Constant tinnitus is linked to altered brain activity

January 26, 2022

Science Daily/Karolinska Institutet

There has to date been no reliable objective method of diagnosing tinnitus. Researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden now show that brainstem audiometry can be used to measure changes in the brain in people with constant tinnitus. The study has been published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Tinnitus is currently not classified as a distinct disorder, but as a symptom with many possible causes, such as impaired hearing, noise, disease or stress. Tinnitus is often described as a phantom sound that is only audible to the sufferer. Today, some 20 per cent of the Swedish population has some form of tinnitus, and the risk increases with age.

Measuring brain activity

The degree of tinnitus severity is currently defined by a process of self-rating. A study by scientists at Karolinska Institutet conducted in collaboration with the company Decibel Therapeutics has now shown that auditory brainstem responses (ABR) is a possible objective diagnostic tool in identifying people with constant tinnitus. ABR measures the activity of the brain in response to a specific sequence of sound stimuli.

"We believe that our ABR method can be sufficiently sensitive to be used as a diagnostic tool," says Christopher R. Cederroth, researcher at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet. "The method measures the actual neural alterations in the brainstem in people with constant tinnitus, which could become a future biomarker.

Acknowledgement for patients

ABR has previously been put forward as a tool for measuring tinnitus, but it has not reached scientific consensus. No earlier study has, however, included as many participants as this one. Here, the researchers have done ABR measurements on 405 individuals, 228 with tinnitus and 177 without. They observed in people with constant tinnitus a clear difference in the measures when compared to people without tinnitus, or people who rated their tinnitus as occasional.

"We need an objective diagnostic method for tinnitus, both to acknowledge the condition to sufferers and to promote the development of new therapies," says Christopher R. Cederroth. "Our study suggests a causal relationship between such alterations in the brain's neural activity and the development of constant tinnitus, but we need to do more studies to verify this. We also need to determine if our method can measure a therapeutic benefit."

Tinnitus is exacerbated

The researchers also followed over 20,000 people with no or varying degrees of tinnitus in order to track how the symptoms develop over time. Here the researchers showed that people with occasional tinnitus are at increased risk of developing constant tinnitus, especially if it recurs often. The study also found that for those who already experience constant tinnitus, the chances are that the problem will persist.

"It's important to know that if you've had recurring tinnitus, you're more likely to develop lasting tinnitus," adds Dr Cederroth. "We need to spread this information so that people with occasional tinnitus become aware of the risks and have the chance to act preventatively."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220126122458.htm

What’s good for the heart is good for the brain

January 26, 2022

Science Daily/American Heart Association

The same risk factors that contribute to making heart disease the leading cause of death worldwide also impact the rising global prevalence of brain disease, including stroke, Alzheimer's disease and dementia, according to the American Heart Association's Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics -- 2022 Update, published today in the Association's flagship, peer-reviewed journal Circulation. Experts say maintaining a healthy weight, managing your blood pressure and following other heart-healthy lifestyle behaviors can also support good brain health.

Optimal brain health includes the functional ability to perform all the diverse tasks for which the brain is responsible, including movement, perception, learning and memory, communication, problem solving, judgment, decision making and emotion. Cognitive decline and dementia are often seen following stroke and cerebrovascular disease and indicate a decline in brain health. Conversely, studies show maintaining good vascular health is associated with healthy aging and retained cognitive function.

The global death rate from Alzheimer's disease and other dementias is increasing considerably -- even more than the rate of heart disease death:

• Globally, more than 54 million people had Alzheimer's disease and other dementias in 2020, that's a 37% increase since 2010 and a 144% increase over the past 30 years (1990-2020).

• More than 1.89 million deaths were attributed to Alzheimer's disease and other dementias worldwide in 2020, compared to nearly 9 million deaths from heart disease.

• Global deaths from Alzheimer's disease and other dementias increased more than 44% from 2010 to 2020, compared to a 21% increase in deaths from heart disease.

• Deaths from Alzheimer's disease and other dementias increased 184% over the past 30 years (1990-2020), compared to a 66% increase in heart disease deaths during that same time.

Because prevalence and mortality data are tracked differently by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the U.S. compared to other countries, the Statistical Update does not offer comparable national data for 2020. However, nearly 2.9 million people in the U.S. were reported to have Alzheimer's disease and other dementias in 2017. Alzheimer's disease and other dementias combined were the leading cause of death among all neurological disorders, including stroke.

"The global rate of brain disease is quickly outpacing heart disease. The rate of deaths from Alzheimer's disease and other dementias rose more than twice as much in the past decade compared to the rate of deaths from heart disease, and that is something we must address," said Mitchell S.V. Elkind, M.D. M.S., FAHA, the immediate past president of the American Heart Association, a professor of neurology and epidemiology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and attending neurologist at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY. "We are learning more about how some types of dementia are related to the aging, and how some types are due to poor vascular health. Many studies show that the same healthy lifestyle behaviors that can help improve a person's heart health can also preserve or even improve their brain health. It's becoming more evident that reducing vascular disease risk factors can make a real difference in helping people live longer, healthier lives, free of heart disease and brain disease."

The 2022 Statistical Update highlights some of that research:

• In a meta-analysis of 139 studies, people with midlife hypertension were five times more likely to experience impairment on global cognition and about twice as likely to experience reduced executive function, dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

• Nearly half of all adults (47% or 121.5 million) in the U.S. have elevated blood pressure, based on 2015 to 2018 data.

• In a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies with up to 42 years of follow-up, people with obesity had three times the risk of dementia.

• Current smoking was associated with a 30%-40% increased risk of dementia, Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia, based on a meta-analysis of 37 prospective studies.

Having cardiovascular disease also increases the chances of developing brain disease:

• In a meta-analysis of four longitudinal studies, the risk for dementia associated with heart failure was nearly two-fold.

• In the ARIC Neurocognitive study (12,515 participants, average age of 57 years, 24% Black participants, 56% women), atrial fibrillation was associated with greater cognitive decline and dementia over 20 years.

• A meta-analysis of 10 prospective studies (including 24,801 participants) found that coronary heart disease was associated with a 40% increased risk of poor cognitive outcomes including dementia, cognitive impairment or cognitive decline.

There are also significant differences in the gender, race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status of people who are more likely to develop brain disease and dementia, an indication that social determinants of health also play a role:

• Of the more than 54 million cases of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias worldwide in 2020, almost 20 million were among men, compared to nearly 35 million women. More than twice as many women as men died from Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.

• A retrospective analysis of the 2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data found significant differences in subjective cognitive decline across non-white racial and ethnic groups when compared to white adults in the 20,843 respondents who reported being diagnosed with stroke. Compared to white adults, other racial and ethnic groups were more likely to report worsening confusion or memory loss that contributed to not participating in everyday activities or difficulty with work, volunteer, and social activities outside of the home at least some of the time. After adjustments for sex, age, education, income and comorbidities, Black adults were one-and-a-half times more likely and Hispanic adults were more than twice as likely than white adults to give up day-to-day household activities or chores because of confusion or memory loss. Black adults were almost three times as likely and Hispanic adults were more than four times as likely to report needing assistance with everyday activities compared to white adults. These findings are likely due to social determinants of health negatively impacting communities of color over their lifetime, advised Elkind.

Estimated U.S spending on dementias more than doubled from $38.6 billion in 1996 to $79.2 billion in 2016. Spending on dementias was among the top 10 health care costs in the United States in 2016.

