Sleep Isn't The Only Way To Consolidate New Information; How To Form Memories In 10 Minutes

Although the mechanisms of sleep are still unclear, it has been well-established that a good night's sleep is essential in fostering physical and mental health resilience.  But contrary to popular belief, eight hours of shut-eye is not necessary to form memories, according to new research published in the Hippocampus.
Until now, many believed the only way to consolidate new memories into long-term storage was through sleep. But researchers are finding this process can also occur when people are awake and reasonably relaxed. This suggests spending just 10 minutes in a quiet room without stimulation — no TV or cell phone — could boost memory.
"A lot of people think the brain is a muscle that needs to be continually stimulated, but perhaps that’s not the best way," said researcher Michaela Dewar of Heriot-Watt University, according to New Scientist. He added that this may explain why cramming right before a test is an ineffective strategy, or some people can stare at a book for a long period of time and forget everything they have read in a few hours. A timeout could give the brain time to process this new information.
A previous study conducted by Dewar and her colleagues in 2012 found that people who had a brief wakeful rest after hearing a story remembered 10 percent more of it 7 days later compared to those who played a brain stimulating game afterward. In the new study, however, Dewar and her colleagues show that spatial memories, such as the geographical layout of your hometown or the interior of a friend's house, can also be consolidated during a 10-minute timeout.
The research team recruited 40 people to learn a virtual route before either resting or engaging in an unrelated perceptual task for 10 minutes. They found that participants in the wakeful rest condition performed better in a delayed cognitive map test, which required them to point to landmarks from a range of locations.
"As long as you're reasonably relaxed, you might still be experiencing some of the memory-consolidation processes that sleep would normally do," said Gareth Gaskell at the University of York in the UK, according to New Scientist.
Researchers conclude findings could have implications for those who suffer from insomnia and other conditions that affect memory capacities, such as Alzheimer’s disease and amnesia.
Source: Craig M, Dewar M, Harris M, Sala S, Wolbers T. Wakeful Rest Promotes The Integration Of Spatial Memories Into Active Cognitive Maps. Hippocampus. 2015.

Brain damage seen in potent-marijuana smokers

People who smoke high-potency pot show signs of damage in a key part of their brain. The results of the new study, however, are limited. The brain scanning study was small. And it doesn’t show that marijuana caused the brain abnormality — only that the two go hand-in-hand.
But the finding suggests that potency matters, says Tiago Reis Marques. This coauthor of the study is a psychiatrist at King’s College London, in England. His team published its findings online November 27 in Psychological Medicine.
Just as vodka packs more of a punch than beer, a high-potency toke of cannabis — the name for the marijuana plant — delivers much more of the brain-active substance THC. That’s an abbreviation for tetrahydrocannabinol (TEH-trah-hy-drow-ka-NAB-ih-nol). It’s possible, Reis Marques says, that a bigger dose of THC simply may have stronger effects on the brain.
That’s important because as breeders have been improving their marijuana plants, THC levels have soared. Samples sold in Colorado, for instance, now have about three times as much THC as plants grown 30 years ago, a recent survey found.
The new study asked 43 healthy people to give a detailed history of their past drug use. About half said they smoke pot. These people then reported how potent that marijuana was. Reis Marques and his colleagues then scanned the brains of all participants. They used a method called diffusion tensor imaging. It shows the structure of white matter — neural highways that carry messages between different brain areas.

The corpus callosum — white matter linking the left brain to the right — is leakier in people who smoke high-potency pot, a new study finds.

TAbildskov/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

People who reported using high-potency marijuana showed signs of damage in the corpus callosum. This is the major white matter tract that connects the left side of the brain to the right. Water molecules in the damaged corpus callosum diffused more easily than normal, a sign that its tissue had weakened.

This suggests a link between smoking high-potency pot and white-matter damage. But the study can’t prove that cannabis was to blame. “These people could have had deviant brain structures prior to use,” says Mitch Earleywine. He’s a psychologist of the University at Albany in New York. He also serves on the advisory board of NORML. (That’s the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.) The new results might also be due to use of other mind-altering drugs, he says. Cocaine, for instance, has been tied to changes in the corpus callosum, notes Earleywine.
Because the experiment looked only at brain structures, it’s unclear whether these changes would affect brain function. For instance, there are no data on whether these changes were linked to memory problems, impulsive behaviors or depression.
It’s also not known whether pot’s THC content affects white matter elsewhere in the brain, says Hans Breiter. He’s a neuroscientist and psychiatrist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. “This study leaves out what is occurring with the rest of the white matter,” he says. It will be important to look at other parts of the brain, he says. He’s particularly interested in possible impacts on regions linked to memory and other behaviors that marijuana might affect.
With the growing legal availability of supercharged marijuana, understanding exactly what it does to the brain is more important than ever, Reis Marques says. This is particularly true, he argues, for young people. They may not realize the marijuana they are using may be much more powerful than ever before. “We are in a stage where there is missing [health effects] information, or the information is changing fast,” he says.

Asperger's And Autism Linked To Decreased Action Of Neurotransmitter GABA

A new study links autism symptoms to reduced action of GABA, a neurotransmitter responsible for dampening cellular activity in the brain. The Harvard and MIT researchers believe their results suggest potential treatments for autism in the form of drugs which might increase concentrations of this brain chemical.
Some children find social interaction nearly impossible while their patterns of behavior and interests remain restricted and repetitive. While these two key features of autism are well-known, the cause of this brain development disorder remains elusive. Still, scientists continue to search.
Past genetic and animal studies have alluded to a possibly important role played by GABA signaling in autism, yet solid human evidence was lacking. Meanwhile, other studies revealed people with autism spectrum disorders were slower at binocular rivalry, a phenomenon which is known to involve brain chemistry related to GABA. In binocular rivalry, two conflicting images are presented simultaneously, one to each eye. To “see” one image or the other, the brain must push one out of awareness and it does this by inhibiting neural signals. People with autism are known to struggle with suppressing visual images in this way. Could this be linked to GABA levels in their brains?

