Gut bacteria linked to obesity

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have identified 26 species of bacteria in the human gut microbiota that appear to be linked to obesity and related metabolic complications. These include insulin resistance, high blood sugar levels, increased blood pressure and high cholesterol, known collectively as "the metabolic syndrome," which significantly increases an individual’s risk of developing diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke. "We identified 26 species of bacteria that were correlated with obesity and metabolic syndrome traits such as body mass index (BMI), triglycerides, cholesterol, glucose levels and C-reactive protein, a marker for inflammation," says the senior author, Claire M. Fraser, Ph.D., professor of medicine and microbiology and immunology...

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Scientists Can Now Block Heroin, Morphine Addiction

In a major breakthrough, an international team of scientists has proven that addiction to morphine and heroin can be blocked, while at the same time increasing pain relief. Photp: Jens Langner at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PET-image.jpg Laboratory studies have shown that the drug (+)-naloxone (pronounced: PLUS nal-OX-own) will selectively block the immune-addiction response.The team from the University of Adelaide and University of Colorado has discovered the key mechanism in the body's immune system that amplifies addiction to opioid drugs. The results -- which could eventually lead to new co-formulated drugs that assist patients with severe pain, as well as helping heroin users to kick the habit -- will be published...

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Cocaine and the Teen Brain: New Insights Into Addiction

When first exposed to cocaine, the adolescent brain launches a strong defensive reaction designed to minimize the drug's effects, Yale and other scientists have found. Now two new studies by a Yale team identify key genes that regulate this response and show that interfering with this reaction dramatically increases a mouse's sensitivity to cocaine.  The findings may help explain why risk of drug abuse and addiction increase so dramatically when cocaine use begins during teenage years.  The results were published in the Feb. 14 and Feb. 21 issues of the Journal of Neuroscience.  Researchers including those at Yale have shown that vulnerability to cocaine is much higher in adolescence, when the brain is shifting from an...

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Stressed kids more likely to become obese

The more ongoing stress children are exposed to, the greater the odds they will become obese by adolescence, reports Cornell environmental psychologist Gary Evans in the journal Pediatrics (129:1).  Nine-year-old children who were chronically exposed to such stressors as poverty, crowded housing and family turmoil gain more weight and were significantly heavier by age 13 than they would have been otherwise, the study found. The reason, Evans and his co-authors suggest, is that ongoing stress makes it tougher for children to control their behavior and emotions -- or self-regulate. That, in turn, can lead to obesity by their teen years.  "These children are heavier, and they gain weight faster as they grow up. A very good predictor...

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Why the brain is more reluctant to function as we age

New findings, led by neuroscientists at the University of Bristol and published this week in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, reveal a novel mechanism through which the brain may become more reluctant to function as we grow older.  It is not fully understood why the brain's cognitive functions such as memory and speech decline as we age. Although work published this year suggests cognitive decline can be detectable before 50 years of age. The research, led by Professor Andy Randall and Dr Jon Brown from the University's School of Physiology and Pharmacology, identified a novel cellular mechanism underpinning changes to the activity of neurones which may underlie cognitive decline during normal healthy aging.  The brain largely...

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Sexual satisfaction in women increases with age

A new study of sexually active older women has found that sexual satisfaction in women increases with age and those not engaging in sex are satisfied with their sex lives. A majority of study participants report frequent arousal and orgasm that continue into old age, despite low sexual desire. The study appears in the January issue of the American Journal of Medicine.  Researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System evaluated sexual activity and satisfaction as reported by 806 older women who are part of the Rancho Bernardo Study (RBS) cohort, a group of women who live in a planned community near San Diego and whose health has been tracked for medical...

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How pregnancy changes a woman's brain

We know a lot about the links between a pregnant mother’s health, behavior, and moods and her baby’s cognitive and psychological development once it is born. But how does pregnancy change a mother’s brain? “Pregnancy is a critical period for central nervous system development in mothers,” says psychologist Laura M. Glynn of Chapman University.  “Yet we know virtually nothing about it.” Glynn and her colleague Curt A. Sandman, of University of the California Irvine, are doing something about that. Their review of the literature in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, discusses the theories and findings that are starting to fill what Glynn calls “a significant...

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New test to indicate likely spread or recurrence of breast cancer

A Queensland University of Technology (QUT) PhD student has developed a potential breakthrough test for predicting the likelihood of the spread or return of breast cancer.  "While in recent years there have been fantastic advances in the treatment of breast cancer there has been no way of predicting its progress," said Helen McCosker, a PhD student at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI).  Ms McCosker's research found that a breast cancer's interaction with its surrounding environment held the key to predicting whether it would grow, become dormant or spread to other organs.  "The ability to predict its progress is a huge step forward as it will ultimately enable doctors to select the most appropriate...

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Study finds link between air pollution and increase in DNA damage

A study in the Czech Republic has found a link between exposure to certain air pollutants and an increase in DNA damage for people exposed to high levels of the pollution.  They found that breathing small quantities of a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), called benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P), caused an increase in the number of certain 'biomarkers' in DNA associated with a higher risk of diseases, including cancer.  Air pollution is a major problem around the world, particularly in urban areas. In attempt to control regional air pollution levels, the EU has introduced legal limits for exposure to a variety of different airborne pollutants. For B[a]P , the EU air quality standard is 1 nanogram per metre3 (ng/m3) as an annual average...

