Lifestyle « Weekly Gravy

Up to 9% of American teens say they’ve engaged in what’s known as “digital self-harm” — anonymously posting negative comments about themselves on social media. As is the case with acts of physical self-harm such as cutting, this “virtual” self-harm is associated with a higher risk for thinking about or attempting suicide, according to a startling new study. It found that teens who engaged in digital self-harm were up to seven times more likely to have considered suicide and as much as 15 times more likely to have made an attempt. “We can’t say that one causes the other, but we do know they are connected in some way,” said lead author Justin Patchin. He’s co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. But why would anyone want to virtually trash themselves to begin with? Patchin said that his own research has identified multiple motivations. Self-hatred is one, he noted, as is attention-seeking. In other cases, it can be depression, an attempt to be funny, or simply boredom. Some teens admit that it’s just their way to suss out how others might react to examples of bullying, in order to “know if they were talking about me behind my back.” To gain more insight, Patchin’s team took a deep dive into survey responses offered up by nearly 5,000 middle and high… read on > read on >

TUESDAY, Jan. 16, 2024 (HeathDay News) — Folks often feel more alert and savvy after a great workout, and dopamine might be the reason why. A small, new study by British and Japanese researchers found higher levels of the “feel good” brain neurotransmitter were released by men during exercise. In turn, that seemed tied to better performance on thinking tests, the researchers said. “These latest findings support our previous theory that cognitive performance during exercise is affected by changes to brain-regulating hormones, including dopamine,” said study co-author Dr. Joe Costello. He’s at the University of Portsmouth’s School of Sport, Health & Exercise Science, in England. The findings were published recently in the The Journal of Physiology In the study, Costello and colleagues team had 52 men engage in three separate experiments. All were having their brain activity monitored with sophisticated PET imagery during the experiments. In one trial, men were asked to work on mentally challenging tasks while cycling lying down. The second experiment had the men complete the same tasks, but this time they got “electrical muscle stimulation,” rather than a workout. The third experiment had them completing mental tasks while working out and getting the electrical muscle stimulation. Based on data from the PET scans, Costello’s group found a surge in dopamine release in the brain while men were actively working out —… read on > read on >

Magnetic zaps to the brain can significantly help people with severe depression, if the procedure is guided using MRI brain scans, a new clinical trial has concluded. On average, patients showed substantial improvements in depression, anxiety, cognition and quality of life for at least six months after undergoing MRI-guided transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), results show. One-third experienced a 50% improvement in symptoms, while one-fifth managed to go into remission and remain there. “Given these patients are people who have not responded to two previous treatment attempts and have been ill for an average of 7 years, to get such a significant response rate and a fifth who have a sustained response is really encouraging,” said researcher Richard Morriss, lead for the Center for Mood Disorders at the University of Nottingham’s Institute of Mental Health in the U.K.. TMS is a noninvasive outpatient treatment in which powerful magnetic impulses are delivered to the left side of a person’s head while they are conscious. The method has been used since the 1980s to treat severe depression in people who don’t respond to antidepressants or therapy, researchers said. However, the benefits of TMS have so far proven fleeting, tending to last just one to three months, researchers explained in background notes. In this clinical trial, investigators examined whether better targeting of the magnetic pulses could provide longer-lasting benefits… read on > read on >

Employees at many companies are urged to take advantage of free wellness programs focused on mindfulness, life coaching, better sleep and many other issues. Too bad most won’t actually boost their well-being, a new study of over 46,000 British workers finds. Only one of the 90 different workplace wellness offerings appeared to boost well-being: Getting employees involved in charity work or volunteering, the researchers found. The findings “pose a challenge to the popularity and legitimacy of individual-level mental well-being interventions like mindfulness, resilience and stress management, relaxation classes and well-being apps,” concludes the study’s sole author, William Fleming. He’s a fellow at Oxford University’s Wellbeing Research Center. Fleming’s research is based on data from the Britain’s Healthiest Workplace surveys for 2017 and 2018, representing workers at 233 different organizations. He compared the survey answers of “matched pairs” of people who were working at the same company: One who was using a wellness program, and another who was not. Because it is a survey, the data only focuses on worker well-being at a specific moment in time, not before and after the introduction of workplace wellness programs. The main finding: With the exception of charity/volunteer programs, workers’ mental well-being didn’t seem to change regardless of whether or not they were involved in any of the many programs on offer. Speaking with the New York Times, Fleming said… read on > read on >

A crowded house may not be the best for the mental health of a family’s kids, a new study has found. Teens from larger families tend to have poorer mental health than those with fewer siblings, according to a large-scale analysis of children in the United States and China. In the United States, children with no or one sibling had the best mental health, while in China well-being was best among only children, says the report published Jan. 9 in the Journal of Family Issues. Having older siblings and siblings closely spaced in age tended to have the worst impact on kids’ mental health, the U.S. data revealed. The strongest negative associations with mental health were observed among siblings born within a year of each other, results show. The results likely are best explained by “resource dilution,” said lead researcher Doug Downey, a professor of sociology at Ohio State University. “If you think of parental resources like a pie, one child means that they get all the pie — all the attention and resources of the parents,” Downey said in a university news release. “But when you add more siblings, each child gets fewer resources and attention from the parents, and that may have an impact on their mental health.” That explanation is given more weight by the fact that closely spaced siblings have the… read on > read on >

