'Good' cholesterol and Alzheimer's disease

Researchers from Columbia University in New York have been looking into the links between 'good' cholesterol - high-density lipoprotein (HDL) - and Alzheimer's disease. They studied 1,130 adults in northern Manhattan none of whom had dementia or cognitive impairment at the start of the study. As the participants were followed over time there were 101 new cases of Alzheimer's disease. Having higher levels of HDL cholesterol was associated with a decreased risk of developing Alzheimer's even after adjusting for vascular (blood vessel) risk factors and cholesterol-lowering treatments. Being Hispanic and having diabetes at the start of the study both increased the risk of developing Alzheimer's.

Anger and anxiety

Some researchers think that anxiety and anger are linked and that a genetic predisposition to over-react to things, or to see them as a threat, leads some people to worry and fret, developing an anxiety disorder, while others become angry and lash out. Other people think that the anger felt by people with an anxiety disorder is due to the depression that they often also feel and not their anxiety. Researchers from Florida State University used information from 5,692 people who took part in the National Comorbidity Survey. They found that there was a link between anxiety and anger, independent of depression, but that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and panic disorder were 'not consistently associated with anger experience and expression.'

Hawkins, Kirsten A. and Cougle, Jesse R. - Anger problems across the anxiety disorders: findings from a population-based study Depression and Anxiety doi: 10.1002/da.20764

Acceptance and anxiety

When James Dean's character in Rebel Without a Cause is asked 'What are you rebelling against?' he replies 'What have you got?' and people with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) feel much the same about worry. Acceptance-based behavioural therapy (ABBT) promotes the acceptance rather than the avoidance of uncomfortable emotions, persuades people that they can usefully channel these emotions and gets them to confront the situations that make them fearful. A team of researchers from the University of Massachusetts studied 31 people, half of whom were put on a waiting list and half of whom received ABBT. The people who received ABBT had significantly fewer difficulties in regulating their emotions and felt less fear about their emotional responses as well as being less bothered by uncertainty; improvements that were maintained when they were followed up after three and nine months.

Treanor, Michael ... [et al] - Acceptance-based behavioral therapy for GAD: effects on outcomes from three theoretical models Depression and anxiety doi: 10.1002/da.20766

Fear and psychopathy

Children with psychopathic traits feel emotions less strongly and have less empathy for other people and recent research suggests that they may feel fear less than other people. A team of researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health in the U.S. investigated this issue in a study of 42 children aged between 10 and 17, 18 of whom had psychopathic traits. The children were asked to talk about how they felt during five recent 'emotionally evocative' events. The study found that psychopathy was associated with feeling less fear and fewer symptoms of sympathetic nervous system arousal such as a pounding heart or sweaty palms.

Marsh, Abigail A. ... [et al] - Adolescents with psychopathic traits report reductions in physiological responses to fear Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02353.x

Mums, dads and social anxiety

Social anxiety disorder can lead to depression and anxiety and can impede people's functioning in jobs and relationships. It is often thought to run in families but the genetic risk is modest suggesting that parenting and environment play a part too. Researchers know very little about how upbringing affects children's chances of developing anxiety disorder but some researchers think that the way in which children interpret what is going on around them and the influence their parents have on this could play a part. A team of researchers from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands looked into this issue further in a study of 144 children aged between eight and 12. The children were presented with a series of ambiguous social scenarios in which either the father or the mother acted anxiously or confidently. In children who were highly socially-anxious the father's behaviour had a greater influence on their levels of confidence or anxiety but for children who had average or low levels of social anxiety the mother's role was more important. The results suggest that fathers could have an important role to play in boosting the confidence of socially-anxious children.

Bogels, Susan, Stevens, Juliette and Majdandzic, Mirjana - Parenting and social anxiety: fathers’ versus

mothers’ influence on their children’s anxiety in ambiguous social situations Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02345.x

Violent crime - keeping it in the family

Violent behaviour can be made more likely by sociological, biological and psychological factors. All of these affect families as well as individuals and it is no surprise that violent crime tends to run in families. Researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm looked into this in a study of 12.5 million people. They found that first degree (i.e. from the same nuclear family) relatives of people who had committed a violent crime were 4.3 times as likely as average to have been violent themselves while more distant relatives were 1.9 times as likely. By comparing people who lived with their biological families to those who had been adopted the researchers found that both genetic and environmental factors raised the risk of developing violent behaviour. A family risk of violence was stronger among women; in higher socio-economic groups and in those who had behaved violently early in life. Some crimes like arson - where being the sibling of an arsonist made people 22.4 times as likely to commit arson themselves - ran particularly strongly in families.

Frisell, T., Lichtenstein, P. and Langstrom, N. - Violent crime runs in families: a total population study of 12.5 million people Psychological Medicine (2011), 41, 97–105

Ethnicity and PTSD

To be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) people have to have experienced a traumatic event, to have developed symptoms and to have sought help from - and been diagnosed by - medical professionals. Researchers don't really know whether these factors vary between different ethnic groups so a team from Harvard School of Public Health surveyed 34,653 people in an attempt to find out. Black people were most likely to develop PTSD over the course of their life (8.7%) than White people (7.4%) and Hispanic people (7%) with Asian people (4%) being the least likely. Overall White people were more likely to experience trauma but Black and Hispanic people were more likely to have suffered child abuse or domestic violence; and Asians, Black men and Hispanic women had a higher risk of war-related events than White people. Among those who had experienced trauma Black people were 22% more likely and Asian people only two-thirds as likely to develop PTSD. All minority groups were less likely to seek treatment for PTSD than White people and fewer than half of minorities with PTSD sought treatment.

