New Hampshire Health News Digest

Magnesium Supplements May Help Lower High Blood Pressure : "Magnesium supplements have a small but significant effect on lowering blood pressure, according to a study in this month's Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association."

Romantic comedies mar love lives-Health/Sci-The Times of India LONDON: Romantic comedies may have fired love lives of many for long. Yet, a new study has claimed that watching the popular flicks could spoil relationships as they create unrealistic expectations. Researchers in Edinburgh have carried out the study and found that people who watch romantic comedies are more likely to believe in predestined love than those who prefer to see other genres of movie. According to them, unlikely happy endings, improbable plots and faux philosophy are to blame -- in fact, seeing even a single romantic comedy is enough to sway people's attitudes to romantic love. "Marriage counsellors often see couples who believe that sex should always be perfect, and if someone is meant to be with you then they will know what you want without you needing to communicate it. "We now have some emerging evidence that suggests popular media play a role in perpetuating these ideas in people's minds. ...

Low Carbohydrate Diet Did Not Increase Bone Loss, Study Finds : "A strict low-carbohydrate diet had no effect on bone loss for adults following an Adkins-type diet for weight loss, a three-month study by rheumatologists at the University of South Florida found. The clinical study was published this week in the online issue of the journal Osteoporosis International. Low carbohydrate diets have become popular as a weight loss technique; however, critics contend such diets may have harmful side effects. One concern has been that low carbohydrate diets, which replace calories from carbohydrates with more consumption of high-protein foods like meat and eggs, alter the body's acid balance. This imbalance could lead to increased bone turnover (more rapid depletion than formation of bone) -- increasing the risk for osteoporosis. "That's not what our study found," said lead author John D. Carter, assistant professor in the Division of Rheumatology, USF College of Medicine...

The Dana Foundation - The Prefrontal Cortex and Frontal Lobe Disorders : An Interview with Jordan Grafman, Ph.D. My research indicates that the human prefrontal cortex is especially designed to store in long-term memory the features that are unique to large structured sets of sequential events such as themes, morals, and plans. This enables us to put off immediate gratification, and allows us to out-think faster and stronger competitors. These observations form the foundation for the notion that the human prefrontal cortex is a crowning achievement of the human brain and that, like the rest of the brain, is a work in progress. Q: You consider the prefrontal cortex to be the seat of “social cognition” and possibly “moral cognition” as well. What do these terms mean and what leads you to these conclusions? A: Social cognition refers to the long-term memories we access when we interact socially with others, and that guide our social behaviors in routine and novel situations. These long-te...

Sugar Can Be Addictive: Animal Studies Show Sugar Dependence : "A Princeton University scientist will present new evidence today demonstrating that sugar can be an addictive substance, wielding its power over the brains of lab animals in a manner similar to many drugs of abuse. Professor Bart Hoebel and his team in the Department of Psychology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute have been studying signs of sugar addiction in rats for years. Until now, the rats under study have met two of the three elements of addiction. They have demonstrated a behavioral pattern of increased intake and then showed signs of withdrawal. His current experiments captured craving and relapse to complete the picture. "If bingeing on sugar is really a form of addiction, there should be long-lasting effects in the brains of sugar addicts," Hoebel said. "Craving and relapse are critical components of addiction, and we have been able to demonstrate these behaviors in sugar-bingeing rats...

Fructose Sets Table For Weight Gain Without Warning : "Eating too much fructose can induce leptin resistance, a condition that can easily lead to becoming overweight when combined with a high-fat, high-calorie diet, according to a new study with rats. Although previous studies have shown that being leptin resistant can lead to rapid weight gain on a high-fat, high-calorie diet, this is the first study to show that leptin resistance can develop as a result of high fructose consumption. The study also showed for the first time that leptin resistance can develop silently, that is, with little indication that it is happening. Leptin is a hormone that plays a role in helping the body to balance food intake with energy expenditure. When leptin isn’t working -- that is, when the body no longer responds to the leptin it produces -- it’s called leptin resistance. Leptin resistance is associated with weight gain and obesity in the face of a high-fat, high-calorie diet. Obesity has been a gr...

Study Suggests A Possible Link Between High-Starch Diet And Pancreatic Cancer : "A diet high in starchy foods such as potatoes, rice and white bread may increase the risk of pancreatic cancer in women who are overweight and sedentary, according to a new study by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard School of Public Health researchers. Published in the Sept. 4 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the study suggests that excess insulin – a substance used by the body to process the sugar in foods – can promote the development of pancreatic cancer. Nearly 30,000 men and women in the United States are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer each year, and an equal number die from it. Pancreatic cancer typically is highly aggressive and is one of the least-curable malignancies. Only four percent of the people with pancreatic cancer are alive five years after diagnosis. "Our findings add to the growing body of evidence that suggests t...

