Genetics
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Depression diversity: Brain studies reveal big differences among individuals
Depressed people may have far fewer of the receptors for some of the brain’s “feel good” stress-response chemicals than non-depressed people, new University of Michigan Depression Center research shows.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
The Role of Stress in Just About Everything
You live in a majorly stressed out world. You’re never very far from a ringing cell phone or a guilt-inducing laptop. Traffic makes you flip out. And as if stressing out over lines, health, your job, your grades, or global terrorism wasn’t enough, along comes the APS Observer with one more thing in your life to stress out over: Stress.
Anxiety • Brain • Cardiovascular Health • Emotions • Genetics • Hormones • Immune System • Optimism • Stress • (0) Comments • Permalink
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Chronic Stress Can Steal Years From Caregivers’ Lifetimes
The chronic stress that spouses and children develop while caring for Alzheimer’s disease patients may shorten the caregivers’ lives by as much as four to eight years, a new study suggests. The research also provides concrete evidence that the effects of chronic stress can be seen both at the genetic and molecular level in chronic caregivers’ bodies.
Aging • Depression • Genetics • Relationships • Stress • (0) Comments • Permalink
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Genes Get Lonely Too
A study out this week suggests that loneliness actually changes how the body functions at a molecular level. The research links feelings of social isolation to an alteration in the activity of specific genes—ones that put lonely people at higher risk for serious disease. And the study also points to the startling fact that it is the perception of loneliness that triggers the adverse health conditions, independent of how much social interaction an individual actually has.
Genetics • Immune System • Relationships • Stress • (0) Comments • Permalink
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Charting new body-mind links
The link between mind and the body tends to be more the subject of New Age books or yoga workshops than respectable research. Not that this link hasn’t been subjected to scientific scrutiny. One person who is moving us closer to such an understanding is a McGill scientist named Moshe Szyf. Szyf, 52, is a pioneer in the emerging field of epigenetics. Epigenetics is the study of the epigenome—the chemical switching system that turns genes on and off, and it is radically changing how we understand the relationship between our genetics and our environment. “
Aging • Brain • Genetics • Stress • (0) Comments • Permalink
Saturday, July 07, 2007
The Gregarious Brain
If a person suffers the small genetic accident that creates Williams syndrome, he’ll live with not only some fairly conventional cognitive deficits, like trouble with space and numbers, but also a strange set of traits that researchers call the Williams social phenotype or, less formally, the “Williams personality”: a love of company and conversation combined, often awkwardly, with a poor understanding of social dynamics and a lack of social inhibition.
Brain • Genetics • Relationships • (0) Comments • Permalink
Sunday, April 22, 2007
HeartMath’s emWave Personal Stress Reliever
Our emWave Personal Stress Reliever is on sale until the end of the April for $20.00 off. If you’re interested in realtime stress reduction and peak performance, please take a look at the two-minute demo.
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Wednesday, April 11, 2007
The Science of Lasting Happiness
Through controlled experiments, Sonja Lyubomirsky explores ways to beat the genetic set point for happiness. Staying in high spirits, she finds, is hard work.
Appreciation • Genetics • Happiness • (0) Comments • Permalink
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Motherly love may alter genes for the better
A good dose of motherly love may be enough to alter our genetic code, leaving us less fearful and stressed out in later life, researchers have found.
The striking claim suggests that rather than our genetic blueprint being fixed before birth our bodies can tweak its biological book of instructions, allowing us to adapt more swiftly to a changing world, instead of waiting millions of years for evolution to take its course.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Brain’s Resilience May Prevent Burnout
Our brains are designed to help us “power through.” Under stress, the brain signals to release hormones including adrenaline and cortisol. They give us energy, strengthen the immune system, improve reflexes and even help our memory. But if we are always under stress, the release of cortisol begins to work against us. Chronic stress causes neurons in the brain to shrink and change shape. In animals, that causes a loss of memory, increased anxiety and aggressiveness that can lead to signs of depression. Other research has shown how chronic stress can speed up aging and make us more prone to disease.
Aging • Brain • Burnout • Depression • Genetics • Hormones • Immune System • Productivity/Performance • Stress • (0) Comments • Permalink
Friday, January 12, 2007
Telomeres may predict heart disease risk, study finds
British scientists have discovered a potential new way to identify people who have a higher risk of developing heart disease. Telomeres, tiny strands of DNA at the ends of chromosomes which seem to contain secrets about aging, may also hold clues about who is more likely to suffer from coronary heart disease. The researchers, who measured telomere length in leukocytes, or white blood cells, in 1,500 men aged 45-64 years old, found short telomeres indicate a higher likelihood of developing heart disease.
Aging • Cardiovascular Health • Genetics • (0) Comments • Permalink
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Genes and Life Stress Interact in the Brain
People who carry a particular genetic variation are more likely to respond to stress by becoming depressed and by ruminating on the event. Prior research identified a genetic variation within the serotonin transporter gene as a potential culprit for these individual differences, but the basis for this effect was unknown. This study, published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first evidence for the neural basis for this gene-environment interaction.
Depression • Genetics • Stress • (0) Comments • Permalink
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Ageing ‘linked to social status’
A study of 1,552 volunteers revealed a low social status can accelerate the ageing process by about seven years. The UK/US team analysed key pieces of DNA called telomeres which are thought to correlate to biological age. The scientists, writing in the journal Aging Cell, believe the stress associated with belonging to a lower social class may be to blame.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Genetics May Play Role in Chronic Fatigue
Chronic fatigue syndrome appears to result from something in people’s genetic makeup that reduces their ability to deal with physical and psychological stress, researchers reported Thursday. The research is being called some of the first credible scientific evidence that genetics, when combined with stress, can bring on chronic fatigue syndrome - a condition so hard to diagnose and so poorly understood that some question whether it is even a real ailment.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Code 2
Scientists are rewriting the laws of heredity as they learn more about a mysterious second genetic code that turns our genes on and off. The traditional idea that we are the passive carriers of our genes is being challenged by the notion that we are their custodians. Our lifestyles — what we eat, how much we exercise, whether we smoke — may play a role in a chemical switching system that activates or deactivates our genes. There are signs that our behaviour may program sections of our children’s DNA, and that how we live may even affect our grandchildren’s genes.