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University of Washington Health Sciences/UW Medicine study: Scientists can now manipulate brain cells using smartphone

11 Aug

The staff of Mayo Clinic wrote an excellent synopsis about Deep brain stimulation:

Overview
Deep brain stimulation involves implanting electrodes within certain areas of your brain. These electrodes produce electrical impulses that regulate abnormal impulses. Or the electrical impulses can affect certain cells and chemicals within the brain.
The amount of stimulation in deep brain stimulation is controlled by a pacemaker-like device placed under the skin in your upper chest. A wire that travels under your skin connects this device to the electrodes in your brain.
Deep brain stimulation is approved to treat a number of conditions, such as:
• Dystonia
• Epilepsy
• Essential tremor
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder
• Parkinson’s disease
Deep brain stimulation is also being studied as a potential treatment for:
• Addiction
• Chronic pain
• Cluster headache
• Dementia
• Depression (major)
• Huntington’s disease
• Multiple sclerosis
• Stroke recovery
• Tourette syndrome
• Traumatic brain injury
Why it’s done
Deep brain stimulation is an established treatment for people with movement disorders, such as essential tremor, Parkinson’s disease and dystonia, and psychiatric conditions, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder. It’s also approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration to reduce seizures in difficult-to-treat epilepsy.
This treatment is reserved for people who aren’t able to get control of their symptoms with medications…. https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/deep-brain-stimulation/about/pac-20384562

Resources:

What is deep brain stimulation?                 https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/deep-brain-stimulation

Wireless communication with implanted medical devices using the conductive properties of the body https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4156009/

Science Daily reported the University of Washington Health Sciences/UW Medicine study, Scientists can now manipulate brain cells using smartphone:

A team of scientists in Korea and the United States have invented a device that can control neural circuits using a tiny brain implant controlled by a smartphone.
Researchers, publishing in Nature Biomedical Engineering, believe the device can speed up efforts to uncover brain diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, addiction, depression, and pain.
The device, using Lego-like replaceable drug cartridges and powerful bluetooth low-energy, can target specific neurons of interest using drug and light for prolonged periods.
“The wireless neural device enables chronic chemical and optical neuromodulation that has never been achieved before,” said lead author Raza Qazi, a researcher with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and University of Colorado Boulder.
Qazi said this technology significantly overshadows conventional methods used by neuroscientists, which usually involve rigid metal tubes and optical fibers to deliver drugs and light. Apart from limiting the subject’s movement due to the physical connections with bulky equipment, their relatively rigid structure causes lesion in soft brain tissue over time, therefore making them not suitable for long-term implantation. Though some efforts have been put to partly mitigate adverse tissue response by incorporating soft probes and wireless platforms, the previous solutions were limited by their inability to deliver drugs for long periods of time as well as their bulky and complex control setups.
To achieve chronic wireless drug delivery, scientists had to solve the critical challenge of exhaustion and evaporation of drugs. Researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and the University of Washington in Seattle collaborated to invent a neural device with a replaceable drug cartridge, which could allow neuroscientists to study the same brain circuits for several months without worrying about running out of drugs.
These ‘plug-n-play’ drug cartridges were assembled into a brain implant for mice with a soft and ultrathin probe (thickness of a human hair), which consisted of microfluidic channels and tiny LEDs (smaller than a grain of salt), for unlimited drug doses and light delivery.
Controlled with an elegant and simple user interface on a smartphone, neuroscientists can easily trigger any specific combination or precise sequencing of light and drug deliveries in any implanted target animal without need to be physically inside the laboratory. Using these wireless neural devices, researchers could also easily setup fully automated animal studies where behaviour of one animal could positively or negatively affect behaviour in other animals by conditional triggering of light and/or drug delivery.
“This revolutionary device is the fruit of advanced electronics design and powerful micro and nanoscale engineering,” said Jae-Woong Jeong, a professor of electrical engineering at KAIST. “We are interested in further developing this technology to make a brain implant for clinical applications.”
Michael Bruchas, a professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine and pharmacology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, said this technology will help researchers in many ways.
“It allows us to better dissect the neural circuit basis of behaviour, and how specific neuromodulators in the brain tune behaviour in various ways,” he said. “We are also eager to use the device for complex pharmacological studies, which could help us develop new therapeutics for pain, addiction, and emotional disorders….” https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190805143525.htm

Citation:

Scientists can now manipulate brain cells using smartphone
Date: August 5, 2019
Source: University of Washington Health Sciences/UW Medicine
Summary:
A team of scientists have invented a device that can control neural circuits using a tiny brain implant controlled by a smartphone. The device could speed up efforts to uncover brain diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, addiction, depression, and pain.

Journal Reference:
Raza Qazi, Adrian M. Gomez, Daniel C. Castro, Zhanan Zou, Joo Yong Sim, Yanyu Xiong, Jonas Abdo, Choong Yeon Kim, Avery Anderson, Frederik Lohner, Sang-Hyuk Byun, Byung Chul Lee, Kyung-In Jang, Jianliang Xiao, Michael R. Bruchas, Jae-Woong Jeong. Wireless optofluidic brain probes for chronic neuropharmacology and photostimulation. Nature Biomedical Engineering, 2019; DOI: 10.1038/s41551-019-0432-1

Here is the press release from the University of Washington:

NEWS RELEASE

August 5, 2019

For immediate release

Scientists manipulate brain cells using a smartphone

A soft neural implant, capable of delivering multiple drugs and color lights, might speed research on diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, addiction, depression and pain.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Bobbi Nodell, bnodell@uw.edu, 206.543.7129
Email Facebook Twitter Share

A team of scientists in South Korea and the United States have invented a device that can control neural circuits by using a tiny brain implant managedby a smartphone.
Publishing in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the researchers said the soft neural implant is the first wireless neural device capable of delivering multiple drugs and color lights. The device could speed up efforts to uncover brain diseases, such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, addiction, depression, and pain.
“The wireless neural device enables chronic chemical and optical neuromodulation that has never been achieved before,” said lead author Raza Qazi, a researcher with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and University of Colorado Boulder.
Co-author Michael Bruchas, a professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine and pharmacology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, said this technology will help researchers in many ways.
“It allows us to better dissect the neural circuit basis of behavior, and how specific neuromodulators in the brain tune behavior in various ways,” he said. “We are also eager to use the device for complex pharmacological studies, which could help us develop new therapeutics for pain, addiction and emotional disorders.”
The device uses Lego-like replaceable drug cartridges and powerful bluetooth low-energy to deliver drugs and light to specific neurons of interest.
Resarchers said this technology significantly overshadows conventional neuroscience methods, which usually involve rigid metal tubes and optical fibers. Apart from limiting the subject’s movement due to the physical connections with bulky equipment, their relatively rigid structure causes lesion in soft brain tissue over time, therefore making them not suitable for long-term implantation. Though some efforts have partly mitigate adverse tissue response by incorporating soft probes and wireless platforms, the previous solutions were limited by their inability to deliver drugs for long periods of time as well as their bulky and complex control setups.
To achieve chronic wireless drug delivery, scientists had to solve the critical challenge of exhaustion and evaporation of drugs. The researchers collaborated to invent the neural device, which could allow neuroscientists to study the same brain circuits for several months without worrying about running out of drugs.
These “plug and play” drug cartridges were assembled into a brain implant for mice with a soft and ultrathin probe, the thickness of a human hair, which consisted of microfluidic channels and tiny LEDs, smaller than a grain of salt, for unlimited drug doses and light delivery.
Controlled with an elegant, simple user interface on a smartphone, the device can easily trigger any specific combination or precise sequencing of light and drug deliveries in any implanted target animal without need to be inside the laboratory. Using these wireless neural devices, researchers could also easily setup fully automated animal studies where behavior of one animal could positively or negatively affect behaviour in other animals by conditional triggering of light and/or drug delivery.
“This revolutionary device is the fruit of advanced electronics design and powerful micro and nanoscale engineering,” said Jae-Woong Jeong, a professor of electrical engineering at KAIST. “We are interested in further developing this technology to make a brain implant for clinical applications.”
The researchers at the Jeong group at KAIST, South Korea, develop soft electronics for wearable and implantable devices. The neuroscientists at the Bruchas Lab in Seattle study brain circuits that control stress, depression, addiction, pain and other neuropsychiatric disorders. This collaborative effort among engineers and neuroscientists over three years and tens of design iterations led to the successful validation of this brain implant in freely moving mice.
This work was supported by grants from the National Research Foundation of Korea, the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, and Mallinckrodt Professorship.

Resources:

Deep Brain Stimulation                                                   https://www.aans.org/Patients/Neurosurgical-Conditions-and-Treatments/Deep-Brain-Stimulation

Ethical Issues in Deep Brain Stimulation https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3096836/

Deep Brain Stimulation for Mental Illnesses Raises Ethical Concerns https://leapsmag.com/deep-brain-stimulation-mental-illnesses-raises-ethical-concerns/

Ethical Considerations in Deep Brain Stimulation Treatment https://pjb.mycpanel2.princeton.edu/wp/index.php/2016/03/09/ethical-considerations-in-deep-brain-stimulation-treatment/

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University of Massachusetts – Amherst study: New process discovered to completely degrade flame retardant in the environment

8 Aug

Science Direct reported in Tetrabromobisphenol A:

Abstract
Tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA) is one of the most prevalent flame retardants, and is used in plastic paints, synthetic textiles, and electrical devices. Despite the fact that TBBPA is excreted quickly from the body, it is detected in human plasma and milk. Owing to the structural resemblance to thyroid hormones (THs), the thyroid disruption activities of TBBPA have been investigated over the past two decades. Possible action sites are plasma TH binding protein and TH receptors. In experimental animal models, TBBPA exposure induces a decrease in plasma TH levels and a delay of TH-induced metamorphosis in animals. In studies using cell lines, TBBPA shows weak agonist and antagonist activities. These in vitro and in vivo bioassays may be powerful tools for detecting the thyroid system disruption activity of TBBPA. Although recent findings suggest diverse biological effects of TBBPA on the thyroid, reproductive, and immune systems, there is still controversy regarding these effects…. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/pharmacology-toxicology-and-pharmaceutical-science/tetrabromobisphenol-a and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978012801028000249X
Scientists are researching the effects of Tetrabromobisphenol A.

Green Sciences Policy Institute provided an overview of retardants:

Flame retardant chemicals are used in commercial and consumer products (like furniture and building insulation) to meet flammability standards. Not all flame retardants present concerns, but the following types often do:
• Halogenated flame retardants (also known as organohalogen flame retardants) containing chlorine or bromine bonded to carbon.
• Organophosphorous flame retardants containing phosphorous bonded to carbon.
For these types of flame retardants:
• Some are associated with health and environmental concerns
• Many are inadequately tested for safety
• They provide questionable fire safety benefits as used in some products
Major uses
The major uses of flame retardant chemicals by volume in the U.S. are:
• Electronics
• Building insulation
• Polyurethane foam
• Wire and cable
Properties of Concern
Organohalogen and organophosphorous flame retardants often have one or more of the following properties of concern. Chemicals with all these properties are considered Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and present significant risks to human health and environment. https://greensciencepolicy.org/topics/flame-retardants/

University of Massachusetts Amherst reported a process to degrade flame retardant.

Science Daily reported in New process discovered to completely degrade flame retardant in the environment:

A team of environmental scientists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and China has for the first time used a dynamic, two-step process to completely degrade a common flame-retardant chemical, rendering the persistent global pollutant nontoxic.
This new process breaks down tetrabromobisohenol A (TBBPA) to harmless carbon dioxide and water. The discovery highlights the potential of using a special material, sulfidated nanoscale zerovalent iron (S-nZVI), in water treatment systems and in the natural environment to break down not only TBBPA but other organic refractory compounds that are difficult to degrade, says Jun Wu, a visiting Ph.D. student at UMass Amherst’s Stockbridge College of Agriculture and lead author of the paper published in Environmental Science & Technology….
“This research can lead to a decrease in the potential risk of TBBPA to the environment and human health,” says Wu, who began the research at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei. At UMass Amherst, Wu works in the pioneering lab of Baoshan Xing, professor of environmental and soil chemistry, corresponding author of the new study and one of the world’s most highly cited researchers….
Among the most common flame retardants that hinder combustion and slow the spread of fire, TBBPA is added to manufactured materials, including computer circuit boards and other electrical devices, papers, textiles and plastics.
Associated with a variety of health concerns, including cancer and hormone disruption, TBBPA has been widely detected in the environment, as well as in animals and human milk and plasma.
Although Wu and Xing’s research breaks new ground in the efforts to develop safe and effective processes to remediate groundwater and soil contaminated with TBBPA, they say more research is needed to learn how to best apply the process.
Their research was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Hatch Program. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190808115102.htm

Citation:

New process discovered to completely degrade flame retardant in the environment
New research has potential application to remediate other difficult-to-degrade pollutants
Date: August 8, 2019
Source: University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Summary:
A team of environmental scientists has for the first time used a dynamic, two-step process to completely degrade a common flame-retardant chemical, rendering the persistent global pollutant nontoxic.

