Compared to their siblings, cancer survivors have more scarring and disfigurement on their arms, legs and head later in life. And, on average, adults with these traits tend to have more depression and a lower quality of life.

“I think it showed us these aren’t necessarily life-threatening late effects of cancer… but certainly we need to be more aware of the outcomes these patients are dealing with,” said Karen Kinahan, coordinator of the STAR Survivorship Program at the Robert H. Lurie Cancer Center of Northwestern University in Chicago.

Kinahan and her team analyzed information on 14,358 childhood cancer survivors and 4,023 of their siblings already participating in a different study.

Survivors of leukemia, lymphoma and kidney cancers who had been diagnosed before they were 21 years old (and had started treatment between 1970 and 1987) answered a questionnaire when they entered the study and another in 2003.

Overall, one-fourth of the survivors had a scar or disfigurement on their head or neck, compared to one in 12 of their siblings. Cancer survivors were also more likely to have scars or disfigurements on their arms, legs, chests and stomachs.

Scars and disfigurements can be caused by surgery or radiation. And in children who are still growing, areas that are radiated tend not to grow as well, according to Dr. Karen Wasilewski-Masker, a pediatric oncologist at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. This may result in cancer survivors looking out of proportion as they age.

Individuals with scars or disfigurements on their head, neck, arms or legs had a 20 percent higher risk of depression than those without scars, according to the researchers.

Cancer survivors also experienced more hair loss than their siblings—about 14 percent of survivors and six percent of cancer-free siblings reported going bald. And balding was also linked to depression, especially in women.

The researchers found that various aspects of cancer survivors’ quality of life were worse and were linked to scarring, disfigurements and hair loss. These included general health, physical ability, pain, mental health and social functioning.

“We need to be aware of the possibility of some psychosocial problems in patients that have some type of disfigurement… but we also need to not assume that just because a person may look different because of a cancer treatment that it’s impacting them in a negative way,” said Wasilewski-Masker, who is part of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta’s program for childhood cancer survivors.

In a separate study, published in the same journal, researchers found that nearly three-fourths of 388 people between 15 and 39 years old were back at work or school full-time within 15 to 35 months of being diagnosed with cancer.  More than half, however, experienced trouble when they returned, including forgetting things and struggling to keep up with the work.

“Really this study is a starting point to understand the groups in this population who are least likely to return to work. It really sets the stage for future studies,” said Helen Parsons, the study’s lead author from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Wasilewski-Masker added that there are differences between cancer patients when making the determination of whether to stop working or going to school. For example, high school and college students are typically still financially supported by their parents, and patients’ abilities may depend on the intensity of their treatment.

The report is published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Source: Robert H. Lurie Cancer Center of Northwestern University

Child with cancer photo by shutterstock.

Over the past few years data has shown that exercise creates neurobiological changes, according to David Bucci, an associate professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences.

His latest research finds that the effects of exercise are different on memory, as well as on the brain, depending on whether the exerciser is an adolescent or an adult. Researchers have also identified a gene that seems to mediate the degree to which exercise has a beneficial effect, which has implications for the use of exercise as an intervention for mental illness, Bucci said.

He said he began his pursuit of the link between exercise and memory with ADHD, one of the most common childhood psychological disorders, noting he is concerned that the treatment of choice is medication.

“The notion of pumping children full of psycho-stimulants at an early age is troublesome,” Bucci said. “We frankly don’t know the long-term effects of administering drugs at an early age — drugs that affect the brain — so looking for alternative therapies is clearly important.”

Anecdotal evidence from colleagues at the University of Vermont pointed Bucci toward studying exercise and ADHD. Researchers observed that ADHD children in Vermont summer camps, athletes or team sports players were found to respond better to behavioral interventions than more sedentary children. While systematic empirical data is lacking, this association of exercise with a reduction of characteristic ADHD behaviors was persuasive enough for Bucci.

Coupled with his interest in learning and memory and their underlying brain functions, Bucci and teams of graduate and undergraduate students embarked upon a series of experiments to investigate the potential connection between exercise and brain function.

