Category: Health News Today

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How much should you walk every day to reduce risk?

How much should you walk every day to reduce risk?

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How many steps a day help offset dementia risk? Researchers may now have the answer. Image credit: Christopher Fanelli/EyeEm/Getty Images.
  • Dementia affects more than 55 million people worldwide and is the seventh leading cause of death globally.
  • With the proportion of older people in the population increasing, the number of dementia cases is also on the rise.
  • There is mounting evidence that regular physical exercise not only benefits general health, but is also one of the most effective ways to reduce the risk of developing dementia.
  • In good news for those who struggle to fit exercise into their daily routine, a new study has shown that walking around 4,000 steps a day may reduce dementia risk by 25{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}.
  • Upping their daily step count to just under 10,000 could halve a person’s risk of developing dementia.

As the global population ages, cases of dementia are also on the rise worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that some 55 million people currently have dementia, and the number is set to rise to 139 million by 2050.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that Alzheimer’s disease, the commonest form of dementia, affects around 5.8 million people in the United States alone.

The greatest risk factors for dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Society, are aging and genetics. Dementia is most common in those aged over 75, and having a close relative with dementia may increase a person’s risk of developing the disorder.

Other risk factors that we cannot control include sex — females are more at risk than males — and ethnicity. However, lifestyle changes, such as increasing physical exercise, controlling blood pressure, and keeping the brain stimulated, can decrease a person’s risk of dementia, even for those who have one or more risk factors.

Dr. Anton Porsteinsson, professor and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Care, Research and Education Program (AD-CARE) at the University of Rochester Medical Center, told Medical News Today:

“A broad, healthy approach factoring in lifestyle, diet, exercise, cognitive stimulation, socialization, and sleep all make a difference. Many of them [can be effective] even if started later in life.”

And physical exercise need not mean sweating it out at the gym or taking up a new sport.

According to a study recently published in JAMA Neurology, simply increasing the number of steps a person takes each day can decrease their dementia risk by as much as 50{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}.

The study used data from the UK Biobank. The 78,430 participants, of whom 44.7{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} were male and 55.3{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} female, had a mean age of 61.1 years. All participants were free of cardiovascular disease and dementia when they enrolled in the study. Researchers followed up with participants after a median of 6.9 years (6.4–7.5 years).

For the study, participants had to wear an accelerometer on their dominant wrist 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to measure physical activity. The researchers then used an algorithm to work out the step count from the data collected by the accelerometer.

The researchers controlled for variables such as age, sex, race, socioeconomic status, smoking, overall health, and diet when analyzing the data.

At follow-up, 866 participants, or 1.1{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}, had developed dementia.

While welcoming the study findings, Dr. Claire Sexton, Alzheimer’s Association senior director of scientific programs and outreach, who was not involved in the study, told MNT:

“There are a few important caveats of this study. The population sampled was majority white, and therefore may not be generalizable to other race/ ethnic groups. This study also does not demonstrate definitive causation between step count and dementia risk; therefore, more research is needed.”

“The Alzheimer’s Association is conducting a clinical trial combining exercise with other lifestyle factors, like diet and social/ cognitive engagement, to determine if these factors in combination reduce risk of cognitive decline,” she added.

Dr. Porsteinsson agreed: “There are definite limitations to observational cohort studies but advantages as well. They are hypothesis-generating, that is they point us toward what we may want to study further in a controlled, randomized study. The good news here is that there is a bulk of evidence that suggests that exercise is beneficial in staving off dementia.”

“This is an important study that may help inform public health guidelines around the amount of physical activity necessary to reap health benefits,” said Dr. Sexton.

“These results are not surprising given the robust data we have linking physical activity and better cognition. A strength of this paper is it used an objective, widely-understood measure of step count rather than self-reported data,” she noted.

The researchers found that both the number of steps and stepping intensity were associated with reduced dementia risk. For the greatest benefit — a 50{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} reduction in dementia risk — participants had to walk around 9,800 steps per day. Above this number, no further benefit was seen.