Journal Reference:
Jun Wu, Jian Zhao, Jun Hou, Raymond Jianxiong Zeng, Baoshan Xing. Degradation of Tetrabromobisphenol A by Sulfidated Nanoscale Zerovalent Iron in a Dynamic Two-Step Anoxic/Oxic Process. Environmental Science & Technology, 2019; 53 (14): 8105 DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.8b06834

Here is the press release from UMass Amherst:

New Process Discovered to Completely Degrade Flame Retardant in the Environment
UMass Amherst research has potential application to remediate other difficult-to-degrade pollutants
August 8, 2019
Contact: Jun Wu 413-210-2729
AMHERST, Mass. – A team of environmental scientists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and China has for the first time used a dynamic, two-step process to completely degrade a common flame-retardant chemical, rendering the persistent global pollutant nontoxic.
This new process breaks down tetrabromobisophenol A (TBBPA) to harmless carbon dioxide and water. The discovery highlights the potential of using a special material, sulfidated nanoscale zerovalent iron (S-nZVI), in water treatment systems and in the natural environment to break down not only TBBPA but other organic refractory compounds that are difficult to degrade,says Jun Wu, a visiting Ph.D. student at UMass Amherst’s Stockbridge College of Agriculture and lead author of the paper published in Environmental Science & Technology.
“This is the first research about this dynamic, oxic/anoxic process,” Wu says. “Usually, reduction or oxidation alone is used to remove TBBPA, facilitated by S-nZVI. We combined reduction and oxidation together to degrade it completely.”
Wu emphasizes that “the technique is technically simple and environmentally friendly. That is a key point to its application.”
The research is featured on the cover of ES&T, which is widely respected for publishing papers in the environmental disciplines that are both significant and original.
“This research can lead to a decrease in the potential risk of TBBPA to the environment and human health,” says Wu, who began the research at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei. At UMass Amherst, Wu works in the pioneering lab of Baoshan Xing, professor of environmental and soil chemistry, corresponding author of the new study and one of the world’s most highly cited researchers.
“Our research shows a feasible and environmentally friendly process to completely degrade refractory brominated flame retardants in a combined oxic and anoxic system,” Xing says. “This is important for getting rid of these harmful compounds from the environment, thus reducing the exposure and risk.”
Among the most common flame retardants that hinder combustion and slow the spread of fire, TBBPA is added to manufactured materials, including computer circuit boards and other electrical devices, papers, textiles and plastics.
Associated with a variety of health concerns, including cancer and hormone disruption, TBBPA has been widely detected in the environment, as well as in animals and human milk and plasma.
Although Wu and Xing’s research breaks new ground in the efforts to develop safe and effective processes to remediate groundwater and soil contaminated with TBBPA, they say more research is needed to learn how to best apply the process.
Their research was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Hatch Program.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lists risks in Fact Sheet: Assessing Risks from Flame Retardants https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/fact-sheet-assessing-risks-flame-retardants

Resources:
COMPOUND SUMMARY – Tetrabromobisphenol A https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Tetrabromobisphenol-A

Is the flame retardant, tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), a reproductive or developmental toxicant?
Date:
February 18, 2015
Source:
Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment
Summary:
Two studies examined the effects of tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA) at oral doses of 10,100 or 1000 mg/kg bw/day over the course of 2 generations on growth as well as behavioral, neurological and neuropathologic functions in offspring. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150218092044.htm

Global Tetrabromobisphenol-A Market is Evolving with Chemicals and Materials Industry in 2019 | Get Strategic Insights. https://theindustryforecast.com/2019/07/24/global-tetrabromobisphenol-a-insights-market-sp/

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University College London study: People who eat dark chocolate less likely to be depressed

3 Aug

Harvard Health wrote in Chocolate: Pros and cons of this sweet treat:

The reality is that ingredients in cocoa can be healthy, but the high-calorie chocolate bars that contain it aren’t necessarily good for you. Cocoa comes from roasted cacao seeds. It’s high in plant compounds called cocoa flavonoids, which have been shown in studies to have beneficial effects on heart disease risks, as well as on blood flow to the brain. Chocolate is the candy that’s made by adding sugar, milk, and other ingredients to cocoa powder. Those ingredients also add fat and sugar, which counteract some of cocoa’s health benefits.
Cocoa and heart health
The flavonoids in cocoa—specifically catechin, epicatechin, and procyanidins—are thought to help the cardiovascular system by lowering cholesterol, reducing inflammation, and preventing blood clots. When Dr. Ding and his colleagues analyzed the results of 24 studies on the effects of cocoa flavonoids on heart risks, they found that flavonoids reduced blood pressure and unhealthy LDL cholesterol, increased healthy HDL cholesterol, improved blood flow, and lowered insulin resistance (a condition in which the body doesn’t use insulin effectively, which is associated with type 2 diabetes and heart disease).
So far, researchers have only confirmed cocoa’s short-term benefits on heart risks—not the outcomes of lowering those risks. In other words, cocoa flavonoids may counteract the high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and other factors that contribute to a heart attack, but whether they actually prevent one from happening isn’t yet known. “In terms of actual direct heart attack prevention, the jury’s still out,” Dr. Ding says.
Cocoa on the brain
Scientists are also discovering that cocoa may be healthy for the brain. Another team of researchers at Harvard Medical School found that older adults who drank two cups of cocoa a day for 30 days had improved blood flow to parts of their brain needed for memory and thinking.
Another study, this one published in the journal Hypertension in 2012, offers even more direct evidence of cocoa flavonoids’ effects on the brain. Researchers in Italy found that older adults with mild cognitive impairment (mild problems with memory and thinking skills that increase the risk for dementia) who drank high-flavonoid cocoa performed better on tests of mental function and speaking ability than those who drank low-flavonoid cocoa. These studies don’t prove that cocoa can prevent dementia or other kinds of mental decline, but it does appear to play some brain-protective role.
Best cocoa sources
The average dose of flavonoids in the studies Dr. Ding reviewed was 400 milligrams a day. “The problem is, that’s about the equivalent of eight bars of dark chocolate or 30 bars of milk chocolate,” he says. “When you eat these actual chocolate bars, all the calories and sugar come with them.”
To get the health advantages of cocoa flavonoids without the fat and calories, you can buy a more concentrated cocoa product. Some cocoa supplements on the market contain up to 250 milligrams of cocoa flavonoids per serving…. https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/chocolate-pros-and-cons-of-this-sweet-treat

University College London published a study about the effects of dark chocolate on those suffering depression.

Science Daily reported in People who eat dark chocolate less likely to be depressed:

Eating dark chocolate may positively affect mood and relieve depressive symptoms, finds a new UCL-led study looking at whether different types of chocolate are associated with mood disorders.
The study, published in Depression and Anxiety, is the first to examine the association with depression according to the type of chocolate consumed.
Researchers from UCL worked in collaboration with scientists from the University of Calgary and Alberta Health Services Canada and assessed data from 13,626 adults from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Participants’ chocolate consumption was assessed against their scores on the Patient Health Questionnaire, which assesses depressive symptoms.
In the cross-sectional study, a range of other factors including height, weight, marital status, ethnicity, education, household income, physical activity, smoking and chronic health problems were also taken into account to ensure the study only measured chocolate’s effect on depressive symptoms.
After adjusting for these factors, it was found that individuals who reported eating any dark chocolate in two 24-hour periods had 70 per cent lower odds of reporting clinically relevant depressive symptoms than those who reported not eating chocolate at all. The 25 per cent of chocolate consumers who ate the most chocolate (of any kind, not just dark) were also less likely to report depressive symptoms than those who didn’t eat chocolate at all. However researchers found no significant link between any non‐dark chocolate consumption and clinically relevant depressive symptoms.
Depression affects more than 300 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation, and is the leading global cause of disability.
Lead author Dr Sarah Jackson (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care) said: “This study provides some evidence that consumption of chocolate, particularly dark chocolate, may be associated with reduced odds of clinically relevant depressive symptoms…. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190802145458.htm

Citation:

People who eat dark chocolate less likely to be depressed
Date: August 2, 2019
Source: University College London
Summary:
Eating dark chocolate may positively affect mood and relieve depressive symptoms, finds a new study looking at whether different types of chocolate are associated with mood disorders.
Journal Reference:
Sarah E. Jackson, Lee Smith, Joseph Firth, Igor Grabovac, Pinar Soysal, Ai Koyanagi, Liang Hu, Brendon Stubbs, Jacopo Demurtas, Nicola Veronese, Xiangzhu Zhu, Lin Yang. Is there a relationship between chocolate consumption and symptoms of depression? A cross‐sectional survey of 13,626 US adults. Depression and Anxiety, 2019; DOI: 10.1002/da.22950

Here is the press release from University College London:

People who eat dark chocolate less likely to be depressed
2 August 2019
Eating dark chocolate may positively affect mood and relieve depressive symptoms, finds a new UCL-led study looking at whether different types of chocolate are associated with mood disorders.
The study, published in Depression and Anxiety, is the first to examine the association with depression according to the type of chocolate consumed.
Researchers from UCL worked in collaboration with scientists from the University of Calgary and Alberta Health Services Canada and assessed data from 13,626 adults from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Participants’ chocolate consumption was assessed against their scores on the Patient Health Questionnaire, which assesses depressive symptoms.
In the cross-sectional study, a range of other factors including height, weight, marital status, ethnicity, education, household income, physical activity, smoking and chronic health problems were also taken into account to ensure the study only measured chocolate’s effect on depressive symptoms.
After adjusting for these factors, it was found that individuals who reported eating any dark chocolate in two 24-hour periods had 70 per cent lower odds of reporting clinically relevant depressive symptoms than those who reported not eating chocolate at all. The 25 per cent of chocolate consumers who ate the most chocolate (of any kind, not just dark) were also less likely to report depressive symptoms than those who didn’t eat chocolate at all. However researchers found no significant link between any non‐dark chocolate consumption and clinically relevant depressive symptoms.
Depression affects more than 300 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation, and is the leading global cause of disability.
Lead author Dr Sarah Jackson (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care) said: “This study provides some evidence that consumption of chocolate, particularly dark chocolate, may be associated with reduced odds of clinically relevant depressive symptoms.
“However further research is required to clarify the direction of causation – it could be the case that depression causes people to lose their interest in eating chocolate, or there could be other factors that make people both less likely to eat dark chocolate and to be depressed.
“Should a causal relationship demonstrating a protective effect of chocolate consumption on depressive symptoms be established, the biological mechanism needs to be understood to determine the type and amount of chocolate consumption for optimal depression prevention and management.”
Chocolate is widely reported to have mood‐enhancing properties and several mechanisms for a relationship between chocolate and mood have been proposed.
Principally, chocolate contains a number of psychoactive ingredients which produce a feeling of euphoria similar to that of cannabinoid, found in cannabis. It also contains phenylethylamine, a neuromodulator which is believed to be important for regulating people’s moods.
Experimental evidence also suggests that mood improvements only take place if the chocolate is palatable and pleasant to eat, which suggests that the experience of enjoying chocolate is an important factor, not just the ingredients present.
While the above is true of all types of chocolate, dark chocolate has a higher concentration of flavonoids, antioxidant chemicals which have been shown to improve inflammatory profiles, which have been shown to play a role in the onset of depression.
Links
• The full paper in Depression and Anxiety
• Dr Sarah Jackson’s academic profile
• UCL Behavioural Science and Health
• UCL Epidemiology & Health Care
• UCL Population Health Sciences
• UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
• Media coverage
Image
Photo by LongitudeLatitude from Flickr
Media contact
Jake Hawkes
Tel: +44 (0)20 3108 8581
Email: j.hawkes [at] ucl.ac.uk
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2019/aug/people-who-eat-dark-chocolate-less-likely-be-depressed

Dr. Richard Foxx, MD wrote in Can There Really Be Too Much of a Good Thing?

