JEALOUS NEUROTIC WOMEN MAY FACE HIGHER ALZHEIMERS RISK

Middle-aged women with a neurotic personality style and prolonged stress may have a heightened risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, new research suggests.

Tracking 800 women over nearly four decades, Swedish scientists found that those who were most anxious, jealous and moody — which they defined as neurotic — and experienced long-standing stress had double the risk of developing Alzheimer’s compared to women scoring lowest in these traits.

“No other study has shown that [one style of] midlife personality increased the risk of Alzheimer’s disease over a period of nearly 40 years,” said study author Lena Johansson, a researcher at University of Gothenburg.

Outside experts cautioned, however, that the study results don’t prove that neuroticism triggers Alzheimer’s, but they do suggest an association between the two.

The study is published online Oct. 1 in the journal Neurology.

The most common type of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease causes profound memory loss and impairments in language, focus, judgment and visual perception, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. About 5.2 million Americans have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, which is progressive, incurable and ultimately fatal.

Johansson said she believes the results would also be true for men. But study data — pulled from research that began in the 1960s — happened to include only women in an era when few medical studies focused on females.

In the new study, participants with an average age of 46 were tracked for 38 years and given memory tests and personality tests measuring their levels of neuroticism and extraversion (defined as being outgoing) and introversion (defined as reserved or shy).

Study authors defined neuroticism as being easily distressed and exhibiting personality traits such as anxiety, jealousy or moodiness. People with this personality style are more likely, they said, to express guilt, anger, envy, worry and depression.

The women were also asked if they had experienced any period of prolonged stress lasting one month or longer and to rate their stress on a scale from zero to five, which represented constant stress during the previous five years. Stress responses included nervousness, sleep disturbances, fearfulness, irritability and tension.

Being introverted or extroverted alone didn’t seem to affect dementia risk, but women who were both easily distressed and withdrawn (introverted) had the highest risk of Alzheimer’s among all women analyzed. One-quarter of them developed the disease, compared to only 13 percent of those considered outgoing (extroverted) and not easily distressed.

“We know genetics drives personality and disease itself, but there’s very little understanding of how personality drives disease,” said Dean Hartley, director of science initiatives for the Alzheimer’s Association, who was not involved in the research. “We need more data.”

Just how might personality influence the risk for dementia? By influencing a person’s behavior, lifestyle or stress reactions, all of which affect overall health, Johansson said. Also, prior research has indicated that neuroticism and stress are associated with changes in the hippocampus, a brain structure affected early in Alzheimer’s disease.

Hartley said the new research was limited in its ability to measure participants’ actual stress levels, since it did so by asking them a single question about stress every five years instead of measuring specific biochemical responses to stress.

“Future studies should examine . . . whether this [neurotic] group responds well to interventions,” Johansson said. “It remains to be seen whether neuroticism could be modified by medical treatment or through lifestyle changes.”

EFFECTS OF HIGH RISK PARKINSONS MUTATIONS ARE REVERSIBLE

Researchers from the University of Sheffield have found vital new evidence on how to target and reverse the effects caused by one of the most common genetic causes of Parkinson's.

Mutations in a gene called LRRK2 carry a well-established risk for Parkinson's disease, however the basis for this link is unclear.

The team, led by Parkinson's UK funded researchers Dr Kurt De Vos from the Department of Neuroscience and Dr Alex Whitworth from the Department of Biomedical Sciences, found that certain drugs could fully restore movement problems observed in fruit flies carrying the LRRK2 Roc-COR Parkinson's mutation.

These drugs, deacetylase inhibitors, target the transport system and reverse the defects caused by the faulty LRRK2 within nerve cells. The study is published today (15 October 2014) month in Nature Communications.

Dr De Vos, a Lecturer in Translational Neuroscience at the world-leading Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN), said: "Our study provides compelling evidence that there is a direct link between defective transport within nerve cells and movement problems caused by the LRRK2 Parkinson's mutation in flies."