However, the good news for those who cannot achieve this many steps was that just 3,826 steps a day reduced dementia risk by 25{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}.

Dr. Porsteinsson agreed that any exercise will help reduce risk. “[It’s] never too late to get started and even a relatively small effort is beneficial and can then be added to as endurance improves,” he told us.

Purposeful steps, defined as more than 40 steps per minute, such as when going for a walk, increased the association with reduced dementia risk.

“Here, we see a ‘dose’ effect, that is, more intense and purposeful walking is more beneficial than leisurely walking. Also, people often walk with others (walk and talk) so you can get a social component and an interactive component in as well.”

– Dr. Anton Porsteinsson

This study adds to building evidence that staying active as you age can maintain physical and mental health and improve longevity.

Another large-scale study of almost 650,000 military veterans found that being physically fit reduced dementia risk by up to 33{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}. In this study, even a small amount of exercise was found to help reduce dementia risk.

An analysis from the Alzheimer’s Society of 11 studies found that, out of taking regular exercise, not smoking, moderating alcohol intake, maintaining a healthy body weight, and eating a healthy diet, it was regular exercise that had the greatest impact on dementia risk.

For Alzheimer’s disease, regular exercise reduced risk by up to 45{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}.

“The bottom line is we know physical activity supports good cardiovascular health — and what’s good for the heart is good for the brain. Find something you enjoy doing and stick to it.”

– Dr. Claire Sexton

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What is it, and how does it affect mental health?

What is it, and how does it affect mental health?

Over the last several decades, gender roles have evolved and changed to reflect shifting societal norms. Yet, despite these changes, unpaid household labor disparities still exist between partnered men and women worldwide. In this Special Feature, we take an in-depth look at how this unequal division of unpaid work affects women’s mental health and relationships. We also spoke with three experts to gain insight into this global issue.

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Women continue to shoulder the majority of unremunerated tasks. What does this mean for their mental health? Image credit: Juana Mari Moya/Getty Images.

Although gender roles are less rigid than they were decades ago, data suggest that, in heterosexual relationships, the burden of unpaid work still falls on women — even in cohabitating relationships where both partners are employed.

For example, 2021 US Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that both spouses were employed in 46.8{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of married couple families. Yet statistics also indicate that 59{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of women report doing more household work than their partners.

However, other data suggest that since the mid-1970s, the amount of time men spend on household tasks has doubled. For instance, in 1976, men spent around 6 hours a week on household duties. In 2005, that number increased to around 12.5 hours per week.

But, in those same years, women still spent more time completing unpaid household labor — specifically, around 26 hours per week in 1976 and around 16.5 hours per week in 2005.

Still, the impact unpaid labor inequities may have on women’s mental health is often overlooked.

To examine this further, scientists from the University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, investigated the relationship between unpaid labor and mental health among employed adults.

Their findings, published in The Lancet Public Health, suggest a negative association between unpaid labor and mental health for employed women. However, the researchers did not find the same associations for working men.

To conduct the research, the scientists reviewed 19 studies with 70,310 total participants from across the globe. Qualifying studies were peer-reviewed and measured the amount of unpaid labor among employed adults. They also outlined associations between this type of work and self-reported mental health concerns, including depression and psychological distress.

After examining the research, the study authors found that women reported taking on more unpaid work regardless of geographical location and time setting. Moreover, this added burden was associated with poorer mental health in women. However, the impact on men was less clear.

In addition, the researchers also found that a 1-hour increase in unpaid work per week led to small but significant changes in mental health status. Furthermore, some studies in the review reported a 0.2–0.4-point rise in depression scores for every 10-hour increase in unpaid labor time.

Although more investigation is needed, the study authors suggest that persistent household labor inequities continue to exist among male and female partners worldwide. And this imbalance exposes women to an increased risk of negative mental health effects.

Study author Jennifer Ervin, a doctoral researcher in the Centre for Health Equity at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, told Medical News Today:

“There is no universally recognized term or definition for unpaid labor — also referred to as unpaid work, unpaid care work, domestic labor, or household labor — but it is considered broadly inclusive of all responsibilities and tasks done to maintain a household and its family members without any explicit monetary compensation.”

