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Pre-Maternity Leave Requested!
The upcoming article by Christine Dunkel Schetter outlines a number of difficulties that may negatively impact the infant’s birth weight and duration of the pregnancy. The sources of stressors outlined in the article are broad, including financial stressors, problems in ones romantic relationships, family responsibilities, employment conditions, and pregnancy-related concerns. Both episodic and chronic stressors…
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Warm and Fuzzy Moms Protect Kids Against Future Health Problems
Lots of research suggests that having less money, a less prestigious job, or fewer years of education is bad for health. A person who makes $30,000 a year will be more likely to develop certain health problems, such as cardiovascular disease or even some types of cancer, than a person who makes $40,000, and on…
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Positivity and cancer progression: what’s the evidence?
Here are two really interesting recent editorials about the role of positive attitudes in cancer progression. One article harshly criticizes the “positive psychology” movement of lacking in scientific sophistication (Coyne & Tennen, 2010) and the other defends the research that has been done thus far (Aspinwall & Tedeschi, 2010). This is the most heated researchers…
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Staying active keeps you (well at least your genes) younger
An article in 2008 (click here to access) published in Archives of Internal Medicine, found that adults who are physically active are biologically younger than those who are sedentary. This study focused on telomere length as an indicator of biological age. I find this research really exciting because it helps us dig deeper into exercise…
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Is a snickers bar the new cigarette?
Does eating too much fat and sugar have the same consequences as smoking? We don’t know…maybe because the answer is being covered up by the food industry. A compelling article by Brownell and Warner (2009) available here compares the tobacco industry’s errant actions to the food industry’s latest tactics. The tobacco industry tried for years…
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Will my kid be overweight as an adult?
What are the risk factors for obesity? What predicts which children will become obese as adults? Here are a few psychological and behavioral risk factors that have been identified: – Diet restriction. Children who try to restrict the types and amounts of foods they eat on a consistent basis are more likely to be obese…
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How doctors treat doctors with drug use problems: Addiction treatment that works
Physician Health Programs (PHP) are reporting an astonishing success rate when it comes to providing addiction treatment for addicted doctors: Only about 20% of doctors ever test positive after being admitted to the program within a 5 year period. More than 70% maintain their license and continue working within the same 5 year period. These…
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Who’s to blame?
“Proposals for reform that focus solely on individuals-be it on their knowledge, willpower, or decision-making ability-will not be successful in reversing our society’s body weight trajectory. We need measures aimed at changing the context, not the individual. Rather than simply encouraging consumers to make healthier choices, we must recast the environment so that health options…
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Measles vaccine finally vindicated – No more autism link
Dr. Andrew Wakefiled’s research on 12 children that served as the only major link between autism and the MMT vaccine has now been officially retracted by the Lancet, the British journal that published it originally. It seems Dr. Wakefiled may have played around a bit with his research. That’s nice. Even though multiple later studies…
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Healthcare savings and alcohol and drug abuse treatment: Saving lives and money
From allaboutaddiction: A recent paper put out by an initiative called Closing the Addiction Treatment Gap (CATG) talks about some of the cost savings benefits that go along with alcohol and drug abuse treatment. The numbers refer to current treatment methods, success rates, etc., so the savings should only go up as we become more…