Believe it or not, it is possible to have too much of a good thing—even when it comes to healthy lifestyle choices. Some of the pillars of health, including diet and exercise, can create health problems if they’re overdone. Yes, you really can exercise too much and eat too much of a good thing!
The truth is that we’re always learning more and more about what’s good for us and what isn’t. Furthermore, science is constantly pulling things back and forth in the realm of health. For example, one day,you hear that coffee and eggs are bad for you; the next day, they’re good for your health. But at the end of the day, both coffee and eggs are good for you—if they’re consumed in moderation. Once again, the old adage rings true: “everything in moderation…”

When it comes to health, remember the importance of moderation. Enjoy life, be sensible, and you’ll be rewarded! https://www.doctorshealthpress.com/general-health/healthy-lifestyle-tips-moderation-key-to-healthy-living/

Everything in moderation opines Dr. Wilda.

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Michigan Medicine – University of Michigan study: One in 100 new mothers go on to long-term opioid painkiller use; risk rises with size of Rx

28 Jul

American Pregnancy posted, Using Narcotics For Pain Relief During Childbirth:

Using Narcotics for Pain Relief During Labor: Types & Side Effects
Many women end up relying on some type of method to reduce the physical pain of childbirth. As you prepare for labor, it is important to become familiar with the pain medications that are available, how they work, their risks and their benefits.
The method you choose for pain relief will depend on your personal preference, your health care provider’s recommendation, and the availability of medications at your birthing facility.
What are Opiates?
Opiates are a type of analgesic given to relieve pain. When used during childbirth, opiates are considered the first option after natural methods for pain relief such as labor in water, deep breathing, and massage.
Opiates are given in small doses and usually administered during the early stages of labor in an attempt to avoid potential side effects for both the mother and baby.
What are the advantages of using opiates during childbirth?
Opiates offer pain relief and do not interfere with a woman’s ability to push during labor. Unlike an epidural, an opiate does not numb the pain; it instead helps to take some“edge” off of the pain. Opiates can help reduce anxiety and improve the mother’s ability to cope with painful contractions.
What are the potential side effects of opiates?
Mothers can experience the following side effects:
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Itching
• Dizziness
• Sedation
• Decreased gastric motility
• Loss of protective airway reflexes
• Hypoxia due to respiratory depression
How will the opiates affect my baby?
Opiates cross the placenta during labor and can produce the following side effects in the baby:
• Central nervous system depression
• Respiratory depression
• Impaired early breastfeeding
• Altered neurological behavior
• Decreased ability to regulate body temperature
For these reasons, your baby might need other medication to counteract the effects of the opiate. Naloxone is a medication given in small doses that can reverse the respiratory depression that opiates can cause in a baby. It is usually given intravenously and its effects can be seen within a few minutes and can last up to 2 hours.
What types of opiates are used during childbirth?
The most frequently used narcotic medications are:
• Morphine
• Stadol
• Fentanyl
• Nubain
• Demerol
Demerol:
Demerol is a popular choice for pain relief during labor. Demerol alters how the mother recognizes the pain she is experiencing by binding to the receptors found in the central nervous system.
The advantages of Demerol include:
• Can be given by injection into the muscle, the vein or by a Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA) pump
• Fast-acting – starts working in less than 5 minutes
How can Demerol affect me and my baby?
Demerol can cause drowsiness, nausea, vomiting, respiratory depression, and maternal hypotension (low blood pressure). If injected within 2-4 hours of delivery, Demerol has been found to cause breathing difficulties in some babies.
Morphine:
In recent years, morphine has not been routinely used as a method of pain relief during labor because it has been found to depress the baby’s ability to breathe.
Stadol:
Stadol has been found to relieve pain when given in the first stage of labor. This narcotic is considered more potent than Demerol. It is usually given intravenously in small doses, usually 1 to 2 mg.
The advantages of using Stadol include:
• Starts working in less than five minutes
• Is a sedative
• Has minimal fetal effects
• Causes minimal nausea
How can Stadol affect me and my baby?
Stadol can cause the mother to have respiratory depression, dizziness, and dysphoria (a state of feeling unwell and unhappy). Stadol can cause respiratory depression in the baby.
Fentanyl:
Fentanyl is a synthetic opiate that provides mild to moderate sedation. The advantages of using Fentanyl include:
• Begins working quickly (although, usually only lasts 45 minutes)
• Minimal sedation
• Minimal fetal effects
How can Fentanyl affect me and my baby?
You and your baby can experience some sedation and/or nausea. According to Danforth’s Obstetrics and Gynecology, babies born to mothers who used Fentanyl to relieve pain during labor were less likely to need naloxone (medication to help with breathing) than babies born to mothers who used Demerol.
Nubain:
Nubain is an opiate agonist-antagonist comparable to morphine. The advantages of using Nubain include:
• Begins working within 5 minutes of administration
• Minimal nausea
• Minimal fetal effects
How can Nubain affect me and my baby?
Nubain can cause the mother to have sedation and dysphoria (a state of feeling unwell and unhappy)…. https://americanpregnancy.org/labor-and-birth/narcotics/

A University of Michigan study found that some mothers go on to long-term use of opioid painkillers.

Science Daily reported in One in 100 new mothers go on to long-term opioid painkiller use; risk rises with size of Rx:

Nearly half of American women having a baby in the last decade received a prescription for a powerful opioid painkiller as part of their birth experience, a new study shows.
And one or two in every hundred were still filling opioid prescriptions a year later — especially those who received birth-related opioid prescriptions before the birth, and those who received the largest initial doses.
In a study of records from more than 308,000 women who gave birth from 2008 to 2016, researchers from the University of Michigan find the percentage of women filling opioid prescriptions in the days and months after giving birth declined over time. This may have resulted from growing awareness of the broader national epidemic.
But they note that there is still ample room for providers to adopt effective pain control strategies — for both vaginal and Caesarean births — that don’t include giving new mothers opioid pills if other pain treatments work for them.
Writing in JAMA Network Open, U-M obstetrician and health services researcher Alex Friedman Peahl, M.D., and her colleagues explore opioid prescribing to women with private insurance who hadn’t received opioids for a year before delivering. They limited the study to women who didn’t suffer major birth complications or have any other procedures in the year after a birth.
“Overall, we see rates of opioid persistence higher than previously documented for women having C sections, at about two percent,” says Peahl. “For women who delivered vaginally, one-quarter received opioid prescriptions, although current guidelines call for a step-wise approach to pain management, starting with non-narcotic medications such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen. One percent of vaginal birth mothers were still receiving opioids months later.”
Peahl and her colleagues hope their findings bolster efforts by national groups to help birth care teams adopt opioid-sparing pain care methods. Birth care at Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital, part of the U-M academic medical center Michigan Medicine, already includes such approaches.
Peahl says she tells her birthing patients, “Pain after birth is like a mountain: once you’re at the peak, it is harder to get down. Using non-narcotic pain medications before opioids can help better manage your pain by preventing you from reaching that peak.”
Alternatives to opioids
Peahl’s experience treating birth pain with fewer opioids extends back to her training in Rhode Island, where birthing women once routinely went home from the hospital with prescriptions for 20 to 40 opioid painkiller pills. Then, the state legislature passed a limit of 20 pills for acute pain prescriptions, and she worked with the birth team where she trained to develop alternate pain care approaches.
Using long-lasting opioids for the height of birth pain as part of an epidural, and reserving oral opioids for “breakthrough” post-birth pain, is possible, says Peahl.
Acetaminophen, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen can provide effective pain relief in the days after birth, Peahl says, especially if women receive education during birth preparation about their proper use. She recently presented data at a conference showing such an approach can reduce post-discharge opioid painkiller use.
A team of U-M obstetric clinicians also recently published a paper in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology that laid out the case for opioid-sparing approaches to pain care after C-section births. Such an approach, called Enhanced Recovery After Surgery or ERAS, has already risen in popularity for other OB/Gyn procedures such as hysterectomy… https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190726111025.htm

Citation:

One in 100 new mothers go on to long-term opioid painkiller use; risk rises with size of Rx
Date: July 26, 2019
Source: Michigan Medicine – University of Michigan
Summary:
Nearly half of American women having a baby in the last decade received a prescription for a powerful opioid painkiller as part of their birth experience, a new study shows. And one or two in every hundred were still filling opioid prescriptions a year later — especially those who received birth-related opioid prescriptions before the birth, and those who received the largest initial doses.

Journal Reference:
Alex F. Peahl, Vanessa K. Dalton, John R. Montgomery, Yen-Ling Lai, Hsou Mei Hu, Jennifer F. Waljee. Rates of New Persistent Opioid Use After Vaginal or Cesarean Birth Among US Women. JAMA Network Open, 2019; 2 (7): e197863 DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.7863

Here is the press release from University of Michigan:

Kara Gavin

July 26, 2019 11:15 AM

1 in 75 New Moms Go on to Long-Term Opioid Painkiller Use
Examination of post-birth pain care patterns over time finds declines in opioid prescribing, but opportunities for more non-opioid-based care.

Nearly half of American women having a baby in the last decade received a prescription for a powerful opioid painkiller as part of their birth experience, a new study shows.
And one or two in every hundred were still filling opioid prescriptions a year later – especially those who received birth-related opioid prescriptions before the birth, and those who received the largest initial doses.
LISTEN UP: Add the new Michigan Medicine News Break to your Alexa-enabled device, or subscribe to our daily audio updates on iTunes, Google Play and Stitcher.
In a study of records from more than 308,000 women who gave birth from 2008 to 2016, researchers from the University of Michigan found the percentage of women filling opioid prescriptions in the days and months after giving birth declined over time. This may have resulted from growing awareness of the broader national epidemic.
But they note that there is still ample room for providers to adopt effective pain control strategies – for both vaginal and caesarean births – that do not include giving new mothers opioid pills if other pain treatments work for them.
In the new issue of JAMA Network Open, U-M obstetrician and health services researcher Alex Friedman Peahl, M.D., and her colleagues explore opioid prescribing to women with private insurance who had not received opioids for a year before delivering. They limited the study to women who did not suffer major birth complications or have any other procedures in the year after a birth.
“Overall, we saw rates of opioid persistence higher than previously documented for women having c-sections, at about 2%,” says Peahl. “For women who delivered vaginally, one-quarter received opioid prescriptions, although current guidelines call for a step-wise approach to pain management, starting with non-narcotic medications such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen. One percent of vaginal birth mothers were still receiving opioids months later.”
Peahl and her colleagues hope their findings bolster efforts by national groups to help birth care teams adopt opioid-sparing pain care methods. Birth care at Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital, part of the U-M academic medical center Michigan Medicine, already includes such approaches.
Peahl says she tells her birthing patients, “Pain after birth is like a mountain: once you’re at the peak, it is harder to get down. Using non-narcotic pain medications before opioids can help better manage your pain by preventing you from reaching that peak.”
Alternatives to opioids
Peahl’s experience treating birth pain with fewer opioids extends back to her training in Rhode Island, where birthing women once routinely went home from the hospital with prescriptions for 20 to 40 opioid painkiller pills. Then, the state legislature passed a limit of 20 pills for acute pain prescriptions, and she worked with the birth team where she trained to develop alternate pain care approaches.
Using long-lasting opioids for the height of birth pain as part of an epidural, and reserving oral opioids for “breakthrough” post-birth pain, is possible, says Peahl.
Acetaminophen, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen can provide effective pain relief in the days after birth, Peahl says, especially if women receive education during birth preparation about their proper use. She recently presented data at a conference showing such an approach can reduce post-discharge opioid painkiller use.
A team of U-M obstetric clinicians also recently published a paper in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology that laid out the case for opioid-sparing approaches to pain care after c-section births. Such an approach, called Enhanced Recovery After Surgery or ERAS, has already risen in popularity for other OB/Gyn procedures such as hysterectomy.
Building on surgical opioid studies
Peahl, a National Clinician Scholar at the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation (IHPI), teamed up with IHPI members from the Michigan Opioid Prescribing and Engagement Network for the new study. Senior author Jennifer Waljee, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., helped Peahl adopt an approach already used to study opioid prescriptions after inpatient surgery.
Using IHPI-purchased data, they looked at women who filled an opioid prescription in the immediate week before giving birth, up to the third day afterward. This allowed them to include women whose doctors wrote a prescription to have on hand before they went to the hospital.
They defined persistent use as those women who filled at least one more opioid prescription within three months of delivering, and another up to a year after delivering. In addition to excluding women with prior opioid use and those in treatment for substance abuse, the study left out women who had any sort of medical procedure within a year of having a baby, including readmission for additional surgical procedures, and women whose birth hospitalization lasted more than a month.
“The silver lining in these data is that we see drops of several percentage points in the filling of initial prescriptions over time, although nearly 24% of women who delivered vaginally in 2016, and nearly 73% of those who had a c-section, still had these pills on hand,” says Peahl.
Women most at risk of persistent use
While the researchers could not tell from the data how many opioid pills the women actually took, they note that unused pills can pose a risk of their own. Excess opioids can be misused by others, diverted for illicit sale, or discovered by curious children.
Looking more closely at the data, they showed that risk of opioid persistence was higher in certain groups of women. Women who had their babies in their teens or early 20s, and those who had more medical issues at the time of birth, especially diagnoses related to pain or mental health, had higher rates of persistence. So did mothers in the South and Midwest and women who used tobacco during pregnancy.
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But the biggest factors – and the one that health care providers can actually modify – was the size of the initial prescription for opioids that the women filled and the timing of when that prescription was given. The larger the vial, the more likely they were to refill multiple prescriptions in the months after giving birth. Similarly, women who filled prescriptions prior to birth were more likely to develop new persistent use.
This is similar to what Waljee and her colleagues have seen in surgical patients, which has led them to create prescribing guidelines for surgical teams that are based on what patients say they actually needed to take for pain control. The guidelines for c-sections published on the Michigan-OPEN site recommend that women receive between zero and 20 five-milligram oxycodone tablets or the equivalent.
Next steps
Peahl and her colleagues are currently contacting new mothers who received opioid painkillers to find out how many pills they took out of the total number they were prescribed and given. This could inform more evidence-based recommendations in the near future. They are also assessing the impact of a new ERAS protocol that was launched on July 8, which includes more robust patient education and shared decision making about opioid prescriptions at the time of discharge.
They also hope to study Medicaid data on a national level, expanding on the single-state analysis others have done. And, they hope to study data on the half of women who could notbe included in the current study because they had received opioid prescriptions in the year before they had their baby.
“No matter which way they deliver, women should be able to get up and spend time with their new baby,” says Peahl. “Pain, and the effects of pain control medications, should not get in the way of their birth experience and bonding with their infant.”
In addition to Peahl and Waljee, the study’s authors include Vanessa K. Dalton, M.D., John R. Montgomery, M.D., Yen-Ling Lai and Hsou Mei Hu. Peahl, Dalton, and Waljee are members of IHPI. The study was funded by Peahl’s IHPI NCSP fellowship.
DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.7863

