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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Bodily fluids are not the first topic of choice in most people’s discussions. They can be gross and messy, but they can also indicate when there’s a problem within the body. No matter how unsavory we may find them, these fluids are essential to our health, and knowing they look the way they should could be the difference between spotting a major health issue and letting it linger on far too long. Whether it’s blood or urine, or one of the many others, here’s why our bodily fluids are colored the way they are.
Blood
Apart from menstruation, blood should pretty much stay inside the body. Sometimes we do catch a glimpse of our most important bodily fluid, though. Yet, if it’s flowing out of a cut or scrape, it’s always the same color. We’re so used to seeing blood in one color that “blood red” is even the name of a crayon — and it’s for good reason.
Blood gets its color from its abundance of (aptly named) red blood cells, which are responsible for carrying oxygen to tissues in the body. Each of these cells contains hemoglobin, a protein with an iron atom at its center. It’s the chemical bonds between these iron and oxygen molecules that, when reflecting light, make us perceive blood as red. This is why blood freshly pumped from the heart appears as a bright red, while oxygen-deficient blood traveling back to the heart appears a rustier, brownish red.
But why, then, do our veins appear blue? Another matter of light reflection is to blame. Our skin provides an extra layer for light wavelengths to pass through, and because of this, only blue wavelengths have the strength to reach our eyes instead of red. Blood appearing bright red is oxygenated.Alden Chadwick (CC BY 2.0)
Mucus
Mucus — appreciated by few and disgusted by many — is critical to keeping our bodies functioning the way they’re supposed to. Mucus is a slippery, gooey substance that covers many important membranes in our body, including the lungs, sinuses, and gastrointestinal tract. It normally just keeps these surfaces from drying out. But sometimes, just taking a look at the mucus we produce from our sinuses can clue us in on what’s going on inside our bodies.
When a person is healthy, mucus is generally clear. Most will notice, though, that the color changes when they catch a cold or feel themselves coming down with a flu-like virus. Yellow or green mucus develops when the immune system sends an army of white blood cells to the sinuses, where many symptoms of cold (like sneezing and congestion) manifest. White blood cells contain a greenish-colored enzyme, which causes mucus to take on a similar hue. The concentration of the substance also matters — large amounts of mucus will cause the color to appear more yellow or green than clear.
Mucus is also capable of turning red or brownish from blood. Only a small amount of blood can change the color of mucus, and this issue can arise from having an irritated nose from blowing or rubbing it too much — a common occurrence when suffering from a cold. Excessive drying during the winter months can also cause the cracked surface of the nose to produce blood. Both of these aren’t too serious, but if there is a large amount of blood in your mucus or it goes on for a while, you should see a doctor.
Urine
Everyone knows to avoid the yellow snow, and that’s because we know to associate it with urine. Urine gets its yellow color from a breakdown product of hemoglobin called urochrome. Healthy pee can range from nearly clear to a medium yellow, but anything much darker or lighter can be a sign of dehydration or too much water, respectively. Urine, unlike blood and mucus, is capable of displaying an array of colors.
Pink or red could be due to something as benign as eating beets with dinner, or something much more serious, such as bleeding caused by a kidney infection, UTI, or even mercury poisoning. Orange urine could be a sign of dehydration, but it could also signal a liver or bile duct condition. Blue or green urine — surely the strangest colors urine could be — is possibly the result of a rare genetic disorder, a certain bacteria, or food coloring. Either way, see a doctor if it persists.
Semen
Scientists aren’t 100 percent sure what causes slight color fluctuations in semen, but they have a pretty good idea. Semen is normally a whitish, transparent color, but can also be clear. Clearer sperm could be due to a lower consistency of sperm, which is what gives semen its whitish color. A man who frequently participates in sexual activity or masturbation will likely have clearer sperm than those who do not.
Anything outside of this range, however, could merit a visit to the doctor. Pink or reddish sperm could indicate inflammation or bleeding of the prostate or seminal vesicle. Yellow semen could be a sign of urine in the semen, jaundice, or oddly high levels of white blood cells. Most of the time these things aren’t a problem and will clear up in time, but asking a doctor never hurts. Sperm are what gives semen its usual color.Pixabay Public Domain Source: Medical Daily
Americans love coffee, and each sip of it may be lowering risk of early death for the 54 percent of adults who drink it every day. In a new study, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health studied the benefits of both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee, and found both conferred a lower risk of dying from the leading causes of death in the United States.
