plantmedicine

While much attention has focused on the link between violent video game playing and aggression among youths, a new study finds significantly increased signs of depression among preteens with high daily exposure to violent video games. The details and implications of this important new study are described in   Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking , a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers Susan R. Tortolero, PhD and coauthors from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health, RAND Corporation (Santa Monica, CA), The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta, GA), and Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA) recorded significantly more depressive symptoms over the course of a year among fifth-graders from three U.S. cities who reported playing high-violence video games for 2 or more hours a day, compared to those who reported ...

Think of your next exercise workout as a "fun run" or as a well-deserved break, and you'll eat less afterward. Think of it as exercise or as a workout and you'll later eat more dessert and snacks to reward yourself. These new findings from the Cornell Food and Brand Lab study involved two studies where adults were led on a 2 km walk around a small lake and were either told it was going to be an exercise walk or a scenic walk. In the first study, 56 adults completed their walk and were then given lunch. Those who believed they had been on an exercise walk served and ate 35% more chocolate pudding for dessert than those who believed they had been on a scenic walk. In the second study, 46 adults were given mid-afternoon snacks after their walk. Those thinking they taken an exercise walk ate 206 more calories of M&Ms, which was over twice as much -- 124% more -- than those who had been told they were on a scenic walk. "Viewing their walk as exercise led...

The recent deaths of two high school football players illustrate the dangers of drinking too much water and sports drinks, according to Loyola University Medical Center sports medicine physician Dr. James Winger. Over-hydration by athletes is called exercise-associated hyponatremia. It occurs when athletes drink even when they are not thirsty. Drinking too much during exercise can overwhelm the body's ability to remove water. The sodium content of blood is diluted to abnormally low levels. Cells absorb excess water, which can cause swelling -- most dangerously in the brain. Hyponatremia can cause muscle cramps, nausea, vomiting, seizures, unconsciousness, and, in rare cases, death. Georgia football player Zyrees Oliver reportedly drank 2 gallons of water and 2 gallons of a sports drink. He collapsed at home after football practice, and died later at a hospital. In Mississippi, Walker Wilbank was taken to the hospital during the second half of a game after vomiting an...

Scientists at Seattle Children's Research Institute have discovered an area of the brain that could control a person's motivation to exercise and participate in other rewarding activities -- potentially leading to improved treatments for depression. Dr. Eric Turner, a principal investigator in Seattle Children's Research Institute's Center for Integrative Brain Research, together with lead author Dr. Yun-Wei (Toni) Hsu, have discovered that a tiny region of the brain -- the dorsal medial habenula -- controls the desire to exercise in mice. The structure of the habenula is similar in humans and rodents and these basic functions in mood regulation and motivation are likely to be the same across species. Exercise is one of the most effective non-pharmacological therapies for depression. Determining that such a specific area of the brain may be responsible for motivation to exercise could help researchers develop more targeted, effective treatments for depressi...

A new study finds that women who are obese can limit their weight gain during pregnancy using conventional weight loss techniques including attending weekly group support meetings, seeking advice about nutrition and diet, and keeping food and exercise journals. Results of the Healthy Moms study, published in  Obesity , also show that obese women who limit their weight gain during pregnancy are less likely to have large-for-gestational age babies which can complicate delivery and increase the baby's risk of becoming obese later in life. "Most interventions to limit weight gain among obese women during pregnancy have failed, but our study shows that with regular contact and support, these women can limit the amount of weight they gain, which will also reduce the risk of complications during and after pregnancy," said author Kim Vesco, MD, MPH, a practicing obstetrician/gynecologist and clinical investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in ...

Physical exercise has many beneficial effects on human health, including the protection from stress-induced depression. However, until now the mechanisms that mediate this protective effect have been unknown. In a new study in mice, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden show that exercise training induces changes in skeletal muscle that can purge the blood of a substance that accumulates during stress, and is harmful to the brain. The study is being published in the journal   Cell In neurobiological terms, we actually still don't know what depression is. Our study represents another piece in the puzzle, since we provide an explanation for the protective biochemical changes induced by physical exercise that prevent the brain from being damaged during stress," says Mia Lindskog, researcher at the Department of Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet. It was known that the protein PGC-1a1 (pronounced PGC-1alpha1) increases in skeletal muscle with exercise, and medi...

Gastric bypass surgery has better outcomes than gastric banding for long-term weight loss, controlling type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, and lowering cholesterol levels, according to a new review by UT Southwestern Medical Center surgeons of nearly 30 long-term studies comparing the two types of bariatric procedures. The review, appearing in  JAMA , found that those undergoing gastric bypass operations lost more weight -- an average of 66 percent of their excess weight, compared to 45 percent average excess weight loss for those undergoing gastric banding procedures. "We know gastric bypass brings more weight loss success and relief of commonly associated illness versus gastric band at one year after surgery. We now have the best evidence available telling us this outcome continues to be true even up to five years after surgery. We also know these procedures maintain their safety profile long-term," said Dr. Nancy Puzziferri, Assistant Professor of Surgery and ...