Psych Central News
Belief in God Can Improve Mental Health Outcomes
Researchers followed patients receiving care from a hospital-based behavioral health program to investigate the relationship between patients’ level of belief in God, expectations for treatment and actual treatment outcomes.
In the study, published in the current issue of Journal of Affective Disorders, researchers comment that people with a moderate to high level of belief in a higher power do significantly better in short-term psychiatric treatment than those without.
“Belief was associated with not only improved psychological well-being, but decreases in depression and intention to self-harm,” says David H. Rosmarin, Ph.D., an instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
The study looked at 159 patients, recruited over a one-year period. Each participant was asked to gauge their belief in God as well as their expectations for treatment outcome and emotion regulation, each on a five-point scale.
Levels of depression, well-being, and self-harm were assessed at the beginning and end of their treatment program.
Of the patients sampled, more than 30 percent claimed no specific religious affiliation yet still saw the same benefits in treatment if their belief in a higher power was rated as moderately or very high.
Patients with “no” or only “slight” belief in God were twice as likely not to respond to treatment as patients with higher levels of belief.
Investigators believe the study demonstrates that a belief in God is associated with improved treatment outcomes in psychiatric care.
“More centrally, our results suggest that belief in the credibility of psychiatric treatment and increased expectations to gain from treatment might be mechanisms by which belief in God can impact treatment outcomes.”
Investigators hope that the study will lead to additional investigation on the clinical implication of spirtual life as more than 90 percent of the U.S. population hold religious beliefs.
Source: McLean Hospital
Women’s Sexual Desire Tied to Hormone Variation
If not, then a woman is more likely flush with progesterone with diminished desire and low fertility. Although researchers have long suspected a link between hormones and libido, new research has confirmed such an association.
In a new study, scientists at UC Santa Barbara have actually demonstrated hormonal predictors for sexual desire. Their findings appear in the current issue of the journal Hormones and Behavior.
“We found two hormonal signals that had opposite effects on sexual motivation,” said James Roney, Ph.D., the article’s lead author.
“Estrogen was having a positive effect, but with a two-day lag. Progesterone was having a persistent negative effect, both for current day, day before, and two days earlier.”
When hormone levels and sexual desire were factored against the menstrual cycles of test subjects — in this case, undergraduate students — the researchers saw a measurable increase in progesterone levels at the same time the subjects noted decreases in sexual motivation.
Progesterone, the researchers say, is mediating this drop in desire from the fertile window to the luteal phase — the second half of the menstrual cycle.
“Progesterone acting as a potential stop signal within cycles is a novel finding in humans,” noted Roney.
“We know in rhesus monkeys there is a strong negative correlation with progesterone and a positive correlation with estrogen. The patterns are actually comparable to what you see in non-human primates, but hadn’t been shown in humans.”
The researchers’ findings have potential implications on the treatment of low sexual desire and how hormone replacement trials are done.
“We’re not controlling hormones the way they do in the hormone replacement literature, so, in a sense, that literature is more directly applicable in terms of medical applications,” said Roney.
“But in the long run, it would be good to have a model of the combination of signals that operates in the natural cycle. The way hormone replacement trials are done now, there’s no model of the natural signals, so they’re sort of random –– let’s give estrogen, let’s give testosterone, let’s combine them this way or that way.”
Roney admits that the study needs to be replicated with women of different age groups.
“Undergraduates might be unique for a lot of reasons,” he said.
“Their hormone levels tend to be a bit different from those of women even just a little bit older. And married women in their 30′s are likely to be more consistently sexually active, and that might change the patterns in some ways. They also tend to have higher hormone secretion and more regular cycles than younger women,” he said.
Eventually, Roney continued, the goal would be to have a better model of the signals in a natural cycle that might then inform medical research.
Another interesting finding, according to Roney, was the impact — or lack thereof — of testosterone on the women’s sexual motivation.
“There’s a common belief in the medical literature that testosterone is the main regulator of women’s libido,” he explained. “Doctors tend to believe that, though the evidence isn’t that strong in humans. In the natural cycles, we weren’t finding effects of testosterone. It wasn’t significantly predicting outcomes.”
Roney doesn’t deny that testosterone does seem to have a positive effect in hormone replacement therapy, but suggests the effects may be pharmacological.
“Testosterone has those effects if you inject it externally in women who are menopausal, and there are a lot of reasons that might be the case,” he said. “For example, testosterone can be converted to estrogen through a particular enzyme.
“If you inject menopausal women with testosterone, it might be acting as a device that’s delivering estrogen to the target cells. So the fact that it works doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an important signal in the natural cycle.”
Source: University of California – Santa Barbara
Binge Drinking in College Can Lead to Later Cardiac Issues
A new study finds that regularly consuming multiple drinks in a short window of time can cause immediate changes in circulation that can increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease later in life.
“Regular binge drinking is one of the most serious public health problems confronting our college campuses, and drinking on college campuses has become more pervasive and destructive,” said Shane A. Phillips, P.T., Ph.D. “Binge drinking is neurotoxic and our data support that there may be serious cardiovascular consequences in young adults.”
College students age 18 to 25 years old have the highest rates of binge drinking episodes, with more than half engaging in binge drinking on a regular basis. Prior studies have found that binge drinking among adults age 40 to 60 years old is associated with an increase in risk for stroke, sudden cardiac death and heart attack, but the effect on younger adults has not been studied.
In the study, found in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, researchers looked at two groups of healthy nonsmoking college students — those who had a history of binge drinking and those who abstained from alcohol.
Binge drinking was defined as consuming five or more standard size drinks (12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, 1.5 ounces of 80 proof spirits or 8-9 ounces of malt liquor) in a two-hour period for males and four or more standard size drinks in a two-hour period for females.
On average, the students who binge drink had six such episodes each month over four years. Abstainers were defined as having consumed no more than five drinks in the prior year.
Students were also questioned about their medical history, diet, history of family alcohol abuse and frequency of binge drinking.
Researchers discovered that the binge drinkers had impaired function in the two main cell types (endothelium and smooth muscle) that control blood flow.
These vascular changes were equivalent to impairment found in individuals with a lifetime history of daily heavy alcohol consumption and can be a precursor for developing atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, and other cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack and stroke.
However, binge drinkers were not found to have increased blood pressure or cholesterol — two well-established risk factors for heart disease.
Interestingly, both high blood pressure and cholesterol cause changes in vascular function similar to what the students demonstrated from binge drinking.
“It is important that young adults understand that binge drinking patterns are an extreme form of unhealthy or at-risk drinking and are associated with serious social and medical consequences,” said Mariann Piano, Ph.D., R.N., co-author of the study.
“Discoveries and advances in many different areas of medical science have cautioned against the notion that youth protects against the adverse effects of bad lifestyle behaviors or choices.”
According to the investigators, more research is needed to determine if damage caused by binge drinking in young adulthood can be reversed before the onset of cardiovascular disease and to determine the timeframe for onset of disease.
Source: American College of Cardiology
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