Hunger may motivate us more than thirst , fear , or anxiety

H uman motivation has been studied for decades , primarily in an attempt to answer one question: what drives us to take one action over another ? Researchers shed some light in a new study , after finding hunger is a stronger motivational force than thirst , fear , anxiety, and social needs.Senior author Michael J. Krashes, of the National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and colleagues recently published their findings in the journal Neuron.
Put simply, motivation is the reason for acting in a particular way or making a certain choice over another.
In the 1940s, American psychologist Abraham H. Maslow created the "hierarchy of needs" - a set of five "needs" that he believed explained human motivation.
These range from physiological needs - such as food, water, and other requirements for human survival - to self-actualization, the desire for personal growth and success.
Over the years, researchers have either acknowledged, criticized, or amplified Maslow's theory. With regard to the latter, neurologists have increasingly investigated the role of the human brain in motivation.
Hungry and thirsty mice opted for food over water
According to Krashes and team, most neurological studies of motivation are conducted in tightly controlled conditions and have focused on investigating one motivational state at a time, which has made it difficult to determine if some states are stronger drivers than others and what brain circuits are involved.
With a view to addressing this knowledge gap, the researchers conducted a series of mouse experiments in which they assessed a variety of motivational states, including hunger, fear, anxiety, and social needs.
For the study , the team used optogenetics - a technique that uses light to control cells - to govern nerve cells in the brain known as agouti-related peptide (AgRP) neurons.
AgRP neurons are situated in the brain's hypothalamus. They are known to regulate appetite and are crucial for survival.
For one experiment, the researchers either deprived mice of food for 24 hours or activated their AgRP neurons in order to make them hungry. These mice were also deprived of water, making them thirsty. A control group was deprived of water but not food.
When presented with food and water, the mice that were both hungry and thirsty opted for food over water, while the control group chose the water. This indicates that hunger is a stronger motivational force than thirst.
"We interpret this as a unique ability of hunger-tuned neurons to anticipate the benefits of searching for food, and then alter behavior accordingly," says Krashes.
Overcoming fear in the face of hunger
In another experiment, the researchers induced hunger in the mice by activating AgRP neurons, before exposing them to a chamber scented with a chemical produced by foxes - an environment that triggers anxiety and fear for the rodents.
When food was placed in the chamber, the team found that the hungry mice overcame their fear to get food, while control mice that were not hungry chose to stay in the "safe" zones, suggesting that hunger trumps fear and anxiety as a motivational force.
A further experiment revealed hunger is also a greater motivation than social needs; AgRP activation led to socially isolated mice opting for a chamber containing food, rather than a chamber with another mouse. The reverse was true for control mice.
Interestingly, AgRP activity increased when another mouse was close by, which suggests AgRP neurons respond to potential competition for food.
"We think that the presence of another mouse could be viewed as competition for limited resources, increasing the motivation to seek food, which is a finding that no other studies have indicated thus far," says Krashes.
Overall, Krashes says the team's findings suggest motivational forces are more deeply connected than previously thought.
"Therefore, studying isolated motivated behaviors may not accurately demonstrate how the big picture nervous system works," he adds. "Our study is one of the first steps to investigating feeding behavior in a more complicated, naturalistic setting."
Additionally, the researchers believe the findings shed light on how animals and humans have evolved.

Heart disease exercise programme could work for bowel cancer patients

Could rehabilitation programmes for
heart disease patients be used to help people recovering from bowel cancer get back on their feet? That's the question
cancer care experts at the University of Stirling have been exploring.
Researchers have found health and exercise sessions currently provided to individuals recovering from heart disease could also help people who have undergone bowel cancer surgery.
The NHS already uses physical activity to help thousands of people with heart problems improve their chances of survival and quality of life, and Stirling scientists now believe it could be rolled out to help people with an entirely different illness.
Dr Gill Hubbard, Reader in Cancer Care in the Faculty of Health Sciences and Sport, said: "People recovering from bowel cancer surgery are not currently meeting the recommended levels of physical activity after they undergo surgery. This could be for a number of reasons, but often patients do not know if they are safe to exercise.
"We wanted to bring together people recovering from heart disease and bowel cancer to see if the same rehabilitation programme could work for both groups. We referred patients with bowel cancer to the cardiac rehabilitation classes and found cardiac patients welcomed those with cancer into their classes. Both groups enjoyed exercising together and supported each other to make a full recovery."
The rehabilitation programme involves aerobic and body strengthening exercises for about an hour each week for 12 weeks. Evidence clearly shows that these exercises are good for people with heart disease and cancer, and although cardiac rehabilitation exists for people recovering from a heart attack, there is currently no equivalent rehabilitation programme for patients with cancer.
The study, funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), asked patients to record their physical fitness, quality of life, anxiety,
depression and figure before and after the 12-week programme and gathered the views of doctors involved in cardiac rehabilitation.
Dr Hubbard continued: "We found cardiac clinicians were happy to involve cancer patients in their programmes, but to make this work on a much larger scale additional training would be required to fully support cancer survivors. Although a novel idea, we believe marrying these two quite separate groups during the rehabilitation process could vastly improve the quality of life for lots of people who are recovering from bowel cancer but do not have the confidence to exercise."

Some herbal and dietary supplements can be toxic to the liver

A new review based on a research symposium sponsored by the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease and the National Institutes of Health highlights the potentially damaging effects of herbal and dietary supplements (HDSs) on the liver.
HDS-induced liver injury now accounts for 20% of cases of liver toxicity in the United States Drug Induced Liver Injury Network, a research network that has been funded to study drug and supplement toxicity since 2003. The major implicated agents include products used for performance enhancement, bodybuilding, and weight loss. The injurious components of multi-ingredient nutritional supplements that are responsible for liver toxicity often can only be suspected.
"Considerable efforts are needed to identify potentially injurious ingredients of HDSs and to prohibit or more closely regulate them," said Dr. Victor Navarro, lead author of the Hepatology review.
Culled from mnt.

Pitt study of early onset menopausal symptoms could predict heart disease

Women who experience hot flashes and night sweats earlier in life are more likely to die from cardiovascular disease (CVD) when compared to women with later onset menopausal symptoms, according to research from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine published today in the journal, Menopause.
Up to 80 percent of women experience menopausal symptoms, particularly hot flashes and night sweats, at some point during the menopause transition, said Rebecca Thurston, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry, Pitt School of Medicine.
"We used to think these were annoying symptoms that persist for several years around the final menstrual period and simply affect the quality of life for many women," she said. "However, we now know that these symptoms persist far longer and often start earlier than we previously thought. Our research also suggests that for some women, particularly for younger midlife women, menopausal symptoms might mark adverse changes in the blood vessels during midlife that place them at increased risk for heart disease ."
The research indicates that early onset of menopausal symptoms is associated with dysfunction of the endothelium, which is the lining of blood vessels. Endothelial dysfunction was measured by assessing flow-mediated dilation (FMD), a noninvasive ultrasound measure of how well the vessel dilates in response to pressure on the wall of the blood vessel.
Dr. Thurston and her colleagues investigated associations between menopausal symptoms and risk for CVD complications among postmenopausal women participating in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Women's Ischemia Syndrome Evaluation study. A total of 254 postmenopausal women with signs and symptoms of ischemic heart disease were evaluated, and researchers found those who had hot flashes before age 42 to be more likely to have lower FMD, suggesting adverse endothelial changes, as well as higher mortality from heart disease.

Cell reprogramming discovery may lead to treatments for eye diseases

U sing cell reprogramming techniques , scientists have managed to induce support cells in the retina to become stem cells capable of making new neurons . They suggest the technique could lead to new treatments for glaucoma , macular degeneration, and other eye diseases where retinal neurons are lost.

The researchers hope their study will help develop new treatments for progressive diseases that damage the retina, such as age-related macular degeneration.

The researchers, led by Bo Chen, an associate professor of ophthalmology at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, CT, report their work in the journal Cell Reports.

The retina at the back of the eye contains many types of cell, including the retinal neurons that process visual images and help us to see, and support cells called glial cells.

The most common type of glial cell in the eye of mammals is the Müller glial (MG) cell. These cells give structural support and also help keep the chemical environment of retinal neurons stable.

MG cells have the capacity to become stem cells, proliferate, and turn into new neurons. However, the researchers explain how recent studies suggest that, in mammals, this ability is only switched on through injury, otherwise it remains dormant.

