It can be hard for new college students, or those returning after summer break, to be away from home. Homesickness is a normal reaction. About 30% of all students and 70% of first-year students experience it. Though it can happen at any time, it’s most common in the first few months away. Stephanie Marcello, chief psychologist at Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care in New Brunswick, N.J., offers some suggestions for making it a little easier. “Homesickness tends to decrease after the first semester, but how fast a person overcomes it varies,” Marcello said in a Rutgers news release. Physical signs can include disrupted sleep, lack of appetite, headaches, dizziness and increased risk of infection, especially gastrointestinal. A student might be consumed with thoughts of home or returning home, feel pessimistic about their new environment or have difficulty concentrating. Other signs are feelings of depression, anxiety, irritability, sadness or feeling isolated or alone. Some people may be more prone to these feelings, including those with other stressors or a lack of social support. Risk factors for feeling homesickness include the ability to warm up to new people and situations; whether a person wanted to move out from home; how friends and family back home are experiencing their move; and their overall attitude toward the experience. Expecting to feel homesick can bring on those feelings. Marcello suggests…  read on >  read on >

Red tape is getting in the way of cancer patients receiving the treatment they crucially require, a new study has found. Patients were 18% more likely to experience cancer care delays or be unable to stick to a treatment plan if they had to fill out a lot of paperwork, compared to patients who faced less red tape, the researchers found. Results also showed that the more paperwork a patient had to deal with, the more likely they were to experience delays in treatment. “These are patients who are under incredible amounts of stress, who are often physically and emotionally nowhere near their best, and now having to try to jump through these hoops, the challenge becomes way more difficult and, quite frankly, unacceptable,” said Dr. Joe Betancourt, president of the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy think tank. “We need to really advocate for decreasing these administrative and bureaucratic burdens on patients who are suffering from chronic diseases and need care,” added Betancourt, who was not involved in the study. These delays were worse for younger patients who were less experienced at navigating the health care system, researchers reported Aug. 30 in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Black Americans also reported more paperwork-related delays than white Americans, the study found. The U.S. health care system requires a complex series of communications among patients,…  read on >  read on >

Float therapy, where a patient is suspended in a pool of warm, salty water in a soundproof room, could help ease some aspects of anorexia nervosa, a small new study found. “The idea is that women with anorexia have dysfunctional interoceptive abilities [sensing internal signals from your body], so they’re not able to attend to and perceive their bodily experiences in the same way that healthy individuals can,” explained study co-author Emily Choquette, a postdoctoral research associate at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, Okla. “And one unique thing about floating is that it helps people become more in tune with those body signals.” The research involved 68 women and girls hospitalized for anorexia treatment in a Tulsa clinic; 45 participated in a one-hour float therapy twice per week for four weeks, while the other 23 (the control group) did not. Every participant also received care as usual. Both immediately after the float therapy, as well as in the six months after therapy, participants showed significant reductions in body dissatisfaction, which was measured by the Photographic Figure Rating Scale. The control group did not show significant changes in body dissatisfaction levels. “We showed them a series, a validated scale that is composed of 10 different pictures of actual female bodies varying from an underweight to an overweight body mass index. And they pick…  read on >  read on >

Most fathers experience a decline in relationship satisfaction that can last for years after the baby is born, new research shows. “A good couple relationship during the transition to parenthood is important for parents’ mental health, involvement in parenting and bonding, as well as child development,” said lead author Judith Mack, a research associate at the Technical University of Dresden in Germany. “In the last decades, however, fathers have been neglected in research, even though they oftentimes play an equally important role in the family system as mothers. It is therefore crucial to shed light on their experiences,” she said. For the study, published on Aug. 30 in PLOS ONE, the European researchers reviewed responses from German parents to a survey that began in 2017. It included 500 first-time fathers and 106 who were expecting their second child. They were asked about relationship satisfaction with their partners two months before the birth, and then at eight weeks, 14 months and two years after delivery. No matter whether a child was Dad’s first or second, fathers were less satisfied with their relationship after the birth, the study found. First-timers were, however, more satisfied with their relationship before their baby’s birth compared to second-time dads. At eight weeks after birth, they still reported higher satisfaction than second-time dads. But first-time dads’ had a steeper decline in relationship…  read on >  read on >

Vasectomies are becoming more common in the United States, with rates surging by more than one-quarter during the past decade, a recent study reveals. The U.S. vasectomy rate increased by 26% between 2014 and 2021, according to an analysis of commercial health claims data. “All areas in the United States except the Northeast showed increased vasectomy rates,” said senior researcher Dr. Omer Raheem. He is an assistant professor of surgery-urology with the University of Chicago School of Medicine. Overall numbers remain low, with roughly 4% of men having undergone vasectomy, the researchers noted. But doctors expect the demand for vasectomy will continue to increase following the 2022 Supreme Court decision that abolished the national right to abortion. “After the Roe v Wade overturn, there has been a significant increase in Google searches for vasectomy, as well as an uptick in vasectomy consultations and procedures,” said Dr. Stanton Honig, division chief for reproductive and sexual medicine at Yale School of Medicine, in New Haven, Conn. “This recent study points to the fact that men are taking more of a role in reproductive health and family planning, especially when they are finished having children,” continued Honig, who was not involved with the new research. For the study, Raheem and his colleagues gathered health insurance claims data to calculate the annual vasectomy rate among privately insured men in…  read on >  read on >

Postmenopausal women who are stressed, depressed or have trouble sleeping may face an increased risk of a common heart rhythm disorder, new research suggests. The study, of nearly 84,000 women over the age of 50, found that certain psychological factors were linked to the risk of developing atrial fibrillation, or a-fib — a heart arrhythmia that can cause serious problems over time. The higher the women scored on two measures of “stress” and “strain,” the greater their risk of developing a-fib over the next 10 years. Two specific factors — stressful life events and insomnia — showed the strongest connection to the heart condition. The findings highlight the role of mental well-being in physical health, according to an expert not involved in the study. “Don’t let anyone tell you it’s ‘just’ stress,” said Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a cardiologist and clinical associate professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City. “Our psychological health impacts our physical health.” The study, published Aug. 30 in the Journal of the American Heart Association, does not prove stress and strain directly contribute to atrial fibrillation. But there is reason to believe they can, according to Goldberg, who is also a volunteer expert with the American Heart Association. “Stressful life events raise stress hormones like epinephrine and norepinephrine, and elevated levels may trigger arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation,” Goldberg…  read on >  read on >