Nancy D. Campbell, PhD wrote in When Should Screening and Surveillance Be Used during Pregnancy?

Ethics in the kinds of risky situations described above is not a mere preoccupation with abstract principles—nor should ethics be understood as limited to technical details. Ethics is practical, often arising as a result of specific cases with particular histories of harm and injustice. Enjoined to do no harm, physicians arguably have a duty to reduce harm and certainly to provide care that does not coerce, stigmatize, or criminalize.
Physicians share responsibility to ensure access to the full range of reproductive health care and drug treatment for their patients who need it. Physicians also share with drug-using pregnant women responsibility to bring about healthy births and humane treatment for all concerned—mothers, babies, and children. Ensuring access to the full range of evidence-based drug treatment should be considered part of these affirmative duties. Biomedical surveillance should be conducted only for clinical purposes having to do with ensuring access to and delivering quality health care. Just because we have surveillance technology does not mean we should use it against the very women who need to be enrolled in caring for their infants. “Mom” is part of the cure, and compassionate care demands that surveillance be judiciously used in therapeutic spaces…. https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/when-should-screening-and-surveillance-be-used-during-pregnancy/2018-03

Resources:

Prescription opioids during pregnancy https://www.marchofdimes.org/pregnancy/prescription-opioids-during-pregnancy.aspx

Using Narcotics For Pain Relief During Childbirth               https://americanpregnancy.org/labor-and-birth/narcotics/

Opioid use during pregnancy                                                      https://www.mayoclinic.org/opioid-use-during-pregnancy/art-20380741/in-depth/art-20380741
Doctors’ responsibility in opioid crisis                              http://cmajnews.com/2016/11/18/doctors-responsibility-in-opioid-crisis-cmaj-109-5359/

Untangling the medical ethics of prescribing opioids                                            https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/ethics/untangling-medical-ethics-prescribing-opioids

Our goal as a society should be a healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood. ©

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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Kaiser Permanente study: More women using cannabis daily before and during pregnancy, research finds

20 Jul

The Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services explained why healthy babies are important. “Healthy babies are more likely to develop into healthy children, and healthy children are more likely to grow up to be healthy teenagers and healthy adults.” http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/topics/earlychildhood/health/index.aspx
Science Daily reported in Women, particularly minorities, do not meet nutrition guidelines shortly before pregnancy:

Black, Hispanic and less-educated women consume a less nutritious diet than their well-educated, white counterparts in the weeks leading up to their first pregnancy, according to the only large-scale analysis of preconception adherence to national dietary guidelines.
The study, published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and led by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, also found that, while inequalities exist, none of the women in any racial and socioeconomic group evaluated achieved recommendations set forth by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
Healthy maternal diets have been linked to reduced risks of preterm birth, fetal growth restriction, preeclampsia and maternal obesity.
“Unlike many other pregnancy and birth risk factors, diet is something we can improve,” said lead author Lisa Bodnar, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.D., associate professor and vice chair of research in Pitt Public Health’s Department of Epidemiology. “While attention should be given to improving nutritional counseling at doctor appointments, overarching societal and policy changes that help women to make healthy dietary choices may be more effective and efficient.”
Bodnar and her colleagues analyzed the results of questionnaires completed by 7,511 women who were between six and 14 weeks pregnant and enrolled in The Nulliparous Pregnancy Outcomes Study: Monitoring Mothers to Be, which followed women who enrolled in the study at one of eight U.S. medical centers. The women reported on their dietary habits during the three months around conception.
The diets were assessed using the Healthy Eating Index-2010, which measures 12 key aspects of diet quality, including adequacy of intake for key food groups, as well as intake of refined grains, salt and empty calories (all calories from solid fats and sugars, plus calories from alcohol beyond a moderate level).
Nearly a quarter of the white women surveyed had scores that fell into the highest scoring fifth of those surveyed, compared with 14 percent of the Hispanic women and 4.6 percent of the black women. Almost half — 44 percent — of black mothers had a score in the lowest scoring fifth…. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170317082514.htm

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

Science Daily reported in More women using cannabis daily before and during pregnancy:

The number of women using cannabis in the year before they get pregnant and early in their pregnancies is increasing, and their frequency of use is also rising, according to new data from Kaiser Permanente.
The research, published July 19, 2019, in JAMA Network Open, examined self-reported cannabis use among 276,991 pregnant women (representing 367,403 pregnancies) in Northern California over 9 years and found that cannabis use has increased over time.
From 2009 to 2017, the adjusted prevalence of self-reported cannabis use in the year before pregnancy increased from 6.8% to 12.5%, and the adjusted prevalence of self-reported cannabis use during pregnancy increased from 1.9% to 3.4% (rates were adjusted for demographics). Annual rates of change in self-reported daily, weekly, and monthly-or-less cannabis use increased significantly, though daily use increased most rapidly.
Among women who self-reported cannabis use during the year before pregnancy, the proportion who were daily users increased from 17% to 25%, and weekly users increased from 20% to 22%, while monthly-or-less users decreased from 63% to 53% during the study period. Similarly, among women who self-reported cannabis use during pregnancy, the proportion who were daily users increased from 15% to 21%, and weekly users from 25% to 27%, while monthly users decreased from 60% to 52%.
“These findings should alert women’s health clinicians to be aware of potential increases in daily and weekly cannabis use among their patients,” said lead author Kelly Young-Wolff, PhD, MPH, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. “The actual numbers are likely higher, as women may be unwilling to disclose their substance use to a medical professional.”
In addition, the prevalence of daily and weekly cannabis use may have risen even further in the past year and a half following legalization of cannabis for recreational use in California in 2018, Young-Wolff said.
The data come from women’s initial prenatal visits at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, which usually take place at around 8 weeks gestation, and do not reflect continued use throughout pregnancy. Investigators were unable to differentiate whether self-reported cannabis use during pregnancy occurred before or after women were aware that they were pregnant.
While the current findings are based on women’s self-reporting, the results are supported by the Kaiser Permanente research team’s December 2017 JAMA Research Letter showing an increase in prenatal cannabis use via urine toxicology testing. In this newer study, the authors focus on trends in frequency of use in the year before and during pregnancy.
Some women may use cannabis during pregnancy to manage morning sickness, the authors noted. The authors’ previous work published in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2018 found women with severe nausea and vomiting in pregnancy were nearly 4 times more likely to use cannabis during the first trimester of pregnancy.
Women may get the impression from cannabis product marketing and online media that cannabis use is safe during pregnancy, said Young-Wolff. However, there is substantial evidence that exposure to cannabis in pregnancy is associated with having a low-birthweight baby, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends women who are pregnant or contemplating pregnancy discontinue cannabis use because of concerns about impaired neurodevelopment and exposure to the adverse effects of smoking….
More research is needed to offer women better, specific advice, said study senior author Nancy Goler, MD, an obstetrician/gynecologist and associate executive director of The Permanente Medical Group.
“There is an urgent need to better understand the effects of prenatal cannabis exposure as cannabis becomes legalized in more states and more widely accepted and used,” Dr. Goler said. “Until such time as we fully understand the specific health risks cannabis poses for pregnant women and their fetuses, we are recommending stopping all cannabis use prior to conceiving and certainly once a woman knows she is pregnant….”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190719173602.htm

Citation:

More women using cannabis daily before and during pregnancy, research finds
Current advice is to avoid cannabis exposure during pregnancy
Date: July 19, 2019
Source: Kaiser Permanente
Summary:
The number of women using cannabis in the year before they get pregnant and early in their pregnancies is increasing, and their frequency of use is also rising, according to new data.

Journal Reference:
Kelly C. Young-Wolff, Varada Sarovar, Lue-Yen Tucker, Amy Conway, Stacey Alexeeff, Constance Weisner, Mary Anne Armstrong, Nancy Goler. Self-reported Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Cannabis Use Among Women Before and During Pregnancy. JAMA Network Open, 2019; 2 (7): e196471 DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.6471

Here is the press release from Kaiser Permanente:

