Discrimination doesn’t just cause emotional pain in the moment, it may affect a victim’s physical recovery from a heart attack, new research suggests. In studying more than 2,600 heart attack survivors between the ages of 18 and 55, researchers found that those reporting more perceived discrimination were more likely to have poorer outcomes. A year after their heart attacks, they had more physical limitations and chest pain, lower quality of life and impaired mental health. Perceived discrimination — being treated unfairly because of personal characteristics such as race, gender or sexual orientation — was already associated with risk factors for having a heart attack. Discrimination is a chronic stressor, said study author Andrew Arakaki, a doctoral candidate at the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Conn. “It’s linked to a heightened reactive stress response as well as chronic systemic inflammation,” Arakaki said. “There’s quite a bit of literature out there about the impact of chronic inflammation on cardiovascular disease, and so that may be part of the underlying mechanism, but I think that what makes discrimination stand out from some other chronic psychosocial stressors is that it’s also really closely linked to structural barriers to health.” That includes things like economic status, access to health insurance and neighborhood investment. It may be that disadvantaged people have trouble accessing essential post-care visits. While the…  read on >  read on >

Women who have autism are more vulnerable during pregnancy to depression and anxiety, according to a new British study. That makes it imperative that effective mental health screening and support is available to help this group, said lead researcher Sarah Hampton, from the University of Cambridge. “The results also suggest that autistic people may benefit from accommodations to prenatal health care. These may include adjustments to the sensory environment of health care settings, as well as adjustments to how information is communicated during prenatal appointments,” co-author Rosie Holt said in a university news release. She is a research associate at the Cambridge-based Autism Research Center. For their study, researchers surveyed more than 900 women about their pregnancy experience. Anyone who was pregnant at the time or had previously given birth was eligible to take part in the online survey. In all, 417 respondents had autism and 524 did not. Women with autism were about three times more likely to report having had prenatal depression. About 24% of those with autism experienced depression, compared to 9% of others. Nearly half — 48% — of those with autism experienced anxiety, while only 14% of respondents without autism did. “We are grateful to members of the autistic community for providing feedback when we designed this research,” said study co-author Carrie Allison, deputy director of the Autism Research Center.…  read on >  read on >

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 >

People plagued by frequent nightmares may find relief from hearing a specific sound as they sleep, a new, small study suggests. It’s estimated that about 4% of adults have nightmares that are frequent and distressing enough to impair their sleep and daily functioning. In some cases, the nightmares are related to an underlying condition, like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), while others are considered “idiopathic,” or having no known cause. Many nightmare sufferers simply live with them. “Most people either think it’s normal to have so many nightmares, or they don’t know there’s treatment available,” said Jennifer Mundt, a behavioral sleep medicine specialist at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. When it comes to nightmare disorder, as it’s officially known, the treatment with the best evidence is imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT), Mundt said. With that technique, people work with a therapist to recall their nightmares, change the negative storyline to one with a positive ending, and then rehearse the new script during the day. Research shows that IRT can start to banish people’s nightmares within two to three weeks. However, around 30% of patients do not respond, according to the new study’s researchers, from the University of Geneva in Switzerland. So, they tried to boost the effectiveness of IRT by adding an approach known as targeted memory reactivation — where people learn to associate a cue, like a…  read on >  read on >

Universities sometimes offer “Pet Your Stress Away” events offering a chance to relax while gently patting the head and stroking the back of a calm dog. But some people are more interested in interacting with cats than dogs, according to a new study that linked preference to personality type. “Our study shows that we may be able to reach a larger audience by offering interventions that include dogs and cats,” said co-author Patricia Pendry, a professor of human development at Washington State University. Folks with strong and highly reactive emotions would benefit from having cats on campus, the study showed. “Emotionality is a pretty stable trait; it doesn’t fluctuate and is a quite consistent feature of our personalities,” Pendry said in a university news release. “We found that people on the higher end of that scale were significantly more interested in interacting with cats on campus,” she noted. “Given that prior research has shown that such individuals may be more open to forming strong attachments to animals, it makes sense they would want cats to be included in these programs.” For the study, the researchers surveyed more than 1,400 students and staff at more than 20 universities. They found that the link between personality and openness to interacting with cats mattered even after accounting for openness to dog visits, owning a cat and identifying as…  read on >  read on >