7 Things our Hands say About Our Health

hey're one of the most important parts of our body when it comes to day-to-day activities; without them we couldn't cut vegetables, grip pliers, or text our friends. They're revealing, too: Not only do scars and age spots recount our personal history but mystics all the way back to prehistory have "read" our futures in their lines and whorls.

But what if your hands could say more about you than that? What if, looking down at your palms and the five digits attached to them, you could discover early signs of dangerous diseases you didn't yet know you had? "It used to be common for doctors to look at the hands for important clues to overall health," says endocrinologist Kenneth Blanchard of Newton, Massachusetts. "We need to get back to that, because hands can tell you a great deal about circulation, hormones, and thyroid function."

Here are seven important clues your hands can reveal about your overall health.

From Medscape Medical News > Psychiatry
ADHD Rates Continue to Rise in the United States

August 22, 2011 — Rates of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in US children

continue to trend upward, report health officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.

According to Lara J. Akinbami, MD, and colleagues, the percentage of American children diagnosed as having ADHD increased from 6.9% in 1998-2000 to 9.0% in 2007 to 2009.

From 1998 through 2009, ADHD prevalence was higher among boys than girls. For boys, ADHD prevalence increased from 9.9% in 1998-2000 to 12.3% in 2007-2009 and for girls from 3.6% to 5.5% during the same period.

ADHD prevalence varied by race and ethnicity, but differences between most groups narrowed from 1998 through 2009, the study authors note.

For non-Hispanic white children, ADHD prevalence increased from 8.2% in 1998-2000 to 10.6% in 2007-2009 and from 5.1% to 9.5% for non-Hispanic black children. Mexican children had consistently lower ADHD prevalence than other racial or ethnic groups.

From 1998 through 2009, ADHD prevalence increased to roughly 10% among children with family income less than 100% of the poverty level and to 11% for those with family income between 100% and 199% of the poverty level.

The report also shows regional differences in ADHD prevalence. In the Midwest, ADHD prevalence rose from 7.1% in 1998-2000 to 10.2% in 2007-2009. In the South, rates rose from 8.1% to 10.3% for the 2 periods.

In 1998-2000, ADHD prevalence was higher in the South region than in all other regions. In 2007-2009, ADHD prevalence was similar in the South and Midwest regions; prevalence in these 2 regions was higher than in the Northeast and West regions, the report indicates.

Dr. Akinbami and colleagues note that these prevalence estimates "are based on parental report of the child ever receiving a diagnosis and thus may be affected by the accuracy of parental memory (including recall bias), by differential access to healthcare between groups (diagnostic bias), or by willingness to report an ADHD diagnosis."

They also point out that it was not possible to discern whether rising prevalence of ADHD "indicates a true change in prevalence or increased detection and diagnosis of ADHD."

Nevertheless, the societal costs of ADHD — including those associated with medical, educational, and criminal justice resources — are large, they write.

ADHD is one of the most common mental health disorders of childhood. Hallmark symptoms, including difficulty staying focused and controlling behavior, begin in childhood and often persist into adulthood, leading to functional impairment in academic, family, and social settings. The causes and risk factors are unknown, but genetic factors likely play a role.

National Center for Health Statistics Brief. 2011:70.

Mark Myers Expert Answer onHow should you interact with someone who has a crush on your significant other?:

Mark Myers Expert Answer onHow should you interact with someone who has a crush on your significant other?:

Is childhood abuse behind tough-to-treat depression?

(CBS) Why do some depressed people never seem to get better? A provocative new study suggests it may come down to the amount of mistreatment they experienced as kids.

A new study suggests adults who were abused as children are twice as likely to develop lasting bouts of depression as their counterparts who did not experience childhood mistreatment. And scientists say that can seriously impact their treatment and recovery.

For the study - published in the August 14 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry - researchers reviewed 26 studies on 23,000 people where they saw the increased likelihood of recurrent depression among adults who were abused as kids. The researchers say previous studies show mistreated children and adults have more "biological abnormalities" in the brain, endocrine and immune system, which could alter treatment.

"Childhood maltreatment is associated both with an increased risk of developing recurrent and persistent episodes of depression, and with an increased risk of responding poorly to treatment," study author Dr. Andrea Danese, professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at King's College London, said in a written statement. The researchers found antidepressant medication, psychological treatment, or combinations of the two were less effective in those who suffered childhood abuse.

Danese told Reuters that knowing a formerly abused patient won't respond to treatment may "be valuable for clinicians in determining patients' prognosis."