Chemistry

For the new study, first author Dr. Caroline Robertson of Harvard University and MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and her colleagues explored GABA levels in the autistic brain.
They tested 21 people with autism (15 Asperger’s, one high-functioning autism, and four atypical) and 20 typical control individuals on a binocular rivalry task. All participants had normal or corrected-to-normal vision and below average IQ scores. As expected, the adults with autism were slower to suppress the visual images. (Even when the researchers excluded participants taking medications known to interact with the GABA system, the results were not changed.)
Next, the researchers measured GABA concentrations as the participants completed the task. Here, they discovered a strong link between binocular rivalry dynamics and levels of GABA in the participants who had not been diagnosed with autism. The same was not true for people with autism, who showed GABA dysfunction.
“Individuals with autism are known to have detail-oriented visual perception — exhibiting remarkable attention to small details in the sensory environment and difficulty filtering out or suppressing irrelevant sensory information,” Robertson said in a press release.
She explained the new findings lend support to the notion that the greater attention to detail might have something to do with GABA and neurotransmitters in general since many others play important roles in autism symptoms.
Going forward, the researchers will examine binocular rivalry in children with autism as a potential diagnostic marker while also searching for a genetic basis underlying a GABA imbalance.
Source: Robertson CE, Ratai EM, Kanwisher N. Reduced GABAergic Action in the Autistic Brain. Current Biology. 2015.

Alzheimer's Disease: Moderate Alcohol Consumption May Reduce Death Risk In Mild Cases

Drinking two to three glasses of wine could lengthen the life of people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a recent study published in BMJ Open.
In the new study, Danish researchers found that moderate drinking was associated with a 77 percent lower risk of death among patients with mild Alzheimer’s (defined as a score of 20 or less on the Mini Mental State Exam) than those who consumed one or fewer drinks daily. While previous studies have linked moderate alcohol consumption to many health benefits, including a reduced risk of developing and dying from a chronic disease such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, drinking has also been linked to brain damage. Since Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder, researchers believed any amount of alcohol consumption would have an adverse effect on patients with the condition.
"It came as a surprise," the study's senior author Frans Boch Waldorff told Time. "We thought perhaps if you had a brain disease, you would not tolerate alcohol in the way of people without brain disease."
For the study, researchers analyzed three years of data on 321 people with mild Alzheimer’s disease. Among the cohort, about one in 10 abstained from alcohol, 71 percent consumed one glass of alcohol or fewer per day, 17 percent consumed two to three glasses daily, and 4 percent had more than three drinks per day.
Researchers found no significant difference in death rates among those who reported alcohol abstinence or drank more than three units of alcohol every day compared with those drinking one or fewer daily units.
There could be several explanations for the findings, researchers said. One explanation is that people who drink moderately tend to have a larger social network, which has been linked to a longer life.
"The results of our study point towards a potential, positive association of moderate alcohol consumption on mortality in patients with Alzheimer's disease," researchers said in a statement. "However, we cannot solely, on the basis of this study, either encourage or advise against moderate alcohol consumption in [these] patients."
About 5.3 million of Americans have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2015, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. An estimated 700,000 people in the United States age 65 and older are expected to die with from the neurodegenerative disorder.
The study authors said more research is needed to understand the impact of alcohol on cognitive decline.
Source: Berntsen S, Kragstrup J, Siersma V, Waldemar G, Boch Waldorff F. Alcohol Consumption and Mortality in Patients with Mild Alzheimer’s Diease: A Prospective Cohort Study. BMJ Open. 2015.

Brain Anatomy may predict the way you recall events

People tend to remember life events in different ways: Some remember rich, detailed accounts of things that have happened to them (episodic memory), while some tend to recall more facts than details (semantic memory). Now, a research team from the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Health Sciences in Canada is determined to find out why.
The study, published in the journal Cortex, is the first to associate different brain connectivity patterns with different memory styles. Not only that, but researchers suggest these connectivity patterns may be inherent to the individual and suggest a lifelong trait. "For decades, nearly all research on memory and brain function has treated people as the same, averaging across individuals," said lead investigator Dr. Signy Sheldon, an assistant professor of Psychology at McGill University, in a press release.
Sheldon continued: "Yet as we know from experience and from comparing our recollection to others, peoples' memory traits vary. Our study shows that these memory traits correspond to stable differences in brain function, even when we are not asking people to perform memory tasks while in the scanner."
The study asked 66 healthy adults to complete an online questionnaire, called the Survey of Autobiographical memory (SAM), to determine how well they remember events and facts from their own lives; their answers determined their particular memory style, from Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) to Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM). The scientists were able to take advantage of this range and study the variations in autobiographical memory.
After the survey, participants underwent a brain scan (fMRI) that mapped patterns of brain connectivity across different regions and structures. The medial temporal lobes are widely-believed to be crucially involved in memory function, so researchers focused on connections between this area and other regions of the brain. They saw that participants who endorsed very detailed autobiographical memories had higher medial temporal lobe connectivity to regions of the brain involved in visual processes. Those who recalled the past in a more factual manner, however, showed higher medial temporal lobe connectivity to areas involved in organization and reasoning, which are located at the front of the brain.
The findings raise many questions for the cognitive science community, including if some memory traits are found to be protective, could it delay the onset of age-related cognitive decline later in life?
"With aging and early dementia, one of the first things that people notice is difficulty retrieving the details of events," said senior study author Dr. Brian Levine, a senior scientist at Rotman and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. "Yet no one has looked at how this relates to memory traits. People who are used to retrieving more richly-detailed memories may be very sensitive to subtle memory changes as they age, whereas those who rely on a factual approach may prove to be more resistant to such changes."
The study's findings may open doors to new possibilities for treatment of memory issues later in life, Levine added. Follow-up studies are currently underway, looking into the relationship between memory traits and personality, psychiatric conditions, performance on other cognitive measures, as well as genetics.
Source: Sheldon S, Farb N, Palombo D, Levine B. intrinsic medial temporal lobe connectivity relates to individual differences in episodic autobiographical remembering. Cortex. 2015.

