StemCell Therapy

How to manage stress when the world is filled with worry

A little stress can actually be a good thing, motivating us to work hard and get ahead, experts say. But constant stress and worry over the long haul can damage our bodies. "The stress response was made for short-term acute stress, like needing to run away from a bear or a saber tooth tiger," said David Victorson, an associate professor of medical social sciences at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a health psychologist at Northwestern Medicine. "It's been a part of the human process since the beginning. But stressors today can be much more chronic and we're ill equipped to deal with that.

Garfield, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said research on fatherhood is a fairly recent phenomenon, so it's difficult to compare dads of today with fathers in the '60s, for example. But he said change is in the air, as evidenced not only by formal studies, but by cultural phenomena such as the rise of 'dad-vertising,' in which fathers are portrayed as capable, hands-on parents, rather than workaholics or bumbling oafs.

Researchers in Illinois have unveiled the third gene linked with Parkinsons, a discovery that comes following the death of legendary boxer Muhammad Ali, who suffered from the neurodegenerative disease for three decades. Scientists findings, published Monday in Nature Genetics, suggest the genetic mutation TMEM230 was present among Parkinsons patients in North America and Asia, and had similar protein trafficking characteristics as the other two genetic mutations linked with Parkinsons, according to a Northwestern University press release. They found TMEM230 produced a protein involved in the packaging of dopamine in neurons, which is significant because Parkinsons is marked by the breakdown of dopamine-producing neurons.

Not getting a good night's sleep can result in a number of problems including poor concentration, weight gain, and a greater likelihood of accidents. For shift workers and individuals who experience chronic sleep deprivation, new research suggests insufficient sleep could also increase the risk of heart disease. In humans, as in all mammals, almost all physiological and behavioral processes, in particular the sleep-wake cycle, follow a circadian rhythm that is regulated by an internal clock located in the brain," said Daniela Grimaldi, M.D., Ph.D., lead author and a research assistant professor at Northwestern University, said in a press release. "When our sleep-wake and feeding cycles are not in tune with the rhythms dictated by our internal clock, circadian misalignment occurs."

Low-income families with children with allergies spend more than twice as much on visits to emergency rooms and hospitals than mid- to high-income families, recent research from Northwestern University found. And about 40 percent of those children surveyed also reported experiencing life-threatening reactions to food, such as trouble breathing and a drop in blood pressure. "The fact that they were able to open up a food pantry for kids who can't afford the special foods for food allergies incredible," said Dr. Ruchi Gupta, an associate professor of pediatrics who led the Northwestern study, which was published in April.

We need a lot more nonsteroidal options, and [crisaborole] looks like it may be an important addition to our armamentarium, says Jonathan Silverberg, a dermatologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. We have limited options for the thing we can safely give patients without worries about their long term use.

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This entry was posted on August 4, 2016 at 9:36 am and is filed under Genetic medicine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |