Criteria for PTSD..

"The relevancy of an individual's subjective experience in determining what constitutes a traumatic event has been a source of debate among PTSD specialists for years. The study concludes that both objective and subjective factors are relevant and that current PTSD criteria are missing several reactions that many trauma survivors experience."

"A person's response is multifaceted and may include appraisals and other thoughts, a variety of felt emotions and behaviors. It's not enough to rely on the objective qualities of an experience to determine whether it should be considered traumatic or not," said co-author Brian P. Marx, PhD, an associate professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and psychologist at the VA National Center for PTSD.

"Trauma should be defined as the interaction between the individual and his or her environment and all parts of an individual's response should be considered."

PTSD is believed to be the result of exposure to trauma, so understanding what defines a traumatic experience is critical. The authors suggest that researchers investigate and add more appropriate examples to these criteria in order to more accurately categorize traumatic events.

"Knowing exactly what trauma is can help us to better know who is a trauma survivor and who is not," said Marx. "It is critical that we know this for the purposes of understanding the disorder as well as being better able to help those who are survivors of trauma."

It seems to me that the main problem with PTSD, as stated above, is that there is no concrete way of defining an event or experience as 'traumatic.' Indeed, although there may be events that we generally consider 'traumatic,' for example a bad car accident, it doesn't mean that any one individual suffering an event will become traumatised, or indeed, suffer from PTSD.

So if it's not an objective event that generates the trauma, then it is the perception or the thought process within a person that makes the event traumatic. So, logically, if this though process is generated through any event, even one that isn't considered traumatic - for example, realising you hadn't turned the plug on, symptoms and problems assocaited with PTSD could still manifest, and would it really be fair to claim that this individual wasn't suffering with PTSD just because we don't consider the event 'traumatic?'

Okay, maybe that example was a little far-fetched, but it makes you think, who am I to judge whether an event should or should not make you feel traumatised?

Original Article

New Breathing Treatment Program Effective Against Hyperventilation

"A new treatment program teaches people who suffer from panic disorder how to reduce the terrorizing symptoms by normalizing their breathing."

According to a recent study by panic disorder expert Alicia E. Meuret, this method - called Capnometry-Assisted Respiratory Training, or CART - has proved better than traditional cognitive therapy at reducing both symptoms of panic and hyperventilation.

"CART helps patients learn to breathe in such a way as to reverse hyperventilation, a highly uncomfortable state where the blood stream operates with abnormally low levels of carbon dioxide.

CART: Breathing exercises twice a day:

The goal of these exercises is to reduce chronic and acute hyperventilation and associated physical symptoms. This is achieved by breathing slower but most importantly more shallowly. Contrary to popular belief, taking deep breaths actually worsens hyperventilation and symptoms.

"Most panic-disorder patients report they are terrified of physical symptoms such as shortness of breath or dizziness," Meuret said. "In our study, cognitive therapy didn't change respiratory physiology, but CART did effectively reduce hyperventilation. CART was proved an effective and powerful treatment that reduces the panic by means of normalizing respiratory physiology."

CART breathing a proven biological therapy:

The study pitted CART against a conventional cognitive therapy treatment, or CT.

Both treatment programs were equally effective in reducing symptoms. But CART was the only treatment to physiologically alter panic symptoms by actively reversing hyperventilation in the patients."

Link to Full Article

Conduct Problems in Pre-teens Leads to Greater Problems in Teenagers

It's probably not a surprise that preteen with Conduct Problems evenutally leads to serious violence in the teenage years.

Well that's what a study by the Université de Montréal found recently.

They found that preteens who steal, destroy property, fight and bully are:

Six times as likely to sell drugs
Nine times as likely to join a gang
Eleven times as likely to carry a weapon
Eight times as likely to be arrested as a teenager

The study examined three groups of 12 and 13-year-old Canadian kids over a span of two years. The group consisted of 4,125 test-subjects who were classified according to precise symptoms of conduct disorders.

"Children with conduct disorders who are not violent are also more likely to adopt serious delinquent behaviors as teenagers," said the researchers.

Researchers for this study believe that the definition of conduct disorders in the DSM should be reviewed as it currently defines the disorder as a combination of any three symptoms on a list of 15, but it doesn't apply to all cases and allows for a possible 30,000 possible combinations.

Like I said, it's not a surprise, but maybe it is time to steop in early and stop the evolution of conduct problems to more serious crimes later in life.