Early on, they found that laboratory rats that exhibit ADHD-like behavior demonstrated that exercise was able to reduce the extent of these behaviors. The researchers also found that exercise was more beneficial for female rats than males, similar to how it affects male and female children with ADHD.

Next they investigated a mechanism through which exercise seems to improve learning and memory called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which is involved in the growth of the developing brain. The degree of BDNF in exercising rats correlated positively with improved memory.

The researchers also found that it had longer-lasting effects in adolescents compared to adults.

“The implication is that exercising during development, as your brain is growing, is changing the brain in concert with normal developmental changes, resulting in your having more permanent wiring of the brain in support of things like learning and memory,” says Bucci. “It seems important to [exercise] early in life.”

Bucci’s latest paper was a move to take the studies of exercise and memory in rats and apply them to humans. The subjects in this new study were Dartmouth undergraduates and individuals recruited from the Hanover community.

According to Bucci, an interesting finding was that a person’s genotype for BDNF affected whether exercise benefited learning and memory.

“This could mean that you may be able to predict which ADHD child, if we genotype them and look at their DNA, would respond to exercise as a treatment and which ones wouldn’t,” he said.

The notion that exercise is good for health, including mental health, is not a huge surprise, he concludes. “The interesting question in terms of mental health and cognitive function is how exercise affects mental function and the brain,” he said.

Source: Dartmouth College

Child exercising photo by shutterstock.

Researchers from University of California – Davis found that mothers who had fevers during their pregnancies were more than twice as likely to have a child with autism or developmental delay than were mothers who did not have a fever or who took medication to counter its effect.

“Our study provides strong evidence that controlling fevers while pregnant may be effective in modifying the risk of having a child with autism or developmental delay,” said Ousseny Zerbo, Ph.D., lead author of the study. “We recommend that pregnant women who develop fever take anti-pyretic (fever-reducing) medications and seek medical attention if their fever persists.”

The study is published online in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, and is believed to be the first to consider how fever from any cause, including the flu, and its treatment during pregnancy could affect the likelihood of having a child with autism or developmental delay.

Researchers analyzed data from a large, case-control investigation known as the Childhood Autism Risk from Genetics and the Environment (CHARGE) Study. Another recent study based on CHARGE data found that mothers who were obese or diabetic had a higher likelihood of having children with autism.

Dr. Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of public health sciences at UC Davis and principal investigator of CHARGE, pointed out that fever is produced by acute inflammation — the short-term, natural immune system reaction to infection or injury — and that chronic inflammation, which no longer serves a beneficial purpose and can damage healthy tissue, may be present in mothers with metabolic abnormalities like diabetes and obesity.

“Since an inflammatory state in the body accompanies obesity and diabetes as well as fever,” said Hertz-Picciotto, “the natural question is: Could inflammatory factors play a role in autism?”

Typically, when people are infected by bacteria or viruses, the body mounts a healing response that involves the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines from white blood cells into the bloodstream. Some cytokines are able to cross the placenta, and therefore could reach the fetal central nervous system, potentially altering neurotransmitters and brain development.

“We definitely think more research is necessary to pinpoint the ways that inflammation could alter brain development,” said Hertz-Picciotto.

CHARGE includes an ethnically diverse population of children aged 2 to 5 years born in California and living in Northern California. The current study included 538 children with autism, 163 children with developmental delay but not autism, and 421 typically developing children whose mothers answered standardized questionnaires about whether they had the flu and/or fever during pregnancy and if they took medications to treat their illnesses.

Interestingly, the results showed that flu during pregnancy was not associated with greater risks of having a child with autism or developmental delay. Fever from any cause during pregnancy, however, was far more likely to be reported by mothers of children with autism (2.12 times higher odds) or developmental delay (2.5 times higher odds), as compared with mothers of children who were developing typically.

For children of mothers who took anti-fever medication, the risk of autism was not different from the risk in children whose mothers reported no fever.

According to Hertz-Picciotto, the results are noteworthy because of the study’s large population-based sample and detailed information on participants.

