The Possible Weight Loss Benefits Of Oxytocin

A recent study explored the idea of the effectiveness of a nasal spray that contains the so-called love hormone, oxytocin, as a weight loss booster, and the results are promising. Oxytocin is stated to have an appetite-suppressing effect on the brain, making you believe high-calorie foods are not satisfying.

Science aside, let’s just admit it, how convenient would it be to have a nasal spray that helps you lose weight? Continue reading to learn more about this new exciting study.

The Obesity Epidemic

Obesity has been on the rise for decades, with the World Health Organization estimating that it has nearly tripled since 1975, with over 2 billion adults worldwide suffering from excess weight. It is also a known fact that obesity is a serious health hazard, increasing the likelihood of developing heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and some types of cancer.

On top of that, excess weight takes a toll on one’s self-esteem and even budget, having you spend a lot of money to gain the desired results.

Recognizing all these negative impacts of obesity on a person’s health and well-being, a research team conducted an experiment that built on the previous finding that oxytocin, a hormone responsible for bonding behavior, can suppress the activity of the brain areas associated with appetitive behavior and food motivation, too.

How Can a Love Hormone Be Related to Our Appetite?

As previously mentioned, oxytocin is a hormone usually associated with social interactions, trust, sex, childbirth, and mother-infant bonding, which scientists usually sum up as ‘bonding behavior’. Apart from this realm of social interactions, it was also found that the hormone can suppress the brain pathways that make us feel anxious.

Most recently, scientists observed that oxytocin can alter the way we perceive food, too. Do you know the feeling of savoring and craving a specific kind of junk food? This feeling is often overactive in people suffering from obesity. So, theoretically, decreasing the intensity of such cravings should potentially curb the overeating habits that come with these cravings.

Oxytocin may be the component that can do this by inhibiting a key area in the reward system of the brain, which is directly-linked to the feelings of craving and satisfaction. The above-mentioned study explored this idea by looking at the brains of overweight people through an FMRI machine when they were shown pictures of high-calorie foods, low-calorie foods, and nonfood objects.

An FMRI measures the activity in certain brain regions in response to different stimuli. Usually, the reward areas in the brain of a person who is overweight will become hyperactive when they see a high-calorie object, which is observable on an FMRI image, but only an hour after receiving 1 treatment with oxytocin through a nasal spray, the participants’ brains reacted very differently: a part of the reward system called the the ventral tegmental area (VTA) became less active when patients were shown high-calorie foods.

The decreased activity in this area weakened the connectivity between the reward system and areas responsible for food motivation, which means that oxytocin did the impossible: it tricked the brain into believing junk food isn’t satisfying. Even better, of the 10 participants, none experienced any side effects from the treatment.

And though this study isn’t enough on its own to confirm the effectiveness of the treatment, it is nice to entertain the possibility of having a quick fix for weight loss very soon. And while we wait for this miracle cure, we can always increase our oxytocin levels the good old-fashioned way, through hugs and kisses.

 

THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.                                    PS- THOSE INTERESTED IN RECIPES ARE FREE TO  VIEW MY BLOG-                                                                                           https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com/                                                                                                                                                         FOR INFO ABOUT KNEE REPLACEMENT, YOU CAN VIEW MY BLOG-                                                  https:// kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com/           

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Read to your children the old-fashioned way

Selecting what story to read is not the only decision parents make. They must also decide to choose between print and electronic version as well. A new study has suggested that print books may have an edge over e-books when it comes to quality time shared between parents and their children.

The study found out that parents and children verbalised and interacted less with e-books than with print books. "Shared reading promotes children's language development, literacy and bonding with parents. We wanted to learn how electronics might change this experience," said lead author of the study.

"We found that when parents and children read print books, they talked more frequently and the quality of their interactions was better,” he shared . The parent-toddler pairs in the study used three book formats: print books, basic electronic books on a tablet and enhanced e-books featuring additions like sound effects and animation.

With e-books, not only did the pairs interact less but parents tended to talk less about the story and more about the technology itself.

Sometimes this included instructions about the device, such as telling children not to push buttons or change the volume. The author noted that many of the interactions shared between parents and young children while reading may appear subtle but actually go a long way in promoting healthy child development.

For example, parents may point to a picture of an animal in the middle of a story and ask their child "what does a duck say?" Also, parents may relate part of a story to something the child has experienced with comments like "Remember when we went to the beach?" Reading time also lends itself to open-ended questions, such as asking children what they thought of the book or characters.

The author said, “These practices, involving comments and questions that go beyond content, are believed to promote child expressive language, engagement, and literacy. Parents strengthen their children's ability to acquire knowledge by relating new content to their children's lived experiences," he said.

"Research tells us that parent-led conversations are especially important for toddlers because they learn and retain new information better from in-person interactions than from digital media,” he added. However, such practices occurred less frequently with electronic books, with parents asking fewer simple questions and commenting less about the story line compared with print books.

The study suggested that the electronic book enhancements were likely interfering with parents' ability to engage in parent-guided conversation during reading. The author added that non-verbal interactions, including warmth, closeness and enthusiasm during reading time also create positive associations with reading that will likely stick with children as they get older.

Authors recommended that future studies examine specific aspects of tablet-book design that support parent-child interaction. Parents who do choose to read electronic books with toddlers should also consider engaging as they would with the print version and minimise focus on elements of the technology itself.

"Reading together is not only a cherished family ritual in many homes but one of the most important developmental activities parents can engage in with their children," said the senior author.