Link to Paper

With A Little Help From Your Friends

"The long-term effects of being a withdrawn child are enduringly negative," says lead author William M. Bukowski, "Over time, we found that withdrawn kids showed increasing levels of sadness and higher levels of depressive feelings."

In this recent study, 130 girls and 101 boys took part in the three-year study, where they were asked to rate whether they felt shy or whether they preferred being on their own.

Compared with friendless children, those who had friends were less likely to report depressed feelings.

The researchers believe that "Friendship disrupts the negative and long-term effects of withdrawal. Friendship promotes resilience and protects at-risk kids from internalizing problems such as feeling depressed and anxious."

They concluded that the key to avoid peer rejection is to make at least one friend.

Link to full article on 'Science Daily'

Video games and Violence

The verdict is still out on Video Games - Do violent games cause aggression in children?

Well this recent study found that, no, in this case they showed no significant effect on children!

So this study recruited 302 (mainly Hispanic) children between 10 and 14 as part of a larger study of youth violence. They were interviewed twice - once at the start of the study and again 12 months later.

Their exposure to violence both in video games and on television as well as negative life events, including neighborhood problems, negative relationships with adults, antisocial personality, family attachment, and delinquent peers were all taken into account, as well as the styles of family interaction and communication, adolescents' exposure to domestic violence, depressive symptoms, serious aggression, bullying and delinquent behavior.

One year later they found that only 7% of the children who played violent videogames reported engaging in at least one criminally violent act. Only 19% reported engaging in at least one non-violent crime.

The researchers concluded that violent video games were not a good predictor of violent behaviour.

But what they did find was that depressive symptoms were a strong predictor for youth aggression and rule breaking, and their influence was particularly severe for those who had pre-existing antisocial personality traits.

This evidence doesn't end the argument about video games, but it's another step towards finding out the truth!

Link to Article

The Best Motivation to Stop Smoking?

What's the best way to motivate smokers to quit? Tell them what their habit is doing to their insides? Show them pictures of what it's doing to their inside? Tell them how much money they could be saving?

All good ideas.

But what about showing them what smoking is doing to their outside... in the future!

Using state-of-the-art morphing technology, researchers have been able to produce images of how smokers will age if they continue to smoke compared to if they stop.

Results were successful with over two thirds of participants in the project claiming they will quit smoking as a direct consequence of seeing how their appearance will change.

Professor Sarah Grogan, Project Lead and Professor of Health Psychology, said: "We found that women were very concerned about the impact of ageing on their faces in general and in particular the additional impact of smoking on their skin - Many experienced a physical shock reaction, including reports of nausea, to seeing how they would age if they continued to smoke.

Now THAT's motivation!

The researchers plan to retest the research participants six months later to see if they kept their word and stopped smoking.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

Article

Video Games and Children's Health.

How do we get children to eat their vegetables and drink more water? Fact-filled TV adverts? ...Funny radio characters? ...Computer games?

Well maybe so!

Two games, "Escape from Diab" and "Nanoswarm: Invasion from Inner Space" are video games specifically designed to lower risks of type 2 diabetes and obesity by changing behaviors.

"Diab and Nanoswarm were designed as epic video game adventures, comparable to commercial quality video games. These games incorporated a broad diversity of behavior change procedures woven in and around engrossing stories. The games motivated players to substantially improve diet behaviors," according to lead investigator Tom Baranowski, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics, U.S. Department of Agriculture/Agricultural Research Service supported Children's Nutrition Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine. "Serious video games hold promise, but their effectiveness and mechanisms of change among youth need to be more thoroughly investigated."

Amazingly they found that children actually ate more fruit and veg per day, however it didn't increase the amount of water they drank or physical activity. These children basically wanted to sit inside, play computer games and eat an apple! I guess it's better than a chocolate bar!

Oh well, you can't win them all!

But it's a huge step forward in using a medium that children really like to get them to lead healthier lives!

Link to Paper

Imaginary food is just as filling!

A new study has found that when you imagine eating a certain food, it reduces your actual consumption of that food.

"These findings suggest that trying to suppress one's thoughts of desired foods in order to curb cravings for those foods is a fundamentally flawed strategy," said Carey Morewedge, lead author of this study. "Our studies found that instead, people who repeatedly imagined the consumption of a morsel of food -- such as an M&M or cube of cheese -- subsequently consumed less of that food than did people who imagined consuming the food a few times or performed a different but similarly engaging task. We think these findings will help develop future interventions to reduce cravings for things such as unhealthy food, drugs and cigarettes, and hope they will help us learn how to help people make healthier food choices."

