vs. 25 percent nationally), depressed (29 percent vs. 17 percent nationally) and have anxiety disorders (15 percent vs. 8 percent nationally).
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Having Mental Illness Does Not Make People More Accepting, Research Shows


Medical News Today
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00 UTC
Having a mental illness does not make people more accepting of others with a similar problem, research says.

Amy Klassen asked 1073 people in Alberta, Canada, about their attitudes generally toward people who had a mental illness.

She found that those among the 1073 who had themselves been treated for a mental illness were no more accepting of others who have a mental illness.

However Ms Klassen, who worked with the Population Research Laboratory and the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta, Canada, found that those questioned were less willing to reject those with a mental illness if they knew someone who had had such a problem.

Those surveyed were given eight statements, including 'being around a mentally ill person would make me feel nervous' and 'even though former mental patients may seem fine, it is foolish to forget that they are mentally ill' and asked to say how much they agreed or disagreed. From this their desire for 'social distance' from those with mental illness - how rejecting or not they were - was calculated.
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Dean Foods Pulls Bait-and-Switch on "Organic" Silk Soymilk

Mike Adams
NaturalNews
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:11 UTC
Until early 2009, Silk brand soy milk was made using organic soybeans. But earlier this year, Dean Foods (owner of the Silk brand) quietly switched to conventional soybeans, which are often grown with pesticides. But they kept the same UPC barcodes on their products, and they kept the product label virtually the same, only replacing the word "organic" with "natural" in a way that was barely noticeable. They also kept the price the same, charging consumers "organic" prices for a product that was now suddenly made with conventionally-grown soybeans.

Many retailers and consumers never noticed the bait-and-switch tactic, so they kept buying Silk, thinking it was still organic. The shift on the product label from "organic" to "natural" wasn't well understood by consumers, either. Many consumers continue to think that the term "natural" is basically the same as "organic," when in fact they are almost opposites. The term "natural" is entirely unregulated, and almost anything can be claimed to be "natural" even when it's sprayed with pesticides or treated with other chemicals.
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New Light on the SARS Virus


ScienceDaily
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:00 UTC
Using novel techniques, Dutch researcher Matthijs Raaben has cast new light on the replication of coronaviruses, a family of viruses including the cause of SARS. He has shown, using luminescent viruses, how coronaviruses use host cells and how we can use the intracellular processes to attack the virus.

Coronaviruses are entirely dependent, for their replication and dissemination, on the cells they infect. Using microchips, Raaben has successfully investigated various processes involving the mouse hepatitis coronavirus (MHV) in a cell. His discoveries included a finding that the proliferation of MHV can be restrained by blocking the proteasome of a cell, the mechanism that deals with cleaning out surplus proteins.

Restricting this clean-up action may also combat infections from the coronavirus in living animals. Attacking the virus at the level of the host cells may be a better way of avoiding an increase in resistance to antiviral medicines. This is because the treatment does not attack the virus directly, but rather the processes in the cell that the virus needs in order to replicate itself.
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Antimicrobials: Silver (and Copper) Bullets to Kill Bacteria


ScienceDaily
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:00 UTC
Dana Filoti of the University of New Hampshire is presenting thin films of silver and copper she has developed that can kill bacteria and may one day help to cut down on hospital infections.

The antimicrobial properties of silver and copper have been known for centuries -- last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officially registered copper alloys, allowing them to be marketed with the label "kills 99.9% of bacteria within two hours." Copper ions are known to penetrate bacteria and disrupt molecular pathways important for their survival.

Using zeolite ceramic structures, Filoti is testing the hypothesis that the combination of silver and copper might work synergistically to better kill bacteria, work that she will present on November 12 at a meeting of the scientific society AVS in San Jose. "The hard ceramic structure looks like Swiss cheese and inside the holes there are ions of silver and copper," says Filoti.
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Diet Switching can Activate Brain's Stress System, Lead to 'Withdrawal' Symptoms


ScienceDaily
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:00 UTC
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© iStockphotoRich dessert
In research that sheds light on the perils of yo-yo dieting and repeated bouts of sugar-bingeing, researchers from The Scripps Research Institute have shown in animal models that cycling between periods of eating sweet and regular-tasting food can activate the brain's stress system and generate overeating, anxiety, and withdrawal-like symptoms.

"When many people diet, they try to avoid fattening foods that taste good, but ultimately end up going back to their regular eating habits," said senior author Eric Zorrilla, Ph.D., an associate professor and member of the Pearson Center for Alcoholism and Addiction Research and Harold L. Dorris Neurological Research Institute at Scripps Research. "We found that rats cycled in this way between palatable food and less tasty, but otherwise acceptable, food, begin to binge on the sweet food, stop eating their regular food, and show withdrawal-like behaviors often associated with drug addiction. As in addiction to drugs or ethanol, the brain's stress system is involved in each of these changes."

"Our research suggests that this eating pattern leads to a vicious circle," explained Pietro Cottone, Ph.D., who is co-first author of the paper with Valentina Sabino, Ph.D.; both are former postdoctoral fellows at Scripps Research who are now assistant professors and co-directors of the Laboratory of Addictive Disorders at Boston University School of Medicine. "The more you cycle this way, the more likely it is you cycle again. Having a 'free day' in your diet schedule is a risky habit."

The research is being published in an advance, online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) the week of November 9, 2009.
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Brief Training in Meditation May Help Manage Pain, Study Shows


ScienceDaily
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:00 UTC
Living with pain is stressful, but a surprisingly short investment of time in mental training can help you cope.

A new study examining the perception of pain and the effects of various mental training techniques has found that relatively short and simple mindfulness meditation training can have a significant positive effect on pain management.

Though pain research during the past decade has shown that extensive meditation training can have a positive effect in reducing a person's awareness and sensitivity to pain, the effort, time commitment, and financial obligations required has made the treatment not practical for many patients. Now, a new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte shows that a single hour of training spread out over a three day period can produce the same kind of analgesic effect.

The research appears in an article by UNC Charlotte psychologists Fadel Zeidan, Nakia S. Gordon, Junaid Merchant and Paula Goolkasian, in the current issue of The Journal of Pain.
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Comedian Reveals Unsavoury Truth of Food Production

Martin Hickman
The Independent
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:24 UTC
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Alex Riley follows in the footsteps of Morgan Spurlock in exposing the less appetizing aspects of food
Virtual cheese, imperishable lamb and almost-beef burgers: TV show's stomach-churning revelations

With his gangly frame and thick-rimmed spectacles, Alex Riley makes an unlikely assassin. Unfortunately for Britain's £182bn-a-year food and drink industry, his wisecracks about its unsavoury practices in a new BBC TV series are little short of deadly.

In Britain's Really Disgusting Foods, the dry-witted comedian and TV presenter checks out the nutritional content of low-budget meat, interrogates the sourcing of endangered creatures and generally gets in the face of food manufacturers purveying products of dubious environmental and nutritional quality.

Like Morgan Spurlock - the Super Size Me documentary-maker who humbled McDonald's by eating its food - Mr Riley asks awkward questions about what is served up to the public by grocery chains and catering outlets keen to provide products for customers "at a certain price point".
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Lawmaker Wants Probe of School Lunches

Libby Quaid
TIME
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:50 UTC
The chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee wants an investigation into the risk of deadly E. coli getting into school lunches.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., is worried about a recent outbreak that killed at least two people and sickened about two dozen others in 11 states.

The E. coli outbreak was linked to ground beef produced by Fairbank Farms of Ashville, N.Y.

No schools were involved in the outbreak. But Miller said he's worried that tainted food might be purchased for school meal programs.
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