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Wellness News ... what the
editors are researching ...
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals discriminatory, ageist
- One of the main health targets proposed by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is to reduce by one-third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases such as cancer, stroke and dementia. The goals for 2016-2030 define premature mortality as deaths occurring among people aged 69 years old or younger.
The proposed SDG target sends an unambiguous statement to UN member states that health provision for younger groups must be prioritised at the expense of people aged 70 or more.
The implication for all countries is that resources allocated to conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease should be diverted from older people in order to comply with this global target.
Prof Peter Lloyd-Sherlock said: "This premature mortality target is highly unethical, since it unjustifiably discriminates against older people and is explicitly ageist. Also, it lacks any scientific validity."
Baroness Sally Greengross, former director of Age Concern England and a signatory of the letter, said: "If adopted, this UN target could lead to institutionalised discrimination against older people in health care, both here in the UK and globally."
The letter calls on the UN to urgently reconsider the framing of this health target in order to avoid setting 'policy priorities that blatantly exclude those people who are often in the greatest need and face the most hardship.'
University of East Anglia. The Lancet
Quitting smoking - Quitting smoking when you have an angioplasty can help maximize the procedure's benefits, meaning better quality of life and more relief from your chest pain.
People who quit smoking when they had angioplasty reported a much better quality of life than those who kept smoking. "It's a no-brainer. Stopping smoking seems like a relatively easy way to increase your chances of getting the best outcomes from angioplasty," said senior author and cardiologist John Spertus, M.D., M.P.H., Clinical Director of Outcomes Research at Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, MO.
Smoking is the most important preventable cause of premature death. It boosts your risks of several disorders, including atherosclerosis, which can lead to heart disease and stroke.
American Heart Association. Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions
Thoughts drive dieting plans but feelings drive dieting behavior
- A majority of adults say they've tried dieting to lose weight at some point in their lives, and at any given time, about one-third of the adult population say they're currently dieting.
Yet 60 percent of adults are clinically overweight or obese and more than 16 percent of deaths nationwide are related to diet and physical activity.
"There is clearly a disconnect if we have a majority of the population that has tried to lose weight and a majority of the population that is overweight," says Marc Kiviniemi, a public health researcher. "People are planning to diet and trying to diet, but that's not translating into a successful weight loss effort."
Dieting is a process that involves a plan to change eating behavior and behaving according to that plan. But the factors that guide diet planning differ from those that guide actual diet behavior.
Plans to change behavior are a function of thoughts, the belief that weight loss is possible by making better food choices. But when it comes to making a food choice and decidingto execute the plan, feelings guide behavior.
University at Buffalo. Journal of Health Psychology
Our internal body clock, circadian rhythms
- Latest findings reveal a potential target to treat a range of disorders, from sleep disturbances to other behavioral, cognitive, and metabolic abnormalities, commonly associated with jet lag, shift work and exposure to light at
night, as well as with neuropsychiatric conditions such as depression and
autism. Scientists report that the body's clock is reset when a phosphate combines with a key protein in the brain. This process, known as phosphorylation, is triggered by light. In effect, light stimulates the synthesis of specific proteins called Period proteins that play a pivotal role in clock resetting, thereby synchronizing the clock's rhythm with daily environmental cycles.
"Disruption of the circadian rhythm is sometimes unavoidable but it can lead to serious consequences. This research is really about the importance of the circadian rhythm to our general well-being. We've taken an important step towards being able to reset our internal clocks -- and improve the health of thousands as a result," said Professor Shimon
Amir. McGill and Concordia universities, Montreal. Nature Neuroscience
Talk therapy - The research used a technique known as resting-state functional brain connectivity MRI to identify differences in brain wiring that predict therapeutic responses to talk therapy.
The research shows that brain scans could ultimately be used as a diagnostic tool to determine the best course of treatment for the millions suffering from depression.
"In the future, we will be able to use non-invasive brain imaging technology to match patients with the treatment option that has the best chance of lifting their depression," said senior author Gabriel S. Dichter, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and psychology. "In my mind, that's as important as developing new treatments. We already have a lot of excellent treatments but no way to know which one is best for a particular patient."
University of North Carolina School of Medicine. Neuropsychopharmacology
Healthy eating, exercise, and brain-training
- A comprehensive programme providing older people at risk of dementia with healthy eating guidance, exercise, brain training, and management of metabolic and vascular risk factors appears to
slow down cognitive decline. Researchers led by Professor Miia Kivipelto from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, National Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki, and University of Eastern Finland, assessed the effects on brain function of a comprehensive intervention aimed at addressing some of the most important risk factors for age-related dementia, such as
high body-mass index and heart health. According to Professor Kivipelto, "Much previous research has shown that there are links between cognitive decline in older people and factors such as diet, heart health, and fitness. However, our study is the first large randomised controlled trial to show that an intensive programme aimed at addressing these risk factors might be able to prevent cognitive decline in elderly people who are at risk of dementia."