In the first experiment, participants imagined performing 33 repetitive actions, one at a time.

A second group imagined inserting 30 quarters into a laundry machine and then imagined eating 3 M&M'S.

A third group imagined inserting three quarters into a laundry machine and then imagined eating 30 M&M'S.

All the while, a control group imagined inserting 33 quarters into a laundry machine.

Next, all participants ate freely from a bowl filled with M&M'S. Participants who imagined eating 30 M&M'S actually ate significantly fewer M&M'S than did participants in the other groups.

To ensure that the results were due to imagined consumption of M&M'S rather than the control task, the next experiment manipulated the experience imagined (inserting quarters or eating M&M'S) and the number of times it was imagined. Again, the participants who imagined eating 30 M&M'S subsequently consumed fewer M&M'S than did the participants in the other groups.

"Habituation is one of the fundamental processes that determine how much we consume of a food or a product, when to stop consuming it, and when to switch to consuming another food or product," Vosgerau said. "Our findings show that habituation is not only governed by the sensory inputs of sight, smell, sound and touch, but also by how the consumption experience is mentally represented. To some extent, merely imagining an experience is a substitute for actual experience. The difference between imagining and experiencing may be smaller than previously assumed."

So if you want to stop craving that tasty christmas food come January, just think about eating it a little more often and watch your cravings melt away!

Link to Paper

Depression and it's link with Obesity

A new recent study has found that past surveys show having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more increases a person’s risk of depression by 50% to 150%.

Lead author said: “I expect that the relationship between depression and physical activity goes in both directions, Increased physical activity leads to improvement in depression and improvement in depression leads to increased physical activity. We see in our study that they go together, but we can’t say which causes which.”

In the study, women involved were put in two groups.
Group 1: Focused on weight loss
Group 2: Focused on weight loss and depression.

38% of the women who had at least a one-half point decrease on the Hopkins Symptom Checklist depression score lost at least 5% of their body weight.

But only 21% of the women who had no decrease in their depression score lost the same amount.

It seems that levels of depression can greatly affect your weight, perhaps suggesting that you must first help the mind before the body can be effectively helped also.


Simon GE, et al. Association between change in depression and change in weight among women enrolled in weight loss treatment. Gen Hosp Psych, 32(6), 2010.

The 'Secret Ingredient' of Religion

Entering the world of Positive Psychology now, a recent study has found that a 'Secret Ingredient' in religion actually makes people happier!

Researchers found that it was not necessarily the spiriual aspect of religion that makes people happier - but the social side! Friendships made within religious congregations lead to greater life satisfaction!

The study compared those who attend religious services weekly, those who attended a few times a year and those that never attended. According to the study, 33% of religious people who have three to five close friends in their congregation report that they are "extremely satisfied." But only 19% of religious people who have no close friend in their congregation report the same.

23% of those who attended only a few times a year but have three to five close friends in their congregation reported that they were "extremely satisfied."

Last of all, 19% of those who never attend religious services say they are extremely satisfied with their lives. The same as those who attend every week, but have no friends within the congregation. This suggests strongly that the part of the service that is most beneficial to the person, in terms of life satisfaction is the socil side!

The researchers commented that: "One of the important functions of religion is to give people a sense of belonging to a moral community based on religious faith. This community, however, could be abstract and remote unless one has an intimate circle of friends who share a similar identity. The friends in one's congregation thus make the religious community real and tangible, and strengthen one's sense of belonging to the community."

They found this evidence within a wide range of Christian denominations as well as similar results within Jewish and Mormon communities.

So you want to be happier? Head out there and make some friends! :)

Article

Dopamine and Individual Styles of Response

Contrary to popular belief, researchers have found that the differences in individuals' styles of response to environmental cues can influence chemical reward patterns in the brain. This has a great impact for future treatment and prevention of a number of compulsive behaviours.

The age old question: to what extent is the dopamine released by the rat's brain related to the lever's ability to accurately predict the food. They concluded that it depends on your style!

An example the researchers used: "Some people will see a sign for an ice cream shop and for them it's simply that, an indicator that ice cream is available nearby. But other people will have a stronger reaction to the sign -- the tantalizing association between the sign and ice cream is so powerful, they can already taste the treat and often hurry to buy some."

Similar reactions could be said to occur when people are addicted to harmful substances, not just food.