Too Much Fructose Could Leave Dieters Sugar Shocked Dieters should focus on limiting the amount of fructose they eat instead of cutting out starchy foods such as bread, rice and potatoes, report the researchers, who propose using new dietary guidelines based on fructose to gauge how healthy foods are. "There's a fair amount of evidence that starch-based foods don't cause weight gain like sugar-based foods and don't cause the metabolic syndrome like sugar-based foods," said Dr. Richard Johnson, the senior author of the report, which reviewed several recent studies on fructose and obesity. "Potatoes, pasta, rice may be relatively safe compared to table sugar. A fructose index may be a better way to assess the risk of carbohydrates related to obesity." Many diets -- including the low-carb variety -- are based on the glycemic index, which measures how foods affect blood glucose levels. Because starches convert to glucose in the body, these diets tend to limi...

Cutting Caffeine May Help Control Diabetes : "Daily consumption of caffeine in coffee, tea or soft drinks increases blood sugar levels for people with type 2 diabetes and may undermine efforts to control their disease, say scientists at Duke University Medical Center. The researchers found that when the participants consumed caffeine, their average daily sugar levels went up 8 per cent. Caffeine also exaggerated the rise in glucose after meals: increasing by 9 percent after breakfast, 15 percent after lunch and 26 per cent after dinner. "We're not sure what it is about caffeine that drives glucose levels up, but we have a couple of theories," says Lane, who is the lead author of the study. "It could be that caffeine interferes with the process that moves glucose from the blood and into muscle and other cells in the body where it is used for fuel. It may also be that caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline -- the 'fight or flight" hormone that we kno...

Type 1 Diabetes And Celiac Disease Linked : "Type 1 (juvenile) diabetes and celiac disease appear to share a common genetic origin, scientists at the University of Cambridge and Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, have confirmed."

Can Amphetamines Help Cure Cocaine and Meth Addiction? - TIME Proponents of stimulant maintenance treatment also note this significant detail: Many stimulant abusers suffer from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). While ADHD affects about 1% of the general population, according to Rush, it shows up in about 30% of cocaine and amphetamine addicts. Psychiatrists often hesitate to give hyperactivity drugs to patients with a history of addiction, but some studies suggest that maintenance may be exactly what this group needs — and that their drug abuse is an attempt to self-medicate. The studies that have included ADHD patients (many studies exclude them to avoid confounding) showed positive results. In one pilot study, conducted at Columbia University, maintenance treatment reduced cocaine use and craving in 12 cocaine addicts with ADHD.

Obesity And Metabolism: Weight Gain And The Growing Risk Of Cancer : "COLON CANCER ' Colorectal cancer and type II diabetes share a number of common factors , including obesity, so it is interesting to see the direct line between these two conditions,' said Andrew Flood, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and the University of Minnesota Cancer Center 'In general, the idea is that if elevated insulin levels create a biochemical environment conducive to cancer growth, it provides one mechanism by which diet and lifestyle can really influence cancer risk.' According to Flood, it is not exactly clear what aspect of diabetes is the underlying cause for this increased risk, but one hypothesis centers on the elevated concentration of insulin typically seen in people with type II diabetes. "In the early stages of the disease process, people become insulin resistant, mea...

Limiting Fructose May Boost Weight Loss, Researcher Reports : "One of the reasons people on low-carbohydrate diets may lose weight is that they reduce their intake of fructose, a type of sugar that can be made into body fat quickly, according to a researcher at UT Southwestern Medical Center. [...] "Our study shows for the first time the surprising speed with which humans make body fat from fructose," Dr. Parks said. Fructose, glucose and sucrose, which is a mixture of fructose and glucose, are all forms of sugar but are metabolized differently. "All three can be made into triglycerides, a form of body fat; however, once you start the process of fat synthesis from fructose, it's hard to slow it down," she said. In humans, triglycerides are predominantly formed in the liver, which acts like a traffic cop to coordinate the use of dietary sugars. It is the liver's job, when it encounters glucose, to decide whether the body needs to store the glucose as gly...