In cold-blooded creatures such as zebrafish, this is not the case. Their MG cells act as a source of retinal stem cells to replenish lost retinal neurons.

Researchers are keen to find a way to activate MG cells in the mammalian eye so they behave more like the ones in zebrafish. Previous studies have shown that trying to induce retinal injury through neurotoxins is a counterproductive approach as it results in death of neurons.

Thus, as Prof. Chen and colleagues note, "An injury-free strategy that would not necessitate inflicting further damage to a diseased retina is highly desirable."

Activating Wnt signaling induced MG proliferation

For their investigation, the team focused on a Wnt signaling pathway that is activated by injury in MG cells.

By inserting genes into adult mouse retinas, they found they could reprogram MG cells to activate Wnt signaling and induce MG proliferation without retinal injury.

The authors also describe how - by inserting and deleting particular genes - they could manipulate signaling upstream and downstream of this pathway to influence effects on MG proliferation.

They note: "Deletion of GSK3β resulted in β-catenin stabilization and MG proliferation without retinal injury," and that, "Intriguingly, after gene transfer of β-catenin or Lin28, a subset of cell-cycle-reactivated MGs express markers for amacrine cells, a type of retinal interneurons."

They conclude their results show that a particular pathway - called Wnt-Lin28-let7 miRNA signaling - plays a key role in "regulating proliferation and neurogenic potential of MGs in the adult mammalian retina.""In the future we are hoping to manipulate these cells to replenish any lost retinal neurons, either in diseased or physically damaged retinas. Potentially, it's a therapy to treat many different retinal degenerative diseases."

Prof. Bo Chen.

Culled from mnt.

What is hyperbaric oxygen therapy good for?

A diver who ascends too quickly to the surface can end up in the decompression chamber.
As long ago as 1662, a British clergyman and physician called Henshaw built the
first hyperbaric chamber, a sealed room with a series of bellows and valves. He believed that using pressure could help in treating certain respiratory diseases .
Since the 1940s , hyperbaric oxygen treatment (HBOT) has been standard treatment for military divers in the United States.
Divers who surface too quickly are at risk of decompression sickness (DCS), sometimes called "the bends," or of an air gas embolism (AGE). Jointly, these are known as decompression illness (DCI), and they both relate to problems with air in the body. Consequences can be severe. HBOT is the primary treatment for both.
Treatment involves early administration of oxygen, and, if necessary, time spent in a decompression chamber. The diver must return to the pressure, or "depth," at which they were diving, followed by gradual decompression. The pressure reduces the volume of the bubbles.
DCI affects around 1,000 American divers each year, but the uses of HBOT go beyond the diving community.
HBOT has been shown to benefit people with infections, embolism, or air bubbles in the blood vessels, and some wounds that do not respond to other treatment.
More recently, it has been promoted as an alternative therapy for various conditions, from Alzheimer's disease to
infertility .
To meet the growing demand, HBOT chambers have sprung up across a range of facilities, from hospital outpatient departments to spas. There are even chambers for home use. Some call it a "miracle cure."
While research suggests that some of these claims may be true, not all of the suggested uses are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Concerns have been raised about the risks associated with "off-label" use of HBOT.
How does hyperbaric oxygen therapy work?
The Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS) - an international organization set up in 1967 to encourage cooperation on diving and undersea medicine - defines HBOT as:
"An intervention in which an individual breathes near 100 percent oxygen intermittently while inside a hyperbaric chamber that is pressurized to greater than sea level pressure (1 atmosphere absolute, or ATA). For clinical purposes, the pressure must equal or exceed 1.4 ATA [atmosphere absolute] while breathing near 100 percent oxygen."
The body's tissues need oxygen to work. Additional oxygen can help damaged tissue to heal. Oxygen at high pressure can enhance tissue function and fight infection, under certain conditions.
At 1.4 ATA, the ambient pressure is three times higher than the air pressure we normally breathe. Breathing almost pure oxygen at this pressure triples the concentration of oxygen available to the lungs.
What are the benefits of HBOT ?
Apart from DCI, HBOT is the primary treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning , and it supports a number of other therapies.
Working with the UHMS, the FDA have approved 13 uses of HBOT. Evidence has shown that they are safe and effective. Insurance companies or Medicare will normally cover the cost of treatment.
The approved uses are:

HBOT is approved in the treatment of certain wounds that do not respond to conventional treatment.

Decompression sickness, experienced by divers and pilots

Acute traumatic ischemia - for example, crush injury

Air or gas embolism

Arterial insufficiencies

Anemia due to severe blood loss

Thermal burns

Carbon monoxide poisoning

Some brain and sinus infections

Intracranial abscess

Gas gangrene

Necrotizing soft tissue infections

Radiation injury - for example, as a result of cancer therapy

Skin grafts.

Wounds and infections that have not responded to other treatment, such as

bone infections and diabetic foot ulcers, have been shown to respond to HBOT. HBOT has been found to reduce the risk of amputation in people with diabetic foot ulcers.

How is HBOT delivered?

HBOT is normally provided in an outpatient setting. The number of visits will depend on the condition.

A large HBOT chamber can accommodate many people at one time.

According to the Mayo Clinic, a person with carbon monoxide poisoning may need three sessions, while a person with a non-healing diabetic wound may need

20-40 sessions. An acute condition, such as DCI, may need only one longer session.

A chamber can hold one or many people, and the patient will probably wear a mask or hood that delivers oxygen.

In a chamber for one person, the patient usually lies on a table that slides into a clear plastic tube.

Nowadays, HBOT chambers encourage patients to be comfortable. They can relax by listening to music or watching TV.

A session can last from 30 minutes to 2 hours , after which the chamber is slowly decompressed.

What has HBOT not been approved for?

The FDA have expressed concern that HBOT is being used to treat conditions for which its safety and effectiveness have not been confirmed.

Diseases and conditions that the FDA believe people may wrongly seek HBOT for include HIV and AIDS , Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, asthma , Bell's palsy, cerebral palsy , depression , heart disease , hepatitis , migraine , multiple sclerosis, sports injury, stroke , brain injury, and spinal cord injury.

In 2013, responding to a number of complaints, the FDA insisted that certain conditions should not be treated with HBOT. The Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) called the announcement a "deceptive statement ."

There are suggestions that HBOT could help people with PTSD, and veterans in particular.

Those who support the use of HBOT for a wider range of conditions point out that pressure and additional oxygen can

benefit various bodily functions. They cite a number of studies supporting their claims.

There are calls for HBOT to be approved as an alternative therapy for autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), cerebral palsy, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). There is strong support in certain circles for its use in helping improve the quality of life of veterans .

Clinical trials have been investigating the effect of HBOT on traumatic brain injury (TBI).

It is believed that HBOT can help to heal brain injury by improving the way dormant neurons function and stimulating the growth of axons. A meta-analysis published in May 2016 suggests that HBOT can enhance a patient's score on the Glasgow Coma Scale, but no significant change was seen in the PTSD score.

Dr. Paul Harch, hyperbaric medicine, diving, and emergency medicine physician, and coauthor of the book The Oxygen Revolution calls for wider approval of the uses of HBOT, and especially for TBI and neurological disorders.

Dr. Harch told Medical News Today:

The UHMA note that "meticulous scrutiny" is needed before new applications of HBOT can be approved for use in treating a condition. Each case involves a stringent review of a wide range of research by an interdisciplinary team.

More research is needed before the requested new uses can be implemented, say the FDA and the UHMA.

What are the risks of HBOT ?

High atmospheric pressure can damage the ear. Middle ear barotrauma affected

2 percent of 1,446 participantparticipant.

Culled from mnt.

What Does It Feel Like to Have High Blood Sugar Levels ?