When Will I Die? Early, If You're Prone To Sedentary Behavior And Getting More Than 9 Hours Of Sleep

When it comes to sleeping or lounging around, too much of a good thing can make you sick, especially if you're a middle-aged and older adult. New research revealed that in addition to traditional lifestyle risk factors, such as smoking and excessive drinking, sedentary behavior and poor sleep could also have a synergistic effect on health.
The study, published in this week's PLoS Medicine, found that a physically inactive person who sits for more than seven hours a day and has an unhealthy sleep pattern — getting less than 7 hours of shut-eye or sleeping more than 9 hours per night — are more than four times likely to die early than someone with healthier habits. "Evidence has increased in recent years to show that too much sitting is bad for you and there is growing understanding about the impact of sleep on our health, but this is the first study to look at how those things might act together," Dr. Melody Ding, lead author of the study, said in a statement. These things are formally known as non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
NCDs are a medical condition or disease that is non-infectious or non-transmissible, reportedly claiming the lives of about 38 million people every year; that's more than two-thirds of the world's annual deaths. Cardiovascular diseases, certain cancers, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases are the most common NCDs and are largely attributed to modifiable lifestyle behaviors: smoking, excessive alcohol use, lack of physical activity, and an unhealthy diet.
For the study, Ding and colleagues analyzed six years of follow-up data from an Australian cohort of more than 231,000 middle-aged and older adults who had completed a lifestyle questionnaire at baseline. They summed up the six health risk behavior measures — smoking, alcohol use, dietary behavior, physical inactivity, sedentary behavior, and sleep — for each participant in order to determine their overall lifestyle risk score; higher risk scores were associated with greater mortality risk. There were more than 15,600 deaths registered during the study period.
About a third of the participants reported a risk-free lifestyle, while 31, 37, 21 and 11 percent reported exposure to one, two, and three or more risk factors, respectively. People who participated in multiple lifestyle risk factors had in increased risk of early death.
"I was expecting that risk behaviors would interact with each other but I did not expect their synergistic relationship with mortality would be this strong," Ding told Medical Daily in an email. "For example, sedentary behavior, as a risk factor alone, is associated with 15 percent increased risk in mortality, and physical inactivity alone was associated with a 61 percent  increase, but when the two co-occurred, even without additional risk factors, their associated risk increase was 142 percent. This was quite a striking finding for me."
Researchers say that more than 90 percent of the study participants had one of the most commonly occurring combinations of risk factors out of 96 possible combinations. Lifestyle risk combinations involving physical inactivity, prolonged sitting, and unhealthy sleep patterns, as well as combinations involving smoking and high alcohol intake, had the strongest associations with an increased risk of death.
"The take-home message from this research — for doctors, health planners and researchers— is that if we want to design public health programs that will reduce the massive burden and cost of lifestyle-related disease we should focus on how these risk factors work together rather than in isolation," study co-author Adrian Bauman said in a statement.
Ding added the findings reinforce the importance of adopting healthy lifestyles and suggests people follow their government’s health recommendations and guidelines, especially if you're aged 45 and older.
"I strongly recommend everyone compare their lifestyle behaviors with the guidelines to understand what needs improvement," she said. "Once you identify where the problems are and are willing to change, you may consider starting by using existing free programs, such as the Quitline and Get Healthy."
Source: Ding D, Rogers K, van der Ploeg H, Stamatakis E, Bauman AE. Traditional and Emerging Lifestyle Risk Behaviors and All-Cause Mortality in Middle-Aged and Older Adults: Evidence from a Large Population-Based Australian Cohort. PLoS Med. 2015.

Swedish Health Clinic Hands Out Measuring Tape For Penises, But Does Size Really Matter When It Comes To Condoms?

A youth health clinic in Sweden is handing out measuring tape to young men to help ensure they get contraceptives in the right size and shape for their manhood. But with teenagers on social media proving that the standard condom can fit pretty much anything — even a human head — we can’t help but wonder, does condom size even matter?
The Stockholm Schools Youth Clinic first began handing out the special measuring tape on Tuesday. According to the NY Daily News, unlike other methods to size up the penis, this tape measures circumference,  not length. Once the men and boys have measured up, the clinic offers a variety of free condoms available for them in girth sizes from 2 to 2.5 inches.
While the Swedish government hopes that the initiative will help lead to better sexual health practices, in reality, are condoms really one-size-fits-all, or should all men get fitted?
For most men, the traditional condom will easily fit their penis. However, a recent survey by the condom manufacturer Lucky Bloke, involving input from over 3,500 men in 28 countries, found that around 35 percent of men require a smaller than standard condom, while only 15 percent of men need to go for a larger one, The Huffington Post reported.
But while most men may not need to opt for a specially sized condom, for those who do it’s important that they find the right size. A 2009 study conducted by the Kinsey Institute and the University of Kentucky found that in an online survey of 436 men, nearly 45 percent reported problems with ill-fitting condoms, such as breaking and slippage.
According to Cosmopolitan, most condoms are designed to fit a penis between 4 to 7 inches long while erect. However, if your penis falls above this range, it may cause the condom to break while having sex. Ill-fitting condoms can also lead to condoms slipping off during sex, Kids Health.org reported — a behavior that can expose both a man and his partner to sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies.
Ill-fitting condoms could also cut off the circulation in a man’s penis and impede his erection or prevent him from trouble reaching an orgasm, the NY Daily News reported.
The Swedish clinic is by far not the first to think up the idea of personalized fit condoms; My Size Condom and Condomadvisor.co.uk offer the same services. By far, the most condom size variety available is that offered by UK-based TheyFit, which creates a range of 95 condom sizes based on a man’s specific measurements, The NY Daily News reported.
In order to get an accurate sizing for a penis, men must take three important aspects into consideration: length, diameter, and girth. While men can measure each of these traits individually, using a mixture of a ruler and a piece of string, measuring tapes specifically designed for penises are available to print out off the Internet in order to make the process easier. A man simply needs to think happy thoughts to get their members to full attention, and then measure away.
So, if you or your partner doubt whether or not you’re using the correct condom, it’s probably best to get sized up.
Source: Medical Daily

