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Having twins takes a toll on parents’ mental health

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:44:00 -0400

Parents of twins conceived either spontaneously or with assisted reproductive technology (ART) are more likely to report mental health symptoms after delivery and one year later, than parents of single babies, according to a new study.

However, the mothers of ART twins had fewer symptoms of depression before the birth than did mothers of twins conceived spontaneously.

"This may be due to better counselling and preparation of infertile couples for twins. The good mental health during pregnancy may also reflect the couples'' satisfaction with successful treatment and fulfilment of hopes for parenthood," Dr Leila Unkila Kallio, who is a senior consultant in gynaecology and obstetrics at Helsinki University Central Hospital, Helsinki (Finland), said.

After birth, fathers of twins in both groups showed more depression, anxiety, social dysfunction and sleeping problems than did fathers of singletons.

Researchers studied ART parents of 91 twins and 367 singletons and control parents of 20 twins and 379 singletons (conceived spontaneously) at three time points: in the second trimester of pregnancy, when the children were two months old and when they were one year old.

Depressive symptoms, anxiety, sleeping difficulties and social dysfunction were measured using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ36).

During pregnancy, they found that ART mothers of twins had lower mean averages of depressive symptoms than the control mothers of twins but similar levels to the ART and control mothers of singletons.

Fathers in all groups had similar mental health during the pregnancies.

After delivery and at one year, mothers of twins in both the ART and control group had more symptoms of depression and anxiety than did the mothers of singletons in both groups.

ART fathers of two-month old twins had higher mean averages of depressive symptoms than ART fathers of singletons but their scores were comparable to those of control fathers.

"Furthermore, fathers of two-month old twins in both ART and control groups reported significantly more impaired social dysfunction than fathers of singletons," said Dr Unkila Kallio.

At one year, the ART and control fathers of twins also had higher levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms and sleeping difficulties than did the fathers of singletons.

The study has been presented at the 24th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Barcelona. (ANI)

Combination drug relieves migraine symptoms if taken early

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:40:00 -0400

Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA, have found that a combination drug taken within an hour after the start of a migraine is effective in relieving symptoms.

The combination includes sumatriptan - a migraine-specific drug that affects the constriction of blood vessels, with naproxen sodium - a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug that works on the inflammatory aspect of migraine and relieves non-traditional migraine symptoms such as sinus pain and pressure and neck pain.

"Unfortunately, many migraine sufferers put off treatment," said study author Stephen Silberstein, MD, of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.

"This study provides more evidence that treating a migraine at the first sign of pain increases the likelihood of relief,” he added.

Researchers conducted two studies with a total of 1,111 people with migraine who had experienced two to six attacks per month in the three months before the study started.

Half of the people were given the sumatriptan/naproxen drug within an hour after migraine pain started and while the pain was still mild; the other half were given a placebo.

Researchers found that two hours after the dose was given, about 50 percent of those who received the drug were free of any pain, compared to about 16 percent of those who got the placebo.

The people who took the placebo were also two to three times more likely to progress to moderate or severe pain over four hours than those who took the drug.

Those who took the drug also had fewer traditional migraine-related symptoms such as nausea and sensitivity to light and sound and fewer non-traditional symptoms such as neck and sinus pain than those who took the placebo.

However, Silberstein noted that only people whose migraines had a mild pain phase were included in the study, so it is not clear whether the results would apply to people whose migraines start at the moderate or severe pain level.

The study is published in the July 8, 2008, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. (ANI)

Regular exercise may prevent drug addiction

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:35:00 -0400

Regular exercise can help you avoid and overcome drug addiction, suggests a new study.

The new study led by Mark A. Smith neuroscientist and Associate Professor from Davidson College has suggested that regular exercise can lower the tendency to become addicted to illegal drugs.

"We''ve known that individuals who engage in exercise have lower rates of substance abuse. But there were previously no data that showed a cause and effect relationship," said Smith

Over a two year period Smith and his three Davidson student research assistants- Karl Schmidt, Jordan Iordanou and Martina Mustroph compared the tendency to self-administer cocaine between two groups of rats.

One group of rats lived in laboratory cages equipped with a running wheel, and the other group lived in a standard cage with no wheel.

During six weeks, the rats in the wheel cages increased their running to about 10 kilometres per day, while those without wheels got no exercise at all.