Although no single factor has been identified, the following risk factors make a person more likely to develop type 2 diabetes:
Having certain genes that are linked to diabetes
Being overweight or inactive
Having a parent or sibling with type 2 diabetes
Having African-American, Alaska Native, American Indian, Asian-American, Hispanic, or Pacific Islander ethnicity
Being over the age of 45
Being treated for high blood pressure, or having blood pressure of 140/90 or higher
Having low levels of "good" HDL
cholesterol or high levels of triglycerides
What is a healthy blood sugar level ?
People who have high blood sugar should discuss their target levels with their doctor. Regular testing may be needed to find out if the patient is within a healthy range. Each individual is different and levels can vary from person to person.
To determine a person's blood sugar levels, blood tests may be taken after not eating for 8 hours, 2 hours after a meal, or at both times. Some people may also take a glucose tolerance test, which requires the patient to drink a sugary liquid and get blood tests afterward.
The American Diabetes Association recommend a pre-meal blood sugar level of 80-130 milligrams per deciliter. Around 1 to 2 hours after the beginning of a meal, blood sugar should be less than 180 milligrams per deciliter.
The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) state that blood sugar should be below 110 milligrams per deciliter after fasting. Around 2 hours after eating a meal, the AACE recommend a blood sugar target of fewer than 180 milligrams per deciliter.
Controlling blood sugar levels
Many people with diabetes must check their blood sugar levels daily with a glucose meter. This device takes a drop of blood, usually from a finger, and displays the sugar level within a few seconds.
People with type 1 diabetes will need to take insulin as directed, usually several times a day. Those with type 2 diabetes or gestational diabetes may need to change their diet and exercise habits. They may also need to take oral medications or insulin.
Blood sugar is only one part of a healthy lifestyle with diabetes. A person should also have their cholesterol and blood pressure checked regularly to help avoid
heart disease . In addition, people with diabetes should check their feet regularly for sores or other problems and should receive regular eye exams.
What does it feel like to have low blood sugar?
Low blood sugar is often a side effect of diabetes medicines. If a person takes too much insulin, the blood sugar may become too low. Low blood sugar can also be caused by certain medications, health conditions, or skipping meals.

The human body naturally has sugar, or glucose, in the blood. The right amount of blood sugar gives the body's cells and organs energy. The liver and muscles produce some blood sugar, but most of it comes from food and drinks that contain carbohydrates.
In order to keep blood sugar levels within a normal range, the body needs insulin. Insulin is a hormone that takes blood sugar and delivers it to the body's cells.
Contents of this article:
What does it feel like to have high blood sugar levels?
Causes of high blood sugar
What is a healthy blood sugar level?
What does it feel like to have low blood sugar?
When to see a doctor
What does it feel like to have high blood sugar levels

Blood sugar is fuel for the body's organs and functions. But having high blood sugar doesn't provide a boost in energy. In fact, it's often the opposite.
Because the body's cells can't access the blood sugar for energy, a person may feel tiredness, hunger, or exhaustion frequently.
In addition, high sugar in the blood goes into the kidneys and urine, which attracts more water, causing frequent urination. This can also lead to increased thirst, despite drinking enough liquids.
High blood sugar can cause sudden or unexplained weight loss. This occurs because the body's cells aren't getting the glucose they need, so the body burns muscle and fat for energy instead.
High blood sugar can also cause numbness, burning, or tingling in the hands, legs, and feet. This is caused by
diabetic neuropathy , a complication of
diabetes that often occurs after many years of high blood sugar levels.
What does high blood sugar mean for the rest of the body?
Over time, the body's organs and systems can be harmed by high blood sugar. Blood vessels become damaged, and this can lead to complications, including:
Heart attack or stroke
Damage to the eye and loss of vision
Kidney disease or failure
Nerve problems in the skin, especially the feet, leading to sores, infections, and wound healing problems
Causes of high blood sugar
In type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. As a result, the body lacks insulin and blood sugar levels rise. People with type 1 diabetes must take insulin through a needle, pen, or insulin pump to keep blood sugar levels under control.
Only 5 percent of all people with diabetes have type 1, according to the American Diabetes Association.
With type 2 diabetes, the body does produce insulin but is unable to use it properly. The pancreas tries to make more insulin, but often cannot make enough to keep blood sugar levels under control. This is known as insulin resistance . People with type 2 diabetes may need to take insulin, pills, or make diet or exercise changes to help control blood sugar levels.
Many pregnant women develop insulin resistance and high blood sugar levels during pregnancy. This is known as gestational diabetes. Gestational diabetes must be monitored by a woman's obstetrician throughout her pregnancy, as it can lead to complications for mother and baby. Gestational diabetes usually goes away after the woman gives birth.
A higher than normal blood sugar level is known as hyperglycemia. Although diabetes is the main cause, people who take beta blockers and certain steroids may also experience high blood sugar.
Risk factors for high blood sugar
The exact cause of type 1 or type 2 diabetes is not known. Some factors may make a person more likely to develop these conditions, however.
Researchers believe certain genetic or environmental factors may make people more likely to get type 1 diabetes. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases say certain genes play a role, and other factors such as viruses and infections may also be involved.
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation say that there is nothing a person can do to prevent type 1 diabetes, and it is not related to eating, exercise, or other lifestyles choices. Type 1 diabetes usually begins during childhood or early adulthood.

ALS: Breakthrough discovery of destructive brain cells

ALS

is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons - nerve cells that form a pathway for the brain to send instructions to muscles - degenerate in ALS and lead to weakness and wasting of muscles.
There are two types of ALS: sporadic and familial. The sporadic form of the disease accounts for 90-95 percent of all cases in the United States and occurs at random with no clearly associated risk factors, while familial ALS - which accounts for 5-10 percent of all U.S cases - is inherited.
An international team of researchers - directed by Dr. Laura Ferraiuolo from the Sheffield Institute of Translational Neuroscience (SITraN) at The University of Sheffield - made the groundbreaking discovery of how the oligodendrocyte brain cell plays a significant role in the progression of ALS.
Dr. Ferraiuolo began the research at The Kaspar Laboratory based at the Centre for Gene Therapy at the Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital (RINCH) in Columbus, OH, as part of her EU-funded Marie Curie Fellowship.
Oligodendrocytes are a type of glial cell that surrounds neurons and provides support and insulation between them. Their primary function is to produce myelin that wraps around the neurons and allows signals to run faster, which helps communication from one neuron to another.
The team uncovered that oligodendrocytes - which typically assist with neuron function - can become destructive and cause cell death after developing an innovative oligodendrocyte in-vitro model from the skin cells of people with ALS. "This is the first human in vitro model allowing us to study the specific interaction between neurons and oligodendrocytes from ALS patients," says Dr. Ferraiuolo.
Dr. Ferraiuolo and colleagues also found that decreasing the levels of the gene SOD-1 can rescue the adverse effect of rogue oligodendrocytes on motor neurons. At least 200 mutations in the SOD-1 gene have been associated with causing ALS.
Previous studies have identified other glial cells - astrocytes and microglia - that contribute to motor neuron death in ALS. The researchers detected the behavior of oligodendrocytes through mouse and human studies using the "direct conversion" method.
Direct conversion is a method developed by Prof. Brian Kaspar and his team at the Kaspar Laboratory to generate neural progenitor cells (NPCs) from skin cells.
Supporting cells from familial , sporadic ALS result in cell death
Neural progenitors are cells that, like
stem cells, can differentiate into a particular type of cell, although they are already more specific than stem cells. NPCs are capable of dividing a limited number of times and have the capacity to differentiate into neuronal and glial cell types such as astrocytes and oligodendrocytes.
In this instance, the direct conversion method was used to model ALS by differentiating the produced NPCs into oligodendrocytes derived from skin cells collected from people with familial ALS and sporadic ALS.
The study findings - published in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences - show that the oligodendrocytes from both familial and sporadic ALS patients result in motor neuron death.
However, in contrast, oligodendrocytes from healthy people or those with other neuromuscular disorders left motor neurons unharmed. The researchers suggest that this finding indicates the distinct phenotype to ALS-derived oligodendrocytes. Culled from mnt.

NIH study links morning sickness to lower risk of pregnancy loss

A new analysis by researchers at the National Institutes of Health has provided the strongest evidence to date that nausea and vomiting during pregnancy is associated with a lower risk of miscarriage in pregnant women. The study, appearing in JAMA Internal Medicine, was conducted by researchers at NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and other institutions.

“Our study confirms that there is a protective association between nausea and vomiting and a lower risk of pregnancy loss.”

—Stefanie N. Hinkle, Ph.D, Scientist, NICHD’s Epidemiology Branch

Nausea and vomiting that occurs in pregnancy is often called “morning sickness,” as these symptoms typically begin in the morning and usually resolve as the day progresses. For most women, nausea and vomiting subside by the 4th month of pregnancy. Others may have these symptoms for the duration of their pregnancies. The cause of morning sickness is not known, but researchers have proposed that it protects the fetus against toxins and disease-causing organisms in foods and beverages.