Unmarried Couples Living Together Have Better Emotional Health

It's not unheard of for someone to say that couples who shack up before marriage are doomed for emotional distress and divorce. However, marriage may not be necessary to reap the benefits of living together. A recent study, published in the Journal of Family Psychology, found young couples get the same emotional benefits from living together as would from getting married, especially the women in these relationships.
In the U.S., cohabitation has recently become a regular part of family life. Census Data from 2012 shows 7.8 million couples are living together without being married, compared to 2.9 million in 1996. Moreover, two-thirds of couples married in 2012 cohabitated for more than two years before they walked down the aisle, according to the Council on Contemporary Families.
People may be putting off marriage because they can’t afford it, or because it’s financially risky. Cohabitation is also seen as a way of test-driving a relationship to see if the marriage will work out. However, is there a difference between emotional wellbeing when it comes to living together versus getting married?
Researchers at the University of Ohio collected data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. This study included 8,700 people who were born between 1980 and 1984, and who were interviewed every other year from 2000 to 2010. The NLSY97 is conducted by Ohio State's Center for Human Resource Research for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
During each survey, participants were asked about their relationship status, along with five questions assessing their levels of emotional distress. On a scale of scale of 1 (all of the time) to 4 (none of the time), they reported how often in the past month they felt “downhearted and blue,” among other symptoms.
The findings revealed there were several gender differences when it came emotional health from moving in together versus getting married. When it came to first unions (first relationships), women got the same emotional benefit from moving in together as they did from going directly into marriage. "There's no additional boost from getting married," said Sara Mernitz, co-author of the study, and a doctoral student in human sciences at The Ohio State University, in the news release.
Meanwhile, men entering a first union experienced a decrease in emotional distress only if they went directly into marriage. There was no change in distress for men who cohabited with a female partner. The researchers reasoned this was because men are more likely than women to report cohabitations as a way to test the relationship.
There were no reported gender differences when it came to emotional health changes among men or women entering their second union. In other words, both groups experienced a drop in emotional distress when they moved from a first relationship into cohabitation or marriage with a second partner. "The young people in our study may be selecting better partners for themselves the second time around, which is why they are seeing a drop in emotional distress," said Claire Kamp Dush, co-author of the study and associate professor of human sciences at Ohio State, in the news release.
Surprisingly, the researchers found those who gave birth, or whose partners gave birth, experienced a significant decrease in emotional distress compared to those who didn't have a child. This is alarming, considering having a baby has been associated with increased stress. The researchers warned they only looked at emotional distress, meaning the stress of raising a baby could have manifested itself in other ways for these couples. Moreover, marriage may provide benefits that weren't observed in the study, such as stability.
Couples who engage in cohabitation do not have the same formal constraints or responsibilities as those who are married. This can lead to uncertainty in regards to the stability and longevity of the relationship. In this sense, cohabitation may be a con for couples who seek to confirm stability.
Despite the limitations, Kamp Dush said: "It's not commonly known that couples can get emotional benefits from moving in together without being married. That's something we should be talking about.”
Sources: Mernitz SE and Kamp Dush C. Emotional Health Across the Transition to First and Second Unions Among Emerging Adults. Journal of Family Psychology . 2015.

New 'Phantom Menace' Bug Can Transfer Its Resistance To Other Bacteria

A new superbug is on the rise in the United States, and it’s a big one. Dubbed the “phantom menace” by scientists, the carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriacae (CRE) has the potential to become widespread thoughout the country.
The CRE family is known to be resistant to most antibiotics, and therefore very difficult to treat. The bacteria can also be quite deadly — up to 50 percent of infected patients die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Health officials say CRE is one of the country’s most urgent health threats.
The specific bacteria that earned a report from the CDC on Thursday is a relatively new brand of the bacteria. Unlike the other, more common types of CRE, the superbug carries a plasmid — a mobile piece of DNA capable of breaking down antibiotics with an enzyme. It gets worse; the bacteria also has the ability to transfer that plasmid and its antibiotic resistance to normal bacteria present within our bodies.
Currently, this type of CRE is rare and hasn’t been a focus of testing due to the fact that it is actually less antibiotic-resistant than other, more common types of CRE. For this reason, health officials gave it its ominous nickname.
“This is a tricky drug-resistant bacteria, and it isn’t easily found,” CDC Director Thomas Frieden told The Washington Post. “What we’re seeing is an assault by the microbes on the last bastion of antibiotics.”
One example of the problems CRE bacteria are capable of causing is a recent incident in China, where plasmids gave the bug’s resistance to an antibiotic called colistin. Many health professionals consider colistin one of the last lines of defense against certain dangerous bacteria such as this.
These bacteria “are of greatest public health concern because of their potential for rapid global dissemination," the report said.
It is important to note, however, that these infections are not something the general populace needs to worry about quite yet. Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist and professor of preventative medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville told Live Science that microbiologists, public health officials, and infectious disease experts are paying close attention for everyone.
Schaffner explained that even if bacteria are only resistant to certain types of antibiotics, its concerning to experts because this reduces the number of treatments doctors can use to take out the infections. Doctors need several types of antibiotics available, he said, and the more options there are, the better.
Source: Lyman M, Walters M, Lonsway D, Rasheed K, Limbago B, Kallen A. Notes From The Field: Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae Producing OXA-48-like Carbapenemases—United States, 2010-2015. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Centers for Disease Control. 2015.

