Day: February 17, 2023

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Study Shows How Present Fathers Support Adolescent Resilience

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Kaysha on Unsplash

A new study published in Psychological Reports has shed light on the way present fathers play a positive role in adolescent psychological development. The researchers observed that when adolescents grow up with fathers present, they experience more ‘failure learning’, which supports the development of resilience.

Adolescence is a difficult time, with new social and academic pressures emerging. Resilience, or the capacity to cope with and recover from challenges, has been identified as a critical component to success in adolescence.

They explored the mediating effects of four subfactors of failure learning: failure cognition, reflection and analysis, experience transformation, and prudent attempt.

Failure cognition is the understanding and perception of a failure event. It includes recognising the occurrence of a failure and understanding the causes.

Reflective analysis involves evaluation of the events leading to the failure, and critically analysing one’s own actions and decisions. This helps identification of mistakes and areas for improvement.

Experience transformation involves taking the insights from reflective analysis and transforming the experience of failure into a learning opportunity.

Prudent attempt involves putting the lessons learned into practice, and taking calculated risks to improve subsequent performance. This component emphasises the importance of persistence and not being put off by prior failures.

Using questionnaires, the researchers assessed 626 Chinese middle school students, average age 14. They measured levels of father presence, resilience, and failure learning. The researchers found that: (1) there was a significant association between father presence, failure learning, and resilience; (2) failure learning played a mediating role between father presence and adolescents’ resilience; (3) the mediating effect of experience transformation and prudent attempt between father presence and adolescents’ resilience was significant, but not failure cognition and reflective analysis.

The researchers posited that the presence of a father helped to mediate resilience, especially in the two aspects of failure learning most linked to resilience. By supporting the decisions made around the failure, they help their adolescent children to recognise that a prudent attempt was made and to accept the failure.

Limitations included being the adolescents being exclusively Chinese, with cultural factors that may not be applicable to adolescents of other cultures. Additionally, the effect of mothers was not accounted for, and it was possible that the positive effects were only possible through the co-parenting support of a mother,

Source: PsyPost

Categories : ExerciseTags : Leave a comment

Fat Metabolism from Exercise Depends on Time of Day

On By ModernMedia
Tired woman after exercise
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels

Exercise at the right time of the day may increase fat metabolism, at least according to the results of a mouse study. Published in the journal PNAS, research shows that mice that did exercise in an early active phase, which corresponds to morning exercise in humans, increased their metabolism more than mice that did exercise at a time usually spent resting.

Physical activity at different times of the day can affect the body in different ways since the biological processes depend on the circadian rhythms of the cells. To ascertain the effect of exercise timing on the burning of fat, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the University of Copenhagen studied the adipose tissue of mice after a session of high-intensity exercise performed at two points of the daily cycle, an early active phase and early rest phase (corresponding to a late morning and late evening session, respectively, in humans). The researchers studied various markers for fat metabolism and analysed which genes were active in adipose tissue after exercise.

Independent of food intake

The researchers found that physical activity at an early active phase increased the expression of genes involved in the breakdown of adipose tissue, heat production and mitochondria in the adipose tissue, indicating a higher metabolic rate. These effects were observed only in mice that exercised in the early active phase and were independent of food intake.

“Our results suggest that late morning exercise could be more effective than late evening exercise in terms of boosting the metabolism and the burning of fat, and if this is the case, they could prove of value to people who are overweight,” says Professor Juleen R. Zierath at Karolinska Institutet.

Improving the health benefits of exercise

Mice and humans share many basic physiological functions, and mice are a well-established model for human physiology and metabolism. However, there are also important differences, such as the fact that mice are nocturnal.

“The right timing seems to be important to the body’s energy balance and to improving the health benefits of exercise, but more studies are needed to draw any reliable conclusions about the relevance of our findings to humans,” says Professor Zierath.

