Pregnancy Alone Is Not Associated with Increased Risk for Mental Disorders
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Pregnancy alone does not appear to be associated with an increased risk of the most prevalent mental disorders, according to a report in the July issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. However, post-partum women may have a higher risk of major depressive disorder.
Pregnant women and those who have recently given birth are said to be exceedingly vulnerable to psychiatric disorders, according to background information in the article. Psychiatric disorders in these groups of women have been linked to poor maternal health, inadequate prenatal care and adverse outcomes for their children including abnormal growth and development, poor behavior during childhood and adolescence and negative nutritional and health effects. “For these reasons, accurate information about the mental health status of women during pregnancy and the post-partum period is urgently needed.”
Oriana Vesga-López, M.D., of New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, and colleagues analyzed data from interviews of 43,093 individuals who participated in a survey on alcohol, disorders and related conditions. Of these, 14,549 were women (age 18 to 50) who had been pregnant within the past year. Participants reported psychiatric disorders, substance use and whether they had sought treatment.
Members of Consumer-driven Health Plans Choosing Less Care
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Consumer-driven health plans (CDHP)—hailed since their inception in 2000 as a tool to help control costs—are resulting in members forgoing care and discontinuing drugs to treat chronic medical problems, according to two newly published studies.
Under employer-offered CDHPs, members pay up-front deductibles either out-of-pocket or from a dedicated health-care account before insurance coverage begins. Proponents—including President Bush and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain—argue that consumers in a market-oriented approach will make better health-care choices and drive health-care costs down by doing cost comparisons and accessing information about their conditions. Critics argue that people will instead opt out of important care.
The new research—published in Health Affairs and led by two University of Oregon policy experts—offers partial fuel to critics: Many CDHP enrollees were more likely to quit taking drugs that control high blood pressure and cholesterol-lowering medications than were participants with over medical coverage, said Jessica Greene, professor of health policy in the UO’s department of planning, public policy and management.
Leading worldwide cause of cardiovascular disease may be modified by diet
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A new article indicates that an increased intake in minerals such as potassium, and possibly magnesium and calcium by dietary means may reduce the risk of high blood pressure and decrease blood pressure in people with hypertension. A high intake of these minerals in the diet may also reduce the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke. These findings are published in a supplement appearing with the July issue of The Journal of Clinical Hypertension.
Potassium, specifically, has been hypothesized as one reason for the low cardiovascular disease rates in vegetarians, as well as in populations consuming primitive diets (generous in potassium and low in sodium). In isolated societies consuming diets high in fruits and vegetables, hypertension affects only 1 percent of the population, whereas in industrialized countries which consume diets high in processed foods and large amounts of dietary sodium, 1 in 3 persons have hypertension. Americans consume double the sodium and about half of the potassium that is recommended by current guidelines.
According to the paper, if Americans were able to increase their potassium intake, the number of adults with known hypertension with blood pressure levels higher than 140/90 mm Hg might decrease by more than 10 percent and increase life expectancy. Similar studies show that diets high in magnesium (at least 500 to 1,000 mg/d) and calcium (more than 800 mg/d) may also be associated with both a decrease in blood pressure and risk of developing hypertension. Data regarding these minerals, however, are not definitive.
Alcoholism-associated molecular adaptations in brain neurocognitive circuits
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After many years of heavy drinking, alcohol produces pathological alterations in the brain. In many alcoholics these changes culminate in massive social deterioration and disorders of memory and learning. Severe cognitive impairments occur in approximately 10% of heavy drinkers. Alcoholic dementia is the second leading course of adult dementia in the Western countries, accounting for 10% of the cases, and still represents an unresolved problem. So far no effective pharmacotherapy for memory problems in alcoholics is available.
Nowadays this problem can be approached by innovative research using molecular and epigenetic analyses, which yield new insight into brain pathophysiology.
Molecular dysregulations in endogenous opioids – a neurotransmitter system in the brain that is central to reward function and pain control – are supposed to play a critical role in the development of alcoholism and associated cognitive impairment.
Neurogenesis in the adult brain: The association with stress and depression
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The brain is the key organ in the response to stress. Brain reactions determine what in the world is threatening and might be stressful for us, and regulate the stress responses that can be either adaptive or maladaptive. Chronic stress can affect the brain and lead into depression: Environmental stressors related to job or family situation are important triggers of depressive episodes and major life events such as trauma or abuse amongst the most potent factors inducing depression.
The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that major depression will soon be the world´s greatest public health burden. Thus optimising antidepressive therapy with regard to delayed or insufficient treatment response and unwanted side effects is urgent.
Since the development of novel antidepressants is based upon an improved neurobiological understanding of this condition, new information about the cellular changes that take place in the brain is required.
Type 2 diabetes epidemic seen looming
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The current pattern of type 2 diabetes in young adults and trends in childhood obesity rates point to a dramatic impact on the future health of adults in the United States, concludes the writer of a report published Monday.
The bulging of kids’ waistlines, Dr. Joyce Lee warns, is apt to lead to a large number of younger adults with type 2 diabetes, the serious complications related to the disease, and ultimately, shorter life spans.
“The full impact of the childhood obesity epidemic,” Lee warns in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, “has yet to be seen because it can take up to 10 years or longer for obese individuals to develop type 2 diabetes.”
Regular exercise good for dementia patients: study
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Regular daily exercise benefits elderly women with dementia and these benefits appear to accrue over time, researchers from the Republic of Korea report.
Dr. Yi-Sub Kwak, assistant professor of sports medicine at Dong-Eui University in Busan, and colleagues compared daily functioning as well as mental and physical abilities of 30 women with senile dementia before and after half participated in a regular exercise program.