"Like cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, dementia and other cognitive ailments are a tremendous emotional and economic burden across the globe," said Connie W. Tsao, M.D., M.P.H., FAHA, chair of the Statistical Update writing group, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and attending staff cardiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. "This new chapter on brain health was a critical one to add. The data we've collected brings to light the strong correlations between heart health and brain health and makes it an easy story to tell -- what's good for the heart is good for the brain."

Over the past several years, the American Heart Association has supported more than $46 million in research funding focused on brain health. In a $43 million collaboration with The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group, the Association is funding three projects that are now underway to find innovative ways to understand and improve brain health and cognitive impairment science. A $3.3 million grant in collaboration with global philanthropist and technology visionary Bill Gates is committed to advancing the scientific evidence base related to brain health and dementia. The project supports a new brain health and dementia technology research center at Boston University. Additionally, it will support the global exchange of research data to help scientists around the world collectively work in accelerating new discoveries related to heart and brain health, including the early detection and treatment of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.

"Advancing brain science through innovative research will help scientists shed new light on the causes and contributors to cognitive impairment and dementia, particularly as it relates to heart and vascular health. This is an important step in the Association's ongoing commitment to better understand how our brains age and how vascular health impacts brain health and overall well-being," said Elkind, who is a member of the Statistical Update writing committee. "Additionally, it's critical that as a society and as individuals we understand and make the changes needed to improve health outcomes from brain disease and, more importantly, prevent them to begin with."

Along with new information on brain health, the 2022 Statistical Update provides the latest available data on key factors related to heart disease and stroke:

• On average, someone dies of cardiovascular disease (CVD) every 36 seconds in the U.S. There are 2,396 deaths from CVD each day, based on 2019 data.

• On average, someone in the U.S. has a stroke every 40 seconds. There are about 795,000 new or recurrent strokes each year, based on 1999 data.

• On average, someone dies of a stroke every 3 minutes and 30 seconds in the U.S. There are about 411 deaths from stroke each day, based on 2019 data.

• Approximately 1 in 4 (24%) U.S. adults reported achieving adequate leisure-time aerobic and muscle-strengthening activities to meet the physical activity guidelines, based on 2018 data.

• 1 in 7 male adults and 1 in 8 female adults in the U.S. are current smokers, based on 2019 data.

Tracking such trends is one of the reasons the American Heart Association publishes the definitive statistical update annually, providing a comprehensive resource of the most current data, relevant scientific findings and assessment of the impact of cardiovascular disease nationally and globally.

The U.S. data is gathered in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health and other government agencies, while the global trends are provided by the Global Burden of Disease Study from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

The annual update represents a compilation of the newest, most relevant statistics on heart disease, stroke and risk factors impacting cardiovascular health. It tracks trends related to ideal cardiovascular health, social determinants of health, global cardiovascular health, cardiovascular health genetics and health care costs. Tsao emphasized the importance of this surveillance as a critical resource for the lay public, policy makers, media professionals, clinicians, health care administrators, researchers, health advocates and others seeking the best available data on these factors and conditions.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220126090523.htm

People who are depressed may be more susceptible to misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines

Among surveyed adults, those with depressive symptoms were more likely to believe false statements about COVID-19 vaccines

January 21, 2022

Science Daily/Massachusetts General Hospital

In a 50-state survey-based study, adults with depressive symptoms were twice as likely to support misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. People who endorsed false statements were half as likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

A general bias toward negativity -- or the tendency to focus on negative rather than positive information -- may exacerbate the spread of misinformation. Because depression may contribute to such negativity bias, a team led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) examined whether people who experience depressive symptoms may be more receptive to misinformation related to COVID-19 vaccines. Their findings are published in JAMA Network Open.

"One of the notable things about depression is that it can cause people to see the world differently -- sort of the opposite of rose-colored glasses. That is, for some depressed people, the world appears as a particularly dark and dangerous place," says lead author Roy H. Perlis, MD, MSc, associate chief of research in the Department of Psychiatry and director of the Center for Quantitative Health at MGH. "We wondered whether people seeing the world this way might also be more susceptible to believing misinformation about vaccines. If you already think the world is a dangerous place, you might be more inclined to believe that vaccines are dangerous -- even though they are not."

To investigate, Perlis and his colleagues examined responses from 15,464 adults from all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., who completed an internet survey between May and July 2021 that included statements related to COVID-19 vaccines after answering a questionnaire that measured depressive symptoms.

The team found that levels of depression are at least three times higher than what they were before the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants with moderate or greater major depressive symptoms on the initial questionnaire were more likely to endorse at least one of four false statements about COVID-19 vaccines on the subsequent survey, and those who endorsed these statements were less likely to be vaccinated. Specifically, the presence of depression was associated with a 2.2-times higher likelihood of endorsing misinformation, and respondents endorsing at least one misinformation statement were half as likely to be vaccinated and 2.7 times more likely to report vaccine resistance.

Perlis and his colleagues also analyzed data from the subset of 2,809 respondents who answered a subsequent survey two months later. Those with depression in the first survey were twice as likely as those without depression to endorse more misinformation than they did in the prior survey.

"While we can't conclude that depression caused this susceptibility, looking at a second wave of data at least told us that the depression came before the misinformation. That is, it wasn't that misinformation was making people more depressed," Perlis notes. Because the study also included questions about social media and news sources, the investigators were also able to exclude the possibility that the effect of depression was a result of getting news from different places. They also found that the effect was not limited to people with particular political beliefs or members of particular demographic groups.

The researchers note that the findings provide an additional motivation to ensure that people have access to treatment for depression and anxiety. "Our result suggests that, by addressing the extremely high levels of depression in this country during COVID, we might decrease people's susceptibility to misinformation," says Perlis. "Of course, we can only show an association -- we can't show that the depression causes? the susceptibility, but it's certainly suggestive that it might."

Perlis stresses that the results in no way blame misinformation on people with depression but rather suggest that depression may cause people to be more vulnerable to believing this misinformation.

Co-authors include Katherine Ognyanova, PhD, Mauricio Santillana, PhD, Jennifer Lin, BA, James Druckman, PhD, David Lazer, PhD, Jon Green, PhD, Matthew Simonson, PhD, Matthew A. Baum, PhD, and John Della Volpe, BA.

This study was supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, Northeastern University, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and Rutgers University.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220121124824.htm

The best way to fix a sad mood: Whatever you think works best

Study finds advantage to believing you’re using your strengths

January 20, 2022

Science Daily/Ohio State University

What's the best way to improve a sad mood? It may be whatever skill you think you're best at, a new study suggests.

Think you're good at mindfulness techniques? Then that may work best for you. Or do you believe a more cognitive approach is your strength? Then use that.

Researchers found that people who were in a sad mood improved more quickly when they used a mood-improving method that they were told was their strongest skill. These participants improved more quickly than people asked to use a skill that they were told was a relative weakness.

"We found that it helps people to think they're working with their strengths rather than something they see as a weakness," said Samuel Murphy, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in psychology at The Ohio State University.

What may be most surprising about the study, though, is that participants were randomly told that they were best at one mood-enhancing skill or the other.

"Our results suggest that whether participants were good at the skill was not relevant. It was the belief that they were good at that skill that made it effective," said study co-author Daniel Strunk, professor of psychology and head of Ohio State's Depression Research Laboratory.

The study was published online recently in the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

One reason for this finding's importance is that for many years, psychotherapists focused on trying to fix what was wrong with their clients. In recent years, it has become more common to focus on a client's strengths and use them to help deal with their problems, such as depression.

But researchers are still learning how focusing on strengths helps clients, Strunk said.

