Study Finds Parents Low-Ball Obese Children’s Weight

A new study has found that parents of obese children may not be able to recognize their child is overweight, unless they are at very extreme levels of obesity.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and University College of London (UCL) Institute of Child Health, a research partner of Great Ormond Street Hospital, also found that parents are more likely to underestimate their child’s weight if they are black or South Asian, from more deprived backgrounds, or if their child is male.

As childhood obesity has increased in the UK, the government has put in place interventions to tackle the problem, the researchers noted. But it was suggested that many parents can’t identify when their child is overweight, leading to questions about the effectiveness of current interventions designed to address obesity in the home.

The research team set out to look at this problem and identify socioeconomic factors that may predict a parent’s inability to estimate their child’s weight correctly.

Questionnaires were filled out by the parents of 2,976 children in five primary care trusts taking part in the National Child Measurement Program: Redbridge, Islington, West Essex, Bath and North East Somerset, and Sandwell.

The researchers discovered that 31 percent of parents (915) underestimated where their child’s Body Mass Index (BMI) sat on government obesity scales, which classify children as very overweight (or obese), overweight, healthy weight, or underweight.

In fact, the researchers report they found only four parents described their child as being very overweight despite 369 children being officially identified as very overweight according to the BMI cut-off.

According to official guidelines, children are classified as overweight at the 85th centile and very overweight (or obese) at the 95th centile. The researchers found that for a child with a BMI at the 98th centile there was an 80 percent chance the parent would classify their child as healthy weight. Parents did become more likely to classify their child as overweight when the child had a BMI above the 99.7th centile, the researchers found.

“If parents are unable to accurately classify their own child’s weight, they may not be willing or motivated to enact the changes to the child’s environment that promote healthy weight maintenance,” said senior author Dr. Sanjay Kinra, a reader in Clinical Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and co-lead investigator of the PROMISE trial.

Co-author Professor Russell Viner, academic pediatrician at the UCL institute of Child Health and PROMISE co-lead investigator added: “Measures that decrease the gap between parental perceptions of child weight status and obesity scales used by medical professionals may now be needed in order to help parents better understand the health risks associated with overweight and increase uptake of healthier lifestyles.”

The study, published in the , is part of the PROMISE (Pediatric Research In Obesity Multi-Modal Intervention And Service Evaluation) study, a five-part project that aims to improve the assessment and treatment of childhood obesity through research.

Source:

Wood, J. (2015). Study Finds Parents Low-Ball Obese Children’s Weight. . Retrieved on March 30, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/29/study-finds-parents-underestimate-obese-childrens-weight/82865.html

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Why We Love Comfort Food

What is your comfort food? Macaroni and cheese? A turkey sandwich? Whatever it is, there’s a good chance that your attraction to that dish is based on having a good relationship with the person who first prepared it for you, according to new findings from a study at the University at Buffalo (UB).

Comfort food is defined as the food one eats to elicit comforting feelings. For some of the study participants, comfort food was a healthy food choice, for others, it was starchy and fatty.

“For a lot of people it is the food they grew up eating,” said UB psychologist Dr. Shira Gabriel. “In a previous study, we gave all of the participants chicken noodle soup, but only those who had a social connection to that soup identified it as a comfort food and felt socially accepted after eating it.

“Comfort foods are often the foods that our caregivers gave us when we were children. As long as we have positive association with the person who made that food then there’s a good chance that you will be drawn to that food during times of rejection or isolation,” said Gabriel. “It can be understood as straight-up classical conditioning.”

The study sheds new light on the link between social experiences and our food preferences and eating behaviors. While previous research has shown that comfort food can reduce feelings of rejection and isolation, the new study explores why certain foods are attractive to us when we are feeling down.

“Because comfort food has a social function,” Gabriel said, “it is especially appealing to us when we are feeling lonely or rejected. The current study helps us understand why we might be eating comfort foods even when we’re dieting or not particularly hungry.”

Having a threatened sense of belonging is related to mental and physical health risks, say the researchers, and it’s important to learn how that vulnerability can be managed. The findings offer insights into why so many people turn to comfort food in order to feel socially connected and safe.

However, turning to food to fill one’s social needs is not without risks. As Gabriel said, “Although comfort food will never break your heart, it might destroy your diet.”

The study is published in the journal .

Source:

Pedersen, T. (2015). Why We Love Comfort Food. . Retrieved on March 28, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/28/why-we-love-comfort-food/82905.html

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‘Bystander Effect’ Evident in Young Kids

As young as five years old, children begin to show the “bystander effect,” meaning that they are less likely to help a person in need when there are other children available to help, according to a new study published in the journal .

Children are quick to help, however, when they realize they are the only one available.

“The children in our study helped at very high levels only when responsibility was clearly attributable to them,” said psychological scientist and lead researcher Dr. Maria Plötner of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

“These findings suggest that children at this age take responsibility into account when deciding whether to help.”

Earlier research has shown that children are generally very helpful, but the new study is one of the first to specifically investigate whether the presence of other children affects this helping behavior.

For the study, researchers recruited 60 children at the age of five to participate in the study, with their parents’ permission. The children were told that they could choose a picture to color. Some children colored with only the researcher in the room, while others colored alongside two other children.

Unbeknownst to the participants, the two other children were actually part of the experiment and were instructed by the researchers to role play according to a script.

Before the children began coloring, the researcher noticed a water puddle and wiped it up with paper towels. She left the remaining paper towels on the floor, just “in case something needs to be wiped up later.”

A little while later, the researcher “accidentally” knocked over her cup of colored water. She tried to hold the water back with her arms and, after about 15 seconds, she looked at the water, said “Oops,” and groaned.

She made increasingly more obvious displays of distress and, eventually, if no one had helped her, she asked the children to bring her the paper towels. And if no one helped after 90 seconds, the researcher retrieved the paper towels herself.

According to the findings, when other children were present and available to help, participants were less inclined to retrieve the paper towels for the researcher. If the other children were unavailable for helping (because their path to the researcher was obstructed), however, the participants were just as likely to retrieve the paper towels as those who were alone with the researcher. Participants who were alone with the researcher in the room were faster to help than those who were in the room with other children.

In post-experiment interviews, participants revealed that they had recognized that the researcher needed help; therefore, awareness of the problem could not explain the difference in behavior.

Interestingly, far fewer children said that it was their responsibility to help the researcher if there had been other children in the room to help.

“This study shows that although children are typically extremely helpful, this tendency to help can be overridden in certain circumstances,” said Plötner.

Together, the findings “illustrate the surprising complexity of young children’s helping behavior by demonstrating that when others are present, children will help more in some circumstances and less in others,” said Plötner.

The findings show that the bystander effect — a social phenomenon so prominent in adults — is evident in children as young as five years old, suggesting that it is a strong behavioral response that emerges early in life.

The researchers believe it would be helpful if interventions designed to encourage prosocial, helping behavior in children included the issue of diffusion of responsibility.

Source:

Pedersen, T. (2015). ‘Bystander Effect’ Evident in Young Kids. . Retrieved on March 27, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/26/bystander-effect-evident-in-young-kids/82795.html

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Do More Academic Challenges = Higher IQ?

The argument on the role of nature (genetics) verse nurture (environment) for influencing a person’s intelligence has taken a new chapter.

Pennsylvania State University researchers believe more schooling — and the more mentally challenging problems tackled in those schools — may be the best explanation for the dramatic IQ escalation experienced over the last century.