“So childcare is a big one, and relatedly so is care for people with disability, health conditions or who are elderly. But it also includes domestic work like laundry, food preparation, cleaning, running errands, and outdoor tasks,” she added.

The study authors suggest that a significant unpaid workload combined with the responsibilities of employment may contribute to role overload, conflict, and time scarcity, which can negatively affect mental health.

Additionally, housework is often perceived as mundane, undervalued, or unenjoyable.

However, men may experience less adverse mental health concerns with unpaid labor because of the nature of the tasks.

Ervin explained:

“We know that men commonly do the less time-sensitive jobs within the household, such as outdoor or maintenance tasks. These are referred to in the literature as high-schedule-control tasks — as one has more control over when one undertakes this type of unpaid labor work.”

To clarify further, Ervin said that “a good example is that you can delay mowing the lawn until the weekend, for instance, when you are less time-pressured, whereas you cannot delay feeding a hungry child or driving a dependent to a medical appointment.”

“Outdoor tasks are also theorized to not only be less time-sensitive but may also be more enjoyable and possibly protective than other types of household work,” she added.

Dr. Naomi Murphy, consultant clinical and forensic psychologist and co-founder of Octopus Psychology, told MNT: “Inequality causes anxiety and depression. It creates distance between unequal parties and causes mistrust and resentment. […] It can leave women feeling devalued and resentful of their partner and overwhelmed by the volume of responsibilities they have.”

She also noted that the unequal burden “can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness within the relationship.”

“If significantly more of the responsibility is shouldered by one person, it can create a sense of overwhelm and a feeling that you can’t meet all your responsibilities; it can also lead to a reduction in confidence,” Dr. Murphy explained.

Household labor disparities between men and women may have resulted from several factors. Ervin suggests that it may be “substantially rooted in historical context and times — when it was normative for women to be homemakers and for men to be breadwinners.”

“Resultantly, there remain deeply entrenched gender roles and social norms around the gendered division of household labor. Unfortunately, despite women entering the paid workforce in unprecedented numbers during the 20th century, there has not been a parallel or remotely equal increase in men’s participation in labor on the home front,” Ervin explained.

Dr. Murphy further noted the intergenerational impact of unpaid labor inequities:

“Families often socialize daughters into helping more with household chores; generations of women have done this, so the patterns are entrenched. As girls are more likely to emulate their female role models, this pattern gets transferred from one generation to the next.”

In addition to mental health harm, ongoing unpaid work inequities may impact personal and professional relationships.

According to Dr. Mark Goulston, psychiatrist and executive coach, and founding member at Newsweek Expert Forum, unpaid labor imbalances “can cause women to feel more overwhelmed, [to] often feel […] that at any moment they are disappointing someone so that if they’re focused on work, they’re neglecting home and children and if they’re focused on home and children, they’re neglecting work.”

He also noted that “women who are exhausted can become impatient with their children and inside feel deep resentment which can cause them to feel shame and that they are an awful mother.”

According to Dr. Murphy, “the loss of confidence created by overwhelm can [also] spill out to professional life.”

Moreover, “the person shouldering the burden of household work may feel anger at their partner for not pulling his weight which can translate into intimacy problems,” she added.

To facilitate changes when experiencing unequal division of household work, Dr. Murphy offered the following suggestions to women:

  • talk with your partner and tell them how you feel before the issue becomes problematic
  • discuss and negotiate a fair division of labor
  • find ways to appreciate each other and remind yourself why you fell in love
  • find ways to value yourself and appreciate yourself
  • consider couples counseling to rekindle closeness, intimacy, and improve communication.

“Try not to criticize how your partner does the contributions they do make – they may not be doing it as fast as you like or in the same way, but criticism is likely to deter them from contributing,” she also advised.

On a larger scale, changing deeply rooted unpaid labor inequities within families may require specific policy changes.

