The “love hormone” oxytocin might not play the critical role in forming social bonds that scientists have long believed, a new animal study suggests. Prairie voles bred without receptors for oxytocin display the same monogamous mating, attachment and parenting behaviors as regular voles, according to researchers. “While oxytocin has been considered ‘Love Potion No. 9,’ it seems that potions 1 through 8 might be sufficient,” said co-senior researcher Dr. Devanand Manoli, a psychiatrist with the University of California, San Francisco’s Weill Institute for Neurosciences. “This study tells us that oxytocin is likely just one part of a much more complex genetic program.” Prairie voles are one of the few mammals known to form lifelong monogamous relationships, so they are a natural fit for researchers looking into the biology of social bonding. Studies performed in the 1990s showed that oxytocin-blocking drugs left voles unable to pair-bond, researchers said in background notes. As a result, oxytocin gained its reputation as a love hormone. To dig further into that relationship, researchers used gene-editing tools to create prairie voles that lacked functional oxytocin receptors. They then tested the altered voles’ ability to form enduring relationships with other voles. The researchers were surprised to find that the mutant voles paired up as readily as normal voles. “The patterns were indistinguishable,” Manoli said in a university news release. “The major behavioral…  read on >  read on >

There’s good news for American mothers-to-be and their newborns: Rates of smoking during pregnancy have fallen by 36% since 2016, a new report finds. The percentage of pregnant women who smoked was already low in 2016 compared to decades past: 7.2%. But by 2021, that rate had fallen to just 4.6%. That’s according to the latest data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Keeping tobacco toxins away from the developing fetus is crucial to infant health. According to the March of Dimes, smoking while pregnant has been linked to higher risks of miscarriage, stillbirth, premature delivery, ectopic pregnancy, birth defects and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), among other harms. The new data comes from a national database which is sourced, in part, by information provided by U.S. mothers around the time of their deliveries. Researchers led by the NCHS’ Joyce Martin reported that “the percentage of mothers who smoked during pregnancy declined across all maternal age groups between 2016 and 2021.” Declines were seen regardless of race or ethnicity and they occurred across the nation. Overall, Martin’s team calculated that rates of smoking during pregnancy fell by an average of 8% per year between 2016 and 2021. The pandemic year of 2020-2021 brought a particularly steep decline of 16%, they noted. Young mothers…  read on >  read on >

If you find yourself stuck in a traffic jam and you start to feel fuzzy-headed, the diesel exhaust from the truck in front of you might be to blame. New research found that just two hours of exposure to diesel exhaust impaired the brain’s functional connectivity, which can lower your ability to think and remember. “We compared people after diesel exhaust exposure compared to filtered air exposure. We saw that network had decreased activity,” said lead researcher Jodie Gawryluk. She is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. Fortunately, the effect doesn’t last long, usually clearing in a couple of hours, Gawryluk said, but it’s not known if long-term exposure to diesel exhaust can cause permanent brain damage. “That’s certainly a possibility,” she noted. “There’s studies ongoing right now looking at whether this could be a potential risk factor for neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.” In an earlier study, Aisha Dickerson, an assistant professor in the department of epidemiology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, found that work exposure to diesel exhaust was linked to an increased risk for the neurodegenerative disease ALS (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease). It’s very possible that long-term exposure can cause permanent brain damage, Dickerson said. “I would expect to see…  read on >  read on >

Infants exposed to maternal smoking during pregnancy are more than five times more likely to die unexpectedly compared to babies of nonsmokers, a new study says. “The message is simple. Smoking greatly elevates the risk of sudden unexpected infant death,” said lead study author Barbara Ostfeld, program director of the SIDS Center of New Jersey and a professor of pediatrics at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J. “Everyone who plans to get pregnant has a profoundly important reason to quit,” Ostfeld said in a school news release. Each year, about 3,400 sudden unexpected infant deaths (SUID) occur in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These deaths occur in an infant’s first year. They include those attributed to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), those with no immediately obvious cause, as well as those caused by accidental suffocation. The Rutgers analysis studied SUID in infants born in the United States, including 3.3 million births to white women and more than 857,000 births to Black women. Researchers used birth and death records maintained by the CDC for 2012 to 2013 for infants born between 24 and 42 weeks gestation. And they included SUID cases in which the infant died after hospital discharge and an autopsy was performed. While a smaller percentage of Black than white mothers reported smoking,…  read on >  read on >