“It’s a common thought that nausea indicates a healthy pregnancy, but there wasn’t a lot of high-quality evidence to support this belief,” said the study’s first author, Stefanie N. Hinkle, Ph.D, a staff scientist in NICHD’s Epidemiology Branch. “Our study evaluates symptoms from the earliest weeks of pregnancy, immediately after conception, and confirms that there is a protective association between nausea and vomiting and a lower risk of pregnancy loss.”

For their study, Dr. Hinkle and her colleagues analyzed data from the Effects of Aspirin in Gestation and Reproduction (EAGeR) trial, in which researchers tested whether taking daily low-dose aspirin prevents women who experienced one or two prior pregnancy losses from experiencing a future loss.

The authors looked at data from all the women in the study who had a positive pregnancy test.  The women kept daily diaries of whether they experienced nausea and vomiting in the 2nd through the 8th week of their pregnancies and then responded to a monthly questionnaire on their symptoms through the 36th week of pregnancy. The study authors noted that most previous studies on nausea and pregnancy loss were not able to obtain such detailed information on symptoms in these early weeks of pregnancy. Instead, most of studies had relied on the women’s recollection of symptoms much later in pregnancy or after they had experienced a pregnancy loss.

In the EAGeR trial, a total of 797 women had positive pregnancy tests, with 188 pregnancies ending in loss. By the 8th week of pregnancy, 57.3 percent of the women reported experiencing nausea and 26.6 percent reported nausea with vomiting. The researchers found that these women were 50 to 75 percent less likely to experience a pregnancy loss, compared to those who had not experienced nausea alone or nausea accompanied by vomiting.Culled from nih.

Region of body fat affects heart disease risk

Around 1 in every 4 deaths in the United States are a result of heart disease . The majority of cardiovascular disease risk factors - high blood pressure,
cholesterol , overweight and obesity, tobacco use, lack of physical activity, and diabetes - can be controlled, treated, or modified.
While just over 70 percent of U.S. adults are overweight and more than one third are obese, the new study shows that the region of the body where fat is distributed is a major factor in a person's risk of heart disease.
Previous research has found that individuals who carry excess abdominal fat - particularly around the waist - face a greater risk of heart disease, compared with people who have fat elsewhere.
This study confirms that regional fat deposits in the stomach are harmful and suggests that the density of stomach fat - measured by CT scan - is just as influential on the risk of heart disease as the amount of fat a person has.
From CT scans, investigators note that the more fat a person has, the lower the density of the fat.
Dr. Caroline Fox, a former senior investigator for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the study's senior researcher, and colleagues aimed to identify whether there was a relationship between volume and density changes in abdominal fat and changes in cardiovascular risk factors over the 6-year course of the study data.
The team studied 1,106 participants - average age 45 years and 44 percent women - enrolled in the Framingham Heart Study, and they assessed their CT scans to measure coronary and abdominal aortic calcification. The amount of abdominal fat they had accumulated, its location, and the density of the body fat were analyzed.
During the study, participants had measurements taken of subcutaneous adipose fat - fat that lies just underneath the skin - and visceral adipose fat that is situated inside the abdominal cavity.
Heart disease risk factors more pronounced in belly fat
Over the course of the 6-year follow-up, on average, participants experienced a 22 percent increase in fat under the skin and a 45 percent increase in fat inside the abdominal cavity.
Results indicated that increases in the amount of fat and decreases in the density of the fat were associated with adverse changes in heart disease risk. Additionally, each extra pound of fat gained from the start of the study through follow-up was linked to new-onset high blood pressure, high triglycerides, and metabolic syndrome.While increases in both subcutaneous and visceral adipose fats were linked with initiating new and exacerbated cardiovascular disease risk factors, the relationship was more noticeable in fat inside the abdominal cavity than fat under the skin.
Participants who had the highest increases in belly fat also showed substantial increases in metabolic risk factors, such as high blood sugar, high triglycerides, and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, or "good" cholesterol.
Higher levels of fat under the skin may have a protective effect to serve as a "metabolic sink for storing excess fat particles," Dr. Fox hypothesizes. However, in contrast, fat stored in the abdominal cavity is considered to be hazardous.
The researchers indicate that after adjusting for changes in body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference - two identifiers of whether a person is a healthy weight - their findings remained significant.
Increased fat volume with decreased density heightens heart disease risk
To examine abdominal adipose tissue volume and density change, the team divided the participants into three groups for assessment. They discovered that individuals who had greater increases in fat volume and a bigger reduction in fat density had a relatively higher incidence of heart disease risk factors.
Dr. James A. de Lemos states in an accompanying editorial that the study findings back up other studies that suggest the location and type of fat deposits provide essential information about heart disease risk that cannot be identified with simple measures like BMI.
Culled from mnt.

Preterm , low - birth -weight babies more likely for women with hearing loss

P regnant women with hearing loss may be more likely to give birth prematurely or have low- birth -weight babies . This is the conclusion of new research published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Researchers

suggest women with hearing loss are at greater risk of having preterm or low-birth-weight babies.
In the United States, around 15 percent of adults have some degree of hearing loss.
Lead investigator Dr. Monika Mitra, Ph.D., of the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA, and colleagues note that many individuals with hearing loss have other health issues, largely because hearing problems reduce beneficial exposure to media, healthcare messages, health communication, and learning opportunities.
What is more, Dr. Mitra and team say healthcare providers rarely receive training on the best way to communicate with patients who have hearing loss, which can make it hard for clinicians to provide optimal care.
Among expectant mothers, research has shown that women with hearing loss are less satisfied with their prenatal care and have fewer prenatal visits than those without hearing loss.
However, the authors say there have been no population-based studies exploring how hearing loss may influence birth outcomes for pregnant women - until now.
Worse birth outcomes for pregnant women with hearing loss
For their study, the researchers analyzed data from the 2008-2011 Nationwide Inpatient Sample of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP).
Of the almost 18 million deliveries that occurred over the 4-year period, the team identified around 10,500 that occurred among young women with hearing loss.
Birth outcomes - including preterm birth and low birth weight - were compared between women with and without hearing loss, and the researchers also looked at the women's insurance coverage and presence of other medical conditions.
Compared with women who did not have hearing loss, those who did were at greater risk of giving birth prematurely and having a low-birth-weight baby, the team found.
Additionally, the analysis revealed women with hearing loss were less likely to have private insurance than those without hearing loss.
Medicare paid for more than 13 percent of births among women with hearing loss, compared with only 0.6 percent of births among women without hearing loss. Delivery-related hospitalizations among women with hearing loss were most commonly paid for by Medicare and Medicaid.
In terms of health issues, the researchers found that women with hearing loss were almost twice as likely to have at least two co-existing health conditions than women without hearing loss, and they were also more likely to be admitted to urban teaching hospitals.
New framework could identify risk factors for poor birth outcomes
Dr. Mitra and colleagues believe their findings highlight the importance of understanding the causes of poorer birth outcomes among women with hearing loss, and they say there needs to be more focus on addressing these issues.
On that note, the researchers say they have developed a perinatal health framework that has pinpointed a number of individual and mediating risk factors for poor birth outcomes among women with physical disabilities, which could be adapted to identify such factors among women with hearing loss.

Depression After Abortion : Understanding and Coping

There is some controversy about depression after abortion, and not just in the medical profession. It is not clear that abortion depression is a specific condition, although it is clear that women do have emotional responses to abortion.
Depression itself is a well-recognized medical condition. But can depression be caused by abortion?
There is only limited research into the psychological effects of abortion. A lot of the research has been complicated by technical problems such as not being able to control for other factors that could be behind a case of depression, rather than the abortion itself.
The experience of abortion is different for each woman and varies widely. Feelings after an abortion can be mixed. Women may have both positive and negative feelings.
In general, abortion may be followed by feelings of sadness, grief, loss or regret. If these feelings do occur and are severe enough, or last for long enough, they may amount to depression.
Contents of this article:
First feelings about abortion
What is depression?
Treatment of depression
First feelings about abortion
Abortion can be a stressful life event for some women who choose to terminate their pregnancy.
The pregnancy in the first place may be a source of stress itself. It may have been an unwanted pregnancy or linked with other problems.
Following an abortion, women can have unexpected reactions and emotions. The topic can be difficult to talk about for cultural and religious reasons. Some women may feel greater guilt and emotional distress because of religious influences that create stigma around abortion.

Many of the psychological and emotional responses to abortion are normal. Most should not be persistent or severe enough to badly affect a woman's daily life, and should go away.

