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 >

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 >

Nearly half of homes tested in a new study contained toxic byproducts of cigarette smoke. Known as thirdhand smoke, these tobacco byproducts remained on furniture, floors and bric-a-brac.  Researchers who tested homes of 84 children found nicotine on surfaces in every home, and nearly half had detectable levels of a tobacco-specific carcinogen called NNK. “This is critically important and concerning,” said lead author Ashley Merianos, an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati and affiliate member of the Thirdhand Smoke Research Consortium.  The study found that NNK levels on surfaces and in vacuumed dust were similar. Merianos said that indicates that both can be similar sources of thirdhand smoke exposure for kids. “This research highlights that home smoking bans do not fully protect children and their families from the dangers of tobacco,” she added in a university news release. Researchers also found that kids in lower-income households and those in homes that allowed indoor smoking were exposed to higher levels of NNK and nicotine on surfaces. But both were also detected in homes with voluntary bans on indoor smoking. Researchers said that underscores the persistence of thirdhand smoke pollutants on surfaces. The findings were recently published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology. More information Learn more about the health effects of thirdhand smoke at Thirdhand Smoke Resource Center. SOURCE: University of Cincinnati,…  read on >  read on >