Prior discoveries from the CHARGE evaluations suggest that taking prenatal vitamins prior to and during the first month of pregnancy may help prevent autism and that living near a freeway or in areas with high regional air pollution is associated with higher risk of autism in children.

“CHARGE has obtained a wealth of environmental, demographic and medical information on young children and their parents and provides a solid basis for a variety of epidemiologic studies,” said Hertz-Picciotto. “Those studies are helping us find ways to protect childhood neurodevelopment.”

Source: University of California – Davis Health System

Pregnant woman photo by shutterstock.

A new study suggest that for some people, the ability to resist the temptation of extra calories is especially challenging as individuals may have “obesity genes” that increase the likelihood of a high-calorie diet – often consisting of high fat, sugary foods.

Nevertheless, the findings suggest that it may still be possible to minimize genetic risk by changing one’s eating patterns and being vigilant about food choices, in addition to adopting other healthy lifestyle habits, like regular physical activity.

The study, published online by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, reveals certain variations within the FTO and BDNF genes – which have been previously linked to obesity – may play a role in eating habits that can cause obesity.

“Understanding how our genes influence obesity is critical in trying to understand the current obesity epidemic, yet it’s important to remember that genetic traits alone do not mean obesity is inevitable,” said lead author Jeanne M. McCaffery, Ph.D., of The Miriam Hospital’s Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center.

“Our lifestyle choices are critical when it comes to determining how thin or heavy we are, regardless of your genetic traits,” she added. “However, uncovering genetic markers can possibly pinpoint future interventions to control obesity in those who are genetically predisposed.”

Researchers have known that individuals who carry a variant of the fast mass and obesity-associated gene FTO and BDNF (or brain-derived neurotrophic factor gene) are at increased risk for obesity.

Prior studies have determined that these genes are linked with overeating in children with the current study being one of the first investigations to extend the finding to adults.

Both FTO and BDNF genes influence the part of the brain that controls eating and appetite, although the mechanisms by which these gene variations influence obesity is still unknown.

In the current study, more than 2,000 participants completed a questionnaire about their eating habits over the past six months and also underwent geneotyping.

Researchers focused on nearly a dozen genes that have been previously associated with obesity. They then examined whether these genetic markers influenced the pattern or content of the participants’ diet.

Individuals who displayed variations in the FTO gene were found to be significantly associated with a greater number of meals and snacks per day, greater percentage of energy from fat and more servings of fats, oils and sweets.

The findings are largely consistent with previous research in children.

Moreover, researchers discovered individuals with BDNF variations consume more servings from the dairy and the meat, eggs, nuts and beans food groups. Individuals also consumed approximately 100 more calories per day, which McCaffery notes could have a substantial influence on one’s weight.

“We show that at least some of the genetic influence on obesity may occur through patterns of dietary intake,” she said. “The good news is that eating habits can be modified, so we may be able to reduce one’s genetic risk for obesity by changing these eating patterns.”

McCaffery says that while this research greatly expands their knowledge on how genetics may influence obesity, the data must be replicated before the findings can be translated into possible clinical measures.

Source: Miriam Hospital

Genetic man photo by shutterstock.

Researchers used a comprehensive and contemporary form of group-based cognitive-behavioral therapy to treat child war and sexual violence victims in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in central Africa. Cognitive-behavioral therapy has been successfully used to treat child victims of sexual violence in the West, although this was the first attempt to adapt the intervention for use in developing countries affected by war and sexual violence.

Amazingly, researchers discovered the intervention reduced the trauma experienced by child victims of war, rape and sexual abuse by more than 50 percent.

Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast pioneered the intervention in conjunction with the international NGO World Vision.

The trial setting, Eastern Congo, has the world’s highest rate of sexual violence. Known as “the rape capital of the world,it is estimated that girls and women in the eastern DRC are 134 times more likely to be raped than their counterparts in the West.