"This study provides further evidence that moderate consumption of coffee may confer health benefits in terms of reducing premature death due to several diseases," the study’s senior author Frank Hu, a nutrition and epidemiology professor at Harvard, said in a press release. "These data support the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Report that concluded that 'moderate coffee consumption can be incorporated into a healthy dietary pattern.'"
For the study, published in the journal Circulation, researchers analyzed data from three 30-year-old ongoing studies. The studies comprised of 208,501 participants in total, who completed a follow-up questionnaire about their diet every four years. The researchers also tracked coffee consumption among the participants over the years and found a pattern emerge that was directly related to how much coffee they drank on an average day.
Those who drank about 3 to 5 cups of coffee a day were far less likely to die from life-shortening illnesses like heart disease, type 2 diabetes; neurological diseases like Parkinson’s disease; and even suicide. In their study, researchers also accounted for environmental factors that influence death, such as smoking, body mass index, physical activity levels, alcohol consumption, and other dietary factors. Ultimately, coffee proved to be linked to the lower death rate.
"Bioactive compounds in coffee reduce insulin resistance and systemic inflammation," said the study’s co-author Ming Ding, a doctoral student at Harvard’s Department of Nutrition, in the press release. "That could explain some of our findings. However, more studies are needed to investigate the biological mechanisms producing these effects."
Previously, researchers have found drinking 4 to 5 cups of coffee a day could cut a person’s risk of Parkinson’s disease nearly in half, when compared to those who drank little to no coffee. In a more recent study on coffee’s benefits, the same 3 to 5 cups a day reduced risk of dying from heart disease by 21 percent.
It was only a decade ago that Harvard researchers first discovered too much coffee did not cause high blood pressure. Several years later, they examined 36 studies encompassing more than one million participants and found heavy coffee consumption actually protects the heart and lowers the risk of heart disease.
Then last year, Harvard researchers made a number of promising discoveries after analyzing the effects of coffee consumption on the human genome. The team uncovered six genes. Two were related to how fast or slow coffee is metabolized within the body; another two related to coffee’s psychoactive effects within the brain; and two genes whose roles still remain unclear. The discoveries provided new insight into why caffeine affects people differently, and how these effects influence coffee consumption.
Down to the DNA level, the effects of coffee continue to be discovered. However, because these effects are consistent among both caffeinated and decaf coffee drinkers, it’s unclear exactly how the coffee bean works within the body. While some effects may be due to caffeine’s influence in the body, other effects may be linked to other properties within the bean.
“Coffee is a complex beverage,” Hu said. “It’s very difficult to pinpoint which component of coffee is responsible for the benefit.”
Source: Hu F, Ding M, Satija A, et al. Association of Coffee Consumption with Total and Cause-specific Mortality in Three large Prospective Cohorts. Circulation. 2015.
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A new study has found that you really do have to be “the best of the best” to succeed in the business world. An examination of the backgrounds of Fortune 500 CEOs from 1996 to 2014 has found that around 40 percent attended a top university and had better cognitive abilities than the overwhelming majority of the general population.
Recently, Jonathan Wai from Duke University and Heiner Rindermann from Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany used information available in the Fortune database to investigate the educational background of hundreds of Fortune 500 CEOs over a 19-year time period. According to the study, where individuals received their higher education is a good indication of their cognitive abilities, since those who graduate from these elite schools generally tend to be at the top percentile of intelligence for their age group.
However, not all CEOs were educated in U.S. universities, and different countries use different methods to measure an institution’s ranking, so to overcome this obstacle the team used the QS World University Rankings (2012), an international university comparison ranking, to determine elite school status within each country. In general, each country was allowed a maximum of 10 schools, but some countries had fewer than this amount.
The researchers observed that the number of Fortune 500 CEOs who had received an education at an elite institution was between 37 and 41 times higher than the rate in the general population. In addition, the low numbers who reported not having attended college indicates that “contrary to media stories glamorizing college dropouts and/or CEOs who went to relatively unknown colleges,” nearly every Fortune 500 CEO graduated from college, and most also went to an elite school, the report read.