Moving forward, Ervin suggested that “[p]olicies such as universal childcare and normalizing flexible working arrangements and extended paternity leave for men can help in shifting the dial and driving greater gender equality in the division of unpaid labor and unpaid care.”

“Importantly, however, we need to be careful about policies that only target women as this may reinforce gender inequalities,” she emphasized.

“We need to dismantle norms around what it means to be an ideal worker and highlight the importance of gender-neutral approaches to leave and flexible working – accommodating how work integrates with home life for both women and men. This is fundamental to gender equality.”

– Jennifer Ervin

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What you need to know

What you need to know

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How are nasal COVID-19 vaccines different? Image credit: lakshmiprasad S/Getty Images.
  • About 1 in 10 people put off getting their COVID-19 vaccine due to a fear of needles.
  • Two companies — one in China and one in India — recently received approval in their respective countries for intranasal vaccines to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe COVID-19 disease.
  • Some medical experts believe nasal vaccines will offer new benefits for use and efficacy.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, new vaccines to prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19m are under constant development.

Up to now, all approved COVID-19 vaccines have been subcutaneous — that is, administered under the skin, often by injection into the upper area of the arm.

Now, two companies are planning to change that through the development of COVID-19 vaccines inhaled through the nose.

CanSino Biologics, a Chinese pharmaceutical company, recently received approval from the National Medical Products Administration of China for Convidecia Air, their recombinant vaccine delivered via inhalation, as a nasal spray.

Bharat Biotech International, a biotechnology company headquartered in India, has been granted approval under Restricted Use in Emergency Situation in India for its iNCOVACC recombinant vaccine administered intranasally as nasal drops.

The most common way of administering a vaccine continues to be through an injection. However, this is not the first time scientists have developed an intranasal vaccine option. The most widely known nasal vaccines right now are for influenza, commonly known as the flu.

There have also been studies conducted on nasal vaccines for other diseases, including pertussis (whooping cough), hepatitis B, and the African swine fever virus.

Some researchers believe that delivering a vaccine nasally provides the benefit of administering the vaccine directly into the mucosa of the body. The mucosa, or mucus membrane, is the moist inner layer of body cavities, such as the nose and mouth, as well as some organs. The glands in the mucosa are what produce mucus.

The mucosa is an important part of the body’s immune system. When a person breathes, the mucosa helps keep bacteria and other potentially problematic particles from getting into their body.

The mucosa also absorbs certain pathogens. And because the nose connects to the body’s respiratory system, this makes it easy for a nasal vaccine to move through the body.

Additionally, nasal vaccines provide less stress for people who are afraid of needles. Experts estimate that 1 out of 4 adults and 2 out of 3 children are afraid of shots. And 1 out of every 10 people may put off having the COVID-19 vaccination due to their fear of needles.

Both Convidecia Air from CanSino Biologics, and iNCOVACC from Bharat Biotech International Limited are recombinant vaccines.

That means they use a protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the vaccine. When the vaccine enters the body, the protein attaches to cells in the body, teaching them to trigger an immune response if they ever encounter that same protein again.

Both of these intranasal vaccines also use adenovirus vector technology. Adenoviral vectors are genetically engineered viruses previously used in gene therapy.

Researchers have also conducted studies on using adenovirus vectors as a vaccine platform for other diseases, including HIV-1, Ebola, and various other infectious diseases.

According to statements on CanSino Biologics website, Convidecia Air uses the same adenovirus vector technological platform as Convidecia, the company’s injectable COVID-19 vaccine.

Convidecia recently received emergency use listing from the World Health Organization (WHO). The phase 3 clinical trial results for Convidecia showed a 57.5{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} efficacy rate against SARS-CoV-2 infection preventing symptomatic COVID-19 28 days or more after vaccination.

Bharat Biotech’s iNCOVACC nasal vaccine was developed in partnership with Washington University St. Louis. The intranasal vaccine reportedly showed “successful results” following phase 1, 2, and 3 clinical trials.

Although these are the first two intranasal COVID-19 vaccines to receive approvals, there are others currently in development.

