Research Archive

Chronic anxiety can significantly increase the risk of a heart attack for men. Californian scientists used a cohort study involving 735 men (mean age 60). Each of the men completed psychological testing and was in good cardiovascular health at baseline in 1986. The researchers investigated whether anxiety characteristics independently predicted the onset of myocardial infarction over a 12-year per ...

Healthy lifestyle behaviors during the early elderly years are associated not only with enhanced life span in men but also with good health and function during older age. In a prospective cohort study of 2357 healthy men, mean age 72 at baseline, American researchers examined modifiable factors associated with a life span of 90 or more years and late-life function in men. At the beginning of the s ...

Even if you are over 65, improving your diet and lifestyle can still lead to significant health benefits and decrease your chances of developing chronic diseases. A literature review by a US author has found that adhering to a low-calorie, low-fat diet, which is high in fruit and vegetables, along with a regular exercise plan, can help the elderly stave off age-related diseases. According to the p ...

Individuals who are physically active are biologically younger than those with sedentary lifestyles. British investigators surveyed 2401 twin volunteers using questionnaires on physical activity level, smoking status, and socioeconomic status. The researchers then examined the length of telomeres (repeated DNA sequences found at the ends of chromosomes) in the twins' white blood cells. Leukocyte t ...

Combining four healthy lifestyle habits can add as much as 14 years on to your lifespan. UK researchers examined the relationship between lifestyle and mortality in a cohort of 20,000 people aged 45-79, with no known cardiovascular disease or cancer at baseline. Participants scored one point for each health behaviour: current non-smoking, not physically inactive, moderate alcohol intake (1-14 unit ...

People who start drinking alcohol in later life immediately decrease their risk of developing cardiovascular disease. A US study examined a cohort of 7697 adults aged 45-64 years, who had no history of cardiovascular disease at baseline, over a 10-year period. Of participants who were nondrinkers at baseline, 6% began moderate alcohol consumption within a six-year follow-up period. After four year ...

The biggest risk for a midlife crisis is not divorce, ill health or losing one's job, it’s merely the act of aging itself. Researchers from Great Britain and the USA analysed data spanning more than 35 years, 2 million people and 80 countries. They looked at measures of mental health, such as depression, anxiety, mental well-being, happiness and life satisfaction and correlated them with age ...

Breast size in early adulthood may predict women's risk of developing diabetes later in life. Canadian researchers carried out a secondary analysis of data collected from a cohort study of 92,000 women, mean age 38 at baseline, which began in 1989. The women's bra cup sizes at the age of 20 were taken from the answers given in a questionnaire. A total of 1,844 new cases of type 2 diabetes arose du ...

Babies with only a limited variety of bacteria in their faeces one week after birth are more likely to develop atopy as infants. Swedish researchers collected faecal samples collected from 35 infants at one week of age and used molecular techniques to analyse the diversity of their intestinal microflora. Reduced microbial diversity of early faecal microbiota was significantly associated with the d ...

Analysis of data from a landmark public health study suggests that people who had a low birth weight are more likely to experience depression and anxiety later in life. Canadian researchers used information from the Medical Research Council's National Survey of Health and Development, one of the longest-running cohort studies ever. The survey tracked more than 4,600 people born in Great Britain in ...

Babies delivered by elective caesarean section before term carry up to a fourfold increased risk of breathing problems, compared with babies delivered vaginally or by emergency caesarean section. Researchers in Denmark investigated the association between elective caesarean sections and newborn respiratory problems in over 34,000 births. The study found that, at 37 weeks' gestation, the risk of br ...

Professional and high-income households are the heaviest drinkers, according to figures from the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS). On average, British men drank 18.7 units of alcohol weekly during 2006 compared with nine units for women. This rose to 22.9 units per week for men and 12.5 for women in the top socio-economic group. When asked about their heaviest drinking day in the previous ...

Extroverts tend to be overweight, while anxious types are more likely to be thin. Japanese researchers surveyed more than 30,000 people aged between 40 and 64 about their height and weight, and subjected them a personality test. The results showed that outgoing people were far more likely to have a body mass index (BMI) of more than 25 (defined as overweight). People with the most anxious personal ...

Experiments in which students were given small amounts of cash windfalls with instructions on how to spend it, showed that those who gave the money away (donating to charity or giving a gift) were happier at the end of the day than those who blew it on themselves (to pay a bill or indulge in a treat). Two more surveys by the same team mirrored these results. In one, 16 Boston company employees wer ...

Italian researchers compared 105 patients suffering from migraine without aura with a control group of 79 healthy subjects using psychometric questionnaires. Migraine patients were found to show more depressive symptoms, more difficulty with anger management with a tendency to hypercontrol, and a distinctive personality profile with high harm avoidance, high persistence and low self-directedness. ...

A study from California has examined the influence of childhood sun exposure on the risk of multiple sclerosis (MS) in monozygotic twins. Seventy-nine twin pairs were identified where there was a quantifiable difference in sun exposure between the pair and where only one twin had MS. A numerical index of sun exposure related activities was calculated for each individual. It was found that sun expo ...

Lonely people are prone to illness and early death because their immune system genes are dysregulated. An American study analysed gene transcription activity in people who chronically experienced high versus low levels of subjective social isolation (loneliness). Genes linked to inflammation showed increased activity in people who described themselves as lonely, compared with those who said they h ...

Anger and stress in middle-aged men and women are associated with developing high blood pressure and coronary heart disease (CHD). Investigators analysed data from an American cohort study of 15,792 subjects aged 45-64 at enrolment. Participants were followed up over 11 years for the development of hypertension (blood pressure >139 systolic or >89 diastolic) and CHD events. Subjects underwen ...

A prospective cohort study of 9,011 British civil servants assessed negative aspects of close relationships, such as not confiding and not getting emotional support, using a questionnaire. Associations between negative aspects of relationships, and coronary events were determined during 12 years of follow-up. Results showed that people who experienced negative aspects of a close relationship had a ...

The results of a prospective observational study of 6005 UK adults over 50 suggest that moderate drinking is associated with better mental health than abstinence. For both men and women, better cognition and subjective well-being, and fewer depressive symptoms, were associated with moderate levels of alcohol consumption than with never having drunk at all. (Moderate alcohol consumption in older ad ...