Baylor College of Medicine study: Fighting cancer with rejection-resistant, ‘off-the-shelf’ therapeutic T cells

21 Aug

William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR wrote in the Medicine Net article, Medical Definition of T cell:

T cell: A type of white blood cell that is of key importance to the immune system and is at the core of adaptive immunity, the system that tailors the body’s immune response to specific pathogens. The T cells are like soldiers who search out and destroy the targeted invaders.

Immature T cells (termed T-stem cells) migrate to the thymus gland in the neck, where they mature and differentiate into various types of mature T cells and become active in the immune system in response to a hormone called thymosin and other factors. T-cells that are potentially activated against the body’s own tissues are normally killed or changed (“down-regulated”) during this maturational process.

There are several different types of mature T cells. Not all of their functions are known. T cells can produce substances called cytokines such as the interleukins which further stimulate the immune response. T-cell activation is measured as a way to assess the health of patients with HIV/AIDS and less frequently in other disorders.

T cell are also known as T lymphocytes. The “T” stands for “thymus” — the organ in which these cells mature. As opposed to B cells which mature in the bone marrow.

https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=11300

See,        https://drwilda.com/tag/cancer/

Regina Bailey wrote in the Thought Co. article, The Role of T Cells in the Body:

T cells are a type of white blood cell known as a lymphocyte. Lymphocytes protect the body against cancerous cells and cells that have become infected by pathogens, such as bacteria and viruses. T cell lymphocytes develop from stem cells in bone marrow. These immature T cells migrate to the thymus via the blood. The thymus is a lymphatic system gland that functions mainly to promote the development of mature T cells. In fact, the “T ” in T cell lymphocyte stands for thymus derived.

https://a4d45a61c2d866ec4a90d1a9315ab8ab.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html T cell lymphocytes are necessary for cell mediated immunity, which is an immune response that involves the activation of immune cells to fight infection. T cells function to actively destroy infected cells, as well as to signal other immune cells to participate in the immune response.

Key Takeaways: T Cells
  • T cells are lymphocyte immune cells that protect the body from pathogens and cancer cells.
  • T cells originate from bone marrow and mature in the thymus. They are important for cell mediated immunity and the activation of immune cells to fight infection.
  • Cytotoxic T cells actively destroy infected cells through the use of granule sacs that contain digestive enzymes.
  • Helper T cells activate cytotoxic T cells, macrophages, and stimulate antibody production by B cell lymphocytes.
  • Regulatory T cells suppress the actions of B and T cells to decrease the immune response when a highly active response is no longer warranted.
  • Natural Killer T cells distinguish infected or cancerous cells from normal body cells and attack cells that do not contain molecular markers that identify them as body cells.
  • Memory T cells protect against previously encountered antigens and may provide lifetime protection against some pathogens.
T Cell Types

T cells are one of three main types of lymphocytes. The other types include B cells and natural killer cells. T cell lymphocytes are different from B cells and natural killer cells in that they have a protein called a T-cell receptor that populates their cell membrane. T-cell receptors are capable of recognizing various types of specific antigens (substances that provoke an immune response). Unlike B cells, T cells do not utilize antibodies to fight germs.

There are several types of T cell lymphocytes, each with specific functions in the immune system. Common T cell types include:

  • https://a4d45a61c2d866ec4a90d1a9315ab8ab.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html Cytotoxic T cells (also called CD8+ T cells) – are involved in the direct destruction of cells that have become cancerous or are infected by a pathogen. Cytotoxic T cells contain granules (sacs containing digestive enzymes or other chemical substances) that they utilize to cause the target cell to burst open in a process called apoptosis. These T cells are also the cause of transplant organ rejection. The T cells attack the foreign organ tissue as the transplant organ is identified as infected tissue.
  • Helper T cells (also called CD4+ T cells) – precipitate the production of antibodies by B cells and also produce substances that activate cytotoxic T cells and white blood cells known as macrophages. CD4+ cells are targeted by HIV. HIV infects helper T cells and destroys them by triggering signals that result in T cell death.
  • Regulatory T cells (also called suppressor T cells) – suppress the response of B cells and other T cells to antigens. This suppression is needed so that an immune response does not continue once it is no longer needed. Defects in regulatory T cells can lead to the development of an autoimmune disease. In this type of disease, immune cells attack the body’s own tissue.
  • https://a4d45a61c2d866ec4a90d1a9315ab8ab.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html Natural Killer T (NKT) cells – have a similar name as a different type of lymphocyte called a natural killer cell. NKT cells are T cells and not natural killer cells. NKT cells have properties of both T cells and natural killer cells. Like all T cells, NKT cells have T-cell receptors. However, NKT cells also share several surface cell markers in common with natural killer cells. As such, NKT cells distinguish infected or cancerous cells from normal body cells and attack cells that do not contain molecular markers that identify them as body cells. One type of NKT cell known as an invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cell, protects the body against obesity by regulating inflammation in adipose tissue.
  • Memory T cells – help the immune system to recognize previously encountered antigens and respond to them more quickly and for a longer period of time. Helper T cells and cytotoxic T cells can become memory T cells. Memory T cells are stored in the lymph nodes and spleen and may provide lifetime protection against a specific antigen in some cases.

https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html https://www.thoughtco.com/t-cells-meaning-373354

Bailey, Regina. “The Role of T Cells in the Body.” ThoughtCo, Feb. 11, 2020, thoughtco.com/t-cells-meaning-373354.              

Science Daily reported in Fighting cancer with rejection-resistant, ‘off-the-shelf’ therapeutic T cells:

Personalized cancer treatments are no longer just options of the future. In the past few years, researchers have made significant progress in ‘teaching’ the body’s immune T cells to recognize and kill specific cancer cells, and human clinical trials have shown that this approach can successfully eliminate tumors.

Cancer patients today can be a part of the following clinical scenario: a patient comes to the hospital where physicians and scientists analyze his or her tumor to identify cancer-specific markers that would serve as targets for the novel therapy. Blood is drawn from the patient and sent to Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Cell and Gene Therapy where the immune T cells are transformed into cells with a mission to identify and kill cells with the tumor-specific tags. The final cells are infused back into the patient to complete their job.

“At the Center, we genetically engineer the patient’s T cells to arm them with the tools they need to identify the patient’s tumor-specific markers and eliminate the cancer,” said Dr. Maksim Mamonkin, assistant professor of pathology & immunology and member of the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor.

Although this treatment can effectively eliminate tumors, the ‘training’ of the T cells is complex and expensive. “Sometimes, the trained T cells are not highly potent because the patient already received a number of treatments that weakened the immune cells we work with,” Mamonkin said.

In addition, the process to manufacture the therapeutic T cells is time consuming. “Sometimes it takes weeks to get the T cells ready, and in this time the patient may take a turn for the worse,” Mamonkin said.

The next step: off-the-shelf therapies

“Now that we know that this type of cell immunotherapy has a lot of promise, the next step is to streamline it, make it more accessible and make sure that the resulting T cells have the highest potency,” said Mamonkin, who also is a member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Researchers are developing ready-to-use, off-the-shelf therapeutic T cells. These are genetically engineered T cells that are manufactured from normal, healthy donors. The cells are expanded and well characterized, and have shown to be effective at killing cancer cells. The cells are cryo-preserved — stored frozen in liquid nitrogen — until it’s time to use them. In this scenario, a cancer patient comes to the hospital and the tumor markers are identified. Then, with the identity of the tumor-specific tags in hand, the physician goes to a room filled with large below-zero freezers searching for the one that holds little containers with healthy immune T cells that have been genetically engineered to recognize and destroy cells with the patient’s cancer-specific markers. These ‘off-the-shelf,’ ready-made cells are thawed, prepared and infused into the patient several days later….    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200820143825.htm

Citation:

Fighting cancer with rejection-resistant, ‘off-the-shelf’ therapeutic T cells

Date:         August 20, 2020

Source:     Baylor College of Medicine

Summary:

Researchers are developing ready-to-use, off-the-shelf therapeutic T cells. These are genetically engineered T cells that are manufactured from normal, healthy donors. The cells are expanded and well characterized, and have shown to be effective at killing cancer cells.

Journal Reference:

Feiyan Mo, Norihiro Watanabe, Mary K. McKenna, M. John Hicks, Madhuwanti Srinivasan, Diogo Gomes-Silva, Erden Atilla, Tyler Smith, Pinar Ataca Atilla, Royce Ma, David Quach, Helen E. Heslop, Malcolm K. Brenner, Maksim Mamonkin. Engineered off-the-shelf therapeutic T cells resist host immune rejection. Nature Biotechnology, 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41587-020-0601-5

Here is the press report from Baylor College of Medicine:

NEWS RELEASE 

Fighting cancer with rejection-resistant, ‘off-the-shelf’ therapeutic T cells

BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE

Personalized cancer treatments are no longer just options of the future. In the past few years, researchers have made significant progress in ‘teaching’ the body’s immune T cells to recognize and kill specific cancer cells, and human clinical trials have shown that this approach can successfully eliminate tumors.

Cancer patients today can be a part of the following clinical scenario: a patient comes to the hospital where physicians and scientists analyze his or her tumor to identify cancer-specific markers that would serve as targets for the novel therapy. Blood is drawn from the patient and sent to Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Cell and Gene Therapy where the immune T cells are transformed into cells with a mission to identify and kill cells with the tumor-specific tags. The final cells are infused back into the patient to complete their job.

“At the Center, we genetically engineer the patient’s T cells to arm them with the tools they need to identify the patient’s tumor-specific markers and eliminate the cancer,” said Dr. Maksim Mamonkin, assistant professor of pathology & immunology and member of the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor.

Although this treatment can effectively eliminate tumors, the ‘training’ of the T cells is complex and expensive. “Sometimes, the trained T cells are not highly potent because the patient already received a number of treatments that weakened the immune cells we work with,” Mamonkin said.

In addition, the process to manufacture the therapeutic T cells is time consuming. “Sometimes it takes weeks to get the T cells ready, and in this time the patient may take a turn for the worse,” Mamonkin said.

The next step: off-the-shelf therapies

“Now that we know that this type of cell immunotherapy has a lot of promise, the next step is to streamline it, make it more accessible and make sure that the resulting T cells have the highest potency,” said Mamonkin, who also is a member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Researchers are developing ready-to-use, off-the-shelf therapeutic T cells. These are genetically engineered T cells that are manufactured from normal, healthy donors. The cells are expanded and well characterized, and have shown to be effective at killing cancer cells. The cells are cryo-preserved – stored frozen in liquid nitrogen – until it’s time to use them. In this scenario, a cancer patient comes to the hospital and the tumor markers are identified. Then, with the identity of the tumor-specific tags in hand, the physician goes to a room filled with large below-zero freezers searching for the one that holds little containers with healthy immune T cells that have been genetically engineered to recognize and destroy cells with the patient’s cancer-specific markers. These ‘off-the-shelf,’ ready-made cells are thawed, prepared and infused into the patient several days later.

“This approach solves two limitations of the original approach: it avoids the time-consuming, elaborate steps of training and expanding the patient’s cells and results in therapeutic T cells of higher potency,” Mamonkin said. “However, the novel approach presents a new set of limitations.”

Dealing with rejection

One of the limitations of the off-the-shelf approach emerges when the therapeutic T cells enter the patient’s body. The patient’s own immune system recognizes the cells as foreign, such as it happens with organ transplants, and may reject the therapeutic cells.

“This is a major problem because rejection not only would reduce the duration of the T cells activity against the tumor, but also would preclude giving subsequent doses of cells. The immune system would reject subsequent doses of the cells right way,” said first author, Feiyan Mo, graduate student in Mamonkin’s lab. “To solve this problem we thought that the best defense was a good offense.” The researchers gave the therapeutic T cells a tool that would enable them to fight back the attack of the patient’s immune cells against them. They genetically engineered the therapeutic T cells to express a receptor called alloimmune defense receptor, or ADR. ADR recognizes a specific molecule, called 4-1BB, that is only expressed on the patient’s activated T cells and natural killer (NK) cells that would attack them. 4-1BB is not expressed on resting T and NK cells that do not turn against the therapeutic T cells.

“Both experiments in the lab and animal models with blood cancers or solid tumors showed that ADR protected off-the-shelf therapeutic T cells from being rejected,” Mo said. “Not only did they resist rejection, but they also expanded more and persisted longer than therapeutic T cells without ADR.” The researchers are optimistic that this approach may also work in patients. They plan to conduct clinical trials on 2021.

Beyond cancer applications

“If successful, this approach can be extended to targeting other disease-causing T-cells, such as those rejecting transplanted organs, mediating graft-versus-host disease or perpetuating autoimmunity,” said Mamonkin. “We are very excited to develop this concept for several applications beyond cancer therapy.” This technology has been licensed to Fate Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that plans on integrating ADR into their clinical products.