Emotional Eating Is Key To Weight Loss, But Most People Don’t Understand It

Most people hear emotional eating and think of a Chris Farley skit from Saturday Night Live or a certain scene from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. If only they knew how much emotional eating was preventing them from reaching their weight loss goals. A recent survey conducted by Orlando Health has found very few of them actually know the impact their eating has.
"That's not surprising," said Dr. Diane Robinson, a neuropsychologist and program director of integrative medicine at Orlando Health, in a statement. "Most people focus almost entirely on the physical aspects of weight loss, like diet and exercise. But there is an emotional component to food that the vast majority of people simply overlook and it can quickly sabotage their efforts."
Robinson and his colleagues from Orlando Health oversaw a national survey of more than 1,000 people that gauged emotional issues, like stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as body mass index (BMI). Results showed that 31 percent of respondents were under the impression a lack of exercise is the biggest carrier for weight loss. Furthermore, 26 percent said it’s what you eat, 17 percent said it was the cost of a healthy lifestyle, and 12 percent said it was the necessary time commitment. In fact, only one in 10 felt psychological wellbeing played a major role in weight loss.
"If we're aware of it or not, we are conditioned to use food not only for nourishment, but for comfort," Robinson explained. "That's not a bad thing necessarily, as long as we acknowledge it and deal with it appropriately. We feel good whenever that process is activated, but when we start to put food into that equation and it becomes our reward, it can have negative consequences."
This emotional connection to food is nothing new for adults. It starts at a very young age. Just think about how many holidays fetishize food. Candy at Halloween. Chocolate on Valentine’s Day. Turkey, stuffing, and every food imaginable on Thanksgiving. Let’s not even get into how many parents reward their child for being good with a snack.
A similar study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that emotional eating not only affected stressed-out adults, but also children in a stressful environment. Among 41 children between the ages of 5 and 7 who were asked to color a picture with the promise of receiving a toy prize. Only one group was handed enough crayons to finish the picture while the other group was left stressed out over the inability to complete it. Stressed-out children consumed well over half the amount of calories as stress-free kids.
"When we're focused on the physical aspects of weight loss, many of us have no problem joining a gym or hiring a trainer," Robinson said. "How about joining a support group or hiring a psychologist? If getting your body in shape hasn't work out yet, maybe this time start with your mind."
Not wanting to point out actual problems without potential solutions, Robinson and her team recommend taking the emotion out of eating by seeing food only as nourishment and not as a reward or coping mechanism. They also recommend a daily diary that logs food consumption and mood to help examine unhealthy eating habits. Before eating anything, ask yourself if you're eating because you’re hungry or because you’re bored. Finally, understand which food makes you feel good, and determine if it’s because of a certain memory or stress.                                     
Source: Food and Emotions: 90 percent overlook key to weight loss, survey finds: Expert says diets fail because people don't address the emotional aspects of food. Orlando Health. 2015.

Opposition Mounts To Genetic Modification Of Human Embryos

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A group of U.S. scientists and activists on Monday called for a global ban on the use of new tools to edit the genes of human embryos, in a report issued a day before a major international meeting in Washington to discuss the ethical and policy issues surrounding the technology.
A technological innovation that can strategically edit out specific stretches of DNA could ultimately lead to the genetic modification of children, and should be halted before it starts being used, scientists at the Center for Genetics and Society and the activist group Friends of the Earth argued in their report.
"Once the process begins, there will be no going back. This is a line we must not cross,” said Pete Shanks, a consulting researcher with the Center for Genetics and Society and author of the report.
Advocates say the technology, CRISPR/Cas9, can speed the day that scientists can prevent heritable diseases. Opponents worry about unknown effects on future generations and the temptation for future parents to pay for genetic enhancements such as greater intelligence or athletic ability.
CRISPR/Cas9 allows scientists to manipulate genes like the "find and replace" function in word processing changes text. Scientists introduce enzymes that bind to a mutated gene, such as one associated with disease, and then replace or repair it.
The technique, if used to alter the DNA of human sperm, eggs, or embryos, holds the promise of eliminating a host of inherited diseases. But many scientists worry that this could produce unknown effects on future generations, since the changes are passed on to offspring.
Scientists note that the gene-editing techniques can also be used to alter the DNA of non-reproductive cells to repair diseased genes. The objections come to so-called "germline editing" in which reproductive cells are modified.
In May, the White House endorsed a ban on germline editing pending further study of the ethical issues.
The latest report was released on the eve of a summit convened by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and its counterparts from China and the United Kingdom, following a series of events this year that have brought new urgency to the debate.
In March, a group of scientists led by one key developer of the CRISPR technique called for a voluntary research ban on the use of the technology for germline editing, reflecting fears about safety and eugenics. Shortly after that, a team of Chinese scientists reported carrying out the first experiment to alter the DNA of human embryos.
That news ignited an outcry from some scientists, though others defended the Chinese research as careful and safe since it used only non-viable human embryos.
Friends of the Earth, an environmental group, has also been a leading opponent of genetically modified foods, including a recently approved salmon that grows faster than its wild cousins. The Center for Genetics and Society, founded in 2001, advocates for close oversight of human biotechnology.
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen. Editing by Jonathan Weber and David Gregorio)

