Recovery Michigan

A University of Melbourne researcher has found that over one-third of Americans report health problems - from asthmaattacks to migraine headaches - when exposed to common fragranced consumer products such as air fresheners, cleaning supplies, laundry products, scented candles, cologne, and personal care products.

The study also found that fragranced products may affect profits, with more than 20% of respondents entering a business, but leaving as quickly as possible if they smell air fresheners or some fragranced product. More than twice as many customers would choose hotels and airplanes without fragranced air than with fragranced air.

In the workplace, over 15% of the population lost workdays or a job due to fragranced product exposure. Over 50% of Americans surveyed would prefer fragrance-free workplaces. And over 50% would prefer that health care facilities and professionals were fragrance-free.

Elderly people who were uprooted from damaged or destroyed homes and who lost touch with their neighbors after the 2011 tsunami in Japan were more likely to experience increased symptoms of dementia than those who were able to stay in their homes, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study was the first to look at dementia as a potential health risk in the aftermath of a disaster.

“In the aftermath of disasters, most people focus on mental health issues like PTSD,” said Hiroyuki Hikichi, research fellow at Harvard Chan School and lead author of the study. “But our study suggests that cognitive decline is also an important issue. It appears that relocation to a temporary shelter after a disaster may have the unintended effect of separating people not just from their homes but from their neighbors–and both may speed up cognitive decline among vulnerable people.”

Out of 3,566 survivors of the tsunami disaster aged 65 or older–some who were able to remain in their homes and some who were forced out–38.0% said they lost relatives and/or friends and 58.9% reported property damage. In the pre-tsunami survey, 4.1% of respondents had been assessed with dementia symptoms; after the tsunami, the percentage jumped to 11.5%. The prevalence of stroke increased, from 2.8% to 6.5%, as did the prevalence of hypertension (54.0% to 57.2%). The percentage of people who reported not interacting with their neighbors–not even with greetings–nearly doubled, from 1.5% to 2.9%.

Those who wound up in temporary housing after their houses were either destroyed or sustained major damage had the highest levels of cognitive decline. There was a strong dose-response association: People whose houses were more severely damaged experienced more cognitive decline. Depression and declines in informal social interactions with friends and neighbors appeared to play a role in the link.

By contrast, loss of relatives and/or friends did not seem to impact cognitive abilities.

You might be surprised to learn that specific foods have been shown to reduce anxiety.

• In mice, diets low in magnesium were found to increase anxiety-related behaviors. Foods naturally rich in magnesium may therefore help a person to feel calmer. Examples include leafy greens such as spinach and Swiss chard. Other sources include legumes, nuts, seeds, and whole grains.
• Foods rich in zinc such as oysters, cashews, liver, beef, and egg yolks have been linked to lowered anxiety.
• Other foods, including fatty fish like wild Alaskan salmon, contain omega-3 fatty acid. A study completed on medical students in 2011 was one of the first to show that omega-3s may help reduce anxiety. (This study used supplements containing omega-3 fatty acids). Prior to the study, omega-3 fatty acids had been linked to improving depression only.
• A recent study in the journal Psychiatry Research suggested a link between probiotic foods and a lowering of social anxiety. Eating probiotic-rich foods such as pickles, sauerkraut, and kefir was linked with fewer symptoms.
• Asparagus, known widely to be a healthy vegetable. Based on research, the Chinese government approved the use of an asparagus extract as a natural functional food and beverage ingredient due to its anti-anxiety properties.
• Foods rich in B vitamins such as avocado and almonds
• These “feel good” foods spur the release of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine. They are a safe and easy first step in managing anxiety.

Depression is generally considered to be a specific and consistent disorder characterised by a fixed set of symptoms and often treated with a combination of psychotherapy and medication. However, the standard rating scales used by healthcare professionals and researchers to diagnose this disease often differ in the symptoms they list, perhaps explaining why a one-size-fits-all treatment has to date been so ineffective. This is the finding of research conducted by psychologist Eiko Fried from the University of Amsterdam (UvA). His results are published in the latest edition of the Journal of Affective Disorders.

What he found was that these and other rating scales show surprisingly little symptom overlap. Moreover, together they feature a total of 52 different depression symptoms ranging from sadness, lack of interest and suicidal ideation to genital problems, irritability and anxiety. These findings underline the striking heterogeneity of depression, a disorder mostly viewed as one consistent syndrome, says Fried. ‘Patients diagnosed with depression are often thought to have similar kinds of problems and therefore receive very similar treatment. However, the fact that 7 common rating scales of depression contain over 50 different symptoms shows how strikingly different depressed patients can be in terms of the problems they experience. This seems to indicate the need for more personalized treatment and might explain why current “one-size-fits-all” solutions like antidepressants show so little efficacy.’

Fried believes his findings could also pose a major problem for depression research because the type of scale used by researchers might determine the outcome of a scientific study. Fried: ‘For example, imagine you are a researcher and want to study the brain structure of depressed patients. This is usually done by giving a large group of people one specific depression scale, and if these people have a certain number of symptoms they are enrolled into the study as depressed.’ According to Fried, his findings suggest that the type of scale a researcher uses might dictate the kind of people who are enrolled in the study. ‘For instance, if a researcher uses Hamilton’s scale, which is focused on physical symptoms, the kinds of participants she examines in her brain study will differ dramatically from those who would be enrolled if she were to use Beck’s cognitive-affective scale. And these different groups of people will likely differ in their brain structures. As this and prior studies show, depressed people differ considerably in the problems they experience and symptoms they exhibit. This likely explains why so many different depression studies come to very different conclusions.’

