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“Dream it, be it” might sound like a cliche, but a new study says there’s something to the notion. Teenagers who set ambitious goals for themselves tend to be more successful as young adults, researchers reported recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Teens who set higher educational and career goals “tended to have higher educational attainment, income, occupational creativity, occupational prestige and job complexity after 12 years,” said researcher Rodica Damian, an associate professor of psychology with the University of Houston. That doesn’t mean that a person’s goals won’t change, researchers said. Some dreams fall away, while other goals remain strong and new ones come to the fore. But setting early goals related to education and accomplishment appeared to consistently predict better income, and tweaks in these goals tended to predict having a challenging, higher-prestige career, results show. For the study, researchers tracked two national groups of Icelandic youth across 12 years, from their late teenage years into young adulthood. Researchers examined how life goals developed with age, and how the goals set by teenagers related to their accomplishments in education and career. “For educational attainment, the strongest effects were found for education goals. Both initial levels and slopes of education goals were positively associated with educational attainment in both samples,” Damian said. “This indicates that adolescents with higher education goals, and… read on > read on >

Many people with tough-to-treat depression may be trying psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, as an alternative to antidepressants. Thinking that it’s a “natural” drug, folks might assume it comes without side effects. That assumption would be wrong. People in a new study who took psilocybin often experienced headache, nausea, anxiety, dizziness and elevated blood pressure — side effects similar to those seen with regular antidepressants, according to a team from the University of Georgia in Athens (UGA). The good news: Such side effects were only temporary. It’s less clear if longer-term side effects might emerge with time, the researchers noted. The short-term side effects “are what we may expect from your traditional antidepressants because those medications work in a similar fashion to psilocybin. They both target serotonin receptors,” explained senior study author Dr. Joshua Caballero, an associate professor in UGA’s College of Pharmacy. “It’s very encouraging,” he added in a university news release, “because the studies we examined consist of just one or two doses per patient, and we’re finding that the beneficial effects of psilocybin may stay for months when treating depression.” Psilocybin was shunned by the medical community for decades because, at higher doses, it can have hallucinatory properties. But used under the guidance and supervision of a therapist, the drug is having a comeback as a new form of antidepressant. But… read on > read on >

Acne, psoriasis, eczema, vitiligo, alopecia: Any one of these common skin ailments can render a child vulnerable to stigma and bullying at school, new research confirms. “These chronic skin conditions can be tremendously life-altering, including shaping psychosocial development,” noted study corresponding author Dr. Amy Paller. She’s chair of dermatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “These painful experiences can shape a child’s personality into adulthood and erode self-confidence,” Paller added in a Northwestern news release. “Children may underestimate their abilities and worry about taking social risks. They don’t feel good enough, and this shame may affect them lifelong.” The new study of nearly 1,700 kids over the age of 7 was published April 24 in the journal JAMA Dermatology. Paller’s team used standard psychological scores measuring stigma, depression, anxiety and poor peer relationships among the children involved in the study. They found that nearly three-quarters (73%) experienced stigma from their skin condition that was severe enough to lower their quality of life. Most of the stigma and bullying they experienced occurred at school, and it could often be cruel. “Stigma, which is when something false and negative is attached to an individual, can have a profound effect on children’s and teens’ mental health,” Paller noted. “For example, a child with dark scales on the body can be called ‘dirty’ by other kids or… read on > read on >

Long-term daily use of aspirin has been known to prevent colon cancer, but up to now it’s been unclear why that is. Now, researchers think they understand how aspirin acts against colon cancer, a new study says. Aspirin appears to boost aspects of the body’s immune response against cancer cells, according to findings published April 22 in the journal Cancer. “Our study shows a complementary mechanism of cancer prevention or therapy with aspirin besides its classical drug mechanism involving inhibition of inflammation,” said lead researcher Dr. Marco Scarpa, a general surgeon with the University of Padova in Italy. For the study, researchers obtained tissue samples from 238 patients who underwent surgery for colon cancer between 2015 and 2019. Of those, about 12% were aspirin users. Tissue samples from aspirin users showed less cancer spread to the lymph nodes, and more aggressive activity of immune cells against tumors, the researchers said. In the lab, they discovered that exposing colon cancer cells to aspirin enhanced the ability of immune cells to alert each other to the presence of tumors. Specifically, immune cells started expressing more of a protein called CD80. In patients with rectal cancer, aspirin users had higher CD80 expression in healthy tissue, suggesting that aspirin enhances the ability of the immune system to seek out and destroy cancer cells, researchers said. The next step will be to… read on > read on >

