Children who overreact to stressors may be at risk of becoming overweight or obese, according to researchers at Penn State and Johns Hopkins University.
"Our results suggest that some children who are at risk of becoming obese can be identified by their biological response to a stressor," said Lori Francis, associate professor of biobehavioral health. "Ultimately, the goal is to help children manage stress in ways that promote health and reduce the risks associated with an over- or under-reactive stress response."
Francis and her colleagues — Douglas Granger, director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research at Johns Hopkins University, and Elizabeth Susman, Jean Phillips Shibley Professor of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State — recruited 43 children ages 5- to 9-years-old and their parents to participate in the study.
To examine the children’s reactions to a stressor, the team used the Trier Social Stress Test for Children, which consists of a five-minute anticipation period followed by a 10-minute stress period. During the stress period, the children were asked to deliver a speech and perform a mathematics task. The team measured the children’s responses to these stressors by comparing the cortisol content of their saliva before and after the procedure.
Full story of stress and obesity in children at Science Daily
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Psychologists warn the mental health effects of Hurricane Sandy could be powerful, HealthDay reports.
“Sandy, like all natural disasters, is considered a criterion ‘A1′ stressor in the diagnoses of acute stress disorder in the first month after the event and post-traumatic stress disorder, at least a month after the event,” said Simon Rego, Director of Psychology Training at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. “I’d expect many people to display symptoms of acute stress disorder even if they did not directly experience effects of Sandy.”
The symptoms could include insomnia, irritability, feeling numb or detached from others, restlessness, or feeling in a daze, Rego noted. Some people closest to the destruction could experience flashbacks, while others may avoid people or places that remind them of the event.
Full story of hurricane sandy and mental health at DrugFree.org
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Work stress, job satisfaction and health problems due to high stress have more to do with genes than you might think, according to research by Timothy Judge, professor of management at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.
The lead author of "Genetic influences on core self-evaluations, job satisfaction, work stress, and employee health: A behavioral genetics mediated model," published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Judge studied nearly 600 twins — some identical, some fraternal — who were raised together and reared apart. He found that being raised in the same environment had very little effect on personality, stress and health. Shared genes turned out to be about four times as important as shared environment.
"Assume James and Sandy both work in the same organization," Judge says. "James reports more stress than Sandy. Does it mean that James’ job is objectively more stressful than Sandy’s? Not necessarily. Our study suggests strong heritabilities to work stress and the outcomes of stress. This means that stress may have less to do with the objective features of the environment than to the genetic ‘code’ of the individual."
Full story of stressed jobs at Science Daily
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We all know stress is bad for you, but just how bad?
It would be unethical to intentionally subject people to extreme psychological duress in the name of science. But ongoing military operations offer opportunities to see what happens to people exposed to stressful situations.
Researchers in the Netherlands found the brains of soldiers who go into combat show impairment in function and structure upon returning, but that these effects largely go away over time.
The study
A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looked at 33 healthy Dutch soldiers deployed to Afghanistan for four months. It was the first military deployment for all of them, part of a NATO peacekeeping operation.
Researchers compared these participants to 26 soldiers who were never deployed.
The soldiers who were deployed experienced armed combat and exposure to enemy fire, as well as other common combat stressors. But this did not appear to aggravate stress symptoms; researchers did not find significant differences in post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and mood scores between the deployed and non-deployed groups.
Full story of stress on the brain at CNN Health
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Chronic stress, prompted by major life stressors and type A personality traits, is linked to a high risk of stroke, finds research published online in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
Chronic stress, manifested as physical and/or mental symptoms in response to stressors lasting longer than 6 months has been linked to a heightened risk of heart disease. But its impact on the risk of stroke has not been clear.
The research team base their findings on150 adults, with an average age of 54, who had been admitted to one stroke unit, and 300 randomly selected healthy people of a similar age who lived in the same neighborhood.
Levels of chronic stress were assessed using the combined quantitative scores of four validated scales, looking at major life events; symptoms, such as anxiety and depression; general wellbeing; and behavior patterns indicative of type A personality (ERCTA scale).
Full story of chronic stress and strokes at Science Daily
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Children who overreact to stressors may be at risk of becoming overweight or obese, according to researchers at Penn State and Johns Hopkins University.