The Higher Your Resting Heart Rate, The Greater Your Risk Of Death By All Causes

For the average adult, a normal resting heart rate is between 60 and 100 beats per minute. Chances are the lower it is, the better your cardiovascular fitness, and the more efficient your heart works. On the other hand, a new meta-analysis, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, has found a higher-than-average resting heart rate can lead to an increased risk of death from all causes, not just those related to your heart.
Researchers from the Medical College of Qingdao University in Shandong, China wanted to see if there was any correlation between a person’s resting heart rate, death from any cause, and death from heart disease. "The association of resting heart rate with risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality is independent of traditional risk factors of cardiovascular disease, suggesting that resting heart rate is a predictor of mortality in the general population," they wrote.
To determine this, the researchers looked at 46 studies that monitored resting heart rate, age, and cause of death. Of these, 40 involved more than one million patients, 78,349 of whom died from any cause, and 29 consisted of more than 800,000 patients, 25,800 of whom died from cardiovascular disease. After analyzing the data, the researchers found a person’s chance of death from any cause increased 9 percent for every additional 10 beats per minute, while risk of death from cardiovascular disease increased 8 percent for every additional 10 beats per minute.
The researchers found that the higher a person’s heartbeat per minute, the greater their chance of death became. Those who had a resting heart rate of 80 beats per minute, for example, were found to have a nearly 45 percent increased risk of death from any cause, while those who had a resting heart rate of 60 beats per minute were found to have only a 21 percent higher risk.
"The available evidence does not fully establish resting heart rate as a risk factor, but there is no doubt that elevated resting heart rate serves as a marker of poor health status,"  co-author Dr. Dongfeng Zhang said in a press release. "Our results highlight that people should pay more attention to their resting heart rate for their health, and also indicate the potential importance of physical activity to lower resting heart rate."
Although the researchers wrote that a high resting heart rate was "associated with risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in the general population, independent of traditional cardiovascular risk factors," they noted that their analysis had a few limitations. An example: They found there were different ways to measure a resting heart rate — measuring at night provided a more accurate measure of beats per minute than during the day due to lower levels of physical or mental activity. They also found some patients started taking heart rate-lowering medications between their first visits and follow-ups.
Either way, it’s important to keep your heart rate at a relatively normal level. Cardiovascular exercise, like brisk walking, jogging or biking, can help. So can managing stress levels through either music listening or meditation. If none of these activities work, you might want to try a coloring book.
Source: Zhang, D, et al. Resting heart rate and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in the general population: a meta-analysis. Canadian Medical Association Journal. 2015.

Childhood Sexual Abuse Linked To Marijuana Use, But Dependency May Be In Victims' Genes

Does child abuse have the potential to change a victim's genetic makeup and smoking habits? Researchers from Washington University set out to discover how child abuse affects a person's genes and how it influences their relationship with marijuana. Their findings are published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.
"We have long known that childhood adversity, and in particular sexual abuse, is associated with the development of cannabis dependence," said the study's senior author Ryan Bogdan, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences, in a press release. "However, we understand very little about the individual difference factors that leave individuals vulnerable or resilient to these effects."
Marijuana's main psychoactive ingredient THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) has the power to affect different mental and physical functions throughout the body, because it closely mimics chemicals in the endocannibinoid system. This system is located in the brain and is responsible for controlling the signals that cue fear, stress, and hunger; it's also carefully controlled by a set of instructions written in genetic code. In order to understand how child abuse could affect the likelihood of a person's marijuana use, researchers needed to look at the genes of victims.
For the study, Bogdan and his colleagues studied 1,558 Australian marijuana users' who were also the victims of sexual abuse as children. Researchers narrowed in on SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) in their endocannibinoid system, which is the most common form of genetic variations, also known as alleles. Each variation could happen among the A, T, C, or G nucleotide in the genome.
Each allele has information inherited from the biological mother and one from the biological father. Alleles with two matching pieces of genetic information are called homozygotes while mixed pairs are called heterozygotes. Researchers found a pattern emerge from the child abuse victims' SNPs and their level of marijuana dependence: Those who had a homozygote gene variation in the G allele were more likely to have marijuana dependence. None of the child abuse victims had heterozygote gene variations or homozygote gene variations in the A allele.
"As we expected, childhood sexual abuse was overall associated with individuals reporting a greater number of cannabis dependence symptoms," said the study's lead author Caitlin E. Carey, a PhD student, in a press release. "But what was particularly intriguing is that this association was only seen among people with two copies of the more common G allele. People with at least one copy of the less common A allele did not show this pattern, so these data suggest that the A allele may provide some form of resiliency to the development of dependence."
In the next stage, researchers searched for similar gene variations in 859 American participants and found similarities among abuse victims. The A allele variation may be able to protect certain victims from marijuana dependence depending on how their brains' react to threats. Researchers suspect that when a child is repetitively threatened overtime, the A allele becomes less prone to the effects of marijuana in an attempt to achieve the same mood-altering result.
In order to test that theory, researchers then studied 312 college students and found those who reported early life stress were carriers of the A allele variation, but not the homozygote G allele. This led researchers to believe those who experienced childhood traumas and had a variation in their A allele,were less likely to rely on marijuana to cope with future stress. These are preliminary findings, but researchers believe they are the first steps toward understanding the link between how genes impact marijuana use.
Carey concluded: "We won't see a genetic test for cannabis dependence anytime soon, if ever, but it's a start."
Source: Carey CE, Bogdan R, Agrawal A, et al. Monoacylglycerol lipase (MGLL) polymorphism rs604300 interacts with childhood adversity to predict cannabis dependence symptoms and amygdala habituation: Evidence from an endocannabinoid system-level analysis. Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 2015.

