Wagamaga
Wagamaga OP t1_irrxlul wrote
Reply to Meditation may protect older people against Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia. Researchers found meditation was superior to non-native language training on changing a global composite score and two of its subscores reflecting attention regulation and socio-emotional capacities by Wagamaga
Meditation may protect older people against Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, according to new research.
The ancient relaxation technique boosts brainpower among people over 65 years-old, scientists in France say. It can boost attention, awareness, and emotional health – faculties that decline with dementia.
Meditation was superior to non-native language training on changing a global composite score and two of its subscores reflecting attention regulation and socio-emotional capacities,” says corresponding author Dr. Gael Chetelat from Caen-Normandy University in a statement, according to SWNS. French participants assigned to an 18-month course did better than those given English lessons instead to keep their brains busy. They have been linked to well-being, suggesting meditation improves mental health and “human flourishing.”
“The attention regulation subscore increased after meditation only,” Dr. Chetelat tells SWNS. “In the context of meditation practices, this capacity allows a heightened awareness and monitoring of the contents of experience without becoming absorbed by them. Socio-emotional capacities decreased substantially after non-native language training, suggesting the difference observed may be due to maintenance of skills by meditation.”
Wagamaga OP t1_irqr45y wrote
Reply to Positive childhood experiences of blue spaces and adult well-being. Individuals who recalled more childhood blue space experiences tended to place greater intrinsic value on natural settings, visiting them as adults – which increases better mental wellbeing by Wagamaga
New research based on data from 18 countries concludes that adults with better mental health are more likely to report having spent time playing in and around coastal and inland waters, such as rivers and lakes (also known collectively as blue spaces) as children.
The finding was replicated in each of the countries studied.
Mounting evidence shows that spending time in and around green spaces such as parks and woodlands in adulthood is associated with stress reduction and better mental health. However, we know far less about the benefits of blue spaces, or the role childhood contact has in these relationships in later life.
Data came from the BlueHealth International Survey (BIS), a cross-sectional survey co-ordinated by the University of Exeter’s European Centre for Environment and Human Health. The current analysis used data from over 15,000 people across 14 European Countries and 4 other non-European countries/regions (Hong Kong, Canada, Australia and California).
Respondents were asked to recall their blue space experiences between the ages of 0-16 years including how local they were, how often they visited them, and how comfortable their parents/guardians were with them playing in these settings, as well as more recent contact with green and blue spaces over the last four weeks, and mental health over the last two weeks.
The research, published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, found that individuals who recalled more childhood blue space experiences tended to place greater intrinsic value on natural settings in general, and to visit them more often as adults – each of which, in turn, were associated with better mental wellbeing in adulthood.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494422001219
Wagamaga OP t1_irm9e9y wrote
Reply to How the mother's mood influences her baby's ability to speak. Scientists found even children whose mothers suffer from mild depressive mood that do not yet require medical treatment show early signs of delayed language development. by Wagamaga
Up to 70 percent of mothers develop postnatal depressive mood, also known as baby blues, after their baby is born. Analyses show that this can also affect the development of the children themselves and their speech. Until now, however, it was unclear exactly how this impairment manifests itself in early language development in infants.
In a study, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig have now investigated how well babies can distinguish speech sounds from one another depending on their mother's mood. This ability is considered an important prerequisite for the further steps towards a well-developed language. If sounds can be distinguished from one another, individual words can also be distinguished from one another. It became clear that if mothers indicate a more negative mood two months after birth, their children show on average a less mature processing of speech sounds at the age of six months. The infants found it particularly difficult to distinguish between syllable-pitches. Specifically, they showed that the development of their so-called Mismatch Response was delayed than in those whose mothers were in a more positive mood. This Mismatch Response in turn serves as a measure of how well someone can separate sounds from one another. If this development towards a pronounced mismatch reaction is delayed, this is considered an indication of an increased risk of suffering from a speech disorder later in life.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2796564
Wagamaga OP t1_irdzwte wrote
Reply to Why some countries are leading the shift to green energy. The findings offer important lessons as many governments around the world race to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit the devastating impacts of climate change. by Wagamaga
Oil and gas prices skyrocketed following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in spring 2022, creating a global energy crisis similar to the oil crisis of the 1970s. While some countries used the price shock to accelerate the transition to cleaner sources of energy, such as wind, solar and geothermal, others have responded by expanding the production of fossil fuels.
A new study appearing today in the journal Science identifies the political factors that allow some countries to take the lead in adopting cleaner sources of energy while others lag behind. The findings offer important lessons as many governments around the world race to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit the devastating impacts of climate change.
“We are really interested in understanding how national differences mediate the responses of countries to the same kind of energy challenge,” said study lead author Jonas Meckling, an associate professor of energy and environmental policy at the University of California, Berkeley. “We found that the political institutions of countries shape how much they can absorb costly policies of all kinds, including costly energy policies.”
Wagamaga OP t1_ir9mnk1 wrote
Reply to Wear and tear from lifelong stress can increase cancer mortality. Even without adjusting for any potential confounders like age, social demographics like race and sex, those with a high allostatic load were 2.4 times more likely to die from cancer than those with low allostatic loads by Wagamaga
The wear and tear on the body from chronic and lifelong stress can also lead to an increased risk of dying from cancer, Medical College of Georgia researchers report.
That wear and tear, called allostatic load, refers to the cumulative effects of stress over time. “As a response to external stressors, your body releases a stress hormone called cortisol, and then once the stress is over, these levels should go back down,” says Dr. Justin Xavier Moore, epidemiologist at the Medical College of Georgia and Georgia Cancer Center. “However, if you have chronic, ongoing psychosocial stressors, that never allow you to ‘come down,’ then that can cause wear and tear on your body at a biological level.”