The Lancet
Phone counseling reduces pain, disability after back surgery
- Research suggests that having a short series of phone conversations with trained counselors can substantially boost recovery and reduce pain in patients after spinal surgery.
Johns Hopkins Medicine. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Burnout and depression
- "The study suggests that the burnout- depression overlap has been largely underestimated," said Professor Schonfeld, whose collaborators included University of Franche-Comté psychologists Renzo Bianchi and Eric Laurent. "Atypical depression may account for a substantial part of this overlap. Overall, our findings point to depressive symptoms and depressive disorders as central concerns in the management of burnout. The clinical research on treatments for depression offers solutions that may help workers identified as burned out."
City College of New York. International Journal of Stress Management
Postpartum depression - A father's depression during the first years of parenting - as well as a mother's - can put their toddler at risk of developing troubling behaviors such as hitting, lying, anxiety and sadness during a critical time of development.
"Father's emotions affect their children," said Sheehan Fisher, an instructor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a psychologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. "New fathers should be screened and treated for postpartum depression, just as we do for mothers."
Northwestern University Medicine. Couple and Family Psychology: Research and
Practice
Mood, anxiety disorders - Obsessive-compulsive disorder, ADHD are shown to be risk factors for additional psychiatric disorders -
A new study of Tourette syndrome (TS) has found that nearly 86 percent of patients who seek treatment for TS will be diagnosed with a second psychiatric disorder during their lifetimes, and that nearly 58 percent will receive two or more such diagnoses.
It has long been known that TS, which emerges in childhood and is characterized by troublesome motor and vocal tics, is often accompanied by other disorders, especially attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). In many patients these "comorbid" conditions cause more distress and disability for patients than TS tics themselves.
The results also show that mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and disruptive behavior disorders are quite common in TS patients.
University of California San Francisco and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). JAMA Psychiatry
Individuals with type 2 diabetes should exercise after dinner -
Individuals with Type 2 diabetes have heightened amounts of sugars and fats in their blood, which increases their risks for cardiovascular diseases such as strokes and heart attacks. Exercise is a popular prescription for individuals suffering from the symptoms of Type 2 diabetes, but little research has explored whether these individuals receive more benefits from working out before or after dinner. Now, researchers have found that individuals with Type 2 diabetes can lower their risks of cardiovascular diseases more effectively by exercising after a meal.
Jill Kanaley, professor in the MU Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology. University of Missouri. Journal of Applied
Physiology.
Couples more likely to get healthy together -
People are more successful in taking up healthy habits if their partner makes positive changes too. Scientists looked at how likely people were to
quit smoking, start being active, or lose weight in relation to what their partner did.
Professor Jane Wardle, director of Cancer Research UK's Health Behaviour Research Centre at UCL, said: "Unhealthy lifestyles are a leading cause of death from chronic disease worldwide. The key lifestyle risks are smoking, excess weight, physical inactivity, poor diet, and alcohol consumption. Swapping bad habits for good ones can reduce the risk of disease, including cancer."
University College London, Cancer Research UK, British Heart Foundation, National Institute on Aging.
JAMA Internal Medicine. 012015
Worsening trends in headache management -
Each year more than 12 million Americans visit their doctors complaining of headaches, which result in lost productivity and costs of upward of $31 billion annually.
A study suggests some of that cost could be offset by physicians ordering fewer tests and
an increased focus on counseling about lifestyle changes.
The study found that, rather than talking to patients about the causes and potential sources of relief from headache pain, clinicians are increasingly ordering advanced imaging and providing specialist referrals, both of which are considered to be of little value in the treatment of routine headaches.
The assessment of headaches depends on identifying the relatively rare instances where serious underlying causes are suspected, says lead author John N. Mafi, MD, a fellow in the Division of General Medicine and Primary Care at BIDMC, who notes that evidence-based guidelines for routine headache, including those from the American Academy of Neurology, suggest conservative treatments such as
counseling on stress reduction or avoiding dietary triggers.
