Day: 03/09/2014

9 Things That Mess With Your Hormones.

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The seemingly innocent habits that throw your body for a loop

Eating foods with too much added sugar is directly linked to weight gain—and excess pounds can lead your body to become resistant to insulin, the hormone that moves sugar into your bloodstream so your cells can get the energy they need, says Holly Phillips, M.D., a women’s health specialist in New York City and medical correspondent for CBS News. The result: a precursor to diabetes called metabolic syndrome or even full-blown type 2 diabetes.

Stressing Out Late at Night

Normally, levels of the stress hormone cortisol drop at nighttime, which helps you wind down and sleep. But becoming anxious or tense in the p.m. means your cortisol levels keep surging, so you’re too wired to catch Zzz’s, says Phillips. Make sure one of these seven things that are secretly stressing you out aren’t putting you on edge, and be sure to try these anxiety-relieving tips.

Regular Bouts of Insomnia

It’s a vicious cycle: Lack of sleep raises cortisol levels, and cortisol cranks up your blood sugar…which then plunges, making you stressed and craving junk food, says Phillips. Start scoring more snooze time, and your cortisol levels will even out.

Or Just One Night of Sleep Deprivation

When you sleep, levels of a hunger-related hormone called leptin surge, signaling to your body that you don’t need to eat. Toss and turn all night, and your body won’t produce the right amount of leptin—so you’ll feel extra hungry the next day and be more prone to weight gain.

Late-Afternoon Starbucks Runs

Cortisol is the culprit again here: Caffeine signals to your body to boost production of cortisol, which can make you feel anxious and definitely not in a sleep-well mindset. Limit yourself to no more than two regular-size cups of joe a day, preferably before 3 or 4 p.m. Find out more about how caffeine affects your body.

Your Spotty Attendance at the Gym

Without regular exercise, your body won’t produce and release the optimal amount of endorphins, says Phillips. You know endorphins: They’re the feel-good chemicals in the brain that make you feel positive and alert. They also keep your immune system functioning well and increase levels of sex hormones so you score a libido lift. The more you move (cardio, Pilates, hiking, any kind of activity), the more endorphins your body will produce.

Crash Diets

A plunge in body-fat levels due to either a super low-calorie weight-loss regimen or intense exercise sessions lowers estrogen levels, halting your cycle until your body fat returns to a healthy level, says Phillips. Scary stuff. Watch out for these six signs your diet is too extreme to make sure you’re not going overboard.

Skimping on Cardio

You know how a heart-pumping workout can make you temporarily forget about where to go for dinner? It has to do with the way aerobic exercise prompts a drop in levels of a hormone called ghrelin, which suppresses appetite, studies show.

Easing PMS With a Sweet Treat

Besides leaving you wired, sugar also does a number on brain chemicals that are already thrown for a loop during your PMS week. If your premenstrual symptoms leave you cranky and moody, sugar will just make you feel like more of a basket case, says Phillips.

Rejection Really Hurts: Social Distress Can Cause Physical Pain.

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After going through a bad breakup or getting dumped, you may feel sick to your stomach, and your sobs may be accompanied by a headache. Stress and emotions can manifest in different parts of our bodies, possibly because emotional pain activates certain areas of the brain that are linked to physical pain as well, new research says.

rejection

A new study by researchers at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) suggests that emotional and social pain — like rejection — in ourselves but also in others can activate physical pain. The researchers found that when we see someone else experience an embarrassing moment in front of a crowd or get rejected, our inner empathy leads us to share that experience with them. “[E]xperiencing events that represent a significant threat to social bonds activates a network of brain areas associated with the sensory-discriminative aspects of pain,” the authors state in the abstract.