A Quarter Of Men Experience 'PMS Symptoms' Due To Daily Hormonal Changes

Stomach cramps, mood swings, and hot flashes are all tell-tale signs it’s that time of the month for women — and men. A new survey conducted by VoucherCloud (Think UK version of Groupon) found a quarter of men believe they experience monthly “man periods,” suffering premenstrual (PMS) symptoms from cramps to food cravings.
Jed Diamond, therapist and author of The Irritable Male Syndrome, has done some exploring on the existence of the man period in the past and believes “men have hormonal cycles just as women do.” Contrary to popular belief, men become violent when their testosterone levels go down, where irritability, depression, and withdrawal come with a deficiency of the hormone. Testosterone levels in young men can fluctuate as much as four times daily. However, what is less clear is how these levels vary day by day and week by week.
To explore this man period phenomenon, VoucherCloud asked the male survey respondents of over 2,400 (50 percent men and 50 percent women) if they frequently suffered the same common side effects of PMS that women experience during their menstrual cycle, including tiredness, cramps, and increased sensitivity. The results revealed 26 percent of men experience these feelings on a regular basis, while more shockingly, 58 percent of their female partners believed them. Men identified several PMS-related symptoms as signs of their "man periods," such as constant hunger to general irritability. Males (12 percent) confessed they were "more sensitive about personal weight," while some (5 percent) suffered from "menstrual cramps."
Furthermore, 43 percent of female respondents claimed they offered special support to their partners during this time of the month. When asked how they had done so, some ways included "try and cheer him up" (44 percent) and "walk around on egg shells" (39 percent). Out of those who didn’t believe their partners had man periods, 33 percent told their partner to "man up."
When it comes to spending during man periods, the average male spent an additional $124.62 on food and snacks per month, including takeout, compared to those who didn’t believe in the phenomenon. Men who believed they suffered from menstrual symptoms reportedly spent an extra $97.35 per month to combat their increased food cravings.
A similar 2009 study found a woman’s menstrual cycle does influence her spending habits. In the 10 days before a woman's period begins, she's more likely to go on a shopping spree and overspend about $27. The researchers suggest these women were shopping excessively as a way to deal with negative emotions they experience during their cycle. For example, stress and depression moved some women to shop to cheer themselves up and regulate their emotions.
So, perhaps there is some scientific validity to man periods. A 2004 study suggested men suffer from PMS symptoms as badly as women. The men scored higher than women in depression; lack of arousal; hot flashes and pain, including stomach cramps, back pain, and headaches. The researchers suspected the reason these men complained more than women is because of their difference in pain thresholds. Women could experience more pain, but don’t give it as much attention.
However, ladies should not fear having synchronized periods with men they’re in a relationship with. “In our research only women’s cycles synch with each other, men’s don’t synch with other men’s or women’s — so women in a relationship with each other can often experience that,” Diamond told The Daily Beast.
If you see a man cranky and incredibly hungry, offer him some greasy food and a beer, he may be on his man period.
Sources: Pine KJ. Report on a survey into female economic behavior and the emotion regulatory role of spending. Sheconomics. 2009.
Aubeeluck A. British Psychological Society. 2004.

3 Video Games That Have Been Scientifically Proven To Benefit Your Brain

It’s commonly believed that most video games turn your brain to mush. And while that’s pushing it, there have been studies showing some could lead to aggressive behavior or even become dangerously addictive. Aside from these outliers, however, there are games that offer benefits on the other side of the spectrum, providing benefits to the brains of those who play them. Here are three of them.

 

 

Starcraft

"Starcraft" is a real-time strategy (RTS) game that tasks players, who play as either humans or one of two alien species, with gathering resources, building bases, and ultimately defeating enemies.
A study published in PLOS ONE showed that playing 40 hours of the RTS game conferred benefits to players’ cognitive flexibility, which is the the brain's ability to switch back and forth between two different situations — in this case harvesting resources and fighting the enemy — as well as the ability to find creative solutions to problems.
"Cognitive flexibility varies across people and at different ages," said co-author Professor Brad Love of the University College London. "For example, a fictional character like Sherlock Holmes has the ability to simultaneously engage in multiple aspects of thought and mentally shift in response to changing goals and environmental conditions."
Researchers used two groups of volunteers to backup their claims that cognitive flexibility is a trainable skill. These volunteers played "Starcraft" or "The Sims" — a world simulation game that requires little to no memory or cognitive flexibility —  for 40 hours over the course of six to eight weeks. Afterward, they underwent several psychological tests.
Results showed "Starcraft" players exhibited much greater speed and accuracy when they were asked to perform cognitive flexibility tasks, such as alternating between managing resource output and troop movement, remembering where locations were and accurately clicking their locations on a map, and switching between identifying troops and their purposes.
Co-author Dr. Brian Glass said, "Previous research has demonstrated that action video games, such as 'Halo,' can speed up decision-making, but the current work finds that real-time strategy games can promote our ability to think on the fly and learn from past mistakes."

Super Mario

"Super Mario 64" is the first adventure for Nintendo's "Mario" in 3D. Players controlling Mario can make him run, jump, hop, and skip through colorful worlds, where they stomp Goombas, collect coins and stars, and solve various puzzles.
A study conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Charité University Medicine St. Hedwig-Krankenhaus found playing the game increases gray matter — which is a big part of our central nervous system, helping control muscles as well as seeing, hearing, decision-making, and more — in areas of the brain that deal with everything from spatial orientation to strategic planning.
For the study, researchers had participants play "Super Mario 64" for 30 minutes a day for two months, while a control group played nothing at all. At the end of two months, the participants underwent an MRI to see how their brains’ volume changed. When compared to the non-gaming group, those who played "Super Mario 64" showed increases in gray matter in the right hippocampus, right prefrontal cortex, and the cerebellum. These areas of the brain are responsible for how memory is formed, how we navigate, planning and executing strategy, and fine motor skills in the hands, among other roles. There was also more profound growth in these areas when a participant reported wanting to play the game more often.
“The present study can demonstrate the direct causal link between video gaming and a volumetric brain increase. This proves that specific brain regions can be trained by means of video games,” said study leader Simone Kühn, senior scientist at the Center for Lifespan Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. She also believes that this study will help patients with mental illnesses that reduce gray matter like schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, or Alzheimer’s.