Lack Of Vitamin D Could Spell Heart Trouble : "Vitamin D deficiency—which is traditionally associated with bone and muscle weakness—may also increase the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). A growing body of evidence links low 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels to common CVD risk factors such as hypertension, obesity and diabetes, as well as major cardiovascular events including stroke and congestive heart failure. "Vitamin D deficiency is an unrecognized, emerging cardiovascular risk factor, which should be screened for and treated," said James H. O'Keefe, M.D., cardiologist and director of Preventive Cardiology at the Mid America Heart Institute, Kansas City, MO. "Vitamin D is easy to assess, and supplementation is simple, safe and inexpensive." It is estimated that up to half of U.S. adults and 30 percent of children and teenagers have vitamin D deficiency, which is defined as a 25(OH)D level of Recent data from the Framingham Heart Study suggest patients with...

Body Shape and Heart Disease Risk: Apple Or Pear Shape Is Not Main Culprit To Heart Woes -- It's Liver Fat : "For years, pear-shaped people who carry weight in the thighs and backside have been told they are at lower risk for high blood pressure and heart disease than apple-shaped people who carry fat in the abdomen. But new findings from nutrition researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggest body-shape comparisons don't completely explain risk. In two studies, they report excess liver fat appears to be the real key to insulin resistance, cholesterol abnormalities and other problems that contribute to diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Having too much fat stored in the liver is known as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. "Since obesity is so much more common now, both in adults and in children, we are seeing a corresponding increase in the incidence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease," says senior investigator Samuel Klein, M.D.,...

95-174 (Attention Deficit Disorder) The study also showed that ADD teens had more trouble than the learning disabled group with social skills such as dating and getting along with peers. ADD teens also had lower levels of communication abilities such as writing a letter or addressing an envelope. Those who fared worst in social skill levels were the 18 ADD teens with conduct disorders. They had the lowest abilities to get along with others and the greatest behavioral and emotional difficulties.

Low-carb Diets Alter Glucose Formation By The Liver In contrast to previous reports, the present study showed similar hepatic glucose production among the dietary groups. The low-carbohydrate group was able to maintain hepatic glucose production at the levels observed for the weight-stable and low-calorie groups by increasing glucose formation using lactate or amino acids to match the reduction in glucose formation from glycerol. "This observation is reminiscent of 'hepatic autoregulation' by which endogenous glucose production remains unchanged in the setting of altered gluconeogenesis or glycogenolysis because the two pathways tend to compensate for each other," the authors report. They noted it was interesting that the increased glucose formation using lactate or amino acids in the low-carbohydrate group was not associated with increased TCA cycle flux (i.e. energy production.) However, they did not measure absolute rates of fatty acid delivery to the liver or keto...

Wartime diet of regular fasting slashes prostate cancer risk | Mail Online : "Rationing food intake every few weeks could slash men's risk of prostate cancer, scientists believe. Men who halve the amount they normally eat for a week or two once a month could markedly lower their chances of a tumour at a young age. In human terms, researchers said, it was the equivalent of men getting cancer in their seventies or eighties rather than their fifties. But the study showed going on a permanent low-calorie diet did not have the same powerful effect. Scientists think occasional rationing may ward off cancer by constantly adjusting the balance of certain fat hormones. High levels of leptin, a hormone released by fat cells, have been found to stimulate cancer cell growth, while high levels of another hormone, called adinopectin, appear to have a protective effect. The latest findings, published in the journal Prostate, suggest frequent rationing cuts leptin levels and boosts those of a...

Individuals With ADHD Inattention Subtype More Likely to Quit Smoking : Investigators at Columbia Medical Center, in New York, found individuals with ADHD who have the subtype of the disorder characterized by inattention alone are more likely to benefit from combination therapy with bupropion and nicotine patches than their counterparts who have ADHD with elevated symptoms of hyperactivity and impulsivity, with or without inattention. Greater understanding of the divergent associations that exist between the different kinds of ADHD have important public-health consequences for smoking cessation and decreased tobacco-related mortality in this population, principal investigator Lirio S. Covey, PhD, said in a statement. The study is published in the December issue of Nicotine & Tobacco Research. As shown in previous research, as a group, smokers with ADHD had greater difficulty quitting than smokers without ADHD. However, the researchers showed for the first time that individuals with...

