Yellers, ragers, and door slammers beware -- frequent high levels of anger have now been linked to heart disease.
By Katherine Kam
WebMD the Magazine
If you knew that frequent anger might raise your risk of heart disease significantly, would you continue to blow off steam by yelling and smashing things during an argument or getting furious if the office email crashes during a rushed, stressful day?
It's time for hot heads to take heed: Increasingly, the negative, irritable, raging, and intimidating personality type worries heart researchers and doctors alike. "You're talking about people who seem to experience high levels of anger very frequently," says Laura Kubzansky, PhD, MPH, an associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health in Cambridge, Mass., who has studied the role of stress and emotions on cardiovascular disease.
The key here is "high" levels. Moderate anger may not be the problem, according to Kubzansky. In fact, expressing anger in reasonable ways can be healthy. "Being able to tell people that you're angry can be extremely functional," she says. But explosive people who hurl objects or scream at others may be at greater risk for heart disease, as well as those who harbor suppressed rage, she says. "Either end of the continuum is problematic."
Anger's Physiological Effects on the Heart
So how exactly does anger contribute to heart disease? Scientists don't know for sure, but anger might produce direct physiological effects on the heart and arteries. Emotions such as anger and hostility quickly activate the "fight or flight response," in which stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol, speed up your heart rate and breathing and give you a burst of energy. Blood pressure also rises as your blood vessels constrict.
While this stress response mobilizes you for emergencies, it might cause harm if activated repeatedly. "You get high cortisol and high adrenaline levels and that is the cardiotoxic effect of anger expression," says Jerry Kiffer, MA, a heart-brain researcher at the Cleveland Clinic's Psychological Testing Center. "It causes wear and tear on the heart and cardiovascular system." Frequent anger may speed up the process of atherosclerosis, in which fatty plaques build up in arteries, Kiffer says. The heart pumps harder, blood vessels constrict, blood pressure surges, and there are higher levels of glucose in the blood and more fat globules in the blood vessels. All this, scientists believe, can cause damage to artery walls.
And anger might not be the only culprit. In Kubzansky's own research, she found that high levels of anxiety and depression may contribute to heart disease risk, too. "They tend to co-occur," she says. "People who are angry a lot tend to have other chronic negative emotions as well."
Emotions and the Heart
According to an analysis of findings from 44 studies published last year in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, evidence supports the link between emotions and heart disease. To be specific, anger and hostility are significantly associated with more heart problems in initially healthy people, as well as a worse outcome for patients already diagnosed with heart disease.
Emotions and the Heart continued...
The same study also showed that chronically angry or hostile adults with no history of heart trouble might be 19% more likely than their more placid peers to develop heart disease. The researchers found that anger and hostility seemed to do more harm to men's hearts than women's. Among patients already diagnosed with heart disease, those with angry or hostile temperaments were 24% more likely than other heart patients to have a poor prognosis.
In light of such findings, some doctors now consider anger a heart disease risk factor that can be modified, just as people can lower their cholesterol or blood pressure. "We're really good at treating heart attacks, but we're not that good at preventing them," says Holly S. Andersen, MD, cardiologist and director of education and outreach at the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. "Stress is not as easy to measure as your cholesterol level or your blood pressure, which are clearly objective. But it's really important that physicians start taking care of the whole person -- including their moods and their lives -- because it matters." The bottom line: "A change of mind can lead to a change of heart," Kiffer says.
Coping With Anger
Got a hair-trigger temper? Counseling and anger management might help in the long term, but what can you do for a quick fix?
Recognizing signs that you're getting angry and shifting your frame of mind will help, says Wayne Sotile, PhD, author of Thriving With Heart Disease. The next time you feel your anger -- and heart rate -- rising, try these coping statements to get a grip fast:
* "I can't accomplish anything by blaming other people, even if they are responsible for the problem. I'll try another angle."
* "Will this matter five years from now? (Five hours? Five minutes?)"
* "If I'm still angry about this tomorrow, I'll deal with it then. But for now, I'm just going to cool off."
* "Acting angry is not the same as showing that I care."
Source: http://www.webmd.com
Toddlers with Autism Benefit from Early Intervention
Autism is a lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder that can cause significant communication, social and behavioral challenges. For years autism was rare, occurring in just 5 children per 10,000 live births. But since the early 1990s, that rate has increased exponentially and today it is reported to affect an average of 1 in 100 children in the United States. There was also a time when autism was thought to be a fate that simply had to be accepted, but we now know that many of the debilitating symptoms of autism can be prevented or reduced with early diagnosis and intervention. A notable treatment approach for older preschool-aged children is applied behavior analysis (ABA), a structured method used in many schools and treatment clinics to teach new skills while encouraging positive behaviors and discouraging negative ones. And a new study has found that a novel intervention called the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) is effective for improving IQ, language ability, and social interaction for very young children with autism—some as young as 18 months.