Using imaging scans, researchers spotted “microstructural” changes in the white brain matter of 25 male athletes aged 8 to 13 after a season of football. 

They also found that players experienced more significant brain changes if they took a greater number of hits and stronger hits to the head, said lead researcher Dr. Christopher Whitlow. He’s chief of neuroradiology at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. 

“We’re seeing some associations between the amount of change in the brain and the amount of exposure to head impacts,” Whitlow said. “The more exposure they’ve had, the more change you see.” 

The study from the University of Stirling is the first to detect direct changes after players are exposed to everyday head impacts, as opposed to clinical brain injuries like concussion. The findings come after concerns that players’ brains are damaged by repeated head impacts.

The World Cup winner George Cohen has called for the game to tackle the issue of head injuries, saying old-style leather footballs were “nasty”. The former England and West Brom striker Jeff Astle died in 2002 at the age of 59, suffering from early onset dementia which a coroner found was caused by heading footballs and gave the cause of death as “industrial disease”.

A subsequent re-examination of Astle’s brain found he was suffering from the neuro-degenerative brain disease Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). CTE can only be established following death and it has also been found in deceased American footballers, boxers and rugby players.

Astle’s daughter Dawn has been campaigning for more research into the matter and was told by the Football Association and the Professional Footballers’ Association in late 2014 that they were talking to Fifa. Now researchers have tested a group of 19 footballers by making them head a ball 20 times.

Increased inhibition in the brain was detected after just a single session of heading. Memory test performance was also reduced between 41 and 67%, with effects normalizing within 24 hours.

Whether the changes to the brain remain temporary after repeated exposure to a football and the long-term consequences of heading on brain health, are yet to be investigated.

This Study attempted to survey 169 women who came to three metropolitan emergency departments with injuries and health issues directly related to domestic violence within a 7 to 9 month period. The women were referred by the emergency room personnel to sexual assault-domestic violence health staff who had been trained in the use of the survey and given resource and referral information about traumatic brain injuries. Fifty-one women, or about 30% of the 169 women, agreed to or were able to complete the survey at the time of the emergency room visit. Forty-six women responded to all items on the survey.

Of the 46 women, a total of 71 separate cases of physical assault were reported. Thirty-eight percent of the women reported multiple assaults. Overall, 35% of the survey participants were identified as possibly having sustained a mild traumatic brain injury and were referred to appropriate services.

Fourteen women, 30% of this group, reported that they experienced a loss of consciousness on at least one occasion. Fifteen percent of the women were hospitalized as a direct result of injuries to the head. Sixty-seven percent of the women, both who did and did not experience a loss of consciousness, reported symptoms associated with mild traumatic brain injury, such as headaches, dizziness, difficulty concentrating, and memory loss. The majority of women reported experiencing more than one symptom of traumatic brain injury, which is characteristic of a condition called post-concussive syndrome.

The researchers found that 67% of the women surveyed had symptoms associated with traumatic brain injury. Thirty percent of the women reported a loss of consciousness after a blow to the head. Sixty percent reported no loss of consciousness following a blow to the head, but reported symptoms associated with traumatic brain injury. The researchers suspect that women who receive a traumatic brain injury as the result of domestic violence may be more likely than others to experience post-concussive syndrome. The researchers advocate for further studies to explore the nature and consequences of domestic violence and traumatic brain injury. Based on these results, the researchers also advocate for early screening for traumatic brain injuries so that women may receive treatment and prevent further injuries.

Children should not be kept behind bars, according to a new report that examines the ineffectiveness of youth prisons in Michigan and other states. 

The research from The Annie E. Casey Foundation pulls together evidence of the failings of youth correctional facilities and recommends they all be closed. 

Foundation president and CEO Patrick McCarthy says these prisons have high recidivism rates and do not improve long-term outcomes for youth.

He calls them "factories of failure." 

"These institutions fail at protecting the community, they fail at turning young lives around, they are unconscionably expensive, they’re prone to abuse, they defy reform and the bottom line is we have alternatives," he states.

McCarthy says many youth are sent to prison for low-risk offenses and often don't get the guidance and support they need to get back on track. 

And the report notes systemic maltreatment has been documented in youth prison facilities in nearly half of states since 2000, including Michigan.

McCarthy notes there is an enormous financial toll for youth prisons. While costs vary state-to-state, states pay on average about $90,000 a year for every youth in a juvenile facility.

"The money that we are wasting now on these incredibly expensive as well as ineffective institutions, we've got to reinvest that money in things that work,” he stresses. “We don't have any magic solutions for juvenile crime but we have many programs that have evidence of success that we need to invest our dollars in."

The report recommends a four R strategy: reduce the pipeline of children into youth facilities; reform the corrections culture that wrongly assumes locking up children improves safety; replace youth prisons with rehabilitative services; and reinvest in evidence-based solutions.