Too Much Commitment May Be Unhealthy For Relationships, Professor Says : "Romantic relationships establish special bonds between partners. Oftentimes, passionate rapport leads to permanent partnerships, and ultimately, the start of families. Sometimes, however, one or both partners place too much emotional weight on their relationship. As a result, men or women may tend to evaluate their self-worth solely based on the outcomes of their romantic interactions. This is what psychologists term as relationship-contingent self-esteem (RCSE), and, according to University of Houston researcher Chip Knee, it's an unhealthy factor in romantic relationships. "Individuals with high levels of RCSE are very committed to their relationships, but they also find themselves at risk to become devastated when something goes wrong -- even a relatively minor event," said Knee, UH assistant professor of psychology and director of the university's Interpersonal Relations and Motivation ...

Waking up Teens -- Scientists Show Blue Light Can Help Reset Sleep Cycle : "Teenagers' morning drowsiness is often caused by out-of-tune body clocks, in a condition known as 'delayed sleep phase syndrome.' Scientists now say that timing exposure to blue light -- avoiding it during the first two hours of being wake, then getting a good dose of it -- can help restore the sleep cycle, so teens feel sleepy earlier at night and are more awake in the morning."

Antioxidants Are Unlikely To Prevent Aging, Study Suggests Diets and beauty products which claim to have anti-oxidant properties are unlikely to prevent aging, according to research funded by the Wellcome Trust. Researchers at the Institute of Healthy aging at UCL (University College London) say this is because a key fifty year old theory about the causes of aging is wrong. [...] In 1956, Denham Harman proposed the theory that aging is caused by an accumulation of molecular damage caused by "oxidative stress", the action of reactive forms of oxygen, such as superoxide, on cells. This theory has dominated the field of aging research for over fifty years. But now, a study published online today in the journal Genes & Development suggests that this theory is probably incorrect and that superoxide is not a major cause of aging. "The fact is that we don't understand much about the fundamental mechanisms of aging," says Dr David Gems from UCL. "The free radic...

Fasting intermittently reduces cell proliferation, a marker for cancer risk, Berkeley -- An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but could eating an apple every other day be better? A new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, raises such a possibility. It shows that healthy mice given only 5 percent fewer calories than mice allowed to eat freely experienced a significant reduction in cell proliferation in several tissues, considered an indicator for cancer risk. The key was that the mice eating 5 percent fewer calories were fed intermittently, or three days a week. What is encouraging about the findings is that the reduction in cell proliferation from that intermittent feeding regimen was only slightly less than that of a more severe 33 percent reduction in calories. Until now, scientists have been certain only of a link between a more substantial calorie reduction and a reduction in the rate of cell proliferation. The results of the study are scheduled to appea...

Estrogenic Stimulation of Hypothalamic-Limbic System Metabolism in Ageing Diabetic C57BL/KsJ Mice : "The therapeutic influences of estrogen treatment on age- and diabetes-related declines in regional brain glucose utilization (RBGU) rates were evaluated in 8- to 20-week-old female C57BL/KsJ normal ( /?) and diabetic (db/db) mice. [...] A gradual decline in the basal rate of brain glucose utilization was observed in all control (oil- and E-treated) groups between 8 and 20 weeks. Expression of the hyperglycemic-obese diabetes syndrome in db/db mice resulted in a significant reduction in regional brain glucose utilization RBGU rates between 8 and 20 weeks relative to control values. [...] These data demonstrate that the normal development-related decline in regional brain carbohydrate metabolism is accelerated by the diabetes syndrome, and that Estrogen therapy can modulate the syndrome-associated suppression of glucose utilization in steroid-sensitive CNS loci. These data suggest th...

Behaviour in Fronto-temporal dementia and Semantic dementia FTD - The frontal lobes The frontal lobes develop later in maturity. They help to control incoming information from the environment, and to guide our actions and behaviour (see diagram). When the frontal lobes don’t work as they should, the system of control begins to break down. This can affect behaviour in a number of ways. Planning and foresight People with FTD may lose the ability to plan future actions and anticipate the consequences of their actions. This lack of planning may lead to the following behaviours: * Inertia, apathy, lack of motivation – people with damage to the frontal lobes can become less proactive * Purposeless activity, impulsivity – sometimes people act quickly without thinking things through * Neglect of self care and personal responsibilities – lack of motivation to carry out simple tasks * Behaviour governed by immediate wants – lack of foresight may result in inappropriate judgeme...