Want to prevent a respiratory infection? A fingerful of Neosporin antibiotic swabbed inside your nose might help you fight off a range of invading respiratory viruses, a new study claims. Lab animals whose noses were treated using neomycin — the main ingredient in over-the-counter Neosporin ointment — mounted a robust immune defense against both the COVID virus and a highly virulent strain of influenza, researchers found. The same nasal approach also appeared to work in humans, this time with Neosporin itself. The ointment triggered a swift immune response from genes in the human nose that serve as a first line of defense against invading viruses, researchers reported April 22 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “This is an exciting finding, that a cheap over-the-counter antibiotic ointment can stimulate the human body to activate an antiviral response,” said Akiko Iwasaki, a professor of immunobiology and dermatology at Yale School of Medicine, in New Haven, Conn. Neosporin contains neomycin, bacitracin and polymyxin B, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Medicine. The COVID-19 virus has infected more than 774 million people and killed nearly 7 million, researchers said in background notes. Meanwhile, flu viruses cause up to 5 million cases of severe disease and a half-million deaths annually. Against these threats, humans deploy treatments that are typically taken orally or intravenously, researchers said. These… read on > read on >

Many people dogged by depression are turning to the psilocybin found in “magic mushrooms” to ease the condition, and often reporting success. Now, new research suggests much of the credit for that success lies in the relationship between the patient and his or her therapist. It’s the magic of what researchers at Ohio State University (OSU) described as a trust-filled “therapeutic alliance.” In their study of psilocybin for depression, “what persisted the most was the connection between the therapeutic alliance and long-term outcomes, which indicates the importance of a strong relationship,” said lead researcher Adam Levin. He’s a psychiatry and behavioral health resident at OSU’s college of medicine. The findings are based on a re-analysis of data from a 2021 study involving 24 adults with depression. All received two doses of psilocybin plus 11 hours of psychotherapy. The participants also completed a questionnaire that assessed the strength of the therapist-participant relationship. They filled out this therapeutic alliance checklist three times: After eight hours of “preparation therapy” prior to getting the psilocybin, and then one week after each drug treatment. The patient-therapist “alliance score” tended to rise over time, and it correlated with what the researchers called “acute mystical and/or psychologically insightful experiences from the drug treatment.” The stronger these mystical experiences, the better the results when it came to lowered depression — at least over… read on > read on >

Active military service appears to increase a woman’s risk of having a low birthweight baby, a new review finds. Nearly two-thirds of studies (63%) conclude that women on active service could be at higher risk of having a baby with low birth weight, researchers reported April 22 in the journal BMJ Military Health. However, there was no clear evidence of an increased risk of stillbirth or premature birth among military women. “This review highlights a need for more female-specific research in armed forces, beyond the U.S. military setting, to inform military maternity pathways and policies in ways that safeguard mothers and their babies,” concluded the research team led by Dr. Kirsten Morris, with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the U.K. Increasing evidence has shown that stress during pregnancy is associated with birth complications, such as preterm delivery and low birth weight, researchers said in background notes. To assess the evidence, researchers pooled data from 21 studies involving more than 650,000 women in the U.S. military, all published between 1979 and 2023. Four out of five studies that compared active personnel to a control group — usually the wives of male soldiers — indicated an increased risk of low birthweight for the newborns of female service members, researchers said. The study shows the need for more research into the effects of military… read on > read on >