For example, a team of microbiologists at Mount Sinai is currently developing an intranasal COVID-19 vaccine candidate that is in or has completed phase 1 and 2 trials in Thailand, Brazil, Mexico, and Vietnam, with a phase 1 trial recently launched at Mount Sinai in the U.S.

According to Mount Sinai public communications, this novel intranasal vaccine is an egg-based vaccine that uses Newcastle Disease Virus (NDV).

In March, the University of Oxford reported the launch of phase 1 clinical trials investigating the delivery of a nasal COVID-19 vaccine it developed in partnership with AstraZeneca.

And in May, Codagenix, a vaccine development company based in the U.S., announced the start of phase 1 clinical trials for its CoviLiv intranasal COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

Medical News Today spoke with Dr. Fady Youssef, a board-certified pulmonologist, internist, and critical care specialist at MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center in Long Beach, CA, about these new intranasal vaccines and what benefits they might offer.

“I think it’s great to have different options for patients that they can choose from, whatever they’re most comfortable with,” he stated.

“We’ve used nasal vaccines for other diseases. Some influenza vaccines are given intranasally and they work pretty well. So the mode of administration and of itself should not be held against or for the vaccine. It’s going to be more of a data about the tolerability and how good of a response the host amounts to.”

– Dr. Fady Youssef

As intranasal COVID-19 vaccines become more readily available, Dr. Youssef suggested people talk to their doctor to make sure it is the right vaccine delivery system for them.

“Some patients that may have had nasal surgeries, have sinus issues, or have nasal polyps, [so] this may not be the best option for them,” he cautioned.

And Dr. Peter Palese, Horace W. Goldsmith professor and chair in the Department of Microbiology and professor in the Department of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said that while mRNA vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 — such as those from Pfizer and Moderna — are effective in reducing infection rates and lessen the severity of disease, even multiple immunizations with the current vaccines do not prevent breakthroughs of infections and are less than perfect in eliminating transmission from person to person.

“Thus, vaccines administered via the nose inducing mucosal immunity should show improvements in terms of breakthrough infections and the spread of the disease,” he noted.

“The approval of such vaccines in China and India produced by CanSino Biologics and Bharat Biotech, respectively, represent a major step forward towards effective mucosal COVID-19 vaccines,” said Dr. Palese.

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How to have a healthy relationship with the news

How to have a healthy relationship with the news

We all do it — reach for the phone first thing in the morning to check the news. And no wonder, with all that has happened in the world over the past few years. But might this habit be harming our health? Medical News Today assessed the evidence and spoke to experts to find out what we can do to prevent becoming overwhelmed by the news.

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How can we build a healthier relationship with the news? Image credit: Jose Azel/Getty Images.

The past few years have seen many global challenges. With political upheavals in many countries, a global pandemic, and armed violence around the world, many of us feel we have to keep abreast of what is happening around us.

And, with 24-hour feeds to our smartphones, laptops, and TVs, it is easy to do so. However, that very ease of access means that avoiding those doom-laden headlines can be hard.

For many people, this is not an issue — they can read the news and move on. However, a recent study from the United States has highlighted that, for some people, an obsession with the news can impact both mental and physical health.

“The use of news as a form of emotional regulation, as a form of avoidance from life, the loss of control over how much and in what conditions and for what purposes you seek out the news, and the interference that it has in your life and the ability to rein it in. That looks, to me, very much like many forms of addictive behavior.”

– Dr. Steven C. Hayes, foundation professor of psychology, University of Nevada, Reno

The study differentiated between those who consume excessive amounts of news without it causing them any problems and those for whom news consumption was problematic.

The researchers defined problematic news consumption as:

  • being absorbed in news content and constantly worrying about news and stressful events
  • compulsively checking the news
  • experiencing interference in everyday life from their news consumption.

Dr. Heather Sequeira, consultant psychologist and chartered member of The British Psychological Society, who was not involved in the study, told Medical News Today:

“Problematic news consumption may be particularly harmful because the news consistently focuses on negative and threatening issues and events. And the more extensive a crisis or disaster is, the more news attention it receives.”

