Feb. 3, 2012 — Researchers say they have developed a blood test that may reliably detect depression.

If the test continues to perform well in studies, experts say it could become one of the first objective ways to look for depression, which affects nearly 1 in 10 American adults.

“Psychiatry is a field that is begging for tests because all of our diagnoses, for the most part, are based on clinical assessments, and clinical assessments are very subjective and can be biased,” says Jennifer L. Payne, MD, a psychiatrist and co-director of the Mood Disorders Center at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

Payne reviewed the study for WebMD but was not involved in the research, which is published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

“We’d love to have tests that tell us if someone has a particular illness or not,” she says. “This is a very nice step in that direction, but there’s a heck of a lot more work to be done before this is used as a clinical test for major depression.”

Depression Overview

Study Results ‘Quite Exciting’

The new test, called MDDScore, was developed by a company called Ridge Diagnostics. And it’s not the only objective test for depression under study.

In 2010, the company Rules-Based Medicine, which is headquartered in Austin, Texas, began offering a blood test that checks for recent-onset schizophrenia. The company is reportedly tweaking that test to make a version that looks for depression.

MDDScore measures nine indicators in blood called biomarkers that are thought to be altered in adults with major depressive disorder. 

“A large number of the markers that constitute the test come from the inflammation family,” says researcher George Papakostas, MD, a psychiatrist and director of treatment-resistant depression studies at Massachusetts General Hospital. 

“Chronic inflammation [is] part of a risk factor or part of the process of depression itself,” says Papakostas, who is also an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a consultant for Ridge Diagnostics.

Additional indicators include hormones, growth factors, enzymes, and other proteins that act as chemical messengers.

In two studies that involved 70 people with depression and 43 people who were not depressed for comparison, the test correctly identified depression about 91% of the time and correctly ruled it out about 81% of the time.

“Those numbers are high, and I think that’s quite exciting,” says Payne.

Still, the test missed depression in about 9% of people tested and falsely diagnosed depression in about 19% of people who were actually healthy.

Papakostas says those error rates may be acceptable since the test isn’t meant to be used as a standalone diagnostic tool.

“The goal in developing a test is not to kind of nullify clinical judgment or patient experience, but to kind of supplement or help with that,” he says.

According to the Ridge Diagnostics’ web site, the test is available to patients but must be ordered by a doctor. The list price of the MDDScore is $745. The cost to patients is $90 if it is covered by insurance.

webmd.com

Imagine you’re learning to drive a car for the first time. Someone gives you the vehicle owner’s manual to read, and then hands you the keys.

If drivers were trained that way, no one would be safe on the road.

But it’s a lot like how most guys learn about sex. You’re taught the basic facts of life, then turned loose to puzzle out your partners’ sexuality, and your own, by trial and error.

Experience is useful, but it isn’t everything. Even guys who’ve had a lot of sexual experience with women still make mistakes that could be avoided with better knowledge.

So you don’t have to learn the hard way, WebMD asked three well-known sex educators to tell us what they think are the most common sex mistakes men make with women.

Tristan Taormino is an author, lecturer, and video producer. Her latest book is The Secrets of Great G-Spot Orgasms and Female Ejaculation.

Patti Britton, PhD, MPH, is a clinical sexologist practicing in Los Angeles, past president of the American Association for Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT), and associate professor of sexology with the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.

Chris Donaghue is a sex therapist and educator in Los Angeles and host of Bad Sex, a reality TV series on Logo.

Sex Drive Killers

Sex Mistake No.1: ‘I Know How to Please a Woman’

Men often assume that the way they’ve learned to please one woman works for all women. Not so.

“With every sexual partner you have, you do gain a growing body of knowledge of female bodies and female pleasure,” Taormino tells WebMD. “But women’s sexuality is complicated, and it’s really individual.”

Every woman’s body responds in different ways to sensation, and every woman’s anatomy is a little different. What feels amazing to one may do nothing — or even cause discomfort — for another.