“The BCM Ventures team is very pleased to partner with Fate Therapeutics in a licensing relationship to support their implementation of the ADR technology developed in the Mamonkin laboratory here at BCM. This approach promises to enhance the effectiveness of off-the-shelf cell therapies, and it will now be used more extensively in the clinical setting which stands to benefit patients,” said Michael Dilling, director of Baylor Licensing Group. “BCM has been an innovator in the development of cell therapies and the commercial sector increasingly looks to BCM as a source for new innovations.”

Feiyan Mo, who took the lead on this work, has received an NIH NCI F99/F00 Predoctoral-to-postdoctoral Fellowship Award to help facilitate the translation of ADR to the clinic and continue postdoctoral studies in cancer biology. She is a Baylor graduate student and is co-mentored by Drs. Mamonkin, Malcolm Brenner and Helen Heslop. Are you interested in learning all the details of this work? Find them in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

###

Other contributors of this study include Feiyan Mo, Norihiro Watanabe, Mary K. McKenna, M. John Hicks, Madhuwanti Srinivasan, Diogo Gomes-Silva, Erden Atilla, Tyler Smith, Pinar Ataca Atilla, Royce Ma, David Quach, Helen E. Heslop and Malcolm K. Brenner. The authors are affiliated with one of more of the following institutions Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital and Houston Methodist Hospital.

This project was supported by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Translational Research Award no. 6566, NIH NCI SPORE in Lymphoma 5P50CA126752, SU2C/AACR 604817 Meg Vosburg T cell Lymphoma Dream Team, Gloria Levin Fund and CPRIT Award nos. RP180810 and RP150611. Stand Up To Cancer is a program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation administered by the American Association for Cancer Research. The Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center also provided support through its shared resources (P30 CA125123).

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

The National Cancer Institute wrote in How does T-cell transfer therapy work against cancer?

T-cell transfer therapy is a type of immunotherapy that makes your own immune cells better able to attack cancer. There are two main types of T-cell transfer therapy: tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (or TIL) therapy and CAR T-cell therapy. Both involve collecting your own immune cells, growing large numbers of these cells in the lab, and then giving the cells back to you through a needle in your vein. T-cell transfer therapy is also called adoptive cell therapy, adoptive immunotherapy, and immune cell therapy.

The process of growing your T cells in the lab can take 2 to 8 weeks. During this time, you may have treatment with chemotherapy and, maybe, radiation therapy to get rid of other immune cells. Reducing your immune cells helps the transferred T cells to be more effective. After these treatments, the T cells that were grown in the lab will be given back to you via a needle in your vein.

  • TIL therapy uses T cells called tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes that are found in your tumor. Doctors test these lymphocytes in the lab to find out which ones best recognize your tumor cells. Then, these selected lymphocytes are treated with substances that make them grow to large numbers quickly.

The idea behind this approach is that the lymphocytes that are in or near the tumor have already shown the ability to recognize your tumor cells. But there may not be enough of them to kill the tumor or to overcome the signals that the tumor is releasing to suppress the immune system. Giving you large numbers of the lymphocytes that react best with the tumor can help to overcome these barriers.

  • CAR T-cell therapy is similar to TIL therapy, but your T cells are changed in the lab so that they make a type of protein known as CAR before they are grown and given back to you. CAR stands for chimeric antigen receptor. CARs are designed to allow the T cells to attach to specific proteins on the surface of the cancer cells, improving their ability to attack the cancer cells.

What cancers are treated with T-cell transfer therapy?

T-cell transfer therapy was first studied for the treatment of metastatic melanoma because melanomas often cause a strong immune response and often have many TILs. The use of TIL therapy has been effective for some people with melanoma and has produced promising findings in other cancers, such as cervical squamous cell carcinoma and cholangiocarcinoma. However, this treatment is still experimental.

Two CAR T-cell therapies have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, both for blood cancers:

CAR T-cell therapy has also been studied for the treatment of solid tumors, including breast and brain cancers, but use in such cancers is still experimental.

What are the side effects of T-cell transfer therapy?

T-cell transfer therapy can cause side effects, which people experience in different ways. The side effects you may have and how serious they are will depend on how healthy you are before treatment, your type of cancer, how advanced it is, the type of T-cell transfer therapy you are receiving, and the dose.

Doctors and nurses cannot know for sure when or if side effects will occur or how they will affect you. So, it is important to know which signs to look for and what to do if you start to have problems.

CAR T-cell therapy can cause a serious side effect known as cytokine release syndrome. This syndrome is caused when the transferred T cells, or other immune cells responding to the new T cells, release a large amount of cytokines into the blood.

Cytokines are immune substances that have many different functions in the body. A sudden increase in their levels can cause:

  • Fever
  • Nausea
  • Headache
  • Rash
  • Rapid heartbeat
  • Low blood pressure
  • Trouble breathing

Most patients have a mild form of cytokine release syndrome, but in some people it may be severe or life threatening.

Also, although CAR T cells are designed to recognize proteins that are found only on cancer cells, they can also sometimes recognize normal cells. Depending on which normal cells are recognized, this can cause a range of side effects, including organ damage.

TIL therapy can cause capillary leak syndrome. This syndrome causes fluid and proteins to leak out of tiny blood vessels and flow into surrounding tissues, resulting in dangerously low blood pressure. Capillary leak syndrome may lead to multiple organ failure and shock.

For more information about CAR T-cell therapy see CAR T-Cell Therapy: Engineering Patients’ Immune Cells to Treat Their Cancers.

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/immunotherapy/t-cell-transfer-therapy

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University of South Australia: When you’re smiling, the whole world really does smile with you

17 Aug

Medical News Today described health in What is good health?

Fast facts on health
Here are some key points about health. More detail is in the main article.
• Health can be defined as physical, mental, and social wellbeing, and as a resource for living a full life.
• It refers not only to the absence of disease, but the ability to recover and bounce back from illness and other problems.
• Factors for good health include genetics, the environment, relationships, and education.
• A healthful diet, exercise, screening for diseases, and coping strategies can all enhance a person’s health….

Mental health is not only the absence of depression, anxiety, or another disorder.
It also depends on the ability to:
• enjoy life
• bounce back after difficult experiences
• achieve balance
• adapt to adversity
• feel safe and secure
• achieve your potential
Physical and mental health are linked. If chronic illness affects a person’s ability to complete their regular tasks, this may lead to depression and stress, for example, due to money problems…. 

ttps://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/150999#types

Mindfulness is a possible technique for coping with stress.

Psychology Today defined mindfulness in What Is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention to the present. This state encompasses observing one’s thoughts and feelings without judging them as good or bad.
To live mindfully is to live in the moment and reawaken oneself to the present, rather than dwelling on the past or anticipating the future. Mindfulness can also be a healthy way to identify and manage latent emotions that are causing problems in personal or professional relationships.
Mindfulness is frequently used in meditation and certain kinds of therapy. It has many positive benefits, including lowering stress levels, reducing harmful ruminating, and protecting against depression and anxiety. Research even suggests that mindfulness can help people better cope with rejection and social isolation…. 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/mindfulness

Mindfulness can help individuals become more resilient in difficult situations. Tamara A. Russell and Gerson Siegmund wrote in What and who? Mindfulness in the mental health setting
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5353507/

Science Daily reported in When you’re smiling, the whole world really does smile with you:

From Sinatra to Katy Perry, celebrities have long sung about the power of a smile — how it picks you up, changes your outlook, and generally makes you feel better. But is it all smoke and mirrors, or is there a scientific backing to the claim?

Groundbreaking research from the University of South Australia confirms that the act of smiling can trick your mind into being more positive, simply by moving your facial muscles.

With the world in crisis amid COVID-19, and alarming rises of anxiety and depression in Australia and around the world, the findings could not be more timely.

The study, published in Experimental Psychology, evaluated the impact of a covert smile on perception of face and body expressions. In both scenarios, a smile was induced by participants holding a pen between their teeth, forcing their facial muscles to replicate the movement of a smile.

The research found that facial muscular activity not only alters the recognition of facial expressions but also body expressions, with both generating more positive emotions.

Lead researcher and human and artificial cognition expert, UniSA’s Dr Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos says the finding has important insights for mental health.

“When your muscles say you’re happy, you’re more likely to see the world around you in a positive way,” Dr Marmolejo-Ramos says.

“In our research we found that when you forcefully practise smiling, it stimulates the amygdala — the emotional centre of the brain — which releases neurotransmitters to encourage an emotionally positive state.

“For mental health, this has interesting implications. If we can trick the brain into perceiving stimuli as ‘happy’, then we can potentially use this mechanism to help boost mental health….”

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200813123608.htm

Citation:

When you’re smiling, the whole world really does smile with you

Date:       August 13, 2020

Source:   University of South Australia

Summary:

From Sinatra to Katy Perry, celebrities have long sung about the power of a smile — how it picks you up, changes your outlook, and generally makes you feel better. But is it all smoke and mirrors, or is there a scientific backing to the claim? Groundbreaking research confirms that the act of smiling can trick your mind into being more positive, simply by moving your facial muscles.

Journal Reference:

Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos, Aiko Murata, Kyoshiro Sasaki, Yuki Yamada, Ayumi Ikeda, José A. Hinojosa, Katsumi Watanabe, Michal Parzuchowski, Carlos Tirado, Raydonal Ospina. Your Face and Moves Seem Happier When I Smile. Experimental Psychology, 2020; 67 (1): 14 DOI: 10.1027/1618-3169/a000470

Here is the press release from the University of South Australia:

NEWS RELEASE 

When you’re smiling, the whole world really does smile with you

New insights for mental health

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

From Sinatra to Katy Perry, celebrities have long sung about the power of a smile – how it picks you up, changes your outlook, and generally makes you feel better. But is it all smoke and mirrors, or is there a scientific backing to the claim?

Groundbreaking research from the University of South Australia confirms that the act of smiling can trick your mind into being more positive, simply by moving your facial muscles.

With the world in crisis amid COVID-19, and alarming rises of anxiety and depression in Australia and around the world, the findings could not be more timely.

The study, published in Experimental Psychology, evaluated the impact of a covert smile on perception of face and body expressions. In both scenarios, a smile was induced by participants holding a pen between their teeth, forcing their facial muscles to replicate the movement of a smile.

The research found that facial muscular activity not only alters the recognition of facial expressions but also body expressions, with both generating more positive emotions.

Lead researcher and human and artificial cognition expert, UniSA’s Dr Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos says the finding has important insights for mental health.

“When your muscles say you’re happy, you’re more likely to see the world around you in a positive way,” Dr Marmolejo-Ramos says.

“In our research we found that when you forcefully practise smiling, it stimulates the amygdala – the emotional centre of the brain – which releases neurotransmitters to encourage an emotionally positive state.

“For mental health, this has interesting implications. If we can trick the brain into perceiving stimuli as ‘happy’, then we can potentially use this mechanism to help boost mental health.”

The study replicated findings from the ‘covert’ smile experiment by evaluating how people interpret a range of facial expressions (spanning frowns to smiles) using the pen-in-teeth mechanism; it then extended this using point-light motion images (spanning sad walking videos to happy walking videos) as the visual stimuli.

Dr Marmolejo-Ramos says there is a strong link between action and perception.

“In a nutshell, perceptual and motor systems are intertwined when we emotionally process stimuli,” Dr Marmolejo-Ramos says.

“A ‘fake it ’til you make it’ approach could have more credit than we expect.”

###

NOTES TO EDITORS:

1-2 second video of point-light biological walking stimuli and emotional faces stimuli is available here: https://figshare.com/articles/media/stimuli/10269815

Media contact: Annabel Mansfield office: +61 8 8302 0351 mobile: +61 417 717 504
email: Annabel.Mansfield@unisa.edu.au

Researcher: Dr Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos office: +61 8 8302 9311
email: Fernando.Marmolejo-Ramos@unisa.edu.au@unisa.edu.au

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.
Helen Keller

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Washington State University study: Poor hygiene is significant risk for antimicrobial-resistant bacteria colonization

15 Aug

JAMA published “Prevalence of Inappropriate Antibiotic Prescriptions Among US Ambulatory Care Visits, 2010-2011” led by Katherine Fleming-Dutra, MD, estimated portions of antibiotic use that may be inappropriate in adults and children in the United States. – See more at: http://www.ajmc.com/newsroom/understanding-inappropriate-prescribing-of-antibiotics#sthash.lYnWSCqB.dpuf 

This study found:  “During 2010-2011, there were 506 annual antibiotic prescriptions per every 1000 population, but only 353 were likely appropriate.” Further, the study found:

Findings
The researchers used 2 annual surveys in 2010 and 2011 to collect data about patients’ demographic characteristics and symptoms, physicians’ diagnoses, and medications ordered, including antibiotics. They found that out of the 184,032 visits, 12.6% of encounters were associated with antibiotic prescriptions. Furthermore, 30% of outpatient prescriptions were in fact unnecessary and inappropriate.