The rise in IQ scores is often referred to as the Flynn Effect, and suggests that environment may have a stronger influence on intelligence than many genetic determinists once thought.

Researchers have struggled to explain why IQ scores for developed nations — and, now, developing nations — have increased so rapidly during the 20th century, said Dr. David Baker, professor of sociology and education at Penn State.

Mean IQ test scores of American adults, for instance, have increased by about 25 points over the last 90 years.

“There’ve been a lot of hypotheses put forward for the cause of the Flynn Effect, such as genetics and nutrition, but they generally fall flat,” said Baker.

“It really begged the question of whether an environmental factor, or factors, could cause these gains in IQ scores.”

School enrollment in the United States reached almost 90 percent by 1960.

However, as reported in current issue of , researchers believe that it is not just increasing attendance, but also the more challenging learning environment that are reasons behind the IQ score rise.

“If you look at a chart of the Flynn Effect over the 20th century in the United States, for example, you notice that the proportion of children and youth attending school and how long they attend lines up nicely with the gains in IQ scores,” said Baker.

“As people went to school, what they did there likely had a profound influence on brain development and thinking skills, beyond just learning the three R’s. This is what our neurological and cognitive research shows.”

He added that over the century, as a higher percentage of children from each new generation went to school and attended for more years, this produced rising IQ scores.

“Even after full enrollments were achieved in the U.S. by about the 1960s, school continued to intensify its influence on thinking,” said Baker.

While even basic schooling activities can shape brain development, over the past century, schools have moved from learning focused on memorization to lessons that require problem solving and abstract thinking skills, which are often considered functions of fluid intelligence, Baker said.

Researchers believe the common perception that academic curriculum’s have become easier leading to a general ‘dumbing’ down of schools, is mistaken.

“This misperception has tended to lead cognitive scientists away from considering the impact of schooling and its spread over time as a main social environment in neurological development,” said Baker.

Investigators suggest the ongoing academic challenges have built up students’ mental muscles in a similar fashion to how physical resistance training can lead to muscular hypertrophy.

Baker believes the academic training allows students to perform better on certain types of problems that require flexible thinking and abstract problem solving, such as IQ tests.

“Certain kinds of activities — like solving problems, or reading — stimulate the parts of the brain that we know are responsible for fluid intelligence,” said Baker.

“And these types of activities are done over and over in today’s schools, so that you would expect these students to have higher development than populations of people who had no access to schooling.”

Students must not only solve more challenging problems, they must use multiple strategies to find solutions, which adds to the mental workout in today’s schools, according to Baker.

The researchers conducted three studies, from neurological, cognitive, and demographic perspectives, according to Baker.

He said that genetics alone could not explain the Flynn Effect. Natural selection happens too slowly to be the sole reason for rising IQ scores. This suggests that intelligence is a combination of both genetics and environment.

“The best neuroscience is now arguing that brains of mammals, including, of course, humans, develop in this heavy genetic-environmental dependent way, so it’s not an either-or situation,” said Baker.

“There’s a high genetic component, just like there is for athletic ability, but the environment can enhance people’s abilities up to unknown genetic limits.”

In the first study, the researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain activity in children solving certain math problems. They found that problems typical of today’s schooling activated areas of the brain known as centers of fluid intelligence, for instance, mathematical problem solving.

A field study was also conducted in farming communities in Peru where education has only recently become fully accessible. The survey showed that schooling was a significant influence on improved cognitive functioning.

To measure the challenge level of lessons, the researchers analyzed more than 28,000 pages of content in textbooks published from 1930 to 2000. They measured, for example, whether students were required to learn multiple strategies to find solutions or needed other mental skills to solve problems.

Source:

Nauert, R. (2015). Do More Academic Challenges = Higher IQ?. . Retrieved on March 27, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/26/do-more-academic-challenges-higher-iq/82801.html

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Asia Unites Against Poaching

Representatives from 13 Asian countries committed to immediate action to stamp out poaching at the conclusion of a four-day symposium hosted by the Nepal government in Kathmandu from February 2-6, 2015.

The Symposium: Towards Zero Poaching in Asia adopted five recommendations:

• Swift and decisive action to elevate the importance and effectiveness of antipoaching initiatives and cooperation among all relevant ministries, departments and agencies within their borders, while at the same time strengthening international cooperation in the face of this serious criminal activity.
• Adoption of the Zero Poaching Tool Kit and assessment of current antipoaching responses to determine improvements and close serious gaps.
• Increase and improve collaboration as a successful antipoaching response is critically dependant on effectively engaging a diverse number of shareholders
• Improve standards, training and support for rangers, other frontline staff and prosecutors.
• Commit to identifying a Zero Poaching national contact point to effectively coordinate transboundary efforts to stop poaching.

Tika Ram Adhikari, Director General of Nepal’s Department of Wildlife Conservation and Soil Conservation, said: “Nepal was proud to host this vital conversation in Asia because we recognize that poaching is robbing us of our wildlife wealth, which includes tigers, rhinos and elephants. We cannot allow wildlife crime to continue to wrap its tentacles deeper into the region. Our individual efforts may win us a few battles, but we can only win the war if Asia presents a united front to stop the poaching, end the trafficking and wipe out demand.”

Mike Baltzer, Leader, WWF Tigers Alive Initiative, said: “This is the beginning of the end for poaching across Asia. WWF is proud to have supported this landmark meeting and is committed to be part of the new determined movement for Zero Poaching in Asia.”

Nepal was the natural host for the symposium having achieved zero poaching for two years in the past four years. At the symposium, representatives from local communities, protected areas as well as enforcement agencies shared their lessons lea

At the closing ceremony, Nepal’s legendary Chitwan National Park (CNP) also became the first global site to be accredited as Conservation Assured Tiger Standard (CA|TS).Despite the threats that CNP faces, the protected area has seen an increasingly effective management and protection regime. This further demonstrates the commitment of Nepal towards zero poaching.

Thirteen Asian countries participated in the symposium: Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Viet Nam, Malaysia, Russia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, Nepal, India, Bhutan, and Lao PDR. Partner NGOs and other organisations included IUCN, TRAFFIC, CITES, UN Office on Drugs and Crime, US Department of Justice, SMART Partnership and Southern African Wildlife College.

WWF co-hosted the symposium with Global Tiger Forum, National Trust for Nature Conservation and the South Asian Wildlife Enforcement Network.

The symposium provides valuable direction on tackling poaching in advance of the Kasane Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade to be hosted by the Botswana government on 25th March 2015. This meeting follows the London Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade hosted by the UK government in February 2014, where 41 governments committed to taking “decisive and urgent action….” through the agreed declaration.

Home Environment Packs Big Impact on Kids’ IQ

A new study suggests a nurturing environment plays a strong role in enhancing a child’s intelligence.

Researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), the University of Virginia, and Lund University in Sweden discovered that young adults who were raised in educated households develop higher cognitive ability than those who were brought up in less ideal environments.

While the study does not contest previous findings that DNA impacts intelligence, it does prove that environmental influences play a significant role in cognitive ability as measured in early adulthood.

Researchers compared the cognitive ability — as measured by IQ — of 436 Swedish male siblings in which one member was reared by biological parents and the other by adoptive parents.

The IQ of the adopted males, which was measured at ages 18-20, was 4.4 points higher than their nonadopted siblings.

