Regular aerobic exercise improves the quality of sleep, mood and vitality, according to a new study.
The study is the first to examine the effect of aerobic exercise on middle-aged and older adults with a diagnosis of insomnia.
About 50 per cent of people in these age groups complain of chronic insomnia symptoms. The study is scheduled for publication in the journal Sleep Medicine.
The aerobic exercise trial resulted in the most dramatic improvement in patients' reported quality of sleep, including sleep duration, compared to any other non-pharmacological intervention, according to a Northwestern University release.
"This is relevant to a huge portion of the population," said Phyllis Zee, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at the Northwestern University and senior study author.
Kathryn Reid, research assistant professor at Northwestern, who led the research, says: "Insomnia increases with age," Zee said.
"Around middle age, sleep begins to change dramatically. It is essential that we identify behavioural ways to improve sleep. Now we have promising results showing aerobic exercise is a simple strategy to help people sleep better and feel more vigorous."
The drug-free strategy also is desirable, because it eliminates the potential of a sleeping medication interacting with other drugs a person may be taking, Reid said.
Sleep is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle, like nutrition and exercise, noted Zee, a professor of neurology, neurobiology, and physiology at the Northwestern University.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Popping a pill can help treat alcoholism
An updated review of studies has confirmed that a little-used medication can help treat alcoholism. Twelve-step programs have been the mainstay for helping alcoholics to quit drinking, but a significant number of people who try these programs do not find them helpful or suffer relapses.
The Cochrane review finds that the medication naltrexone ” brand names are Depade and ReVia ” when combined with counseling or interventions like Alcoholics Anonymous, can help cut the risk of heavy drinking in patients who are dependent on alcohol.Naltrexone works by blocking the pleasurable feelings, or "high," a person gets from drinking alcohol, thereby reducing motivation to drink. Naltrexone can be taken daily as a pill and is available as a long-acting injection.
Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.
Michael Soyka, senior author of the review and colleagues examined the results of 50 previously published high-quality studies on naltrexone and alcohol dependence. Overall, the studies enrolled nearly 7,800 patients diagnosed with alcohol dependence.
Of these, about 4,200 patients took naltrexone or a similar drug called nalmefene. The rest of the patients took a placebo or had some other type of treatment. Treatment with naltrexone ranged from four weeks to a year, with most patients receiving about 12 weeks of treatment. Most patients also received counseling.
Researchers found that patients who received naltrexone were 17 percent less likely to return to heavy drinking than were patients who received a placebo treatment.
"That would mean that naltrexone can be expected to prevent heavy drinking in one out of eight patients who would otherwise have returned to a heavy drinking pattern," Soyka said.
Naltrexone also increased the number of people who were able to stay abstinent by 4 percent. While at first glance that might not seem like a miracle cure for alcoholism, Soyka said that the effectiveness of naltrexone is on par with medications used for other psychiatric conditions.
"Naltrexone is moderately effective in reducing alcohol intake. It's about as effective as antidepressants in depressive disorders," he said.
"From a safety point of view, there are few safety concerns. Nausea is the most frequent side effect."The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research, published the review.
Textaphrenia & textiety: Message conveys disorder
MELBOURNE: Ever heard of textaphrenia, textiety or post-traumatic text disorder? These are some of serious mental and physical disorders that teenaged Australian "text addicts" are suffering from, a new study has revealed.
The research into youth communication habits identified the risks teens face from texting excessively every day, and the symptoms included anxiety, insecurity, depression, low self-esteem and "repetitive thumb syndrome".
According to figures released by Boost Mobile, a reseller of the Optus network, text messaging has increased by 89% in the last two years.
Jennie Carroll, a technology researcher from RMIT University in Melbourne, has studied of the effects of modern communication since 2001 and said the mobile phone had become meshed into teenagers' lives.
Her study identified four distinct disorders — textaphrenia, textiety, post-traumatic text disorder and binge texting.
Textaphrenia is thinking a message had arrived when it hadn't, while textiety is the anxious feeling of not receiving or sending text messages.
"With textaphrenia and textiety there's a feeling no one loves me, no one's contacted me," the Daily Telegraph quoted her as saying.
Post-traumatic stress disorder involved physical and mental injuries from texting, like walking into things while texting and even crossing a road without looking. "There were reports from Japan of 'repetitive thumb syndrome' and thumbs growing because of texting leading to 'Monster Thumbs'," she revealed.
Binge texting is when teens send multiple texts to feel good about themselves and try to attract responses.
"This is the reverse of the anxiety — you think you've been left out of the loop so you send a lot of texts and wait for responses," Carroll explained.
The research into youth communication habits identified the risks teens face from texting excessively every day, and the symptoms included anxiety, insecurity, depression, low self-esteem and "repetitive thumb syndrome".
According to figures released by Boost Mobile, a reseller of the Optus network, text messaging has increased by 89% in the last two years.
Jennie Carroll, a technology researcher from RMIT University in Melbourne, has studied of the effects of modern communication since 2001 and said the mobile phone had become meshed into teenagers' lives.
Her study identified four distinct disorders — textaphrenia, textiety, post-traumatic text disorder and binge texting.
Textaphrenia is thinking a message had arrived when it hadn't, while textiety is the anxious feeling of not receiving or sending text messages.
"With textaphrenia and textiety there's a feeling no one loves me, no one's contacted me," the Daily Telegraph quoted her as saying.