See more at: http://www.ajmc.com/newsroom/understanding-inappropriate-prescribing-of-antibiotics#sthash.lYnWSCqB.dpuf

The practice of over-prescribing antibiotics has serious consequences.

Matthew C. Freeman. Meredith E. Stocks et al. wrote in the abstract of Systematic review: Hygiene and health: systematic review of handwashing practices worldwide and update of health effects:

Abstract

Objective

To estimate the global prevalence of handwashing with soap and derive a pooled estimate of the effect of hygiene on diarrhoeal diseases, based on a systematic search of the literature.

Methods

Studies with data on observed rates of handwashing with soap published between 1990 and August 2013 were identified from a systematic search of PubMed, Embase and ISI Web of Knowledge. A separate search was conducted for studies on the effect of hygiene on diarrhoeal disease that included randomised controlled trials, quasi‐randomised trials with control group, observational studies using matching techniques and observational studies with a control group where the intervention was well defined. The search used Cochrane Library, Global Health, BIOSIS, PubMed, and Embase databases supplemented with reference lists from previously published systematic reviews to identify studies published between 1970 and August 2013. Results were combined using multilevel modelling for handwashing prevalence and meta‐regression for risk estimates.

Results

From the 42 studies reporting handwashing prevalence we estimate that approximately 19% of the world population washes hands with soap after contact with excreta (i.e. use of a sanitation facility or contact with children’s excreta). Meta‐regression of risk estimates suggests that handwashing reduces the risk of diarrhoeal disease by 40% (risk ratio 0.60, 95% CI 0.53–0.68); however, when we included an adjustment for unblinded studies, the effect estimate was reduced to 23% (risk ratio 0.77, 95% CI 0.32–1.86).

Conclusions

Our results show that handwashing after contact with excreta is poorly practiced globally, despite the likely positive health benefits.                                                                                                  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/tmi.12339

Resources:

EFFECT OF POOR SANITATION PRACTICE ON PUBLIC HEALTH projectchampionz.com.ng/2018/07/13/effect-poor-sanitation-practice-public-health/

The Effects of Poor Personal Hygiene https://oureverydaylife.com/the-effects-of-poor-personal-hygiene-12233739.htm

Healthcare Hygiene Magazine wrote in Poor Hygiene is Significant Risk for Antimicrobial-Resistant Bacteria Colonization:

See,  https://drwilda.com/tag/antibiotics/

Healthcare Hygiene Magazine wrote in Poor Hygiene is Significant Risk for Antimicrobial-Resistant Bacteria Colonization:

Scientists have found clear indicators for how the interaction of poor hygiene and antibiotic use contribute to the colonization of antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) bacteria in humans, a problem that contributes to hundreds of thousands of deaths annually.

The findings by researchers at Washington State University’s Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health (Allen School) and Universidad del Vale de Guatemala (UVG) were published in the journal Scientific Reports.

“Coupled with antibiotic stewardship, these new findings support the critical need to improve sanitation and hygiene as an intervention to slow the spread of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria,” said co-author Dr. Mark Caudell, AMR coordinator, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “Poor sanitation has a primary effect on antimicrobial resistance so investing in better infrastructure will help reduce the incidence of AMR infections.”

This collaborative effort lead by WSU and UVG in Guatemala, is part of a larger research program to understand how prevailing patterns of antibiotic use and regulations, access to human and animal healthcare services, and sanitation impact AMR patterns in high- and low-income countries.

Surveying households in rural and urban Guatemalan communities, they examined how the distribution of antimicrobial-resistant Escherichia coli was related to population density, access to antibiotic therapies, sanitation and hygiene indicators such as access to clean water and prevalence of open defecation, and food preparation and milk consumption practices.

Results confirmed that AMR was associated with increasing frequency of antibiotic use, poor household hygiene levels, milk consumption, and diarrhea episodes…..                              https://www.healthcarehygienemagazine.com/poor-hygiene-is-significant-risk-for-antimicrobial-resistant-bacteria-colonization/

Citation:

Brooke M. Ramay et al, Antibiotic use and hygiene interact to influence the distribution of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria in low-income communities in Guatemala, Scientific Reports (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-70741-4

Here is the press release from WSU:

Poor hygiene is significant risk for antimicrobial-resistant bacteria colonization

August 14, 2020PULLMAN, Wash. – Scientists have found clear indicators for how the interaction of poor hygiene and antibiotic use contribute to the colonization of antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) bacteria in humans, a problem that contributes to hundreds of thousands of deaths annually.

The findings by researchers at Washington State University’s Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health (Allen School) and Universidad del Vale de Guatemala (UVG) were published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports.

“Coupled with antibiotic stewardship, these new findings support the critical need to improve sanitation and hygiene as an intervention to slow the spread of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria,” said co-author Dr. Mark Caudell, AMR coordinator, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “Poor sanitation has a primary effect on antimicrobial resistance so investing in better infrastructure will help reduce the incidence of AMR infections.”

This  collaborative effort lead by WSU and UVG in Guatemala,  is part of a larger research program to understand how prevailing patterns of antibiotic use and regulations, access to human and animal healthcare services, and sanitation impact AMR patterns in high- and low-income countries.

Surveying households in rural and urban Guatemalan communities, they examined how the distribution of antimicrobial-resistant Escherichia coli was related to population density, access to antibiotic therapies, sanitation and hygiene indicators such as access to clean water and prevalence of open defecation, and food preparation and milk consumption practices. Results confirmed that AMR was associated with increasing frequency of antibiotic use, poor household hygiene levels, milk consumption, and diarrhea episodes.

“Improved antibiotic stewardship, including control of unregulated access to antibiotics is critical to reducing the prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, but stewardship alone will not successfully impact the prevalence of resistance when hygiene is compromised,” stated Dr. Brooke Ramay, co-lead researcher and professor with Allen School and UVG.

These findings with additional research will be used to inform intervention practices that can be implemented in coordination with local public health authorities, including the Guatemalan Ministry of Health. 

Media contacts:

Guatemala: Brooke Ramay, UVG, +502 2507-1500, brooke.ramay@wsu.edu

US: Laura Lockard, WSU Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health, +1 206-861-6884, laura.lockard@wsu.edu

In many cases antibiotic use may not be appropriate.

FamilyDoctor.org offers the following advice:

How do I know when I need antibiotics?

The answer depends on what is causing your infection. The following are some basic guidelines:

  • Colds and flu. Viruses cause these illnesses. They can’t be cured with antibiotics.
  • Cough or bronchitis. Viruses almost always cause these. However, if you have a problem with your lungs or an illness that lasts a long time, bacteria may actually be the cause. Your doctor may decide to try using an antibiotic.
  • Sore throat. Most sore throats are caused by viruses and don’t need antibiotics. However, strep throat is caused by bacteria. Your doctor can determine if you have strep throat and can prescribe an antibiotic.
  • Ear infections. There are several types of ear infections. Antibiotics are used for some (but not all) ear infections.
  • Sinus infections. Antibiotics are often used to treat sinus infections. However, a runny nose and yellow or green mucus do not necessarily mean you need an antibiotic.  Read more about treating sinusitis.

What else do I need to know?

If your doctor does prescribe an antibiotic for you, make sure you take all of the medicine, even if you feel better after a few days. This reduces the chance that there will be any bacteria left in your body that could potentially become resistant to antibiotics.

Never take antibiotics without a prescription. If, for whatever reason, you have antibiotics leftover from a time when you were previously sick, do not take them unless your doctor tells you it’s okay. The leftover antibiotics may not work on whatever is making you sick. If they do work, there probably will not be enough leftover medicine to completely kill all the bacteria in your body. Not only will you not get better, but this increases the chance that the bacteria will become resistant to antibiotics.

You can prevent catching infections in the first place by practicing good hygiene. Wash your hands with soap and water, especially after using the restroom, coming into contact with feces (for example, from a pet or from changing a baby’s diaper) and before eating.                                                                              http://familydoctor.org/familydoctor/en/drugs-procedures-devices/prescription-medicines/antibiotics-when-they-can-and-cant-help.html

Always consult a physician before taking antibiotics.

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ETH Zurich study: Restoration helps forests recover faster

14 Aug

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) wrote about the benefits of prescribed burning:

Definition Prescribed burning is the deliberate use of fire to help manage a forest. It is a complex management tool and should be used by only those who are trained and experienced in its use.

Benefits Hazard Reduction Prescribed burning helps to eliminate fuels such as pine needles, hardwood leaves, fallen branches, and herbaceous vegetation that accumulate on the forest floor. These fuels increase the chance of destruction of young stands if a wildfire erupts.

Control of Understory Vegetation Prescribed burning helps control low-quality hardwoods and shrubs. Understory vegetation competes with pines for moisture and nutrients, and may interfere with regeneration….

Definition Prescribed burning is the deliberate use of fire to help manage a forest. It is a complex management tool and should be used by only those who are trained and experienced in its use.

Benefits Hazard Reduction Prescribed burning helps to eliminate fuels such as pine needles, hardwood leaves, fallen branches, and herbaceous vegetation that accumulate on the forest floor. These fuels increase the chance of destruction of young stands if a wildfire erupts.

Control of Understory Vegetation Prescribed burning helps control low-quality hardwoods and shrubs. Understory vegetation competes with pines for moisture and nutrients, and may interfere with regeneration. https://efotg.sc.egov.usda.gov/references/public/AL/338_js_PrescribedBurning.pdf

Native Americans used prescribed burning as a forest management practice. See, Indian Use of Fire in Early Oregon https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/anthropogenic_fire/#.XOte93dFzIU

See, https://drwilda.com/tag/native-american-forest-practices/

https://drwilda.com/tag/urban-forests/

  https://drwilda.com/tag/tree-canopy/   

Science Daily reported in Eastern forests shaped more by Native Americans’ burning than climate change:

Citation:

Eastern forests shaped more by Native Americans’ burning than climate change
Date: May 21, 2019
Source: Penn State
Summary:
Native Americans’ use of fire to manage vegetation in what is now the Eastern United States was more profound than previously believed, according to a researcher who determined that forest composition change in the region was caused more by land use than climate change.

Journal Reference:
Marc D. Abrams, Gregory J. Nowacki. Global change impacts on forest and fire dynamics using paleoecology and tree census data for eastern North America. Annals of Forest Science, 2019; 76 (1) DOI: 10.1007/s13595-018-0790-y

Science Daily reported in Restoration helps forests recover faster:

The rainforests of Southeast Asia are among the fastest declining tropical ecosystems worldwide. Researchers from 13 institutions studied an area of tropical forest in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo that had suffered heavy logging in the 1980s but was subsequently protected from further deforestation or conversion to agricultural land.

This long-term study paid special attention to the forest’s capacity to rebuild biomass. The researchers found that areas left to regenerate naturally recovered by as much as 2.9 tonnes of aboveground carbon per hectare per year. “This quantitatively confirms that if degraded forests get effective protection, they can recover well naturally,” says Christopher Philipson, Senior Scientist at ETH Zurich’s Chair of Ecosystem Management.

More importantly, the research team found that areas of forest that underwent active restoration recovered 50% faster, from 2.9 to 4.4 tonnes of aboveground carbon per hectare per year.

The research, published today in Science, has its origins in work that Professor Mark Cutler from University of Dundee carried out in Borneo almost 25 years ago. Cutler led the project with Professor David Burslem at the University of Aberdeen, and ETH Zurich’s Christopher Philipson, first author of the paper, who carried out the research at ETH Zurich and Dundee.

Fostering damaged forest

Commercial, selective logging in Sabah has been going on for decades, and has severely degraded large areas of the forest estate. While Sabah retains over 50% natural forest cover (with almost half of this area being fully protected), relatively little of this forest is in pristine condition. Restoration — particularly in heavily logged lowland forests — is considered essential to maintain biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and other ecosystem services….                                                                                                                                                  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200813142321.htm

Citation:

Restoration helps forests recover faster

Date:        August 13, 2020

Source:    ETH Zurich

Summary:

Actively restored forests recover above ground biomass faster than areas left to regenerate naturally after being logged, according to a long-term study on Borneo lowland rainforest.

Journal Reference:

Philipson CD, Cutler MEJ, Brodrich PG, et al. Active restoration accelerates the carbon recovery of human-​modified tropical forests. Science, 2020 DOI: 10.1126/science.aay4490

Here is the press release from ETH Zurich:

NEWS RELEASE 

Restoration helps forests recover faster

ETH ZURICH

The rainforests of Southeast Asia are among the fastest declining tropical ecosystems worldwide. Researchers from 13 institutions studied an area of tropical forest in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo that had suffered heavy logging in the 1980s but was subsequently protected from further deforestation or conversion to agricultural land.