The findings have been published online in the Early Edition of the .

“In Sweden, as in most Western countries, there is a substantial excess of individuals who wish to adopt compared to adoptive children available,” said joint first author Kenneth S. Kendler, M.D., professor of psychiatry and human and molecular genetics, VCU School of Medicine.

“Therefore, adoption agencies see it as their goal of selecting relatively ideal environments within which to place adoptive children.”

The adoptive parents tended to be more educated and in better socioeconomic circumstances than the biological parents.

In the study, parental education level was rated on a five-point scale and each additional unit of rearing parental education was associated with 1.71 more units of IQ.

In the rare circumstances when the biological parents were more educated than the adoptive parents, the cognitive ability of the adopted away offspring was lower than the one who was reared by the genetic parents.

“Many studies of environmental effects on cognitive ability are based on special programs like Head Start that children are placed in for a limited amount of time,” said joint-first author Eric Turkheimer, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia.

“These programs often have positive results while the program is in place, but they fade quickly when it is over. Adoption into a more educated household is the most permanent kind of environmental change, and it has the most lasting effects.”

Investigators share that previous studies have found that educated parents are more likely to talk at the dinner table, take their children to museums, and read stories to their children at night.

“We’re not denying that cognitive ability has important genetic components, but it is a naïve idea to say that it is only genes,” Kendler said.

“This is strong evidence that educated parents do something with their kid that makes them smarter and this is not a result of genetic factors.”

Social status and the social environment also play a factor in IQ development — a concept proved in a landmark 2003 study by Turkheimer. In that study, he demonstrated that the effect of genes on IQ depends on socioeconomic status.

The most recent study further affirms that finding.

“Differences among people in their cognitive ability are influenced by both their genes and environments, but genetic effects have often been easier to demonstrate because identical twins are essentially clones and have highly similar IQs,” Turkheimer said.

“Environmental effects have to be inferred, as in the rare event when pairs of siblings are raised by different parents in different socioeconomic circumstances. The Swedish population data allowed us to find that homes led by better educated parents produce real gains in the cognitive abilities of the children they raise.”

Source:

Nauert, R. (2015). Home Environment Packs Big Impact on Kids’ IQ. . Retrieved on March 25, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/25/home-environment-packs-big-impact-on-kids-iq/82756.html

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Best Foods to Eat While Pregnant

 

Even if you are already packing the value of an alphabet of vitamins and minerals in your daily meals length, may still worry that you are not taking enough questions right nutrition - especially if your appetite is not very close to Additionally speed through queasies early pregnancy. Enter, Stage Left, "nutritional superstars" - some familiar faces and some rising stars that reduce home with his performance in the sand on the diet

At 11 weeks of pregnancy, pregnancy these power foods twelve pack an amazing amount of nutrients in just a few bites, which makes them particularly effective when efficiency is a priority (like when you are too sick to eat a lot when you are gain weight too quickly, or when you win enough not fast). Place all the suite "" foods in your wish list:

1. Avocados: Loaded with folic acid (vital to forming your baby's brain and nervous system), potassium, vitamin C, and vitamin B6 (which not only helps baby's tissue and brain growth, but may also help with your morning sickness), avocados are a delicious way to get your vitamins. Spread some ripe avocado on your whole grain roll as a healthy substitute for mayo. Keep in mind that avocados are high in fat (though the very good kind) and calories, so heap them on your plate only if you're having trouble gaining weight.

2. Broccoli:Cruciferous favorite, packed with lots of vitamins A and C, calcium bonus (better build these baby bone) America, as well as children folate friends. Stir in pasta or stews, stir-fried with seafood or chicken, served with steam (with or without dressing), or buried in diving.

3. Carrots: What's up, Doc? Here's what: Carrots are tops when it comes to vitamin A, so important for the development of bones, teeth and baby eyes. They are perfect for chewing on the road, but also perfectly destroy almost anything (meatloaf cake salad). Carrots are also a good source of vitamins B6 and C and fiber to keep things movin '.

4. DHA eggs: The old egg is always a good egg, with a low calorie high protein punch in a tasty package. But here's the news: science now allows us to stir, fry, boil eggs or better, of course responsible for DHA, a type of omega-3 (the "good fat") fatty acids, which is an important component of the brain and of the retina, and is essential for brain development and training of the eye in the fetus. Also note that always loved eggs.

5. Edamame: Green pods are really ready soybeans - and they taste much better than they sound. Packed with protein, calcium, folic acid, vitamins A and B, edamame can be emptied by a handful as a snack (pepper, and you will never lose chips), or thrown in almost all of the soup is cooking, pasta cooked by frying succotash. They are also free replacement gas beads. So no edamame forget mom.

6. Lentils: Branch grain protein and folic acid, vitamin B6 and iron. The lenses are the gut (and spouse) and friendly plant easily absorb a variety of flavors from other foods and condiments.

7. Lentils: Branch grain protein and folic acid, vitamin B6 and iron. The lenses are the gut (and spouse) and friendly plant easily absorb a variety of flavors from other foods and condiments.

8. Mangoes: sweet revenge to avoid any plant, mangoes contain more vitamins A and C delicious bite bitten by a salad. This tropical favorite, also full of potassium, is particularly versatile, a perfect complement to sweet and savory dishes. Mix it in smoothies or soups, sauces or cut into pleasures, just a spoon and enjoy.

9. Nuts: Nuts are full of important minerals (copper, manganese, magnesium, selenium, zinc, potassium, calcium and even) and vitamin E. And even if they are high in fat, is particularly good for you to type. So, in short, go nuts with nuts (in moderation, if the rapid rise freely if you are winning slowly) and throw them in salads, pasta, meat and fish, baked goods.

10. Oatmeal: Here's a good reason to feel his oats (and eat often). They are full of fiber, B vitamins, iron and a number of other minerals. Fill in your breakfast bowl with them, but do not stop there. You can add oats - and all its nutritional superpowers - for pancakes, muffins, cakes, cookies, even cake.

Perceptions Harm Anorexic Men

Recent findings suggest that the perception of eating disorders as a female problem may be preventing boys and men from seeking help.

About one in eight people with anorexia nervosa is male. This equates to one in 2,000 men, compared with one in 250 women.

Anorexia is one of the four recognized types of eating disorders, with the others being bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS). It has the highest mortality rate of all adolescent psychiatric conditions.

Rates among men are rising, but there is often poor recognition of the signs and symptoms of eating disorders in men, said Dr. Ulla Raisanen of Oxford University, U.K., and her team. As such, true rates may be higher than the official estimates. Some studies suggest that men with anorexia are more likely to engage in obsessive exercise and have more severe psychiatric problems as a result of the condition.

The team interviewed 39 young people aged 16 to 25 with an eating disorder. Of the interviewees, 10 were men. The male respondents had all been slow to realize that they had the potential signs and symptoms of an eating disorder. Crucially, behaviors such as going days without eating, purging, obsessive calorie-counting, exercise, and weighing became entrenched during this time.

Some cited the perception that eating disorders are a women’s problem as one of the main reasons why it took them so long to realize. One said he thought eating disorders only affected “fragile teenage girls”, and another said he thought these disorders were “something girls got”.

The eating disorder often went unrecognized by friends, family, and teachers, and was often only diagnosed at a crisis point such as being admitted to hospital for self-harming.