"How therapists frame the treatment for a client may play an important role in how well it works. Telling clients that you're going to be working on their strengths may further enhance the effectiveness of their treatment," Strunk said.

The study involved 616 undergraduate students. The researchers briefly told participants about two therapy skills -- cognitive and mindfulness -- that they said may be useful in their everyday lives. Both are used by therapists to help clients with issues such as depression.

Cognitive skills were defined as identifying and re-evaluating negative thoughts and beliefs. Mindfulness skills were defined as awareness and acceptance of one's thoughts and feelings without trying to change them.

Participants were then given a hypothetical situation in which they could use those skills -- feeling hurt by not being invited to a social event by a friend -- and directed to practice both skills and complete some measures on how they used them.

Each participant was randomly told that one of the skills -- cognitive or mindfulness -- was their strongest skill or their weakest skill and they would be using that skill in the next part of the experiment -- a "sad mood induction."

The researchers then made participants sad by having them vividly imagine someone they cared about dying while they listened to the sad song "Russia under the Mongolian Yoke," played at half speed to make it sound even sadder.

As expected, most people reported a significant decrease in mood immediately following the induction. Participants were then asked to respond to five mood assessments in the minutes after the sad mood induction.

All participants saw their mood gradually improve after the induction was over. Results showed that whether they were asked to use cognitive or mindfulness skills didn't have a significant effect on mood recovery -- but the framing of whether they were told it was their strongest or weakest skill did.

Participants who were told that the skill they would use was their strongest -- regardless of whether it was cognitive or mindfulness -- saw a bigger improvement in mood than participants who worked with a skill they were told was their weakest.

The study results can't say for sure why framing the intervention as a strength provided better results.

"It may be that if there is this initial encouragement early on that they are really good at one particular strategy, that may inspire greater confidence and persistence in using this skill, which leads to better results," Murphy said.

Or it may be the other way around.

"People may be discouraged if they're told a particular skill is their weakness and not try as hard or be as confident that it will work," Strunk said.

The researchers said the findings may be helpful to therapists who focus on building clients' strengths. "It is very easy to let clients know that you're building on their strengths, so if it enhances the benefit, that will be important to try," Murphy said.

Strunk added that the results could help anyone dealing with a problem like a sad mood.

"We only studied mindfulness and cognitive skills here, but there are a variety of approaches to improving mental health," he said. "The ones that you think would work best for you probably will indeed work best."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220120091219.htm

The circadian clock in heart failure

January 17, 2022

Science Daily/Baylor College of Medicine

Disrupting circadian rhythms, which change naturally on a 24-hour cycle, has been implicated in heart disease, but it is unclear how it leads to the condition. A research team at Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions investigated the function of the protein Rev-erbα/β, a key component of the circadian clock, on heart disease development in animal models and human patients.

The team reports in the journal Circulation that Rev-erbα/β in cardiomyocytes mediates a normal metabolic rhythm that enables the cells to prefer lipids as a source of energy during the animal's resting time, daytime for mice. Removing Rev-erbα/β disrupts this rhythm, reduces the cardiomyocytes' ability to use lipids in the resting time and leads to progressive dilated cardiomyopathy and lethal heart failure.

"We studied how the Rev-erbα/β gene influenced the metabolism of the heart by knocking it out specifically in mouse cardiomyocytes," said co-corresponding author Dr. Zheng Sun, associate professor of medicine, section of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism and of molecular and cellular biology at Baylor. "Lacking the gene resulted in progressive heart damage that led to heart failure."

To learn how Rev-erbα/β mediated its effects, the team analyzed gene and protein expression and a comprehensive panel of metabolites and lipids, during both the awake and sleep hours. They found that the Rev-erbα/β gene is highly expressed only during the sleep hours, and its activity is associated with fat and sugar metabolisms.

"The heart responds differently to different sources of energy, depending on the time of the day," explains co-corresponding author Dr. Lilei Zhang, assistant professor of molecular and human genetics and of molecular physiology and biophysics at Baylor. "In the resting phase, which for humans is at night and for mice in the day, the heart uses fatty acids that are released from fats as the main source of energy. In the active phase, which is during the day for people and at night for mice, the heart has some resistance to dietary carbohydrates. We found that without Rev-erbα/β, hearts have metabolic defects that limit the use of fatty acids when resting, and there is overuse of sugar in the active phase."

"We suspected that when Rev-erbα/β knockout hearts cannot burn fatty acids efficiently in the resting phase, then they don't have enough energy to beat. That energy deficiency would probably lead to changes in the heart that resulted in progressive dilated cardiomyopathy," said Sun, a member of Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

To test this hypothesis, the researchers determined whether restoring the defect in fatty acid use would improve the condition.

"We know that fatty acid use can be controlled by lipid-sensing metabolic pathways. We hypothesized that if we fed the Rev-erbα/β knockout mice more lipids, maybe the lipid-sensing pathways would be activated, override the defect and consequently the heart would be able to derive energy from lipids," Sun explained.

The researchers fed Rev-erbα/β knockout mice one of two high-fat diets. One diet was mostly high-fat. The other was a high-fat/high-sucrose diet, resembling human diets that promote obesity and insulin resistance. "The high-fat/high-sucrose diet partially alleviated the cardiac defects, but the high-fat diet did not," Sun said.

"These findings support that the metabolic defect that prevents the heart cells from using fatty acids as fuel is causing the majority of the cardiac dysfunction we see in the Rev-erbα/β knockout mice. Importantly, we also show that correcting the metabolic defect can help improve the condition," Zhang said.

Clinical implications in obesity paradox and chronotherapy

"There are three clinical implications from this work," Sun said. "First, we analyzed the molecular clock function in heart tissues of patients with dilated cardiomyopathy who had received heart transplants to explore whether the clock function was associated with the severity of cardiac dilation in humans. Tissue samples were taken at different times of the day and the ratio of the gene expression of the circadian genes Rev-erbα/β and Bmal1 was calculated providing a chronotype. We found that the heart chronotype correlates with the severity of cardiac dilation."

"The second implication is that obesity and insulin resistance, long-known clinical risk factors for heart failure, can be paradoxically protective against heart failure, within a certain time window, probably by providing fatty acids in the resting phase," Sun said.

Finally, the researchers explored the possibility of pharmacologically manipulating fatty acid and sugar metabolism to improve the condition. They found that while medications can help restore the altered metabolic pathways, it was important to give the drugs aligned with the internal circadian rhythm of the corresponding metabolic pathways. If the drugs were given out-of-sync with the pathway they were intended to restore, the treatment did not improve the cardiac condition."

These findings highlight the importance of chronotherapy, the scheduling of medications according to the circadian rhythm, not just in this study, but for many other medications.

"Of the top 100 most prescribed drugs in the U.S., at least half of them have a target that is connected to a circadian rhythm," Zhang said. "This indicates that for these drugs to be effective, they need to be taken in a time-specific way. Unfortunately, they are not. We want to emphasize the importance of taking the circadian rhythm into consideration when scheduling medications."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220117085825.htm

Repeated exposure to major disasters has long-term mental health impacts

January 16, 2022

Science Daily/Texas A&M University

Repeated exposure to major disasters does not make people mentally stronger, a recent study from the Texas A&M University School of Public Health found: individuals who have been repeatedly exposed to major disasters show a reduction in mental health scores.

Additionally, the research team found that the more experience the individuals had with such events, the lower their mental health was.

"We discovered the reverse of the adage 'what does not kill you makes you stronger,'" said the study's lead author Garett Sansom, research assistant professor in the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health at the School of Public Health.