After only 15 sessions of the new group-based Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy (TF-CBT), Queen’s researchers found reductions of:

• 72 percent in trauma symptoms in female victims of rape and sexual abuse;
• 81 percent in feelings of depression and anxiety;
• 72 percent decrease in conduct disorder;
• 64 percent decrease in anti-social behavior.

Researchers believe the knowledge gained in the multifaceted intervention can also be used to improved group-based cognitive interventions in the West. Sadly, in war-affected countries, such as the DRC, victims of rape and sexual violence often do not receive any psychological or even medical help.

In the Queen’s study, the children received sessions of trauma psychoeducation, relaxation techniques, mental imagery techniques, and tips on how to identify and change particular inaccurate or unhelpful cognitions.

The girls also drew pictures of their most traumatic events and were encouraged to talk about these events in individual sessions with Queen’s psychologists and a team of Congolese counselors.

Speaking about the implications of the results for treating child victims of war and sexual abuse worldwide, Paul O’Callaghan, from Queen’s School of Psychology, said, “It is not surprising that studies show sexual abuse to have a profoundly detrimental effect on the mental health of girls in war-affected countries, but what is surprising was just how successful the intervention was in reducing psychological distress.

“The dramatic reduction in trauma, depression and anxiety, conduct problems and anti-social behavior shows that this kind of therapy is very effective in treating war-affected children who have been exposed to rape and sexual violence. In addition to the statistical results of the therapy, many of the girls attested to how the intervention helped reduced their terrible nightmares, disturbing flashbacks and suicidal thinking,” O’Callaghan said.

“For me, that was the most rewarding part of our work in the DRC.”

The study, which took place over five weeks in 2011, also treated the psychological distress of 50 war-affected boys between the ages of 12 and 17. It was shown to dramatically reduce levels of trauma, depression and anxiety, conduct disorder and anti-social behavior in male child soldiers and street children.

Source: Queen’s University Belfast

Child looking out door photo by shutterstock.

Often a man will stay on a diet while at home to avoid conflict, then splurge or even binge on unhealthy food when away from home.

“The key to married men adopting a healthier diet is for couples to discuss and negotiate the new, healthier menu changes as a team,” said Derek Griffith, Ph.D., assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Although the finding seems obvious, most times it doesn’t happen, according to a new study called “She Looks Out For The Meals, Period.’ African-American Men’s Perceptions of How Their Wives Influence Their Eating Behavior and Dietary Health.”

In the study, researchers held focus group meeting with 83 African-American men. The majority of men said their wives didn’t consult them when helping them to adopt a healthier diet.

In many cases the husbands disliked the food changes even though the healthier diet was ordered by a physician. However, rather than discussing this issue with their wife and coming to a common ground on what they would eat, men stayed silent and focused on maintaining a happy home.

In fact, the only examples found of couples negotiating healthy food choices came about to benefit the children in the home, Griffith said.

Researchers discovered the absence of communication often compromised significant dietary change. After tasteless ground turkey for the fifth night in a row, some men would head to the all-you-can-eat buffet for “a landslide of food.”

“I think at dinner a lot of men are eating healthier, but they compensate for the dissatisfaction of not eating what they want by making unhealthier choices outside the home,” Griffith said.

Health care providers can improve dietary change compliance by recognizing that wives play a central role in what men eat at home, Griffith said.

Providers could instruct wife’s on communication and behavioral change strategies to encourage and support the new dietary behavior.

“Doctors could suggest that men have a tactful conversation with their wives in a way that ensures the husbands aren’t sleeping on the couch that night,” Griffith said.

The study was published this month in the journal Health Psychology.

Source: University of Michigan

Man eating a pizza photo by shutterstock.

Individuals respond to adverse situations in a variety of ways. Some never recover from a traumatic event, such as the loss of a spouse or child, while a majority slog through the dark hours of intense negative emotions (anxiety, depression) and eventually move on with their life, gradually adapting to a new status quo.

However, a third group is made up of individuals whose adversities have made them grow personally and whose life takes on new meaning, making them feel stronger than before.

Researchers at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona surveyed 254 students to determine their level of satisfaction with life.