“That is the detective work you need to do each and every time,” Britton says. “We really each have a sexual fingerprint.”

When it comes to intercourse, one key variable is your thrusting technique: Does she like it fast or slow? Deep or shallow? Or does she like to mix it up — slow and shallow at first, and then fast and deep?

Also, no one sex position is every woman’s favorite. She may prefer a certain sex position for several reasons. Different positions allow various angles of penetration, depending not only on her anatomy, but also the size and shape of your penis. Differences between partners’ body shape and height may make some positions better than others. And for some women, it’s important to have face-to-face intimacy during intercourse.

“I talk to tons of women who say, ‘I know missionary gets a bad rap, but I really like it.’ Others say, ‘It’s got to be from behind,’” Taormino says. “People are really across the board when it comes to positions.”

men.webmd.com

Feb. 3, 2012 — Looking for an unusual way to lower your blood pressure? Try an unusually colored potato.

When overweight people included two servings of purple potatoes a day in their diet for a month, they not only reduced their blood pressure, they also didn’t gain weight in the process, a small study shows.

In the study, published online in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, researchers tracked 18 middle-aged adults. Half of them were asked to eat the skin and flesh of six to eight small purple potatoes at lunch and dinner for four weeks, while the others did not add the microwaved taters to their meals.

During the second month of the study, the groups switched regimens.

Participants were given Purple Majesty potatoes. 

Compared to those who went spud-free, purple potato eaters had on average drop of slightly more than 4% in diastolic pressure (the bottom number in a reading) and a drop of more than 3% in systolic pressure (the top number). 

Since 14 out of 18 participants had high blood pressure and nearly all of them took medication for it even during the study, a small blood pressure decrease may help lessen their odds for heart disease.

Although potato eaters took in more calories compared to adults given no potatoes, their weight didn’t change. That’s good news because seven participants were obese and six were overweight.

In Korea, purple-colored spuds are considered a folk remedy for weight loss.

Grocery Smarts: Fat Foods, Fit Foods

Purple Potato Perks

The researchers suggest that purple potatoes are an effective agent to reduce blood pressure and lower the risk of heart disease and stroke in people with high blood pressure — without weight gain.

As for why the colorful spud may help the heart, scientists say the purple vegetable has many of the same healthful plant pigments as purple fruits. It’s rich in antioxidants, such as anthocyanins, carotenoids, and phenolic acids, which may reduce chronic inflammation linked with heart disease and stroke.

Pigmented potatoes also have high amounts of chlorogenic acid, a substance shown in animal studies to reduce elevated blood pressure.

Microwaving the purple spuds and eating them with their skins on is one of the best ways to get the most antioxidants and plant pigments from them.

And potatoes are popular. The average American eats about one medium potato a day. They are a good source of vitamin C and potassium, and if you eat them with their skins on, you’ll add more fiber to your diet.

It’s the mashed, fried, and au gratin-style potatoes, or the spuds that are twice-baked or topped with gobs of sour cream or butter, that can boost the vegetable’s fat and calorie content.

Researchers do not know whether white potatoes, which have fewer plant pigments and antioxidants, would have the same beneficial effects.

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webmd.com

Feb. 3, 2012 — Teens and young adults who text frequently — such as more than 300 text messages a day — may be risking more than sore thumbs, according to a new study.

“Heavy texters do seem to be a little more materialistic and less concerned about inward growth,” says Paul Trapnell, PhD, associate professor of psychology at the University of Winnipeg in Canada.

The frequent texting, he says, is ”weakly correlated with traits, goals, and attitudes that indicate low interest and engagement in reflective thought.” Those who texted very frequently were also more concerned about wealth and image than those who did not text as often.

He conducted the study with Lisa Sinclair, PhD, associate professor of psychology at the University of Winnipeg. She presented the findings in San Diego at the 13th Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

“One can’t say it’s cause and effect,” Trapnell tells WebMD. “There could be a hundred different reasons why these associations exist.”