“This suggests that Fortune 500 CEOs (a quite select group of CEOs) are very smart compared to the general population, probably in the top few percentiles of intelligence,” Wai wrote to Medical Daily in an email.
Although there seems to be a clear link between CEOs and elite education, it’s not clear whether it was the individual's natural intellect, the education they received at the elite institution, or their “access to elite networks” which enabled them to rise to the top of the business world. The researchers reasoned it was most probably a combination of all three.
"All our abilities are developed over time, but it would be fair to say that all experts are 'born, then made,' which is to say that we aren't blank slates to begin with," wrote Wai, explaining that although CEOs did work hard to get to where they are, but they also have much higher rates of elite education than the general population. "At the same time," added Wai, "at least relative to the general population, Fortune 500 CEOs have high intelligence."
Source: Wai J, Rindermann H. The path and performance of a company leader: A historical examination of the education and cognitive ability of Fortune 500 CEOs. Intelligence. 2015.
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All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. – Arthur Schopenhauer
As a scientist, it’s important to be skeptical, lest quackery and “crackpottery” freely seep into scientific acceptance. But sometimes the scientists who are dismissed as quacks and crazies turn out to be right in the end, often vindicated by posthumous awards and even Nobel prizes. Here are some famous doctors and medical researchers who were considered nuts when they first introduced their findings to the scientific world, but were later found to be right — they changed the world for the better.
William Harvey
A portrait of William Harvey, the first scientist to accurately describe blood circulation.Wikimedia
William Harvey was a 17th century English physician who was the first to describe blood circulation to the heart, brain, and body in complete detail — though it took years for the mainstream scientific community to accept it. In 1628, he published De Motu Cordis, or “On the Motion of the Heart and Blood,” at a Frankfurt book fair. The book describes the structure of the heart and arteries, and posited for the first time that blood passed through the heart, not the liver as previously believed. An image of veins from Harvey’s "Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus."Wikimedia
However, it was Galen, a 2nd century philosopher and physician who still held the authority on most matters of physiology, including circulation. He believed that the liver creates blood from food, then sends it through the left side of the heart and lungs. Though most of his writings were incorrect, people still held strong to his beliefs, even 1,500 years later. As a result, Harvey’s findings were ridiculed, and many doctors in the 17th century noted that they would “rather err with Galen than proclaim the truth with Harvey.”
In his later years, ostracized by the scientific world, Harvey became a recluse, living life in private and peace rather than launching again on what he called “the faithless sea.”
“Much better is it oftentimes to grow wise at home and in private,” Harvey reportedly said, “than by publishing what you have amassed with infinite labor, to stir up tempests that may rob you of peace and quiet for the rest of your days.”
Gregor Mendel
Gregor Mendel lived a relatively quiet life as a monk, but he laid down the research foundation for modern genetics.CC BY 4.0
You probably remember Gregor Mendel from your elementary school science class. Known as the father of modern genetics, Mendel was a Moravian Augustinian friar who dabbled in crossbreeding of pea plants during his spare time. Though he may not necessarily have been considered a complete lunatic during his time, he wasn’t exactly well-known or respected for his experiments, either.
Mendel’s garden pea plants, which helped him come up with the words “recessive” and “dominant” in reference to genes, were largely kept to himself and not fully accepted until after his death. In the past, scientists had believed that traits were passed down to next generations through blending inheritance, in which they’re averaged and mixed together. Mendel died in 1884, but it wasn’t until several decades later — at the beginning of the 20th century — that his ideas came to be known as modern genetics.
Ignaz Semmelweis
This 1860 copper plate engraving depicts Ignaz Semmelweis, the Hungarian doctor who argued for doctors to wash their hands in the hospital setting.Wikimedia
Basic hygiene — like washing your hands or using antibacterial sanitizer — is now commonplace, and considered protocol in hospitals. But before the 19th century, doctors weren’t aware that bacteria spread through lack of sanitation. Infectious diseases were typically treated by bloodletting (the explanation being that the four humors needed to be balanced), and illness was believed to be caused by bad air. Medical students often went straight to birthing babies after handling contaminated cadavers without washing their hands.
