Telomeres, the tiny caps on the end of your chromosomes that protect your DNA, might be affected by the stress hormone cortisol. This latest study from the DiSH Lab found that shorter telomere length (indicative of accelerated cellular aging) was related to several different measures of a revved up stress system. Head on over to the Publications page to download the paper!
Have you ever wondered why people reach for high fat, sweet food when they’re stressed? It’s because it works! In a new study by the DiSH Lab and collaborators now covered in the press, we report findings that very highly stressed women who have high abdominal fat actually have LOWER reactivity to stress, most likely due to comfort food eating. So don’t be so harsh on yourself when you reach for a donut on a bad day – it may be serving a real need and helping dampen your biological stress systems.
A new study has just come out indicating that your mortality risk goes down if you maintain or increase your physical fitness level. That’s pretty intuitive, but the surprising good news is that this is true regardless of what you weigh. In other words, it’s not about losing weight – if you want to decrease your risk of death, hit the gym!
Although it has historically been considered benign in mature human hosts, new research indicates that the parasitic microorganism, Toxoplasma gondii, may be linked to a whole host of mental illnesses including depression, schizophrenia, and bi-polar disorder. It is thought that this parasite may interfere with the dopamine pathway in humans which can result in the aforementioned mental illnesses. The truly fascinating aspect of these dangerous little microorganisms is that they may have developed this technique for altering the behavior of their hosts in order to increase interaction with their preferred hosts, cats! It is believed that this may have some connection to the “crazy cat lady” stereotype.
To learn more about these intriguing findings, click here!
Exercise, of course. A current TIME.com slide show article listed exercise as one of 8 ways to ward off the “Winter Blues.” Michael Terman, director of the Center for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms at Columbia University Medical Center, noted that around 33% of patients who practiced regular aerobic exercise showed a “marked lift in depressed mood,” but only if they kept at it! The good news is that socializing also made the list, so grab a friend, hit the gym, and really fight the “winter blues.”
The entire slide show article written by Maia Szalavitz can be found here.
and information on SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder can be found here
In an interesting Lifehacker article, they debunk myths like “Lobsters scream when they are boiled” and “Pregnant women should never eat sushi.” Click here for the full fun list.
According to two independent judges whose votes were unanimous, DiSH Labber Cassandra Fletcher wrote the best paper in Dr. T’s Health Psychology class this semester! Congrats, Cassie, on a well-deserved honor.
The assignment was to examine the way the media portrays scientific studies and sometimes distorts the findings. Read on to see her paper, the original scientific study on absent fathers and early puberty, and the press piece that she critiqued.
This study is getting a ton of press. Researchers in Australia put people on a diet, and came back one year later to see what happened. Their metabolism was still low, their leptin levels were also low, their ghrelin levels were high, and their peptide YY levels were low. Even if you don’t know what each of these things are, you should know that every single one of these changes predisposes a person to be hungrier. This might be why it’s really, really hard to keep weight off.
In this cool series of studies, University of Alberta researchers say, “Explaining why a chocolate cupcake tasted so divine makes us love the cupcake a little less, while explaining why a movie was so horrible makes us hate the movie a little less.” Useful, applicable stuff!
When you hear about losing weight, two main factors come to mind: eating less and exercising more. However, new studies have been investigating how exercising at a certain time can make you less energetic for the remainder of your day, leading to even less physical activity. A new study in England has shown results that may lead to a link between childhood obesity and exercise. Those who played at school earlier in the day were less likely to be active later on. These results may also be related to adults. A main finding is how important the environment influences the amount of physical activity one does, and there are many other factors at play which makes the issue not only biological but also psychological. Researcher are not disclaiming the values of exercise, but they recognize the need to discover more about the complexities of working out. Therefore, more research must be done.