Source: Karolinska Institutet

Categories : Obstetrics & GynaecologyTags : Leave a comment

Certain Jobs may Increase Risk of Pregnancy Loss

On By ModernMedia
Pregnant with ultrasound image
Source: Pixabay

In an analysis of 2010–2019 information on more than 1.8 million employed and non-employed pregnant women in South Korea, certain occupations were linked with higher risks of miscarriage and stillbirth.

Published in the Journal of Occupational Health, risks were calculated for three adverse outcomes: early abortive outcomes (miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, and molar pregnancy), stillbirth, and no live birth (pregnancy with no record of live birth thereafter, which include early abortive outcomes and stillbirth).

Overall, 18.0%, 0.7%, and 39.8% of pregnancies ended in early abortive outcomes, still-births, and no live births, respectively. The risk of early abortive outcomes and stillbirths was higher in non-employed women than in employed women, while no live births were more frequent in employed women.

Women in the health and social work industry had the highest risk of no live births. Higher risks of no live births were also observed in the manufacturing, wholesale/retail trade, education, and public/social/personal service occupations. Manufacturing jobs and health/social work were associated with higher risks of early abortive outcomes compared with financial and insurance jobs.

“The good news is that the Ministry of Employment and Labor of South Korea is now revising the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act to cover all the abortive outcomes in pregnant women workers. Our study contributed to the amendment of this Act, as we presented the impact of the occupational environment on adverse pregnancy outcomes,” said corresponding author Jung-won Yoon, MD, of the National Medical Center in Seoul.

Source: Wiley

Categories : CancerTags : Leave a comment

Defensiveness Keeping People from Taking at-home Colorectal Cancer Stool Tests

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Priscilla du Preez on Unsplash

Despite colorectal cancer being highly treatable, especially when detected early, many people do not undergo recommended screening, even with the availability of at-home stool faecal immunochemical test (FIT) kits. New research published in CANCER reveals that people who react defensively to the invitation to get screened are less likely to take part.

For the study, Nicholas Clarke, PhD, of Dublin City University in Ireland, surveyed individuals in Dublin who had been invited to participate in a FIT screening program in 2008–2012. Questionnaires were mailed in September 2015 to all individuals who were invited to participate (over two screening rounds) but had declined and a random sample of individuals who had participated. Following two reminders, questionnaires were completed by 1988 people who participated in screening and 311 who did not.

Those who did not do FIT-based screening were more likely to provide responses indicating greater defensiveness. This was apparent for all questions related to the different domains of what is called defensive information processing (DIP). The four domains of DIP include:

  • attention avoidance (reducing risk awareness by avoidance),
  • blunting (active mental disengagement through avoidance and accepted denial),
  • suppression (acknowledging others’ risk but avoiding personal inferences through self-exemption beliefs), and
  • counter-argumentation (arguing against the evidence).

“People who react defensively to the invitation to colorectal cancer screening are less likely to take part, and this seems to be due to such misconceptions that having a healthy lifestyle or having regular bowel movements means that they do not need to be screened. Similarly, some people believe testing can be delayed while they wait for a ‘better’ test (even though the current test works very well) or wait until their other health concerns are under control,” explained Dr Clarke. “Some people also react defensively because they believe cancer is always fatal, which is not true. All of these factors can result in people making a decision not to take the home-based screening test.”

Dr Clarke noted that the study’s findings indicate that even well-designed health communication campaigns and proactive screening programs may be hindered by individuals’ defensive beliefs. “The measures used in this study could be used to help identify people who may need extra support to take part in colorectal cancer screening programs worldwide,” he said. “The results suggest that screening programs need strategies to decrease procrastination and address misconceptions about colorectal cancer and screening.”

He also stressed the importance of trying to make colorectal cancer screening something that everyone routinely does when they reach middle age.

An accompanying editorial by Beverly Beth Green MD, MPH advocates for additional research to test different strategies, such as financial incentives, for decreasing DIP in participants.

Source: Wiley