The range of typical feelings experienced with abortion might include:

Grief, a sense of loss

Guilt

Remorse or regret

Stress, reduced ability to cope

Loss of self-esteem

Relief, reduced anxiety

Not all women have negative emotional responses to abortion. Most who do will not have any lasting mental health problems.

Many women have positive responses to abortion, including feelings of relief. Some women feel no regret, instead having a sense of confidence about having made "the right choice."

What is depression ?

Depression is a psychological or mental health condition. It is a mood disorder.

People with depression may have these signs and symptoms:

Feeling low or sad

Reduced thinking abilities

Poor concentration, and difficulty making decisions

Guilt

Feeling irritable

Lack of energy, tiredness

Loss of interest in sex

Loss of interest in activities that were previously enjoyed

Disturbed sleep patterns

Depression comes with different levels of severity. People with mild depression are able to carry on with their usual daily activities.

Severe depression affects life so badly that it may prove difficult to work. Severe depression can also lead to more serious mental health symptoms such as

psychosis.

Suicidal feelings or self-harm are serious symptoms that need urgent help.

Depression does not cause physical changes, although people who are depressed may talk more slowly.

The effects of depression on levels of interest can also have a secondary effect. Depression that causes loss of interest in food may lead to weight loss.

Depression, or grief about abortion ?

Grief after the death of a partner, for example, is a natural reaction that should not lead to long-term depression.

Grief has the symptoms of depression but is clearly related to the loss.

Feelings of loss are also natural after the unplanned termination of a pregnancy, such as caused by illness or injury. These symptoms in response to spontaneous abortion should also not be lasting.

Even when a woman has chosen to terminate her pregnancy with an abortion, there can still be natural feelings of loss, sadness, grief, guilt, and regret afterward.

Some women may have been greatly influenced by people around them when making their decision. Feelings that are similar to symptoms of depression should normally improve.

Spontaneous abortion

An aborted pregnancy can be spontaneous. This means an abortion that has not been chosen by the woman but has been caused by illness or injury. Problems with the placenta, for example, can cause loss of pregnancy.

Other terms used for spontaneous abortion are stillbirth and miscarriage. Stillbirth generally refers to loss of later pregnancies, while miscarriage means termination happening in the first 24 weeks.

Depression risk factors

Women who have a mental disorder before having an unwanted pregnancy and then an abortion may experience the event differently than mentally healthy women. They may be more at risk, but the scientific evidence is not strong that there are particular depression risk factors related to abortion itself.There is a higher risk of depression if the woman has a history of alcohol or drug abuse.

Women who already have a psychiatric disorder may be more likely than others to experience feelings of doubt before having an abortion. They are more likely to rate the experience of an abortion as having been an emotional burden, too.

The American Psychological Association Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion found in 2008 that some women are at a higher risk of depression . This higher risk was the same for women who opted for abortion as for the range of other pregnancy outcomes. The risk factors included:

Poverty

History of violence or emotional problems

History of drug or alcohol use

Previous unwanted childbirth

More general risk factors behind depression beyond any specific effects that might result from pregnancy and abortion are not well understood. The exact causes of depression are not known.

A higher risk of depression is linked to genetics. People with a first-degree relative who have depression are more likely to have it themselves, too.

Life events can trigger episodes of depression, but these are usually temporary. It is not clear why some people are triggered into lasting, more severe depression. Major life stresses include separation and loss.

Other risk factors are a poorer ability to cope with life's pressures, being female, and having more exposure to things that cause stress daily.

What is post- abortion stress syndrome ?

Post-abortion stress syndrome (PASS or PAS) is a controversial name. Neither psychologists nor psychiatrists agree that the term should be used.

The term might have been created by

groups who are against abortion. Scientists have also used the phrase, but in relation to poorly designed research .

The features allotted to PASS have been compared to those of PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder).Talking therapy is a great way to treat depression.

It may be more appropriate to consider that some women might develop a form of PTSD following the trauma of an abortion, but such a level of distress is very rare.

The consensus, including from the

American Psychological Association , is that the risk of mental ill health following abortion is no worse than following a decision to continue a pregnancy. Many agree that there is no reliable research to show that PASS exists.

One study following 500 women from birth until the age of 30 years found that mental health after abortion was slightly worse than for other courses of pregnancy. The effect was small, however, and would not amount to a trauma-related syndrome.

Treatment of depression

Depression is a treatable mental health condition. Three broad options are used to treat depression:

Support

Talking therapy

Drugs

A mild case of depression may benefit from the support of a doctor in the form of monitoring. The symptoms may clear up on their own, and later follow-ups with the doctor can confirm this.

Talking therapies are available for all severities of depression. These include talking to a trained psychologist for psychotherapy or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT helps the person to understand their thoughts and how they respond to them.

Counseling may also be available with non-specialist counselors or through group activities.

Culled from mnt.

Suicide Can Strike Children as Young as 5: Study

Black elementary school-age boys seem to have a higher risk, even though black
teens and young adults have lower rates of suicide than whites, the study authors noted.
"Adults need to realize that school-age children as young as 5 kill themselves," said Dr. Gregory Fritz, director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Brown University's Warren Alpert Medical School. He was not involved with the study, but is familiar with the findings.
However, the study authors stressed that it's rare for young children to die by suicide. Kids between the ages of 5 and 11 have a suicide rate of 0.17 per 100,000 children. For teens from 12 to 17, that number rises to 5.18 per 100,000, according to background information from the study.
According to Fritz, mental health specialists used to believe that young children couldn't kill themselves. Experts thought kids "were not capable of suicide because it couldn't be as hopeless as it was often seen to be required, or they didn't have a sense of time or an understanding of the permanence of death."
But children do die by suicide, the new study found.
"It happens. Not every day, but not that infrequently. That's a very painful thing for adults to consider, but we have to confront that reality. Adults need to take even little kids seriously when they talk about suicide," Fritz said.
Even now, he said, "most people outside of the mental health professions are aghast when they think of a 6-year-old trying to kill himself. They think, 'Are you kidding, how can that be true?' "
The researchers launched their study as a follow-up to their previous findings that suggested an increase in suicides among young black children from 1993 to 2012 and a decrease among young white children, said study lead author Arielle Sheftall. She's a postdoctoral research fellow with The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
The new study, Sheftall said, aims to understand more about the possible reasons why young children kill themselves.
The researchers looked at suicide statistics in 17 states for various periods between 2003 and 2012 and focused on kids aged 5 to 11, and 12 to 14.
In those states, 87 children (85 percent male) aged 5 to 11 died by suicide, as did 606 (70 percent male) children aged 12 to 14, the study revealed.
"Elementary school-aged children who died by suicide were more likely to experience relationship problems with their family members or friends, while early adolescents who died by suicide were more likely to experience boyfriend or girlfriend problems," Sheftall said.
Almost four out of 10 suicides involving children aged 5 to 11 were black children, mostly boys. Neither Sheftall nor Fritz had theories as to why the rate is so high. Sheftall noted that blacks in general tend to have lower rates of suicide than whites.One-third of the suicide victims had a mental health problem, with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) the most common one -- 60 percent.
ADHD can make people impulsive.
"This suggests that children who die by suicide may be more vulnerable as a group to respond impulsively to interpersonal challenges," Sheftall said. But, she cautioned that the study doesn't show that ADHD causes suicide.
Fritz said it can be difficult to help these kids because their thoughts change rapidly. "They may not be thinking about suicide now, and then a day later they are. That makes it challenging," he said.
Among the older kids with a mental health condition, depression was the most common disorder -- 66 percent.
Suffocation and strangulation (such as hanging) were the most common methods of suicide among the younger children. For the older group, deaths by firearm were more common, the study found.
Given how unnerving these findings are, what can adults do to prevent suicide by young children?
"It is important to ask children directly about suicide if there is a safety concern," Sheftall said. "Parents can ask, 'Are you having thoughts about killing yourself?' Asking kids about suicide is safe and does not put ideas into their heads," she added.
If a child says yes, the parent can call their pediatrician or take the child to the nearest emergency department, Sheftall said.
Fritz said adults should ask children about suicide if they're displaying behavior problems, showing signs of unhappiness, or doing impulsive or dangerous things: "Are you doing this to hurt yourself, do you wish you were not alive, are things so bad that you wish you could die?" he said