Sansom and a team of Texas A&M researchers studied individuals from the Houston area, which is susceptible to hurricanes and flooding as well as industrial emergencies. The results of the study were published recently in the journal Natural Hazards.

From 2000 to 2020, Texas -- one of the states most prone to natural disasters -- experienced 33 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) declared major disasters. Many of these -- hurricanes, winter weather, drought and flooding -- impacted the Houston area. The area has also been impacted by emergencies such as explosions and chemical releases at nearby industrial facilities.

According to the research team, the combination of natural disasters and emergencies from industrial facilities presents a unique opportunity to observe the impacts.

"There is an unfortunate truth that many communities that reside along the Gulf Coast are at the nexus of exposures from natural and anthropogenic, or human-caused, hazards," Sansom said.

The team used a 12-item short form health survey to gather information. The survey assessed cumulative impacts from exposure to evaluate changes over time, producing a composite score for both mental (MCS) and physical (PCS) health.

The majority of the respondents reported that they experienced many hazardous events over the past five years. Hurricanes and flooding (96.35 percent) were the events experienced the most, followed by industrial fires (96.08), chemical spills (86.84) and tornados (79.82).

The team found that when individuals experienced two or more events over the past five years, their MCS averages fell below the expected national levels.

"Mental health is often overlooked in responding to and preparing for hazard exposures," Sansom said. "However, in order to reach community resilience efforts, mental conditions need to be accounted for."

The results of the study help to reveal the long-term mental impact hazards can have. More importantly, they underscore the need for public health interventions targeted toward these individuals as well as the communities where they reside.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220116081920.htm

Stress associated with an increased risk of getting COVID-19

January 12, 2022

Science Daily/University of Nottingha

A new study has found that people who experienced increased stress, anxiety and depression at the start of the pandemic, were at greater risk of getting Covid-19.

The research, published in Annals of Behavioral Medicine, found that greater psychological distress during the early phase of the pandemic was significantly associated with participants later reporting SARS-CoV-2 infection, a greater number of symptoms and also more severe symptoms.

Professor Kavita Vedhara in the School of Medicine at the University of Nottingham, led the study, along with colleagues from King's College London and the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

Previous research has shown that psychological factors such as stress and social support are associated with increased susceptibility to viral respiratory illnesses and more severe symptoms.

During the Covid-19 pandemic there has been a well-documented deterioration in psychological wellbeing and increased social isolation. The purpose of this study was to find out whether people who experienced these difficulties during the pandemic were more at risk of contracting and/or experiencing Covid-19 symptoms.

The team of experts conducted an observational study of nearly 1,100 adults, who completed surveys during April 2020 and self-reported incidence of Covid-19 infection and symptom experience across the pandemic through to December 2020.

Regression models were used to explore these relationships, taking into account demographic and occupational factors.

The results showed that Covid-19 infection and symptoms were more common among those experiencing elevated psychological distress.

Professor Vedhara says: "The significance of the work is in that it turns the debate regarding the mental health aspects of the pandemic on its head. Our data show that increased stress, anxiety and depression are not only consequences of living with the pandemic, but may also be factors that increase our risk of getting SARS-CoV-2 too.

"Further work is now needed to determine whether and how public health policy should change to accommodate the fact that the most distressed people in our communities appear to be at greatest risk of Covid-19 infection."

Professor Trudie Chalder, Professor of Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy from King's College London said: "Previous work has shown a clear relationship between distress and the development of viral infections indicating a vulnerability. Our study found that distress was associated with self-reported Covid-19 infection and the next step is to investigate whether this association is found in those with confirmed infection."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220112145102.htm

Gum disease increases risk of other illness such as mental health and heart conditions

December 20, 2021

Science Daily/University of Birmingham

A University of Birmingham-led study shows an increased risk of patients developing illnesses including mental ill-health and heart conditions if they have a GP-inputted medical history of periodontal (gum) disease.

Experts carried out a first of its kind study of the GP records of 64,379 patients who had a GP-inputted recorded history of periodontal disease, including gingivitis and periodontitis (the condition that occurs if gum disease is left untreated and can lead to tooth loss). Of these, 60,995 had gingivitis and 3,384 had periodontitis. These patients' records were compared to those of 251,161 patients who had no record of periodontal disease. Across the cohorts, the average age was 44 years and 43% were male, while 30% were smokers. Body Mass Index (BMI), ethnicity and deprivation levels were also similar across the groups.

The researchers examined the data to establish how many of the patients with and without periodontal disease go on to develop cardiovascular disease (e.g., heart failure, stroke, vascular dementia), cardiometabolic disorders (e.g., high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes), autoimmune conditions (e.g., arthritis, Type 1 diabetes, psoriasis), and mental ill-health (e.g., depression, anxiety and serious mental illness) over an average follow-up of around three years.

From the research, published today in journal BMJ Open, the team discovered that those patients with a recorded history of periodontal disease at the start of the study were more likely to go on and be diagnosed with one of these additional conditions over an average of three years, compared to those in the cohort without periodontal disease at the beginning of the research. The results of the study showed, in patients with a recorded history of periodontal disease at the start of the study, the increased risk of developing mental ill-health was 37%, while the risk of developing autoimmune disease was increased by 33%, and the risk of developing cardiovascular disease was raised by 18%, while the risk of having a cardiometabolic disorder was increased by 7% (with the increased risk much higher for Type 2 diabetes at 26%).

Co-first author, Dr Joht Singh Chandan, of the University of Birmingham's Institute of Applied Health Research, said: "Poor oral health is extremely common, both here in the UK and globally. When oral ill-health progresses, it can lead to a substantially reduced quality of life. However, until now, not much has been known about the association of poor oral health and many chronic diseases, particularly mental ill-health.Therefore, we conducted one of the largest epidemiological studies of its kind to date, using UK primary care data to explore the association between periodontal disease and several chronic conditions. We found evidence that periodontal disease appears to be associated with an increased risk of developing these associated chronic diseases. As periodontal diseases are very common, an increased risk of other chronic diseases may represent a substantial public health burden."

The research was partly funded by Versus Arthritis's Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing Research based at the University of Birmingham, and supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre.

Caroline Aylott, Head of Research Delivery at Versus Arthritis, said: "Some of the biggest challenges of arthritis, especially auto-immune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis (RA) which affects 400,000 people in the UK, is being able to know who is more at risk of developing it, and finding ways to prevent it. Previous studies have shown that people with RA were four times more likely to have gum disease than their RA-free counterparts and it tended to be more severe. This research provides further clear evidence why healthcare professionals need to be vigilant for early signs of gum disease and how it can have wide-reaching implications for a person's health, reinforcing the importance of taking a holistic approach when treating people."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211220083114.htm

Trends in binge drinking among older men and women in the United States

December 8, 2021

Science Daily/Wiley

Binge drinking has increased in recent years among older U.S. men but not among older women, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

The study included 18,794 adults aged 65 years and older who participated in the 2015-2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Binge drinking was defined as consuming 5 or more drinks on the same occasion for men and 4 or more drinks for women.

Binge drinking among older men increased from 12.8% in 2015 to 15.7% in 2019 but remained stable among older women (7.6% to 7.3%). Having a college degree was associated with a higher risk of binge drinking among women but a lower risk among men. Men who were separated or divorced were also at higher risk, but women were not. Both men and women who reported use of tobacco or cannabis in the past month were at higher risks of binge drinking.