Ignaz Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician working at the Vienna General Hospital in the 1840s. His tasks included inspections, teaching, and record-keeping. At the time, the hospital had a particularly bad reputation for maternal mortality due to puerperal fever, with a 10 percent death rate among new mothers. Another nearby hospital only had a 4 percent death rate, so Semmelweis set out to pinpoint what was causing the spread of the fever.
He noticed that the Vienna General Hospital’s medical students went from autopsying cadavers straight to birthing babies. Though he didn’t know anything about germs, he assumed it was a lack of cleanliness causing unnecessary deaths. When he had doctors and midwives wash their hands in chlorine lime solutions, the mortality rates went down to 1 to 2 percent. A 1784 image of Vienna General Hospital.Wikimedia
It seems straightforward enough, but news of washing hands didn’t go over well in the rest of Europe. Many doctors were offended that Semmelweis saw them as dirty, their egos leading them to believe that it couldn’t be their uncleanliness that caused disease. And because Semmelweis never published an official report on why sanitation was life-saving, the medical world completely rejected him, viewing him as an embarrassment.
The rejection drove him to alcoholism, depression, and isolation. He even penned several letters lashing out at his critics, noting that the doctors who rejected his work were “irresponsible murderers” and “ignoramuses.” Toward the end of his life, he was sent to a mental asylum, where he died forgotten by his peers. Decades later, germ theory immerged with the likes of Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister practicing medicine with hygienic procedures, proving that Semmelweis’ idea indeed saved lives.
William B. Coley
William Coley, known as the father of immunotherapy, photographed in 1892.Wikimedia
In the late 1800s, standard cancer treatment involved surgically removing tumors or cancerous tissues; there was no chemotherapy, radiation, or cancer drugs. But one man, William Coley — a cancer researcher and bone surgeon who worked at New York Cancer Hospital — stumbled upon a strange discovery that would pave the way for modern immunotherapy, various trajectories of cancer treatment that involve triggering the immune system to attack cancer cells.
One of Coley’s patients began recovering from cancer after he was infected with Streptococcus pyogenes bacteria, the microbe that causes strep throat. It was this event that led Coley to theorize that post-surgical infections actually helped defeat cancer by mobilizing the immune system against it. In the 1890s he experimented with what became known as Coley’s toxins — mixtures of dead bacteria, particularly streptococcus, injected into cancer patients to trigger their immune systems. He kept a series of case reports on it, but most of his scientific peers rejected the idea, writing it off as crazy and dangerous. He died in 1936, his work surpassed by chemotherapy and radiation, without ever knowing that Coley’s toxins would someday lead to the birth of modern immunotherapy.
Francis Peyton Rous
Francis Peyton Rous was a virologist responsible for discovering that certain types of viruses played a role in the transmission of specific cancers, though he wasn't rewarded for it for over 50 years.Wikimedia
Francis Peyton Rous was a pathologist who discovered that certain viruses may play a role in the development of particular kinds of cancer. In 1911, while he was working at Rockefeller University in New York City, Rous noted that a sarcoma growing on a chicken could be transmitted to healthy chickens through a cell-free extract injection of chicken tumor. His findings were largely discredited, however, and he didn’t get rewarded for his work until over 50 years later, when he was given the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1966.
Rous’ early research on transmissible sarcomas “set in motion an entirely new way to study cancer; that is, through viruses,” a PLOS Blog states. “Although about 20 percent of human cancers are now thought to be transmissible through viruses, for the most part virus-caused cancers are confined to other animals. … However, the understanding that viruses can somehow carry cancer from one animal to another provided science a model with which to unravel how the transformation from normal to cancerous happens again.”
Barry Marshall
Nobel laureates Robin Warren (L) and Barry Marshall (R) celebrate receiving the 2005 medicine award. Marshall, who shares the award with Warren, became one of the most memorable Nobel prize winners for acting as his own human guinea pig to prove his theory that a bacterium caused stomach ulcers rather than stress, in the face of a disbelieving medical establishment.Reuters
Barry Marshall may not have been a mad scientist, but he certainly submitted to crazy measures to prove his ideas. Starting out as an obscure Australian doctor, Marshall worked primarily on how Helicobacter pylori bacteria invaded the gut, and found that the bacteria caused both ulcers and stomach cancer.