In the study sample of 1,100 adults, almost half had “moderately” or “severely” problematic news consumption. And for 16.5{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}, severely problematic news consumption was impacting other aspects of their lives.

Those with severely problematic news consumption had significantly greater mental and physical ill health than those whose news consumption was minimally or not problematic.

Health symptoms, including stress, anxiety, sleep problems, fatigue, physical pain, poor concentration, and gastrointestinal issues are some of the symptoms reported by those who tend to become overwhelmed by the news.

Lead author Dr. Bryan McLaughlin, associate professor in the College of Media and Communication at Texas Tech University, told MNT that he and his collaborators “believe that problematic news consumption can negatively impact an individual’s mental and physical health because continuously fixating on threatening information can create chronic stress.”

“Further, focusing on threatening information can activate physiological responses in the body that increase inflammation, which can have physical repercussions,” he added.

These findings are backed up by a previous study, which found that, particularly in women, negative news significantly increased physiological reaction to a subsequent stressor. So, that shocking news story might have physical effects long after you have seen it.

Dr. Sequiera explained why this happens. “The mechanism is through activation of our natural physiological threat responses,” she told us.

“When we perceive something threatening, levels of our stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, increase. This is a normal survival mechanism that has helped us physically survive as a species for thousands of years. The same mechanism is activated when we see or hear threatening news,” she explained.

Some studies have suggested that the media’s focus on sensational news coverage of negative stories is partly to blame.

Sensationalist news content is designed to elicit an emotional response from audiences, and thereby increase viewing or reading figures. These tactics used to be restricted to mass-market tabloid newspapers, but are now increasingly widespread.

“Visual images, especially fast-moving, sensationalized images in news stories will tend to be more addictive, and people will likely feel more compelled to keep watching rather than doing something that will be healthy and useful to their mental health. I guess the difficulty is that it is in the news channels’ interests to keep people watching.”

– Dr. Heather Sequiera

But stories written for maximum impact may not always increase uptake. One Australian study found that people were more likely to mistrust, and therefore avoid, outlets that relied on sensationalist, or fear-invoking, headlines to attract audiences.

How we react to the news depends, to some extent, on the type of news.

According to one 2020 study, hard news covers topics such as politics, the economy, international conflicts, and social issues, which are timely, or urgent. Soft news deals with lighter, less time-sensitive topics, such as culture, entertainment, lifestyle, and celebrity news.

It is the hard news that is most likely to lead to an emotional response. Hard news, one study asserts, that “shocks, frightens, disturbs, and alarms can leave the audience feeling alienated, disempowered, helpless and, worst of all, apathetic, insensitive, and even hostile to learning about our world.”

Dr. Hayes agreed: “Some of the dangers are that you will become numb to the pain of others, or you will become cynical or depressed about what’s happening in the world. You may become detached or have a sense of objectification or dehumanization of others, the kind of ‘I don’t care, they probably deserved it’.”

One way of dealing with this may be to avoid the news, but in our interconnected world where news is available constantly and at the touch of a screen, this can be hard to do. And, experts agree it might not be the answer.

A U.S. study conducted during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic found that this was how some people coped with the constant stream of negative news.

However, restriction of news consumption may, particularly during an ongoing crisis, lead to a lack of information about new developments.

“We certainly don’t want people to stop following the news, but we do want people to have a healthier relationship with the news. The most important thing is for people to become more aware of how consuming the news is making them feel, and the impact it is having on their day-to-day lives.”

– Dr. Bryan McLaughlin

And Dr. Hayes agreed. His suggestion was “that people consume news that is of relevance to who and how they are in the world, that is relevant to [their] values and how [they] want to be, to take the time to take the perspective of others that are in the stories and to feel what they feel.”

News that you cannot do anything about can be just as distressing as news that affects us directly, as Dr. Sequiera explained.

“Our threat mechanisms may be equally activated by seeing images of threatening things happening to other people, such as war in Ukraine, as by hearing news — the state of the economy or train strikes, etc — that threaten our comfort, status, and day-to-day life,” she told us.