How to prevent seasonal flu

Experts say an annual flu shot is the best way to avoid the aches , fever , congestion and fatigue that flu brings -- and to protect those who are at high risk for flu-related complications.
"Every year, people die from influenza ," said Cindy Weston, an assistant professor of nursing at Texas A&M University. "After sizable outbreaks, people will respond with large amounts of vaccinations, but they should be getting vaccinated every year to protect those most vulnerable, mainly children and the elderly."
Now that it's fall, it's time for your shot.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends an annual flu shot for everyone older than 6 months of age. This includes pregnant women.
Babies less than 8 months old may need to get the vaccine in two doses. And people over age 65 should get the high-dose shot. Adults with severe egg
allergies can get an alternative form of protection called Flublok, according to the CDC.
Some people may have allergies so severe they can't get the shot at all. "[They] are dependent upon everyone else getting immunized in order to stay at low risk for the flu," Weston said.
For healthy adults, the flu may seem like a relatively minor inconvenience, and some go out of their way to avoid vaccination.
Some fear the shot will give them the flu -- not true. Others dread the inevitable needle sting. (FluMist , the nasal flu vaccine , was found to be ineffective and is not recommended.) And some may believe a shot isn't necessary now, because they had one last year. That's just not true, Weston said.
"The flu strain mutates every year," she explained. "The flu shot you get this year is different from the one you got last year because it is made specifically for the prominent strains of the virus."
If vaccination rates are low, a potentially deadly flu outbreak could occur, Weston said. Millions of people get the flu every year, leading to hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths, according to the CDC.
"Flu season typically lasts from fall to spring," Weston said. "The outbreak may peak at various times during those seasons, but people should be vaccinated before they return home for the holidays to prevent an outbreak."
After you get the shot, it takes two weeks for your body to develop antibodies against the virus, Weston pointed out.
In the meantime, good hygiene will help you stay healthy."Washing your hands properly, covering your cough , avoid[ing] hand contact with your face and eyes, and wiping down surfaces with disinfectant are all ways to help stop the spread of the flu," Weston said.
It's also important to be aware of warning signs and flu symptoms , such as:
Sudden, high fever .
Body aches.
Headache .
Fatigue .
Sore throat .
Cough .
Congestion.
Runny nose .
"The best way to avoid the flu is to get vaccinated," Weston said. "When it comes to you and your family's health, it's best to take the cautious approach and get your shot."

Controversial Human Embryo Editing: 5 Things to Know

Scientists in Sweden have become the first to edit the genetic material in healthy human embryos, but what exactly are these researchers editing and why is the research so controversial?
In recent experiments, biologist Fredrik Lanner, of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and his colleagues injected human embryos with a gene-editing tool intended to make very precise changes to the embryo's DNA, according to NPR, which first reported the news. This was done at a very early stage in development, just a few days after fertilization.
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The researchers said they hope the experiments will help them learn about early development in embryos, and perhaps one day lead to new methods for treating infertility and preventing miscarriages.
Here are five key facts to know about the research:
This isn't the first time scientists have edited a gene in human embryos
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In 2015, scientists in China published a study in which they had tried to make changes in human embryos, specifically on a gene involved in the blood disorder beta thalassemia. A year later, another research group in China tried to edit DNA in human embryos so that they would be resistant to infection with HIV. However, in both of those experiments, the embryos could not have developed into human babies. That's because the embryos were fertilized by two sperm during in vitro fertilization (IVF), and so contained an extra set of chromosomes that would make them unviable past a certain point in their development,
according to Nature News .
The new embryos won't be used for pregnancy
In contrast, the embryos in Lanner's experiments are healthy and could, in theory, lead to pregnancy. They were donated by couples who had undergone IVF at the institute, according to NPR. But Lanner said he will not let the embryos develop beyond 14 days, and initially plans to study the embryos for only the first seven days of development, NPR reported.
"[I] stand against any sort of thoughts that one should use this to design designer babies," Lanner was quoted as saying.
The new research will target developmental genes
Lanner and colleagues will use a gene-editing technique called CRISPR-Cas9 to "knock out" (or "turn off") specific genes involved in the early stages of development, according to NPR. By doing this, the researchers hope to learn more about the role of these genes in development, particularly the genes thought to be involved in infertility, the scientists said. In earlier work, Lanner and colleagues studied which genes were expressed in 88 human embryos in the early stages of development, which helped the researchers identify the genes that will be altered in the new experiments, according to Nature News .
Human embryo editing is controversial
Even though the embryos used in the new research will not be allowed to develop past 14 days, the experiments still have some scientists concerned. One worry is that, because the editing technique is new, researchers could make a mistake that could result in a new human disease that could be passed down to future generations, Marcy Darnovsky, of the Center for Genetics and Society in California, told NPR.
Another concern is that the work is a step toward making "designer babies," and the critics have said that more discussion is needed to prevent misuse of the technology. In a statement in February, Darnovsky said, "The public conversation about this potentially society-altering technology has barely begun." She added, "Now is the time to ensure that gene editing is not used to create [genetically modified] babies."
But human embryo editing is gaining more acceptance
Recently, there's been a movement toward allowing human embryo editing in some cases, with the aim of improving health. In December 2015, researchers held an international summit on human gene editing, which suggested some limits, but also some legitimate uses for human embryo editing.
Culled from livescience

A sixth sense?

Taste, smell, vision, hearing, touch and… awareness of one's body in space? Yes, humans have at least six senses, and a new study suggests that the last one, called proprioception, may have a genetic basis.
Proprioception refers to how your brain understands where your body is in space. When police ask a drunken person to touch their finger to the tip of their nose, they're testing the sense of proprioception.
Previous research in mice has suggested that a gene called PIEZO2 may play a role in this sense, according to the study. The PIEZO2 gene tells cells to produce "mechanosensitive" proteins. Mechanosensation is the ability to sense force, for example, being able to feel when someone presses down on your skin. It also plays a role in proprioception, according to the study. [7 Weird Facts About Balance ]
To understand the gene's effect in humans, the researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) identified two young patients who had very rare mutations in the gene, according to the study, published Wednesday (Sept. 21) in the New England Journal of Medicine . The patients also had joint problems and scoliosis, the researchers noted.
The patients were asked to perform several tests related to movement and
balance, according to the study. In one test, for example, the researchers found that the patients had a great deal of difficultly walking when they were blindfolded.
In another test, the patients were asked to reach for an object in front of them, first with their eyes open and then while blindfolded. Compared with people who did not have the gene mutation, the patients had a much harder time reaching for the object when blindfolded, the researchers found.
Other tests showed that the blindfolded patients with the gene mutation had more trouble guessing the direction of movement of their arms and legs when being moved by the researchers. They also had more trouble feeling the vibrations from a buzzing tuning fork placed against their skin, compared with the control participants.
In a different experiment, one patient said that the feeling of someone gently brushing the skin of the forearm was prickly, as opposed to a pleasant sensation that's normally reported.
The findings suggest that the patients who carry the mutations in the PIEZO2 gene are "touch-blind," Alexander Chesler, a principal investigator at the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health and the lead author of the study, said in a statement.
"The patient's version of [the gene] PIEZO2 may not work, so their neurons cannot detect touch or limb movements," Chesler said.
Other parts of the patients' nervous systems , however, were working fine, according to the study. The patients could feel pain, itch and temperature normally, the researchers said. In addition, their brains and cognitive abilities were similar to those of the control subjects.
The researchers said that the PIEZO2 gene has been linked to genetic musculoskeletal disorders in previous studies. Indeed, the findings of the new study suggest that the gene may be required for normal skeletal growth and development, the researchers said. Another possible explanation is that the sense of touch and proprioception play a role in skeletal development, they wrote.
Originally published on Live Science .

Inflammation turns mitochondria into toxic factories

L earning how to control inflammation could have huge implications for the treatment of many diseases . Breaking research discovers how macrophages turn mitochondria into toxic chemical - producing inflammation-promoters.