The role of emotion in decision-making: Evidence from neurological patients with orbitofrontal damage Most theories of choice assume that decisions derive from an assessment of the future outcomes of various options and alternatives through some type of cost-benefit analyses. The influence of emotions on decision-making is largely ignored. The studies of decision-making in neurological patients who can no longer process emotional information normally suggest that people make judgments not only by evaluating the consequences and their probability of occurring, but also and even sometimes primarily at a gut or emotional level. Lesions of the ventromedial (which includes the orbitofrontal) sector of the prefrontal cortex interfere with the normal processing of ‘‘somatic’’ or emotional signals, while sparing most basic cognitive functions. Such damage leads to impairments in the decision-making process, which seriously compromise the quality of decisions in daily life. [...] OK, so here th...

Cigarette smoking exacerbates alcohol-induced brain damage Heavy alcohol consumption is known to cause brain damage. A new imaging study has compared 24, one-week-abstinent alcoholics (14 smokers, 10 nonsmokers) in treatment with 26 light-drinking "controls" (7 smokers, 19 nonsmokers), and found that cigarette smoking can both exacerbate alcohol-induced damage as well as independently cause brain damage. The damage is most prominent in the frontal lobes (important in planning, decision-making, and multi-tasking among other functions). Independent of alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking also had adverse effects on brain regions involved in fine and gross motor functions and balance and coordination. Roughly 80% of alcohol-dependent individuals report smoking regularly.

Orbitofrontal Cortex and Social Behavior: Integrating Self-monitoring and Emotion-Cognition Interactions -- Beer et al. 18 (6): 871 -- The Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience The role of the orbitofrontal cortex in social behavior remains a puzzle. Various theories of the social functions of the orbitofrontal cortex focus on the role of this area in either emotional processing or its involvement in online monitoring of behavior (i.e., self-monitoring). The present research attempts to integrate these two theories by examining whether improving the self-monitoring of patients with orbitofrontal damage is associated with the generation of emotions needed to guide interpersonal behavior. Patients with orbitofrontal damage, patients with lateral prefrontal damage, and healthy controls took part in an interpersonal task. After completing the task, participants' self-monitoring was increased by showing them a videotape of their task performance. In comparison to healthy controls and patien...

Molecular Switch in Brain May End Smokers’ Cravings - Health News - Health.com Blocking a neuropeptide receptor in the brain may be one way to quickly lessen the desire for a cigarette, a new study suggests. Hypocretin-1, or Orexin A, a short chain of amino acids found in nerve tissue, appears to initiate a series of closely linked biochemical reactions that makes lab rats crave nicotine, the addictive chemical in tobacco, according to researchers at the Scripps Florida research institute in Jupiter. If duplicated in humans, the finding could be lead to new smoking-cessation treatments, the researchers said. “Blocking hypocretin-1 receptors not only decreased the motivation to continue nicotine use in rats, it also abolished the stimulatory effects of nicotine on their brain reward circuitries,” study leader Paul Kenny, a scientist at Scripps Florida, explained in a news release issued by the institute. “This suggests that hypocretin-1 may play a major role in driving tobacco use in sm...

Drug/diet synergy for managing malignant astrocytoma in mice: 2-deoxy-D-glucose and the restricted ketogenic diet. - 7thSpace Interactive Astrocytomas are largely dependent on glycolysis to satisfy their bioenergetic requirements for growth and survival. Therapies that target glycolysis can potentially manage astrocytoma growth and progression. Dietary restriction of the high fat/low carbohydrate ketogenic diet (KD-R) reduces glycolysis and is effective in managing experimental mouse and human astrocytomas [...] The results suggest that management of malignant astrocytoma with restricted ketogenic diets could be enhanced when combined with drugs that inhibit glycolysis.

Fasting intermittently reduces cell proliferation, a marker for cancer risk, s...( Berkeley -- An apple a day keeps the do...) A new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, raises such a possibility. It shows that healthy mice given only 5 percent fewer calories than mice allowed to eat freely experienced a significant reduction in cell proliferation in several tissues, considered an indicator for cancer risk. The key was that the mice eating 5 percent fewer calories were fed intermittently, or three days a week. What is encouraging about the findings is that the reduction in cell proliferation from that intermittent feeding regimen was only slightly less than that of a more severe 33 percent reduction in calories. Until now, scientists have been certain only of a link between a more substantial calorie reduction and a reduction in the rate of cell proliferation.