“Because we cannot take any direct corrective action about things we see on the news, our minds go into rumination or worry mode. This can further exacerbate our levels of stress and anxiety leading to chronic stress. We know that chronic stress leads to mental health issues and also is associated with physical health problems,” she went on to explain.

One way of coping is to limit how often you access the news, as Dr. Sequiera advised.

“If you are finding that your mood or your thinking is low or preoccupied by the news then it is a great idea to take a break from it,” she said.

“Consider staying off all news channels or outlets for 3 or 4 days and see how this changes your mood and thinking. Then, try doing something to replace this such as going for a walk with a friend or reading a book,” suggested Dr. Sequeira.

Or it can help to do something, however small, about the news you are hearing. If constant news coverage of an issue makes you angry or anxious, perhaps the answer is to get involved and do something positive.

“Because we tend to get more traumatized by events where we cannot take any action, it might help to do one small thing that could make a difference — e.g. a donation to a relevant charity — and remind yourself that you have done something small to help.”

– Dr. Heather Sequiera

Following the United Kingdom government’s controversial policy announcement about sending some asylum seekers to Rwanda, Kate, a mother of three from Bristol, told MNT she did just that.

“I was so angry about what I thought was an utterly inhumane policy that I found a local charity that helps asylum seekers, where I now volunteer each week,” she told us.

“I realize that I’m not making a big difference, but I feel that doing something, however small, is a lot more useful than just getting cross,” said Kate.

It is all too easy to get caught up in the constant spiral of bad news, so it is important to notice the good news stories too, and to remember that knowing what is going on in the world has its advantages.

“We’ve actually made progress, for all the horrors that we’re seeing,” said Dr. Hayes. Even though this may be difficult to believe, he noted that “[t]here’s less violence in the world now than there’s ever been, there’s less poverty, there’s less starvation.”

And, in his opinion, “it’s because people can see what’s going on around the world.”

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Royal family travels to Scotland

Royal family travels to Scotland

Buckingham Palace claims Queen Elizabeth II is underneath professional medical supervision as medical practitioners are “anxious for Her Majesty’s well being.”

The announcement on Thursday will come a day after the 96-12 months-previous monarch canceled a assembly of her Privy Council and was explained to to rest.

The palace suggests the queen is “comfortable” and continues to be at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, the place she has spent the summer time. The palace declined to offer even more particulars about the seriousness of the queen’s condition, but there were other stressing indications. Truss was interrupted for the duration of a debate in the Property of Commons to be knowledgeable about Elizabeth’s affliction, and loved ones users canceled prolonged-planned engagements to vacation to the Highlands.

Here’s almost everything we know about the queen’s wellbeing.

What is Procedure London Bridge?:Questions about Queen Elizabeth answered as doctors watch her wellness

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Rapamycin: The next anti-aging drug?

Rapamycin: The next anti-aging drug?

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In a bid to extend longevity and endorse much healthier growing older, researchers are hunting to rapamycin. Graphic credit: miwa_in_oz/Getty Images.
  • Rapamycin, also acknowledged as sirolimus, is an immunosuppressant drug that was accepted by the Food and Drug Administration (Food and drug administration) in 1999.
  • Researchers have identified about the drug’s capability to increase life expectancy in mice and product organisms for just about a 10 years.
  • A modern analyze has investigated no matter whether dosing for a temporary interval in early adulthood could have a lifelong anti-growing old impression, with less aspect consequences.

Everyday living expectancy has increased steadily over the previous 200 many years, and alongside with it, the incidence of age-relevant condition.

Though lifespan has elevated, the so-called healthspan has not held rate. This signifies that even though we are able to live for a longer time owing to advances in our environments and medical and organic sciences, the range of several years we devote without age-associated wellness disorders has not elevated proportionately.

Part of the cause for this is that the processes that underpin the health decline that occurs with getting old are badly recognized and complicated to manage.