Investigators, led by Moore, performed a retrospective analysis of more than 41,000 people from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, or NHANES, collected between 1988-2019. That database includes baseline biological measures of participants — body mass index, diastolic and systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, hemoglobin A1C (higher levels indicate a risk for diabetes), albumin and creatinine (both measures of kidney function) and C-reactive protein (a measure of inflammation) — that the researchers used to determine allostatic load. Those with a score of more than 3 were categorized as having high allostatic load.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352827322001641?via%3Dihub
Wagamaga OP t1_ir6j2h5 wrote
Reply to Scientists have found there is no evidence that the COVID-19 vaccination increases the incidence of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks the nerves by Wagamaga
There is no evidence that the COVID-19 vaccination increases the incidence of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks the nerves, according to a Rutgers-led study.
Published in the journal Vaccine, a statistical analysis by a Rutgers-team found that there was not a significant association between any of the COVID-19 vaccinations currently offered and the disease. The team was led by Nizar Souayah, a professor of neurology at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School who mentored a group of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School students, in collaboration with other scientists.
In July 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning, based on early reports, that those receiving the Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine may be at a greater risk of developing the sometimes fatal disease.
Wagamaga OP t1_ir2fjae wrote
Reply to COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy is linked to a lower risk of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admission, stillbirth, and maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection and no additional risk of preterm birth. Researchers analysed nine observational studies comparing the pregnancy outcomes of 81,349 women by Wagamaga
COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy was linked to a lower risk of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admission, stillbirth, and maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection and no additional risk of preterm birth, small for gestational age (SGA), low Apgar score, cesarean delivery, postpartum hemorrhage, or chorioamnionitis, finds a systematic review and meta-analysis published yesterday in JAMA Pediatrics.
Japanese researchers led the analysis of nine observational studies comparing the pregnancy outcomes of 81,349 women who received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose with those of 255,346 unvaccinated peers through Apr 5, 2022. Average age was 32 to 35 years in the vaccinated group and 29.5 to 33 years in the unvaccinated group.
Among vaccinated women, 98.2% had received an mRNA vaccine (Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, or unstipulated), while 1.1% received a viral vector vaccine (Oxford/AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson), and 0.7% were undocumented.
In the six studies that reported the number of doses, 85.4% of women received two doses of an mRNA vaccine. Seven studies reported the timing of the first dose, with 5.9%, 46.3%, and 47.8% of women receiving their first dose during the first, second, and third trimester, respectively.
Wagamaga OP t1_iqm05kc wrote
Reply to Pacific island nations suffered severe depopulation from introduced diseases as a consequence of contact with European vessels, a new study from The Australian National University shows by Wagamaga
Pacific island nations suffered severe depopulation from introduced diseases as a consequence of contact with European vessels, a new study from The Australian National University (ANU) shows.
The research, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, indicates population declines were a lot larger than previously thought.
According to the study, the main island of Tonga had a population decline of between 70-86 per cent once Europeans made contact.
Researchers from the ANU School of Culture, History & Language, PhD candidate Phillip Parton and ARC Future Fellow Professor Geoffrey Clark, found there were between 100,000-120,000 people in Tonga prior to European contact.
“I and my co-author used aerial laser scanning data to map residences on the main island of Tonga and then used archaeological data I collected as part of my PhD to estimate the population,” Mr Parton said.
“This improved understanding of the past has allowed us to show a significant population decline from 50,000-60,000 to 10,000 during a 50-year period on the main island of Tongatapu in the Kingdom of Tonga.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352409X22002735?dgcid=author
Wagamaga OP t1_irsq5zy wrote
Reply to Meeting your daily step goal really does work to prevent important illnesses. Taking more than 8,200 steps a day – the equivalent of walking around four miles – was found to protect against the likes of obesity, sleep apnoea, high blood pressure and major depressive disorder by Wagamaga
A team from Vanderbilt University Medical Center asked more than 6,000 participants to wear Fitbit activity trackers for at least 10 hours a day
Analysis revealed taking more than 8,200 steps a day – the equivalent of walking about four miles – was found to protect against obesity, sleep apnea, high blood pressure and major depressive disorder.
The results also suggested that obese people can reduce their risk of becoming obese by 64 percent if they increased their daily steps from 6,000 to 11,000.
As the number of steps increased, the risk of most conditions decreased.
However, the risk of hypertension and diabetes did not decrease further after the participants reached about 8,000-9,000 steps per day.
The authors said that people who wear Fitbits tend to be more active than the average adult.
Still, “the fact that we were able to demonstrate robust associations between steps and … disease in this active sample suggests that even stronger associations may exist in a more sedentary population”.
The team said their findings provide a necessary first step toward the development of personalized activity prescriptions.
Writing in the journal Nature Medicine, they said: ‘We investigated the relationship between pedometer volume and intensity across the full spectrum of human disease using commercial activity monitors linked to a person’s electronic health records.
“We identified consistent and statistically significant associations between activity levels and incident diabetes, hypertension, gastroesophageal reflux disease, major depressive disorder, obesity, and sleep apnea.
‘Taking more steps each day was related to lower risk of developing these chronic diseases.
‘Higher step counts were associated with protection against obesity in a high-risk population.’
https://aumag.net/meeting-your-daily-step-target-really-does-prevent-diseases-study-claims/