"Our study brings the most up-to-date findings on trends in binge drinking in older age, especially the unnoticed importance of understanding the unique demographic characteristics of binge drinking that differ in men and women given gender norms and expectations of societies that are consistently evolving. For example, we noted an increased frequency in education among binge drinking older women. Women with more education may have more opportunities to drink and may be less constricted by gender norms against women consuming alcohol," said lead author Tala Al-Rousan, MD, MPH, of the University of California, San Diego. "Moreover, our findings would encourage health providers who care for older men and women with chronic conditions who are at risk of binge drinking to offer tailored messages that are targeted at certain chronic conditions."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211208090023.htm

Half of all drinkers risk exceeding legal driving limit by underestimating how drunk they are

December 6, 2021

Science Daily/University of Cambridge

As many as a half of all drinkers underestimated how drunk they were, judging themselves still safe to drive despite having exceeded the legal driving limit, in new research published today.

Worldwide, drunk driving is a major problem, despite decades of health promotion activities. Road traffic injuries have become the leading killer of people aged five to 29 years, and recently, the World Health Organization has said that alcohol-related traffic accidents are one of the major causes. In 2019, between 210 and 250 people were killed in accidents in Britain where at least one driver was over the drink-drive limit, the highest level since 2009.

Drinking alcohol causes significant impairment to our motor function, and the more we drink, the worse this becomes. Drunk drivers may struggle to keep their vehicle in lane and have slow reaction times, as well as being more likely to take risks.

In research published today in the Harm Reduction Journal, a team of researchers from Witten/Herdecke University and the University of Cambridge studied how accurately participants were able to estimate their fitness to drive after drinking alcohol.

Ninety students (average age 24 years old) took part in an experiment on two separate days. Participants were split into two groups: a study group and a control group. Both groups consumed either beer or wine or both until they reached a maximum breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) of 0.11%.

The research was carried out in Germany, where the legal driving limit is a BrAC of 0.05% (in England and Wales, the level is 0.08%). In the study group, participants were told at the start that when they reached a BrAC of 0.05%, they would be switched from beer to wine or vice versa (though it was not explicitly explained that this was the legal driving limit).

The researchers monitored each participant's breath alcohol concentration using breathalysers. With each measurement, they asked the participants to estimate their own breath alcohol concentration. All participants were asked to come forward when they thought they had reached the legal driving limit.

The team found that on the first study day, more than a third (39%) of participants who believed they had reached the legal driving limit had in fact already exceeded this threshold. On the second day this proportion increased to more than half (53%).

Dr Kai Hensel from Witten/Herdecke University and the University of Cambridge, who led the study, said: "In countries with legal alcohol limits, it's usually the driver who makes a judgement about how much they've drunk and how fit they are to drive. But as we've shown, we are not always good at making this judgement. As many as one in two people in our study underestimated how drunk they were -- and this can have devastating consequences."

The researchers also noticed that participants became poorer at estimating their BrAC level the drunker they became. "This could have serious consequences in England and Wales, where the legal driving limit is higher, as it suggests that a significant number of people might misjudge how drunk they are and consider themselves fit to drive when in fact they have a potentially dangerously high level of alcohol in their blood," added Dr Hensel.

To see whether people were able to improve their ability to estimate how drunk they are, the researchers compared the volunteers' self-estimation of having reached the legal driving limit between the two study days. For the study group participants were better able to estimate how drink they were on the second day, but this was not the case for the control group.

Dr Hensel added: "Drinking and driving is a major risk fact for road traffic accidents. Anything that can be done to reduce these numbers is worth trying. With guidance, our participants were able to improve their judgement. It could be that pop-up stalls set up around drinking establishments that help people understand their breath alcohol concentration might help.

"Really, the best advice is that if you're driving, just don't drink. But if you really do feel like a drink, then look into your own alcohol tolerance. This differs from one person to the next, depending on your sex, weight and age, and there are some reliable apps out there that can help guide you."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211206220100.htm

Stress makes life’s clock tick faster: Chilling out slows it down

December 6, 2021

Science Daily/Yale University

Scientists in recent years have developed ways to measure biological age by tracking chemical changes in DNA that occur naturally as people age but occur at different times in different people. These so-called "epigenetic clocks" have proved to be better predictors of lifespan and health than chronological age.

In a new study, Yale researchers used one such clock, appropriately named "GrimAge," to ask two questions: How much does chronic stress accelerate that biological clock? And are there ways to slow it down and extend a healthy lifespan?

According to their findings, published in the journal Translational Psychiatry, stress does indeed make life's clock tick faster -- but that individuals can help manage the effects by strengthening their emotion regulation and self-control.

Rajita Sinha, the Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry at Yale, a professor of neuroscience and professor at the Yale Child Study Center, and one of the authors of the study, has spent decades studying stress and the myriad and pernicious ways that it erodes our mental and physical health.

Prolonged stress, for instance, increases the risk of heart disease, addiction, mood disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder, said Sinha, who is also director of the Yale Interdisciplinary Stress Center. It can influence metabolism, accelerating obesity-related disorders such as diabetes. Stress also saps our ability to regulate emotions and to think clearly.

A Yale team led by Sinha and Zachary Harvanek, a resident in the Yale Department of Psychiatry, decided to explore whether stress also accelerates aging in a relatively young and healthy population. Other co-authors included Ke Xu, an associate professor of psychiatry, and Nia Fogelman, an associate research scientist in psychiatry at Yale.

For their study, they enrolled 444 people, ages 19 to 50, who provided blood samples used to evaluate the age-related chemical changes captured by GrimAge as well as other markers of health. The participants also answered questions designed to reveal stress levels and psychological resilience.

Even after accounting for demographic and behavioral factors such as smoking, body mass index, race, and income, the researchers found that those who scored high on measures related to chronic stress exhibited accelerated aging markers and physiological changes such as increased insulin resistance.

However, stress didn't affect everyone's health to the same degree. Subjects who scored high on two psychological resilience measures -- emotion regulation and self-control -- were more resilient to the effects of stress on aging and insulin resistance, respectively. "These results support the popular notion that stress makes us age faster," Harvanek said, "but they also suggest a promising way to possibly minimize these adverse consequences of stress through strengthening emotion regulation and self-control."

In other words, the more psychologically resilient the subject, the higher the likelihood they would live a longer and healthier life, he said.

"We all like to feel like we have some agency over our fate," Sinha said. "So it is a cool thing to reinforce in people's minds that we should make an investment in our psychological health."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211206220043.htm

Coffee time: Caffeine improves reaction to moving targets

That morning coffee might be even more helpful than you think

December 1, 2021

Science Daily/University of Waterloo

In the first study of its kind to explore caffeine's effects on dynamic visual skills, researchers concluded that caffeine increases alertness and detection accuracy for moving targets. Caffeine also improved participants' reaction times.

"A lot of what happens in our environment is moving -- like trying to cross a busy intersection as a pedestrian or finding something on a shelf as you're walking through the aisles of a grocery store," said Dr. Kristine Dalton of Waterloo's School of Optometry & Vision Science. "Testing visual acuity under dynamic conditions can provide more information about our functional performance in these scenarios than traditional static visual acuity measurements alone."

Visual acuity, also known as clarity of vision or sharpness of vision, refers to a person's ability to detect and recognize small details and can be measured under static (stationary) or dynamic (moving) conditions. While both static and dynamic visual acuity provide important information about how we interact with the world around us, dynamic visual acuity skills are especially important in the many daily activities in which we, or objects around us are moving.