This long-term study paid special attention to the forest’s capacity to rebuild biomass. The researchers found that areas left to regenerate naturally recovered by as much as 2.9 tonnes of aboveground carbon per hectare per year. “This quantitatively confirms that if degraded forests get effective protection, they can recover well naturally”, says Christopher Philipson, Senior Scientist at ETH Zurich’s Chair of Ecosystem Management.

More importantly, the research team found that areas of forest that underwent active restoration recovered 50% faster, from 2.9 to 4.4 tonnes of aboveground carbon per hectare per year.

The research, published today in Science, has its origins in work that Professor Mark Cutler from University of Dundee carried out in Borneo almost 25 years ago. Cutler led the project with Professor David Burslem at the University of Aberdeen, and ETH Zurich’s Christopher Philipson, first author of the paper, who carried out the research at ETH Zurich and Dundee.

Fostering damaged forest

Commercial, selective logging in Sabah has been going on for decades, and has severely degraded large areas of the forest estate. While Sabah retains over 50% natural forest cover (with almost half of this area being fully protected), relatively little of this forest is in pristine condition. Restoration – particularly in heavily logged lowland forests – is considered essential to maintain biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and other ecosystem services.

“This active restoration encourages naturally diverse forest, and is therefore much more beneficial for biodiversity than monocultures or plantation forests”, stresses Philipson. The approach involves cutting lianas (climbing plants that thrive in degraded forests, competing with trees and reducing seedling survival and growth) as well as weeding, and ‘enrichment planting’ of seedlings. The latter seeks to increase the valuable, native tree species in degraded forests that have been reduced through commercial logging. “In this way, restoration helps previously over-?used forests not only to recover carbon, but also to become ecologically sound and diverse again”, Philipson says.

Carbon price doesn’t cover the cost

Now, for the first time, a long time-?series dataset has demonstrated that active restoration helps forests to regenerate after disturbances. However, the current price of carbon doesn’t cover the cost of restoration, and this limits the impact that restoring forests could have as a means of mitigating climate change.

“The increase in forest regrowth from restoration coupled with average global restoration costs suggests carbon prices need to be much higher. If they were around US$40-80 per tonne CO2 in accordance with the 2016 Paris climate agreement, this would be an incentive to invest in restoration,” argues Dundee’s Professor Cutler. He sees protecting previously logged tropical forests from further degradation or even clearance as vitally important for reducing carbon emissions and conserving biodiversity. “We must find sustainable mechanisms for funding.”

Collaborative partnership on the ground

According to David Burslem, last author and Professor at the University of Aberdeen, scientists have known for some while that tropical forests can regenerate from logging if left undisturbed for long enough. But the extent of the reduction in recovery time achieved by simple low-?tech restoration techniques certainly was a surprise. “We gained this insight through a sustained investment in research by a multi-?national team over more than 20 years”, Burslem says.

For this study, Philipson ventured to remote areas of forest to measure the growth and biomass accumulation of trees. His work and indeed the entire study actively involved many local staff, scientists and organisations, while the Sabah government guaranteed effective protection of the forest. “The people and community of Sabah made this project successful; I’m looking forward to seeing more endeavours like this that promote the protection and restoration of tropical forests,” he says.

###

Reference

Philipson CD, Cutler MEJ, Brodrich PG, et al. Active restoration accelerates the carbon recovery of human-?modified tropical forests. Science, published online Aug 13th 2020, doi: 10.1126/science.aay4490

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

See, Envisioning a Great Green City: Nature needs cities. Cities need nature. 

https://www.nature.org/en-us/what-we-do/our-insights/perspectives/envisioning-a-great-green-city/

Resources:

Urban Forestry & Energy Conservation Bibliography 

https://articles.extension.org/pages/71120/urban-forestry-energy-conservation-bibliography

Urban Forestry Bibliography Created by the Forest Service

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Ohio State University study: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

13 Aug

Children are not “mini mes” or short adults. They are children and they should have time to play, to dream, and to use their imagination. Alison Gopnik wrote an excellent article which appeared in Slate reporting about the results of two studies, Why Preschool Shouldn’t Be Like School:

In the first study, MIT professor Laura Schulz, her graduate student Elizabeth Bonawitz, and their colleagues looked at how 4-year-olds learned about a new toy with four tubes. Each tube could do something interesting: If you pulled on one tube it squeaked, if you looked inside another tube you found a hidden mirror, and so on. For one group of children, the experimenter said: “I just found this toy!” As she brought out the toy, she pulled the first tube, as if by accident, and it squeaked. She acted surprised (“Huh! Did you see that? Let me try to do that!”) and pulled the tube again to make it squeak a second time. With the other children, the experimenter acted more like a teacher. She said, “I’m going to show you how my toy works. Watch this!” and deliberately made the tube squeak. Then she left both groups of children alone to play with the toy. …
As so often happens in science, two studies from different labs, using different techniques, have simultaneously produced strikingly similar results. They provide scientific support for the intuitions many teachers have had all along: Direct instruction really can limit young children’s learning. Teaching is a very effective way to get children to learn something specific—this tube squeaks, say, or a squish then a press then a pull causes the music to play. But it also makes children less likely to discover unexpected information and to draw unexpected conclusions….
These experts in machine learning argue that learning from teachers first requires you to learn about teachers. For example, if you know how teachers work, you tend to assume that they are trying to be informative. When the teacher in the tube-toy experiment doesn’t go looking for hidden features inside the tubes, the learner unconsciously thinks: “She’s a teacher. If there were something interesting in there, she would have showed it to me.” These assumptions lead children to narrow in, and to consider just the specific information a teacher provides. Without a teacher present, children look for a much wider range of information and consider a greater range of options.
Knowing what to expect from a teacher is a really good thing, of course: It lets you get the right answers more quickly than you would otherwise. Indeed, these studies show that 4-year-olds understand how teaching works and can learn from teachers. But there is an intrinsic trade-off between that kind of learning and the more wide-ranging learning that is so natural for young children. Knowing this, it’s more important than ever to give children’s remarkable, spontaneous learning abilities free rein. That means a rich, stable, and safe world, with affectionate and supportive grown-ups, and lots of opportunities for exploration and play. Not school for babies. http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/03/why_preschool_shouldnt_be_like_school.html

In the rush to produce baby Einsteins and child prodigies, perhaps we are missing the creativity that play activities by preschoolers produces.

See,  https://drwilda.com/tag/charter-school/

drwilda.com/tag/early-childhood-development/

Science Daily reported in Young children would rather explore than get rewards:

Young children will pass up rewards they know they can collect to explore other options, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that when adults and 4- to 5-year-old children played a game where certain choices earned them rewards, both adults and children quickly learned what choices would give them the biggest returns.

But while adults then used that knowledge to maximize their prizes, children continued exploring the other options, just to see if their value may have changed.

“Exploration seems to be a major driving force during early childhood — even outweighing the importance of immediate rewards,” said Vladimir Sloutsky, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at The Ohio State University.

“We believe it is because young children need to explore to help them understand how the world works.”

And despite what adults may think, kids’ search for new discoveries is anything but random. Results showed children approached exploration systematically, to make sure they didn’t miss anything.

“When adults think of kids exploring, they may think of them as running around aimlessly, opening drawers and cupboards, picking up random objects,” Sloutsky said

“But it turns out their exploration isn’t random at all…”                                                                                                sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200812153637.htm

Citation:

Young children would rather explore than get rewards

Study finds their exploration is not random

Date:       August 12, 2020

Source:   Ohio State University

Summary:

Young children will pass up rewards they know they can collect to explore other options, a new study suggests. Researchers found that when adults and 4- to 5-year-old children played a game where certain choices earned them rewards, both adults and children quickly learned what choices would give them the biggest returns. But while adults then used that knowledge to maximize their prizes, children continued exploring the other options.

Journal Reference:

Nathaniel J. Blanco, Vladimir M. Sloutsky. Systematic Exploration and Uncertainty Dominate Young Children’s Choices. Developmental Science, 2020; DOI: 10.1111/desc.13026

Here is the press release from Ohio State University:

Young children would rather explore than get rewards

Study finds their exploration is not random

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Young children will pass up rewards they know they can collect to explore other options, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that when adults and 4- to 5-year-old children played a game where certain choices earned them rewards, both adults and children quickly learned what choices would give them the biggest returns.

But while adults then used that knowledge to maximize their prizes, children continued exploring the other options, just to see if their value may have changed.

“Exploration seems to be a major driving force during early childhood – even outweighing the importance of immediate rewards,” said Vladimir Sloutsky, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at The Ohio State University.

“We believe it is because young children need to explore to help them understand how the world works.”

And despite what adults may think, kids’ search for new discoveries is anything but random. Results showed children approached exploration systematically, to make sure they didn’t miss anything.

“When adults think of kids exploring, they may think of them as running around aimlessly, opening drawers and cupboards, picking up random objects,” Sloutsky said

“But it turns out their exploration isn’t random at all.”

Sloutsky conducted the study with Nathaniel Blanco, a postdoctoral researcher in psychology at Ohio State. Their results were published online recently in the journal Developmental Science.

The researchers conducted two studies. One study involved 32 4-year-olds and 34 adults.

On a computer screen, participants were shown four alien creatures. When participants clicked on each creature, they were given a set number of virtual candies.

One creature was clearly the best, giving 10 candies, while the others gave 1, 2 and 3 candies, respectively. Those amounts never changed for each creature over the course of the experiment.

The goal was to earn as much candy as possible over 100 trials. (The children could turn their virtual candies into real stickers at the end of the experiment.)

As expected, the adults learned quickly which creature gave the most candies and selected that creature 86 percent of the time. But children selected the highest-reward creature only 43 percent of the time.

And it wasn’t because the children didn’t realize which choice would reap them the largest reward. In a memory test after the study, 20 of 22 children correctly identified which creature delivered the most candy.

“The children were not motivated by achieving the maximum reward to the extent that adults were,” Blanco said. “Instead, children seemed primarily motivated by the information gained through exploring.”

But what was interesting was that the children didn’t just click randomly on the creatures, Sloutsky said.

When they didn’t click on the option with the highest reward, they were most likely to go through the other choices systematically, to ensure they never went too long without testing each individual choice.

“The longer they didn’t check a particular option, the less certain they were on its value and the more they wanted to check it again,” he said.

In a second study, the game was similar but the value of three of the four choices was visible – only one was hidden. The option that was hidden was randomly determined in each trial, so it changed nearly every time. But the values of all four choices never changed, even when it was the hidden one.

Like in the first experiment, the 37 adults chose the best option on almost every trial, 94 percent of the time. That was much more than the 36 4- and 5-year-old children, who selected the highest-value option only 40 percent of the time.

When the hidden option was the highest-value option, adults chose it 84 percent of the time, but otherwise they almost never selected it (2 percent of the time).

Children chose the hidden option about 40 percent of the time – and it didn’t matter if it was the highest value one or not.

“The majority of the children were attracted to the uncertainty of the hidden option. They wanted to explore that choice,” Sloutsky said.

However, there were some individual differences in children, he noted. A few children, for example, acted much like adults and nearly always chose the highest-value option. In the second experiment, a few children almost always avoided the hidden option.

These variations may have to do with different levels of cognitive maturation in children, he said.

But it appears that all children go through a phase where systematic exploration is one of their main goals.

“Even though we knew that children like to run around and investigate things, we’re now learning that there is a lot of regularity to their behavior,” Sloutsky said.

“Children’s seemingly erratic behavior at this age appears to be largely molded by a drive to stockpile information,” added Blanco.

###

The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Contact: Vladimir Sloutsky, Sloutsky.1@osu.eduWritten by Jeff Grabmeier, 614-292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

This blog wholeheartedly supports charters, but more important, this blog supports school choice. One of the principles of this blog is that all children have a right to a good basic education. There are a variety of ways that each child will receive that good basic education and the choice should be left to the parents or guardians. The only caveat should be that if the education option is failing to educate that child, there should be other alternatives to choose from. Charters are governed by state law which authorizes them and sets the parameters for operation. One of the reasons many support charters is it is at least theoretically possible for failing schools to be closed. There are going to be good education options of all types and there will be failures of public school, private schools, and homeschools. Just as success is not attributed to all choices in a category, the fact that a public school or charter school is a failure does not mean that ALL public schools or ALL charter schools are failure. People, use a little discernment. Many are so caught up in their particular political agenda that they lose sight of the goal, which is that all children have a right to a good basic education.

Related:

‘Hybrid’ homeschooling is growing                                         https://drwilda.com/2012/08/16/hybrid-homeschooling-is-growing/

New book: Homeschooling, the little option that could  https://drwilda.com/2012/10/12/new-book-homeschooling-the-little-option-that-could/

Homeschooled kids make the grade for college
https://drwilda.com/2012/07/02/homeschooled-kids-make-the-grade-for-college/

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University of Southern California study: Forty percent of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by targeting 12 risk factors throughout life

10 Aug

Kathleen Fifield wrote in the AARP Journal article, Dementia vs. Alzheimer’s: Which Is It? How to understand the difference — and why it matters:

What it is

Dementia 

In the simplest terms, dementia is a decline in mental function that is usually irreversible. It’s a syndrome, not a disease, notes neurologist Ron Petersen, director of the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging in Rochester, Minnesota.