The investigators also looked to find connections between an individual’s resilience and their capacity of emotional recovery – the ability to control one’s emotions – and a component of emotional intelligence.

Investigators discovered that the 20 percent of students who were more resilient were also more satisfied with their lives. This group also believed they have control over their emotions and their state of mind.

As such, researchers posit that an individual’s capability to bounce back from stress and adversity, their resilience, has a positive prediction effect on the level of satisfaction with one’s life.

The good news is that resiliency is not an innate characteristic, rather a skill that can be developed and improved.

“Some of the characteristics of being resilient can be worked on and improved, such as self-esteem and being able to regulate one’s emotions. Learning these techniques can offer people the resources needed to help them adapt and improve their quality of life,” said Dr. Joaquín T Limonero, coordinator of the research.

Source: Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

The UK study suggests older people with robust brain “wiring” – connections of nerve fibers from different and distinct areas of the brain – are able to process information quickly and that this makes them generally smarter. Accordingly, the research suggests joining distant parts of the brain together with better wiring improves mental performance, signifying that intelligence is not found in a single part of the brain.

Moreover, a degraded condition of this wiring or “white matter” – the billions of nerve fibers that transmit signals around the brain – can negatively affect our intelligence by altering networks and slowing down processing speed.

University of Edinburgh researchers say this demonstrates that the deterioration of white matter with age is likely to be a significant cause of age-related cognitive decline.

In the study, the research team used three different brain imaging techniques in compiling the results, including two that have never been used before in the study of intelligence. These techniques measure the amount of water in brain tissue, indicate structural loss in the brain, and show how well the nerve fibers are insulated.

The researchers examined scans and results of thinking and reaction time tests from 420 people in the Lothian Birth Cohort of 1936, a group of nearly 1,100 people whose intelligence and general health have been tracked since they were 11years of age.

Study author and psychologist Dr. Lars Penke said, “Our results suggest a first plausible way how brain structure differences lead to higher intelligence. The results are exciting for our understanding of human intelligence differences at all ages.

“They also suggest a clear target for seeking treatment for mental difficulties, be they pathological or age-related. That the brain’s nerve connections tend to stay the same throughout the brain means we can now look at factors that affect the overall condition of the brain, like its blood supply.”

As our society ages, uncovering the secrets of good thinking skills in old age is a high priority.

“The research team is now looking at what keeps the brain’s connections healthy,” Penke said. ”We value our thinking skills, and research should address how we might retain them or slow their decline with age.”

Co-author Mark Bastin, M.D., said, “These findings are exciting as they show how quantitative brain imaging can provide novel insights into the links between brain structure and cognitive ability. This is a key research area given the importance of identifying strategies for retaining good mental ability into older age.”

Such findings could have a real impact on tackling mental decline in later life, including dementia.

Source: University of Edinburgh

“We are now in the third human generation since the start of the chemical revolution, since humans have been exposed to these kinds of toxins. There is no doubt that we have been seeing real increases in mental disorders like autism and bipolar disorder,” said lead author David Crews, Ph,D., of the University of Texas.

For the study, researchers exposed pregnant rats to vinclozolin, a commonly used fungicide sprayed on fruits and vegetables and already known to disrupt hormones. Since researchers were not trying to determine the risk for humans but rather understand the phenomena caused by exposure, they used a “higher than expected” amount of the chemical than what is typically found in the environment.

After exposing up to three generations of male rats, researchers found that third generation rats were more anxious in stressful situations of physical restraint during adolescence. The rats with a family history of fungicide exposure were also heavier with higher testosterone levels.

In terms of evaluating any autism-related risk, the exposed rats showed less interest in new individuals and environments.

Researchers believe that high levels of exposure ultimately changed the genetic makeup of the sperm and eggs which led to higher stress responses in future generations of rats.

Vinclozolin was widely used in the 1980s to prevent crop rot, but its use began to decline when scientists discovered its effects on male hormones and sexual development.

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Scientist holding a rat photo by shutterstock.

New research looks at risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia and how low to moderate alcohol consumption can serve to protect the brain from deterioration while heavy alcohol can destroy brain function.

