A growing number of studies are supporting the idea that yoga has therapeutic benefits for people with debilitating conditions.  The two latest conditions that yoga has been shown to improve are rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia.

Researchers from the United Arab Emirates showed that rheumatoid arthritis patients who completed 12 sessions of Raj yoga, one of the gentler forms of the exercise, demonstrated significant disease improvement compared to those who did not.

“Most patients with rheumatoid arthritis do not exercise regularly despite the fact that those who do report less pain and are therefore more physically active,” said Dr Humeira Badsha MD Rheumatologist and founder of the Emirates Arthritis Foundation, Dubai, UAE, in a press release.

“We believe that practicing yoga longer term could in fact result in further significant improvements and hope our study drives further research into the benefits of yoga in rheumatoid arthritis,” he continued.

In a separate study, researchers also found that yoga improved the quality of life in patients who suffer from fibromyalgia, a long-term condition which causes extreme pain all over the body.

After eight sessions of a classical yoga program, fibromyalgia patients reported less pain and anxiety.

The study results were presented at an annual conference on rheumatism.

Extreme morning sickness could lead to lifelong behavioral and emotional problems in children, according to a new study.

The condition, known as hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), is characterized by excessive nausea and vomiting persisting beyond the first trimester of pregnancy. It affects hundreds of thousands of women each year and can lead to hospitalization and pregnancy termination.

California researchers have found that children whose mothers suffered from HG while carrying them were more than 3 times as likely to suffer from anxiety, bipolar disorder and depression in adulthood than children born to mothers who did not have the condition.

“HG is an understudied and undertreated condition of pregnancy that can result in not only short-term maternal physical and mental health problems but also potentially lifelong consequences to the exposed fetus,” the researchers said.

Prior studies have found that children whose mothers suffered from nausea past the first trimester have more attention and learning studies by age 12.

The researchers blame poor fetal nutrition, a frequent result of HG, as a cause for adverse outcomes and poor health in adulthood. HG can essentially starve the developing fetus of essential nutrients, and cause dehydration, which can impact brain development.

Also, HG often causes stress and anxiety in the mother, which can also negatively affect the fetus.
The condition often runs in families. According to the researchers, women with a family history of the condition were up to 17 times more likely to suffer from it themselves.

The study was published in the Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease and funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Long-term exposure to air pollution can lead to physical changes in the brain, learning and memory problems and even depression, according to scientists.

Studies with mice have revealed that pollution exposure can lead to changes in the hippocampus of the brain, which is responsible for learning and memory.  Mice that were exposed to pollution over a 10 month period took longer to learn information from their surroundings and were less likely to remember what they had learned.

The mice also showed higher levels of anxiety and more depressive-like behaviors than mice who had been kept in clean air.

Researchers speculate that this may be due to the fact that air pollution exposure can decrease the number of signal receptors in the brain and lead to reduced cell complexity.

The researchers expressed concern over what these findings could mean for humans.

“The results suggest prolonged exposure to polluted air can have visible, negative effects on the brain, which can lead to a variety of health problems,” said Laura Fonken, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in neuroscience at Ohio State University.

“This could have important and troubling implications for people who live and work in polluted urban areas around the world.”

Previous research has indicated that air pollution exposure similar in concentration to that found in urban areas causes widespread inflammation in the body and can be linked to high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.

The inflammation can even be observed in certain areas of the brain, such as the hippocampus, which is particularly susceptible to damage.

The study was published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Prenatal exposure to phthalates, a class of chemicals that are widely used in consumer products ranging from plastic toys to building materials to shampoo, may put children at increased risk of developmental problems, according to a new study.

Recent studies in pre-school children have found that prenatal phthalate exposure may lead to mental, motor and behavioral problems.

One study followed 319 non-smoking, inner-city pregnant women and measured their exposure to phthalates through urine tests. The researchers followed up with developmental tests on the children three years later.