The catchall phrase encompasses several disorders that cause chronic memory loss, personality changes or impaired reasoning, Alzheimer’s disease being just one of them, says Dan G. Blazer, a psychiatrist and professor at Duke University Medical Center.

To be called dementia, the disorder must be severe enough to interfere with your daily life, says psychiatrist Constantine George Lyketsos, director of the Johns Hopkins Memory and Alzheimer’s Treatment Center in Baltimore.

What it’s not? Typical forgetfulness caused by aging — say, having trouble remembering the name of an acquaintance who comes up to you on the street. In fact, the earliest stage of dementia, known as mild cognitive impairment, is considered “forgetfulness beyond what is expected from aging,” Petersen says. With mild cognitive impairment, a person is still functioning normally — paying her bills, driving well enough, doing his taxes — though performing some of those tasks may take longer than they used to. When someone starts to need regular assistance to do such daily activities, “that gets into the dementia range,” Petersen says.

Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s is a specific brain disease that progressively and irreversibly destroys memory and thinking skills. Age is the biggest risk factor for the disease. Eventually, Alzheimer’s disease takes away the ability to carry out even the simplest tasks.

To help determine whether patients have this particular brain disease, doctors talk to the patients and their close family members about any recent challenges or changes in behavior or memory. They also administer a mental status exam in an office setting, and possibly do a short neuro-psych evaluation….

How it’s diagnosed

Dementia

A doctor must find that you have two cognitive or behavioral areas in decline to diagnose dementia. These areas are disorientation, disorganization, language impairment, mood change, personality change and memory loss. To make an evaluation, a doctor (often a specialist such as a psychiatrist, neurologist or geriatric medicine physician) typically takes a patient history and administers several mental-skill challenges.

Thanks to growing medical consensus that irritability, depression and anxiety often flag dementia before memory issues do (and official changes to the diagnostic criteria to reflect this), doctors also ask more about changes in mood or personality, Lyketsos notes….

Next, a standard and fairly brief round of memory and thinking tests is given in the same office visit. In the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test, for example, you try to memorize and then recall a list of 12 words — and a few similar words may be thrown in to challenge you. Another test — also used to evaluate driving skills — has you draw lines to connect a series of numbers and letters in a complicated sequence.

Alzheimer’s 

For decades, diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease has been a process of elimination based on looking at a person’s symptoms and mental-test scores, then ruling out other types of dementia, such as Parkinson’s dementia or vascular dementia.

With Alzheimer’s in particular, the progression and timing of symptoms is also important. To identify this degenerative brain disease, doctors are looking for “a gradual, insidious onset that is slowly getting worse,” Petersen says.

Until fairly recently, a conclusive diagnosis was not possible until an autopsy was performed and the brain examined for the physical hallmarks of the disease — beta-amyloid and tau, proteins that look like plaques and tangles in the brain.

Now, a patient can immediately request a PET scan or cerebrospinal fluid sampling that can show, with 95 percent accuracy, whether such plaques or tangles are present. But a high percentage of patients never get such a test, doctors say. PET scans aren’t normally covered by insurance, and treatments based on specifics such as whether you have more amyloid plaques or more tau tangles in your brain aren’t yet available.

What’s more, doctors say they are often confident, based on evidence such as memory tests, a patient’s age and the progression of symptoms, that a patient suffers from Alzheimer’s in particular. Having a PET scan done also doesn’t change the available treatment, which so far consists of only a handful of drugs used to briefly control symptoms of the disease. Without conclusive imaging, doctors will still act on what they call the strong assumption someone has “probable” Alzheimer’s….                                                                                                                    https://www.aarp.org/health/dementia/info-2018/difference-between-dementia-alzheimers.html?CMP=KNC-DSO-Adobe-Bing-Health-DementiaSpotlight&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Health%20%3E%20Dementia%20%3E%20Research%20%3E%20Exact&utm_term=dementia%20versus%20alzheimer%27s&utm_content=Dementia%20or%20Alzheimer&gclid=CJri45bkkesCFUrSfgodFWsCBA&gclsrc=ds

Resources:

Alzheimer’s vs. Dementia                                                                                                            webmd.com/alzheimers/guide/alzheimers-and-dementia-whats-the-difference#1

Alzheimer’s and dementia: What’s the difference?                                                                  https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alzheimers-disease/expert-answers/alzheimers-and-dementia-whats-the-difference/faq-20396861

Dementia and Alzheimer’s: What Are the Differences?                                                            https://www.healthline.com/health/alzheimers-disease/difference-dementia-alzheimers

See,  https://drwilda.com/tag/dementia/

Science Daily reported in Forty percent of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by targeting 12 risk factors throughout life:

Modifying 12 risk factors over a lifetime could delay or prevent 40% of dementia cases, according to an updated report by the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention and care presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC 2020).

Twenty-eight world-leading dementia experts added three new risk factors in the new report — excessive alcohol intake and head injury in mid-life and air pollution in later life. These are in addition to nine factors previously identified by the commission in 2017: less education early in life; mid-life hearing loss, hypertension and obesity; and smoking, depression, social isolation, physical inactivity and diabetes later in life (65 and up)….

Dementia affects some 50 million people globally, a number that is expected to more than triple by 2050, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where approximately two-thirds of people with dementia live, according to the report. Women are also more likely to develop dementia than men.

However, in certain countries, such as the United States, England and France, the proportion of older people with dementia has fallen, probably in part due to lifestyle changes, demonstrating the possibility of reducing dementia through preventative measures, Schneider says.

Schneider and commission members recommend that policymakers and individuals adopt the following interventions:

  • Aim to maintain systolic blood pressure of 130 mm Hg or less from the age of 40.
  • Encourage use of hearing aids for hearing loss and reduce hearing loss by protecting ears from high noise levels.
  • Reduce exposure to air pollution and second-hand tobacco smoke.
  • Prevent head injury (particularly by targeting high-risk occupations).
  • Limit alcohol intake to no more than 21 units per week (one unit of alcohol equals 10 ml or 8 g pure alcohol).
  • Stop smoking and support others to stop smoking.
  • Provide all children with primary and secondary education.
  • Lead an active life into mid-life and possibly later life.
  • Reduce obesity and the linked condition of diabetes.

The report also advocates for holistic, individualized and evidenced-based care for patients with dementia, who typically have more hospitalizations for conditions that are potentially manageable at home and are at greater risk for COVID-19. In addition, it recommends providing interventions for family caregivers who are at risk for depression and anxiety…..                                                                                                                                        https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200730123651.htm

 

Citation:

Forty percent of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by targeting 12 risk factors throughout life

Date:       July 30, 2020

Source:   University of Southern California – Health Sciences

Summary:

Forty percent of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by targeting 12 risk factors throughout life, experts say.

Journal Reference:

Gill Livingston, Jonathan Huntley, Andrew Sommerlad, David Ames, Clive Ballard, Sube Banerjee, Carol Brayne, Alistair Burns, Jiska Cohen-Mansfield, Claudia Cooper, Sergi G Costafreda, Amit Dias, Nick Fox, Laura N Gitlin, Robert Howard, Helen C Kales, Mika Kivimäki, Eric B Larson, Adesola Ogunniyi, Vasiliki Orgeta, Karen Ritchie, Kenneth Rockwood, Elizabeth L Sampson, Quincy Samus, Lon S Schneider, Geir Selbæk, Linda Teri, Naaheed Mukadam. Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2020 report of the Lancet Commission. The Lancet, 2020; DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30367-6

Here is the press release from the University of Southern California:

NEWS RELEASE 30-JUL-2020

Forty percent of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by targeting 12 risk factors throughout life

An update to the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention and care adds excessive alcohol intake, head injury and air pollution to nine previously identified modifiable risks

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA – HEALTH SCIENCES

LOS ANGELES — Modifying 12 risk factors over a lifetime could delay or prevent 40% of dementia cases, according to an updated report by the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention and care presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC 2020).

Twenty-eight world-leading dementia experts added three new risk factors in the new report — excessive alcohol intake and head injury in mid-life and air pollution in later life. These are in addition to nine factors previously identified by the commission in 2017: less education early in life; mid-life hearing loss, hypertension and obesity; and smoking, depression, social isolation, physical inactivity and diabetes later in life (65 and up).

“We are learning that tactics to avoid dementia begin early and continue throughout life, so it’s never too early or too late to take action,” says commission member and AAIC presenter Lon Schneider, MD, co-director of the USC Alzheimer Disease Research Center’s clinical core and professor of psychiatry and the behavioral sciences and neurology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

Dementia affects some 50 million people globally, a number that is expected to more than triple by 2050, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where approximately two-thirds of people with dementia live, according to the report. Women are also more likely to develop dementia than men.

However, in certain countries, such as the United States, England and France, the proportion of older people with dementia has fallen, probably in part due to lifestyle changes, demonstrating the possibility of reducing dementia through preventative measures, Schneider says.

Schneider and commission members recommend that policymakers and individuals adopt the following interventions:

  • Aim to maintain systolic blood pressure of 130 mm Hg or less from the age of 40.
  • Encourage use of hearing aids for hearing loss and reduce hearing loss by protecting ears from high noise levels.
  • Reduce exposure to air pollution and second-hand tobacco smoke.
  • Prevent head injury (particularly by targeting high-risk occupations).
  • Limit alcohol intake to no more than 21 units per week (one unit of alcohol equals 10 ml or 8 g pure alcohol).
  • Stop smoking and support others to stop smoking.
  • Provide all children with primary and secondary education.
  • Lead an active life into mid-life and possibly later life.
  • Reduce obesity and the linked condition of diabetes.

The report also advocates for holistic, individualized and evidenced-based care for patients with dementia, who typically have more hospitalizations for conditions that are potentially manageable at home and are at greater risk for COVID-19. In addition, it recommends providing interventions for family caregivers who are at risk for depression and anxiety.

The commission members conducted a thorough investigation of all the best evidence in the field, including systematic literature reviews, meta-analyses and individual studies, to reach their conclusions.

###

For more information about Keck Medicine of USC, please visit news.KeckMedicine.org.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

Alzheimer’s and Dementia Alliance of Wisconsin described why early detection is important:

Early diagnosis is key.
There are at least a dozen advantages to obtaining an early and accurate diagnosis when cognitive symptoms are first noticed.
1. Your symptoms might be reversible.
The symptoms you are concerned about might be caused by a condition that is reversible. And even if there is also an underlying dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease, diagnosis and treatment of reversible conditions can improve brain function and reduce symptoms.

  1. It may be treatable.
    Some causes of cognitive decline are not reversible, but might be treatable. Appropriate treatment can stop or slow the rate of further decline.
    3. With treatments, the sooner the better.
    Treatment of Alzheimer’s and other dementia-causing diseases is typically most effective when started early in the disease process. Once more effective treatments become available, obtaining an early and accurate diagnosis will be even more crucial.
  2. Diagnoses are more accurate early in the disease process.
    A more accurate diagnosis is possible when a complete history can be taken early in the disease process, while the person is still able to answer questions and report concerns and when observers can still recall the order in which symptoms first appeared. Obtaining an accurate diagnosis can be difficult once most of the brain has become affected.
    5. It’s empowering.
    An earlier diagnosis enables the person to participate in their own legal, financial, and long-term care planning and to make their wishes known to family members.
    6. You can focus on what’s important to you.
    It allows the person the opportunity to reprioritize how they spend their time – focusing on what matters most to them – perhaps completing life goals such as travel, recording family history, completing projects, or making memories with grandchildren while they still can.
    7. You can make your best choices.
    Early diagnosis can prevent unwise choices that might otherwise be made in ignorance – such as moving far away from family and friends, or making legal or financial commitments that will be hard to keep as the disease progresses.
    8. You can use the resources available to you.
    Individuals diagnosed early in the disease process can take advantage of early-stage support groups and learn tips and strategies to better manage and cope with the symptoms of the disease.
    9. Participate or advocate for research.
    Those diagnosed early can also take advantage of clinical trials – or advocate for more research and improved care and opportunities.
    10. You can further people’s understanding of the disease.
    Earlier diagnosis helps to reduce the stigma associated with the disease when we learn to associate the disease with people in the early stages, when they are still cogent and active in the community.
    11. It will help your family.
    An earlier diagnosis gives families more opportunity to learn about the disease, develop realistic expectations, and plan for their future together – which can result in reduced stress and feelings of burden and regret later in the disease process.
    12. It will help you, too.
    Early diagnosis allows the person and family to attribute cognitive changes to the disease rather than to personal failings – preserving the person’s ego throughout the disease process….                           https://alzwisc.org/Importance%20of%20an%20early%20diagnosis.htm

AI’s role in treatment of Alzheimer’s is an example of better living through technology.

