Bullied teenagers show early signs of psychosis
Bullied teenagers exhibit higher chances of experiencing early stages of psychosis, a mental state characterised by being out of touch with reality, reveals a new study. Researchers scanned the brains of nearly 500 bullied teenagers and found lower levels of the neurotransmitter glutamate in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) region known to be crucial to regulate emotions. Glutamate, usually the most abundant neurotransmitter, is involved in wide-ranging functions, including moods moderation.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo, Japan, also used questionnaires to track bullying victimisation in survey adolescents and employed formal psychiatric measurement metrics to assess their experiences. The team found that bullying was associated with the teenagers experiencing preclinical psychosis symptoms.
“Studying subclinical psychotic experiences is important for us to discern early stage psychotic disorders and for identifying individuals who may be at increased risk for developing clinical psychotic illness later on,” says Naohiro Okada, project associate professor at the University of Tokyo’s International Research Center for Neurointelligence and lead author of the study published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
Household products linked to rising cancer incidence
Widespread use of plastic bottles, tea bags, ovenware, beauty products, e-cigarettes and hookahs in households is contributing to the growth of cancer incidence worldwide, warn health experts on World Cancer Day (February 4).
By 2050 new cancer cases are expected to grow by 77 percent touching over 35 million annually, according to the International Agency for Research on Cance of the World Health Organisation. The agency attributes this alarming data to a combination of lifestyle and environmental factors, with tobacco, alcohol, obesity, and air pollution identified as prime factors.
“Raising the risk of cancer are plastic tea bags, water bottles and ovenware which contain microplastics, and food items like mayonnaise which contain harmful chemicals like epichlorohydrin,” says Dr. J.B. Sharma, senior consultant, medical oncology at the Action Cancer Hospital, Delhi.
Health experts urge the public to refrain from using hair and beauty products which contain carcinogenous toluene, formaldehyde, and acetone. E-cigarettes and flavoured hookahs also contain harmful chemicals such as diacetyl, carbon monoxide, cadmium, ammonia, radon, and methane, increasing cancer risk.
Sleep deprivation can affect brain
Too much or too little restful sleep is associated with changes in the brain that increase the risk of heart stroke and dementia later in life, says a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. In one of the largest neuroimaging studies undertaken, researchers at the Yale School of Medicine (YSM) examined brain images of nearly 40,000 asymptomatic middle-aged adults to understand how sleep habits impact brain health.
The researchers found that suboptimal sleep duration is significantly correlated with silent brain injuries that clinicians foreshadow with stroke and dementia years before their onset. Long hours of sleep (averaging over nine hours per night) was found to be associated with lower fractional anisotropy and larger WMH (white matter hyperintensities) volume, but not with risk of WMH presence. “These findings add to the mounting evidence that sleep is a prime pillar of brain health,” says Clocchiatti-Tuozzo, postdoctoral fellow at YSM and first author of the study.
Karnataka state bans hookahs
In early February, Karnataka’s health ministry banned the sale and consumption of tobacco and non-tobacco hookah in hotels, restaurants, pubs, bars, lounges, cafes to safeguard the health of the general public, especially children and youth who tend to become addicted without realising its adverse impact on health. While imposing the ban, Gundu Rao, the state’s health minister referred to research that 45 minutes of hookah smoking is equivalent to smoking 100 cigarettes. Persistent hookah use could lead to infectious diseases such as herpes, tuberculosis, and hepatitis, he said.
The state government also announced that those who violate the ban order and continue to sell hookah will be booked under COTPA (Cigarette and Tobacco Products Act) 2003, Child Care and Protection Act 2015, Food Safety and Quality Act 2006, and Indian Penal Code and Fire Control and Fire Protection Act.
The ban is the outcome of alarming data from the WHO Global Adult Tobacco Survey 2016-17 which states that 22.8 percent adults in Karnataka use tobacco with 8.8 percent being regular smokers.