"I was particularly alarmed about the overall trend of more imaging tests, medications, and referrals alongside less counseling," says Mafi. "These findings seem to reflect a larger trend in the US healthcare system beyond just headache: over-hurried doctors seem to be spending less time connecting with their patients and more time ordering tests and treatments.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 012015
Fear - Emotional fear memories -
Everyday events are easy to forget, but unpleasant ones can remain engraved in the brain. A new study identifies a neural mechanism through which unpleasant experiences are translated into signals that trigger
fear memories by changing neural connections in a part of the brain called the amygdala. The findings show that a long-standing theory on how the brain forms memories, called Hebbian plasticity, is partially correct, but not as simple as was originally proposed. The ability to precisely control of fear memory may help to treat them when they are medically deleterious in conditions such as fearful
anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder. RIKEN Brain Science Institute Japan; New York University. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 122014
Linked ADHD, conduct disorder - alcohol and tobacco use in young teens -
Conduct disorder is a behavioural and emotional disorder marked by aggressive, destructive or deceitful behavior. Teens with a diagnosis of ADHD and conduct disorder had a three- to five-times increased likelihood of using tobacco and alcohol and initiated use at a younger age than those who had neither disorder. Having ADHD alone was associated with an increased likelihood of tobacco use but not alcohol use. "Early onset of substance abuse is a significant public health concern," says William Brinkman, MD, a pediatrician at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. "Adolescents who use substances before the mid-teen years are more likely to develop dependence on them than those who start later. This is why prevention is so important."
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Drug and Alcohol Dependence. 122014
Behavioural changes seen after sleep learning -
Research suggests that certain kinds of conditioning applied during sleep could induce us to change our
behaviour. The researchers exposed smokers to pairs of smells - cigarettes together with that of rotten eggs or fish - as the subjects slept, and then asked them to record how many cigarettes they smoked in the following week. The study revealed a significant reduction in smoking following conditioning during sleep.
Dr. Anat Arzi in the group of Prof. Noam Sobel of the Weizmann Institute's Neurobiology Department had previously shown that associative conditioning - Pavlovian-type learning in which the brain is trained to subconsciously associate one stimulus with another - could occur during sleep if odors were used as the unconditioned stimulus.
The Journal of Neuroscience. 112014
Emotional awareness promotes healthier eating -
As obesity rates rise, health professionals and policy makers scramble to help consumers resist unhealthy eating choices, often focusing on better labeling and improved nutritional knowledge.
"Consumers are often mindless," write authors Blair Kidwell (Ohio State University), Jonathan Hasford (Florida International University) and David M. Hardesty (University of Kentucky). "We not only demonstrate that emotional ability is trainable and that food choices can be enhanced, but also that emotional ability training improves food choices beyond a nutrition knowledge training program."
"With a better understanding of how they feel and how to use emotions to make better decisions, people will not only eat better, they will also likely be
happier and healthier because they relate better to others and are more concerned with their
overall well-being." Journal of Marketing Research. 112014
Home cooking is healthier -
"When people cook most of their meals at home, they consume fewer carbohydrates, less sugar and less fat than those who cook less or not at all - even if they are not trying to lose weight," says Julia A. Wolfson, MPP, a CLF-Lerner Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.
"Obesity is an escalating public health problem that contributes to other serious health issues, including
diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease," says Wolfson. "The evidence shows people who cook at home eat a more healthy diet. Moving forward, it's important to educate the public about the benefits of cooking at home, identify strategies that encourage and enable more cooking at home, and help everyone, regardless of how much they cook, make healthier choices when eating out."
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Public Health
Nutrition. 112014
New school meal requirements: More harm than
good? -
New federal regulations requiring school meals to contain more whole grains, less saturated fat and more fruits and vegetables, while perhaps improving some aspects of the food being served at schools across the United States, may also be perpetuating eating habits linked to
obesity, diabetes and other diet-related diseases. Based on analysis of school meals and the new requirements,
the whole grains served are mostly processed, which means they are converted into sugar when digested, and many of the required foods, like fruit and milk, contain added sugar because many schools opt to serve canned fruit, fruit juice, and flavored
milk. The new requirements do not limit the amount of added sugar in school meals.
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. 112014
Migraine -
Migraine headache may double the risk of a nervous system condition that causes facial paralysis, called Bell's palsy.
"This is a very new association between migraine and Bell's palsy," said study author Shuu-Jiun Wang, MD, with National Yang-Ming University and Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taipei, Taiwan. "Our study also suggests that these two conditions may share a common underlying link."
Bell's palsy affects between 11 and 40 per 100,000 people each year. Most people with Bell's palsy recover completely.
Headaches are the most common disorder of the nervous system and affect about 12 percent of the US population.
Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. 122014
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