What treatments would work then? The authors themselves aren't sure. Study co-author Dr. Rudolf Uher, a professor of psychiatry at Kings College told Reuters treatments may focus on the "biological vulnerabilities associated with childhood maltreatment." The hope is future treatments would be given preventively at an earlier age to be more effective long term.

An estimated one in 10 American adults are depressed, but the disease goes beyond feeling down in the dumps. It can adversely affect other conditions such as arthritis, asthma, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. The World Health Organization estimates that by 2020, depression will be the second-leading contributor to the world's global disease burden.

Danese said in a written statement, "Identifying those at risk of multiple and long-lasting depressive episodes is crucial from a public health perspective."

Depression linked to stroke, vitamin D may help both

By David Liu, Ph.D.

Saturday, Aug 13, 2011 (foodconsumer.org) -- Being chronically depressed may be a sign of higher risk of stroke, according to a study in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart

Association.

The study led by Kathryn Rexrode, M.D.at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass found women who had a history of depression was at 29 percent higher risk of total stroke.

The study also found women who used anti-depressant medications particularly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors were associated with a 39 percent increased risk of stroke. Anti-depressant drugs included Prozac, Celexa and Zoloft.

But the researchers speculated that it is not the medications that cause a higher risk of stroke. Instead use of the drugs only indicates that depression in the patients was more severe.

The study involved in 80,574 women ages 54 to 79 years in the Nurses' Health Study. Participants had no history of stroke at baseline. During the six-year follow-up, prevalence of depression at baseline was 22 percent in the participants and 1,033 strokes were identified.

Depressed women were often those who were single, smoking, and less physically active, according to the study. They were also more likely to have a higher body mass index, and diseases like heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure, compared to women without a history depression.

A healthy observer said the study suggests what increases the risk of depression may also increase the risk of stroke and vitamin D can be the missing link between the two.

One study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found men who had intake of 600 IU or more of vitamin D per day were 28 percent less likely to suffer stroke and heart attack, compared with those who had an intake of only 100 IU or less per day. In women, the risk reduction was 16 percent.

The study was conduced by Qi Sun of the Harvard School of public Health in Boston MA.

Another study published in 2008 in the journal Circulation linked low serum vitamin D levels with 60 percent higher risk for heart attack, stroke and heart failure, compared with those who had high levels of vitamin D.

Dr. Thomas Wang of Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts and colleagues who conducted the study also reported that the association was even stronger among those with high blood pressure.

For the study, Wang et al. followed up 1,739 people at an average age of 59 in the Framingham Heart Study for five years.

Now low serum vitamin D is also associated with high risk of depression.

Nanri A and colleagues from International Medical center of Japan in Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan reported on Aug 19, 2009 in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition that people who had highest levels of vitamin D were 49 percent less likely to feel depressed.

In winter, high levels of vitamin D were found associated with lower risk of depression, particularly severe depression.

Many other studies also suggest that vitamin D can be the cause for depression.

Brain's synaptic pruning continues into your 20s

Brain's synaptic pruning continues into your 20s

16:07 17 August 2011 by Wendy Zukerman and Andrew Purcell
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For similar stories, visit the Teenagers and The Human Brain Topic Guides
The synaptic pruning that helps sculpt the adolescent brain into its adult form continues to weed out weak neural connections throughout our 20s. The surprise finding could have implications for our understanding of schizophrenia, a psychological disorder which often appears in early adulthood.

As children, we overproduce the connections – synapses – between brain cells. During puberty the body carries out a kind of topiary, snipping away some synapses while allowing others to strengthen. Over a few years, the number of synapses roughly halves, and the adult brain emerges.

Or so we thought. Pasko Rakic at Yale University and colleagues at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, and the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, have now found that the brains of adults in their 20s are still subject to synaptic pruning.

Rakic's team analysed post-mortem tissue from a brain region called the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in 32 people aged between 1 week old and 91 years. Specifically, they calculated the density of dendritic spines – the tiny projections that protrude from the neuron's long dendrites, each of which facilitates communication with other neurons through a synapse.

As expected, Rakic's team found that spine density increased rapidly during infancy, reaching a peak before the 9th birthday. It then began to fall away as pruning began. Intriguingly, though, spine density did not plateau after adolescence, as might have been expected, but continued to fall gradually until the late 20s.

Rakic says the result could be good news for those hoping to gain new skills in their third decade. The period of pruning is associated with a heightened ability to learn – whether that is in picking up language skills or understanding new concepts, he says. "You should not give up learning just because you're in your 20s – it isn't too late," he says.

