The song says ‘tis the season to be jolly, but many Americans find it to be more the season of stress and worry, a new survey reports. The strain of inflation and world affairs this year are adding to the other holiday-time stressors to create a toxic mental health cocktail, according to findings from Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine. Survey results show that: 81% of Americans are stressing out over national issues and world affairs 75% are stressed about rising prices and holiday spending 53% are stressed from increasing cases of flu, COVID and other respiratory illnesses 44% are stressed from memories of last year’s holiday travel meltdown These findings run counter to the notion that holidays are supposed to be a time for families and friends to connect, recharge and enter the new year with a fresh outlook, said researcher Nicole Hollingshead, a psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at the Wexner Medical Center. “The holidays kind of bring on this feeling of sadness and struggle when we really want it to be more of a joyous time,” Hollingshead said in a university news release. “I encourage people to reflect on what the holidays meant for you growing up. And most of the time I don’t hear people reflect on, ‘I loved having all the presents,…  read on >  read on >

It’s been around for a century, and electroconvulsive therapy — formerly known as electroshock therapy — has helped countless people with psychiatric conditions feel better. But even the physicians who’ve used it have had little clue as to how it works. Now, a team the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) believe they’ve unraveled that mystery. “We’re solving a puzzle that’s stumped scientists and doctors since electroconvulsive therapy [ECT] was first developed nearly a century ago,” said study first author Sydney Smith, a PhD candidate in the Voytek Lab at UCSD. “On top of that, we’re also helping to demystify one of the most effective, yet stigmatized, treatments for severe depression.”  After decades of harrowing depictions in TV shows and movies, the treatment probably does need to improve its image. “A lot of people are surprised to learn that we still use electroconvulsive therapy, but the modern procedure uses highly controlled dosages of electricity and is done under anesthesia,” Smith said in a university news release. “It really doesn’t look like what you see in movies or television.”  And ECT has a remarkable success rate: It’s effective in easing serious mental health issues such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and severe depression up to 80% of the time, the team said. There are some downsides: ECT requires multiple outpatient visits, and post-treatment side effects can include…  read on >  read on >

Middle-aged folks with lots of belly fat surrounding their internal organs appear to be at higher risk for Alzheimer’s disease later in life, a new study suggests. This hidden abdominal fat — known as visceral fat — is related to changes in the brain up to 15 years before the earliest symptoms of Alzheimer’s manifest, according to findings to be presented at next week’s annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. Such research is considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. For this study, researchers compared brain scans of 54 people between the ages of 40 and 60 with their levels of belly fat, BMI, obesity and insulin resistance. The scans looked for the size of people’s brains, as well as levels of amyloid beta and tau proteins that have been previously linked to Alzheimer’s. “Even though there have been other studies linking BMI with brain atrophy or even a higher dementia risk, no prior study has linked a specific type of fat to the actual Alzheimer’s disease protein in cognitively normal people,” said researcher Dr. Mahsa Dolatshahi, a postdoctoral research fellow with the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “Similar studies have not investigated the differential role of visceral and subcutaneous fat, especially in terms of Alzheimer’s amyloid pathology, as early as midlife,” Dolatshahi…  read on >  read on >

A young woman working at a Massachusetts cannabis-processing facility who developed new-onset asthma and later died of a fatal asthma attack is the first such fatality in the burgeoning industry, a new report finds. Researchers believe large amounts of allergen-laden dust created at these facilities could pose real respiratory dangers to workers. When it comes to asthma and the danger to employees, “it is important to recognize that work in cannabis production is potentially causative,” said a team led by Dr. Virginia Weaver, of the U.S. Department of Labor. In its case report, Weaver’s team said the 27-year-old female employee began working at a Massachusetts cannabis cultivation and processing facility in late May of 2021.   She had no history of asthma but, according to her mother, “she developed work-related runny nose, cough and shortness of breath after 3-4 months of employment,” the report found. The woman first worked in the area where the cannabis was ground, but by Oct. 1 she’d moved to “flower production,” grinding cannabis plant flowers and preparing cannabis cigarettes. Dust “visibly escaped” into the air, even though a (non-HEPA) shop vacuum was used to collect dust from the grinder. The woman did wear an N95 mask and protective gloves while working, but as her symptoms worsened her workstation was moved to outside the grinding room.  However, on Nov. 9 she had…  read on >  read on >

Have a hard time looking others in the eye? You aren’t alone, Canadian researchers report. Eye-to-eye contact rarely occurs when two people are talking, they found. “We discovered that participants spent only about 12% of conversation time in interactive looking, meaning that they gazed at each other’s faces simultaneously for just 12% of the interaction duration,” said lead researcher Florence Mayrand, a doctoral student with the McGill University department of psychology in Montreal. “Even more surprisingly, within those interactions, participants engaged in mutual eye-to-eye contact only 3.5% of the time,” Mayrand added in a university news release. But when someone does look you in the eye, take note — the gesture communicates nonverbal information that’s vital for future interaction, the researchers noted. For the study, the research team paired up participants and presented them with an imaginary survival scenario. In this scenario, they had to rank a list of items in order of their usefulness for survival, all while wearing mobile eye-tracking glasses. Researchers analyzed how often participants looked at each others’ eyes and mouths, as well as whether they followed the other person’s gaze. During the interactions, participants spent more time looking away than looking at their partner’s faces, researchers found. When they did look at each others’ faces, they looked equally often at the mouth and the eyes, and spent little time in…  read on >  read on >