Stress appears to increase a person’s chances of developing metabolic syndrome, a cluster of unhealthy factors that add up to an increased risk for serious problems, a new study finds. Inflammation driven by a person’s stress levels can make them more likely to develop metabolic syndrome, just as their lifestyle and genetics also contribute to the risk, researchers said. So, simple stress-reduction techniques might be a way to help improve people’s health as they enter middle age, the researchers concluded. “There are many variables that influence metabolic syndrome, some we can’t modify, but others that we can,” said senior study author Jasmeet Hayes, an assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University. “Everybody experiences stress, and stress management is one modifiable factor that’s cost-effective as well as something people can do in their daily lives without having to get medical professionals involved,” Hayes added in a university news release. People with metabolic syndrome have at least three of five factors that increase the risk of chronic health problems like diabetes or heart disease. These factors are excess belly fat, high blood pressure, low HDL “good” cholesterol and high levels of either blood sugar or “bad” triglycerides, researchers said. For this study, researchers analyzed medical data from nearly 650 people taking part in a study of midlife health in the United States. The study gathered information… read on > read on >

Imagine easing a fear of heights by getting over a phobia of spiders. That might sound odd, but it works, researchers report. Folks who use exposure therapy to overcome one phobia can find themselves less afraid of other things, according to the results of a study published recently in the journal Translational Psychiatry. It’s very often the case that people prone to phobias often develop more than one, said lead researcher Iris Kodzaga, a doctoral student with Ruhr University Bochum’s Department of Behavioral and Clinical Neuroscience. “Anxiety rarely comes alone,” Kodzaga said in a university news release. “Patients who suffer from one fear often subsequently develop another.” Exposure therapy has proven to be the most effective treatment against phobias, researchers said. By confronting a fear-inducing situation under the supervision of a therapist, patients learn to overcome their fear. However, it has been long assumed that a person with multiple fears would require multiple rounds of exposure therapy, with each round targeting a different phobia, Kodzaga noted. To challenge that assumption, researchers performed exposure therapy treating a fear of spiders on 50 people who also had a fear of heights. Prior to the therapy, participants answered questionnaires and performed tasks to quantify their phobias. For example, researchers noted how close the subjects dared approach a spider, and how far they could climb a high church tower.… read on > read on >

A spike in the use of ADHD medications during the pandemic likely prompted drug shortages that continue to frustrate patients and doctors today, a new study shows. New prescriptions for stimulants that treat the condition jumped for young adults and women in particular after the pandemic first struck in March 2020, according to a study published Jan. 10 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. Meanwhile, prescriptions also soared for non-stimulant ADHD treatments for adults of all ages, found researchers led by Grace Chai. She’s at the Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Why the surge? The mental and emotional strain of the pandemic, coupled with an increased use of telemedicine that made it easier for patients to get help, were big contributors, experts said. Las Vegas psychiatrist Dr. Ann Childress told the Associated Press that more adults started coming to her for help after COVID-19 started sweeping across the country and lockdowns were put in place. Working from home made it clear to some people how easily they get distracted: Childress says she diagnosed a lot of parents, especially moms, who saw it in their children and recognized it in themselves. On top of that, social media has made people more aware of adult ADHD. “People are more open to talking about mental health issues now,”… read on > read on >

Women are far more likely to suffer an early death if they develop depression during or after pregnancy, a new Swedish study has found. Women who developed what’s known as “perinatal” depression were generally twice as likely to die as women who didn’t experience the mood disorder, researchers reported Jan. 10 in the BMJ. They also are six times more likely to commit suicide than women without this form of depression, researchers found. The death risk tied to pregnancy-related depression peaks in the month after a woman is diagnosed with the disorder, but it can remain elevated nearly two decades later, results show. “I believe that our study clearly shows that these women have an elevated mortality risk, and that this is an extremely important issue,” said study co-author Qing Shen, an affiliated researcher at the Karolinska Institute. Perinatal depression is fairly common, affecting 10% to 20% of all pregnant women, the researchers said in background notes. For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 86,500 Swedish women diagnosed with perinatal depression, which can occur either during pregnancy or up to a year following childbirth. Six to eight weeks after childbirth, all Swedish women are asked to complete a screening tool used to detect signs of depression. The research team compared those females to more than 865,000 women of the same age who had… read on > read on >

Tending a garden can help young kids develop healthy attitudes about food that will influence their health years later, a new study says. Kids who participated in a gardening and food education program during elementary school were more likely to eat healthier as they grew up, researchers found. “Kids who grow vegetables in a school garden and learn how to prepare meals seem to show a lasting desire for fresh, healthy food as young adults,” lead author Christine St. Pierre, a doctoral candidate and researcher at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, said in a news release. For the study, researchers brought together focus groups made up of current and past participants in the FoodPrints food education program, which is offered in 20 elementary schools in Washington, D.C. On average, older participants in the focus groups were ninth-graders. The program starts when students are 3 years old, in pre-kindergarten, and continues through fifth grade. In the program, kids help grow vegetables and fruits in a school garden, harvest their produce, and then use it to prepare healthy food. Current and former participants said the program helped them better appreciate fresh food offerings at home. “Almost all of the foods that we eat in FoodPrints, I didn’t really eat at home before then,” one participant said. “Like I didn’t eat ABC [apple,… read on > read on >