The researchers developed an experiment that involved a simulated ball tossing game, where one player was excluded by others — a condition of social pain. These excluded people, or their assigned partners, were analyzed using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which identified which parts of the brain were activated during the test. In another experiment, the excluded participant or his/her partner were given a “mildly painful” stimulus, which is a condition of physical pain. “Our data have shown that in conditions of social pain there is activation of an area traditionally associated with the sensory processing of physical pain, the posterior insular cortex,” Giorgia Silani, a lead author of the study, said in a press release. “This occurred both when the pain was experienced in first person and when the subject experienced in vicariously.”

Previous studies have shown that social rejection influenced similar brain circuits as physical pain. One study likened bad breakups to spilled hot coffee: they both had similar effects on the brain. “When we sat around and thought about the most difficult emotional experiences, we all agreed that it doesn’t get any worse than social rejection,” Ethan Kross, assistant psychology professor at the University of Michigan and one of the study’s authors, told The New York Times.

But Silani’s study adds another level to the social-physical pain link. The conclusion ultimately says that not only does our own rejection cause the physical pain part in our brains to light up, but this also happens when we watch someone else experience the same painful moments socially. “Our findings lend support to the theoretical model of empathy that explains involvement in other people’s emotions by the fact that our representation is based on the representation of our own emotional experience in similar conditions,” Silani said in the press release.

Blood test ‘finds Alzheimer’s early’

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Woman

A blood test can accurately predict the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, according to US researchers.

They showed that testing levels of 10 fats in the blood could predict – with 90% accuracy – the risk of the disease coming on in the next three years.

Their findings, published in Nature Medicine, will now be tested in larger clinical trials.

Experts said the results needed to be confirmed, but such a test would be “a real step forward”.

The number of people living with dementia stands at 44 million around the globe and is expected to treble by 2050.

The disease silently attacks the brain for more than a decade before any symptoms emerge. Doctors think drug trials are failing because patients are simply being treated too late to make a difference.

This is why discovering a test that predicts the risk of dementia is a major priority for the field.

Brain
Loss of tissue in a demented brain compared with a healthy one

Blood clues

Scientists at Georgetown University in Washington DC analysed blood samples from 525 people over the age of 70 as part of a five-year study.

They took 53 of them who developed Alzheimer’s or mild cognitive impairment and compared their blood with 53 who stayed mentally agile.

They found differences in the levels of 10 lipids, or fats, between the two groups.

And when the research team looked in the other blood samples, those 10 markers of Alzheimer’s could predict who was likely to enter mental decline in the following years.

Dementia specialist Dr Iracema Leroi explains the significance of the research

Howard Federoff, professor of neurology at Georgetown University Medical Center, told the BBC: “I think there is a huge need for a test.

“But we must look at larger numbers of people before this could be used in clinical practice.”

The full power of the test has not been investigated either. So far they know a diagnosis of dementia can be predicted three years ahead of time, but the researchers are now investigating whether the test works even earlier.

It is not clear exactly what is causing the change in fats in the blood, but it could be a residue of the early changes in the brain.

Dementia across the globe

  • 44 million
    globally have dementia
  • 135 million
    will have the disease in 2050
  • By then
    71%
    will be poor and middle income
  • $600bn
    global cost of dementia
  • In the UK, cancer research gets
    8x
    as much funding as dementia
Source: Alzheimer’s Society

A successful test for Alzheimer’s could transform medical research and treatment drugs could be tested at a much earlier stage in the disease.

Prof Federoff said slowing the pace of the disease could have a huge impact: “Even a short delay of symptoms will have a tremendous economic benefit just in terms of the cost of care.”

Dr Simon Ridley, from the charity Alzheimer’s Research UK, said the findings were “encouraging” and that a blood test would be a “real step forward”.

What is dementia?

  • It is an umbrella term that describes about 100 diseases in which brain cells die on a huge scale
  • All damage memory, language, mental agility, understanding and judgement
  • Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form, affecting 62% of those living with dementia
  • It gets worse with time and eventually people are left completely dependent on carers
  • It is incurable
  • He added: “To test the effectiveness of potential new drugs, it’s important to be able to recruit people to clinical trials in the early stages of the disease, when such treatments are most likely to be effective.

