Optimism
May Help You Live Longer
By Jennifer Warner
WebMD Medical News
Seeing
the glass as half full rather than half empty may pay off
in terms of a longer, healthier life, according to new research.
The
study shows that older people who described themselves as
highly optimistic have a lower risk of heart disease or
death from any cause over nearly 10 years compared with
people who are very pessimistic.
Researchers
say depression has long been known to increase the risk
of death due to heart disease, but less is known about the
effects of an optimistic attitude.
The
results of the study appear in the November issue of the
Archives of General Psychiatry.
OPTIMISM
PROLONGS LIVE
In
the study researchers surveyed about 1,000 men and women
aged 65-85 about their health, morale, optimism, self-respect,
and relationships. Based on the participants' answers about
optimism, researchers divided them into four groups according
to their level of optimism.
After
nearly 10 years of follow-up, researchers found that compared
with people who reported a high level of pessimism, those
who were very optimistic had a 55% lower risk of death from
all causes and a 23% lower risk of heart-related death.
The
study also showed that optimism's protective effect was
stronger in men than in women for reducing the risk of death
due to any cause except heart-related death.
Researchers
say there are several factors that may explain the link
between optimism and longer life. For example:
* Optimism is associated with more physical activity, moderate
alcohol use in women, and less smoking.
* Optimism is associated with better health in general.
People in poor health tend to report more pessimism.
* Optimists may cope with stress differently and more effectively
than pessimists do.
Read
the complete article here: MSN.com
Intention
to be a Father Can Help With Conception
BBC
Wanting to be a dad can be enough to help conception, researchers
say. They
found testosterone levels surged when men were trying for
a baby.
The
research in New Scientist magazine looked to see if there
was any link between men's testosterone levels and their
sexual behaviour.
Scientists
at the Institute of Applied Psychology in Lisbon, Portugal,
led by Katherine Hirschenhauser, asked 27 men to measure
the testosterone in their saliva every morning for 90 days.
The
men were also asked to record their sex lives in intimate
detail, including the "intensity" of each encounter,
whether or not it was with their regular partner.
In
all the men tested, researchers saw peaks and troughs in
testosterone levels.
But
in those men who were trying for a baby, peaks in testosterone
levels coincided far more often with periods of intense
sexual activity.
This
makes biological sense, as rises in testosterone also trigger
hormonal changes which increase the production of sperm,
making conception more likely.
Katherine
Hirschenhauser, an expert in sex hormones, suggests men
can subconsciously influence their hormone levels.
Source:
BBC
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Having
Babies Alters Mother's Brain
Dallas Morning News
Motherhood
doesn't just change your life. It also changes your brain.
New
research, reported last month at a neuroscience meeting
in San Diego, suggests that having babies permanently
alters brain function.
If
you're a rat, it makes you better at finding and killing
dinner quickly. If you're a human, it helps you distinguish
between your baby's cry and that of other children.
In
either case, it's something fathers just don't get. Only
mothers undergo these changes.
"Clearly
these experiences are changing the female brain, but in
a way that's natural," said Craig Kinsley, a neuroscientist
at the University of Richmond in Virginia.
For
one thing, Kinsley has discovered that the brain changes
after a rat gives birth.
In
earlier research, he showed that mother rats are much
better at remembering where things are than rats that
have never had babies. That makes sense, he said, because
mothers have to be able to run away from the nest, forage
for dinner quickly and return with food for their babies.
In
new studies, he set up a real-life rat race to see whether
mother rats really were better at hunting. Virgin females
and lactating mothers were put in separate cages and given
five minutes to kill and eat crickets.
The
virgin rats took nearly the entire five minutes to snag
a cricket, Kinsley found. Mother rats nabbed the food
in just 70 seconds.
"It's
the difference between night and day," he said.
Interacting
with babies apparently alters the brains of mother rats
so they are better equipped to look after their young,
he reported at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
For
human mothers, the brain changes also include perking
up more at the sound of one's own baby crying than that
of other babies crying.
In
other research presented at the neuroscience meeting,
Dr. Jeffrey Lorberbaum and colleagues at the Medical University
of South Carolina took brain scans of 40 mothers and 10
fathers while they listened to infants wailing.
When
questioned, all the parents were able to distinguish their
own infant's cry. But the mothers and fathers showed very
different patterns of brain activity.
Mothers'
brains became more active in the limbic and basal forebrain
regions, primitive parts of the brain that have been linked
to emotional response. In contrast, fathers' brains became
more active in areas that are linked to thinking and planning.