The study is published in the journal . The authors write, “Our findings suggest that men may experience particular problems in recognizing that they may have an eating disorder as a result of the continuing cultural construction of eating disorders as uniquely or predominantly a female problem.”

The team also reports that men’s experiences of the health care system were mixed. “They said they often had to wait a long time for specialist referral and had sometimes been misdiagnosed, or, as in one case, told by the doctor ‘to man up.’ They complained of insufficient information about eating disorders targeted specifically at men,” they write.

One participant was given information and advice, but still felt that “I don’t think there’s any real information out there particular for men or any even awareness that it exists.”

The men expressed a strong desire for balanced, gender-tailored information. They felt that gender-blind information reflected wider societal constructions of anorexia as predominantly or only affecting women.

A lack of understanding and training among health professionals may also contribute to delays in diagnosing and treating anorexia among men, in part because men with anorexia might account for symptoms regarding weight and dieting behaviors differently from female sufferers. For example, “unusual behaviors could be misinterpreted as personal choices,” they explain.

But they point out that the study is limited to young people, so does not contribute to an understanding of older people with eating disorders.

“Men with eating disorders are under-diagnosed, under-treated, and under-researched. In order to improve the outlook for men with eating disorders, early detection is imperative,” they state.

Early diagnosis and intervention for anorexia has been shown to prevent the development of long-term, potentially life-threatening, psychiatric issues. Treatment can include psychological and drug interventions as well as dietary advice, but early diagnosis and intervention is important for long-term outcomes.

Another recent study indicated that treatment outcomes in all eating disorders are better for men than women, when remission was measured by a return to healthy weight and relapsing.

“In order to improve prognosis for men with eating disorders, early detection is imperative,” the team writes.

“Primary care clinicians have a key role in recognizing early symptoms. Until information resources are made more appropriate for men with eating disorders, health care providers need to be particularly sensitive to men’s needs in relation to an illness so strongly associated with women.

“Raising awareness of eating disorders more widely in society is also crucial to help men (and women) to recognize and seek help before their symptoms and behaviors become intractable.

“It is important to decouple the experience and self-management of eating disorders from feminized cultural imagery, resources, and clinical practice if we wish to prevent men from dismissing signs and symptoms themselves, and prevent health and other professionals (e.g. teachers) from overlooking signs and symptoms in boys and young men that they may readily recognize as indicative of eating disorders in young women.”

Raisanen, U., & Hunt, K. The role of gendered constructions of eating disorders in delayed help-seeking men: a qualitative interview study. , 9 April 2014 doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2013-004342

Collingwood, J. (2015). Perceptions Harm Anorexic Men. . Retrieved on March 24, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/23/perceptions-harm-anorexic-men/82671.html

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Autism Tied to Multiple Births After Fertility Treatments

A new paper reports the incidence of diagnosed autism was twice as high for assisted reproductive technology (ART) as non-ART births in a California study.

ART includes a group of complex procedures that are often utilized if a woman does not become pregnant after treatment with medical and surgical techniques. Techniques include intrauterine insemination (IUI), in vitro fertilization and third party assisted ART.

The new study reviewed nearly six million children born in California from 1997 through 2007.

Researchers report, however, that much of the association between ART and autism can be explained by age and education of the mother as well as adverse perinatal outcomes, especially multiple births. After accounting for these factors, the study showed an elevated risk only for mothers ages 20-34.

Notably, the study reported no significant increased risk of autism for women who gave birth to singleton children.

“These results indicate that the higher autism risk may be due mainly to the large numbers of multiple births and complications of pregnancy and delivery among children conceived with ART,” said Dr. Christine Fountain, assistant professor of sociology at Fordham University and affiliated researcher at Columbia University.

Autism impairs social interaction and predisposes children to restrictive and repetitive behaviors. Over the past three decades, California has witnessed a very large spike in autism cases, as have many other areas of the United States.

The study, a large collaboration between researchers at Columbia University, Fordham University, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was published by the .

The study was based on a massive linkage of different kinds of records from the California Birth Master Files for 1997 through 2007, the California Department of Developmental Services autism caseload for 1997 through 2011, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National ART Surveillance System for live births in 1997 through 2007.

In sum, information about all of the 5,926,251 live births, including 48,865 infants conceived with ART and 32,922 cases of autism diagnosed by the Department of Developmental Services were involved in the study which compared births originated using ART with births originated without ART for incidence of autism diagnosis.

“This study of the relationship between ART and autism is the largest to date,” said Dmitry Kissin, M.D., M.P.H., health scientist in CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health.

“The results indicate that reducing multiple births during ART may be beneficial for decreasing the risk of autism.”

Dr. Peter Bearman, Cole Professor of the Social Sciences and the lead investigator at Columbia University said, “While the risk of ART with respect to autism appears to be largely modifiable by restricting the procedure to single-embryo transfer, more research is needed to understand the precise mechanisms by which ART and autism are linked.”

Source:

Nauert, R. (2015). Autism Tied to Multiple Births After Fertility Treatments. . Retrieved on March 23, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/23/autism-associated-with-multiple-births-after-aggressive-fertility-efforts/82663.html

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Study Finds Boys More Affected by Sexual Music Videos

A new study has found unexpected gender differences among teenagers who watch music videos on television.

The study, conducted at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, found that sexually active youth of both genders think their peers are also sexually active after watching music TV.

But the study also found that when girls and boys perceive males in music videos as being sexually active, it makes boys watch more music TV, and girls watch less.

The study, published in Springer’s journal , notes that watching music videos is a popular pastime of European and American teenagers. The videos, however, are often criticized for having too much sexual content, for objectifying women and for promoting a recreational view of sexual activities. They also have been linked to teenagers becoming sexually active earlier in life, according to the researchers.

For their study, researchers gathered information three times over the course of a year from 515 Belgian teenagers between the ages of 12 and 15. The kids were asked how much music television they watched, how sexually active they were, and how sexually active they thought their peers were.

The researchers found that watching sexual music videos only had an effect on the sexual behavior of teenage boys, but not girls. They said they believe this behavior is influenced by the sexual scripts of music videos, which tend to show men taking a more active role in any sexual interaction.

Watching music videos definitely had an influence on how sexually active boys and girls thought peers of the same sex were, the researchers reported. It made them believe that many of their friends were also sexually active — even though this might not be true.

This, in turn, made the boys watch even more of this kind of television, according to the study’s findings. Girls, on the other hand, stopped watching this kind of television.

The researchers speculate that this might be a type of defense reaction on the part of girls who believe that many male peers are sexually active. The girls also may be rejecting media content that tends to portray girls as sexual objects, the researchers hypothesized.

“Regarding the influence of music television exposure on sexual behavior, our findings suggest that increased sexual activities may be triggered by media use among boys, but not among girls,” said co-author Eline Frison.

“As the portrayal of women as objects of lust reflects patriarchal values, media images that support this type of male dominance may provoke resistance in female viewers. This is especially valid among those who view such activity as a threat because of the high sexual activity rates of male peers.”

Source:

Wood, J. (2015). Study Finds Boys More Affected by Sexual Music Videos. . Retrieved on March 22, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/22/study-finds-boys-more-affected-by-sexual-music-videos/82589.html

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Age in Kindergarten Tied to Later Dropping Out, Crime

A new study has found that students who are older when they start kindergarten are more likely to drop out of school and commit serious crimes as teenagers.

Additionally, this negative outcome is significantly more likely for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, according to a researcher from Duke University.