Roberts, A. L. ... [et al] - Race/ethnic differences in exposure to traumatic events, development of post-traumatic stress disorder, and treatment-seeking for post-traumatic stress disorder in the United States (2011), 41, 71–83.
Psychological Medicine

Measuring the burden of care

As more and more mentally-ill people are looked after in the community the responsibility for looking after them tends to fall on their relatives. A team of researchers from Karlstad University in Sweden looked into the 'burden of care' of 226 relatives from the Norwegian National Association for Families of Mentally-Ill Persons. They found that the relatives were 'burdened' and also reported poor health, with women experiencing a greater burden than men. For relatives who were single, divorced or widowed the burden of care was greater and health was poorer - and financial troubles and frequent phone calls with the mentally-ill relative made matters worse. The researchers also looked into the relatives' sense of coherence - the degree to which they found life to be comprehensible, manageable and meaningful - and found that this was lower in people who felt more of a sense of burden and had poorer health.

Weimand, Bente M. ... [et al] - Burden and Health in Relatives of Persons with Severe Mental Illness: A Norwegian Cross- Sectional Study Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 31:804–815, 2010

Child abuse and alcohol problems

Child abuse is a big public-health problem with 794,000 confirmed cases in the U.S. in 2007. It is a risk factor for a number of different problems including alcohol abuse, but less is known about this link in boys than in girls. Researchers from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles studied 3,527 men aged between 17 and 56. Approximately 9% of the participants reported childhood maltreatment - defined as serious neglect or physical or sexual abuse occurring before the age of 15. Those who had been abused were 74% more likely to develop an alcohol problem.

Young-Wolff, K.C. ... [et al] - Accounting for the association between childhood maltreatment and alcohol-use disorders in males: a twin study Psychological Medicine (2011), 41, 59–70
 

Coping style and psychotherapy

People tend to cope with problems and difficulties in different ways. Some people bottle things up and become anxious and depressed while others show less sympathy to others, behave insensitively and become angry. Psychologists call these techniques internalizing and externalizing respectively. Psychotherapists are increasingly trying to tailor their treatments to individual patients - whether it be their preferences about treatment, or cultural, social or religious background - and a team of researchers from the University of Palo Alto looked into whether tailoring treatment to coping style would make it more effective. They reviewed 12 studies, covering a total of 1,291 people and found that people who externalized their problems did better with treatments that targeted their behaviour while people who internalized them did better with treatments designed to help them get insights into their thought processes.

Beutler, Larry E. ... [et al] - Coping style Journal of Clinical Psychology: in session 67(2), 1-8 

Psychosis and suicide

The long-term risk of suicide after a first episode of psychosis is unknown although most researchers think it is probably higher than the rate in the rest of the population. Researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London studied 2,723 people in Camberwell, London; Nottingham and Dumfries and Galloway (Scotland) following them for 11 years after their first episode of psychosis. They found that although the rate of suicide was highest in the first year after becoming ill the increased risk persisted for years. Over the course of the study suicide among the participants occured nearly 12 times more than would be expected among the general population. 53 of the participants killed themselves over the course of the study, 49 more than would have been expected in a similar group of unaffected people. Even after ten years the suicide rate among the participants was four times as high as in the general population.

Dutta, Rina ... [et al] - Reassessing the long-term risk of suicide after a first episode of psychosis Archives of General Psychiatry 67(12), December 2010, 1230-1237

Bipolar disorder and recovery from depression

Some researchers think that people with depression who also show some of the symptoms of bipolar disorder are less likely to respond well to treatment. A team of researchers led by Roy H. Perlis from Harvard Medical School looked into this issue in a study of 4,041 people taking part in the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) study. They found that irritability and symptoms of psychosis (delusions and hallucinations) at the start of the study were significantly associated with poorer treatment outcomes but other symptoms of bipolar disorder and a family history of the condition weren't.

Perlis, Roy H. ... [et al] - Association between bipolar spectrum features and treatment outcomes in outpatients with major depressive disorder Archives of General Psychiatry doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2010.179

Charting the path from childhood delusions to mental illness

Although only around 1% of people suffer from full-blown schizophrenia or psychosis hallucinations or delusional beliefs - psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) - are more common and some psychologists think they are a risk factor for developing mental illness. One study found that 11-year-olds who reported a PLE were 16 times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia when they were 26. For most people PLEs decline as they grow up but in a few people they persist, or even get worse. A team of researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London looked into this is in a study of 409 teenagers who were studied four times at six-month intervals. They found that the teenagers whose PLEs were persistent suffered frequent victimization and higher levels of depression and anxiety. Those whose PLEs increased were more likely to smoke and use cannabis and cocaine.