Today, standard care for ulcers involves antibiotics to kill off the bacterial infection. But back in the 1980s, doctors believed ulcers were caused by stress. When Marshall argued antibiotics should be used to treat ulcers, his fellow physicians dismissed him, leaving him in a tight spot — he was unable to further his research as H. pylori only affects primates, and barred from experimenting on people.
That’s when Marshall did something crazy: He took H. pylori from a patient’s infected stomach, mixed it into a broth, and drank it. After falling ill, he biopsied his own gut, cultured the bacteria, and ultimately proved that H. pylori was indeed responsible for ulcers. Perhaps this is what earned him the nickname “the guinea-pig doctor.”
In an interview with Discover Magazine, Marshall noted that “[b]efore the 20th century, the ulcer was not a respectable disease. Doctors would say, ‘You’re under a lot of stress.’ Nineteenth-century Europe and America had all these crazy health spas and quack treatments.” Indeed, Marshall’s story is a reminder that not all symptoms or illnesses can be dismissed as stress or anxiety — and a determined scientist must often go to extremes to prove it in the midst of widespread resistance.
Source: Medical Daily
The study, led by Prof. Masud Husain and funded by The Wellcome Trust, is published in the journal Cerebral Cortex.
Though apathy is traditionally viewed as an attitude or outlook, the neuroscientists say their results suggest it is actually biology that may be to blame.
They wanted to study young, healthy people to see if there were any observable brain differences in those classed as "motivated," versus those who are apathetic.
Prof. Husain explains that after some patients have a stroke or face Alzheimer's disease, they can become "pathologically apathetic."
"Many such patients can be physically capable," he says. "Yet they can become so demotivated they won't be bothered to care for themselves, even though they're not depressed."
He and his team decided to study healthy people to determine whether there were any brain differences that could underpin apathy.
For their study, a total of 40 volunteers completed a questionnaire that the researchers used to score their motivation. Then, the participants played a game where they were made offers with different reward levels and physical effort involved in winning the reward.
'Apathetic brains have to make more effort'
The researchers explain that, as predicted, the participants usually accepted the offers with high rewards and low effort. However, the low rewards requiring high effort were not accepted as often.
Next, the study participants played the game in an MRI machine while the researchers analyzed their brains.
Interestingly, although the apathetic people were less likely to accept the offers requiring a lot of effort, one brain area in particular showed more activity than in the motivated participants: the pre-motor cortex. This brain area is involved in taking actions and activates just before other brain areas that control movement do. The brain scans revealed that in more apathetic people, the pre-motor cortex was more active when they chose to take an offer than it was in the motivated participants.
Prof. Husain explains that this was the opposite of what he and his team expected; they anticipated less activity in apathetic people since they were less likely to accept the choices requiring effort, but this was not the case.
"We thought that this might be because their brain structure is less efficient, so it's more of an effort for apathetic people to turn decisions into actions," he says, adding:
"Using our brain scanning techniques, we found that connections in the front part of the brains of apathetic people are less effective. The brain uses around a fifth of the energy you're burning each day. If it takes more energy to plan an action, it becomes more costly for apathetic people to make actions. Their brains have to make more effort."
He and his team say that to their knowledge, this is the first evidence of a biological basis for apathy. However, they add that their findings do not account for apathy in everyone, but rather, they provide more information about brain processes involved in "normal motivation."
The findings also shed light on how patients with "pathological conditions of extreme apathy" may be helped.
"These findings reveal that effort sensitivity and translations of intentions into actions might make a critical contribution to behavioral apathy," the researchers conclude.
If you are an apathetic person and have made it to the end of this article, well done. As a reward for your effort, here is an article on the scientific explanation of puppy dog eyes.
Written by Marie Ellis Copyright: Medical News Today
Whether it's getting ready to go to work, go shopping, or out for a night on the town, there are many opportunities where the impulse arises to take a selfie. About two billion photos are uploaded to Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Snapchat, and WhatsApp every day, with millions of them being our own selfies, or self-portraits. But why do we take so many selfies and upload them on these social media sites?