“This research provides the first compelling evidence of a causal link between dropout and crime. It supports the view that crime outcomes should be considered in evaluating school reforms,” said lead author Dr. Philip J. Cook, a professor in Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy.

“Dropouts are greatly over-represented in prison, so we know there is a strong association between dropping out and crime,” he continued.

“But to establish causation requires an experiment. My analysis takes advantage of nature’s experiment associated with birth date.”

The study compared North Carolina public school students born 60 days before and 60 days after the school cutoff date. At the time of the study, North Carolina children had to turn five by Oct. 16 to be eligible to enter kindergarten that year, according to the researchers.

Previous studies have established that children born just after the school-entry cutoff date, who enter school “old for grade,” perform better academically than their younger classmates.

As a result, a growing number of parents have delayed enrolling their children whose birthdays fall shortly before the cutoff date, seeking to gain academic and social advantages, the researcher notes. Known as “academic redshirting,” this delay is more common for boys than girls and for whites than African-Americans.

In addition to performing better academically, Cook’s study found old-for-grade students were one-third less likely to engage in delinquent behavior while still in school.

“Up until the 16th birthday, it is all positive,” Cook said. “They are doing better, relative to their classmates, by every measure. It makes sense, because they are more mature.”

But after age 16, the picture shifts, according to Cook’s research. The old-for-grade students are more likely to drop out and be convicted of a felony before age 20.

The explanation for the seeming contradiction lies in the age at which students may legally withdraw from school, which is 16 in North Carolina, he noted.

“If they were born before the cutoff date, they have just 19 months between their 16th birthday and graduation to be tempted to drop out,” Cook said. “If they were born just after and enter school later, they have 31 months, and for some of them, it is an irresistible temptation.”

“It’s human nature,” he added. “For a lot of adolescents, high school is a drag.”

Among the old-for-grade students, the likelihood of dropping out and being convicted of a serious crime is 3.4 times greater for those born to an unwed mother and 2.7 times greater for those whose mothers were high school dropouts, according to the study’s findings.

Policymakers should take notice, Cook said.

“Even something as crude as a regulation that requires a kid stay in school to a fixed age, whether he wants to or not, has a considerable effect on criminal activity,” he said.

Rather than tie when kids can drop out to an age, states might consider requiring completion of a certain grade or a specified number of years in school, he said.

“People say there is no point keeping a kid in school who doesn’t want to be there because he won’t learn anything and he’ll be disruptive,” Cook said. “My findings suggest that intuitive argument is not entirely correct.”

“Even students who would rather drop out can benefit from staying in school when they are required to do so,” he concluded. “Otherwise they are prime candidates for recruitment into a life of crime.”

The study was published in the .

Source:

Wood, J. (2015). Age in Kindergarten Tied to Later Dropping Out, Crime. . Retrieved on March 22, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/21/age-in-kindergarten-tied-to-later-dropping-out-crime/82593.html

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Babies' body mass index may predict childhood obesity

Great CHOP study is the rate of childhood obesity may be related to child growth standards

 

Body mass index (BMI) during childhood can help predict whether a child will be obese within four years. In a study on childhood obesity IMC-child relationship in a cohort with most black children, researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) say that a better understanding of child growth models can be the first efforts more effective in preventing obesity.

 

Everolimus-eluting stents or bypass surgery for multivessel coronary disease

test results and registry studies have shown the long-term mortality is lower after coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with multivessel disease. These previous analyzes did not assess PCI with drug-eluting stents second generation. In a registry study of contemporary clinical practice, the risk of death associated with PCI with everolimus-eluting stents was similar to that of the CRC. PCI was associated with an increased risk of myocardial infarction (in patients with incomplete revascularization) and repeat revascularization, but a lower risk of stroke.

Good Breakfast May Hike Low-Income Kids’ Grades

From an energy and dietary perspective breakfast has often been touted as the most important meal of the day.

New research suggests the benefits of a good breakfast extend to the cognitive arena as investigators find a strong connection between good nutrition and good grades.

In the study, University of Iowa investigators discovered free school breakfasts help students from low-income families perform better academically.

Researchers found students who attend schools that participate in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s School Breakfast Program (SBP) have higher achievement scores in math, science, and reading than students in schools that don’t participate.

“These results suggest that the persistent exposure to the relatively more nutritious breakfast offered through the subsidized breakfast program throughout elementary school can yield important gains in achievement,” said researcher Dr. David Frisvold, an assistant professor of economics.

The federal government started the SBP for children from low-income families in 1966. The program is administered in coordination with state governments, many of which require local school districts to offer subsidized breakfasts if a certain percentage of their overall enrollment comes from families that meet income eligibility guidelines.

Frisvold conducted his study by examining academic performance from students in schools that are just below the threshold and thus not required to offer free breakfasts, and those that are just over it and do offer them.

He found the schools that offered free breakfasts showed significantly better academic performance than schools that did not, and that the impact was cumulative so that the longer the school participated in the SBP, the higher their achievement.

Math scores were about 25 percent higher at participating schools during a students’ elementary school tenure than would be expected otherwise. Reading and science scores showed similar gains, Frisvold said.

Frisvold said the study suggests subsidized breakfast programs are an effective tool to help elementary school students from low-income families achieve more in school and be better prepared for later life.

Source:

Nauert, R. (2015). Good Breakfast May Hike Low-Income Kids’ Grades. . Retrieved on March 19, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/18/good-breakfast-may-hike-low-income-kids-grades/82469.html

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On Social Media, Teens Take Risks First, Seek Help Later

Teens tend to approach privacy on social media in a significantly different way than adults, according to a new study. While most adults think first and then ask questions, teens tend to take the risk and then seek help.

Teens are typically exposed to greater online risks because they are using social media as a platform for self-expression and acceptance. They may disclose important contact information or photographs with strangers, for example.

“Adults don’t know how big of a deal this is for teens,” said Haiyan Jia, post-doctoral scholar in information sciences and technology.

“Before I worked on these papers, I was drawn to the issue because I heard about so many tragedies of teens who were exploring their identities online and that led them to very risky situations, often with terrible consequences.”

“Adults often find this very difficult to understand and paradoxical because they are so used to considering possible risks of disclosing information online first and then taking the necessary precautions, based on those concerns,” said Jia.

“What our model suggests is that teens don’t think this way — they disclose and then evaluate the consequences. The process is more experiential in nature for teens.”

The findings offer insight into what researchers call the ‘privacy paradox,’ notes Pamela Wisniewski, a post-doctoral scholar in information sciences and technology, who worked with Jia. She adds that the privacy paradox suggests that there is a disconnect between the privacy concerns of teens and what information they disclose.

“For adults, the basic model is that different factors contribute to an individual’s concern for his or her information privacy and based on that privacy concern the user takes certain actions, for example, disclosing less information,” said Wisniewski. “This is a very rational, adult-focused model, however, that doesn’t seem applicable to teens.”

When teens are faced with privacy concerns, they often try to find possible protective actions to diminish risk, according to the researchers. This includes seeking advice from adults, removing online information, or going offline completely.

A parent’s first impulse may be to take away access to the Internet or social media, but completely avoiding risks may cause other problems, said the researchers.

“First, I can’t imagine a teen growing up and avoiding the Internet and online communications in this age,” said Jia.