Bottoms Up: Individualists More Likely To Be Problem Drinkers ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2008) — What makes residents of certain states or countries more likely to consume more alcohol? According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, high levels of individualism lead to more problem drinking. "We looked at the extent to which consumer levels of individualism (vs. collectivism) were related to their beer and problem alcohol consumption," write authors Yinlong Zhang and L.J. Shrum (both University of Texas-San Antonio). "We found that the higher a region scored on valuing individualism, the greater their beer and alcohol consumption, and this was true even when taking into account the effects of other variables such as income, climate, gender, and religion." [...] The researchers found that people with more interdependent mindsets were less likely to over-consume when they were with peers. "The results suggest that people with collectivistic cultural or...

Calorie Restriction And Exercise Show Breast Cancer Prevention Differences In Postmenopausal Women Epidemiological data has suggested that inducing a so-called "negative energy balance" (where less energy is taken in than expended) through eating a low-calorie diet or increasing exercise levels, decreases the postmenopausal breast cancer risk associated with obesity. Although the mechanism responsible for these anti-obesity strategies was unknown, scientists have suspected hormone alteration plays a critical role. Increased fat tissue is known to be associated with alterations in adipokines, proteins secreted by fat tissue that help modify appetite and insulin resistance. For example, increased levels of leptin and decreased levels of adiponectin have been associated with breast cancer risk. [...] The calorie-restricted mice and the exercised mice showed no significant difference in percentage of body fat, but both groups had significantly less body fat than the sedentary mic...

Type 2 diabetes may slow mental processing speed | Health | Reuters Diabetes may slow brain processing Some studies have linked diabetes and cognitive dysfunction, but a new study suggests that mental processing speed may be the brain function most severely affected by diabetes. Researchers looked at data from the AGES Reykjavik Study and found that people who had been diagnosed with diabetes were slower to process information than people who didn’t have diabetes. People with undiagnosed diabetes had similar problems, but those with pre-diabetes had mental functioning similar to people without diabetes. Both memory and “executive function or the ability to plan and multitask, were comparable in people with and without diabetes, though people who’d had diabetes more than 15 years also had impaired executive function, according to the report in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Want To Know What Is In Fast Food, Lots Of Corn! : ChattahBox : "Washington (ChattahBox) - According to a new study, a key ingredient in fast food is apparently corn! The study focused on three main fast food chains in Boston, Baltimore, Denver, San Francisco, Detroit, as well as Los Angeles. The study was led by A. Hope Jahren from the University of Hawaii, along with colleague Rebecca Kraft, and found the key ingredient to be corn. Using a special technique to analyze the food, they found high levels of both carbon and nitrogen, which means corn . The corn is able to fatten the cattle in a very short period of time. This could explain why fast food causes obesity at such a high rate. Their findings have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

Metabolic Syndrome and Psychiatric ... - Google Book Search Major depression It has long been known that a disproportionately large percentage of patients with diabetes also suffer major depression. The prevalence of major depression in diabetics, regardless of whether their diabetes is type 1 or type 2, is roughly 3 times that seen in the general population. However, the likelihood of depression is often increased in individuals dealing with serious and potentially disabling illnesses. Plus, the significance of the high prevalence of depression in diabetics, and whether it reflects some interaction between the two seemingly disparate conditions has not been entirely clear. Over recent years it has become apparent that there is a relationship between major depression and metabolic syndrome, which is frequently the precursor of diabetes type 2. Men and women with depression are more likely than those without depression to develop metabolic syndrome. People with depression often have ...

HowStuffWorks "How Nicotine Works" Effects of Nicotine Nicotine changes how your brain and your body function. The net results are somewhat of a paradox: Nicotine can both invigorate and relax a smoker, depending on how much and how often they smoke. This biphasic effect is not uncommon. Although the actions of nicotine and ethanol in the body are quite different, you also see dose-dependent effects when you drink alcoholic beverages. Your first drink may loosen your inhibitions and fire you up, but after several drinks, you're usually pretty sedate. Nicotine and the Body Nicotine initially causes a rapid release of adrenaline, the "fight-or-flight" hormone. If you've ever jumped in fright at a scary movie or rushed around the office trying to finish a project by your deadline, you may be familiar with adrenaline's effects: * Rapid heartbeat * Increased blood pressure * Rapid, shallow breathing Adrenaline also tells your body to dump some of ...

Insulin's Brain Impact Links Drugs And Diabetes Insulin, long known as an important regulator of blood glucose levels, now has a newly appreciated role in the brain. Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers, working with colleagues in Texas, have found that insulin levels affect the brain's dopamine systems, which are involved in drug addiction and many neuropsychiatric conditions. In addition to suggesting potential new targets for treating drug abuse, the findings raise questions as to whether improper control of insulin levels -- as in diabetes -- may impact risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or influence the effectiveness of current ADHD medications.

