Do you want to be a better person? First, get stressed out. And whatever you do, don’t go near organic food. Those are the counterintuitive implications of two newly published studies. One finds that exposure to organic foods reduces willingness to help others, while the other reports high levels of stress can increase trustworthiness and sharing. Kendall Eskine, a psychologist at Loyola University New Orleans, examined the psychological impact of organics in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. His work builds on the concept of “moral licensing”—the notion ... Read More
Reversing the World’s Neglect of Easily Cured Tropical Diseases
May 18, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
We have the capacity, and the duty, to eliminate neglected tropical diseases (a leading cause of preventable global disease and poverty). An audacious elimination campaign could be implemented at a surprisingly low cost by global leaders starting this weekend when they meet at the 38th G8 Summit at Camp David. This is an opportunity to help millions of poor people with simple, concrete measures. The 17 neglected tropical diseases defined by the World Health Organization represent the most common afflictions of the “bottom billion”--the poorest people in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. ... Read More
Thinner Mice March to Mealtime Rhythm
May 17, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Rather than count calories, people who want to lose weight may want to count minutes. Investigators led by Satchidananda Panda at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies offered the same high fat diet to two groups of mice. The first group could access the food only eight hours a day, while mice in the other group could hit the rodent buffet whenever they wanted. The study, reported in the journal Cell Metabolism, found the mice on the time-restricted diet consumed just as much food as those with “ad lib” food access, yet had lower rates of obesity, excessive insulin, excessive ... Read More
Researchers Crack Codes for Lithium, Electroshock
May 17, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
While they have been widely used for decades, no one knew exactly why two mainstays of psychiatric treatment–lithium chloride for bipolar disorder and electroconvulsive (or electroshock) therapy for major depression–worked. But new discoveries are illuminating how these treatments affect brain function, answering old questions and opening the door to new, more effective therapies that may have fewer side effects. Research fellow Qing-Jun Meng and a team at the University of Manchester found that lithium blocks the activity of an enzyme that affects the brain’s master clock—the ... Read More
Facebook: Saving Lives, One Kidney at a Time
May 16, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Web-based social networks have little in common with hospital operating rooms. One exists on an ephemeral realm of bits and bytes, while the other lives in the very real world of blood and tissue. That incongruity helps explain why Facebook’s recent announcement that it will encourage its members to become organ donors captured people’s imagination. And according to psychologists who study how we manage reminders of our mortality, it suggests Mark Zuckerberg’s online creation may be a particularly promising platform to tackle a major medical problem. “I think it’ll work ... Read More