It may be that as many as 13% of older adults are addicted to highly processed comfort foods, a new survey finds. Craving cookies, chips, packaged snacks and soda was seen in adults aged 50 to 80, according to new data from the National Poll on Healthy Aging, from the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. Women had higher numbers of addiction to these foods than men, especially those in their 50s and early 60s. Older adults who were overweight or experiencing poor mental health or isolation also had much higher percentages of possible addiction to processed foods. Researchers suggested that doctors should screen for these addictive eating habits, so that patients can get referrals to nutrition counseling or programs that help address addictive eating. “The word addiction may seem strong when it comes to food, but research has shown that our brains respond as strongly to highly processed foods, especially those highest in sugar, simple starches and fat, as they do to tobacco, alcohol and other addictive substances,” said researcher Ashley Gearhardt, an associate professor in the University of Michigan’s Department of Psychology. “Just as with smoking or drinking, we need to identify and reach out to those who have entered unhealthy patterns of use and support them in developing a healthier relationship with food,” Gearhardt said in a university news…  read on >  read on >

Many adults with epilepsy have agoraphobia, or a fear of public places, new research suggests. That impacts quality of life and is something doctors should include in other screening that looks for anxiety or depression, the investigators said. “We know that agoraphobia can lead to delays in patient care because of a reluctance to go out in public, which includes appointments with health care providers,” said lead study author Dr. Heidi Munger Clary, an associate professor of neurology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. “So, this is an area that needs more attention in clinical practice.” Her team used data from a neuropsychology registry study to analyze a diverse sample of 420 adults, ages 18 to 75. The patients had epilepsy and underwent neuropsychological evaluation over a 14-year period at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. “More than one-third of the participants reported significant phobic/agoraphobic symptoms,” Munger Clary said in a Wake Forest news release. “We also found that phobic/agoraphobic symptoms, along with depression symptoms, were independently associated with poor quality of life, but generalized anxiety symptoms were not.” The findings suggest a need for future studies, to develop more comprehensive screening for these types of psychiatric disorders in epilepsy, Munger Clary said. “Symptoms of agoraphobia do not fully overlap with generalized anxiety or depression symptoms that are often…  read on >  read on >

Carbon monoxide is a silent, odorless killer, but even during winter heating season, it’s possible to stay safe. This dangerous gas is produced when fuels burn incompletely. This can happen in furnaces, both gas- and wood-burning fireplaces, space heaters and vehicles that burn fossil fuel. It’s also possible in water heaters, gas clothes dryers and stoves, as well as other equipment, including grills, generators and power tools. The Nebraska Regional Poison Center offers some tips on staying safe, recognizing carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning and treating a person who has been poisoned with the gas: Start by installing carbon monoxide detectors on every level of your home. Replace batteries every six months. Have all fuel-burning appliances inspected regularly. Ventilate fuel- and gas-burning heaters to the outside. Do not use a gas range or an oven to heat a room. Never use a charcoal grill or hibachi inside, the center advises. Run generators at a safe distance from the home. Don’t run them next to a window or a door, which can be dangerous. Avoid sitting in a car with the engine running if deep snow or mud is blocking the exhaust pipe. Never leave a car running in an attached garage, even with the garage door open. Have your vehicle’s muffler and tailpipes checked regularly. CO poisoning can be mistaken for flu. Symptoms include headache, nausea,…  read on >  read on >

Natural gas stoves have become the latest flashpoint in America’s increasingly volatile political culture, after a top federal regulator publicly mulled over banning the appliances. “This is a hidden hazard,” the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) commissioner, Richard Trumka Jr., said in an interview. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” Trumka quickly walked back that statement, saying that the agency wants to assess the hazards posed by indoor gas stove emissions but has no plans to ban gas stoves. But the question now is on the front burner — to what extent do gas stoves pose a health hazard to the average American? A growing body of evidence shows that gas stoves do indeed emit a wide variety of harmful pollutants into a home’s air, including nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, benzene, formaldehyde, and even the sort of particulate matter that contributes to smog, experts say. “All of those are known to have negative impacts on human health,” said Dr. MeiLan Han, chief of pulmonary and critical care at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Some of these pollutants are emitted through microscopic leaks that occur even when a stove is off, said Eric Lebel, a senior scientist with PSE Healthy Energy in Oakland, Calif. Others are generated by the stove’s blue flame. However, researchers…  read on >  read on >