A review paper by J.W. Kim in Psychiatry Investigation summarizes the potential ways alcohol may affect cognitive function and the risk of dementia, both adversely and favorably. The variance in outcomes depends on the dose (how much alcohol consumed) and the drinking pattern.

Using longitudinal and brain imaging studies, researchers have determined that excessive alcohol consumption may increase the risk of cognitive dysfunction and dementia in the elderly. But regular low to moderate alcohol intake may protect against cognitive decline and dementia and provide cardiovascular benefits.

Currently there is no proven method to prevent cognitive decline or dementia, although a number of studies have shown a lower risk of such conditions among light to moderate drinkers in comparison with non-drinkers.

Other studies have found that beneficial effects are seen only among certain subgroups of subjects. A recent review of subjects over the age of 65 concluded that light-to-moderate alcohol consumption, in comparison with abstinence, was associated with approximately 35-45 percent lower risk of cognitive decline or dementia.

In the current study, the authors state that their intent is to determine if there is an “optimal pattern of drinking” that may protect the elderly against cognitive dysfuntion.

At present, the way by which the moderate intake of wine and other alcoholic beverages reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases is much better defined than the protective or detrimental effect of alcohol on the brain.

Experts believe further research is needed to evaluate the potential role that alcohol may play in reducing the risk of dementia. And, since the bio-pharmacological protective pathway is not well-defined, researchers believe it would be premature to recommend light-to-moderate drinking for reducing the risk of dementia.

“On the other hand, current biomedical data supports the concept that regular, moderate intake of ethanol is not simply less dangerous for cognitive function, but is positively protective. This is the same conclusion reached by epidemiologic studies,” the authors said.

Source: Boston University Medical Center

Elderly couple drinking wine photo by shutterstock.

Investigators from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) believe this sort of misconduct has most often been carried out by fighters who viewed the enemy as racially different from themselves and used images of the hunt to describe their actions.

“The roots of this behavior lie not in individual psychological disorders,” said social anthropologist Dr. Simon Harrison, “but in a social history of racism and in military traditions that use hunting metaphors for war.

“Although this misconduct is very rare, it has persisted in predictable patterns since the European Enlightenment. This was the period when the first ideologies of race began to appear, classifying some human populations as closer to animals than others.”

European and North American soldiers who have mutilated enemy corpses appear to have drawn racial distinctions of this sort between close and distant enemies.

Researchers say that historically, European and North American soldiers have “fought” their close enemies yet did not touch their bodies after death. However, when they “hunted” their distant enemies the bodies became the trophies that demonstrate masculine skill.

Almost always, only enemies viewed as belonging to other ‘races’ have been treated in this way, said the researchers.

“This is a specifically racialized form of violence,” said Harrison, “and could be considered a type of racially motivated hate crime specific to military personnel in wartime.”

People tend to associate head-hunting and other trophy-taking with”primitive” warfare. They consider wars fought by professional militaries as rational and humane. However, such contrasts are misleading.

The study shows that the symbolic associations between hunting and war that can give rise to abnormal behavior such as trophy-taking in modern military organizations are remarkably close to those in certain indigenous societies where practices such as head-hunting were a recognized part of the culture.

In both cases, mutilation of the enemy dead occurs when enemies are represented as animals or prey. Parts of the corpse are removed like trophies at “the kill.”

Metaphors of war-as-hunting that lie at the root of such behavior are still strong in some armed forces in Europe and North America – not only in military training but in the media and in soldiers’ own self-perception.

Harrison gave the example of the Second World War and shows that trophy-taking was rare on the European battlefields but was relatively common in the war in the Pacific, where some Allied soldiers kept skulls of Japanese combatants as mementos or made gifts of their remains to friends back home.

The study also gives a more recent comparison: there have been incidents in Afghanistan in which NATO personnel have desecrated the dead bodies of Taliban combatants but there is no evidence of such misconduct occurring in the conflicts of the former Yugoslavia where NATO forces were much less likely to have considered their opponents racially “distant.”