Their findings, reported in the International Journal of Sports Medicine, suggest “regular exercise improves the mental and physical health in senile dementia [patients],” Kwak told Reuters Health.
Note to pediatricians: Taper meds in kids with stable asthma
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A study of how pediatricians prescribe asthma medications suggests that while most would readily increase a child’s medication if needed, many are reluctant to taper off drug use when less might be best. A report on the study, led by Johns Hopkins Children’s Center researchers, appears in the July issue of Pediatrics.
“Asthma medications can have serious, albeit infrequent, side effects, and while under-treatment is undeniably a big problem, not stepping down treatment when a child is doing well may be too,” says lead investigator Sande Okelo, M.D., an asthma specialist at Hopkins Children’s.
In the research, conducted among 310 pediatricians nationwide, 40 percent said they would not step down high-dose treatment even if a child’s symptoms were well controlled and infrequent.
Pneumonia Most Common Reason for Hospitalization
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More than 1.2 million Americans – roughly equivalent to the population of Dallas – were hospitalized for pneumonia in 2006, making this lung infection the most common reason for admission to the hospital other than for childbirth, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Treating pneumonia cost hospitals $10 billion in 2006. The disease, which can be especially deadly among the elderly, occurs when the lungs fill with fluid from infection or inflammation caused by bacteria or a virus.
AHRQ’s new analysis of 2006 hospitalizations estimated admissions and hospitals’ costs for other common conditions:
Study Reveals a New Function for an Old Enzyme in Fatal Childhood Disease
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The lack of a single protein usually thought of as a run-of-the-mill enzyme that helps to recycle molecules in cells causes an incurable and often fatal disease of children, according to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital investigators.
Children with this disease, called sialidosis, suffer from enlarged spleens and often develop vision problems, loss of coordination and seizures, among other symptoms. The patients generally die within the first few years of life.
St. Jude investigators showed in test tube experiments and mouse models of sialidosis that the loss of the protein NEU1 triggers a catastrophic falling of biochemical dominos that ultimately leads to disruption of normal formation of mature blood cells. A report on this work appears in the July 8, 2008, issue of the journal Developmental Cell.
New fertility technique targets women with cancer
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A new technique may help newly diagnosed cancer patients preserve their eggs, and perhaps their fertility, before chemotherapy, German researchers said on Monday.
Currently, many women collect and freeze some of their eggs to try to have children after their cancer treatment, which can make them infertile. The process can take up to six weeks.
However, if a cancer diagnosis comes at the start of the menstrual cycle, many women are unable to delay chemotherapy and preserve their eggs, Michael Von Wolf told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.
It pays to go in an Indian public toilet
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It pays to use a toilet in southern India, as residents are earning close to a dollar a month by using public urinals, a scheme launched by authorities to promote hygiene and research in rural areas.
Dozens of people are queuing up to use toilets in Musiri, a remote town in Tamil Nadu state, where authorities have succeeded in keeping street corners clean with the new scheme, The Times of India newspaper said on Sunday.
“In fact, many of us started using toilets for urination only after the ecosan (ecological sanitation) toilets were constructed in the area,” said S. Rajasekaran, a truck cleaner.
Men past 40 face fertility problems: researchers
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Couples trying to have a baby when the man is over 40 will have more difficulty conceiving than if he is younger, French researchers said on Sunday.
Doctors know a woman’s age plays a key role but the findings presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference suggest the paternal impact is stronger than has been thought, Stephanie Belloc and colleagues said.
“Our data give evidence for the first time for a strong paternal effect on IUI (intrauterine insemination) outcome either on pregnancy rates but also on miscarriage rates,” Belloc and her team from the Eylau Centre for Assisted Reproduction in France said.
Mother’s vitamin D status during pregnancy will affect her baby’s dental health
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Low maternal vitamin D levels during pregnancy may affect primary tooth calcification, leading to enamel defects, which are a risk factor for early-childhood tooth decay. Today, during the 86th General Session of the International Association for Dental Research, investigators from the University of Manitoba (Winnipeg and Victoria) present the results of a study they conducted to determine the vitamin D status of pregnant women, the incidence of enamel defects and early-childhood tooth decay among their infants, and the relationship with pre-natal vitamin D levels.
Two hundred six pregnant women in their second trimester participated in the study. Only 21 women (10.5%) were found to have adequate vitamin D levels. Vitamin D concentrations were related to the frequency of milk consumption and pre-natal vitamin use. The investigators examined 135 infants (55.6% male) at 16.1 ± 7.4 months of age, and found that 21.6% of them had enamel defects, while 33.6% had early-childhood tooth decay. Mothers of children with enamel defects had lower, but not significantly different, mean vitamin D concentrations during pregnancy than those of children without defects.
However, mothers of children with early-childhood tooth decay had significantly lower vitamin D levels than those whose children were cavity-free. Infants with enamel defects were significantly more likely to have early-childhood tooth decay.
Heart failure outcomes worse in diabetics: study
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A new study shows that having diabetes independently raises the risk of illness and death in people with heart failure, which occurs when the heart loses its ability to pump blood efficiently.
A “novel finding,” according to the research team, was that having diabetes conferred a greater increased risk of heart-related death or need for hospital admission in individuals whose heart’s showed fairly well preserved blood-pumping power compared with individuals whose heart’s showed poorer blood-pumping power.
These are the findings of Dr. John J. V. McMurray of the University of Glasgow, UK, and colleagues who analyzed outcomes for nearly 7,600 patients with chronic heart failure.