CONSULT A COMPETENT MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL FOR DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF ANY SUSPECTED DECLINE IN MENTAL FACULTIES

Resources:

What Is Alzheimer’s?                                                                           https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/what-is-alzheimers

Understanding Alzheimer’s Disease: the Basics  https://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/guide/understanding-alzheimers-disease-basics

What’s to know about Alzheimer’s disease? https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/159442.php

Alzheimer’s Disease                                       https://www.cdc.gov/aging/aginginfo/alzheimers.htm

What is Artificial Intelligence?  https://www.computerworld.com/article/2906336/emerging-technology/what-is-artificial-intelligence.html

Artificial Intelligence: What it is and why it matters https://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/analytics/what-is-artificial-intelligence.html

Brain                                                                                                           https://drwilda.com/tag/brain/

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©
http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©
http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©
https://drwilda.com/

 

 

 

 

 

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Massachusetts General Hospital study: Large study confirms vitamin D does not reduce risk of depression in adults

9 Aug

Science Daily reported in Mental health issues increased significantly in young adults over last decade: Shift may be due in part to rise of digital media, study suggests:

The percentage of young Americans experiencing certain types of mental health disorders has risen significantly over the past decade, with no corresponding increase in older adults, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
“More U.S. adolescents and young adults in the late 2010s, versus the mid-2000s, experienced serious psychological distress, major depression or suicidal thoughts, and more attempted suicide,” said lead author Jean Twenge, PhD, author of the book “iGen” and professor of psychology at San Diego State University. “These trends are weak or non-existent among adults 26 years and over, suggesting a generational shift in mood disorders instead of an overall increase across all ages.”
The research was published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.
Twenge and her co-authors analyzed data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, a nationally representative survey that has tracked drug and alcohol use, mental health and other health-related issues in individuals age 12 and over in the United States since 1971. They looked at survey responses from more than 200,000 adolescents age 12 to 17 from 2005 to 2017, and almost 400,000 adults age 18 and over from 2008 to 2017.
The rate of individuals reporting symptoms consistent with major depression in the last 12 months increased 52 percent in adolescents from 2005 to 2017 (from 8.7 percent to 13.2 percent) and 63 percent in young adults age 18 to 25 from 2009 to 2017 (from 8.1 percent to 13.2 percent). There was also a 71 percent increase in young adults experiencing serious psychological distress in the previous 30 days from 2008 to 2017 (from 7.7 percent to 13.1 percent). The rate of young adults with suicidal thoughts or other suicide-related outcomes increased 47 percent from 2008 to 2017 (from 7.0 percent to 10.3 percent).
There was no significant increase in the percentage of older adults experiencing depression or psychological distress during corresponding time periods. The researchers even saw a slight decline in psychological distress in individuals over 65.
“Cultural trends in the last 10 years may have had a larger effect on mood disorders and suicide-related outcomes among younger generations compared with older generations,” said Twenge, who believes this trend may be partially due to increased use of electronic communication and digital media, which may have changed modes of social interaction enough to affect mood disorders. She also noted research shows that young people are not sleeping as much as they did in previous generations.
The increase in digital media use may have had a bigger impact on teens and young adults because older adults’ social lives are more stable and might have changed less than teens’ social lives have in the last ten years, said Twenge. Older adults might also be less likely to use digital media in a way that interferes with sleep — for example, they might be better at not staying up late on their phones or using them in the middle of the night.
“These results suggest a need for more research to understand how digital communication versus face-to-face social interaction influences mood disorders and suicide-related outcomes and to develop specialized interventions for younger age groups,” she said….

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190315110908.ht

 

See,        https://drwilda.com/tag/mental-health/

https://drwilda.com/tag/stress-depression/

Susan M. Knight wrote in the Ethical Editor article, Large study confirms vitamin D does not reduce risk of depression in adults:

Vitamin D supplementation does not protect against depression in middle-age or older adulthood according results from one of the largest ever studies of its kind. This is a longstanding question that has likely encouraged some people to take the vitamin.

In this study, however, “There was no significant benefit from the supplement for this purpose. It did not prevent depression or improve mood,” says Olivia I. Okereke, MD, MS, of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH’s Psychiatry Department.

Okereke is the lead author of the report and principal investigator of this study, which will be published in JAMA on Aug. 4. It included more than 18,000 men and women aged 50 years or older. Half the participants received vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) supplementation for an average of five years, and the other half received a matching placebo for the same duration.

Vitamin D is sometimes called the “sunshine vitamin” because the skin can naturally create it when exposed to sunlight. Numerous prior studies showed that low blood levels of vitamin D (25-hydroxy vitamin D) were associated with higher risk for depression in later life, but there have been few large-scale randomized trials necessary to determine causation. Now Okereke and her colleagues have delivered what may be the definitive answer to this question.

“One scientific issue is that you actually need a very large number of study participants to tell whether or not a treatment is helping to prevent development of depression,” Okereke explains. “With nearly 20,000 people, our study was statistically powered to address this issue.”

This study, called VITAL-DEP (Depression Endpoint Prevention in the Vitamin D and Omega-3 Trial), was an ancillary study to VITAL, a randomized clinical trial of cardiovascular disease and cancer prevention among nearly 26,000 people in the US.

From that group, Okereke and her colleagues studied the 18,353 men and women who did not already have any indication of clinical depression to start with, and then tested whether vitamin D3 prevented them from becoming depressed.”

The results were clear. Among the 18,353 randomized participants, the researchers found the risk of depression or clinically relevant depressive symptoms was not significantly different between those receiving active vitamin D3 supplements and those on placebo, and there were no significant differences were seen between treatment groups in mood scores over time….                                                                                            https://www.ethicaleditor.com/health/large-study-confirms-vitamin-d-does-not-reduce-risk-of-depression-in-adults/

JAMA (2020). DOI: 10.1001/jama.2020.10224

Provided by
Massachusetts General Hospital

Citation:
Large study confirms vitamin D does not reduce risk of depression in adults (2020, August 4)
retrieved 4 August 2020
from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-large-vitamin-d-depression-adults.html

Here is the press release from Massachusetts General Hospital:

 NEWS RELEASE 4-AUG-2020

Large study confirms vitamin D does not reduce risk of depression in adults

MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL

Boston – Vitamin D supplementation does not protect against depression in middle-age or older adulthood according results from one of the largest ever studies of its kind. This is a longstanding question that has likely encouraged some people to take the vitamin.

In this study, however, “There was no significant benefit from the supplement for this purpose. It did not prevent depression or improve mood,” says Olivia I. Okereke, MD, MS, of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH’s Psychiatry Department.

Okereke is the lead author of the report and principal investigator of this study, which will be published in JAMA on Aug. 4. It included more than 18,000 men and women aged 50 years or older. Half the participants received vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) supplementation for an average of five years, and the other half received a matching placebo for the same duration.

Vitamin D is sometimes called the “sunshine vitamin” because the skin can naturally create it when exposed to sunlight. Numerous prior studies showed that low blood levels of vitamin D (25-hydroxy vitamin D) were associated with higher risk for depression in later life, but there have been few large-scale randomized trials necessary to determine causation. Now Okereke and her colleagues have delivered what may be the definitive answer to this question.

“One scientific issue is that you actually need a very large number of study participants to tell whether or not a treatment is helping to prevent development of depression,” Okereke explains. “With nearly 20,000 people, our study was statistically powered to address this issue.”

This study, called VITAL-DEP (Depression Endpoint Prevention in the Vitamin D and Omega-3 Trial), was an ancillary study to VITAL, a randomized clinical trial of cardiovascular disease and cancer prevention among nearly 26,000 people in the US.

From that group, Okereke and her colleagues studied the 18,353 men and women who did not already have any indication of clinical depression to start with, and then tested whether vitamin D3 prevented them from becoming depressed.”

The results were clear. Among the 18,353 randomized participants, the researchers found the risk of depression or clinically relevant depressive symptoms was not significantly different between those receiving active vitamin D3 supplements and those on placebo, and there were no significant differences were seen between treatment groups in mood scores over time.

“It’s not time to throw out your vitamin D yet though, at least not without your doctor’s advice,” says Okereke. Some people take it for reasons other than to elevate mood.

“Vitamin D is known to be essential for bone and metabolic health, but randomized trials have cast doubt on many of the other presumed benefits,” said the paper’s senior author, JoAnn Manson, MD, DrPH, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

###

The other authors include researchers from the Psychiatry Department at UPMC and University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and from the VA Boston Healthcare System.”

About the Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with annual research operations of more than $1 billion and comprises more than 9,500 researchers working across more than 30 institutes, centers and departments. In August 2020 the MGH was once again named a top hospital in the nation by U.S. News & World Report in its list of “America’s Best Hospitals.”

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

There is something to be said for Cafe Society where people actually meet face-to-face for conversation or the custom of families eating at least one meal together. Time has a good article on The Magic of the Family Meal

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1200760,00.html See, also The

Importance of Eating Together: Family dinners build relationships, and help kids do better in school.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/the-importance-of-eating-together/374256/

It also looks like Internet rehab will have a steady supply of customers according to an article reprinted in the Seattle Times by Hillary Stout of the New York Times. In Toddlers Latch On to iPhones – and Won’t Let Go

https://www.seattletimes.com/life/lifestyle/toddlers-latch-onto-iphones-8212-and-wont-let-go/ Stout reports:

But just as adults have a hard time putting down their iPhones, so the device is now the Toy of Choice — akin to a treasured stuffed animal — for many 1-, 2- and 3-year-olds. It’s a phenomenon that is attracting the attention and concern of some childhood development specialists.

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©
http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

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http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

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Michigan State University, University of South Florida, St. John’s University, and American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) paper: The costs and benefits of addressing customer complaints

8 Aug

Guy Winch Ph.D. wrote in the Psychology Today article, Complaint Handling: Where Companies and Customers Both Fail: Why companies fail at complaint handling:

Consumers whose complaints are handled well by a company become loyal customers and spread positive word-of-mouth. Yet too many companies fail at complaint handling and then fail again in responding to these failures. Here’s why:

How Our Complaining Psychology Leads Customers Astray

When we are dissatisfied with a purchase or a service, the vast majority of us fail to complain to the company or business in question. We are convinced it will require too much time and effort to do so, that the process will be unpleasant and that if we did pursue our complaint, the company or business would be unlikely to resolve the problem to our satisfaction.

Instead, we are far more likely to switch to another company or business and to tell our tale of consumer disappointment to 10-20 of our nearest and dearest, hundreds of our Facebook friends or thousands of our Twitter followers, spreading terrible word-of-mouth about the company or business in question but failing to get a satisfactory resolution to our problem.

However, our fears are usually greatly exaggerated. In other words, voicing complaints to companies and businesses is usually far less laborious and annoying than we anticipate. This is especially so if we voice our complaint to someone with the authority to resolve the matter, such as the manager of a restaurant or a store, or an executive in a company. Call-center representatives are also likely to be more responsive if we approached them with civility and respect instead of holding them personally responsible for our problem.

And yet, each time we interact with a company that has terrible complaint handling procedures, our fears are not only reinforced but they generalize and we become less likely to voice a complaint when next we encounter a problem regardless of the company or business in question.

Why Companies Should Handle Complaints Well

  1. Great complaint handling increases customer loyalty.
  2. Great complaint handling reduces customer attrition.
  3. Great complaint handling spreads positive word of mouth.
  4. Poor complaint handling spreads negative word of mouth.
  5. It is far more expensive for a company to recruit a new customer through traditional marketing and advertisingthan to retain an existing customer by improving complaint handling procedures.
  6. Customer complaints give companies free and crucial information about problems with products or procedures that are costing them customers.
  7. Handling complaints give companies opportunities to have a dialogue with their customers, to educate them about new or existing products and to upsell.

The above factors contribute to significant increases in a company’s bottom line, while handling complaints poorly hurts their bottom line. This makes the fact that companies still fail at complaint handling both unfortunate and at first glance, bewildering….                                                                                                                       https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/201105/complaint-handling-where-companies-and-customers-both-fail

See, The Benefits of Handling Customer Complaints                                                                      https://businessofstory.com/customer-complaints/

Matt Weingarden  wrote in the American Marketing Association Journal,                      The costs and benefits of addressing customer complaints:

Researchers from Michigan State University, University of South Florida, St. John’s University, and American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) published a new paper that analyzes relationships between customer complaints, complaint handling by companies, and customer loyalty to understand how customer complaint management affects companies’ performance and to inform companies how to manage customer complaints much better and more consistently.

The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Turning Complaining Customers into Loyal Customers: Moderators of the Complaint Handling—Customer Loyalty Relationship” and is authored by Forrest Morgeson, Tomas Hult, Sunil Mithas, Tim Keiningham, and Claes Fornell.