The antidepressant properties of the ketogenic diet . Biological Psychiatry , Volume 56 , Issue 12 , Pages 981 - 983 P . Murphy , S . Likhodii , K . Nylen , W . Burnham Elsevier Article Locator Background The ketogenic diet is used to treat epilepsy refractory to anticonvulsant medication. Individuals with epilepsy often have behavioral problems and deficits in attention and cognitive functioning. The ketogenic diet has been found to effect improvements in these domains. It has also been suggested that the ketogenic diet may act as a mood stabilizer. Methods The present research used the Porsolt test, an animal model of depression, to determine whether the ketogenic diet has antidepressant properties. Porsolt test scores of rats on the ketogenic diet were compared with those of rats on a control diet. Results The rats on the ketogenic diet spent less time immobile, suggesting that rats on the ketogenic diet, like rats treated with antidepressants, are less likely to e...

Wiley InterScience :: JOURNALS :: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society ABSTRACT Objectives: To evaluate the association between insulin resistance (IR) and executive dysfunction in a large, population-based study of older persons without diabetes mellitus (DM) or dementia. [...] Measurements: Anthropometric measurements; plasma fasting levels of glucose, insulin, cholesterol (total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol), and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1); homeostasis model assessment (HOMA) to estimate degree of IR; Trail Making Test (TMT) A; TMT-B; TMT-B minus TMT-A (DIFF B–A); and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Results: IR (HOMA) was associated with longer TMT-B (correlation coefficient (r)=0.11; P=.006) and DIFF B–A times (r=0.10; P=.022). Subjects in the upper tertile of IR were older and had longer TMT-B and DIFF B–A than participants in the lowest tertile. After adjusting for age, sex, and years of forma...

Erectile Dysfunction Linked To Smoking Men who smoke cigarettes run an increased risk of experiencing erectile dysfunction, and the more cigarettes smoked, the greater the risk, according to a study by Tulane University researchers published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Frontal Lobe Injury Consequences of Frontal Lobe Injury The major role of the frontal lobes is the regulation of behavior. They coordinate attention, memory, language, perception, motor functions, and social behavior as we go about our daily living and vocational activities. In short, they put the human machine to work. When function is impaired, all of the other cognitive systems are affected even though they remain individually intact. The frontal lobes have been likened to the pilot of a Boeing 747, without whom millions of dollars worth of highly complex technology would sit idle at the airport. Recognition and appreciation of these deficits is critical to rehabilitation efforts with the closed head injured population. These deficits can be classed generally and include: * Problems of Starting--This may manifest as decreased spontaneity and initiation. Such individuals seem to lack motivation and may sit silently without apparent interest in or curiosity about surroundin...

USATODAY.com The number of children who take medication for chronic diseases has jumped dramatically, another troubling sign that many of the youngest Americans are struggling with obesity, doctors say. The number of children who take pills for type 2 diabetes — the kind that's closely linked to obesity — more than doubled from 2002 to 2005, to a rate of six out of 10,000 children. That suggests that at least 23,000 privately insured children in the USA are now taking diabetes medications, according to authors of the new study in today's Pediatrics. Doctors also saw big increases in prescriptions for high cholesterol, asthma and attention deficit and hyperactivity. There was smaller growth for drugs for depression and high blood pressure. "We've got a lot of sick children," says author Emily Cox, senior director of research with Express Scripts, which administers drug benefit programs for private insurance plans. "What we've been seeing in adults, we'...

Food Restriction Increases Dopamine Receptors -- Linked to Pleasure -- In Rats : "A brain-imaging study of genetically obese rats conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory provides more evidence that dopamine - a brain chemical associated with reward, pleasure, movement, and motivation - plays a role in obesity. The scientists found that genetically obese rats had lower levels of dopamine D2 receptors than lean rats. They also demonstrated that restricting food intake can increase the number of D2 receptors, partially attenuating a normal decline associated with aging. [...] It's not clear whether reduced receptor levels are a cause or consequence of obesity: Overeating may chronically reduce receptor levels, which, over the long term, could eventually contribute to obesity. But having genetically low receptor levels may also lead to obesity by predisposing the individual to overeating in an attempt to stimulate a "blunted" rewar...

