A bad marriage can break your heart — literally. Heart attack survivors in a stressful relationship are more likely to have a rocky recovery, a new study reports. “We found there’s an independent association between severe marital stress and worse outcomes within their first year of recovery,” said lead researcher Cenjing Zhu, a doctoral candidate in chronic disease epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health. Compared to people in healthy relationships, heart patients under severe marital stress were 67% more likely to suffer recurring chest pain during the first year of their recovery, Zhu and her colleagues found. Severe marital stress also increased a person’s chances of rehospitalization by nearly 50%, and affected their quality of life and health. On a 12-item scale, for example, participants with severe marital stress scored 2.6 points lower in mental health and more than 1.6 points lower in physical health, compared with those reporting little to no stress. Zhu is scheduled to present the findings Sunday at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting, in Chicago. The findings shed new light on the nuanced effect that relationships can have on a person’s health, said Dr. Nieca Goldberg, medical director of Atria New York City and a clinical associate professor of medicine at NYU Grossman School of Health. “Earlier studies on marriage found that people who were couples have better…  read on >  read on >

MONDAY, Oct. 31, 2022 (HealthDay News) – Conspiracy theories have abounded during the COVID-19 pandemic and in American politics in recent years. Now, researchers overseas say they have identified a link between being bullied in the workplace and developing conspiracy theories, which they define as “explanations for important events that involve secret plots by powerful and malevolent groups.” Both are associated with similar psychological factors, including feelings of paranoia, according to researchers at the University of Nottingham in the U.K. and Paris Nanterre University in France. “Bullying experiences can significantly impact the victim in numerous ways, with the development of conspiracy beliefs being another detrimental consequence,” said lead author Daniel Jolley, an assistant professor of social psychology at the University of Nottingham. “We believe victims of bullying may find conspiracy theories appealing because bullying experiences frustrate the exact psychological factors, such as disempowerment, that are a route to developing conspiracy beliefs.” To study this, his team measured 273 people’s experiences of a range of negative acts. Not only was workplace bullying associated with conspiracy theories, victims were also more likely to report increased feelings of paranoia. These feelings are associated with a higher endorsement of conspiracy beliefs, researchers said. In a second study, 206 participants were asked to imagine one of two scenarios. One was being bullied in the workplace. The other was receiving positive…  read on >  read on >

Protecting pregnant women from air pollution may improve the birth weight of their babies, a new study suggests. This is especially important for stressed-out mothers who live in neighborhoods burdened by poor air quality. A mother-to-be’s exposure to both air pollution and psychological stress during early to mid-pregnancy can disrupt delicate fetal growth, according to the study authors. “Although air pollution has a harmful effect on many different populations, our study identified the effects on expectant mothers who are already most vulnerable,” said study co-author Zhongzheng Niu. “The addition of high perceived stress is another factor contributing to this issue. We already know air pollution is linked to low birth weight and future disease risk. Protecting pregnant women from these risks would ultimately protect future generations,” added Niu, a postdoctoral scholar and research associate at the University of Southern California (USC) Keck School of Medicine. Having a low birth weight increases an infant’s risks of other health issues, including breathing problems, bleeding in the brain, jaundice, infections and even death. It may also increase long-term disease risks, such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and obesity, the research team noted in a university news release. For the study, the researchers analyzed the issue using data from 628 predominantly low-income Hispanic women who were pregnant between 2015 and 2021. The women…  read on >  read on >

A large new study of U.S. veterans suggests that when prostate cancer screening rates go down, the number of men diagnosed with advanced cancer then rises. Researchers found that across 128 U.S. veterans health centers, the rate of PSA screening for prostate cancer declined between 2008 and 2019 — a period where guidelines came out recommending against routine screening. But patterns varied among the individual centers, with some maintaining high screening rates. And in subsequent years, the study found, a trend emerged: VA centers with higher PSA screening rates had fewer cases of metastatic prostate cancer, while more cases were diagnosed at centers with lower screening rates. Metastatic refers to prostate cancers that have spread to distant sites in the body and cannot be cured. Experts said the findings do not mean that all men at average risk of prostate cancer should be routinely screened for the disease. But the results do add to a longstanding debate over the issue. Prostate cancer is very common: About 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with the disease in their lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society. But the cancer is often slow-growing, and may never progress to the point of threatening a man’s life: About 1 in every 41 men actually die of the disease. That’s why routine screening — with blood tests that measure a…  read on >  read on >

That intense feeling of fear as you watch Jason Voorhees chase his next victim while wearing a hockey mask in “Friday the 13th” might actually be good for you. It also might not be. Researchers report that horror’s impact is really in the eye of the beholder, a little different for everyone but not all bad. “It’s called ‘the paradox of horror,’” explained researcher Dr. Ramnarine Boodoo, a child psychiatrist at Penn State Health’s Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, “because people generally try to avoid things that make them uncomfortable. So why do people enjoy things like really grotesque horror movies?” Boodoo says one theory is it helps with coping. Humans are equipped with deeply ingrained, unconscious mechanisms that help them respond to stress, wired in from the times when danger might be right outside. For someone watching “The Exorcist,” “you have an activation of what’s called the sympathetic nervous system, which can cause things like an increased heart rate and breathing rate,” Boodoo said in a center news release. “Sometimes it can cause pretty bad feelings of nausea. Sweating. It can often be sort of like a panic attack.” That might be good because for some people it’s pleasurable to have those fight-or-flight mechanisms fire up without any actual danger, similar to riding a roller coaster. It may even help with a person’s ability…  read on >  read on >