The angry restaurant patron. The irritated airline passenger. The retail customer screaming about a return or refund. Every company worries about complaining customers. They can be loud, disruptive, and damage a company’s brand reputation, sales, employee morale, and market value. But are customer complaints as damaging as they seem?

As it turns out, customers who lodge complaints are not a lost cause. They can still be satisfied and remain loyal if their complaints are handled well. Regrettably, companies rarely handle complaints consistently, partly because they don’t know how.

The research team carried out the largest study ever on customer complaints to inform companies how to manage customer complaints much better and more consistently. We studied data from the world-renowned American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) regarding behaviors of 35,597 complaining customers over a 10-year period across 41 industries…..                                                                                                     https://phys.org/news/2020-08-benefits-customer-complaints.html

Citation:

Forrest V. Morgeson et al, Turning Complaining Customers into Loyal Customers: Moderators of the Complaint Handling–Customer Loyalty Relationship, Journal of Marketing (2020). DOI: 10.1177/0022242920929029

Journal information: Journal of Marketing

Here is the press release from the Journal of Marketing

Press Release from the Journal of Marketing: The Costs and Benefits of Addressing Customer Complaints

6.26.2020

Matt Weingarden

Researchers from Michigan State University, University of South Florida, St. John’s University, and American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) published a new paper that analyzes relationships between customer complaints, complaint handling by companies, and customer loyalty to understand how customer complaint management affects companies’ performance and to inform companies how to manage customer complaints much better and more consistently.

The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Turning Complaining Customers into Loyal Customers: Moderators of the Complaint Handling – Customer Loyalty Relationship” and is authored by Forrest Morgeson, Tomas Hult, Sunil Mithas, Tim Keiningham, and Claes Fornell.

The angry restaurant patron. The irritated airline passenger. The retail customer screaming about a return or refund. Every company worries about complaining customers. They can be loud, disruptive, and damage a company’s brand reputation, sales, employee morale, and market value. But are customer complaints as damaging as they seem?

As it turns out, customers who lodge complaints are not a lost cause. They can still be satisfied and remain loyal if their complaints are handled well. Regrettably, companies rarely handle complaints consistently, partly because they don’t know how.

The research team carried out the largest study ever on customer complaints to inform companies how to manage customer complaints much better and more consistently. We studied data from the world-renowned American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) regarding behaviors of 35,597 complaining customers over a 10-year period across 41 industries.

The study finds that the relationship between a company’s complaint recovery and customer loyalty is stronger during periods of faster economic growth, in more competitive industries, for customers of luxury products, and for customers with higher overall satisfaction and higher expectations of customization. On the other hand, the recovery–loyalty relationship is weaker when customers’ expectations of product/service reliability are higher, for manufactured goods, and for males compared to females.

Hult explains that “We draw two key conclusions from the results. First, companies need to recognize not only that industries vary widely in the percentage of customers who complain (on average, about 11.1 percent), but also that economic, industry, customer-firm, product/service, and customer segment factors dictate the importance of complaint recovery to customers and their future loyalty. Companies should develop complaint management strategies accordingly.”

He continues, “Secondly, the financial benefits of complaint management efforts differ significantly across companies. Since complaint management’s effect on customer loyalty varies across industries and companies offering different kinds of goods, the economic benefit from seeking to reaffirm customer loyalty via complaint recovery varies as well. Through this study, these performance factors can be identified and considered when designing a company’s complaint management system.”

Without context, these conclusions suggest that a profit-maximizing strategy simply requires that managers understand the impact of complaint recovery on customer loyalty in their industry. Added to this complexity, however, is the reality that profitability is not evenly distributed throughout the customer base. Fornell says that “Companies need to implement complaint management systems that make it easier for front-line employees to respond to complaining customers in ways that optimize customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and the economic contribution of customers.”

Without a deeper understanding of the boundaries of the complaint handling–customer loyalty relationship and the effects of economic, industry, customer-firm, product/service, and customer segment factors, companies will likely allocate cost estimates to complaint management that are too low for the required recovery actions or customer loyalty estimates that are too high, or both, instead of achieving an optimal point of recovery-loyalty yield.

Fornell advises that “Achieving an optimal recovery-loyalty yield is more advantageous than adopting the mantra that the customer is always right. It is a folly to believe that the customer is always right. Economically speaking, the customer is only “right” if there is an economic gain for the company to keep that customer. In reality, some complaining customers are very costly and not worth keeping.”

Full article and author contact information available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0022242920929029

About the Journal of Marketing
The Journal of Marketing develops and disseminates knowledge about real-world marketing questions useful to scholars, educators, managers, policy makers, consumers, and other societal stakeholders around the world. Published by the American Marketing Association since its founding in 1936, JM has played a significant role in shaping the content and boundaries of the marketing discipline. Christine Moorman (T. Austin Finch, Sr. Professor of Business Administration at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University) serves as the current Editor in Chief.
https://www.ama.org/jm

About the American Marketing Association (AMA)
As the largest chapter-based marketing association in the world, the AMA is trusted by marketing and sales professionals to help them discover what’s coming next in the industry. The AMA has a community of local chapters in more than 70 cities and 350 college campuses throughout North America. The AMA is home to award-winning content, PCM® professional certification, premiere academic journals, and industry-leading training events and conferences.
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ACADEMIC

Matt Weingarden

Matt Weingarden is Director, Integrated Academic Content, a role which includes serving as publisher and managing editor of the AMA’s four scholarly journals, as well as managing the AMA’s numerous academic conferences and academic community initiatives.

Mathew Swyers wrote in the INC article, 5 Steps to Handling a Customer Complaint: Your employees may be turning customers away. Teach them these simple steps to navigate through a customer service issue:

So don’t make a mistake that costs your business its business. Teach all your employees how to handle complaints like a pro:

  1. Listen and Understand

First, always listen to the customer. They are concerned about an aspect of your services. Let go of the temptation to respond in any quick fashion. Take the time to listen and truly understand what is driving their concern.

  1. Empathize

Once you have listened to their concern immediately empathize with their position to create a bond between you and the customer so that they know you have heard their concern and are going to work with them to resolve the issue.

  1. Offer a Solution

Offer a solution to their problem. In this regard, always focus on what you can do as opposed to what you cannot. There is always a solution. It may not be exactly what they are asking for, but if you focus on what you can do versus denying them their requested remedy you have still offered a solution and often merely having another option is sufficient to remedy the situation.

  1. Execute the Solution

Solve their problem be it with their originally requested resolution or an alternative you have proposed.

  1. Follow-Up

Once you have gone through the first four steps, make sure to follow-up with them to make sure that they are satisfied with the solution and that you have taken care of their concern.                                                                                                   https://www.inc.com/matthew-swyers/5-steps-to-handling-a-customer-complaint.html

Resources:

7 Steps for Resolving Customer Complaints                                                                                   https://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/7-steps-for-resolving-customer-complaints.html

The Right Words and Phrases to Say to an Angry Customer                                                     https://www.callcentrehelper.com/the-right-words-and-phrases-to-use-with-an-angry-customer-30110.htm

8 Steps to Squash a Customer’s Complaint

Before you rush to defend yourself or fight back remember to put yourself in your customer’s shoes.                                                                                                                         https://www.inc.com/matthew-swyers/8-steps-to-handle-customer-complaints.html

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University of East Anglia study: Understanding why some children enjoy TV more than others

6 Aug

Let’s make this short and sweet. Park your kid in front of the television and you will probably be raising an overweight idiot. Tara Parker-Pope has a great post at the New York Times blog. In the post, TV For Toddlers Linked With Later Problems Parker-Pope reports:

Toddlers who watch a lot of television were more likely to experience a range of problems by the fourth grade, including lower grades, poorer health and more problems with school bullies, a new study reports.
The study of more than 1,300 Canadian schoolchildren tracked the amount of television children were watching at the ages of about 2 and 5. The researchers then followed up on the children in fourth grade to assess academic performance, social issues and general health.
On average, the schoolchildren were watching about nine hours of television each week as toddlers. The total jumped to about 15 hours as they approached 5 years of age. The average level of television viewing shown in the study falls within recommended guidelines. However, 11 percent of the toddlers were exceeding two hours a day of television viewing.
For those children, each hour of extra TV exposure in early childhood was associated with a range of issues by the fourth grade, according to the report published in the May issue of The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. Compared with children who watched less television, those with more TV exposure participated less in class and had lower math grades. They suffered about 10 percent more bullying by classmates and were less likely to be physically active on weekends. They consumed about 10 percent more soft drinks and snacks and had body mass index scores that were about 5 percent higher than their peers. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/tv-for-toddlers-linked-with-later-problems/?_php=true&_type=blogs&src=me&_r=0

Well duh, people. You probably already knew this. Guess why you have feet attached to your legs? So, you and the kids can walk around the neighborhood and the park. Better yet, why don’t you encourage your children to play. https://drwilda.com/2012/09/16/play-is-as-important-for-children-as-technology/

See,           https://drwilda.com/tag/children-and-television/

https://drwilda.com/tag/television/

https://drwilda.com/tag/media-and-children/

Science Daily reported in Understanding why some children enjoy TV more than others:

Children’s own temperament could be driving the amount of TV they watch — according to new research from the University of East Anglia and Birkbeck, University of London.

New findings published today show that the brain responses of 10-month-old babies could predict whether they would enjoy watching fast-paced TV shows six months later.

The research team says that the findings are important for the ongoing debate around early TV exposure.

Lead researcher Dr Teodora Gliga, from UEA’s School of Psychology, said: “The sensory environment surrounding babies and young children is really complex and cluttered, but the ability to pay attention to something is one of the first developmental milestones in babies.

“Even before they can ask questions, children vary greatly in how driven they are to explore their surroundings and engage with new sights or sounds.

“We wanted to find out why babies appear to be so different in the way that they seek out new visual sensory stimulation — such as being attracted to shiny objects, bright colours or moving images on TV.

“There have been various theories to explain these differences, with some suggesting that infants who are less sensitive will seek less stimulation, others suggesting that some infants are simply faster at processing information — an ability which could drive them to seek out new stimulation more frequently.

“In this study we bring support for a third theory by showing that a preference for novelty makes some infants seek more varied stimulation.”

Using a brain imaging method known as electroencephalography (EEG), the research team studied brain activity in 48 10-month old babies while they watched a 40-second clip from the Disney movie Fantasia on repeat.

They studied how the children’s brain waves responded to random interruptions to the movie — in the form of a black and white chequerboard suddenly flashing on screen.

Dr Gliga said: “As the babies watched the repeated video clip, EEG responses told us that they learned its content. We expected that, as the video became less novel and therefore engaged their attention less, they would start noticing the checkerboard.

“But some of the babies started responding to the checkerboard earlier on while still learning about the video — suggesting that these children had had enough of the old information.

“Conversely, others remained engaged with the video even when there was not much to learn from it,” she added.

Parents and carers were also asked to fill in a questionnaire about their babies’ sensory behaviours — including whether they enjoyed watching fast-paced brightly-coloured TV shows. This was followed up with a second similar questionnaire six months later.

Dr Gliga said: “It was very interesting to find that brain responses at 10 months, indicating how quickly infants switched their attention from the repeated video to the checkerboard, predicted whether they would enjoy watching fast-paced TV shows six months later….                                                                                                           sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200805091832.htm

Citation:

Understanding why some children enjoy TV more than others

Date:        August 5, 2020

Source:    University of East Anglia

Summary:

New research shows that children’s own temperament could be driving the amount of TV they watch. The research shows how the brain responses of 10-month-old babies watching a clip from Disney’s Fantasia on repeat could predict whether they would enjoy watching fast-paced TV shows six months later. The findings are important for the ongoing debate around early TV exposure.

Journal Reference:

Elena Serena Piccardi, Mark H. Johnson, Teodora Gliga. Explaining individual differences in infant visual sensory seeking. Infancy, 2020; DOI: 10.1111/infa.12356

Here is the press release from the University of East Anglia:

Understanding why some children enjoy TV more than others

Children’s own temperament could be driving the amount of TV they watch – according to new research from the University of East Anglia and Birkbeck, University of London.

New findings published today show that the brain responses of 10-month-old babies could predict whether they would enjoy watching fast-paced TV shows six months later.

The research team says that the findings are important for the ongoing debate around early TV exposure.

Lead researcher Dr Teodora Gliga, from UEA’s School of Psychology, said: “The sensory environment surrounding babies and young children is really complex and cluttered, but the ability to pay attention to something is one of the first developmental milestones in babies.

“Even before they can ask questions, children vary greatly in how driven they are to explore their surroundings and engage with new sights or sounds.

“We wanted to find out why babies appear to be so different in the way that they seek out new visual sensory stimulation – such as being attracted to shiny objects, bright colours or moving images on TV.

“There have been various theories to explain these differences, with some suggesting that infants who are less sensitive will seek less stimulation, others suggesting that some infants are simply faster at processing information – an ability which could drive them to seek out new stimulation more frequently.