Nevertheless, researchers say the behavior is not a tradition. These practices are usually not explicitly taught. Indeed, they seem to be quickly forgotten after the end of wars and veterans often remain unaware of the extent to which they occurred.

Importantly, attitudes towards the trophies themselves change as the enemy ceases to be the enemy.

The study shows how human remains kept by Allied soldiers after the Pacific War became unwanted memory objects over time, which ex-servicemen or their families often donated to museums.

In some cases, veterans have made great efforts to seek out the families of Japanese soldiers in order to return their remains and to disconnect themselves from a disturbing past.

Harrison said human trophy-taking is evidence of the power of metaphor in structuring and motivating human behavior.

“It will probably occur, in some form or other, whenever war, hunting and masculinity are conceptually linked,” he says. “Prohibition is clearly not enough to prevent it. We need to recognize the dangers of portraying war in terms of hunting imagery.”

Source: Economic & Social Research Council

Soldier with knife photo by shutterstock.

At the same forum, cognitive-behavioral therapy receives less attention even though emerging evidence suggests “talk therapy” can be as effective as pharmaceutical for illnesses such as depression.

In the study, psychiatrists from the University of Michigan and Yale University, analyzed the presentations given at two recent meetings of the American Psychiatric Association.

Findings from the analysis are published in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology.

In a study of APA annual meetings held in 2009 and 2010, researchers discovered that of the 278 studies comparing at least two medicines against each other, 195 had been supported by industry, and 83 funded by other means.

The authors then evaluated the studies without knowing which kind of support each one had.

Of the industry-supported studies, 97.4 percent reported results that were positive toward the medicine that the study was designed to test, and 2.6 percent reported mixed results. Remarkably, no industry-sponsored studies with negative results were presented.

In contrast, when industry was not the source of funding, 68.7 percent of the presentations were positive, and 24.1 percent contained mixed results, while 7.2 percent contained negative results.

This “presentation bias,” in which mostly good news about medicines gets reported at meetings, echoes the “publication bias” that has been documented in research published in major journals, said Srijan Sen, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry at the U-M Medical School who led the study.

Sen and his colleague discovered the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, which typically draws 16,000 participants, is characterized by a large industry presence with emphasis on research involving medicines that were still “on patent” and being actively marketed to both psychiatrists attending the conference.

Sen teamed with Yale psychiatrist Maya Prabhu, M.D., M.Sc., to do the formal review.

“This analysis suggests that the APA meeting might be being used as an opportunity to make drugs seem more effective than they are,” he said. At the same time, research discussing the efficacy of “talk therapy” treatments was found to receive much less attention – probably because this intervention does not receive industry backing.

Researchers believe this slanted presentation of new research may influence clinical practice patterns because the APA meeting is a major source of continuing medical education credit for psychiatrists, and a hub for psychiatry residents just starting out in the field.

Sen noted that the research journals and funding agencies have tried to confront research bias in journal articles by requiring pharmaceutical companies to register the clinical trials they are conducting and include the registration number when publishing the study.

This opens up which trials are being reported in the medical literature, and whether the trial results are interpreted according to the original study design. For instance, if a drug trial is designed to test long-term results from a particular treatment, but a paper is published showing positive results over a much shorter term, that could be an indication of bias.

Research meetings could require a similar practice, Sen said. And the APA could be more selective in accepting poster presentation submissions.

If nothing else, Sen said, attendees at the APA’s meeting – and perhaps other large gatherings of psychiatrists – should be aware of the positive bias of the research they will hear about at the meeting. And non-industry funding for research – especially research to compare older “off patent” drugs that aren’t being marketed by industry – is also important, he says.

The federal government has funded large comparison studies in depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, he said – and these mostly showed that the generic medications that have lost their patent protection are just as effective as newer, patent-protected ones.

Even so, psychiatrists prescribe the generic ones far less often than the brand-name patent-protected ones.

Source: University of Michigan

Medication abstract photo by shutterstock.

The finding comes from an experiment in which investigators sent emails from fictional prospective doctoral students to 6,500 professors across 258 institutions, requesting a meeting either that day or next week.