Using a technique called 'fast-scan cyclic voltammetry,' researchers measured the dopamine responses in the rats' brains - Analysis showed that the rats that were fixated on the environmental cue (the lever) got a jolt of happiness just from the lever, while the other rats did not. This desire for the lever continued even after the food reward was removed - showing how the environmental cue was enough for some rats to be rewarded, but not for others.

So it seems that although maybe we all seem the same on the outside, inside we could all have vastly different chemical processes occuring, based upon our reaction to the world around us..

Journal Article

Family History of Alcoholism linked with Decreased Neuronal Activity

New research exploring the neural processes of adolescents with alcohol abuse in their family history has indicated that a positive family history may confer a significant risk for future alcoholism in the teenager!

Researchers examined teenagers that had not begun to drink, but had a family history of alcoholism, to rule out any brain differences caused by alcohol as a direct result.

In the experiment, the participants were required to prevent themselves from reading a color word out loud, and focus instead on the color of the ink the word was written in.

The researchers discovered that the teens with a familt history of Alcoholism showed higher levels of frontal lobe activation during the Stroop Interference test, suggesting they had decreased neuronal efficiency, meaning - to get the same score as the control group their brain had to work harder.

Link to Article

Depression and Related Problems

The World Health Organization has predicted that depression will be the world's leading cause of disability by 2020. But what can we do about it?

Well, it may not break any records but for a start - let's try and minimise smoking!

Based on the results of a new study, researchers involved recommend quitting smoking to improve mood! In the study they tracked the symptoms of depression in people who were trying to quit and found that they were never happier than when they were being successful, for however long that was.

"The assumption has often been that people might smoke because it has antidepressant properties and that if they quit it might unmask a depressive episode," said Kahler. "What's surprising is that at the time when you measure smokers' mood, even if they've only succeeded for a little while, they are already reporting less symptoms of depression."

With smokers that only quit temporarily, their moods were clearly brightest at the checkups when they were abstinent but after going back to smoking, their became more depressed and sometimes the depression was actually worse than before. Surprisingly, participants who never quit remained the unhappiest of all.

So if you want to start feeling better, it's time to stop smoking!

And best get started quickly as another study has found that depression may be a consequence of and risk factor for Diabetes!

Research found that women with depression were about 17% more likely to develop diabetes after controlling for other risk factors, such as physical activity and body mass index (BMI). Those who were taking antidepressants had a 25% higher risk of developing diabetes than those who did not have depression.

After controlling for other risk factors for mood disorders, women with diabetes were 29% more likely to develop depression. Women who took insulin for diabetes had a further increased risk -- 53% higher than women without diabetes.

The WHO may be right, and if so - maybe we need to look at all this small things to try and curb depression in society. Maybe it seems like very small changes, but a number of small changes add up to something bigger!

Article 1


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How Lemonade Curbs Aggression

Need to give somebody some bad news and fear they may get just a little bit angry with you? Give them some Sugary Lemonade first and be amazed at the difference!

A recent study has found that people who drink a glass of lemonade with sugar acted less aggressively toward a stranger a few minutes later than people who consumed lemonade with a sugar substitute.

Now why would this make a difference? The researchers suggest that the increased glucose in the sugared lemonade allows the person to have greater self control, which enables them to avoid their angry impulse. This is because self control takes a lot of energy, and the extra glucose gives this energy to the brain.

It was also found in other studies that that people who have trouble using glucose in their bodies show more evidence of aggression.

"Diabetes may not only harm yourself -- it is bad for society," said Bushman (co-author of the study.) This is because those with diabetes struggle with using their glucose, meaning, this study suggests, they are likely to suffer from increased aggression.

"To our knowledge, this is the first study to find that boosting glucose levels can reduce actual aggressive behavior," Bushman said.

Interestingly, when 2001 data was anaysed, the researchers found that diabetes rates for each of the 50 US states were linked to violent crime rates. Those states with higher diabetes rates also tended to have higher rates of murder, assault, rape and robbery, even after controlling for poverty rates in each state.

In a Prisoner's Dilemma experiment, those who scored higher on diabetic symptoms were less likely to forgive an initially uncooperative partner, when compared to those who scored lower on diabetic symptoms.

Evidence does seem to be mounting against those who cannot metabolise their clucose correctly!

The researchers believe that "with the rate of diabetes increasing worldwide, it is something that should concern all of us."

And maybe it should!

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