The role of the macrophage in inflammation is complex and wide-ranging.
Inflammation plays a significant role in a number of serious medical conditions. Efforts to understand and control it are ongoing.
Inflammation is the body's attempt to protect itself from harmful stimuli. For instance, after a knock to the knee, inflammation helps prevent further damage; it has evolved to become an essential part of our immune system.
However, during disease, the inflammatory response can go awry and cause damage to healthy tissue; it is a powerful mechanism that must be tightly controlled.
For instance, inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis , and septic shock all involve high levels of poorly controlled inflammation.
In fact, inflammation can actually cause diseases and conditions to occur, such as hay fever, periodontitis , and some
cancers .
Macrophages and inflammation
Macrophages (meaning "big eaters") are a type of white blood cell that engulf and digest cellular debris and foreign substances. These biological dustbins maraud within and between cells throughout the body, destroying pathogens as they roam.
Alongside their taste for microbes and other invaders, they play a substantial role in orchestrating the immune response. Macrophages stimulate the immune system and help to call it to action when necessary.
As part of this role, macrophages are known to promote inflammation. However, once the time has come for the inflammation response to stop, they switch roles, suppressing inflammation and busying themselves with repairing damaged tissue.
A team of scientists from the Inflammation Research Group at Trinity College Dublin in the Republic of Ireland joined forces with researchers based at the Medical Research Council Mitochondrial Biology Unit in the United Kingdom.
These two institutions linked up with another seven across Europe to take a fresh look at the role of macrophages in inflammation.
Mitochondria' s roles switched
The investigators found that during the initial phase of the macrophage response, the cells alter the activity of mitochondria.
Mitochondria are often referred to as the "powerhouse" of the cell. They are present in nearly all cell types and generate the vast majority of the cell's supply of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) - the primary source of chemical energy in cells.
During inflammation, macrophages were found to halt mitochondria's production of energy and switch them to producing toxic compounds that further amplify inflammation.
This change in enzyme activity specifically increases production of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species, high levels of which can damage cell structures.
Succinate dehydrogenase is involved in the process of energy generation in mitochondria, but it also plays a role in
tumor suppression, making it an enzyme of interest to medical researchers.
The scientists hope that this new knowledge might help them to generate interventions that mute this toxic response. If it can be controlled in some way, tissue damage might be minimized.
Co-lead author Dr. Beth Kelly says: "Preventing this process turns the macrophage into a more benign anti-inflammatory cell, so if we can find a way of mediating the macrophage response, we might be able to preferentially calm down the inflammation."
This research contributes to a new and swiftly growing area of study known as immunometabolism. This specialty looks at the interface between the immune system and metabolic responses in disease; among other things, it hopes to create a deeper understanding of the vast complexities of inflammation.
The end goal of immunometabolism is to design novel therapeutic approaches that could assist in the treatment of difficult to manage disease.

Smoking / Quit Smoking Nicotine has the potential to prevent brain aging, study suggests

N icotine is the addictive chemical found in tobacco and e - cigarette liquids. On the surface , the substance might not scream "health benefits, " but a new study suggests it shouldn' t be written off just yet ; it is possible that nicotine could protect against brain aging .
Researchers suggest nicotine could protect against brain aging.
Dr. Ursula Winzer-Serhan, an associate professor at the Texas A&M College of Medicine, and colleagues report their findings in the Journal of Toxicology .
Previous animal and human studies have shown that nicotine has possible cognitive benefits; the chemical binds to and activates nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) in the brain, which has been found to reduce neurodegeneration.
"Thus, medicinal use of nicotine or related nAChR agonists could have great beneficial effects for human health," the authors note.
However, the underlying mechanisms of this association are unclear, and given nicotine's well-known addictive properties, it is no surprise that concerns have been raised about using the chemical as a treatment for neurodegenerative disorders.
For their study, Dr. Winzer-Serhan and team used mouse models to investigate the effects of nicotine at various doses on appetite, weight, anxiety, and levels of nAChRs in the brain.
"Some people say that nicotine decreases anxiety, which is why people smoke, but others say it increases anxiety," says Dr. Winzer-Serhan. "The last thing you would want in a drug that is given chronically would be a negative change in behavior."
High nicotine dose did not increase anxiety
The researchers added nicotine to the drinking water of mice at either low, medium, or high doses.
On assessing the mice that received low and medium doses of nicotine, the researchers identified no traces of the drug in their blood, and there were no changes in food intake, weight, or nAChRs.
Mice that received the high nicotine dose, however, showed a reduction in food intake and body weight and an increase in nAChR levels. Additionally, the researchers identified no signs of increased anxiety in the high-dose mice.
The researchers say they plan to conduct further studies to investigate the effects of nicotine against neurodegeneration in aged mice, and they also want to determine whether nicotine's ability to reduce appetite and weight gain explains its possible protective effect against brain aging.
Still, the current results indicate that nicotine treatment is unlikely to alter behavior, bringing researchers one step closer to determining the safety of nicotine as a treatment for neurodegenerative disorders.That said, Dr. Winzer-Serhan stresses that their findings should not encourage the use of cigarettes and other nicotine-containing products.
"At the end of the day, we haven't proven that this addictive drug is safe - and it certainly isn't during childhood or adolescence - or that the benefits outweigh the potential risks," she adds.
Read about a study that suggests the flavor of e-cigarette vapor appeals to teenagers more than nicotine content .
Recommended related news
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Suggested Reading
References Additional information
Citations
Evaluation of chronic oral nicotine treatment in food consumption, body weight and [125i] epibatidine binding in adult mice , Ursula Winzer-Serhan et al., Journal of Toxicology , doi: OAJT.MS.ID.555552, published online 25 November 2015.
Texas A&M University news release , accessed 23 September 2016.
Contact our news editors
For any corrections of factual information, or to contact our editorial team, please see our contact page.
Please note: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our terms of use.
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"Even if these weren't very preliminary results, smoking results in so many health problems that any possible benefit of the nicotine would be more than canceled out.
However, smoking is only one possible route of administration of the drug, and our work shows that we shouldn't write-off nicotine completely."
Dr. Ursula Winzer-Serhan

tips for healthy agi

Curiosity about cigarettes , cigars falling among students

F ewer middle and high school students in the United States have ever used or are curious about using cigarettes or cigars, according to new research published in the journal
Preventing Chronic Disease.
Researchers

find fewer students are curious about using cigarettes and cigars.
However, the study - conducted by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - identified no change in the percentage of American students who have ever used or are curious about smokeless tobacco.
According to the CDC, smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., accounting for more than
480,000 deaths each year.
There is no doubt that great strides have been made in reducing smoking rates in the U.S.; the number of adults who currently smoke has fallen from 20.9 percent in 2005 to 16.8 percent in 2014.
Still, more needs to be done, and researchers are focused on curbing cigarette use among youth as a way of ending the tobacco epidemic.
In order to do so, investigators first need to get a good idea of the scale of tobacco use among youth and what is driving them to use tobacco products.
Study co-author Alexander Persoskie, of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, and colleagues aimed to address these factors with their new study.
Four percent fall in ever- use of cigarettes
The team analyzed information from the 2012 and 2014 National Youth Tobacco Survey, which provides national data on tobacco use among American students in grades 6-12.
Using this data, the researchers calculated the percentage of students who had ever used or had been curious about using cigarettes, cigars, and smokeless tobacco. For 2014 only, the team assessed ever-use of and curiosity about e-cigarettes .
Their analysis revealed that between 2012-2014, ever-use of cigarettes among students reduced from 26.4 percent to 22.4 percent, while ever-use of cigars fell from 21.2 percent to 17.6 percent.
Additionally, the researchers identified an increase in the percentage of students who had never used cigarettes and cigars and were "definitely not" curious about them, rising from 51.2 percent in 2012 to 54.3 percent in 2014.
A similar pattern was seen with cigars; the proportion of students who had never used or had "definitely not" been curious about using cigars rose from 60.1 percent to 62.8 percent between 2012-2014.
However, the researchers found there was no significant change in ever-use of or curiosity about smokeless tobacco.
Talking to Medical News Today, Persoskie says it is unclear why there was lack of change relating to smokeless tobacco.
"However, it's worth noting that levels of ever-use and curiosity about this product type were already lower in 2012 than for cigarettes and cigars," he added. "Nonetheless, these findings underscore the importance of efforts to reduce all forms of tobacco use, including smokeless tobacco products, among U.S. youth."
More than 10 percent of students curious about e - cigarettes
In 2014, the researchers found that 10.8 percent of students were "definitely" or "probably" curious about e-cigarettes but had never used them.
Additionally, the percentage of never-using students in 2014 who were "definitely" or "probably" curious about cigarettes, cigars, and smokeless tobacco were 11.4 percent, 10.3 percent, and 4.4 percent, respectively.
Commenting on the overall results, Persoskie told MNT:
Culled from MNT.

healthy life

Depression Antidepressant success affected by environmental conditions ▼ Written by Hannah Nichols

S elective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are a widely used type of antidepressant . However , their efficacy in the treatment of depression has long been debated. While there is currently no method of knowing ahead of treatment whether this type of medication will work effectively, researchers have found what may influence its success .