ESDM was developed by Dr. Geraldine Dawson, a University of North Carolina psychologist and chief science officer of the patient-advocacy group Autism Speaks, and Sally Rogers, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and a researcher at the UC Davis MIND Institute in California. The intervention, tailored for toddlers as young as 12 months old, is delivered by trained therapists and parents, who receive instruction and training, in the child’s natural environment. “It’s a very pleasing kind of therapy, kids are happy,” Rogers explains. “It is play, and it can happen everywhere.” Dawson adds that this type of intervention builds on a fun, positive relationship with the therapist.
To access its effectiveness, ESDM was put to the test in a five-year randomized clinical trial at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle. It involved therapy for 48 diverse, 18- to 30-month-old children with autism and no other health problems. The children were separated into two groups; one that received 20 hours of intervention per week (two 2-hour sessions, five days a week) from UW specialists as well as five hours a week of parent-delivered therapy; while children in the other group were referred to community-based programs for therapy. Both groups were monitored by UW researchers.
At the start of the study there was no substantial difference in functioning between the two groups. After a year, however, the IQs of children in the ESDM group rose an average of 15.4 points compared with an increase of 4.4 points for those in the comparison group. And by the second year, the ESDM group’s IQs rose by 17.6 points, compared to 7 points for the comparison group. There was also a nearly 18-point improvement in receptive language (listening and understanding) in the ESDM group, compared to about a 10 point improvement in the comparison group. And while no children were considered “cured,” seven of the children in the ESDM group had enough improvement that they were re-diagnosed with a less severe form of autism, compared with one child with an improved diagnosis in the comparison group. ““Many of the children (in the ESDM group) had virtually caught up to the typical kids their age,” said Dawson.
“Parents and therapists both carried out the intervention toward individualized goals for each child, and worked collaboratively to improve how the children were responding socially, playing with toys, and communicating,” said Milani Smith, who oversees the UW Autism Center’s clinical programs. “Parents are taught strategies for capturing their children’s attention and promoting communication. By using these strategies throughout the day, the children were offered many opportunities to learn to interact with others.”
Dawson says that with the American Academy of Pediatrics urging doctors to screen all 18- to 24-month-old children for autism, it is essential that an effective program is available for children in this age group to intervene immediately after diagnosis. “By starting as soon as the toddler is diagnosed, we hope to maximize the positive impact of the intervention,” she said. “The study strongly affirms the positive outcomes of early intervention and the need for the earliest possible start.”
Source: http://www.healthnews.com
ESDM was developed by Dr. Geraldine Dawson, a University of North Carolina psychologist and chief science officer of the patient-advocacy group Autism Speaks, and Sally Rogers, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and a researcher at the UC Davis MIND Institute in California. The intervention, tailored for toddlers as young as 12 months old, is delivered by trained therapists and parents, who receive instruction and training, in the child’s natural environment. “It’s a very pleasing kind of therapy, kids are happy,” Rogers explains. “It is play, and it can happen everywhere.” Dawson adds that this type of intervention builds on a fun, positive relationship with the therapist.
To access its effectiveness, ESDM was put to the test in a five-year randomized clinical trial at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle. It involved therapy for 48 diverse, 18- to 30-month-old children with autism and no other health problems. The children were separated into two groups; one that received 20 hours of intervention per week (two 2-hour sessions, five days a week) from UW specialists as well as five hours a week of parent-delivered therapy; while children in the other group were referred to community-based programs for therapy. Both groups were monitored by UW researchers.
At the start of the study there was no substantial difference in functioning between the two groups. After a year, however, the IQs of children in the ESDM group rose an average of 15.4 points compared with an increase of 4.4 points for those in the comparison group. And by the second year, the ESDM group’s IQs rose by 17.6 points, compared to 7 points for the comparison group. There was also a nearly 18-point improvement in receptive language (listening and understanding) in the ESDM group, compared to about a 10 point improvement in the comparison group. And while no children were considered “cured,” seven of the children in the ESDM group had enough improvement that they were re-diagnosed with a less severe form of autism, compared with one child with an improved diagnosis in the comparison group. ““Many of the children (in the ESDM group) had virtually caught up to the typical kids their age,” said Dawson.
“Parents and therapists both carried out the intervention toward individualized goals for each child, and worked collaboratively to improve how the children were responding socially, playing with toys, and communicating,” said Milani Smith, who oversees the UW Autism Center’s clinical programs. “Parents are taught strategies for capturing their children’s attention and promoting communication. By using these strategies throughout the day, the children were offered many opportunities to learn to interact with others.”
