January 31st, 2011 by Dinah Miller, M.D. in Health Tips, Research
Tags: Amygdala, Anxiety, Brain Changes, Britta Hölzel, Calming the Mind, Dr. Dinah Miller, Gray-Matter Density, Harvard Medical School, Healthy Mind, Hippocampus, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Meditation, MRI, My Three Shrinks, Neuroimaging, Neurology, Psychiatry and Psychology, Relaxation Techniques, Shrink Rap, Sindya Bhanoo, Stress Reduction, The New York Times Well Blog
1 Comment »
Meditation sounds like a great idea from the perspective of a psychiatrist: Anything that calms and focuses the mind is a good thing (and without pharmaceuticals, even better).
Personally, I tried transcendental meditation as a kid (more to do with my mother than with me) and found it to be boring. I have trouble keeping my thoughts still. They wander to what I want for dinner, and should I write about this on Shrink Rap, and will Clink and Victor ever eat crabcakes with me again, and did I remember to give my last patient informed consent, and a zillion other things. Holding my thoughts still is work.
The New York Times Well blog has an article on meditation and brain changes. In “How Meditation May Change the Brain,” Sindya N. Bhanoo writes:
The researchers report that those who meditated for about 30 minutes a day for eight weeks had measurable changes in gray-matter density in parts of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. The findings will appear in the Jan. 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.
M.R.I. brain scans taken before and after the participants’ meditation regimen found increased gray matter in the hippocampus, an area important for learning and memory. The images also showed a reduction of gray matter in the amygdala, a region connected to anxiety and stress. A control group that did not practice meditation showed no such changes.
Lower stress, lower blood pressure, higher empathy. I may have to give meditation another try.
*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*
January 30th, 2011 by Glenn Laffel, M.D., Ph.D. in News, Research
Tags: Addiction Medicine, Addiction Therapy, Baylor, Blood-Brain Barrier, Cocaine Vaccine, Cornell, Dr. Glenn Laffel, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Fighting Addiction, Immunization, Immunology, Molecular Therapy, Pizaazz, Public Health
No Comments »
Although cocaine use has declined steadily since its peak in the early 1980s, public health officials estimate that about 7 million Americans used the drug at least once last year. Many of these folks are addicted to the drug, and its intense, short-lived euphoric effects mean the addiction is terribly difficult to overcome.
Addiction specialists believe existing treatment paradigms for cocaine addiction can be enhanced by a vaccine that prevents the drug from crossing the blood-brain barrier, thus blunting its euphoric effects. Scientists have worked hard to develop such a vaccine, but have had limited success so far.
About a year ago for example, Thomas Kosten and colleagues at Baylor reported partial success in a human trial of a cocaine vaccine. In that trial, 38 percent of subjects who received all five shots in the vaccine series achieved sufficient antibody levels to blunt the effects of the drug. In that subset, 53 percent of the subjects stopped using cocaine, meaning that overall, the vaccine worked about 20 percent of the time. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*
January 30th, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in Opinion, Research
Tags: ACP Internist, American College Of Physicians, BAT, Brown Adipose Tissue, Brown Fat, Domestic Indoor Winter Temperatures, Energy Expenditure, Losing Weight, Obesity, Overweight, Physiological Thermogenesis, Public Health, Ryan DuBosar, Seasonal Cold Temperatures, Thermogenic Capacity, Weight Loss
No Comments »
British researchers are trying to causally link raising the thermostat to obesity prevalence.
“Domestic winter indoor temperatures” appear to be rising, the researchers wrote, as is obesity. They focused on a causal link, focusing on acute and long-term effects of being comfortable in the winter.
They write: “Reduced exposure to seasonal cold may have a dual effect on energy expenditure, both minimizing the need for physiological thermogenesis and reducing thermogenic capacity. Experimental studies show a graded association between acute mild cold and human energy expenditure over the range of temperatures relevant to indoor heating trends.”