Study findings reveal that the environment a person is subjected to may determine their response to antidepressants.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) can help manage the symptoms of moderate to severe depression , as well as other mental health conditions, such as generalized anxiety disorder,

obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

SSRIs are suggested to work by increasing levels of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter, which is a chemical messenger that carries signals between nerve cells and the brain. A rise in serotonin levels can improve symptoms and make people more responsive to psychotherapy.

"There is no doubt that antidepressants work for many people, but for between 30 percent and 50 percent of depressed people, antidepressants don't work," says Silvia Poggini, of Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome, Italy. "No one knows why. This work may explain part of the reason," she adds.

Poggini and a team of European researchers have developed a new theory of how SSRIs control depression and have tested the principle in stressed mice. They presented their findings at the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) conference in Vienna.

Serotonin increases brain plasticity, making it more susceptible to change

The team has proposed that recovery from depression does not occur solely from increasing levels of serotonin with SSRIs. They suggest instead that the increased serotonin levels put the brain into a condition where change can take place by increasing the plasticity of the brain and making it more susceptible to change.

The researchers indicate that the environmental conditions people find themselves in at the time of antidepressant treatment may determine whether they are likely to get better or worse.

Poggini and colleagues tested their hypothesis on mice that been subjected to an enriched or stressful condition for 2 weeks. Following the stressful period aimed at inducing depression-like characteristics, all the mice were treated with the SSRI fluoxetine.

The mice were then split into two groups, half of which continued to be stressed and the other half subjected to a more comfortable environment.

Measures of stress-related cytokines - protein-related molecules that aid cell-to-cell communication in the immune system - were analyzed in the brains of all the mice.

Results indicated that compared with the stressed mice, the mice that were kept in a more comfortable environment presented increased expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and decreased anti-inflammatory-related genes, as well as showing fewer signs of depression.

In contrast, the stressed mice showed decreased pro-inflammatory cytokines and increased anti-inflammatory gene expression, with more signs of depression.

The mice exposed to the comfortable environment had a 98 percent increase in the pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1β, and the mice subjected to a continually stressed environment had a 30 percent decrease in the pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-α.

These findings show that the environment determines the response to antidepressants, says Poggini.

Being in a favorable environment increases SSRI effectiveness

"This work indicates that simply taking an SSRI is probably not enough. To use an analogy, the SSRIs put you in the boat, but a rough sea can determine whether you will enjoy the trip."

"For an SSRI to work well, you may need to be in a favorable environment. This may mean that we have to consider how we can adapt our circumstances, and that antidepressant treatment would only be one tool to use against depression," she continues.

Poggini cautions that there are some study limitations, including that the research does not explain the complete range of actions of SSRIs. The current study is an animal model, and further studies are required to test the hypothesis in humans.

"Our results are preliminary, and we strongly recommend that patients stick to the treatment prescribed by their doctors," advises Poggini.

"This original study is a nice model for combined behavioral and pharmacological treatments in depression-like disorders," comments Dr. Laurence Lanfumey, of the Centre de Psychiatrie et Neuroscience Inserm, Paris, and member of the ECNP Executive Committee.

Although the present work also raised several questions, this kind of experiment is important to do to bridge the gap between behavior and SSRIs efficacy," Lanfumey concludes.

Read about how most antidepressants are ineffective for children and teens .

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Suggested Reading

References Additional information

Citations

Fluoxetine treatment affects the inflammatory response and microglial function according to the quality of the living environment, Silvia Alboni et al.,

Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2016.07.155, published online 27 July 2016, abstract .

ECNP news release , accessed 22 September 2016.

Additional sources:

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"In a certain way it seems that the SSRIs open the brain to being moved from a fixed state of unhappiness, to a condition where other circumstances can determine whether or not you recover."

Silvia Poggini

"The idea that environment could impact the output of a pharmacological treatment has been suggested for years, but this work brings direct biological evidence of such an interaction."

Dr. Laurence Lanfumey

Culled from MNT

Surrogacy

• On this page
• What is surrogacy?
• Is surrogacy for me?
• How does surrogacy work?
• What is my chance of having a baby with surrogacy?
• What are the risks of surrogacy?
• Legal issues associated with surrogacy
• Surrogacy treatment abroad
• Payment issues
• Where do I start?
• What is surrogacy?
• Surrogacy is when another woman carries and gives birth to a baby for the couple who want to have a child.
• The HFEA does not regulate surrogacy. We recommend that you should seek legal advice before proceeding with this option.
• Is surrogacy for me?
• Surrogacy may be appropriate if you have a medical condition that makes it impossible or dangerous to get pregnant and to give birth.
• The type of medical conditions that might make surrogacy necessary for you include:
• absence or malformation of the womb
• recurrent pregnancy loss
• repeated in vitro fertilisation (IVF) implantation failures.
• How does surrogacy work?
• Full surrogacy (also known as Host or Gestational) - Full surrogacy involves the implantation of an embryo created using either:
• the eggs and sperm of the intended parents
• a donated egg fertilised with sperm from the intended father
• an embryo created using donor eggs and sperm.
• Partial surrogacy (also known Straight or Traditional) - Partial surrogacy involves sperm from the intended father and an egg from the surrogate. Here fertilisation is (usually) done by artificial insemination or intrauterine insemination (IUI).
• Intrauterine insemination (IUI)
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• What is my chance of having a baby with surrogacy?
• It is quite difficult to determine a success rate for surrogacy, as many factors are relevant, including:
• the surrogate’s ability to get pregnant
• the age of the egg donor (if involved)
• the success of procedures such as IUI and IVF
• the quality of gamete provided by the comissioning couple.
• The age of the woman who provides the egg is the most important factor that affects chances of pregnancy.
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• What are the risks of surrogacy?
• The risks associated with surrogacy depend on the type of surrogacy (full or partial) undertaken. Generally, the risks associated with full surrogacy are similar to those for IVF.
• Risks of fertility treatment
• There is also a risk of transferring HIV and hepatitis, and so screening of everyone involved in surrogacy involving IUI is recommended, and required in surrogacy arrangements involving IVF.
• If a registered donor at a licensed clinic is used, the donor will automatically be screened.
• Legal issues associated with surrogacy
• Surrogacy involves complicated legal issues and we recommend that you seek your own legal advice before making any decisions. It is important to know that surrogacy arrangements are unenforcable.
• It is also advisable to receive counselling before starting the surrogacy process, to help you think about all the questions involved.
• Legal issues around surrogacy
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• Surrogacy treatment abroad
• According to various surveys, many patients who travel overseas for treatment are very satisfied with the standard of care and quality of treatment they receive. However, if you are considering travelling abroad for treatment, you are advised to carry out thorough research. We have created a page that specifically discusses the considerations around treatment abroad
• Considering treatment abroad: issues and risks
• The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has launched guidance on surrogacy overseas to give parents information about the process to help inform them of the sort of issues they may face when embarking on a surrogacy arrangement in a foreign country. The guidance urges prospective parents to ensure they are fully aware of the facts and are well prepared before starting what can be a long and complex process.
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• Payment issues
• Paying surrogate expenses- You are not allowed to pay for a surrogate in the UK – commercial surrogacy is illegal. However, the intended parents are responsible for the reasonable expenses of the surrogate (for example, clothes.
• Extra expense may be incurred should the surrogate have twins or more.
• Clinic surrogacy fees - Fees to the clinic will depend on whether the arrangement involves insemination only or IVF procedures. The fees will also vary depending on which clinic is used and how many attempts you have.
• In vitro fertilisation (IVF)
• You should ensure that you know the full costs involved before starting surrogacy treatment.
• Remember: commercial surrogacy is illegal in the UK – people thinking about surrogacy should be wary of agencies purporting to offer this service.
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• Where do I start?
• Once you have decided, in consultation with your fertility specialist, that a surrogacy arrangement is suitable for your circumstances, you must find a surrogate.
• Fertility clinics are not allowed to find a surrogate mother for you. There may be unregulated organisations in the UK that may be able to help you – the Infertility Network UK (INUK) may be a good starting point.
• INUK website
• You should also be prepared to make the appropriate legal arrangements in order to be recognised in law as the parent of the child.
• Choosing a surrogate - You will want to choose a woman capable of having a safe, healthy pregnancy and birth. It is also vital that you build up a trusting relationship with the surrogate.
• Culled from hfea.