"Our findings suggest that print books elicit a higher quality parent-toddler reading experience compared with e-books. Paediatricians may wish to continue encouraging parents to read print books with their kids, especially for toddlers and young children who still need support from their parents to learn from any form of media,” added the Dr.

THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.                                    PS- THOSE INTERESTED IN RECIPES ARE FREE TO  VIEW MY BLOG-                                                                                           https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com/                                                                                                                                                         FOR INFO ABOUT KNEE REPLACEMENT, YOU CAN VIEW MY BLOG-                                                  https:// kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com/           

                   FOR CROCHET DESIGNS                                                                                                                                                                                                  https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com

Start reading from very early months to change your child's life

Reading to your infant or young child is a beautiful bonding experience, but there’s far more happening in these literary moments beyond a parent and kid spending time together. In fact, explains pediatrician Jill Alexander, reading (or not reading) to children in the home can shape their entire academic future ― even if the little one is years away from going to school.

Speaking about the vital importance of reading on the monthly series “The Hero Effect,” Alexander emphasizes why reading to babies and children who are so young can have such a long term impact. “We know that 90 percent of brain development happens before a child is 5,” she says. “If we wait until kids are in school, it’s too late.”

Children who are not read to in the home can suffer greatly once they enter school. Those from lower-income homes, Alexander continues, are believed to have a 30-million word gap when compared to their more affluent peers who have been read to, by the time they enter kindergarten. This can make catching up academically nearly impossible.

 “If they’re not ready in kindergarten to start learning, they’re not going to be at grade-level by the time they’re in third grade. And if you’re not reading at grade-level in third grade, you get to fourth then fifth and we start having school truancy and dropping out of school,” Alexander says.

To help promote literacy from an early age, Alexander spoke with like-minded family friend Carolyn Jons, the founder of Iowa’s “Raising Readers in Story County.”  Jons was eager to lend the organization’s help to improve early language and literary development, so Alexander inquired about adopting the nationwide “Reach Out and Read” program for her pediatric practice.

“I said, ‘What I’d really like is to have a book to give at every well check-up for kids to encourage reading and get parents to start reading with their kids when they’re young,” Alexander says.

Thanks to the support of “Raising Readers in Story County,” Alexander’s patients soon saw the benefits of “Reach Out and Read.”

“It’s an amazing asset to our community,” says mom Gretchen Schaefer. “It helps kids get access to books and really helps us figure out that it’s very important for them to be reading and understand that it’s something we need to be doing at a very young age.”

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Depression during pregnancy affects mental health of children

  Depression during pregnancy increases the risk of behavioural and emotional problems in children, suggests a new finding.

Depression is thought to affect at least one in five women globally in the later stages of pregnancy and shortly after birth, and is characterised by low mood and feelings of hopelessness, and is also brought on by a number of other factors that can include life events such as bereavement, and changes in brain chemistry.

Previous work from the researchers suggested that depression during pregnancy may affect the development of the baby while in the womb, as well as affecting bonding between mother and child after birth.

Now, the same team has shown that depression or anxiety can reduce the enzyme in the placenta that breaks down the "stress hormone" cortisol, possibly causing more foetal exposure to the hormone.

The foetus may also undergo epigenetic changes under stress, where underlying DNA stays the same but expression of that DNA is altered, perhaps affecting mental health during childhood.

The team argued the problem is more common in low and middle-income countries, and hence more resources are needed in these areas to help expectant and new mothers.

"In severely deprived regions where there are wars, political violence, food insecurity, and little help after natural disasters, healthcare workers have little time or resources to meet basic physical needs, let alone mental health ones like maternal depression," said Vivette Glover, researcher at the Imperial College London.


The report highlights the specific mental health requirements of mothers and children in poorer countries that are not necessarily relevant to high-income countries.

"Women are more likely than in richer countries to experience intimate partner violence and have little social support. Furthermore, unintended pregnancies are more common, as are malnourishment, infections, and crowded living conditions," Glover added.

Maternal depression in these countries is also more likely to result in poor nutrition, increased substance use, inadequate antenatal care, pre-eclampsia, low birth-weight, preterm delivery, and suicide.

The research, published in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry focused mainly on low and middle-income countries. 

 this is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.

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Strong bonding with grandparents eases depression

A new study has claimed that grandparents and grandchildren's strong relationship has significant effects on well being of both, long into grandchildren's adulthood. 

An assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and the Institute on Ageing , who will present the study,  said that they found that an emotionally close grandparent-adult grandchild relationship was associated with fewer symptoms of depression for both generations. 

She said that the greater emotional support grandparents and adult grandchildren received from one another, the better their psychological health. 

The study also revealed that giving tangible support to or receiving it from their grandchildren affected the psychological well-being of grandparents but not grandchildren. 

Tangible support, also called functional solidarity or instrumental support, includes anything from rides to the store and money to assistance with household chores and advice. 

They also said that grandparents who experienced the sharpest increases in depressive symptoms over time received tangible support, but did not give it. 

She asserted that there is a saying that it's better to give than to receive. 

She said that their results support that folk wisdom — if a grandparent gets help, but can't give it, he or she feels badly. 

She explained that the grandparents expect to be able to help their grandchildren, even when their grandchildren are grown, and it's frustrating and depressing for them to instead be dependent on their grandchildren. 

In their study, the researchers used data from the Longitudinal Study of Generations, a survey of 3- and 4-generation U.S. families that included seven waves of data collection between 1985 and 2004. 

The sample was comprised of 376 grandparents and 340 grandchildren. The average grandparent was born in 1917 and the average grandchild in 1963, making them 77 years old and 31 years old, respectively, at the midpoint of the study in 1994.

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