Post-traumatic stress disorder involved physical and mental injuries from texting, like walking into things while texting and even crossing a road without looking. "There were reports from Japan of 'repetitive thumb syndrome' and thumbs growing because of texting leading to 'Monster Thumbs'," she revealed.
Binge texting is when teens send multiple texts to feel good about themselves and try to attract responses.
"This is the reverse of the anxiety — you think you've been left out of the loop so you send a lot of texts and wait for responses," Carroll explained.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Gene link to 130 brain diseases identified
PARIS: Scientists on Sunday said they had discovered a bouquet of proteins that play a critical role in the development of more than 130 brain diseases.
Their study also highlights a surprising link between these disorders - including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's - and the evolution of human behaviour, they said. The human brain is a labyrinth of millions of specialised nerve cells interconnected by billions of electrical and chemical pathways called synapses.
Within synapses are proteins that combine together, forming a molecular machine known as the post-synaptic density, or PSD, which is believed to disrupt synaptic functioning, causing disease and behavioural change.
Reporting in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Seth Grant of Britain's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute led a team that extracted PSDsfrom synapses of patients undergoing brain surgery.
"We found over 130 brain diseases involve the PSD - far more than expected," said Grant. "The human PSD is at centre stage of a large range of human diseases affecting millions of people."
Besides common and debilitating neurodegenerative disorders, these include epilepsies and childhood development diseases such as autism.
The PSDs identified so far come from combinations of 1,461 proteins, each encoded by a separate gene.
"We now have a comprehensive molecular playlist of 1,000 suspects," noted Jeffrey Neobels, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine inTexas, commenting on the study. "Every seventh protein in this line-up is involved in a known clinical disorder, and over half of them are repeat offenders."
The findings open several news paths toward tackling these illnesses, including better diagnosis, the authors said. To help accelerate this goal, the researchers have released all their data into the public domain, and created the first-ever "molecular roadmap" for human synapses showing how proteins and diseases interconnect. "We can also see ways to develop new genetic diagnostic tests," Grant said.
The study also revealed the proteins in PSDs have deep evolutionary roots and play an indirect role in cognitive behaviours such as learning and memory, as well as emotion and mood. Compared with other gene-encoded proteins, PSD proteins evolved much more slowly.
Read more: Gene link to 130 brain diseases identified - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Gene-link-to-130-brain-diseases-identified/articleshow/7130653.cms#ixzz18cg6oJ8n
Their study also highlights a surprising link between these disorders - including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's - and the evolution of human behaviour, they said. The human brain is a labyrinth of millions of specialised nerve cells interconnected by billions of electrical and chemical pathways called synapses.
Within synapses are proteins that combine together, forming a molecular machine known as the post-synaptic density, or PSD, which is believed to disrupt synaptic functioning, causing disease and behavioural change.
Reporting in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Seth Grant of Britain's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute led a team that extracted PSDsfrom synapses of patients undergoing brain surgery.
"We found over 130 brain diseases involve the PSD - far more than expected," said Grant. "The human PSD is at centre stage of a large range of human diseases affecting millions of people."
Besides common and debilitating neurodegenerative disorders, these include epilepsies and childhood development diseases such as autism.
The PSDs identified so far come from combinations of 1,461 proteins, each encoded by a separate gene.
"We now have a comprehensive molecular playlist of 1,000 suspects," noted Jeffrey Neobels, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine inTexas, commenting on the study. "Every seventh protein in this line-up is involved in a known clinical disorder, and over half of them are repeat offenders."
The findings open several news paths toward tackling these illnesses, including better diagnosis, the authors said. To help accelerate this goal, the researchers have released all their data into the public domain, and created the first-ever "molecular roadmap" for human synapses showing how proteins and diseases interconnect. "We can also see ways to develop new genetic diagnostic tests," Grant said.
The study also revealed the proteins in PSDs have deep evolutionary roots and play an indirect role in cognitive behaviours such as learning and memory, as well as emotion and mood. Compared with other gene-encoded proteins, PSD proteins evolved much more slowly.
Read more: Gene link to 130 brain diseases identified - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Gene-link-to-130-brain-diseases-identified/articleshow/7130653.cms#ixzz18cg6oJ8n
Drinking water before meals good
Read more: Drinking water before meals good - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/diet/Drinking-water-before-meals-good/articleshow/6425577.cms#ixzz18cf24gby
Have you tried out every trick in the book to lose weight – crash diets, gyms, or simply starving yourself?
Now, try a simple trick – drink a glass or two of water before meals, as that's the best way to curb appetite and shed those pounds – says a new research.
Scientists have reported that just two 8-ounce glasses of water taken before meals, can lead to weight loss.
"In this recent study, we found that over the course of 12 weeks, dieters who drank water before meals, three times per day, lost about 5 pounds more than dieters who did not increase their water intake," said Brenda Davy of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
The simple reason is that it fills up the stomach with a substance that has zero calories. People feel fuller as a result, and eat less calorie-containing food during the meal.
And it gets even better if you replace sweetened calorie-containing beverages with it.
Although there's no exact amount of water one should drink, experts advise that most healthy people can simply let thirst be their guide.
The general recommendations for women are about 9 cups of fluids — from all beverages including water — each day, and men at about 13 cups of fluids.
Read more: Drinking water before meals good - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/diet/Drinking-water-before-meals-good/articleshow/6425577.cms#ixzz18cfVgVZM
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