Later all the rats were connected to an infusion pump that would provide a dose of cocaine if they pushed a lever in their cage. However, the number of pushes necessary to deliver a dose increased geometrically for each subsequent dose.

They found that the fit rats abandoned the task when 70 lever presses were required for a cocaine infusion.

However, sedentary rats kept pushing the lever even when 250 lever presses were required for an infusion. In addition, the rats that ran the most on the wheel abandoned the task at a lower number of pushes than their fellow exercising rats.

"We concluded that aerobic exercise reduces the rewarding effects of cocaine, and probably also has protective effects against cocaine abuse." Smith said.

"That shows me that in the real world, exercise can be an effective intervention in drug abuse prevention and treatment programs," he added.

Smith said exercise works because both exercise and illicit drugs prompt the same release in the brain of the euphoria-inducing protein, dopamine.

Long-term exercise alters the number of dopamine receptors in the brain, meaning that drugs then have less of a euphoric effect.

Smith believes exercise can prevent not only addiction to cocaine, but other drugs as well since they all affect dopamine levels.

"Exercise has long been known to produce positive cardiovascular effects. We''re now also finding that it has positive psychological effects as well, in the treatment and prevention of drug abuse, depression, and anxiety disorders. I think there''s even more and we''re just beginning to scratch the surface," he said.

The study appears in the online version of the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. (ANI)

Potter wasps use parasitic mites to guard their babies

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:31:00 -0400

Japanese scientists have discovered that that potter wasps use a parasitic mite called Ensliniella parasitica as bodyguards to protect their babies from parasitic wasps.

Kimiko Okabe and Shun’ichi Makino from the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute in Tsukuba call it a surprising discovery because the mites generally show no aggressive behaviour.

"None of astigmatid mites, which include this species, were previously known to attack other species, particularly ones larger than themselves," New Scientist magazine quoted Okabe as saying.

After breeding, potter wasps (Allodynerus delphinalis) build a nest and lay eggs inside cavities that contain food, and are sealed with mud and saliva.

Their offspring are threatened by parasitic wasps that try to invade the nest to lay their eggs inside the cavities. In the process, the baby potter wasp is killed.

The mite ensliniella parasitica is known to feed the potter wasp''s haemolymph, a vital circulatory fluid that is rich in nutrients. Scientists have always thought that the mite offers nothing to the potter wasps in return.

However, when Okabe and Makino studied the behaviour of host and mite under lab conditions, they found that the mites would surround and kill a parasitic wasp when it entered a potter wasp nest.

The researchers said that the mites did not always repel an intruder successfully.

They were themselves killed of if fewer than six mites attacked an intruder, according to the researchers.

Six or more mites killed the intruder 70 per cent of the time and ten always killed it, they said.

Okabe revealed that potter wasps even have little pockets on their body called acarinaria that offer a comfy home for parasitic mites, and that each acarinaria usually contains more than six mites.

The researcher said that it was yet to be tested how that magic number was maintained.

A research article on the study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society. (ANI)

Pregnancy alone doesn’t increase mental disorders risk

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:30:00 -0400

Pregnancy alone may not be associated with an aggravated risk of the most prevalent mental disorders, according to a new study.

However, post-partum women may have a higher risk of major depressive disorder.

To reach the study’s conclusions, Oriana Vesga-Lopez, M.D., of New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, and colleagues analyzed data from interviews of 43,093 individuals who participated in a survey on alcohol, disorders and related conditions.

Of these, 14,549 were women (age 18 to 50) who had been pregnant within the past year.

Participants reported psychiatric disorders, substance use and whether they had sought treatment.

"Past-year pregnant and post-partum women had significantly lower rates of alcohol use disorders and any substance use, except illicit drug use, than non-pregnant women," the researchers said.

Also, women who were pregnant at the time of the study had a lower risk of having any mood disorder, except major depression, than non-pregnant women.

"Age, marital status, health status, stressful life events and history of traumatic experiences were all significantly associated with higher risk of psychiatric disorders in pregnant and post-partum women,” the researchers added.

Although pregnancy alone is not associated with an increased risk of the most common mental disorders, "groups of pregnant women with particularly high prevalence of psychiatric disorders were identified," the scientists said.

These groups included women age 18 to 25 living without a partner, widowed, separated, divorced or never married and women who experienced pregnancy complications or stressful life events.

The study is published in the July issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. (ANI)