A popular saying mentioned that exposure to negative emotions like stress and depression makes the person look older. Well, it’s highly likely according to a study conducted in Umeå University in Sweden. People who experienced prolonged bouts of negative emotions tend to accelerate aging process of cells, based in the DNA sequences called Telomeres of their white blood cells.
Telomeres are found in the outermost ends of the chromosomes. As cells (and chromosomes) replicate, the telomeres becomes shorter. Therefore it is used as an accurate biological marker of aging because as cells age, the telomeres becomes shorter. When telomeres divide, its DNA sequence is also replicated. But as it divides again and again some bits and pieces of the original DNA sequence is lost which is implicated as the cause of aging process.
The participants of the study are composed of 91 patients with recurrent depression and 451 healthy persons as controls. The lengths of their telomeres from white blood cells and cortisol levels are measured. In addition, the participants were subjected to dexamethasone suppression test to determine how their bodies react to stress.
The results showed that participants with high cortisol levels, an indicator of chronic stress, and depression have shorter telomeres compared to healthy individuals. People with depression often have disturbed cortisol regulation, and therefore are often stressed. The role mental problems to accelerated shortening of telomeres are not yet known, but this is the first study that shows relationship between the two.
In previous studies, shortened telomeres are linked to DNA damage and tumour formation. It is thought that shortened telomeres increase chances of cellular abberations. Because aging is associated with onset of numerous disorders, researchers recommended that it is important for people to have some sort of stress management and to seek professional help for psychiatric problems.
The study appears in the upcoming issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry.
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Filed under Anxiety Disorders, Major Depression, Mental Health, Mental Illness by on Nov 22nd, 2011. Comment. 
Leptin, the hormone produced from fat cells, are found to cause symptoms of anxiety and depression according to the study from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in United States.
The hormone, which was just recently discovered in 2004, was one of the important fat-derived hormones in the body. It helps inhibit appetite, and deficiency of the hormone results to increased food intake and delayed satiety. And recently it is found that low levels of the hormone causes anxiety and depression, and vice versa. Furthermore, amount of body fat and weight does not seem to have any effect.
The researchers studied fasting blood leptin levels, amount of body fat and weight of a total of 64 women; with 15 of them having anorexia, 17 are overweight and 12 had hypothalamic amenorrhea, a condition that causes low leptin levels but have normal fat levels. The rest of the participants were healthy women with normal weight. The participants were also assessed for their stress levels, depression and anxiety symptoms.
This is the first study that links the hormone to anxiety and depression to humans, regardless of amount of fat in the body. In animals, leptin is shown to have anti-depressant and anti-anxiety properties. Other studies link leptin to fertility, increased thickness and inflammation.
Researchers further commented that studies with more participants are needed to establish whether leptin has the potential for treatment of depression and anxiety.
Filed under Anxiety Disorders, Major Depression, Mental Illness by on Nov 3rd, 2011. Comment.
Men who experiences daily moderate and high levels of stressful events increase their mortality rate by as much as 50 percent, according to a study among senior males.
This study is the first to show link between stress and mortality, and also to include major stressors like death of spouse or putting a parent into a retirement home. This is unlike to other studies that examined stress only at single time point.
Researchers from the Oregon State University studied 1000 working class men from 1985 to 2003. These men were picked because they had good health and participated in an earlier study during the 1960’s.
Those who are identified to have low-stress living had only a history of two or fewer major life events in a year, compared to three for those with moderate-stress and six to the high-stress groups. Researchers postulated that two major life events a year is already too much for people.
In contrast the study suggests that alcohol and sex, which helps relieve high levels of stress, appears to help reduce mortality. That explains why teetotalers and smokers appear to suffer from increased mortality. Researchers suggest that stress control, having a spouse and glass of wine every night can help achieve long life.
The study appears now in the Journal of Aging Research.
Filed under Anxiety Disorders, Mental Health, Mental Illness by on Oct 27th, 2011. Comment.
Many people self-report that they hate mathematics and anything that talks about arithmetic, but this may be caused more by fear rather than poor innate ability to process numbers, researchers at the University of Chicago said.
Researchers termed this as math-anxiety, wherein the individual experiences some sort of ‘fear’ when faced with task of using arithmetic skills. Individuals with this condition feared to be overwhelmed by anxiety, thus they try to simply ‘avoid’ computing numbers to prevent being overcome by anxiety. To prove it, researchers used a functional MRI to scan the brains of university-level students who have self-reported poor mathematical skills and those who fare well in the subject. They were made to answer difficult math tests while having an MRI.
Scans reveal some differences in the brains among two groups. Greater activation of the frontal and parietal regions, areas of the brain associated with regulating negative emotions and concentration, resulted to better performance to math tests on math-anxious students. Those students got 83 percent of questions correct, almost in par to those students who don’t have problems in mathematics.
The findings suggest that students who have problems in math can improve their situation by controlling the anxiety they feel whenever faced with numbers. Improving self-confidence in computations and self-acceptance to mistakes are also very helpful to students when engaged to math subjects. Classroom practices that encourage the student to focus their attention and engage at the math task at hand can help eliminate poor performance brought by math anxiety, written by the researchers.
The study appears in the October issue of the journal Cerebral Cortex.
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Filed under Anxiety Disorders, Learning Disability, Mental Health, Mental Illness by on Oct 26th, 2011. Comment.