"While we already know that caffeine increases the velocity of rapid-eye movements, we wanted to further investigate how exactly caffeine enhances visual processing and facilitates the detection of moving visual stimuli by testing dynamic visual acuity," said co-author Beatríz Redondo of the University of Granada's Department of Optics.

On two separate days, half of the study's participants ingested a caffeine capsule (4mg/kg) while the other half ingested a placebo capsule. Using a computer-based test designed and validated at the University of Waterloo, each participant's dynamic visual acuity skills were measured before and 60 minutes after caffeine ingestion.

Researchers found that participants who had ingested the caffeine capsules showed significantly greater accuracy and faster speed when identifying smaller moving stimuli, inferring caffeine positively influences participants' stimulus processing and decision-making. Eye movement velocity and contrast sensitivity, which are implicated in dynamic visual acuity performance, were also sensitive to caffeine intake.

"Our findings show that caffeine consumption can actually be helpful for a person's visual function by enhancing alertness and feelings of wakefulness," Dalton said. "This is especially true for those critical, everyday tasks, like driving, riding a bike or playing sports, that require us to attend to detailed information in moving objects when making decisions."

The study, Effects of caffeine ingestion on dynamic visual acuity, co-authored by Waterloo's School of Optometry & Vision Science's Dalton, and the University of Granada's Redondo, Raimundo Jiménez, Rubén Molina and Jesús Vera, was recently published in the Psychopharmacology journal.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211201085155.htm

###

Sick and tired: Research reveals toll of poor sleep among health care workers

November 29, 2021

Science Daily/Columbia University Irving Medical Center

In a pair of recent papers, Columbia researchers and their collaborators have quantified the effect of the COVID pandemic on health care workers' sleep patterns and the potentially damaging consequences of sleep disturbance on their mental health.

The newest paper, published Nov. 24, finds that health care workers with poor sleep were twice as likely to report symptoms of depression than their better-rested colleagues and were 50% more likely to report psychological distress and 70% more likely to report anxiety.

That constellation of troubles could worsen the overlapping crises already enveloping health care. "Right now, a large percentage of health care workers are leaving their jobs because of the stress, producing a shortage of health care workers nationally," says the studies' lead author Marwah Abdalla, MD, assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. "With fewer workers on the job, the remaining staff must work more and longer shifts, exacerbating their sleep problems and stress."

It's hardly news that health care workers have been under immense stress during the COVID pandemic, something Abdalla, a cardiologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, has witnessed firsthand since early 2020. As a physician-scientist, she formed a team to study health care workers' reactions to the stress, with a special emphasis on the pandemic's effects on sleep.

During the pandemic's first peak in New York City, she and her colleagues conducted a series of surveys of health care workers' sleep habits and psychological symptoms. The group's first paper, published in August, summarized the sleep data, showing that over 70% of health care workers had at least moderate insomnia symptoms during the pandemic's first peak. Though that number declined alongside COVID case counts, nearly four in 10 still suffered from insomnia symptoms 10 weeks later when the first COVID wave was over and work schedules had returned to more normal levels.

Poor sleep not only affects patient care -- "We know that lack of sleep degrades quality of care for our patients and can increase medical errors," says Abdalla -- but also may also trigger symptoms of depression and anxiety.

In the second study, the researchers found that health care workers who reported poor sleep also reported higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression than health care workers who slept better.

Although stress, anxiety, and depression can arise among well-rested individuals, "sleep is essential to mental health and there is a bidirectional relationship," Abdalla says. "While we don't know from this study if psychological distress itself caused poor sleep or if poor sleep resulted in psychological distress among these health care workers, improving sleep can reduce psychological problems and vice versa."

Abdalla adds that if future studies can tease apart the direction of this relationship and the impact of poor sleep on mental health for health care workers during the pandemic, there may be several potential interventions, from cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia to increasing break room rest areas, and/or installing nap pods for hospital staff to use during long shifts. "For people who might be sleep deprived, encourage them to go and lie down for 20 minutes or 30 minutes," Abdalla says.

Improved sleep won't alleviate all the extra stress that health care workers face but may help to improve mental and physical health.

"Previous research has shown that sleep trouble increases your risk for chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, dementia, and cancer," says Abdalla. "If you have trouble sleeping, let this be a wake-up call."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211129122824.htm

Poor sleep linked to feeling older and worse outlook on aging, which can impact health

November 22, 2021

Science Daily/University of Exeter

Poor sleep in the over 50s is linked to more negative perceptions of ageing, which in turn can impact physical, mental and cognitive health, new research has revealed.

A study led by the University of Exeter and found that people who rated their sleep the worst also felt older, and perceived their own physical and mental ageing more negatively.

Lead author Serena Sabatini, of the University of Exeter, said: "As we age, we all experience both positive and negative changes in many areas of our lives. However, some people perceive more negative changes than others. As we know that having a negative perception of ageing can be detrimental to future physical health, mental health, and cognitive health, an open question in ageing research is to understand what makes people more negative about ageing. Our research suggests that poor sleepers feel older, and have a more negative perception of their ageing. We need to study this further - one explanation could be that a more negative outlook influences both. However, it could be a sign that addressing sleep difficulties could promote a better perception of ageing, which could have other health benefits."

Researchers surveyed 4,482 people aged 50 and over who are part of the PROTECT study. Run by the University of Exeter and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King's College London, and funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre, PROTECT is an innovative online study in which participants take regular cognitive tests and complete lifestyle questionnaires. The study aims to understand what helps people stay cognitively healthy in later life.

The research team noticed that many PROTECT participants were commenting on their relationship with sleep as part of standard questionnaires within the study. Comments included: "How I feel fluctuates widely depending on my sleep. I feel great if I get six hours so about half the time I feel younger and half the time I feel older!"

Another comment read: "I have chronic pain problems and get very little sleep which impacts on my life quite a lot."

As a result of such comments, the team decided to conduct a questionnaire looking specifically at sleep. In the research, published in Behavioral Sleep Medicine, participants were asked whether they had experienced a list of negative age-related changes, such as poorer memory, less energy, increased dependence on the help of others, decreased motivation, and having to limit their activities. They also rated their quality of sleep. The participants completed both questionnaires twice, one year apart.

Professor Clive Ballard, of the University of Exeter, said: "This research is an important part of the growing body of evidence about the crucial role of sleep in healthy ageing. We now need more people to sign up to PROTECT, to help us understand this further. We've got some exciting trials ahead on how to optimise sleep in some particularly vulnerable groups, such as people with dementia in care homes."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211122135512.htm

Study links stress to Crohn’s disease flare-ups

November 18, 2021

Science Daily/McMaster University

A possible link between psychological stress and Crohn's disease flare-ups has been identified by a McMaster University-led study.

Researchers using mouse models found that stress hormones suppressed the innate immune system that normally protects the gut from invasive Enterobacteriaceae, a group of bacteria including E. coli which has been linked to Crohn's disease.

Key to innate immunity is the protective barrier of epithelial cells in the gut, which rely on molecular signals from immune cells to keep out harmful microbes, repair the cell wall and secrete mucus. Without properly functioning immune cells, the epithelial cellular wall can break down, allowing microbes associated with Crohn's disease to invade the gut and trigger symptom flare-ups.

"The main takeaway is that psychological stress impedes the body's ability to fight off gut bacteria that may be implicated in Crohn's disease. Innate immunity is designed to protect us from microbes that do not belong in the gut, like harmful bacteria," said senior author Brian Coombes, professor and chair of biochemistry and biomedical sciences at McMaster.