Dawson says that with the American Academy of Pediatrics urging doctors to screen all 18- to 24-month-old children for autism, it is essential that an effective program is available for children in this age group to intervene immediately after diagnosis. “By starting as soon as the toddler is diagnosed, we hope to maximize the positive impact of the intervention,” she said. “The study strongly affirms the positive outcomes of early intervention and the need for the earliest possible start.”
Source: http://www.healthnews.com
First Hard Evidence of Brain Damage Caused by Childhood Lead Exposure
Lead is a highly toxic metal that has been used in the manufacture of a wide variety of products, including paint, ceramics, pipes, and solders, gasoline, batteries, and cosmetics. Over the last thity years, federal regulatory standards have helped to minimize or eliminate the amount of lead in consumer products and occupational settings. In 1978, the addition of lead to paints was eliminated (with the exception of some artist’s paints) and tetraethyl lead, which was used in gasoline to increase the octane rating, was phased out and eventually banned by 1996. But even though paint sold today is safe, there are still pre-1977 buildings with old lead paint in our communities and the lead once released into the environment still resides in our air, water and soil.
Even small amounts of lead in the body, as measured by blood lead levels, can be harmful, impairing the function of the central nervous system, production of red blood cells, and the functioning of vital organs such as the liver and kidneys. Because of their size and developing nervous system, children are particularly sensitive to the chronic effects of lead. Research has shown that low-dose lead exposure has a profound impact on brain development, interfering with cellular growth and reducing the brain’s ability to transmit neural impulses. But researchers from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center say that “no region of the brain” is safe from the damage caused by lead exposure—permanent damage that persists into adulthood.
To access the long-term effects of childhood exposure to lead, the researchers studied 33 adults with a mean age of 21 who were part of the Cincinnati Lead Study as infants from 1979 to 1987. The participants had blood lead levels ranging from 5 micrograms to 37 micrograms per deciliter, with a mean of 14. They also had decreased IQ and criminal histories as juveniles. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans were used to monitor the participants’ brains while they performed two tasks that access attention, decision making and impulse control. The scans showed that in order to complete a task that required inhibition, participants with elevated blood lead levels required activation from additional regions within the brain’s frontal and parietal lobes.
“This tells us that the area of the brain responsible for inhibition is damaged by lead exposure and that other regions of the brain must compensate in order for an individual to perform,” explained study author Kim Cecil, an imaging scientist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and a professor of radiology, pediatrics and neuroscience at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. “Your brain has some adaptability and it tries to recruit other areas to take over for parts that are damaged. But it doesn’t work as well.”
According to Cecil, the brain’s white matter, which organizes and matures at an early age, adapts to lead exposure. But the frontal lobe, which is the last part to develop, suffers permanent damage from lead exposure as it matures. “Many people think that once lead blood levels decrease, the effects should be reversible, but, in fact, lead exposure has harmful and lasting effects,” Cecil said. “Lead exposure has been associated with diminished IQ, poor academic performance, inability to focus and increased risk of criminal behavior.”
Kim Dietrich, co-author of the study and an environmental health researcher at the University of Cincinnati, says their findings give scientists the first hard evidence that lead exposure causes physical and long-lasting damage to the brain. “One of the arguments we’ve always heard is, ‘You see lower IQ. You see more behavioral problems. You see motor coordination problems in these lead-exposed kids. But you’ve never really proven there’s any brain damage in these kids,’” Dietrich said. “Well, now we have. This is the first direct, neurological evidence of brain damage to children exposed to low to moderate levels of lead.”
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 890,000 U.S. children aged 1-5 have elevated blood lead levels and about 250,000 children have blood levels greater than 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood, which is the level that the CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) considers cause for concern. The CDC now recommends screening for children in high risk areas or populations for lead exposures.
The study was presented Tuesday at an annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago.
Source & Picture: http://www.healthnews.com
Drinking Tea May Trim Men's Waistlines
Men Who Drink Tea Have Smaller Waistlines Than Those Who Don't
By Jennifer Warner
WebMD Health News
Could tea be the secret to a trim waistline? For men, the answer may be yes, or at least it couldn't hurt.
A new study shows that men who drink more than two cups of tea a day have trimmer waistlines than men who drink coffee or nothing at all. But the same doesn't hold true for women.
Researchers say previous studies have looked at coffee and tea drinking habits and obesity in general, but little is known about how these habits affect abdominal obesity. Abdominal obesity, or excess fa around the midsection, has been linked to a number of health risks, including heart disease and diabetes.