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Vegetables, fruits, grains reduce stroke risk in women

Swedish women who ate an antioxidant-rich diet had fewer strokes regardless of whether they had a previous history of cardiovascular disease, in a study reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.  "Eating antioxidant-rich foods may reduce your risk of stroke by inhibiting oxidative stress and inflammation," said Susanne Rautiainen, M.Sc., the study's first author and Ph.D. student at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. "This means people should eat more foods such as fruits and vegetables that contribute to total antioxidant capacity."  Oxidative stress is an imbalance between the production of cell-damaging free radicals and the body's ability to neutralize them. It leads to inflammation, blood vessel damage...

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Heart attack risk differs between men and women

Findings on coronary CT angiography (CTA), a noninvasive test to assess the coronary arteries for blockages, show different risk scenarios for men and women, according to a study presented today at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).  Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a narrowing of the blood vessels that supply blood and oxygen to the heart. It is caused by a build-up of fat and other substances that form plaque on vessel walls. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the U.S.  Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina analyzed the results of coronary CTA on 480 patients, mean age 55, with acute chest pain....

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Violent video games alter brain function in young men

A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis of long-term effects of violent video game play on the brain has found changes in brain regions associated with cognitive function and emotional control in young adult men after one week of game play. The results of the study were presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).  The controversy over whether or not violent video games are potentially harmful to users has raged for many years, making it as far as the Supreme Court in 2010. But there has been little scientific evidence demonstrating that the games have a prolonged negative neurological effect.  "For the first time, we have found that a sample of randomly assigned...

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Eating fish reduces risk of Alzheimer's disease

People who eat baked or broiled fish on a weekly basis may be improving their brain health and reducing their risk of developing mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).  "This is the first study to establish a direct relationship between fish consumption, brain structure and Alzheimer's risk," said Cyrus Raji, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "The results showed that people who consumed baked or broiled fish at least one time per week had better preservation of gray matter volume on MRI in brain areas at risk for Alzheimer's...

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Original Thinkers More Likely to Cheat, Study Finds

Creative people are more likely to cheat than less creative people, possibly because this talent increases their ability to rationalize their actions, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.  "Greater creativity helps individuals solve difficult tasks across many domains, but creative sparks may lead individuals to take unethical routes when searching for solutions to problems and tasks," said lead researcher Francesca Gino, PhD, of Harvard University.  Gino and her co-author, Dan Ariely, PhD, of Duke University, conducted a series of five experiments to test their thesis that more creative people would cheat under circumstances where they could justify their bad behavior. Their research was...

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Study Looks at the Nature of Change in Our Aging, Changing Brains

As we get older, our cognitive abilities change, improving when we're younger and declining as we age. Scientists posit a hierarchical structure within which these abilities are organized. There's the "lowest" level -- measured by specific tests, such as story memory or word memory; the second level, which groups various skills involved in a category of cognitive ability, such as memory, perceptual speed, or reasoning; and finally, the "general," or G, factor, a sort of statistical aggregate of all the thinking abilities.  What happens to this structure as we age? That was the question Timothy A. Salthouse, Brown-Forman professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, investigated in a new study appearing in an upcoming issue...

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The ethics of smart drugs

Professor Barbara Sahakian, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Cambridge, has been researching cognitive enhancers for over a decade.  Here she discusses the emergence of ‘smart drugs’ and the ethical and practical issues they raise.   There is an increasing lifestyle use of cognitive enhancing drugs, or smart drugs by healthy people. Why might this be? And how will it change our society? Are people using these drugs just realize their potential, or is it that pressures to perform in a globally competitive environment means that individuals’ feel that they cannot afford an ‘off day’ due to lack of sleep or stress?  This is perhaps particularly true of certain professions, where there are issues of...

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Denying mental qualities to animals in order to eat them

New research by Dr Brock Bastian from UQ's School of Psychology highlights the psychological processes that people engage in to reduce their discomfort over eating meat.  This paper will be published in an upcoming edition of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, where Dr Bastian and his co-authors show that people deny mental qualities to animals they eat.  "Many people like eating meat, but most are reluctant to harm things that have minds. Our studies show that this motivates people to deny minds to animals," Dr Bastian said.  The research demonstrates when people are confronted with the harm that their meat-eating brings to food animals they view those animals as possessing fewer mental capacities compared...

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Today's teens will die younger of heart disease

A new study that takes a complete snapshot of adolescent cardiovascular health in the United States reveals a dismal picture of teens who are likely to die of heart disease at a younger age than adults do today, reports Northwestern Medicine research.  "We are all born with ideal cardiovascular health, but right now we are looking at the loss of that health in youth," said Donald Lloyd-Jones, M.D., chair and associate professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a physician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. "Their future is bleak."  Lloyd-Jones is the senior investigator of the study presented Nov. 16 at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Orlando.  The...

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