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Folic Acid Supplement Linked With Reduction in Suicide Attempts and Self-Harm
University Of Chicago, October 10, 2022
Study finds folic acid treatment is associated with decreased risk of suicide attempt. The common, inexpensive supplement was linked with a 44% reduction in suicide attempts and self-harm.
With nearly 46,000 people in America dying by suicide in 2020, it is one of the leading causes of death in the US. To decrease the risk of suicide, experts recommend many strategies and treatments including psychotherapy, economic support, peer support, and medications such as antidepressants. Few if any would be likely to put folic acid supplements on that list. However, an eye-opening study recent conducted at the University of Chicago may change that.
The study, published on in JAMA Psychiatry, used data from the health insurance claims of 866,586 patients. It investigated the relationship between folic acid treatment and suicide attempts over a two-year period. They found that patients who filled prescriptions for folic acid, also known as vitamin B9, experienced a 44% reduction in suicidal events (suicide attempts and intentional self-harm). Robert Gibbons, PhD, the lead author of the study, is hopeful that these findings could improve suicide prevention efforts, especially because of how accessible folic acid is. He is the Blum-Riese Professor of Biostatistics and Medicine at the University of Chicago.
“There are no real side effects, it doesn’t cost a lot of money, you can get it without a prescription,” Gibbons said. “This could potentially save tens of thousands of lives.”
To investigate and further confirm the relationship between folic acid and suicide risk, Gibbons and his co-authors did this new study and focused specifically on folic acid, and accounted for many possible confounding factors, including age, sex, mental health diagnoses, other central nervous system drugs, conditions that affect folic acid metabolism, and more. Even after adjusting for all these factors, filling a prescription for folic acid was still associated with a decreased risk of attempting suicide.
They even found that the longer a person took folic acid, the lower their risk of suicide attempt tended to be. Each month of being prescribed folic acid was associated with an additional 5% decrease in risk of suicide attempt during the 24-month follow-up period of their study.
It also occurred to the authors that maybe people who take vitamin supplements, in general, want to improve their health and would thus be less likely to attempt suicide. To address this possibility, they did a similar analysis with another supplement, vitamin B12, as a negative control. But unlike folic acid, there didn’t seem to be any relationship between vitamin B12 and risk of suicide.
Zinc is cancer’s worst enemy: This mineral is key to preventing cancer, scientists conclude
University of Texas Arlington, October 3, 2022
Researchers from the University of Texas at Arlington have discovered the important role zinc can play in preventing cancer, especially the esophageal variety. Although past studies had indicated zinc had a protective effect on the esophagus when it comes to cancer, it wasn’t clear why.
A team of researchers led by Associate Professor of Nursing Zui Pan found that zinc has the incredibly useful ability to selectively stop the growth of cancerous cells while leaving normal esophageal epithelial cells intact. The researchers say their finding could help improve treatment for esophageal cancer and even provide some insight into how it might be prevented. Pan pointed out that many cancer patients have a zinc deficiency.
It’s a significant discovery; esophageal cancer is now the sixth-leading cause of cancer death in humans globally, and the average five-year survival rate for those with the disease is less than 20 percent.
Zinc deficiency is a serious problem. It’s needed for many of the proteins and enzymes in the body, and a lack of zinc can prevent cells from functioning properly, leading to the development of not only cancer but also other diseases. Zinc is also important for immune function and proper wound healing.
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), adult men need 11 milligrams per day, while women need 8 milligrams. It’s important not to go overboard, however; the NIH reports that zinc toxicity can cause adverse health effects, such as vomiting, diarrhea, headaches, and nausea.
Listen! Birdsong is good for mental health
Max Planck Institute for Human Development, October 13, 2022
When you next hear cheerful twittering of birds, you should stop and listen. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) have shown that birdsong reduces anxiety and irrational thoughts. Their findings are published in the journal Scientific Reports.
In the study, the researchers examined how traffic noise and birdsong affect mood, paranoia, and cognitive functioning by carrying out a randomized online experiment with 295 participants. These individuals heard six minutes of either typical traffic noise or birdsong with varying numbers of different traffic sounds or birdsongs. Before and after hearing the sound clips, the participants filled in questionnaires assessing their mental health and performed cognitive tests.
The present study suggests that listening to birdsong reduces anxiety and paranoia in healthy participants. Birdsong did not appear to have an influence on depressive states in this experiment. Traffic noise, however, generally worsened depressive states, especially if the audio clip involved many different kinds of traffic sounds. The positive influence of birdsong on mood is already known, but to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to reveal an effect on paranoid states. This was independent of whether the birdsong came from two or more different bird species. The researchers also found that neither birdsong nor traffic noise influenced cognitive performance.
In the researchers’ view, the explanation for these effects is that birdsong is a subtle indication of an intact natural environment, detracting attention from stressors that could otherwise signal an acute threat. Taken together, the results suggest interesting avenues for further research and applications, such as the active manipulation of background noise in different situations or the examination of its influence on patients with diagnosed anxiety disorders or paranoia.
Vegetable hormone helps reverse brain alterations caused by high-fat diets, obesity
University of Jaume I (Spain), October 8, 2022
The Neurobiotechnology research team of the Universitat Jaume I (UJI) in Castellón, Spain, headed by professor Ana María Sánchez, has proven the positive effects of a vegetable hormone, helping reverse brain alterations caused by high-fat diets, type-2 diabetes, obesity and physical inactivity.