July 19, 2019

More women using cannabis daily before and during pregnancy
Current advice from Kaiser Permanente is to avoid cannabis exposure during pregnancy.
OAKLAND, Calif. — The number of women using cannabis in the year before they get pregnant and early in their pregnancies is increasing, and their frequency of use is also rising, according to new data from Kaiser Permanente.
The research, published July 19, 2019, in JAMA Network Open, examined self-reported cannabis use among 276,991 pregnant women (representing 367,403 pregnancies) in Northern California over 9 years and found that cannabis use has increased over time.
From 2009 to 2017, the adjusted prevalence of self-reported cannabis use in the year before pregnancy increased from 6.80% to 12.50%, and the adjusted prevalence of self-reported cannabis use during pregnancy increased from 1.95% to 3.38%. Annual rates of change in self-reported daily, weekly, and monthly-or-less cannabis use increased significantly, though daily use increased most rapidly.
Among women who self-reported cannabis use during the year before pregnancy, the proportion who were daily users increased from 17.1% to 25.2%, and weekly users increased from 20.4% to 22.0%, while monthly-or-less users decreased from 62.7% to 53.1% during the study period. Similarly, among women who self-reported cannabis use during pregnancy, the proportion who were daily users increased from 14.6% to 20.9%, and weekly users from 25.1% to 27.4%, while monthly users decreased from 60.3% to 51.8%.
“These findings should alert women’s health clinicians to be aware of potential increases in daily and weekly cannabis use among their patients,” said lead author Kelly Young-Wolff, PhD, MPH, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. “The actual numbers are likely higher, as women may be unwilling to disclose their substance use to a medical professional.”
In addition, the prevalence of daily and weekly cannabis use may have risen even further in the past year and a half following legalization of cannabis for recreational use in California in 2018, Young-Wolff said.
The data come from women’s initial prenatal visits at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, which usually take place at around 8 weeks of pregnancy, and do not reflect continued use throughout pregnancy. Investigators were unable to differentiate whether self-reported cannabis use during pregnancy occurred before or after women were aware that they were pregnant.
While the current findings are based on women’s self-reporting, the results are supported by the Kaiser Permanente research team’s December 2017 JAMA Research Letter showing an increase in prenatal cannabis use via urine toxicology testing. In this newer study, the authors focus on trends in frequency of use in the year before and during pregnancy.
Some women may use cannabis during pregnancy to manage morning sickness, the authors noted. The authors’ previous work published in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2018 found women with severe nausea and vomiting in pregnancy were nearly 4 times more likely to use cannabis during the first trimester of pregnancy.
“Women may get the impression from cannabis product marketing and online media that cannabis use is safe during pregnancy,” said Young-Wolff. “However, there is substantial evidence that exposure to cannabis in pregnancy is associated with having a low-birthweight baby, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends women who are pregnant or contemplating pregnancy discontinue cannabis use because of concerns about impaired neurodevelopment and exposure to the adverse effects of smoking.”
“There is still much that is unknown on the topic, including what type of cannabis products pregnant women are using and whether the health consequences differ based on mode of cannabis administration and frequency of prenatal cannabis use,” Young-Wolff noted.
More research is needed to offer women better, specific advice, said study senior author Nancy Goler, MD, an obstetrician-gynecologist and associate executive director of The Permanente Medical Group.
“There is an urgent need to better understand the effects of prenatal cannabis exposure as cannabis becomes legalized in more states and more widely accepted and used,” Dr. Goler said. “Until such time as we fully understand the specific health risks cannabis poses for pregnant women and their fetuses, we are recommending stopping all cannabis use prior to conceiving and certainly once a woman knows she is pregnant.”
The study was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Young-Wolff and Kaiser Permanente Division of Research colleague Lindsay Avalos, PhD, MPH, have received a new 5-year grant from NIDA to support further research on maternal cannabis use during pregnancy. They plan to study whether prenatal cannabis use is associated with increased risk of adverse maternal, fetal, and neonatal outcomes using data from urine toxicology testing, self-reported frequency of prenatal cannabis use, and mode of cannabis administration. They will also test whether legalization of cannabis for recreational use in 2018 and local regulatory practices (such as retailer bans) are associated with variation in prenatal cannabis use.
Additional authors were Constance Weisner, DrPH, MSW; Varada Sarovar,;Lue-Yen Tucker; Mary Anne Armstrong; and Stacey Alexeeff, PhD, of the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research; and Amy Conway, MPH, of the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Early Start Program.
About Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente is committed to helping shape the future of health care. We are recognized as one of America’s leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. Founded in 1945, Kaiser Permanente has a mission to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. We currently serve 12.3 million members in eight states and the District of Columbia. Care for members and patients is focused on their total health and guided by their personal Permanente Medical Group physicians, specialists and team of caregivers. Our expert and caring medical teams are empowered and supported by industry-leading technology advances and tools for health promotion, disease prevention, state-of-the-art care delivery and world-class chronic disease management. Kaiser Permanente is dedicated to care innovations, clinical research, health education and the support of community health.

Contacts
Jan Greene
janice.x.greene@kp.org
510-891-3653
Kerry Sinclair
ksinclair@webershandwick.com
310-710-0321

Humans have free will and are allowed to choose how they want to live. What you do not have the right to do is to inflict your lifestyle on a child. So, the responsible thing for you to do is to get birth control for yourself and the society which will have to live with your poor choices. Many religious folks are shocked because moi is mentioning birth control, but most sluts have few religious inklings or they wouldn’t be sluts. A better option for both sexes, if this lifestyle is a permanent option, is permanent birth control to lessen a contraception failure. People absolutely have the right to choose their particular lifestyle. You simply have no right to bring a child into your mess of a life. I observe people all the time and I have yet to observe a really happy slut. Seems that the lifestyle is devoid of true emotional connection and is empty. If you do find yourself pregnant, please consider adoption.

Let’s continue the discussion. Some folks may be great friends, homies, girlfriends, and dudes, but they make lousy parents. Could be they are at a point in their life where they are too selfish to think of anyone other than themselves, they could be busy with school, work, or whatever. No matter the reason, they are not ready and should not be parents. Birth control methods are not 100% effective, but the available options are 100% ineffective in people who are sexually active and not using birth control. So, if you are sexually active and you have not paid a visit to some agency, then you are not only irresponsible, you are Eeeevil. Why do I say that, you are playing Russian Roulette with the life of another human being, the child. You should not ever put yourself in the position of bringing a child into the world that you are unprepared to parent, emotionally, financially, and with a commitment of time. So, if you find yourself in a what do I do moment and are pregnant, you should consider adoption.
Children need stability and predictability to have the best chance of growing up healthy.

Children will have the most success in school if they are ready to learn. Ready to learn includes proper nutrition for a healthy body and the optimum situation for children is a healthy family. Many of society’s problems would be lessened if the goal was a healthy child in a healthy family.

Unless there was a rape or some forcible intercourse, the answer to the question is a woman who gets preggers with a “deadbeat dad” a moron – is yes.

Learn more about prenatal and preconception care.
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/preconceptioncare/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/pregnancy/conditioninfo/Pages/prenatal-care.aspx

See, Prenatal care fact sheet http://www.womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/prenatal-care.html

Our goal as a society should be a healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood. ©

 

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/

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine study: Over-conditioning kills: Non-traumatic fatalities in football is preventable

13 Jul

@Life360 discussed the dangers of participating in sports in The Hidden Dangers of Competitive Sports:

I think Wall identifies the real danger of sports on your health — long-term injuries. While we’re most likely to think of sprains and broken bones, teens are able to recover from those well; it’s damages that affect growth which should be of more concern.
We can all agree that sports nurture a positive discipline for exercise, but it’s easy for that regiment to go too far. Personally, I’ve seen competitive sports spur unhealthy habits. In high school, I was on the wrestling team in the winter and rowing team in the spring. Since weight is such an important issue with both of those sports, I was encouraged to watch what I ate very carefully. While my coaches never suggested making unhealthy changes to my diet, there is often an unspoken pressure for young athletes to do so. That’s not to say that wrestling and rowing are bad sports (in fact, I’d argue the opposite), but in a competitive atmosphere, even high school kids can take things too seriously. Eating disorders from sports isn’t all that uncommon.
Though I’ve only discussed the cons of high school athletics, I still think the positives — both physical and mental — outweigh the negatives. But I think both young athletes and their parents should be aware of the dangers, and understand when to realize that they’re taking sports too seriously. https://www.life360.com/blog/the-hidden-dangers-of-competitive-sports/

American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine released a study which examined the dangers of over-conditioning.

Science Daily reported in Over-conditioning kills: Non-traumatic fatalities in football is preventable:

Most non-traumatic fatalities among high school and college football athletes do not occur while playing the game of football, but rather during conditioning sessions which are often associated with overexertion or punishment drills required by coaches and team staff, according to research presented today at the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine Annual Meeting. The research was presented by Dr. Barry P. Boden of The Orthopaedic Center, Rockville, Md.

Football is associated with the highest number of fatalities of any high school or college sport, but the number of traumatic injuries incurred while playing football have declined significantly since the 1960s.
However, the annual number of non-traumatic fatalities has stayed constant with current rates that are two to three times higher than traumatic fatalities.
Heat and sickle cell trait fatality rates were compared pre- and post-implementation of the NCAA football acclimatization model in 2003 and sickle cell screening policies implemented in 2010, respectively.
Boden and his team reviewed 187 non-traumatic football fatalities that occurred between 1998 and 2018. The researchers obtained information from extensive internet searches, as well as depositions, investigations, autopsies, media and freedom of information reports.
Of the 187 fatalities, more than half (52 percent) were due to cardiac issues; 24 percent were caused by heat; and five percent from asthma.
“The majority of deaths occurred outside of the regular season months of September through December, with the most common month for fatalities being August,” Boden reported.
Boden said many of the fatalities had three issues in common: the conditioning sessions were supervised by the football coach or strength and conditioning coach; irrationally intense workouts and/or punishment drills were scheduled; and an inadequate medical response was implemented…. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190713103944.htm

Citation:

Over-conditioning kills: Non-traumatic fatalities in football is preventable
Date: July 13, 2019
Source: American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine
Summary:
Most non-traumatic fatalities among high school and college football athletes do not occur while playing the game of football, but rather during conditioning sessions which are often associated with overexertion or punishment drills required by coaches and team staff, according to new research.

Here is the press release from American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine:

July 13, 2019
Over-conditioning kills: Non-traumatic fatalities in football is preventable

by American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine

Most non-traumatic fatalities among high school and college football athletes do not occur while playing the game of football, but rather during conditioning sessions which are often associated with overexertion or punishment drills required by coaches and team staff, according to research presented today at the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine Annual Meeting. The research was presented by Dr. Barry P. Boden of The Orthopaedic Center, Rockville, Md.
Football is associated with the highest number of fatalities of any high school or college sport, but the number of traumatic injuries incurred while playing football have declined significantly since the 1960s.
However, the annual number of non-traumatic fatalities has stayed constant with current rates that are two to three times higher than traumatic fatalities.
Heat and sickle cell trait fatality rates were compared pre- and post-implementation of the NCAA football acclimatization model in 2003 and sickle cell screening policies implemented in 2010, respectively.
Boden and his team reviewed 187 non-traumatic football fatalities that occurred between 1998 and 2018. The researchers obtained information from extensive internet searches, as well as depositions, investigations, autopsies, media and freedom of information reports.
Of the 187 fatalities, more than half (52 percent) were due to cardiac issues; 24 percent were caused by heat; and five percent from asthma.
“The majority of deaths occurred outside of the regular season months of September through December, with the most common month for fatalities being August,” Boden reported.
Boden said many of the fatalities had three issues in common: the conditioning sessions were supervised by the football coach or strength and conditioning coach; irrationally intense workouts and/or punishment drills were scheduled; and an inadequate medical response was implemented.
The average annual rate of heat-related fatalities remained unchanged at the collegiate level pre- and post-implementation of the NCAA football acclimatization model in 2003. The average annual number of sickle cell trait deaths in collegiate football declined 58 percent after the 2010 NCAA sickle cell screening policies were implemented. At the high school level, where there are no sickle cell guidelines, the number of sickle cell fatalities increased 400 percent since 2010.
The football acclimatization model implemented by the NCAA in 2003 has failed at reducing exertional heat-related fatalities at the collegiate level. Sickle cell trait screening policies adopted by the NCAA in 2010 have been effective at reducing fatalities in college athletes and similar guidelines should be mandated at the high school level.
“Conditioning-related fatalities are preventable by establishing standards in workout design, holding coaches and strength and conditioning coaches accountable, ensuring compliance with current policies, and allowing athletic health care providers complete authority over medical decisions,” Boden reported.

Explore further
Athletes with sickle cell traits are at more risk to collapse: here’s why
More information: http://www.sportsmed.org/aossmimis/me … AM2019-Abstracts.pdf
Provided by American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine

Faye Reid wrote in Moderation And Fitness | What Is The Balance?

The fact of the matter is that while an extreme and explosive shred workout is a great thing, it becomes useless without moderation. Regardless of what your goals are, sustainability has to at least be somewhere in your priority list. Whether you are training for a sports match, a competition, or for summer, one would generally want to be able to get back into the gym after completing such a goal. But where one trains with ferocity without moderation, injuries and burn-outs leave a fitness career with an early death.
The most important ingredients to a good training regime can all by injected with a healthy dose of moderation to ensure sustainability and longevity…. https://www.myprotein.com/thezone/training/moderation-and-fitness-what-is-the-balance/

The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.
Benjamin Disraeli

The Sports Concussion Institute has some great information about concussions http://www.concussiontreatment.com/concussionfacts.html

Resources:

Concussions
http://kidshealth.org/teen/safety/first_aid/concussions.html#a_What_Is_a_Concussion_and_What_Causes_It_

Concussion
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/concussion/article_em.htm

Concussion – Overview
http://www.webmd.com/brain/tc/traumatic-brain-injury-concussion-overview

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

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http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

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Aarhus University study: Infant mortality is higher for low-skilled parents

1 Jul

In 3rd world America: Money changes everything, moi wrote:

The increased rate of poverty has profound implications if this society believes that ALL children have the right to a good basic education. Moi blogs about education issues so the reader could be perplexed sometimes because moi often writes about other things like nutrition, families, and personal responsibility issues. Why? The reader might ask? Because children will have the most success in school if they are ready to learn. Ready to learn includes proper nutrition for a healthy body and the optimum situation for children is a healthy family. Many of societies’ problems would be lessened if the goal was a healthy child in a healthy family. There is a lot of economic stress in the country now because of unemployment and underemployment. Children feel the stress of their parents and they worry about how stable their family and living situation is.
Sabrina Tavernise wrote an excellent New York Times article, Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say:
It is a well-known fact that children from affluent families tend to do better in school. Yet the income divide has received far less attention from policy makers and government officials than gaps in student accomplishment by race.
Now, in analyses of long-term data published in recent months, researchers are finding that while the achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades, the gap between rich and poor students has grown substantially during the same period….http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/education/education-gap-grows-between-rich-and-poor-studies-show.html?emc=eta1

Teachers and schools have been made TOTALLY responsible for the education outcome of the children, many of whom come to school not ready to learn and who reside in families that for a variety of reasons cannot support their education. All children are capable of learning, but a one-size-fits-all approach does not serve all children well. Different populations of children will require different strategies and some children will require remedial help, early intervention, and family support to achieve their education goals.