So
there may be an anatomical reason to think that mothers
are more attuned to their children than fathers, Lorberbaum
suggested.
"Maybe
mothers are more hardwired to hear it," he said.
Source:
Dallas
Morning News
Stress
During Pregnancy Puts Babies At Risk
By Jo Revill
Healh Editor, The Observer UK
An
intriguing link between levels of anxiety in pregnant women
and the damaging effect on the brain of the unborn child
will be shown this week in a new study of ambidextrous children.
Researchers have discovered that women who are very anxious
in the middle of their pregnancies are significantly more
likely to have a child who is ambidextrous or 'mixed handed',
a condition associated with autism, dyslexia and hyperactivity.
It is the first time scientists have found such a link,
and they believe it may be necessary for midwives to tackle
mothers' stress levels to reduce the effects on the foetus.
The findings are based on information collected by a project
based at the University of Bristol which looked at the lives
of more than 7,400 mothers and children.
The data was analysed by Professor Vivette Glover from Imperial
College, London, who examined the rates of mixed handedness
or atypical laterality as it is known. The condition - where
people can use either hands for a range of tasks - is often
inherited, but is also thought to be affected by the hormonal
levels in the womb, particularly by the rates of testosterone.
Scientists make a distinction between ambidextrous people
who can use hands completely interchangeably and those who
are mixed handed, who have a favoured hand for each task,
although it may not be the same one.
Mothers were asked to report whether, at the age of three-and-a-half,
their child used the right or left hand for six tasks -
drawing, throwing a ball, colouring, holding a toothbrush,
using a knife and hitting things. Children who used either
hand for two or more tasks were classified as mixed handed
- something they found in 21 per cent of boys and 15 per
cent of girls.
After allowing for other factors, Glover found that a heightened
level of anxiety at 18 weeks of pregnancy was associated
with a 20-30 per cent rise in mixed handedness.
In a study she will present to a conference in Bristol this
week, she said: 'Given that there was no effect on postnatal
anxiety, the results support the hypothesis that the effect
of maternal mood took place in the womb. The results support
growing evidence for the importance of foetal programming
in humans.'
Previous research in animals has suggested that there might
be a link between antenatal stress and laterality - our
natural preference for using one side of the body. Until
now there has been no research to show if the same effect
applies in humans.
One interesting component of the study, published in the
journal Early Human Development, is that handedness was
only affected by the anxiety in the middle of the pregnancy.
No significant effect was seen in mothers who were anxious
at 32 weeks, or eight weeks after the birth of the child.
Whether the mother was depressed or not made no difference:
it was the mother's mood and a feeling of being worried
or stressed that counted.
Unlike our closest genetic relative, the chimpanzee, humans
tend to heavily favour one hand or the other. Some scientists
believe this has been crucial to the evolution of man, because
the division between the right and left-hand side of the
brain, which governs the handedness, affects the way our
brain develops.
The Children Of The 90s study is a continuing project based
in Bristol, which enrolled 14,000 mothers during pregnancy
in 1991 and 1992, and has followed the lives of both children
and parents in minute detail ever since. An earlier study
from the project showed that antenatal anxiety in late pregnancy
increased the likelihood of the child exhibiting behavioural
or emotional problems at both four and seven years.
The new findings do not mean that ambidextrous people will
definitely develop the problems such as autism or dyslexia,
but they will statistically have more chance of having one
of the conditions.
'We should reassure those who are mixed handed that they
will probably not have any of these other problems. We are
talking about risk factors, not certainties,' said Glover.
'However, it may mean that interventions to reduce maternal
stress or anxiety in pregnancy may reduce the incidence
of both mixed handedness and other associated developmental
disorders such as dyslexia.'
Source:
Guardian
Unlimited
Wannabe
Mom Britney Spears Tries Hypnosis to Stop Smoking
NewKerala.com
Her
will to become a mother is spurring pop diva Britney Spears
to give up smoking for good and she has reportedly approached
celebrity hypnotherapist, Allen Carr, for help.
The
therapist has announced that he will now be putting the
'Toxic' singer through a five-hour class, which costs 195
pounds, and will involve a combination of hypnotism and
psychotherapy to help the singer get to the root of the
problem, reports Female First.
Carr,
who has written 15 books on quitting addiction, has also
successfully treated other celebrities in the past including
actress Julie Christie, legendary actor Anthony Hopkins
and business tycoon Richard Branson.
"I'm
delighted when anyone would want to use my books or clinics,"
the report quoted him as saying.
Source:
NewKerala.com
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Upgrade With Brain Chip
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