Co-investigator Dr Alex Whitworth explained: "We could also show that these neuronal transport defects caused by the LRRK2 mutation are reversible.

"By targeting the transport system with drugs, we could not only prevent movement problems, but also fully restore movement abilities in fruit flies who already showed impaired movement marked by a significant decrease in both climbing and flight ability."

The LRRK2 gene produces a protein that affects many processes in the cell. It is known to bind to the microtubules, the cells' transport tracks. A defect in this transport system has been suggested to contribute to Parkinson's disease. The researchers have investigated this link and have now found the evidence that certain LRRK2 mutations affect transport in nerve cells which leads to movement problems observed in the fruit fly (Drosophila).

The team then used several approaches to show that preventing the association of the mutant LRRK2 protein with the microtubule transport system rescues the transport defects in nerve cells, as well as the movement deficits in fruit flies.

Dr De Vos added: "We successfully used drugs called deacetylase inhibitors to increase the acetylated form of α-tubulin within microtubules which does not associate with the mutant LRRK2 protein. We found that increasing microtubule acetylation had a direct impact on cellular axonal transport.

"These are very promising results which point to a potential Parkinson's therapy. However, further studies are needed to confirm that this rescue effect also applies in humans."

Dr Beckie Port, Research Communications Officer at Parkinson's UK, which helped to fund the study, said: "This research gives hope that, for people with a particular mutation in their genes, it may one day be possible to intervene and stop the progression of Parkinson's.

"The study has only been carried out in fruit flies, so much more research is needed before we know if these findings could lead to new treatment approaches for people with Parkinson's.

Parkinson's is a degenerative neurological condition, for which there currently is no cure. The main symptoms of the condition are tremor, slowness of movement and rigidity.

HOW TO PREVENT DEPRESSION RISK AMONG TEENS

If you wish to shield your kids from depression, driving home the point that personalities can be changed may help, a study suggests.

A low-cost, one-time intervention that educates teenagers about the changeable nature of personality traits may prevent an increase in depressive symptoms, the findings showed.

"We were amazed that a brief exposure to the message that people can change - during a key transition, the first few weeks of high school - could prevent increases in symptoms of depression," said lead researcher David Scott Yeager from University of Texas at Austin in the US.

Adolescence is a challenging transitional period marked by puberty and also changes in friendship networks and status hierarchy.

Research suggests that many lifelong cases of major depression emerge during this developmental period.

For the study, researchers conducted a longitudinal intervention study with about 600 adolescents.

Students were randomly assigned to participate in the treatment intervention or a similar control activity, though they were not aware of the group assessment.

A follow-up 9 months later showed that rates of clinically significant depressive symptoms rose by roughly 39 percent among students in the control group, in line with previous research on depression in adolescence.

Students who learned about the malleability of personality, on the other hand, showed no such increase in depressive symptoms, even if they were bullied.

The data revealed that the intervention specifically affected depressive symptoms of negative mood, feelings of ineffectiveness and low self-esteem.

The study appeared in the journal Clinical Psychological Science.

GRAY MATTER VOLUME PREDICTS RISK TOLERANCE

There is a link between our brain structure and our tolerance of risk, new research suggests. Dr Agnieszka Tymula, an economist at the University of Sydney, is one of the lead authors of a new study that identifies what might be considered the first stable 'biomarker' for financial risk-attitudes.

Using a whole-brain analysis, Dr Tymula and international collaborators found that the grey matter volume of a region in the right posterior parietal cortex was significantly predictive of individual risk attitudes. Men and women with higher grey matter volume in this region exhibited less risk aversion.

"Individual risk attitudes are correlated with the grey matter volume in the posterior parietal cortex suggesting existence of an anatomical biomarker for financial risk-attitude," said Dr Tymula.

This means tolerance of risk "could potentially be measured in billions of existing medical brain scans."