“But there’s also a danger that without taking on the minimum risks, teens will not have access to all the positive benefits the Internet can provide, nor will they learn how to manage risk and how to safely navigate this online world.”

Jia uses the concept of swimming lessons as the best model for parents who want to encourage their teens to use the Internet and social media safely. “It’s a lot like learning to swim,” Jia said.

“You make sure they enter the water slowly and make sure they know how to swim before you let them swim on their own and in the deeper parts.”

For the study, the researchers looked at data from the Pew Research Center’s 2012 Teens and Privacy Management Survey. The survey gathered information on social media behaviors from 588 teens in the United States, most of whom were active users of sites such as Facebook.

The researchers presented their findings at the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing conference.

Source:

Pedersen, T. (2015). On Social Media, Teens Take Risks First, Seek Help Later. . Retrieved on March 18, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/18/on-social-media-teens-take-risks-first-seek-help-later/82452.html

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Common IQ Methodology May Be Flawed

A Canadian researcher has discovered inconsistencies in the widely used Wechsler Adult Intelligence test (WAIS-IV).

Queen’s University professor Dr. Allyson Harrison and her colleagues examined the differences between Canadian and American WAIS-IV scores from 861 postsecondary students from across Ontario.

The research identified a trend where the individual’s scores were consistently lower using the Canadian test scoring system.

The discrepancy is alarming as the WAIS-IV is one of the most widely used intelligence tests in the world.

IQ scores are used to predict educational success, to help identify intellectual disabilities or intellectual giftedness, and to establish whether a person has a specific learning disability.

For her research, Harrison and colleagues examined the differences between Canadian and American WAIS-IV scores from 861 postsecondary students from across Ontario.

The WAIS-IV scores are used to make diagnostic decisions on the person’s ability relative to their peer group.

“Looking at the normal distribution of scores, you’d expect that only about five percent of the population should get an IQ score of 75 or less,” says Dr. Harrison.

“However, while this was true when we scored their tests using the American norms, our findings showed that 21 percent of college and university students in our sample had an IQ score this low when Canadian norms were used for scoring.”

The trend was the same across all IQ scores, with Canadian young adults in college or university consistently receiving a lower IQ score if the Canadian norms were used.

There were fewer gifted students identified when Canadian norms were used, as well as more students who were said to be intellectually impaired.

When scoring the WAIS-IV, Canadian psychologists have the option to compare the obtained raw score with the normative data gathered in either Canada or the U.S.

Harrison noted these findings have serious implications for educational and neuropsychological testing.

“Research shows that you can go from being classified as average to intellectually impaired based only on whether American or Canadian norms are used to rank the obtained raw IQ score.”

Source:

Nauert, R. (2015). Common IQ Methodology May Be Flawed. . Retrieved on March 18, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/18/common-iq-methodology-may-be-flawed/82459.html

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Depression in Transgender Youth Eases with Recognition, Treatment

Transgender youth often suffer from mental health problems, but a new study has found that their depression and anxiety improve greatly when their gender dysphoria is recognized and treated.

Gender dysphoria is a condition in which the child’s biological gender and the gender with which the child identifies do not match. Transgenderism is the persistent desire to change one’s biological gender.

“Many of our patients suffer greatly from bullying, discrimination, isolation, and lack of support or lack of insurance coverage for the necessary treatment,”  said principal investigator Maja Marinkovic, M.D., a pediatric endocrinologist and medical director of the Gender Management Clinic at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego, an affiliate of the University of California, San Diego.

“Youth with gender incongruence or dysphoria need a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to care. They are in great need of experienced endocrinologists, therapists, psychiatrists, primary care providers, and surgeons,” said Marinkovic.

The study, which took place at the Rady Children’s Hospital clinic, involved 42 patients with gender dysphoria. Twenty-eight participants were making a female-to-male transition, 13 were male-to-female and one natal girl was gender fluid. That patient reportedly later chose male hormone treatment.

Twenty-six (62 percent) reported that they had depression, anxiety or both and/or cut themselves, with seven patients having a self-cutting history, Marinkovic said. Eleven patients had additional psychiatric or behavioral problems, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, Asperger’s syndrome/autism spectrum disorder and bipolar disorder.

Often, noted Marinkovic, parents and school staff may not even think of transgenderism, and there is often a delay in having the child assessed by a therapist who is experienced in gender identity problems until much later, when the young person is already deeply depressed or suicidal.

Treatment involved administering gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists (GnRHa), which Marinkovic described as “puberty blockers,” in seven patients and cross-gender hormones in 32 patients, with only two patients taking both types of hormones.

The average age of starting puberty suppression was 12.5 years, and treatment with cross-gender hormones began at an average age of 16.5 years. Two female-to-male patients had breasts surgically removed at ages 16 and 18 years, she reported. Several other participants wanted to get this type of surgery, but their insurance plans did not cover it or they could not find an experienced surgeon in their area.

“To date, none of the patients expressed regret or stopped therapy,” Marinkovic stated.

Mental health follow-up data were available for 22 out of 26 patients. After treatment, depression, anxiety and/or self-cutting improved in all but two of the participants. Since Rady Children’s Gender Management Clinic began in 2012, it has seen a constant rapid increase in the number of patients referred to the clinic, Marinkovic said.

“There needs to be not only greater awareness and acceptance of this minority group but also improved accessibility to care for youth with gender dysphoria, to decrease the problems often seen in patients who are transgender,” she said.

The results were presented at The Endocrine Society’s 97th annual meeting in San Diego.

Source:

Pedersen, T. (2015). Depression in Transgender Youth Eases with Recognition, Treatment. . Retrieved on March 17, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/17/depression-in-transgender-youth-eases-with-recognition-treatment/82412.html

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Energy Drinks Can Jack Up Blood Pressure, Even in Young Adults

Mayo Clinic researchers say consumption of a commercially available energy drink can lead to a significant increase in resting blood pressure, raising the concern that energy drinks may increase the risk of cardiac events.

Results of the study were presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session.

In this study, researchers alternately gave a can of a commercially available energy drink or a placebo drink to 25 healthy young adults, age 19 to 40, and assessed changes in heart rate and blood pressure.

Blood pressure and heart rate were recorded before and 30 minutes after energy drink/placebo drink consumption, and were also compared between caffeine-naïve participants (those consuming less than 160 mg of caffeine per day, the amount frequently found in a cup of coffee) and regular caffeine users (those consuming more than 160 mg of caffeine per day).

Participants experienced a marked rise in blood pressure after consuming the energy drink as compared to the placebo.

Overall, the blood pressure increase was more than doubled in caffeine-naïve adults after consuming the energy drink vs. placebo, they found.

“We know that energy drink consumption is widespread and rising among young people. Concerns about the health safety of energy drinks have been raised. We and others have previously shown that energy drinks increase blood pressure,” said lead author Anna Svatikova, M.D., Ph.D.

“Now we are seeing that for those not used to caffeine, the concern may be even greater. Consumers should use caution when using energy drinks because they may increase the risk of cardiovascular problems, even among young people.”

Source:

Nauert, R. (2015). Energy Drinks Can Jack Up Blood Pressure, Even in Young Adults. . Retrieved on March 17, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/16/energy-drinks-can-jack-up-blood-pressure-even-in-young-adults/82382.html

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Parents’ Depression Linked to Toddler’s Troubling Behaviors

Having either parent suffer from depression may increase the likelihood that a toddler will develop troubling behaviors such as hitting, lying, anxiety, and sadness, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study.