Science Daily reported in Infant mortality is higher for low-skilled parents:

Infants of women with a short-term education are more likely to die within the first year of life. In more than half of cases, the cause of death is premature childbirth and low fetal weight. This is shown by research from Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital.
In Denmark, four out of 1,000 newborn babies die before reaching their first birthday. Now, a new research project shows that women with short-term (primary and lower secondary education less than nine years) or no education have an increased risk of their child dying during the first year. Premature birth and low fetal weight can explain 55-60 per cent of cases.
Yongfu Yu and Jiong Li from Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital are behind the study….
The results have just been published in PLoS Medicine. They are based on a national population study of 1.99 million children born in Denmark in the years 1981-2015.
“To reduce the risk of premature childbirth and low fetal weight will be helpful. One way among others of doing this is by increased focus on improving the health of socially and financially disadvantaged women before and during pregnancy,” says Yongfu Yu….
“Even in a welfare society like Denmark, pregnant women with short-term education need more resources to address social challenges in order to improve the health of infants in general and reduce child mortality in particular,” says Yongfu Yu. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190627114027.htm

Citation:

Infant mortality is higher for low-skilled parents
Date: June 27, 2019
Source: Aarhus University
Summary:
Infants of women with a short-term education are more likely to die within the first year of life. In more than half of cases, the cause of death is premature childbirth and low fetal weight.

Yongfu Yu et al. Mediating roles of preterm birth and restricted fetal growth in the relationship between maternal education and infant mortality: A Danish population-based cohort study, PLOS Medicine (2019). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1002831
Journal information: PLoS Medicine

Here is the press release from Aarhus University:

NEWS RELEASE 27-JUN-2019
Infant mortality is higher for low-skilled parents
Infants of women with a short-term education are more likely to die within the first year of life. In more than half of cases, the cause of death is premature childbirth and low foetal weight. This is shown by research from Aarhus University and Aarhus Un
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
Infants of women with a short-term education are more likely to die within the first year of life. In more than half of cases, the cause of death is premature childbirth and low foetal weight. This is shown by research from Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital.
In Denmark, four out of 1,000 newborn babies die before reaching their first birthday. Now, a new research project shows that women with short-term (primary and lower secondary education less than nine years) or no education have an increased risk of their child dying during the first year. Premature birth and low foetal weight can explain 55-60 per cent of cases.
Yongfu Yu and Jiong Li from Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital are behind the study.
“Despite the fall in child mortality in recent decades, there still remains a socio-economic imbalance in the infant mortality rate. Something needs to be done about that,” Jiong Li says.
The results have just been published in PLoS Medicine. They are based on a national population study of 1.99 million children born in Denmark in the years 1981-2015.
“To reduce the risk of premature childbirth and low foetal weight will be helpful. One way among others of doing this is by increased focus on improving the health of socially and financially disadvantaged women before and during pregnancy,” says Yongfu Yu.
He hopes that the results can contribute to the prevention of premature deaths in infants.
“Even in a welfare society like Denmark, pregnant women with short-term education need more resources to address social challenges in order to improve the health of infants in general and reduce child mortality in particular,” says Yongfu Yu.
###
Background for the results:
The study is a cohort study covering 1,994,618 new born babies in Denmark between 1981-2015.
The study is financed by grants from Lundbeck Foundation, the Danish Council for Independent Research, Novo Nordisk Fonden, Nordic Cancer Union, Karen Elise Jensens Fond, National Natural Science Foundation of China, the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Science, the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the National Center for Advancing Translational Science, and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
The scientific article has been published in PLoS Medicine.
Contact:
PhD, MSc. Postdoc, Yongfu Yu
Aarhus University, Department of Clinical Medicine and
Aarhus University Hospital, Department of Clinical Epidemiology
Tel.: (+1) 4244022194
Email: yoyu@clin.au.dk
PhD, Associate Professor, Jiong Li
Aarhus University, Department of Clinical Medicine and
Aarhus University Hospital, Department of Clinical Epidemiology
Tel.: (+45) 8716 8401
Email: yoyu@clin.au.dk
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.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-06/au-imi062719.php

Here is information about the Adverse Child Experiences Study. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides access to the peer-reviewed publications resulting from The ACE Study. http://acestudy.org/

Study: Some of the effects of adverse stress do not go away

Science Daily reported in Infantile memory study points to critical periods in early-life learning for brain development:

A new study on infantile memory formation in rats points to the importance of critical periods in early-life learning on functional development of the brain. The research, conducted by scientists at New York University’s Center for Neural Science, reveals the significance of learning experiences over the first two to four years of human life; this is when memories are believed to be quickly forgotten — a phenomenon known as infantile amnesia.
“What our findings tell us is that children’s brains need to get enough and healthy activation even before they enter pre-school,” explains Cristina Alberini, a professor in NYU’s Center for Neural Science, who led the study. “Without this, the neurological system runs the risk of not properly developing learning and memory functions…”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160718111939.htm

Citation:

Infantile memory study points to critical periods in early-life learning for brain development
Date: July 18, 2016
Source: New York University
Summary:
A new study on infantile memory formation in rats points to the importance of critical periods in early-life learning on functional development of the brain. The research reveals the significance of learning experiences over the first two to four years of human life.
Journal Reference:
1. Alessio Travaglia, Reto Bisaz, Eric S Sweet, Robert D Blitzer, Cristina M Alberini. Infantile amnesia reflects a developmental critical period for hippocampal learning. Nature Neuroscience, 2016; DOI: 10.1038/nn.4348

Our goal as a society should be:

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

Resources:

The Effects of Stress on Your Body
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/effects-of-stress-on-your-body

The Physical Effects of Long-Term Stress
http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/the-physical-effects-of-long-term-stress/all/1/

Chronic Stress: The Body Connection
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=53737

Understanding Stress Symptoms, Signs, Causes, and Effects
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/stress_signs.htm

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/

r. Wilda ©
https://drwilda.com/

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Imperial College London study: Major study finds no conclusive links to health effects from waste incinerators

27 Jun

Cheryl Katz wrote the 2012 Scientific American article, People in Poor Neighborhoods Breathe More Hazardous Particles:

Tiny particles of air pollution contain more hazardous ingredients in non-white and low-income communities than in affluent white ones, a new study shows.
The greater the concentration of Hispanics, Asians, African Americans or poor residents in an area, the more likely that potentially dangerous compounds such as vanadium, nitrates and zinc are in the mix of fine particles they breathe.
Latinos had the highest exposures to the largest number of these ingredients, while whites generally had the lowest.
The findings of the Yale University research add to evidence of a widening racial and economic gap when it comes to air pollution. Communities of color and those with low education and high poverty and unemployment face greater health risks even if their air quality meets federal health standards, according to the article published online in the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Fresno are among the metropolitan areas with unhealthful levels of fine particles and large concentrations of poor minorities. More than 50 counties could exceed a new tighter health standard for particulates proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Communities of color and those with low education and high poverty and unemployment may face greater health risks even if their air quality meets federal health standards. A pervasive air pollutant, the fine particulate matter known as PM2.5 is a mixture of emissions from diesel engines, power plants, refineries and other sources of combustion. Often called soot, the microscopic particles penetrate deep into the lungs.
The new study is the first to reveal major racial and economic differences in exposures to specific particle ingredients, some of which are linked to asthma, cardiovascular problems and cancer…. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-poor-neighborhoods-breate-more-hazardous-particles/

A University of Miami Miller School of Medicine expands upon the link between neighborhood greenness and disease. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160421171345.htm

Science Daily reported in Major study finds no conclusive links to health effects from waste incinerators:

Researchers have found no link between exposure to emissions from municipal waste incinerators (MWIs) and infant deaths or reduced foetal growth.
However, they show living closer to the incinerators themselves is associated with a very small increase in the risk of some birth defects, compared to the general population. But whether this is directly related to the incinerator or not remains unclear.
The findings come from the largest and most comprehensive analysis to date of the effects of municipal waste incinerators (MWIs) on public health in the UK.
MWIs are used to burn waste that is not recycled, composted or sent to landfill and can include materials such as paper, plastic, wood and metal. While MWI emissions are governed by EU regulations, public concern remains around their potential impact on public health and scientific studies to date have been inconsistent or inconclusive.
The analysis, led by a team at Imperial College London and funded by Public Health England and the Scottish Government, looked at MWIs at 22 sites across the UK between 2003 and 2010.
Researchers from the UK Small Area Health Statistics Unit (SAHSU) at Imperial first analysed concentrations of fine particles called PM10 (particulate matter measuring 10 micrometres or less in diameter) emitted from the chimneys of the incinerators as waste is burned.
Computer models generated from the data showed how these particles spread over a 10 km radius around 22 MWIs in England, Scotland and Wales. The models show that MWIs added very little to the existing background levels of PM10 at ground level – with existing PM10 concentrations at ground level on average 100 to 10,000 times higher than levels emitted by the chimneys (Environment Science & Technology, 2017).
Using these models, the team then investigated potential links between concentrations of PM10 emitted by MWIs and any increased risk of adverse birth outcomes. In an earlier study (Environment International, 2018), they found that analysis of records covering more than one million births in England, Scotland and Wales revealed no evidence of a link between small particles emitted by the incinerators and adverse birth outcomes such as effects on birthweight, premature birth, infant death, or stillbirth, for children born within 10 km of MWIs in Great Britain…. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190620220026.htm

Citation:

Major study finds no conclusive links to health effects from waste incinerators
Date: June 20, 2019
Source: Imperial College London
Summary:
Researchers have found no link between exposure to emissions from municipal waste incinerators (MWIs) and infant deaths or reduced fetal growth.

Journal References:

Brandon Parkes, Anna L. Hansell, Rebecca E. Ghosh, Philippa Douglas, Daniela Fecht, Diana Wellesley, Jennifer J. Kurinczuk, Judith Rankin, Kees de Hoogh, Gary W. Fuller, Paul Elliott, Mireille B. Toledano. Risk of congenital anomalies near municipal waste incinerators in England and Scotland: Retrospective population-based cohort study. Environment International, 2019; 104845 DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2019.05.039

Rebecca E. Ghosh, Anna Freni-Sterrantino, Philippa Douglas, Brandon Parkes, Daniela Fecht, Kees de Hoogh, Gary Fuller, John Gulliver, Anna Font, Rachel B. Smith, Marta Blangiardo, Paul Elliott, Mireille B. Toledano, Anna L. Hansell. Fetal growth, stillbirth, infant mortality and other birth outcomes near UK municipal waste incinerators; retrospective population based cohort and case-control study. Environment International, 2019; 122: 151 DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2018.10.060

Philippa Douglas, Anna Freni-Sterrantino, Maria Leal Sanchez, Danielle C. Ashworth, Rebecca E. Ghosh, Daniela Fecht, Anna Font, Marta Blangiardo, John Gulliver, Mireille B. Toledano, Paul Elliott, Kees de Hoogh, Gary W. Fuller, Anna L. Hansell. Estimating Particulate Exposure from Modern Municipal Waste Incinerators in Great Britain. Environmental Science & Technology, 2017; 51 (13): 7511 DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b06478
A. Freni-Sterrantino, R.E. Ghosh, D. Fecht, M.B. Toledano, P. Elliott, A.L. Hansell, M. Blangiardo. Bayesian spatial modelling for quasi-experimental designs: An interrupted time series study of the opening of Municipal Waste Incinerators in relation to infant mortality and sex ratio. Environment International, 2019; 128: 109 DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2019.04.009

Anna Font, Kees de Hoogh, Maria Leal-Sanchez, Danielle C. Ashworth, Richard J.C. Brown, Anna L. Hansell, Gary W. Fuller. Using metal ratios to detect emissions from municipal waste incinerators in ambient air pollution data. Atmospheric Environment, 2015; 113: 177 DOI: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2015.05.002