But she has cautioned against making a causal link between brain structure and behaviour. More research will be needed to establish whether structural changes in the brain lead to changes in risk attitude or whether that individual's risky choices alter his or her brain structure -- or both.

"The findings fit nicely with our previous findings on risk attitude and ageing. In ourProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2013 paper we found that as people age they become more risk averse," she said.

"From other work we know that cortex thins substantially as we age. It is possible that changes in risk attitude over lifespan are caused by thinning of the cortex."

Study participants included young adult men and women from the northeastern United States. Participants made a series of choices between monetary lotteries that varied in their degree of risk, and the research team conducted standard anatomical MRI brain scans. The results were first obtained in a group of 28 participants, and then confirmed in a second, independent, group of 33 participants.

The study was a collaboration of researchers from the University of Sydney, Yale, University College London, New York University, and the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to Tymula, authors include Sharon Gilaie-Dotan, Ifat Levy, Nicole Cooper, Joseph W. Kable, and Paul W. Glimcher.

The findings are published in the September 10 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

FAT TONGUE LINKED TO SLEEP APNEA RISK

Obese adults with a significantly larger tongue and higher percentage of fat are more likely to develop obstructive sleep apnea than others, says a study.

Common warning signs for sleep apnea include snoring and choking, gasping, or silent breathing pauses during sleep.

Obese adults with sleep apnea had significantly greater tongue volumes, tongue fat and percentage of tongue fat than obese controls without sleep apneea, the findings showed.

"This is the first study to show that fat deposits are increased in the tongue of obese patients with obstructive sleep apnea," said principal investigator Richard Schwab, a professor at University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia, US.

Further analysis found that tongue fat percentage in participants with sleep apnea was site-specific, with increased fat toward the base of the tongue in the retroglossal region

"Tongue size is one of the physical features that should be evaluated by a physician when screening obese patients to determine their risk for obstructive sleep apnea," said Timothy Morgenthaler, president, American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

The study involved 90 obese adults with sleep apnea and 31 obese controls without sleep apnea.

All participants underwent high resolution upper airway magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

In addition to enlarging the size of the tongue, increased tongue fat may impair the functioning of the muscles that attach the tongue to the bone, preventing these muscles from positioning the tongue away from the airway, the authors proposed.

The study appeared in the journal Sleep.

SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASE RISK OF STILLBIRTH IN MALES

A large-scale study led by the University of Exeter has found that boys are more likely to be stillborn than girls. Published in the journal BMC Medicine, the study reviewed more than 30 million births globally, and found that the risk of stillbirth is about ten percent higher in boys. This equates to a loss of around 100,000 additional male babies per year.

The results could help to explain why some pregnancies go wrong. Around a quarter of stillbirths have no known cause. Of the remainder, many are linked to placental abnormalities but it is often unclear why the abnormalities occur.

Dr Fiona Mathews from the University of Exeter said: "The numbers speak for themselves -- the disparity between male and female stillbirth rates is startling. Stillbirth is a common occurrence, even in rich countries with good healthcare systems: every day, eleven babies are stillborn in the UK. Uncovering why male babies are at higher risk could be a first step towards developing new approaches to prevention, including sex-specific management of high-risk pregnancies."

Although the incidence of stillbirth is lower in high-income countries, the study found that the percentage of increased risk of mortality in males was consistent across both high- and low-income countries.

The only exceptions to this global pattern were found in reports from China and India, where sex-biased induced abortion is a known issue. Here the data showed equal ratios of stillbirth in males and females and higher overall stillbirth risks than other countries. The mortality rates among females in these studies were 1.7 times the expected levels.

The researchers recommend the routine recording of the sex of stillborn babies. Although the reasons for increased risk to male babies are not known, they could include developmental differences in the growth and function of the placenta, or increased sensitivity of male fetuses to environmental factors experienced by the mother, including obesity, smoking, advanced maternal age, and social deprivation.