Fructose Sets Table For Weight Gain Without Warning he University of Florida researchers hypothesized that a high-fructose diet could lead to leptin resistance, which in turn could lead to exacerbated weight gain in the face of a high-fat, high-calorie diet, a typical diet in industrialized countries. To test their hypothesis, the research team performed a study with two groups of rats. They fed both groups the same diet, with one important exception: one group consumed a lot of fructose while the other received no fructose. Two groups similar over six months During these six months, there were no differences in food intake, body weight, and body fat between rats on the high-fructose and the rats on the fructose-free diets. In addition, there was no difference between the two groups in the levels of leptin, glucose, cholesterol or insulin found in their blood. There was only one difference at the end of the six months: The rats on the high-fructose diet had higher levels of triglycerid...

Brains Sixth Sense For Calories Discovered In analyzing the brains of the sweet-blind mice, the researchers showed that the animals' reward circuitry was switched on by caloric intake, independent of the animals' ability to taste. Those analyses showed that levels of the brain chemical dopamine, known to be central to activating the reward circuitry, increased with caloric intake. Also, electrophysiological studies showed that neurons in the food-reward region, called the nucleus accumbens, were activated by caloric intake, independent of taste.

Insulin levels affect the brain's dopamine systems Insulin, long known as an important regulator of blood glucose levels, now has a newly appreciated role in the brain. Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers, working with colleagues in Texas, have found that insulin levels affect the brain's dopamine systems, which are involved in drug addiction and many neuropsychiatric conditions. In addition to suggesting potential new targets for treating drug abuse, the findings raise questions as to whether improper control of insulin levels - as in diabetes - may impact risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or influence the effectiveness of current ADHD medications. The study, led by Aurelio Galli, Ph.D., in the Center for Molecular Neuroscience and Calum Avison, Ph.D., in the Institute of Imaging Science (VUIIS), appears online this week in the Public Library of Science Biology (PLoS Biology). [...] The results are some of the first to link insulin status an...

Is ADHD An Advantage For Nomadic Tribesmen? : "A propensity for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) might be beneficial to a group of Kenyan nomads, according to new research. Scientists have shown that an ADHD-associated version of the gene DRD4 is associated with better health in nomadic tribesmen, and yet may cause malnourishment in their settled cousins." A study led by Dan Eisenberg, an anthropology graduate student from Northwestern University in the US, analyzed the correlates of body mass index (BMI) and height with two genetic polymorphisms in dopamine receptor genes, in particular the 48 base pair (bp) repeat polymorphism in the dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) gene. The DRD4 gene codes for a receptor for dopamine, one of the chemical messengers used in the brain. According to Eisenberg "this gene is likely to be involved in impulsivity, reward anticipation and addiction". One version of the DRD4 gene, the '7R allele', is believed to be asso...

Failure of magnesium to maintain self-administration in cocaine-naive rats. : "Title: Failure of magnesium to maintain self-administration in cocaine-naive rats. Author: Kantak, K M : Bourg, J F : Lawley, S I Citation: Pharmacol-Biochem-Behav. 1990 May; 36(1): 9-12 Abstract: Previous research has shown that magnesium interacts with cocaine in such a way that it potentiates its action in a variety of behavioral situations. More recently, it has been demonstrated that magnesium will dose dependently substitute for cocaine self-administration and reduce the intake of cocaine. It is of considerable interest to determine if magnesium would be self-administered in cocaine-naive animals. The results of two experiments demonstrate that magnesium is not self-administered by cocaine-naive rats since although responding for magnesium chloride is above hypertonic saline control levels on day 1 of access, this responding is not maintained on subsequent days, does not occur in a regularly space...

I have been reading about magnesium lately! Fascinating stuff. It is low in people with diabetes, ADD, migranes, leg cramps, depression, and more. Low magnesium causes carb cravings. Women having PMS are low in magnesium, and crave chocolate, which is high in magnesium. Lots of calcium drives magnesium out of the body, so balance out your supplements. Coffee, alcohol, stress, diabetes, diuretics and carbs lower magnesium. Healthnotes Newswire: Magnesium Reduces Opiate Dependency and Cocaine Cravings - Medfinds Magnesium Reduces Opiate Dependency and Cocaine Cravings By Darin Ingels, ND Healthnotes Newswire (August 14, 2003)?People addicted to opiate drugs, such as heroin and morphine, may be able to reduce their use by taking oral magnesium, according to a new study in Journal of Addictive Diseases (2003;22:49?61). Magnesium may also help cocaine addicts experience fewer cravings for the drug, although it is not clear that it reduces cocaine use. --------- Mineral deficiencies. In addi...