Prospective doctoral students with Caucasian male names were 26 percent more likely to be granted an appointment with a professor when requesting one for next week than those with names signaling that they were minorities (African-American, Hispanic, Indian or Chinese) or females.

However, if the requested appointment was for that day, students of all types were equally likely to get an appointment.

According to researchers, the difference in response is that the time delay between the decision to meet and the moment of the requested appointment affects the way the request is processed.

The study is published in the journal Psychological Science.

Researchers believe the results show that an individual considering scheduling an appointment today thinks concretely and considers “Can/where/when will I do it?”, whereas an individual considering the same appointment in the distant future thinks more abstractly, and considers “Is doing it worthwhile/valuable/desirable?”

Those who focus on the desirability of a meeting are more likely to discriminate against women and minorities than those who focus on logistical concerns.

Researchers say their findings are consistent with previous research that shows decision-makers thinking more abstractly rely more on stereotypes to fill out their picture of future events and their impact.

Experts say the research both highlights discrimination in academia and shows that subtle shifts in context, such as timing, can alter patterns of race- and gender-based discrimination, even eliminating it altogether.

The study was conducted by Drs. Katherine Milkman at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Modupe Akinola at Columbia Business School and Dolly Chugh at New York University Stern School of Business.

Source: Association for Psychological Science

According to researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology, people suffering from depression tend to spend more time chatting and sharing files with others.

Two hundred and sixteen undergraduate students were monitored over a month’s time for actual Internet use. Higher scores on depression surveys — which were given at the beginning of the study — correlated with higher use. About 30 percent of the students met the minimum criteria for depression.

Previous research in this area relied on subjects’ memories, which is more imprecise than technology, said study co-author Sriram Chellappan, Ph.D., an assistant professor of computer science at the university.

“If you were asked how many times you looked at your email last month, it would be impossible to give an accurate answer,” Chellappan said.

Study volunteers — who were given pseudonyms at the beginning of the project to protect anonymity — were asked to fill out surveys containing several questions related to depression symptoms. The questions were written to hide the researchers’ interest in depression levels. Researchers then monitored subjects’ activity every time they signed on to the university server.

A paper describing the research, titled “Associating Depressive Symptoms in College Students with Internet Usage Using Real Internet Data,” has been accepted for publication in a future issue of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine.

Source: Missouri University of Science and Technology

Woman on a computer photo by shutterstock.

Moreover, positive social contact before a stressful event can reduce and even change the stress response.

The research finding refutes the nearly 100-year-old belief that stress triggers a “fight or flight” response in humans and animals.

In the investigation, Professor Markus Heinrichs and Dr. Bernadette von Dawans expanded a line of research from the late 1990s suggesting that women show an alternate “tend-and-befriend” response to stress – in other words, a protective (“tend”) and friendship-offering (“befriend”) reaction.

Heinrichs and von Dawans wanted to see if the stress response in men could also produce behaviors other than aggression. As such, they targeted their research to investigate male social behavior under stress.

In the research Von Dawans discovered that “men also show social approach behavior as a direct consequence of stress.”

The investigators used a tool they had previously developed to measure stress in public speaking engagements.

The researchers examined the implications of this stressor for social behavior using specially designed social interaction games. These games allowed them to measure positive social behavior – for example, trust or sharing – and negative social behavior – for example, punishment.

Researchers discovered that subjects who were under stress showed significantly more positive social behavior than control subjects who were not in a stressful situation.

Negative social behavior, on the other hand, was not affected by stress.

These findings challenge the belief that a stressful situation always results in an aggressive response.

Heinrichs believes the discovery has far-reaching consequences for our understanding of the social significance of stress.

“From previous studies in our laboratory, we already knew that positive social contact with a trusted individual before a stressful situation reduces the stress response. Apparently, this coping strategy is anchored so strongly that people can also change their stress responses during or immediately after the stress through positive social behavior.”

The results are published in the international journal Psychological Science.

Source: University of Freiburg