Project: EVO

Project: EVO is a “digital intervention delivered through an action video game interface that’s designed to improve cognitive control,” game developer Akili Interactive Labs’ CEO Eddie Martucci told Medical Daily. Project: EVO aims to be one of the first “prescription-strength games,” with the goal of helping ADHD patients overcome some of their greatest challenges, like problem solving, working memory, and self-regulation, Martucci said.
When presenting data at at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s 62nd annual meeting last month, Akili produced a study that showed Project: EVO ’s safety and feasibility when it comes to treating those who suffer from ADHD.
The study tested 80 children between the ages of 8 and 12, half of whom had been diagnosed with ADHD and weren’t taking any medication. The other half had no diagnosis of ADHD at all. The researchers had the children play Project: EVO for 30 minutes day, five times a week for four weeks. They found that the children with ADHD exhibited a significantly increased attention span after the four weeks, when compared to those who didn’t have ADHD.
“These data demonstrate that Project: EVO improved attentional functioning and working memory in children with ADHD,” said lead author Dr. Scott Kollins, professor of psychiatry and director of the ADHD Program at the Duke University School of Medicine, in a press release. “While results are preliminary, these data provide a strong rationale for continued work to develop this novel digital intervention for ADHD.”
While all of these games have been shown to be beneficial to the brain, all of the studies still warned that excessive game playing may be detrimental to players’ health. As with anything, it should be done in moderation.
Source: Medical Daily

Sex Once A Week Makes For A Happy Life (Unless You're Single)

Movies, music, and news reports have all echoed the same sentiments about sex: more sex, more happiness. However, a recent study found couples who have sex every night, despite being too tired, too stressed, and too distracted, are no happier than those who have sex just once a week.
"Our findings suggest that it's important to maintain an intimate connection with your partner, but you don't need to have sex every day as long as you're maintaining that connection," said Amy Muise, lead researcher of the study and a social psychologist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto-Mississauga, in a press release.
Muise and her colleagues analyzed the results of surveys from more than 30,000 Americans, collected over 40 years in three different projects.
In the first study, researchers analyzed survey responses about sexual frequency and general happiness from more than 25,000 Americans (11,285 men, 14,225 women) who took the General Social Survey from 1989 to 2012. The survey covered a wide range of sociological issues, including opinions about race relations, religion, and sex. The happiness of the survey respondents increased with more frequent sex, but that frequency could be as little as once a week.
To compare happiness and sex frequency with happiness and income, the researchers conducted an online survey with 335 people (138 men, 197 women) who were in long-term relationships. The participants were asked about their annual income, which ranged from $15,000 to $75,000. In this survey, the difference in happiness between couples who had sex less than once a month and those who had it once a week was larger than couples who were making between $15,000 to $25,000 annually, and those making $50,000 and $75,000.
"People often think that more money and more sex equal more happiness, but this is only true up to a point," Muise said.
Lastly, a third study analyzed the survey results collected at three timeframes over 14 years from more than 2,400 married couples in the U.S. The findings revealed there wasn’t a strong link between sexual frequency and overall life satisfaction, but couples did report more satisfaction with their relationships as sex increased up to once a week. Consistent with the other survey results, there were no noticeable benefits of engaging in more sex.
All of these studies conclude more sex does not necessarily mean more happiness. Earlier this year, a recent study also found increasing sex frequency is not equated with a rise in happiness levels. In the study, researchers asked 32 of 64 married couples to double their rate of sex and respond to short daily surveys about happiness. The participants managed to have more sex, but they were not happier, and often found themselves feeling less energetic and having worse sex. This suggests sex quality matters more than sex frequency.
"It's important to maintain an intimate connection with your partner without putting too much pressure on engaging in sex as frequently as possible," Muise said.
The take-home from this compilation of studies is, the reason why you’re having sex matters more than how often you’re having sex. Having sex because you want to is better than doing so because you feel you have to.
Sources: Muise A et al. Sexual Frequency Predicts Greater Well-Being, But More is Not Always Better. Social Psychological and Personality Science. 2015.
Loewenstein G, Krishnamurti T, Kopsic J et al. Does Increased Sexual Frequency Enhance Happiness? Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. 2015.

Stretch Mark Removal: Getting Rid Of Them Is Impossible; But Prevention Could Be Here In The Near Future

Thinking about buying a cream or ointment that claims to prevent stretch marks during pregnancy? How about one that promises to reduce the appearance of marks that are already there? Don’t. You’ll be better off without them.
“Most of the existing products aren’t based on solid scientific research,” said Dr. Frank Wang, assistant professor and dermatologist at the University of Michigan Health System, in a press release. “Very few to none of the items touted to prevent or fix stretch marks really work.”
Wang and his team intended to investigate the issue by figuring out what’s causing stretch marks on a molecular level. Stretch marks often don’t receive much research attention because they aren’t considered medically dangerous, but Wang has been studying them for more than eight years.
“Because stretch marks may compound the stress of new motherhood for many women, it’s important to learn more about them,” Wang said. “Some women feel like their self-esteem, quality of life, and willingness to engage in certain activities are affected.”
The marks, scientifically known as sriae gravidarum, affect 50 to 90 percent of women. Some women are at higher risk than others due to factors like family history; whether they had a single or multiple birth; how much weight they gained during pregnancy; and whether they previously had stretch marks for another reason like obesity.
For the study, Wang and his colleagues studied skin samples from 27 pregnant women who had recently formed stretch marks. They compared the stretch-marked skin to less-stretched skin on areas like the hip, and found that the elastic fiber network in the dermis — the layer between the outer layer of the skin and the subcutaneous layers — is disrupted when a person has a stretch mark. Even after birth, this network remained disrupted.
It’s these elastic fibers that give skin its elasticity, or the ability to “snap back,” after it’s stretched. The skin attempts to repair these disrupted elastic networks but is apparently ineffective, which in turn promotes the lax, loose skin seen in older stretch marks. Current research on possible treatment options has not found anything available to repair this disruption.
“It may, therefore, make more sense to focus on preserving the elastic fibers you have rather than repairing damaged ones within stretch marks,” Wang said. “Regardless, it’s more complicated than just rubbing something on your stomach.”
Wang and his team are already continuing their research with the goal of helping pregnant women prevent or improve the appearance of stretch marks.
Source: Wang F, Calderone K, Smith N, Do T, Helfrich Y, Johnson T, et al. marked disruption and aberrant regulation of elastic fibers in early striae gravidarum. British Journal of Dermatology. 2015.