Danielle C. Ashworth, Paul Elliott, Mireille B. Toledano. Waste incineration and adverse birth and neonatal outcomes: a systematic review. Environment International, 2014; 69: 120 DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2014.04.003

Here is the press release from Imperial College London:

NEWS RELEASE 20-JUN-2019
Major study finds no conclusive links to health effects from waste incinerators
IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON
Researchers have found no link between exposure to emissions from municipal waste incinerators (MWIs) and infant deaths or reduced foetal growth.
However, they show living closer to the incinerators themselves is associated with a very small increase in the risk of some birth defects, compared to the general population. But whether this is directly related to the incinerator or not remains unclear.
The findings come from the largest and most comprehensive analysis to date of the effects of municipal waste incinerators (MWIs) on public health in the UK.
MWIs are used to burn waste that is not recycled, composted or sent to landfill and can include materials such as paper, plastic, wood and metal. While MWI emissions are governed by EU regulations, public concern remains around their potential impact on public health and scientific studies to date have been inconsistent or inconclusive.
The analysis, led by a team at Imperial College London and funded by Public Health England and the Scottish Government, looked at MWIs at 22 sites across the UK between 2003 and 2010.
Researchers from the UK Small Area Health Statistics Unit (SAHSU) at Imperial first analysed concentrations of fine particles called PM10 (particulate matter measuring 10 micrometres or less in diameter) emitted from the chimneys of the incinerators as waste is burned.
Computer models generated from the data showed how these particles spread over a 10 km radius around 22 MWIs in England, Scotland and Wales. The models show that MWIs added very little to the existing background levels of PM10 at ground level – with existing PM10 concentrations at ground level on average 100 to 10,000 times higher than levels emitted by the chimneys (Environment Science & Technology, 2017).
Using these models, the team then investigated potential links between concentrations of PM10 emitted by MWIs and any increased risk of adverse birth outcomes. In an earlier study (Environment International, 2018), they found that analysis of records covering more than one million births in England, Scotland and Wales revealed no evidence of a link between small particles emitted by the incinerators and adverse birth outcomes such as effects on birthweight, premature birth, infant death, or stillbirth, for children born within 10 km of MWIs in Great Britain.
The team’s latest findings, published in the journal Environment International, looked at occurrence of birth defects within 10 km of a subset of 10 incinerators in England and Scotland between 2003 and 2010. In their analysis, the team used health data on more than 5000 cases of birth defects among over 200,000 births, still births and terminations in England and Scotland.
They found no association between birth defects and the modelled concentrations of PM10 emitted by MWIs, but there was a small increase in the risk of two birth defects among those living closer to MWIs – specifically congenital heart defects and hypospadias (affecting the male genitalia – where the opening of the urethra is not at the top of the penis). These birth defects typically require surgery but are rarely life-threatening.
In the UK, congenital heart defects affect approximately 5.3 in 1000 births and 1.9 per 1000 males are born with hypospadias (Source: NCARDRS 2016*).
In terms of excess risk, the team estimates that the associated increase in risk for these two birth defects could be around 0.6 cases per 1,000 total births for congenital heart defects and 0.6 cases per 1,000 male births for hypospadias within 10 km of an incinerator.
Professor Paul Elliott, Director of the UK Small Area Health Statistics Unit (SAHSU) said: “Based on the available data, our findings showing that there is no significant increased risk of infant death, stillbirth, preterm birth or effects on birthweight from municipal waste incinerators are reassuring. The findings on birth defects are inconclusive, but our study design means we cannot rule out that living closer to an incinerator in itself may slightly increase the risk of some specific defects – although the reasons for this are unclear.”
Professor Mireille Toledano, Chair in Perinatal and Paediatric Environmental Epidemiology at Imperial, said: “In these studies we found a small increase in risk for children living within 10 km of an MWI being born with a heart defect, or a genital anomaly affecting boys, but did not find an association with the very low levels of particulates emitted. This increase with proximity to an incinerator may not be related directly to emissions from the MWIs. It is important to consider other potential factors such as the increased pollution from industrial traffic in the areas around MWIs or the specific population mix that lives in those areas.”
Professor Anna Hansell, Director of the Centre for Environmental Health and Sustainability at the University of Leicester, who previously led the work while at Imperial College London, added: “Taken together, this large body of work reinforces the current advice from Public Health England – that while it’s not possible to rule out all impacts on public health, modern and well-regulated incinerators are likely to have a very small, or even undetectable, impact on people living nearby.”
The team explains that while the results of the emissions studies are reassuring, they cannot rule out a link between the increased incidence of the two birth defects and the activities of the MWIs. They add that while they adjusted their results for socioeconomic and ethnic status, these may still influence birth outcomes findings. Poorer families may be living closer to MWIs due to lower housing or living costs in industrial areas, and their exposure to industrial road traffic or other pollutants may be increased.
The researchers highlight that their findings are limited by a number of factors. Also, they did not have measurements (for the hundreds of thousands of individual births considered) of metals or chemical compounds such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxins, but used PM10 concentrations as a proxy for exposure to MWI emissions – as has been used in other incinerator studies.
They add that ongoing review of evidence is needed to explore links further, as well as ongoing surveillance of incinerators in the UK to monitor any potential long-term impacts on public health.
###
The research was funded by Public Health England and the Scottish Government, with support from the Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health Research.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-06/icl-msf062019.php

This society will not have healthy children without having healthy home and school environments.

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

Resources:

What are Key Urban Environmental Problems?
http://web.mit.edu/urbanupgrading/urbanenvironment/issues/key-UE-issues.html

Understanding Neighborhood Effects of Concentrated Poverty
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/periodicals/em/winter11/highlight2.html

Where We Live Matters for Our Health: Neighborhoods and Health

Click to access Issue%20Brief%203%20Sept%2008%20-%20Neighborhoods%20and%20Health.pdf

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 ©
https://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©
https://drwilda.com/

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University of Georgia study: How fathers, children should spend time together

16 Jun

Moi has been saying for decades that the optimum situation for raising children is a two-parent family for a variety of reasons. This two-parent family is an economic unit with the prospect of two incomes and a division of labor for the chores necessary to maintain the family structure. Parents also need a degree of maturity to raise children; after all, you and your child should not be raising each other.

Eric Schulzke of Deseret News reported in the article, Like father like child: why your future may be closely tied to your father’s income and education:

A child’s odds of breaking out of poverty or gaining a college education are heavily shaped by the father’s income and education level, says Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution.
In a couple of graphs that unpack piles of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics at the University of Michigan, Reeves breaks education and income levels down into quintiles and shows the close connection between a father’s level and how far his children go.
Whether you see that as a glass half empty or glass half full depend on your starting point, Reeves acknowledges. “If you assume that in an ideal world, where you would end up would bear no relation to where you started.” That is, he argues, if we had real equality of opportunity, 20 percent of every group would end up in the other four groups in the next generation.
Instead, 41 percent of kids whose father had top-level educational achievement stay there, and 36 percent of those who start in the bottom income bracket will remain there.
There is some mobility, of course. Of those who start in the bottom fifth of income levels, 35 percent end up in the middle class or above, which is roughly equal to the 36 percent who stay put…. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865616732/Like-father-like-child-why-your-future-may-be-closely-tied-to-your-fathers-income-and-education.html?pg=all

See, Children with married parents are better off — but marriage isn’t the reason why http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/08/children-with-married-parents-are-better-off-but-marriage-isnt-the-reason-why/ and https://drwilda.com/tag/father/ and https://drwilda.com/tag/fathers/

Science Daily reported in How fathers, children should spend time together:

New research from the University of Georgia reveals that both the type of involvement — caregiving versus play — and the timing — workday versus non-workday — have an impact on the quality of the early father-child relationship.
The study by Geoffrey Brown, published in the Journal of Family Psychology, reveals that fathers who choose to spend time with their children on non-workdays are developing a stronger relationship with them, and play activities seem particularly important, even after taking into account the quality of fathers’ parenting.
“Fathers who make the choice to devote their time on non-workdays to engaging with their children directly seem to be developing the best relationships,” said Brown, assistant professor in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences. “And on those non-workdays, pursuing activities that are child centered, or fun for the child, seems to be the best predictor of a good father-child relationship.”
However, fathers who spend lots of time helping out with child care-related tasks on workdays are developing the best relationships with their children. And men who engage in high levels of play with their children on workdays actually have a slightly less secure attachment relationship with them.
“It’s a complicated story, but I think this reflects differences in these contexts of family interaction time on workdays versus non-workdays,” Brown said. “The most important thing on a workday, from the perspective of building a good relationship with your children, seems to be helping to take care of them.”
In early childhood, the most common way to conceptualize the parent-child relationship is the attachment relationship, according to Brown. Children form an emotional bond with their caregivers, and it serves a purpose by keeping them safe, providing comfort and security, and modeling how relationships should work….
For this study, Brown and his colleagues worked with 80 father-child pairs when the children were about 3 years old. The team conducted interviews and observed father-child interaction in the home, shooting video that was evaluated off site and assigned a score indicating attachment security.
“We’re trying to understand the connection between work life and family life and how fathers construct their role. It’s clear that there are different contexts of family time,” Brown said. “Relying too much on play during workdays, when your child/partner needs you to help out with caregiving, could be problematic. But play seems more important when there’s more time and less pressure.
“Ultimately, fathers who engage in a variety of parenting behaviors and adjust their parenting to suit the demands and circumstances of each individual day are probably most likely to develop secure relationships with their children.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190611133938.htm

Citation:

How fathers, children should spend time together
Study dives into factors that could help develop a stronger relationship
Date: June 11, 2019
Source: University of Georgia
Summary:
Fathers who spend lots of time helping out with child care-related tasks on workdays are developing the best relationships with their children.

Journal Reference:
Geoffrey L. Brown, Sarah C. Mangelsdorf, Aya Shigeto, Maria S. Wong. Associations between father involvement and father–child attachment security: Variations based on timing and type of involvement.. Journal of Family Psychology, 2018; 32 (8): 1015 DOI: 10.1037/fam0000472

Here is the press release from the University of Georgia:

How fathers, children should spend time together

by Allyson Mann

As men everywhere brace for an onslaught of ties, tools, wallets and novelty socks gifted for Father’s Day, here are two questions fathers of young children should ask themselves: What activities are best for bonding with my child, and when should those activities take place?
New research from the University of Georgia reveals that both the type of involvement—caregiving versus play—and the timing—workday versus non-workday—have an impact on the quality of the early father-child relationship.
The study by Geoffrey Brown, published in the Journal of Family Psychology, reveals that fathers who choose to spend time with their children on non-workdays are developing a stronger relationship with them, and play activities seem particularly important, even after taking into account the quality of fathers’ parenting.

“Fathers who make the choice to devote their time on non-workdays to engaging with their children directly seem to be developing the best relationships,” said Brown, assistant professor in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences. “And on those non-workdays, pursuing activities that are child centered, or fun for the child, seems to be the best predictor of a good father-child relationship.”
However, fathers who spend lots of time helping out with child care-related tasks on workdays are developing the best relationships with their children. And men who engage in high levels of play with their children on workdays actually have a slightly less secure attachment relationship with them.
“It’s a complicated story, but I think this reflects differences in these contexts of family interaction time on workdays versus non-workdays,” Brown said. “The most important thing on a workday, from the perspective of building a good relationship with your children, seems to be helping to take care of them.”
In early childhood, the most common way to conceptualize the parent-child relationship is the attachment relationship, according to Brown. Children form an emotional bond with their caregivers, and it serves a purpose by keeping them safe, providing comfort and security, and modeling how relationships should work.
Decades of research have focused on mother-child attachment security, but there’s much less research on the father-child relationship and how a secure attachment relationship is formed.
For this study, Brown and his colleagues worked with 80 father-child pairs when the children were about 3 years old. The team conducted interviews and observed father-child interaction in the home, shooting video that was evaluated off site and assigned a score indicating attachment security.
“We’re trying to understand the connection between work life and family life and how fathers construct their role. It’s clear that there are different contexts of family time,” Brown said. “Relying too much on play during workdays, when your child/partner needs you to help out with caregiving, could be problematic. But play seems more important when there’s more time and less pressure.
“Ultimately, fathers who engage in a variety of parenting behaviors and adjust their parenting to suit the demands and circumstances of each individual day are probably most likely to develop secure relationships with their children.”
College of Family and Consumer Sciences Research                https://news.uga.edu/how-fathers-children-should-spend-time-together/

If you are a young unmarried woman of any color, you probably do not have the resources either emotional or financial to parent a child(ren). If you don’t care about your future, care about the future of your child. If you want to sleep with everything that has a pulse, that is your choice. BUT, you have no right to choose a life of poverty and misery for a child. As for those so called “progressives?” Just shut-up.
There are some very uncomfortable conversations ahead for the African-American community about the high rate of unwed mothers, about the care of women during pregnancy, and about early childhood education in the homes of children.Most important, about the lack the active involvement of fathers of some children.
Time to start talking. The conversation is not going to get any less difficult.