Mackie, C. J., Castellanos-Ryan, N. and Conrod, P.J. - Developmental trajectories of psychotic-like

experiences across adolescence: impact of victimization and substance use Psychological Medicine (2011), 41, 47–58

Child poverty and mental distress

Adults who are poor are also more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety, however, despite what common sense might suggest the research into how poverty affects the mental health of children and young people is inconclusive. A team of French researchers used information from a study of 941 people. The participants in the study were aged between four and 18 when it started in 1991 and were followed up in 1999. The study found that the children from low-income families in 1991 were 74% more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression in 1999. Children in families whose income either decreased or stayed persistently low between 1991 and 1999 were 2.44 times more likely to suffer from psychological distress.

Melchior, Maria ... [et al] - Family income and youths' symptoms of depression and anxiety: a longitudinal study of the French Gazel youth cohort Depression and anxiety 27(12), 1095-1103

Tough childhoods, emotional reactivity, depression and anxiety

To some extent everybody suffers from stress but some people seem to get more worked up about it than others, something psychologists call emotional, or stress, reactivity. Psychologists have known for a long time that adverse childhood experiences can make people more prone to suffer from depression and anxiety as adults and some think that increased emotional reactivity is one of the ways it might do this. A team of researchers from Harvard School of Public Health looked into this in a study of 268 men who were studied from late adolescence over a seventy-year period. They found that people with better overall childhood environments and a greater number of environmental strengths were at a smaller risk of developing depression or anxiety as adults. Families from poorer backgrounds and with childhood environments characterized by greater conflict and adversity had higher emotional reactivity and higher emotional reactivity in turn predicted the development of adult mood and anxiety disorders.

McLaughlin, Katie A. ... [et al] - Childhood social environment, emotional reactivity to stress, and mood and anxiety disorders across the life course Depression and anxiety 27(12), 1087-1094

Helping children with autism by teaching them to be copycats

As most children develop they acquire the ability to imitate other people, pay attention to the same things and reflect others' moods - something psychologists call socially-synchronous behaviour. Unfortunately children with autism do not develop in this way and although there is evidence to suggest that early interventions can help children with autism improve their social skills there have been no trials of methods for 'enhancing socially-engaged imitation.' A team of researchers from the U.S., led by Rebecca J. Landa from John Hopkins University in Baltimore, studied 50 toddlers with autism. All the toddlers took part in a programme to improve their social skills but half of them also received extra help with 'interpersonal synchrony.' Those who were taught how to imitate other people doubled the number of times they copied others, made more eye contact and developed better social skills overall.

Landa, Rebecca J. ... [et al] - Intervention targeting development of socially synchronous engagement in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder: a randomized controlled trial Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02288.x

Parenting programme lays firm foundations

The birth of a child can bring stress and conflict to couples as well as joy and happiness. The Family Foundations programme aims to foster attitudes and skills related to positive family relationships such as emotion regulation, temperament and positive parenting. Researchers from Penn State University studied the effectiveness of the programme comparing a group of parents around the birth of their first child who received eight sessions of it (four before birth and four after) to a control group. The study found that the parents who took part in the programme had lower levels of stress and depression and higher levels of confidence in their parenting abilities; they also supported each other more and showed more effective parenting styles with less over-reaction and less use of corporal punishment.

Smoking and mental health - feeling glum and giving up

Giving up smoking could be as good for people's mental health as it is for their bodies despite the fact that people often say they smoke because it makes them feel less anxious or depressed. Researchers from Brown University in Rhode Island studied 236 men and women who were trying to give up. 99 of them never managed to give up at all, 33 managed to give up for the whole 28 weeks of the study and the rest gave up temporarily. Those who managed to quit temporarily had fewer depression symptoms when they weren't smoking but after they had relapsed their mood got worse, in some cases ending up worse than before they had stopped. The participants who never gave up were the unhappiest of all the groups whereas the ones who managed to abstain over the whole course of the study were the happiest to begin with and remained at the same level of happiness throughout.

Brain scan could help with autism diagnosis

A test which can diagnose autism accurately could help children with the condition get help and support as soon as possible. Researchers from McLean Hospital in Boston and the University of Utah used MRI scans to look at how people's brains worked in a study of 60 men and boys aged between eight and 26. Half of the participants had 'high-functioning' autism and half were unaffected. The study found that the participants with autism had differences in their superior temporal gyrus and their temporal stems - areas which are involved with language, emotion and social skills. In autistic participants the white matter fibres in the superior temporal gyrus were more organised on the right-hand side but it was the other way around for unaffected people. The test had an accuracy rate of 94% which is very good compared to other methods although the participants were much older than the usual age for diagnosing autism which is around three.

One in seven young U.S. women suffering from depression

Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta have been using national data to assess the prevalence of depression and serious psychological distress (SPD) among young, non-pregnant women aged between 18 and 44. They found that 14% of them - about one in seven - suffered from current depression and 2.7% suffered from SPD. Older age, less education, being single and being unemployed were all risk factors for depression and SPD. Women with depression were less likely to be diagnosed if they were aged 18-24, weren't white, had children, lived in an urban area or were employed.