“We have verified how a vegetable hormone, abscisic acid in green leafy plants, is able to counter the deleterious effects that a high-fat diet has on the central nervous system,” explains Ana María Sánchez. By making use of this molecule, expressed in plants, on an animal model with neuroinflammation induced by a high-fat diet, the results of the study “have shown that the alterations on the expression of some genes would be reversed, as well as alterations in the creation process of new neurons – neurogenesis -, while we also noted a decrease of the inflammation markers in the brain,” adds the UJI professor.
The study carried out in the UJI analyzed the expression of several genes related to the insulin signaling pathway together with the expression of genes which act as neuroinflammation markers with quantitative PCR. This way, as researcher Alberto Ribes Navarro argues, “we have been able to prove that the expression of proteins required for the proper functioning of insulin (the IRS) decreases in neuroinflammatory situations induced by a high-fat diet.” “With the addition of abscisic acid to the high-fat diet it is possible to recover the expression of these genes, even reaching normal levels”, he adds.
With a high-fat diet they noticed alterations to cognitive functions, which were also recovered with the vegetable hormone treatment.
Diets High in Processed Fiber May Increase Cancer Risk
University Of Toledo, October 13, 2022
The study found that men who had high processed fiber intake and high blood bile acid levels had a 40% higher risk of liver cancer.
Fiber-enriched foods are often consumed by many individuals to promote weight loss and fend against chronic diseases like cancer and diabetes. Consuming highly refined fiber, however, may raise the risk of liver cancer in certain people, especially those with a silent vascular deformity, according to a recent study from The University of Toledo.
“We have worked for a long time on this idea that all diseases start from the gut,” said Dr. Matam Vijay-Kumar, a professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology in the College of Medicine and Life Sciences and the paper’s senior author. “This study is a notable advancement of that concept. It also provides clues that may help identify individuals at a higher risk for liver cancer and potentially enable us to lower that risk with simple dietary modifications.”
Vijay-Kumar’s team published a major paper in the journal Cell in 2018 that revealed a large proportion of mice with immune system defects developed liver cancer after being given an inulin-fortified diet. Inulin is a refined, plant-based fermentable fiber that is sold in supermarkets as a health-promoting prebiotic. Additionally, it is often found in processed foods.The findings raised real questions about the potential risks of certain refined fibers, but only now do we understand why the mice were developing such aggressive cancer.”
The new study offers a clear explanation — and may have implications that go beyond laboratory animals.
As the team furthered its investigation, the researchers discovered all mice that developed malignant tumors had high concentrations of bile acids in their blood caused by a previously unnoticed congenital defect called a portosystemic shunt.
While all mice with excess bile acids in their blood were predisposed to liver injury, only those fed inulin progressed to hepatocellular carcinoma, a deadly primary liver cancer.
Remarkably, 100% of the mice with high bile acids in their blood went on to develop cancer when fed inulin. None of the mice with low bile acids developed cancer when fed the same diet.
Dietary inulin is good in subduing inflammation, but it can be subverted into causing immunosuppression, which is not good for the liver.
Theorizing that high bile acid levels might serve as a viable marker for liver cancer risk, Vijay-Kumar’s team tested bile acid levels in serum samples collected between 1985 and 1988 as part of a large-scale cancer prevention study. The research team also sought to examine the relationship between fiber consumption, bile acid levels, and liver cancer in humans.
There are two basic types of naturally occurring dietary fiber, soluble and insoluble. Soluble fibers are fermented by gut bacteria into short-chain fatty acids. Insoluble fibers pass through the digestive system unchanged.
Intriguingly, researchers found high total fiber intake reduced the risk of liver cancer by 29% in those whose serum bile acid levels were in the lowest quartile of their sample.
However, in men whose blood bile acid levels placed them in the top quarter of the sample, high fiber intake conferred a 40% increased risk of liver cancer.
What kinds of exercise can boost long-term memory?
Georgia Institute of Technology October 5, 2022
Think that improving your memory is all brain training and omega-3 supplements? Think again. A study from researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta suggests that working out at the gym for as little as 20 minutes can improve long-term memory.
Previous studies have shown that memory may be improved by several months of aerobic exercises, such as running, cycling or swimming. However, the findings of the new study – published in the journal Acta Psychologica – demonstrate that a similar memory boost can be achieved in a much shorter period.
“Our study indicates that people don’t have to dedicate large amounts of time to give their brain a boost,” says Lisa Weinberg who led the project.
As well as looking at aerobic exercise, Weinberg’s team also examined how resistance exercise – weightlifting, push-ups and sit-ups – might affect memory.
The team recruited 46 participants (29 women and 17 men), who were randomly assigned into two groups. For the first part of the experiment, all participants viewed a series of 90 images on a computer screen. These images were split evenly been photographs that had been classed “positive,” “neutral,” and “negative.” These ranged from pictures of children playing on a waterslide, to photographs of clocks, to images of mutilated bodies. The participants were asked to try and remember as many of them as they could.
Next, the participants were randomized into “active” and “passive” groups and seated at leg extension resistance exercise machines. The active group were told to extend and contract each leg 50 times, at their personal maximum effort. The passive group were told to simply sit in the chair and allow the machine to move their legs.
Two days later, the participants were again shown the original 90 images they had seen previously, but this time they were mixed in with 90 new photos that the participants had not seen before.
The researchers found about 50% of the original photos were recalled by the passive group, while the active group remembered about 60% of the images. All of the participants were better at recalling the positive and negative images than the neutral images, but this was even more true for the active participants.