See:
We give up as a society: Jailing parents because kids are truant
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/we-give-up-as-a-society-jailing-parents-because-kids-are-truant/

Jonathan Cohn’s ‘The Two Year Window’
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/jonathan-cohns-the-two-year-window/

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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University of Washington study: Early-life challenges affect how children focus, face the day

9 Jun

For a really good discussion of the effects of poverty on children, read the American Psychological Association (APA), Effects of Poverty, Hunger, and Homelessness on Children and Youth:

What are the effects of child poverty?
• Psychological research has demonstrated that living in poverty has a wide range of negative effects on the physical and mental health and wellbeing of our nation’s children.
• Poverty impacts children within their various contexts at home, in school, and in their neighborhoods and communities.
• Poverty is linked with negative conditions such as substandard housing, homelessness, inadequate nutrition and food insecurity, inadequate child care, lack of access to health care, unsafe neighborhoods, and underresourced schools which adversely impact our nation’s children.
• Poorer children and teens are also at greater risk for several negative outcomes such as poor academic achievement, school dropout, abuse and neglect, behavioral and socioemotional problems, physical health problems, and developmental delays.
• These effects are compounded by the barriers children and their families encounter when trying to access physical and mental health care.
• Economists estimate that child poverty costs the U.S. $500 billion a year in lost productivity in the work force and spending on health care and the criminal justice system.
Poverty and academic achievement
• Poverty has a particularly adverse effect on the academic outcomes of children, especially during early childhood.
• Chronic stress associated with living in poverty has been shown to adversely affect children’s concentration and memory which may impact their ability to learn.
• School drop out rates are significantly higher for teens residing in poorer communities. In 2007, the dropout rate of students living in low-income families was about 10 times greater than the rate of their peers from high-income families (8.8% vs. 0.9%).
• The academic achievement gap for poorer youth is particularly pronounced for low-income African American and Hispanic children compared with their more affluent White peers.
• Underresourced schools in poorer communities struggle to meet the learning needs of their students and aid them in fulfilling their potential.
• Inadequate education contributes to the cycle of poverty by making it more difficult for low-income children to lift themselves and future generations out of poverty. http://www.apa.org/pi/families/poverty.aspx
See, While Black folk are immobilized and stuck on Ferguson, Asian ‘star’ tutors advance Asian achievement https://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/tag/poverty-and-education/
Moi blogs about education issues so the reader could be perplexed sometimes because moi often writes about other things like nutrition, families, and personal responsibility issues. Why? The reader might ask? Children will have the most success in school if they are ready to learn. Ready to learn includes proper nutrition for a healthy body and the optimum situation for children is a healthy family. Many of society’s problems would be lessened if the goal was a healthy child in a healthy family. See Dr. Wilda on poverty https://drwilda.com/tag/poverty/ and https://drwilda.com/tag/poverty/page/2/
Science Daily reported in Poverty leaves a mark on our genes:
A new Northwestern University study challenges prevailing understandings of genes as immutable features of biology that are fixed at conception.
Previous research has shown that socioeconomic status (SES) is a powerful determinant of human health and disease, and social inequality is a ubiquitous stressor for human populations globally. Lower educational attainment and/or income predict increased risk for heart disease, diabetes, many cancers and infectious diseases, for example. Furthermore, lower SES is associated with physiological processes that contribute to the development of disease, including chronic inflammation, insulin resistance and cortisol dysregulation….
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190404135433.htm

Citation:

Poverty leaves a mark on our genes
Study’s findings challenge understandings of genes as fixed features of our biology
Date: April 4, 2019
Source: Northwestern University
Summary:
In this study, researchers found evidence that poverty can become embedded across wide swaths of the genome. They discovered that lower socioeconomic status is associated with levels of DNA methylation (DNAm) — a key epigenetic mark that has the potential to shape gene expression — at more than 2,500 sites, across more than 1,500 genes.

Journal Reference:
Thomas W. McDade, Calen P. Ryan, Meaghan J. Jones, Morgan K. Hoke, Judith Borja, Gregory E. Miller, Christopher W. Kuzawa, Michael S. Kobor. Genome‐wide analysis of DNA methylation in relation to socioeconomic status during development and early adulthood. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2019; 169 (1): 3 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.23800

A University of Washington study reported about the effects of early life challenges.

Science Daily reported in Early-life challenges affect how children focus, face the day:

Adversity early in life tends to affect a child’s executive function skills — their ability to focus, for example, or organize tasks.

Experiences such as poverty, residential instability, or parental divorce or substance abuse, also can lead to changes in a child’s brain chemistry, muting the effects of stress hormones. These hormones rise to help us face challenges, stress or to simply “get up and go.”
Together, these impacts to executive function and stress hormones create a snowball effect, adding to social and emotional challenges that can continue through childhood. A new University of Washington study examines how adversity can change the ways children develop.
“This study shows how adversity is affecting multiple systems inside a child,” said the study’s lead author, Liliana Lengua, a UW professor of psychology and director of the Center for Child and Family Well-Being. “The disruption of multiple systems of self-control, both intentional planning efforts and automatic stress-hormone responses, sets off a cascade of neurobiological effects that starts early and continues through childhood.”
The study, published May 10 in Development and Psychopathology, evaluated 306 children at intervals over more than two years, starting when participants were around 3 years old, up to age 5 ½. Children were from a range of racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, with 57% considered lower income or near poverty.
Income was a key marker for adversity. In addition, the children’s mothers were surveyed about other risk factors that have been linked to poor health and behavior outcomes in children, including family transitions, residential instability, and negative life events such as abuse or the incarceration of a parent.
Against these data, Lengua’s team tested children’s executive function skills with a series of activities, and, through saliva samples, a stress-response hormone called diurnal cortisol.
The hormone that “helps us rise to a challenge,” Lengua said, cortisol tends to follow a daily, or diurnal, pattern: It increases early in the morning, helping us to wake up. It is highest in the morning — think of it as the energy to face the day — and then starts to fall throughout the day. But the pattern is different among children and adults who face constant stress, Lengua said.
“What we see in individuals experiencing chronic adversity is that their morning levels are quite low and flat through the day, every day. When someone is faced with high levels of stress all the time, the cortisol response becomes immune, and the system stops responding. That means they’re not having the cortisol levels they need to be alert and awake and emotionally ready to meet the challenges of the day,” she said…. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190605171354.htm

Citation:

Early-life challenges affect how children focus, face the day
Date: June 5, 2019
Source: University of Washington
Summary:
Experiences such as poverty, residential instability, or parental divorce or substance abuse, can affect executive function and lead to changes in a child’s brain chemistry, muting the effects of stress hormones, according to a new study.
ournal Reference:
Liliana J. Lengua, Stephanie F. Thompson, Lyndsey R. Moran, Maureen Zalewski, Erika J. Ruberry, Melanie R. Klein, Cara J. Kiff. Pathways from early adversity to later adjustment: Tests of the additive and bidirectional effects of executive control and diurnal cortisol in early childhood. Development and Psychopathology, 2019; 1 DOI: 10.1017/S0954579419000373

Here is the press release from the University of Washington:

June 4, 2019
How early-life challenges affect how children focus, face the day
Kim Eckart
UW News
Adversity early in life tends to affect a child’s executive function skills — their ability to focus, for example, or organize tasks.
Experiences such as poverty, residential instability, or parental divorce or substance abuse, also can lead to changes in a child’s brain chemistry, muting the effects of stress hormones. These hormones rise to help us face challenges, stress or to simply “get up and go.”
Together, these impacts to executive function and stress hormones create a snowball effect, adding to social and emotional challenges that can continue through childhood. A new University of Washington study examines how adversity can change the ways children develop.
“This study shows how adversity is affecting multiple systems inside a child,” said the study’s lead author, Liliana Lengua, a UW professor of psychology and director of the Center for Child and Family Well-Being. “The disruption of multiple systems of self-control, both intentional planning efforts and automatic stress-hormone responses, sets off a cascade of neurobiological effects that starts early and continues through childhood.”
The study, published May 10 in Development and Psychopathology, evaluated 306 children at intervals over more than two years, starting when participants were around 3 years old, up to age 5 ½. Children were from a range of racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, with 57% considered lower income or near poverty.
Income was a key marker for adversity. In addition, the children’s mothers were surveyed about other risk factors that have been linked to poor health and behavior outcomes in children, including family transitions, residential instability, and negative life events such as abuse or the incarceration of a parent.
Against these data, Lengua’s team tested children’s executive function skills with a series of activities, and, through saliva samples, a stress-response hormone called diurnal cortisol.
The hormone that “helps us rise to a challenge,” Lengua said, cortisol tends to follow a daily, or diurnal, pattern: It increases early in the morning, helping us to wake up. It is highest in the morning — think of it as the energy to face the day — and then starts to fall throughout the day. But the pattern is different among children and adults who face constant stress, Lengua said.
“What we see in individuals experiencing chronic adversity is that their morning levels are quite low and flat through the day, every day. When someone is faced with high levels of stress all the time, the cortisol response becomes immune, and the system stops responding. That means they’re not having the cortisol levels they need to be alert and awake and emotionally ready to meet the challenges of the day,” she said.
To assess executive function, researchers chose preschool-friendly activities that measured each child’s ability to follow directions, pay attention and take actions contrary to impulse. For instance, in a game called “Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders,” children are told to do the opposite of what a researcher tells them to do — if the researcher says, “touch your head,” the child is supposed to touch their toes. In another activity, children interact with two puppets — a monkey and a dragon — but are supposed to follow only the instructions given by the monkey.
When children are better at following instructions in these and similar activities, they tend to have better social skills and manage their emotions when stressed. Children who did well on these tasks also tended to have more typical patterns of diurnal cortisol.
But children who were in families that had lower income and higher adversity tended to have both lower executive function and an atypical diurnal cortisol pattern. Each of those contributed to more behavior problems and lower social-emotional competence in children when they were about to start kindergarten.
The study shows that not only do low income and adversity affect children’s adjustment, but they also impact these self-regulation systems that then add to children’s adjustment problems. “Taken all together, it’s like a snowball effect, with adverse effects adding together,” Lengua said.
While past research has pointed to the effects of adversity on executive function, and to the specific relationship between cortisol and executive function, this new study shows the additive effects over time, Lengua said.
“Executive function is an indicator that shows the functioning of cognitive regulation. Cortisol is the neuroendocrine response, an automatic response, and the two consistently emerge as being related to each other and impacting behavior in children,” she said.
The research could be used to inform parenting programs, early childhood and school-based interventions, Lengua said. Safe, stable environments and communities, and positive, nurturing parenting practices support child development, while a focus on relationships and healthy behaviors in preschool settings can support children of all backgrounds — those with high as well as low adversity.
The study was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Co-authors were Stephanie Thompson, Erika Ruberry and Melanie Klein of the UW Department of Psychology; Lyndsey Moran of the Boston Child Study Center; Maureen Zalewski of the University of Oregon; and Cara Kiff of UCLA.
###
For more information, contact Lengua at Liliana@uw.edu.

The is no magic bullet or “Holy Grail” in education, there is what works to produce academic achievement in each population of students.
What moi observes from Asian culture is that success does not occur in a vacuum and that students from all walks of life can benefit from the individual intervention to prevent failure. The question must be asked, who is responsible for MY or YOUR life choices? Let’s get real, certain Asian cultures kick the collective butts of the rest of Americans. Why? It’s not rocket science. These cultures embrace success traits of hard work, respect for education, strong families, and a reverence for success and successful people. Contrast the culture of success with the norms of hip-hop and rap oppositional culture.
See, Hip-hop’s Dangerous Values
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1107107/posts and Hip-Hop and rap represent destructive life choices: How low can this genre sink? https://drwilda.com/2013/05/01/hip-hop-and-rap-represent-destructive-life-choices-how-low-can-this-genre-sink/

Resources:

Culture of Success http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/culture-success
How Do Asian Students Get to the Top of the Class?
http://www.greatschools.org/parenting/teaching-values/481-parenting-students-to-the-top.gs

Related:

Is there a model minority?

Is there a ‘model minority’ ??

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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