The study is one of the first to show that a father’s depression — from postpartum to toddlerhood — can have the same effect as a mother’s depression. Prior research has focused mostly on mothers with postpartum depression and found that their symptoms may impact their children’s behavior during a time of critical development.

“Father’s emotions affect their children,” said lead author Sheehan Fisher, an instructor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “New fathers should be screened and treated for postpartum depression, just as we do for mothers.”

Mothers and fathers who are suffering from depression may not make as much eye contact or smile as parents who are not depressed. The more disengaged parents are from their child, the harder it will be for the child to form close attachments and experience healthy emotions,” Fisher said.

“Depression affects the way people express emotions, and it can cause their behavior to change,” he added.

Earlier studies have found that fathers are at a greater risk of depression after the birth of a child compared to any other time in a typical male’s life. The findings show that a father’s mood during postpartum is important to the trajectory of his depression three years later and significant for predicting his child’s behavior during the toddler years.

“Early intervention for both mothers and fathers is the key,” Fisher said. “If we can catch parents with depression earlier and treat them, then there won’t be a continuation of symptoms, and, maybe even as importantly, their child won’t be affected by a parent with depression.”

For the study, Fisher collected data from a group of nearly 200 couples with three year-olds, all of whom had participated in a previous depression study around the time of their child’s birth.

Participants reported information about their levels of depression, their relationship with their partner, and their child’s internalizing behaviors (sadness, anxiety, jitteriness) and externalizing behaviors (acting out, hitting, lying). The questionnaires were completed by both members of the couple independently and mailed back to the researchers.

The findings show that both the mother’s and the father’s depression levels during toddlerhood were each uniquely associated with the child’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors.

They also found that parents who reported signs of postpartum depression soon after the birth of their child also showed these signs three years later and that fighting between parents did not contribute to children’s bad behaviors as much as having a depressed parent did.

The study is published online in the journal

Source:

Pedersen, T. (2015). Parents’ Depression Linked to Toddler’s Troubling Behaviors. . Retrieved on March 15, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/15/parents-depression-linked-to-toddlers-troubling-behaviors/82308.html

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Abusing Pot in Teenage Years May Damage Adult Memory

A new study has found that teens who were heavy marijuana users have abnormal brain structure and perform poorly on memory tests.

Northwestern University researchers found that teens who had smoked marijuana daily for around three years had an abnormally shaped hippocampus.

The hippocampus is important to long-term memory (also known as episodic memory), which is the ability to remember autobiographical or life events.

The brain abnormalities and memory problems were observed during the individuals’ early twenties, two years after they stopped smoking marijuana.

Researchers also found that young adults who abused cannabis as teens performed about 18 percent worse on long-term memory tests than young adults who never abused cannabis.

“The memory processes that appear to be affected by cannabis are ones that we use every day to solve common problems and to sustain our relationships with friends and family,” said senior author Dr. John Csernansky, a professor and chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

The study has been published in the journal .

The study is among the first to suggest the hippocampus is shaped differently in heavy marijuana smokers and the different looking shape is directly related to poor long-term memory performance.

Previous studies of cannabis users have shown either the oddly shaped hippocampus or poor long-term memory but none have linked them.

Previous research by the same Northwestern team showed poor short-term and working memory performance and abnormal shapes of brain structures in the additional brain regions.

“Both our recent studies link the chronic use of marijuana during adolescence to these differences in the shape of brain regions that are critical to memory and that appear to last for at least a few years after people stop using it,” said lead study author Matthew Smith, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine.

The longer individuals were chronically using marijuana, the more abnormal the shape of their hippocampus, say the researchers. Moreover, the findings suggest that brain regions related to memory may be more susceptible to the effects of the drug the longer the abuse occurs.

The abnormal shape likely reflects damage to the hippocampus and could include the structure’s neurons, axons, or their supportive environments.

“Advanced brain mapping tools allowed us to examine detailed and sometimes subtle changes in small brain structures, including the hippocampus,” said Lei Wang, also a senior study author.

For the study, scientists used computerized programs they developed with collaborators that performed fine mappings between structural MRIs of different individuals’ brains.

Subjects took a narrative memory test in which they listened to a series of stories for about one minute, then were asked to recall as much content as possible 20 to 30 minutes later. The test assessed their ability to encode, store, and recall details from the stories.

The groups in the study started using marijuana daily between 16 to 17 years of age for about three years. At the time of the study, they had been marijuana free for about two years.

A total of 97 subjects participated, including matched groups of healthy controls, subjects with a marijuana use disorder, schizophrenia subjects with no history of substance use disorders, and schizophrenia subjects with a marijuana use disorder.

The subjects who used marijuana did not abuse other drugs.

The study also found that young adults with schizophrenia who abused cannabis as teens performed about 26 percent more poorly on memory tests than young adults with schizophrenia who never abused cannabis.

In the U.S., marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug, and young adults have the highest — and growing — prevalence of use. Decriminalization of the drug may lead to greater use. Four states have legalized marijuana for recreational use, and 23 states plus Washington D.C. have legalized it for medical use.

However, study results are not definitive because of the research design that only looked at a single point in time. A longitudinal study is needed to definitively show if marijuana is responsible for the observed differences in the brain and memory impairment, Smith said.

“It is possible that the abnormal brain structures reveal a pre-existing vulnerability to marijuana abuse,” Smith said. “But evidence that the longer the participants were abusing marijuana, the greater the differences in hippocampus shape suggests marijuana may be the cause.”

Source:

Nauert, R. (2015). Abusing Pot in Teenage Years May Damage Adult Memory. . Retrieved on March 13, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/13/abusing-pot-in-teenage-years-may-damage-adult-memory/82289.html

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Study Finds Nearly 1 in 5 College Students Misuse ADHD Drugs

Researchers at the University of South Carolina found that one in six college students misuse drugs for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a finding that has both legal and health-related consequences.

Given that Ritalin, Adderall, and their ilk are Schedule II controlled substances, the same as cocaine and methamphetamine, a lot of young adults are flirting with potentially serious legal jeopardy.

Senior psychology major Kari Benson has seen that firsthand with fellow students. As a sophomore, she had started working with associate professor Dr. Kate Flory in the University of South Carolina’s Parenting and Family Research Center, studying social impairment in children with ADHD.

Friends would ask her what she was up to, and once word got around that she was doing ADHD research, a few acquaintances who didn’t know her very well started making requests.

“People would ask me if I could get them Adderall or Ritalin,” Benson says. “I realized that this was a pretty prevalent issue on campus, and I wanted to see what I could do about it.”

She set out to analyze collegiate misuse of stimulant ADHD drugs, earning a grant as a Magellan Scholar from the Office of Undergraduate Research to help put together a survey of Carolina students.

To familiarize herself with previous work in the area, she prepared a literature review that Flory thought merited publication, particularly because it highlighted how much uncertainty there was in the field.

“If you looked at individual studies, the rates of college student misuse were all over the place,” says Flory.

“They ranged from two percent to 43 percent. So when we submitted this for publication, the journal was really interested in us doing a meta-review of all the existing studies.”

The review involved standardizing and pooling data from 30 articles, which Benson and Flory did in collaboration with Drs. Kathryn Humphreys of the Tulane University School of Medicine and Steve Lee of University of California, Los Angeles.

Their results have been published in the journal .