Existing schemes to detect when babies are not growing properly have reduced stillbirth rates by providing an early warning system. These compare the actual size and growth rate of the baby to predictions based on the mother's height, weight and ethnicity, and her number of previous babies. However, they rarely take into account the baby's gender. As male babies are, on average, larger than female, this information would help identify unusually small male babies at high risk.

Stillbirth rates in high- and low-income countries have declined very little in the past 15 years.

The UK has one of the highest stillbirth rates among wealthy nations, with one in 260 of all pregnancies resulting in stillbirth.

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HELPING OUTDOOR WORKERS REDUCE SKIN CANCER RISK

Skin cancer is one of the biggest fears for one in two outdoor workers and when the boss and staff work together the sun safe message gets through, a QUT study has found.

The study, which found more than 50 per cent of outdoor workers rated UV radiation exposure at work as one of their biggest concerns, also identified how a workplace intervention could improve workers' behaviours and attitudes towards sun protection to reduce their risk of skin cancer.

QUT in collaboration with Cancer Council Queensland and Curtin University worked with 14 Queensland outdoor workplaces from farming, construction, public service and local government industries to develop personalized sun protection action plans.

After adopting these individualized plans, the number of workers who reported using sun protection increased significantly.

Professor Michael Kimlin and Associate Professor Monika Janda, from QUT's AusSun Research Lab, led the intervention program and the results have been published in theJournal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine titled "Changes in Outdoor Workers' Sun-Related Attitudes, Beliefs and Behaviours: A Pre-Post Workplace Intervention."

"The message is simple, outdoor workers who see their workplace, supervisors and bosses supporting sun protection measures will follow their lead," Professor Janda said.

"Providing better programs, which take into account the specific workplace tasks and culture can make a difference."

QUT health promotion specialist Dr Marguerite Sendall, who was involved at the grassroots level in implementing the workplace interventions, said the study worked closely with workplaces to develop and implement a tailored sun safety plan, encouraging sun awareness and supporting sun protection practices at work.

"The program was about working together in partnership with workplaces, taking into account their individual circumstances and environment, and developing realistic and sustainable strategies," Dr Sendall said.

"It was this partnership and customized strategies that made this study a success and led to significant improvements in the way workplaces and employees approached sun safety."

Dr Sendall said after the 12 months intervention, the results revealed when a workplace was sun safe there was a significant improvement in the attitudes and behaviours of outdoor workers when it came to sun protection.

"For example, the proportion of workers who checked their skin for early signs of skin cancer increased after the intervention program, with 80 per cent reporting they had conducted a skin check in the previous 12 months," Dr Sendall said.

"Ten per cent more workers also had their skin checked by a doctor.

"The study found after the intervention, 20 per cent more workers said they usually or always seek natural shade, 25 per cent more workers wore broad-brimmed hats, 19 per cent more wore long-sleeved collared shirts and 16 per cent wore long trousers," she said.

Dr Sendall said there was also a shift in outdoor worker attitudes.

"The proportion of workers who agreed their workplace enforced sun protection and agreed their supervisors protected themselves increased by 10 per cent to 76 per cent of all workers," she said.

One of the workplaces to take part in the study was Goondiwindi Regional Council and workplace champion Andrew Singh said the tailored intervention had produced tangible results.

"At our council, after introducing the intervention, the road construction crew adopted a number of sun safe initiatives," Mr Singh said.

"For example, the council provided portable shade structures to be used during breaks, vehicle windows were tinted and our staff swapped baseball-style caps for broad-brimmed hats.

"Overall, what we found was workers were keen to follow these sun safe measures as they saw their initiatives were welcomed and keenly supported by the mayor, councillors and management."

Dr Sendall said the study highlighted the importance of a consistent sun safe workplace culture.

"Despite ongoing public health campaigns, outdoor workers remain a difficult to reach group but if we can take care in making the sun protection program really relevant to their personal circumstances and work environment, the potential health benefits are significant."