The finding also has implications for our understanding of some psychiatric disorders. The PFC is thought to be particularly relevant to late-onset disorders such as schizophrenia, says Rakic, but it is unclear whether such disorders are triggered by developmental or degenerative processes. The new finding is likely to give weight to the idea that schizophrenia emerges as a result of late brain development.

"I'm sure that for many people schizophrenia has a strong developmental component," says Sabine Bahn, who researches schizophrenia at the University of Cambridge – although she adds that some cases will likely have a degenerative component.

Elena Bagley at the University of Sydney, Australia, agrees with the conclusion. It is possible that the prefrontal cortex "is susceptible for longer to disorders and disease that result from abnormal pruning", she says. Such pruning may also contribute to memory loss and dementia, she adds.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1105108108

Is there A Link Between creativity and Addiction?

Is There a Link Between Creativity and Addiction?
Addiction starts with genetics and the environment, but is triggered by stress
By David Biello | July 26, 2011 |

A drink of alcohol, any kind; "rails" of white powder; a pill prescribed by a pediatrician to assist with attention deficit disorder. Whatever the poison, addiction can take a powerful toll. Nor is it limited to drugs—food, sex and even death-defying stunts can exert the same pull.

But it seems to be a particular breed of person who succumbs to addiction, most recently exemplified by the late singer Amy Winehouse. She joins the "27 Club" of rock stars who died, via addictive behavior, too young—Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. Nor is it limited to the rock-and-roll lifestyle—Thomas de Quincey invented the modern addiction memoir with his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater in 1821. In fact, the list of addicts often overlaps with the giants of culture.

So is there a link between creativity and addiction? To find out, Scientific American spoke with neuroscientist David Linden of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and author of The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning and Gambling Feel So Good.

[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

Is there a link between creativity and addiction?
No. I think the link is not between creativity and addiction per se. There is a link between addiction and things which are a prerequisite for creativity…. We know that 40 percent of a predisposition to addiction is genetically determined, via studies on heritability in families and twins. There's no single addiction gene. We don't even know all the genes involved in conferring addiction risk. But the ones we do know have to do with the signaling of the neurotransmitter dopamine for pleasure and reward.

You don't become addicted because you feel pleasure strongly. On the contrary, addicts seem to want it more but like it less. They feel pleasures more weakly and are more likely to try more to achieve more. This blunted dopamine hypothesis is supported by brain-imaging studies and biochemistry tests in rats and monkeys. It also holds for addictions to food, sex and gambling.

Genetic variants make for a low-functioning dopamine system, specifically D2 receptors. If you carry those variants, you are more likely to be more risk-taking, novelty-seeking and compulsive. None of which are explicitly creative, but they are things that get to creativity. So novelty-seeking might be a spur to creativity. Risk-taking might lead you to go more out on a limb. If you're compulsive, you might be more motivated to get your art, science idea or novel out into the world. These traits that come from having low dopamine function have an upside. These traits can contribute to people having great success in the world, like business leaders.

Genetics is 40 percent, it's not 100 percent—it's not the whole show. It's possible to carry the variants and not be an addict, and it's possible to not carry the variants and still be an addict.

Is there a link between addiction and other human attributes we might value?
There have been some studies in Scandinavia associating personality traits with the genetics of D2 receptors. If you carry these variants that turn down dopamine, you become more socially desirable. There is something charismatic about risk-takers.

Does curing the addiction eliminate the creativity?
Usually not. When you cure the addiction, you're not changing your genes. People are in recovery for life…. There is always a tremendous risk of relapse. Successful recovering addicts adopt behavioral strategies that allow you to resist or reduce cravings.

If you develop a full-blown addiction to a drug, the indications in rats are that it changes the brain forever. You can get it back a little but never entirely.

Is there a specific time that is more vulnerable?
There is nothing magic about that age [27]. Brain maturation ends at about age 20. In the early 20s, you have your adult brain. In the late 20s, it's the same.

Generally speaking, 27 is an age where you can have achieved a lot and be at a place that is very enabling. The one thing that we really know about relapse and addiction is that it is stress-triggered. Anyone dealing with an addict knows that relapse doesn't happen when things are going great.

Stress is a biological phenomenon. We know the intermediate steps. You argue or you're fighting off an infection and your body releases stress hormones, which bind to receptors in the brain pleasure circuitry that ultimately result in cravings. We know how stress causes craving…. The two biggest factors are genetics and stress.