“In this study we bring support for a third theory by showing that a preference for novelty makes some infants seek more varied stimulation.”

Using a brain imaging method known as electroencephalography (EEG), the research team studied brain activity in 48 10-month old babies while they watched a 40-second clip from the Disney movie Fantasia on repeat.

They studied how the children’s brain waves responded to random interruptions to the movie – in the form of a black and white chequerboard suddenly flashing on screen.

Dr Gliga said: “As the babies watched the repeated video clip, EEG responses told us that they learned its content. We expected that, as the video became less novel and therefore engaged their attention less, they would start noticing the checkerboard.

“But some of the babies started responding to the checkerboard earlier on while still learning about the video – suggesting that these children had had enough of the old information.

“Conversely, others remained engaged with the video even when there was not much to learn from it,” she added.

Parents and carers were also asked to fill in a questionnaire about their babies’ sensory behaviours – including whether they enjoyed watching fast-paced brightly-coloured TV shows. This was followed up with a second similar questionnaire six months later.

Dr Gliga said: “It was very interesting to find that brain responses at 10 months, indicating how quickly infants switched their attention from the repeated video to the checkerboard, predicted whether they would enjoy watching fast-paced TV shows six months later.

“These findings are important for the ongoing debate on early TV exposure since they suggest that children’s temperament may drive differences in TV exposure.

“It is unlikely that our findings are explained by early TV exposure since parents reported that only a small proportion of 10-month-olds were watching TV shows,” she added.

Elena Serena Piccardi, from Birkbeck, University of London, said: “The next part of our research will aim to understand exactly what drives these individual differences in attention to novelty, including the role that early environments may have.

“Exploration and discovery are essential for children’s learning and cognitive development. Yet, different children may benefit from different environments for their learning. As such, this research will help us understand how individualized environments may nurture children’s learning, promote their cognitive development and, ultimately, support achievement of their full potential.

The research was led by UEA in collaboration with Birkbeck, University of London and Cambridge University. It was funded by the Medical Research Council.

‘Individual differences in infant visual sensory seeking’ is published in the journal Infancy on August 5, 2020.

 

The issue is whether children in a “captive” environment have the maturity and critical thinking skills to evaluate the information contained in the ads. Advertising is about creating a desire for the product, pushing a lifestyle which might make an individual more prone to purchase products to create that lifestyle, and promoting an image which might make an individual more prone to purchase products in pursuit of that image. Many girls and women have unrealistic body image expectations which can lead to eating disorders in the pursuit of a “super model” image. What the glossy magazines don’t tell young women is the dysfunctional lives of many “super models” which may involve both eating disorders and substance abuse. The magazines don’t point out that many “glamor girls” are air-brushed or photo-shopped and that they spend hours on professional make-up and professional hairstyling in addition to having a personal trainer and stylist. Many boys look at the buff bodies of the men in the ads and don’t realize that some use body enhancing drugs. In other words, when presented with any advertising, people must make a determination what to believe. It is easy for children to get derailed because of peer pressure in an all too permissive society. Parents and schools must teach children critical thinking skills and point out often that the picture presented in advertising is often as close to reality as the bedtime fairy tail. Reality does not often involve perfection, there are warts.

Parents must interact with their children and read to them. Television is not a parental substitute.

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American Institute of Physics: The problem with microwaving tea

5 Aug

The United Kingdom Tea Council has some fascinating facts about the history of tea in The History of Tea:

Tea is so much a part of everyday life in Britain that we might never stop to think about how a unique plant from faraway China became the nation´s favourite drink. But the history of tea is fascinating, and in this section we can follow its story from the earliest times in Imperial China right up to its present place at the heart of British life.

Read about the exotic beginnings of tea in China and the Far East and in time how it was transported to the UK and America on the Tea Clippers.

Discover how tea was brought to England by a seventeenth century queen, and how important the tea trade was to the British East India Company, one of the most powerful commercial organisations the world has ever seen.

Learn how the phenomenal popularity of tea in the eighteenth century led to widespread smuggling and adulteration, and about the murderous lengths smugglers went to to protect their illegal trade.

Read also about the Boston Tea Party of 1773, which sparked off the American Revolution, and how rivalry between the English and the American tea traders in the nineteenth century led to the excitement of the Clipper races. And trace the social history of tea in Britain, from the early debates about its health-giving properties, to the rise of the tea bag, via the great tradition of the London Tea Auction and the role of tea in boosting morale in the World Wars. http://www.tea.co.uk/history-of-tea

Here is a bit about the history of tea:

The birth of tea in China

Tea is often thought of as being a quintessentially British drink, and we have been drinking it for over 350 years. But in fact the history of tea goes much further back.

The story of tea begins in China. According to legend, in 2737 BC, the Chinese emperor Shen Nung was sitting beneath a tree while his servant boiled drinking water, when some leaves from the tree blew into the water. Shen Nung, a renowned herbalist, decided to try the infusion that his servant had accidentally created. The tree was a Camellia sinensis, and the resulting drink was what we now call tea.

tea was first introduced to Japan, by Japanese Buddhist monks

It is impossible to know whether there is any truth in this story. But tea drinking certainly became establishedin China manycenturies before it had even been heard of in the west. Containers for tea have been found in tombs dating from the Han dynasty(206 BC – 220 AD) but it was under the Tang dynasty (618-906 AD), that tea became firmly established as the national drink of China. It became such a favourite that during the late eighth century a writer called Lu Yu wrote the first book entirely about tea, the Ch’a Ching, or Tea Classic. It was shortly after this that tea was first introduced to Japan, by Japanese Buddhist monks who had travelled to China to study. Tea drinking has become a vital part of Japanese culture, as seen in the development of the Tea Ceremony, which may be rooted in the rituals described in the Ch’a Ching.

The growth of tea in Europe

So at this stage in the history of tea, Europe was rather lagging behind. In the latter half of the sixteenth century there are the first brief mentions of tea as a drink among Europeans. These are mostly from Portuguese who were living in the East as traders and missionaries. But although some of these individuals may have brought back samples of tea to their native country, it was not the Portuguese who were the first to ship back tea as a commercial import. This was done by the Dutch, who in the last years of the sixteenth century began to encroach on Portuguese trading routes in the East. By the turn of the century they had established a trading post on the island of Java, and it was via Java that in 1606 the first consignment of tea was shipped from China to Holland. Tea soon became a fashionable drink among the Dutch, and from there spread to other countries in continental western Europe, but because of its high price it remained a drink for the wealthy…. http://www.tea.co.uk/tea-a-brief-history-of-the-nations-favourite-beverage

See, Types of Teas and Their Health Benefits                      http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/tea-types-and-their-health-benefits

Science Daily reported in The problem with microwaving tea: Why microwaving liquids is different from other heating techniques, and how this issue can be resolved:

Tea drinkers have been saying it for years. Water heated in a microwave just isn’t the same.

Typically, when a liquid is being warmed, the heating source — a stove, for example — heats the container from below. By a process called convection, as the liquid toward the bottom of the container warms up, it becomes less dense and moves to the top, allowing a cooler section of the liquid to contact the source. This ultimately results in a uniform temperature throughout the glass.

Inside a microwave, however, the electric field acting as the heating source exists everywhere. Because the entire glass itself is also warming up, the convection process does not occur, and the liquid at the top of the container ends up being much hotter than the liquid at the bottom.

A team of researchers from the University of Electronic Science & Technology of China studied this nonuniform heating behavior and presents a solution to this common problem in the journal AIP Advances, from AIP Publishing.

By designing a silver plating to go along the rim of a glass, the group was able to shield the effects of the microwave at the surface of the liquid. The silver acts as a guide for the waves, reducing the electric field at the top and effectively blocking the heating. This creates a convection process similar to traditional approaches, resulting in a more uniform temperature.

Placing silver in the microwave may seem like a dangerous idea, but similar metal structures with finely tuned geometry to avoid ignition have already been safely used for microwave steam pots and rice cookers.

“After carefully designing the metal structure at the appropriate size, the metal edge, which is prone to ignition, is located at weak field strength, where it can completely avoid ignition, so it is still safe,” said Baoqing Zeng, one of the authors on the paper and professor of electronic science and engineering at UESTC.

Solids don’t undergo convection, so getting your leftovers to warm up uniformly is a completely different challenge….                                                                                                                                      https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200804111516.htm

Citation:

The problem with microwaving tea

Why microwaving liquids is different from other heating techniques, and how this issue can be resolved

Date:        August 4, 2020

Source:     American Institute of Physics

Summary:

Through convection, as the liquid toward the bottom of a container warms up, it becomes less dense and moves to the top, allowing a cooler section of the liquid to contact the heating source. This ultimately results in a uniform temperature. Inside a microwave, however, the electric field acting as the heating source exists everywhere and the convection process does not occur.

Journal Reference:

Peiyang Zhao, Weiwei Gan, Chuanqi Feng, Zhongxing Qu, Jianlong Liu, Zhe Wu, Yubin Gong, Baoqing Zeng. Multiphysics analysis for unusual heat convection in microwave heating liquid. AIP Advances, 2020; 10 (8): 085201 DOI: 10.1063/5.0013295

Here is the press release from the American Institute of Physics:

NEWS RELEASE 4-AUG-2020

The problem with microwaving tea

Why microwaving liquids is different from other heating techniques, and how this issue can be resolved

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

WASHINGTON, August 4, 2020 — Tea drinkers have been saying it for years. Water heated in a microwave just isn’t the same.

Typically, when a liquid is being warmed, the heating source — a stove, for example — heats the container from below. By a process called convection, as the liquid toward the bottom of the container warms up, it becomes less dense and moves to the top, allowing a cooler section of the liquid to contact the source. This ultimately results in a uniform temperature throughout the glass.

Inside a microwave, however, the electric field acting as the heating source exists everywhere. Because the entire glass itself is also warming up, the convection process does not occur, and the liquid at the top of the container ends up being much hotter than the liquid at the bottom.

A team of researchers from the University of Electronic Science & Technology of China studied this nonuniform heating behavior and presents a solution to this common problem in the journal AIP Advances, from AIP Publishing.

By designing a silver plating to go along the rim of a glass, the group was able to shield the effects of the microwave at the surface of the liquid. The silver acts as a guide for the waves, reducing the electric field at the top and effectively blocking the heating. This creates a convection process similar to traditional approaches, resulting in a more uniform temperature.

Placing silver in the microwave may seem like a dangerous idea, but similar metal structures with finely tuned geometry to avoid ignition have already been safely used for microwave steam pots and rice cookers.

“After carefully designing the metal structure at the appropriate size, the metal edge, which is prone to ignition, is located at weak field strength, where it can completely avoid ignition, so it is still safe,” said Baoqing Zeng, one of the authors on the paper and professor of electronic science and engineering at UESTC.

Solids don’t undergo convection, so getting your leftovers to warm up uniformly is a completely different challenge.

“For solids, there is no simple way to design a bowl or plate in order to achieve a much better heating result,” Zeng said. “We can change the field distribution, but the change is very small, so the improvement is limited.”

The group is considering other ways to improve nonuniformity in solid foods, but the methods are currently too expensive for practical use. For now, they’re focusing their efforts on working with a microwave manufacturer to commercialize their microwave accessories for liquids.

A future in which tea can be microwaved without ridicule may not be too far away.

###

The article, “Multiphysics analysis for unusual heat convection in microwave heating liquid,” is authored by Peiyang Zhao, Weiwei Gan, Chuanqi Feng, Zongxing Qu, Jianlong Liu, Zhe Wu, Yubin Gong and Baoqing Zeng. The article will appear in AIP Advances on Aug. 4, 2020 (DOI: 10.1063/5.0013295). After that date, it can be accessed at http://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/5.0013295.

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

AIP Advances is an open access journal publishing in all areas of physical sciences–applied, theoretical, and experimental. The inclusive scope of AIP Advances makes it an essential outlet for scientists across the physical sciences. See https://aip.scitation.org/journal/adv.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

Heathline listed the benefits of drinking tea in 10 Evidence-Based Benefits of Green Tea:

  1. Contains healthy bioactive compounds
  2. May improve brain function
  3. Increases fat burning
  4. Antioxidants may lower the risk of some cancers
  5. May protect the brain from aging
  6. May reduce bad breath
  7. May help prevent type 2 diabetes
  8. May help prevent cardiovascular disease
  9. May help you lose weight
  10. May help you live longer

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/top-10-evidence-based-health-benefits-of-green-tea#13

Resources:

12 Research-Backed Health Benefits Of Black Tea                                                                           https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/beverage/health-benefits-of-black-tea.html

18 Benefits Of Drinking Tea Everyday                                                                                         https://www.beautytohealth.com/18-benefits-drinking-tea-everyday/

25 Surprising Health Benefits Of Tea                                                                                              https://www.organicfacts.net/tea.html

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