A meta-analysis comprises a much larger sample size than any individual study allowing greater statistical certainty in conclusions. One result is the finding that 17 percent of college students misuse stimulant medications prescribed for ADHD.

Misuse includes taking more than prescribed or taking the medication without a prescription.

College students misuse the drugs primarily because they think they bolster academic performance, although there is no study showing stimulant medication does so, Flory said.

In fact, the meta-analysis suggested the opposite may be true, correlating poor academic performance with stimulant misuse.

Recreational use of the drugs, such as taking them with alcohol to prolong the amount of time a student can party, is less prevalent but extremely dangerous.

“It makes it possible to drink beyond the normal limit,” Benson said. “So instead of passing out drunk, you might end up in the hospital having to get your stomach pumped.”

The review also concluded that the most common source of stimulant drugs was among friends, meaning there’s an informal network of students sharing Schedule II controlled substances on most college campuses.

Each individual in the network carries legal risks not just for possession and trafficking, but also potentially for the consequences of someone else’s highly hazardous, and possibly fatal, recreational abuse of the drugs.

Benson and Flory are using the meta-analysis and the results of their student survey, which involved more than a thousand Carolina students, to examine specific characteristics that are associated with misuse of the drugs.

They hope that will help identify students for intervention programs on college campuses.

“That’s something we’re hoping to do here,” said Flory. “We have a substance abuse prevention and education office, and they have a group that’s focused on prescription medications. We’ve pulled together an interdisciplinary group of researchers here at University of South Carolina to apply for a grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse, which would enable us to actually do an intervention on campus.”

Source:

Nauert, R. (2015). Study Finds Nearly 1 in 5 College Students Misuse ADHD Drugs. . Retrieved on March 12, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/12/study-finds-nearly-1-in-5-college-students-misuse-adhd-drugs/82249.html

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Genetic Link Found Between Autism & Higher Intelligence

New research suggests genes linked with a greater risk of developing autism may also be associated with higher intelligence.

In the study, researchers at the University of Edinburgh found evidence linking genetic factors associated with autism to better cognitive ability in people who do not have the condition.

Nevertheless, the relationship between autism and intelligence is not clear.

Although up to 70 percent of individuals with autism have an intellectual disability, some people with the disorder have relatively well-preserved, or even higher than average, non-verbal intelligence.

Autism is classified as a developmental disability that can cause significant language and speech difficulties. Non-verbal intelligence enables people to solve complex problems using visual and hands-on reasoning skills requiring little or no use of language.

Researchers at the Universities of Edinburgh and Queensland analyzed almost 10,000 people recruited from the general population of Scotland. Individuals were tested for general cognitive ability and received DNA analysis.

The team found that even among people who never develop autism, carrying genetic traits associated with the disorder is, on average, linked to scoring slightly better on cognitive tests.

Researchers found further evidence of a link between autism-associated genes and intelligence when they carried out the same tests on 921 adolescents who were part of the Brisbane Adolescent Twin Study.

The study is published in the journal .

“Our findings show that genetic variation which increases risk for autism is associated with better cognitive ability in non-autistic individuals. As we begin to understand how genetic variants associated with autism impact brain function, we may begin to further understand the nature of autistic intelligence,” said Dr. Toni-Kim Clarke, the study leader.

Prominent geneticist Nick Martin, Ph.D., of the Queensland Institute for Medical Research, said: “Links between autism and better cognitive function have been suspected and are widely implied by the well-known ‘Silicon Valley syndrome’ and films such as ‘Rain Man’ as well as in popular literature.

“This study suggests genes for autism may actually confer, on average, a small intellectual advantage in those who carry them, provided they are not affected by autism.”

Source:

Nauert, R. (2015). Genetic Link Found Between Autism & Higher Intelligence. . Retrieved on March 12, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/11/genetic-link-between-autism-and-higher-intelligence/82207.html

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Cold Family History Can Disrupt Adult Sense of Self, Even With High Self-Esteem

Although some children emerge from cold and neglectful family environments as adults with high self-esteem, a new University at Buffalo study suggests these people may still be at a relative disadvantage in life, with a foggier sense of who they are.

On the other hand, adults with low self-esteem who grew up in the same type of negative environment actually have relatively high self-clarity, according to the study’s findings.

“Our findings show that even those people who manage to get out of that relatively negative time and view themselves as good, worthwhile, and capable people are still not sure of the entire picture of themselves,” said study co-author Dr. Mark Seery, University of Buffalo professor of psychology. “So they’re held back a little bit in that sense.

“It seems counterintuitive at first,” he said, “but people who currently view themselves more negatively — as not so worthwhile or capable — have the most clarity about themselves when they grew up around a harsher family environment.

“We think that sense of clarity comes from the fact that there is a match between their negative view of themselves and their negative experience growing up.”

Typically, greater self-clarity is associated with better psychological adjustment, lower neuroticism, better academic performance and a lower likelihood of anger and aggression in response to failure.

Self-esteem and self-clarity are each unique components of the self. Self-esteem refers to a person’s overall feelings of self-worth; self-clarity reflects the extent to which self-views are clearly and confidently defined.

Previous research has shown that higher self-esteem is associated with higher self-clarity, so people who feel good about themselves tend to have a clearer sense of who they are.

“But we thought there might be more to the story,” said Lindsey Streamer, a University of Buffalo graduate student in the Department of Psychology and co-author of the study.

The study has been published in the journal .

“Drawing on previous research, we know that getting feedback that’s inconsistent with self-esteem leads to reduced clarity,” she said.

“So people with high self-esteem who get messages contrary to their overall self-evaluation tend to have conflicting interpretations of the self, or low self-clarity.”

That research, however, focused on feedback that was isolated, like a recent comment or something else that was “very much in the moment.”

“We wanted to look more at ongoing, chronic social feedback, such as early family experiences,” Streamer said.

In the new study, researchers used a questionnaire to determine the degree to which subjects were raised in a warm and loving environment as opposed to one filled with chaos and conflict. Subjects also completed assessments that measured self-esteem and self-clarity.

Similar to previous research findings, the results suggested that when people experience an inconsistency between how they think about themselves and what they’re hearing from others, they develop low self-clarity.

This study, however, is the first to examine the ways in which early family experiences may influence aspects of self-clarity.

Curiously, the results suggest that people with low self-esteem who grew up in a caring environment are particularly likely to have low self-clarity.

“If I think I’m a good person and have positive expectations, I think good things are going to happen to me. So it makes sense when they do,” said Seery.

“But if I have low self-esteem, things like getting a promotion at work or having a secret crush ask me out on a date may feel good, but they don’t entirely make sense to me, because I don’t expect to be treated as though I’m a person of worth.”

“These results show how important consistency is for people,” said Seery.

“We have a strong motive to expect consistency and to find consistency in our lives. It includes us and how we fit in the world, and that can lead to some counterintuitive findings like we have in this study.”

That motivation for consistency is present regardless of whether people view themselves positively or negatively.

It’s the inconsistency between self-views and what happens around us that contributes to this lack of clarity about the self, the researchers conclude.

“Our work is another striking demonstration of this basic idea, but extending it into early family experiences,” said Seery.

Source:

Nauert, R. (2015). Cold Family History Can Disrupt Adult Sense of Self, Even With High Self-Esteem. . Retrieved on March 10, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/03/10/early-family-experiences-influence-adulthood-sense-of-self/82157.html

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