"When our innate immune system functions properly, it prevents harmful bacteria from colonizing us, but when it breaks down, it leaves an opening for pathogens to colonize locations they normally cannot and cause illness."

The study was published in Nature Communications on Nov. 18.

Coombes said that removing stress hormones in the mouse models restored proper function to immune cells and epithelial cells, blocking the invasion of harmful microbes.

While this discovery could lead to new treatments for Crohn's disease, Coombes emphasizes these findings are still at the pre-clinical stage and more work needs to be done.

"The more we know about what triggers Crohn's disease, the closer we come to new treatments and potentially even disease prevention," said Coombes.

Crohn's disease is an inflammatory condition that causes inflammation, ulcers and scarring in the digestive system. While its root cause is still not fully understood, Coombes said patients with the disease often have an altered gut microbiome dominated by Enterobacteriaceae like E. coli.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211118061550.htm

Surprising findings on how salt affects blood flow in the brain

November 11, 2021

Science Daily/Georgia State University

A first-of-its-kind study led by researchers at Georgia State reveals surprising new information about the relationship between neuron activity and blood flow deep in the brain, as well as how the brain is affected by salt consumption.

When neurons are activated, it typically produces a rapid increase of blood flow to the area. This relationship is known as neurovascular coupling, or functional hyperemia, and it occurs via dilation of blood vessels in the brain called arterioles. Functional magnetic resource imaging (fMRI) is based on the concept of neurovascular coupling: experts look for areas of weak blood flow to diagnose brain disorders.

However, previous studies of neurovascular coupling have been limited to superficial areas of the brain (such as the cerebral cortex) and scientists have mostly examined how blood flow changes in response to sensory stimuli coming from the environment (such as visual or auditory stimuli). Little is known about whether the same principles apply to deeper brain regions attuned to stimuli produced by the body itself, known as interoceptive signals.

To study this relationship in deep brain regions, an interdisciplinary team of scientists led by Dr. Javier Stern, professor of neuroscience at Georgia State and director of the university's Center for Neuroinflammation and Cardiometabolic Diseases, developed a novel approach that combines surgical techniques and state-of-the-art neuroimaging. The team focused on the hypothalamus, a deep brain region involved in critical body functions including drinking, eating, body temperature regulation and reproduction. The study, published in the journal Cell Reports, examined how blood flow to the hypothalamus changed in response to salt intake.

"We chose salt because the body needs to control sodium levels very precisely. We even have specific cells that detect how much salt is in your blood," said Stern. "When you ingest salty food, the brain senses it and activates a series of compensatory mechanisms to bring sodium levels back down."

The body does this in part by activating neurons that trigger the release of vasopressin, an antidiuretic hormone that plays a key role in maintaining the proper concentration of salt. In contrast to previous studies that have observed a positive link between neuron activity and increased blood flow, the researchers found a decrease in blood flow as the neurons became activated in the hypothalamus.

"The findings took us by surprise because we saw vasoconstriction, which is the opposite of what most people described in the cortex in response to a sensory stimulus," said Stern. "Reduced blood flow is normally observed in the cortex in the case of diseases like Alzheimer's or after a stroke or ischemia."

The team dubbed the phenomenon "inverse neurovascular coupling," or a decrease in blood flow that produces hypoxia. They also observed other differences: In the cortex, vascular responses to stimuli are very localized and the dilation occurs rapidly. In the hypothalamus, the response was diffuse and took place slowly, over a long period of time.

"When we eat a lot of salt, our sodium levels stay elevated for a long time," said Stern. "We believe the hypoxia is a mechanism that strengthens the neurons' ability to respond to the sustained salt stimulation, allowing them to remain active for a prolonged period."

The findings raise interesting questions about how hypertension may affect the brain. Between 50 and 60 percent of hypertension is believed to be salt-dependent -- triggered by excess salt consumption. The research team plans to study this inverse neurovascular coupling mechanism in animal models to determine whether it contributes to the pathology of salt-dependent hypertension. In addition, they hope to use their approach to study other brain regions and diseases, including depression, obesity and neurodegenerative conditions.

"If you chronically ingest a lot of salt, you'll have hyperactivation of vasopressin neurons. This mechanism can then induce excessive hypoxia, which could lead to tissue damage in the brain," said Stern. "If we can better understand this process, we can devise novel targets to stop this hypoxia-dependent activation and perhaps improve the outcomes of people with salt-dependent high blood pressure."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211111154256.htm

Sleep disorders linked with more severe outcomes from COVID-19

November 10, 2021

Science Daily/Cleveland Clinic

A new Cleveland Clinic study found that people with certain sleep disorders have more severe outcomes from COVID-19, including a 31 percent higher rate of hospitalization and mortality.

The research team, led by Reena Mehra, M.D., analyzed retrospective data from 5,400 Cleveland Clinic patients. The findings, published in JAMA Network Open, showed that while patients with sleep-disordered breathing and sleep-related hypoxia do not have increased risk of developing COVID-19, they have a worse clinical prognosis from the disease.

"As the COVID-19 pandemic continues and the disease remains highly variable from patient to patient, it is critical to improve our ability to predict who will have more severe illness so that we can appropriately allocate resources," said Dr. Mehra, director of Sleep Disorder Research at Cleveland Clinic. "This study improved our understanding of the association between sleep disorders and the risk for adverse COVID-19 outcomes. It suggests biomarkers of inflammation may mediate this relationship."

Researchers used Cleveland Clinic's COVID-19 research registry, which includes data from nearly 360,000 patients tested for COVID-19 at Cleveland Clinic, of which 5,400 had an available sleep study record. Sleep study findings and COVID-19 positivity were assessed along with disease severity. The team also accounted for co-morbidities such as obesity, heart and lung disease, cancer and smoking.

The findings set the stage for additional studies to identify whether early effective treatments such as PAP (positive airway pressure) or oxygen administration can improve COVID-19 outcomes.

"Our findings have significant implications as decreased hospitalizations and mortality could reduce the strain on healthcare systems," said first author of the study Cinthya Pena Orbea, M.D, of Cleveland Clinic's Sleep Disorders Center. "If indeed sleep-related hypoxia translates to worse COVID-19 outcomes, risk stratification strategies should be implemented to prioritize early allocation of COVID-19 therapy to this subgroup of patients."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211110131628.htm

Sitting more linked to increased feelings of depression, anxiety

November 8, 2021

Science Daily/Iowa State University

As people adhered to stay-at-home orders or self-isolated during the early months of the COVID-19 outbreak, daily commutes turned into shuffles between the bedroom and the living room. Clicking Zoom links erased time spent walking to meeting rooms, and Netflix spilled into time otherwise dedicated to the gym.

In short, a lot of people suddenly became more sedentary during the onset of the pandemic. Recently published research found people who continued to spend a higher amount of time sitting between April and June 2020 were likely to have higher symptoms of depression. A closer investigation into this association could play a role in helping people improve their mental health.

"Sitting is a sneaky behavior," said Jacob Meyer, assistant professor of kinesiology at Iowa State University and lead author of the paper. "It's something we do all the time without thinking about it."

As the director of the Wellbeing and Exercise Laboratory at ISU, Meyer and his team look at how physical activity and sedentary behaviors are related to mental health, and how changes to those influence the way people think, feel and perceive the world.

"In March 2020, we knew COVID was going to affect our behavior and what we could do in lots of weird, funky ways that we couldn't predict," Meyer said.