In an effort to explore this concept, psychologists from Germany and Poland delved deeper into the personalities of selfie sharers in two studies involving over 1,200 men and women. For the first study, about 750 men and women were asked to count the number of selfies they had posted to social media in the last month. The participants also completed three personality questionnaires: the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Extraversion Scale of the NEO-Five Factor Inventory, and the Murray Social Exhibitionism Index.
The participants reported posting up to 350 selfies featuring only themselves, up to 100 selfies with a relationship partner (so-called “relfies”), and up to 200 group selfies with friends. When compared to men, who only posted an average of 3.3 "own" selfies per month, women uploaded an average of 6.7. The biggest disparity was seen in group shots — women posted an average of 6.1 group selfies per month, while men posted only about 2.6. No significant difference was found in the rate of relfie posting for women or men, however, with 1.2 per month and 1.72 per month, respectively.
So, what personality types are more likely to upload selfies?
Based on the personality tests, the researchers found men and women who scored high on extraversion and social exhibitionism posted more selfies. Surprisingly, there was no relationship between selfie posting and self-esteem. Men and women who have a huge ego or are ridden with self-doubt are no more or less likely to share selfies. However, previous research has found a link between heavy Facebook use and low self-esteem and narcissism.
Now, since the total number of selfies was based on self-reported data, the researchers conducted a second study. They recruited research students to count all the selfies that their Facebook friends had posted to their profiles. These were also categorized as either own selfies, relfies, or group selfies.
The findings revealed there was a link between self-esteem and selfie posting among men. Those who thought highly of themselves tended to post more own selfies, although there was no relationship between self-esteem and the frequency of posting relfies or group selfies. The researchers suspect the differences in results from these two studies could be explained by the measurements they used for selfie-related activity. For example, in the first study, the researchers measured selfies using a wide range of social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Meanwhile in the second study, only Facebook was used as a measurement. The researchers can only speculate Facebook is more intriguing to self-absorbed men as a forum for sharing selfies.
Despite the findings, the link between self-esteem and online social media is still uncertain. Researchers don't know if men's high self-esteem drives them to post more selfies or if posting these selfies and seeing them liked by friends is what boosts their self-esteem. “On the one hand, people with high, stable self-esteem might be eager to share their photos because they are not susceptible to criticism. On the other hand, people with low self-esteem might be even more willing to engage in online self-promotion in order to raise their self-esteem,” wrote Agnieszka Sorokowska, lead author of the study from TU Dresden in Germany, in the study.
It seems growing use of social media sites is making us more concerned with our appearance. People are even getting surgery just to have the perfect selfie. It might not be long before our obsession with selfies soon evolves from being a vanity issue to a mental health issue.
Sources: Sorokowska A, Oleszkiewicz A, Frackowiak T et al. Selfies and personality: Who posts self-portrait photographs? Personality and Individual Differences. 2016.
Fox J and Rooney MC. The Dark Triad and trait self-objectification as predictors of men’s use and self-presentation behaviors on social networking sites. Personality and Individual Differences. 2015.
Today, Nov. 13, 2015 is the third Friday the 13th of 2015 and the first one in eight months. As any fan of superstitions will know, there is some bad karma surrounding any Friday that lands on the 13th day of the month. There’s even a name for the irrational fear of Friday the 13th: paraskevidekatriaphobia. The joke is that if you can pronounce the name, you’re cured of the phobia. Let’s take a look at what exactly paraskevidekatriaphobia is, why people suffer from it, and if they can be cured.
Paraskevidekatriaphobia Defined
Paraskevidekatriaphobia goes by another, equally hard to say name, friggatriskaidekaphobia. The origins of friggatriskaidekaphobia can be traced back to Nordic myth. Frigg, the goddess of wisdom, is where we get Friday from. Atriskaideka is derived from Greek meaning three and 10, equaling 13. Paraskevidekatriaphobia, on the other hand, is derived from Greek with the first half, paraskevi, relating to Friday, and dekatria relating to the number 13.
Why People Suffer From Paraskevidekatriaphobia
To find out why people suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia we have to look at phobias themselves. Phobias are irrational fears of any activity, situation, or thing. It’s estimated six million people suffer from different phobias in the United States alone. Phobias can alter a person’s ability to function and enjoy life. Fear of Friday the 13th might have to do with the fear of the number 13, which has been called an unlucky number for hundreds of years. Some point to the number 12 for blame.