They also look at brown adipose tissue (BAT), aka “brown fat,” the type of fat that actually consumes energy instead of stores it. We all have this fat as infants, to help us regulate our body temperatures until our bodies learn to do it on their own. The researchers suggest that “increased time spent in conditions of thermal comfort can lead to a loss of BAT and reduced thermogenic capacity.”
Determining a link “may raise possibilities for novel public health strategies to address obesity,” although I shiver to think what those strategies might entail.
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
January 29th, 2011 by Medgadget in News, Research
Tags: American Academy of Neurology, BDS, Blood Pressure Control, Bristol, Deep Brain Stimulation, Frenchay Hospital, Hard-To-Control High Blood Pressure, Lowering Blood Pressure, Medgadget, Refractory Hypertension, United Kingdom
No Comments »
An unexpected discovery out of Frenchay Hospital in Bristol, UK showed that deep brain stimulation (DBS) can lower blood pressure, even in cases in which drugs are unsuccessful.
The discovery reportedly occurred when a 55-year-old patient received a deep brain stimulator to treat his pain from central pain syndrome that developed after a stroke. At the time of the stroke, the patient was diagnosed with high blood pressure, which could not be controlled despite taking four different drugs. The deep brain stimulator was largely unsuccessful at controlling the patient’s pain, but amazingly it decreased his blood pressure enough that he could stop taking all four medications.
Researchers confirmed the effects of the deep brain stimulator by turning it on and off over a three-year period, which showed an average of a 32/12 mmHg decrease in blood pressure when the stimulator was turned on and an 18/5 mmHg increase when the device was turned off.
This breakthrough could lead to a new form of treatment for those whose hypertension cannot be controlled by drugs.
Press release from the American Academy of Neurology: Deep Brain Stimulation May Help Hard-to-Control High Blood Pressure…
Abstract in Neurology: Deep brain stimulation relieves refractory hypertension
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
January 29th, 2011 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in Opinion, Research
Tags: Abortion, Contraception, Contraceptive Needs, Dr. Peggy Polaneczky, Emotional Health, Emotional Problems, Emotional Well-Being, First-Time Mothers, Mental Health, Mental Illness, New England Journal of Medicine, New Mothers, OB/GYN, Obstetrics And Gynecology, Parenting, Psychiatry and Psychology, TBTAM, Terminated Pregnancies, The Blog That Ate Manhattan, The New York Times, Unintended Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, Young Women
3 Comments »
Here’s yet another study showing that abortion does NOT lead to future psychiatric problems. From The New York Times:
The New England Journal of Medicine has taken on one of the pillar arguments in the abortion debate, asking whether having the procedure increases a woman’s risk of mental-health problems and concluding that it doesn’t. In fact, researchers found, having a baby brings a far higher risk.
The study, by Danish scientists (and financed in part by the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, which supports research on abortion rights), is the most extensive of its kind to date. It studied 365,550 Danish women who had an abortion or gave birth for the first time between 1995 and 2007. Of those, 84,620 terminated their pregnancies and 280,930 gave birth.
In the year after an abortion, 15.2 out of 1,000 sought psychiatric help (defined as admission to a hospital or clinic), which was essentially the same as the rate of that group (14.6 per 1,000) in the nine months before the abortion. In contrast, among women who went on to give birth, the rate at which they sought treatment increased to 6.7 per 1,000 after delivery from 3.9 per 1,000 before.
Why do first-time mothers have a lower overall rate of mental illness both before and after pregnancy than those who choose termination? The researchers suggest that those who have abortions are more likely to have emotional problems in the first place. Compared with the group who give birth, those who have abortions are also statistically more likely to be struggling economically, and to have a higher rate of unintended pregnancies.
And why do first-time mothers seem to nearly double their risk in the year after giving birth? That is likely to have something to do with the hormonal changes, decreased sleep, and increased stress of parenting, which women who terminate do not experience.
Can we please talk about something else? Like maybe how to help these young women with the issues and unmet contraceptive needs that led to unplanned pregnancy in the first place?
*This blog post was originally published at The Blog That Ate Manhattan*