Soldiers can suffer brain injury if they are repeatedly exposed to explosive blasts, a new study shows. Further, the more frequently a soldier is exposed to explosions, the greater their risk for brain injury, researchers reported April 22 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Based on this, researchers intend to develop a diagnostic test to detect blast brain injury in military personnel. “The availability of a reliable diagnostic test could improve operators’ quality of life by ensuring that they receive timely, targeted medical care for symptoms related to repeated blast brain injury,” said co-senior researcher Yelena Bodien, an investigator with Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery. For this study, researchers followed 30 active-duty U.S. Special Operations Forces personnel. On average, the soldiers were 37 and had 17 years of military service. They all had extensive combat exposure and had high levels of blast exposure and blows to the head. Half had endured more blunt impacts to the head than they could recall. The soldiers underwent a series of brain scans focused on a region of the frontal lobe called the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, which is known to be a widely connected brain network hub that modulates cognition and emotion, researchers said. The scans showed an association between cumulative blast exposure and changes to this brain region, particularly with blast… read on > read on >

Parents too often wave the white flag when it comes to young picky eaters, a new survey finds. Three out of five parents say they’re willing to play personal chef and cobble up a separate meal for a child who balks at the family dinner, according to a national poll from the University of Michigan. This often leads to the kids munching something less healthy, said Dr. Susan Woolford, a pediatrician with the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. Parents should instead greet such obstinance with a shrug, Woolford said. “Rather than allowing the child to choose an alternate menu, parents should provide a balanced meal with at least one option that their child is typically willing to eat,” Woolford said in a hospital news release. “Then if their child chooses not to eat, parents should not worry as this will not cause healthy children any harm and they will be more likely to eat the options presented at the next meal,” Woolford added. Parents’ biggest mealtime challenge is getting a healthy diet into a picky eater, according to results from the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health. But the desire to make sure a preschool or elementary-aged child eats a balanced, nutritional diet often leads to strategies that backfire, poll results suggest. “The preschool and… read on > read on >

Another broiling summer looms, along with another season of kids’ summer sports. It’s a potentially harmful, even lethal combination. But experts at Nationwide Children’s Hospital (NCH) have advice for kids, parents and coaches on how to keep young athletes safe when thermometers rise. Each year, an estimated 240 people die from heat-linked illnesses, and heat stroke is the third-ranked cause of death for young U.S. high school athletes, according to NCH. Heat poses special threats to young athletes, said Dr. Thomas Pommering, medical director for Nationwide Children’s Sports Medicine. “Youth and adolescent athletes sweat less, create more heat per body mass, and acclimate much slower than adults to warmer environments, putting them at greater risk for heat-related injuries in hot and humid temperatures,” he said in an online post from the hospital. Spotting heat-linked illness There are telltale signs on the playing field (or anywhere) that someone may be overcome by the heat. Various types of heat illness include: Heat cramps. As too much sweating causes salt and water to leave the body, this can cause severe cramping in the limbs and abdomen. Heat syncope. Syncope is the medical term for fainting, which can be preceded by weakness and fatigue. Heat exhaustion. This could manifest in cool, pale skin and the onset of headache, nausea, chills, weakness, unsteadiness, dizziness, rapid pulse, excessive thirst and muscle… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

‘Dream It, Be It?’ Study Finds Teens Who Focus on Life Goals Often Succeed

Trying ‘Magic Mushroom’ Drug to Ease Depression? It Has Side Effects

Kids With Common Skin Conditions Face Stigma, Bullying

Science Reveals How Aspirin Prevents Colon Cancer

Neosporin Ointment in the Nose Might Be Potent Antibiotic

Taking Psilocybin for Depression? Relationship With Therapist Is Key

Women in the Military at Risk for Low-Weight Babies

Repeat Blasts Can Damage Soldiers’ Brains, Study Confirms

Many Parents Cook Special Meals for Little Picky Eaters: Poll

Parents, Coaches: Help Young Athletes Avoid Summer Heat Hazards