University of Leeds

Talking therapy ‘eases hypochondria’

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An anxious patient
Health anxiety can cause terrible suffering

Cognitive behavioural therapy is more effective than standard care for people with hypochondria or health anxiety, say researchers writing in The Lancet.

In their study, 14% of patients given CBT regained normal anxiety levels against 7% given the usual care of basic reassurance.

It said nurses could easily be trained to offer the psychological therapy.

Between 10% and 20% of hospital patients are thought to worry obsessively about their health.

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Health anxiety is costly for healthcare providers and an effective treatment could potentially save money”

Prof Peter Tyrer Imperial College London

Previous studies have shown that CBT, which aims to change thought patterns and behaviour, is an effective treatment for other anxiety disorders.

But there is a shortage of specialists trained to deliver CBT, and as a result waiting lists can be long.

In this study, 219 people with health anxiety received an average of six sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy while 225 received reassurance and support, which is standard.

After periods of six months and 12 months, patients in the CBT group showed “significantly greater improvement in self-rated anxiety and depression symptoms” compared with standard care, the study showed.

There was also a particularly noticeable reduction in health anxiety in the CBT group straight after treatment began.

The therapy was delivered by non-CBT experts who had been trained in only two workshops.

Study author Prof Peter Tyrer, head of the Centre for Mental Health at Imperial College London, said the results showed that hypochondria could be successfully treated, in a “relatively cheap” way, by general nurses with minimal training in a hospital setting.

WHAT IS CBT?

Cognitive behavioural therapy is:

  • a way of talking about how you think about yourself, the world and other people
  • how what you do affects your thoughts and feelings

CBT can help you to change how you think (cognitive) and what you do (behaviour).

Unlike some other talking treatments, it focuses on the “here and now” instead of the causes of distress or past symptoms.

Reducing the anxiety levels of 14% of the CBT group might not seem a high figure, he said, but these were often people with serious problems who had sometimes spent thousands of pounds on private health assessments because of fears about their health.

“Health anxiety is costly for healthcare providers and an effective treatment could potentially save money by reducing the need for unnecessary tests and emergency hospital admissions,” Prof Tyrer said.

Writing about the study in The Lancet, Chris Williams from the University of Glasgow and Allan House from the University of Leeds, said the findings were “intriguing” but translating them into services was “problematic”.

They also questioned the cost-effectiveness of screening patients for health anxiety and CBT.

They wrote: “Health anxiety is only one of the problems noted in medical outpatients – depression, hazardous alcohol use, poor treatment adherence, and other forms of medically unexplained presentation all press for recognition and intervention.

“To develop multiple parallel services makes no sense, especially since the common emotional disorders overlap substantially.”

But Prof Tyrer said health anxiety was a hidden epidemic that required the correct treatment, not just reassurance.

‘Nature’s Batteries’ May Have Helped Power Early Lifeforms.

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Researchers at the University of Leeds have uncovered new clues to the origins of life on Earth.

 

The team found that a compound known as pyrophosphite may have been an important energy source for primitive lifeforms.

There are several conflicting theories of how life on Earth emerged from inanimate matter billions of years ago — a process known as abiogenesis.

“It’s a chicken and egg question,” said Dr Terry Kee of the University of Leeds, who led the research. “Scientists are in disagreement over what came first — replication, or metabolism. But there is a third part to the equation — and that is energy.”

All living things require a continual supply of energy in order to function. This energy is carried around our bodies within certain molecules, one of the best known being ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which converts heat from the sun into a useable form for animals and plants.

At any one time, the human body contains just 250g of ATP — this provides roughly the same amount of energy as a single AA battery. This ATP store is being constantly used and regenerated in cells via a process known as respiration, which is driven by natural catalysts called enzymes.

“You need enzymes to make ATP and you need ATP to make enzymes,” explained Dr Kee. “The question is: where did energy come from before either of these two things existed? We think that the answer may lie in simple molecules such as pyrophosphite which is chemically very similar to ATP, but has the potential to transfer energy without enzymes.”

The key to the battery-like properties of both ATP and pyrophosphite is an element called phosphorus, which is essential for all living things. Not only is phosphorus the active component of ATP, it also forms the backbone of DNA and is important in the structure of cell walls.

But despite its importance to life, it is not fully understood how phosphorus first appeared in our atmosphere. One theory is that it was contained within the many meteorites that collided with the Earth billions of years ago.

“Phosphorus is present within several meteoritic minerals and it is possible that this reacted to form pyrophosphite under the acidic, volcanic conditions of early Earth,” added Dr Kee.

The findings, published in the journal Chemical Communications, are the first to suggest that pyrophosphite may have been relevant in the shift from basic chemistry to complex biology when life on earth began. Since completing this research, Dr Kee and his team have found even further evidence for the importance of this molecule and now hope to team up with collaborators from NASA to investigate its role in abiogenesis.

The study was funded by the STFC and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

 

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com

 

 

Fat gene ‘linked with skin cancer’.

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A gene previously shown to be linked to obesity may also increase the risk of a deadly form of skin cancer, say researchers writing in Nature Genetics.

Analysis of data from 73,000 people, led by the University of Leeds, found a specific section of the “fat gene” was associated with malignant melanoma.

It is the first time the gene has been linked with a specific disease independently of weight.

The results suggest a wider role for the gene than originally thought.

Malignant melanoma is the fifth most common cancer in the UK with about 12,800 new cases and about 2,200 deaths each year.

An international team analysed genetic data from the tumours of 13,000 malignant melanoma patients and 60,000 unaffected individuals.

They found that those with particular variations in a stretch of DNA within the “fat gene” or FTO gene, called intron 8, could be at greater risk of developing melanoma.

 

New targets

 

Previous research linking the FTO gene with obesity found that variants in a section called intron 1 are linked with being overweight and overeating.

 

Several other diseases have been linked to the gene but also to having a high body mass index.

 

This is the first time that researchers have found a link between the FTO gene and a disease which is not linked to obesity and BMI.

 

It opens up a new direction in work looking at how the gene functions as until now the focus has been on its effects on weight gain and factors such as regulating appetite.

 

Study author, Dr Mark Iles, a senior research fellow at the Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine, said: “This is the first time to our knowledge that this major obesity gene, already linked to multiple illnesses, has been linked to melanoma.

 

“This raises the question whether future research will reveal that the gene has a role in even more diseases?”

 

He added: “When scientists have tried to understand how the FTO gene behaves, so far they’ve only examined its role in metabolism and appetite.

 

“But it’s now clear we don’t know enough about what this intriguing gene does.”

 

Dr Julie Sharp, Cancer Research UK’s senior science information manager, said: “These are fascinating early findings that, if confirmed in further research, could potentially provide new targets for the development of drugs to treat melanoma.

 

“Advances in understanding more about the molecules driving skin cancer have already enabled us to develop important new skin cancer drugs that will make a real difference for patients.”

 

She added the best way to prevent melanoma was to avoid damage caused by too much sun exposure and sunbeds.

 

“Getting a painful sunburn just once every two years can triple the risk of melanoma.”

 

Source: BBC