To get a snapshot of those changes, Meyer and a team of researchers received survey responses from more than 3,000 study participants from all 50 states and the District of Colombia. Participants self-reported how much time they spent doing activities, like sitting, looking at screens and exercising, and how those behaviors compared to pre-pandemic times. Using standard clinical scales, they also indicated changes to their mental wellbeing (e.g., depression, anxiety, feeling stressed, lonely).

"We know when people's physical activity and screen time changes, that's related to their mental health in general, but we haven't really seen large population data like this in response to an abrupt change before," Meyer said.

Survey data showed participants who were meeting the U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines (i.e., 2.5-5 hours of moderate to vigorous physical activity each week) before the pandemic decreased their physical activity by 32%, on average, shortly after COVID-19-related restrictions went into effect. The same participants reported feeling more depressed, anxious and lonely. Meyer and his fellow researchers published their findings in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health last year.

Meyer's latest paper in Frontiers in Psychiatry served as a follow up to see whether the participants' behaviors and mental health changed over time. Participants filled out the same survey each week between April and June.

"In the second study, we found that, on average, people saw their mental health improve over the eight-week period," Meyer said. "People adjusted to life in the pandemic. But for people whose sitting times stayed high, their depressive symptoms, on average, didn't recover in the same way as everyone else's."

The participants who continued to spend a large portion of their day sitting experienced blunted mental health improvements.

Meyer emphasized that finding an "association" between sitting and mental health is not the same as saying more sitting causes depression. He said it's possible people who were more depressed sat more or that people who sat more became more depressed. Or there could have been some other factor that the researchers did not identify.

"It's certainly worthy of more investigation," Meyer said, adding that monthly survey data from June 2020 to June 2021 are intended to become publicly available soon. "I think being aware of some of the subtle changes we've made during the pandemic and how they might be beneficial or detrimental is really important as we look to the other side of pandemic life."

Meyer said both starting and stopping a habit is very difficult, even when someone wants to change their behavior. But he hopes more people will recognize that even a little bit of movement can improve their mood and mental health, and try to find ways to build it into their day.

Meyer recommended people take breaks when sitting for long periods of time.

"If you're no longer walking down the hall for in-person meetings, you can still incorporate that break from sitting by taking a short walk before and after your Zoom call," Meyer said.

People working from home can try walking around the block before and after the workday to mimic their pre-pandemic commute, which Meyer said can benefit people physically and mentally, and help add structure to the day.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211108114830.htm

Drinking alcohol to stay healthy? That might not work

November 2, 2021

Science Daily/PLOS

Increased mortality risk among current alcohol abstainers might largely be explained by other factors, including previous alcohol or drug problems, daily smoking, and overall poor health, according to a new study publishing November 2nd in PLOS Medicine by Ulrich John of University Medicine Greifswald, Germany, and colleagues.

Previous studies have suggested that people who abstain from alcohol have a higher mortality rate than those who drink low to moderate amounts of alcohol. In the new study, researchers used data on a random sample of 4,028 German adults who had participated in a standardized interview conducted between 1996 and 1997, when participants were 18 to 64 years old. Baseline data were available on alcohol drinking in the 12 months prior to the interview, as well as other information on health, alcohol and drug use. Mortality data were available from follow-up 20 years later.

Among the study participants, 447 (11.10%) had not drunk any alcohol in the 12 months prior to the baseline interview. Of these abstainers, 405 (90.60%) were former alcohol consumers and 322 (72.04%) had one or more other risk factor for higher mortality rates, including a former alcohol-use disorder or risky alcohol consumption (35.40%), daily smoking (50.00%), or fair to poor self-rated health (10.51%). The 125 alcohol abstinent persons without these risk factors did not show a statistically significantly difference in total, cardiovascular or cancer mortality compared to low to moderate alcohol consumers, and those who had stayed alcohol abstinent throughout their life had a hazard ratio of 1.64 (95% CI 0.72-3.77) compared to low to moderate alcohol consumers after adjustment for age, sex and tobacco smoking.

"The results support the view that people in the general population who currently are abstinent from alcohol do not necessarily have a shorter survival time than the population with low to moderate alcohol consumption," the authors say. "The findings speak against recommendations to drink alcohol for health reasons."

John adds, "It has long been assumed that low to moderate alcohol consumption might have positive effects on health based on the finding that alcohol abstainers seemed to die earlier than low to moderate drinkers. We found that the majority of the abstainers had alcohol or drug problems, risky alcohol consumption, daily tobacco smoking or fair to poor health in their history, i.e., factors that predict early death."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211102140652.htm

Men experience more emotional pain during breakups

November 1, 2021

Science Daily/Lancaster University

A new study of online relationship support finds that men tend to experience emotional pain more than women when their relationship takes a turn for the worse.

An international team of psychologists led by researchers at Lancaster University conducted the first-ever "big data" analysis of relationship problems. The study began as an attempt to create a map of the most common relationship problems experienced by people outside of clinical and counselling settings.

"Most of what we know about relationship problems comes from studies of people in couples therapy, which includes a rather specific subset of people -- people who have the time, money, and motive to work on their relationship problems" said Charlotte Entwistle, lead author of the study. "We wanted to understand not only what relationship problems are most commonly experienced by the general public, but who experiences which problems more."

Using natural language processing methods, the team analyzed the demographic and psychological characteristics of over 184,000 people who posted their relationship problems to an anonymous online forum. The researchers were then able to statistically determine the most common themes that came up across each post, creating a "map" of the most common relationship problems.

Results showed that communication problems were the #1 most frequent problem mentioned, with nearly 1 in 5 people noting difficulty discussing problems, and 1 in 8 mentioning trust issues in their relationships.

Previously unexpected patterns emerged from the data as well, including key gender differences in which themes were used the most.

"As we were conducting the study, we realized that this was an important opportunity to put a lot of common ideas about gender differences in relationships to the test" said Dr Ryan Boyd, the lead researcher of the project. "For example, are men truly less emotionally invested in relationships than women, or is it the case that men are simply stigmatized out of sharing their feelings?"

Analyses revealed that the most common theme mentioned by people talking about their relationship problems was about the emotional pain caused by the problems, rather than the problems themselves. The most common theme was about "heartache" and was comprised of words like regret, breakup, cry, and heartbroken.

Contrary to their expectations, the team's findings showed that men discuss heartbreak significantly more than did women. These findings suggest that the stereotype of men being less emotionally invested in relationships than women may not be accurate.

Charlottle Entwistle said: "Notably, the fact that the heartache theme was more commonly discussed by men emphasizes how men are at least as emotionally affected by relationship problems as women."

Additionally, the researchers found that men were more likely to seek relationship help than women in online settings.

Dr Ryan Boyd noted that "Traditionally, women are more likely to identify relationship problems, consider therapy, and seek therapy than are men. When you remove the traditional social stigmas against men for seeking help and sharing their emotions, however, they seem just as invested in working through rough patches in their relationships as women."

The team's findings have implications for the general public, as well as clinical settings. The researchers noted that developing a more accurate picture of relationship problems helps us to better understand when and why things go wrong in our relationships, potentially helping couples avoid the most common setbacks to romantic success. The study's authors also suggest the findings may also help to destigmatize help-seeking by showing how common many relationship problems are, and by showing that men are just as likely as women to seek help in the first place.

The researchers say that this work also points to important future directions for additional research. "One of the most important things that we're seeing here is that we're able to create an incredibly accurate picture of relationship problems that everyday people face based purely on what people say online" said Dr Boyd. "This gives us serious hope that we can use help-seeking behavior to better understand all types of social and psychological issues, and in a way that we simply cannot do using traditional research methods."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211101094832.htm