The number 12 is a complete number and has various implications: There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Jesus. As for Friday, some believe that because Christ was crucified on that day, it is unlucky, and some biblical scholars, according to National Geographic, believe that Eve was tempted by the forbidden fruit on Friday.
These religious and number implications lead many people to do their best to avoid the date whenever it appears on the calendar. This leads to drops in business transactions, flights, hotel bookings, stock market buyings or sellings, and much more.
Can People With Paraskevidekatriaphobia Be Cured?
Like the many phobias you’ve probably heard of — arachnophobia, agoraphobia, or claustrophobia, to name a few — paraskevidekatriaphobia is something that can be treated. Both physical symptoms (panic, terror, rapid or irregular heartbeat, sweating and trembling) and psychological symptoms (being afraid even if you know it’s irrational, doing whatever you can to avoid doing what you’re afraid of, running away from a phobic situation) can all be diagnosed by a medical professional.
With many phobias, desensitization therapy — exposing the person slowly to the thing they’re afraid of until they aren’t anymore — is used, but with Friday the 13th, that’s not really applicable. Instead, one might try cognitive behavioral therapy, which examines and changes thoughts and behaviors that contribute to the phobia symptoms. Doctors might also prescribe selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (antidepressants) or beta-blockers, which slow the production of adrenaline, one of the key components of fear, along with treatment to get you over your phobia.
If you or someone you know is affected by paraskevidekatriaphobia, the National Alliance of Mental Illness or MentalHealth.gov are both valuable resources to learn more about phobias and to find help.
A new RNA test of blood platelets can be used to detect, classify and pinpoint the location of cancer by analysing a sample equivalent to one drop of blood. Using this new method for blood-based RNA tests of blood platelets, researchers have been able to identify cancer with 96 per cent accuracy. This according to a study at Umeå University in Sweden recently published in the journal Cancer Cell.
"Being able to detect cancer at an early stage is vital. We have studied how a whole new blood-based method of biopsy can be used to detect cancer, which in the future renders an invasive cell tissue sample unnecessary in diagnosing lung cancer, for instance. In the study, nearly all forms of cancer were identified, which proves that blood-based biopsies have an immense potential to improve early detection of cancer," according to Jonas Nilsson, cancer researcher at Umeå University and co-author of the article.
In the study, researchers from Umeå University, in collaborations with researchers from the Netherlands and the US, have investigated how a new method of blood-based RNA tests of the part of the blood called platelets could be used in detecting and classifying cancer.
The results show that blood platelets could constitute a complete and easily accessible blood-based source for sampling and hence be used in diagnosing cancer as well as in the choice of treatment method.
Blood samples from 283 individuals were studied of which 228 people had some form of cancer and 55 showed no evidence of cancer. By comparing the blood samples RNA profiles, researchers could identify the presence of cancer with an accuracy of 96 per cent among patients. Among the 39 patients in the study in which an early detection of cancer had been made, 100 per cent of the cases could be identified and classified.
In follow-up tests using the same method, researchers could identify the origin of tumours with a so far unsurpassed accuracy of 71 per cent in patients with diagnosed cancer in the lung, breast, pancreas, brain, liver, colon and rectum. The samples could also be sorted in subdivisions depending on molecular differences in the cancer form, which can be of great use in the choice of treatment method.
Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Umea University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference:
Myron G. Best, Nik Sol, Irsan Kooi, Jihane Tannous, Bart A. Westerman, François Rustenburg, Pepijn Schellen, Heleen Verschueren, Edward Post, Jan Koster, Bauke Ylstra, Najim Ameziane, Josephine Dorsman, Egbert F. Smit, Henk M. Verheul, David P. Noske, Jaap C. Reijneveld, R. Jonas A. Nilsson, Bakhos A. Tannous, Pieter Wesseling, Thomas Wurdinger. RNA-Seq of Tumor-Educated Platelets Enables Blood-Based Pan-Cancer, Multiclass, and Molecular Pathway Cancer Diagnostics. Cancer Cell, 2015; 28 (5): 666 DOI: 10.1016/j.ccell.2015.09.018