The results indicated that higher prenatal exposure to pthalates significantly increased the odds of motor delay and behavior problems, including anxiety, depression and withdrawal. Among girls, phthalates were associated with decreases in mental development.

The women in the highest exposure group had double, sometimes triple, the odds of having a child with developmental delays compared to the women in the lowest exposure group.

“The results add to a growing public health concern about the widespread use of phthalates in consumer products,” said Robin Whyatt, DrPH, study researcher.

While the researchers are still uncertain as to how pthalates affect the developing brain, they do know that the chemicals are endocrine disrupters, meaning that they affect the hormone system in the body. Prior research suggests pthalates affect thyroid function, as well as lower testosterone, which plays a critical role in brain development.

The study was published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Could a father’s level of stress affect his unborn children? A new study suggests that there may be a relationship between a dad’s stress and his child’s risk of developing depression.

It has already been established in prior studies that the risk of developing depression is significantly increased by exposure to chronic stress, both from the the environment and from genetics.

While most studies to date have focused on maternal effects, the researchers in this case worked with male mice and found that those exposed to chronic stress pass along the stress behaviors to their offspring.

Both male and female offspring showed increased depression and anxiety-like behaviors, though the effects were stronger in males.

Additionally, these behavioral effects were only seen in offspring produced through natural reproduction, and not in those produced via in vitro fertilization. This suggests that most stress-related vulnerabilities are transmitted to children behaviorally.

These findings in mice raise the possibility that part of an individual’s risk for clinical depression or other stress-related disorders may be determined by his or her father’s life exposure to stress, a provocative suggestion that now requires direct study in humans,” said lead author Dr. Eric Nestler, from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

The study was published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

The scenario: He comes home tired, cranky and with something clearly on his mind. Despite repeated attempts to get him to open up, he brushes them aside and turns on the television, still stewing in silence.

Sound familiar?

While, psychologists have told us that males avoid talking about their feelings out of the fear of appearing weak, a new study suggests the real reason is actually much simpler: They feel that discussing problems is a waste of time.

University of Missouri researchers conducted four different studies of nearly 2000 males and females. They found that while females had positive expectations of how talking about problems would make them feel, such as expecting to feel cared for, understood, and less alone, males simply said that talking about problems would make them feel “weird” and as if they were “wasting time.”

Contrary to what the researchers expected, males did not express any more negative sentiments towards discussing problems than females did. For example, they did not expect to feel embarrassed, worried about being teased or bad about not taking care of the problem themselves.

“For years, popular psychologists have insisted that boys and men would like to talk about their problems but are held back by fears of embarrassment or appearing weak,” said associate professor Amanda Rose.

“However, when we asked young people how talking about their problems would make them feel, boys didn’t express angst or distress about discussing problems any more than girls,” she said. “Instead, boys’ responses suggest that they just don’t see talking about problems to be a particularly useful activity.”

The findings, according to the researchers, indicate that parents and psychologists advocate a middle ground when discussing problems.

“For boys, it would be helpful to explain that, at least for some problems, some of the time, talking about their problems is not a waste of time,” Rose said. “Yet, parents also should realize that they may be ‘barking up the wrong tree’ if they think that making boys feel safer will make them confide. Instead, helping boys see some utility in talking about problems may be more effective.”

In fact, Rose said, too much problem talk has been linked with depression and anxiety.

The study results may also play into romantic relationships, many of which involve a “pursuit-withdraw cycle” in which one partner (usually the woman) pursues talking about problems while the other (usually the man) withdraws.

“Women may really push their partners to share pent-up worries and concerns because they hold expectations that talking makes people feel better,” Rose said. “But their partners may just not be interested and expect that other coping mechanisms will make them feel better. Men may be more likely to think talking about problems will make the problems feel bigger, and engaging in different activities will take their minds off of the problem. Men may just not be coming from the same place as their partners.”

The study will be published in the journal Child Development. It was funded by the National Institute for Mental Health.