“If confirmed, these results could also aid efforts to develop better tools for diagnosing Alzheimer’s – allowing people with the disease to access crucial support and existing treatments sooner.”

The Alzheimer’s Society’s Dr Doug Brown said the test needed to be investigated further, but could pose ethical challenges.

“If this does develop in the future people must be given a choice about whether they would want to know, and fully understand the implications.”

New threat to ozone layer identified.

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ozone hole
Dealing with the hole in the ozone layer has been one of the most successful international science projects
Sientists have identified four new man-made gases that are contributing to the depletion of the ozone layer.

Two of the gases are accumulating at a rate that is causing concern among researchers.

Worries over the growing ozone hole have seen the production of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases restricted since the mid 1980s.

But the precise origin of these new, similar substances remains a mystery, say scientists.

Lying in the atmosphere, between 15 and 30km above the surface of the Earth, the ozone layer plays a critical role in blocking harmful UV rays, which cause cancers in humans and reproductive problems in animals.

“Start Quote

We don’t know where the new gases are being emitted from and this should be investigated”

Dr Johannes LaubeUniversity of East Anglia

Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey were the first to discover a huge “hole” in the ozone over Antarctica in 1985.

The evidence quickly pointed to CFC gases, which were invented in the 1920s, and were widely used in refrigeration and as aerosol propellants in products like hairsprays and deodorants.

Remarkably, global action was rapidly agreed to tackle CFCs and theMontreal Protocol to limit these substances came into being in 1987.

A total global ban on production came into force in 2010.

Now, researchers from the University of East Anglia have discovered evidence of four new gases that can destroy ozone and are getting into the atmosphere from as yet unidentified sources.

Halley
The Halley Research Station in Antarctica, where the hole in the ozone layer was first discovered

Three of the gases are CFCs and one is a hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC), which can also damage ozone.

“Our research has shown four gases that were not around in the atmosphere at all until the 1960s which suggests they are man-made,” said lead researcher Dr Johannes Laube.

The scientists discovered the gases by analysing polar firm, perennial snow pack. Air extracted from this snow is a natural archive of what was in the atmosphere up to 100 years ago.

Grim discovery

The researchers also looked at modern air samples, collected at remote Cape Grim in Tasmania.

They estimate that about 74,000 tonnes of these gases have been released into the atmosphere. Two of the gases are accumulating at significant rates.

“The identification of these four new gases is very worrying as they will contribute to the destruction of the ozone layer,” said Dr Laube.

“We don’t know where the new gases are being emitted from and this should be investigated. Possible sources include feedstock chemicals for insecticide production and solvents for cleaning electronic components.”

“What’s more, the three CFCs are being destroyed very slowly in the atmosphere – so even if emissions were to stop immediately, they will still be around for many decades to come,” he added.

Continue reading the main story

Mysterious gases

  • The four new gases have been identified as CFC-112, CFC112a, CFC-113a, HCFC-133a
  • CFC-113a has been listed as an “agrochemical intermediate for the manufacture of pyrethroids”, a type of insecticide once widely used in agriculture
  • CFC-113a and HCFC-133a are intermediaries in the production of widely used refrigerants
  • CFC-112 and 112a may have been used in the production of solvents used to clean electrical components

Other scientists acknowledged that while the current concentrations of these gases are small and they don’t present an immediate concern, work would have to be done to identify their origin.

“This paper highlights that ozone depletion is not yet yesterday’s story,” said Prof Piers Forster, from the University of Leeds.

“The concentrations found in this study are tiny. Nevertheless, this paper reminds us we need to be vigilant and continually monitor the atmosphere for even small amounts of these gases creeping up, either through accidental or unplanned emissions.

“Of the four species identified, CFC-113a seems the most worrying as there is a very small but growing emission source somewhere, maybe from agricultural insecticides. We should find it and take it out of production.”