As we age we are a lot more very likely to knowledge cardiovascular disorder, variety 2 diabetic issues, cataracts, listening to loss, and dementia, as effectively as a minimize in immunity and muscle mass, and there are a amount of theories as to why.

There are divergent theories about the leads to of getting older, and unique scientists are concentrating on distinctive targets to protect against or sluggish growing old in order to enhance well being in outdated age, and most likely enhance longevity.

Although life style modifications are encouraged to increase wellness in more mature people, they are not enough to stop age-relevant decline. Also, life-style interventions can be hard to preserve. Consequently, researchers are looking at the likely of pharmaceutical interventions.

1 of these possible pharmaceutical interventions is the use of rapamycin. Also known as sirolimus, it was at first permitted by the Food and drug administration in 1999 as an immunosuppressant for transplant people. Scientists also found that rapamycin had anticancer attributes.

Eventually, nevertheless a further assets of the drug was uncovered: longevity and a reduction in age-related sickness.

Evidence that rapamycin could likely inhibit the growing older course of action was initially proposed in the journal Mobile Cycle in 2006 by Dr. Mikhail Blagosklonny, a researcher on aging at the Roswell Park Complete Most cancers Centre in Buffalo, NY.

His speculation was confirmed by a research carried out by researchers at Novartis and Stanford College, CA, and published in Science Translational Medicine in 2014.

Talking to Health-related Information Right now, he said the next concern was irrespective of whether or not offering rapamycin at a distinct issue in early adulthood could have extended lasting effects.

This is accurately what a modern paper by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, in Cologne, Germany has looked at, in fruit flies and mice. The paper appears in Character Aging.

“At the doses applied clinically, rapamycin can have unwanted aspect effects, but for the use of the drug in the prevention of age-relevant decline, these will need to be absent or small. For that reason, we wanted to discover out when and how very long we need to have to give rapamycin in buy to attain the same effects as lifelong procedure,” explains Dr. Paula Juricic, the major investigator on this review.

Dr. Juricic performs in the office of Prof. Dame Linda Partridge, director at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing.

The research authors observed that when young grownup drosophila, a style of fruit fly used as a genetic model organism, obtained rapamycin for 2 weeks, the drug appeared to protect them in opposition to age-similar adjustments identified in the intestine and prolonged their lives.

They confirmed that this was because of to an upregulation of the mechanisms in the mobile accountable for recycling components of the mobile that have develop into faulty referred to as autophagy, in the intestine. This upregulation was persistent and owing to the cells in the intestine retaining a memory of the drug, the authors explained.

The drug was also given to mice for 3 months beginning at 3 months of age, equivalent to early adulthood, and advancements have been seen in the integrity of the intestine barrier in center age. They also discovered that the outcomes of the drug could even now be detected 6 months immediately after they stopped the procedure.

Dr. Dao-Fu Dai, assistant professor of pathology at the University of Iowa Well being Care, who has carried out exploration on the outcome of rapamycin in mice, explained the paper was “exciting,” but pointed out that the up coming stage would be to see how reproducible the outcomes in drosophila would be in a mammalian method.

He advised Medical Information Right now in an job interview:

“I feel the paper is quite fascinating. The factors that will need to be carried out in the potential will involve [the] mammalian procedure, proper, simply because drosophila is much a lot easier to do mammals choose substantially longer time. Accomplishing it in mammals is alternatively confined because they only focus on [the] intestinal procedure and then they appear at the intestine barrier program in mammals mainly because the whole drosophila story is also centered on preserving the gut barrier program [in this study].”

Dr. Alessandro Bitto, performing instructor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Washington Faculty of Medicine, who has also researched the effect of rapamycin in mice, stated that determining when to give rapamycin for a lifelong impact in mammals was a challenging challenge.

Lifelong intervention with rapamycin has an result because of to a bigger drug dose, he explained: “The concern is, is there period of time of procedure in a mouse or a mammal in standard exactly where if we give rapamycin in that window we have the same result, as lifelong intervention?”

This would minimize the sum of the drug that would need to be given total, and ideally lower hazards and problematic aspect effects.