The study, presented this week at the First International Congress on Abdominal Obesity, looked at the relationship between coffee and tea drinking and abdominal obesity in 3,823 adults who participated in the 2003-2004 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
"The potential association between coffee/tea and abdominal obesity is not trivial considering that more than 60% of the adult population drinks coffee/tea,that these beverages can be consumed as frequently as 10 times per day, and that a high percentage of coffee and tea drinkers use additives in these beverages," write researcher D. R. Bouchard and colleagues at the school of kinesiology and health studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
Source & Picture: http://www.webmd.com
By Jennifer Warner
WebMD Health News
Could tea be the secret to a trim waistline? For men, the answer may be yes, or at least it couldn't hurt.
A new study shows that men who drink more than two cups of tea a day have trimmer waistlines than men who drink coffee or nothing at all. But the same doesn't hold true for women.
Researchers say previous studies have looked at coffee and tea drinking habits and obesity in general, but little is known about how these habits affect abdominal obesity. Abdominal obesity, or excess fa around the midsection, has been linked to a number of health risks, including heart disease and diabetes.
The study, presented this week at the First International Congress on Abdominal Obesity, looked at the relationship between coffee and tea drinking and abdominal obesity in 3,823 adults who participated in the 2003-2004 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
"The potential association between coffee/tea and abdominal obesity is not trivial considering that more than 60% of the adult population drinks coffee/tea,that these beverages can be consumed as frequently as 10 times per day, and that a high percentage of coffee and tea drinkers use additives in these beverages," write researcher D. R. Bouchard and colleagues at the school of kinesiology and health studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
Source & Picture: http://www.webmd.com
Study Shows Link Between Menopause and Increased Cholesterol
Benjamin Franklin once remarked that the only things certain in this world are death and taxes, but as any woman can attest to, there is another certainty in life—menopause. Defined as the final menstrual period and usually confirmed when a woman has missed her periods for 12 consecutive months, menopause marks the permanent end of fertility. This “change of life” usually occurs around age 51 and affects every woman differently. While the only symptom for some women will be the end of menstruation, others will experience more profound physical and emotional challenges, including hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, aching joints, thinning hair, and memory lapses. Several chronic medical conditions can also develop after menopause. When estrogen levels decline the risk of cardiovascular disease increases, as does the risk of osteoporosis. But at this time of life, it isn’t always possible to tell if symptoms are related to menopause, aging, or both. So to better understand the “changes women experience during life,” researchers at the University of Pittsburgh embarked on a ten-year study, and this is what they discovered.
Each year the researchers tested 1,054 study participants for heart disease risk factors including cholesterol, blood pressure, blood glucose, and insulin. In nearly all of the women, cholesterol levels rose sharply around the time of menopause. In the two-year time period surrounding their final menstrual period, the women’s average LDL, or the “bad” cholesterol that blocks arteries, rose by about 10.5 points, or around 9 percent and average total cholesterol level increased by 6.5 percent. “As they approach menopause, many, many women show a very striking increase in cholesterol levels, which in turn increases risk for later heart disease,” said Dr. Karen A. Matthews, lead author of the study and professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh.
During the study, other risk factors such as insulin and systolic blood pressure also increased, but at a steady rate, which suggests the changes were related to aging and not menopause. “Other risk factors we measured didn’t show a dramatic change,” Matthews said. “I expected to see some change in inflammatory factors because some data suggest that hormone users have higher cholesterol levels, but it did not occur.”
Dr. Vera Bittner, a professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study, said that although the increases don’t seem significant, they could definitely have an impact on a woman’s health. “The changes don’t look large, but given that the typical woman lives several decades after menopause, any adverse change becomes cumulative over time,” said Bittner. “If somebody had cholesterol levels at the lower ranges of normal, the small change may not make a difference. But if somebody’s risk factors were already borderline in several categories, this increase may tip them over the edge and put them in a risk category where treatment may be beneficial.”
Bittner says women should be aware of the changes that occur around menopause and should talk to their doctors about risk factors and whether they should have their cholesterol checked more often or need to begin a cholesterol-lowering treatment, such as a statin. Not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight and getting plenty of physical activity are essential to help keep cholesterol levels in check, Bittner adds, but she points out that menopause can be an especially difficult time for women to get enough exercise. “It often falls by the wayside because women in this age range take care of kids, spouse, aging parents, and often work in addition.”
Dr. Wolf Ulian, founder and executive director of the North American Menopause Society, says the study findings emphasize that menopause is a good time for women to adopt healthier lifestyles. “Menopause is a milestone,” he says. “It’s a time to take stock and take control and try to enhance the quality of your second half of life.”
Source & Picture: http://www.healthnews.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)