“Although the overall size of the finding is small in absolute terms, the finding was very reliable across several years,” he tells WebMD. So far, they have looked at five years of data.

Too Much Texting: Study Details

The researchers surveyed more than 2,200 college psychology class students about their texting frequency. They were ages 18 to 22. Data were collected from 2007 through 2011.

Cell phone texting has become the preferred communication method between teens and friends, according to a 2010 report by the Pew Research Center. It found that 72% of all teens surveyed use text messaging. That’s up from 51% in 2006.

For the Canadian study, the students noted how many text messages they got or received (whichever number was higher) on their highest-use day of the month. They reported only non-work-related texts.

About 30% of the students had a peak rate of more than 200 texts a day. Twelve percent had a peak rate of more than 300 a day.

The researchers then gave them a battery of tests. These included:

A standard personality test to measure such traits as extroversion and openness to experiences.A questionnaire that measures tendencies to engage in reflection and self-reflection: The students agreed or disagreed with such statements as, “I often love to look at my life in philosophical ways.”A survey that asked students to rate the importance of numerous life goals: Goals included wealth, fame, image, power, achievement, morality, community, family, health, spirituality, and others.

The researchers looked to see if texting frequency had an effect on the test results.

They wanted to test the so-called ”shallowing hypothesis,”  as described in the Nicholas Carr best seller, The Shallows, and by scientists. It suggests that very brief media social interaction such as texting encourages rapid, relatively shallow thought.

teens.webmd.com

Imagine you’re learning to drive a car for the first time. Someone gives you the vehicle owner’s manual to read, and then hands you the keys.

If drivers were trained that way, no one would be safe on the road.

But it’s a lot like how most guys learn about sex. You’re taught the basic facts of life, then turned loose to puzzle out your partners’ sexuality, and your own, by trial and error.

Experience is useful, but it isn’t everything. Even guys who’ve had a lot of sexual experience with women still make mistakes that could be avoided with better knowledge.

So you don’t have to learn the hard way, WebMD asked three well-known sex educators to tell us what they think are the most common sex mistakes men make with women.

Tristan Taormino is an author, lecturer, and video producer. Her latest book is The Secrets of Great G-Spot Orgasms and Female Ejaculation.

Patti Britton, PhD, MPH, is a clinical sexologist practicing in Los Angeles, past president of the American Association for Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT), and associate professor of sexology with the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.

Chris Donaghue is a sex therapist and educator in Los Angeles and host of Bad Sex, a reality TV series on Logo.

Sex Drive Killers

Sex Mistake No.1: ‘I Know How to Please a Woman’

Men often assume that the way they’ve learned to please one woman works for all women. Not so.

“With every sexual partner you have, you do gain a growing body of knowledge of female bodies and female pleasure,” Taormino tells WebMD. “But women’s sexuality is complicated, and it’s really individual.”

Every woman’s body responds in different ways to sensation, and every woman’s anatomy is a little different. What feels amazing to one may do nothing — or even cause discomfort — for another.

“That is the detective work you need to do each and every time,” Britton says. “We really each have a sexual fingerprint.”

When it comes to intercourse, one key variable is your thrusting technique: Does she like it fast or slow? Deep or shallow? Or does she like to mix it up — slow and shallow at first, and then fast and deep?

Also, no one sex position is every woman’s favorite. She may prefer a certain sex position for several reasons. Different positions allow various angles of penetration, depending not only on her anatomy, but also the size and shape of your penis. Differences between partners’ body shape and height may make some positions better than others. And for some women, it’s important to have face-to-face intimacy during intercourse.

“I talk to tons of women who say, ‘I know missionary gets a bad rap, but I really like it.’ Others say, ‘It’s got to be from behind,’” Taormino says. “People are really across the board when it comes to positions.”

men.webmd.com

Feb. 3, 2012 — New moms with asthma can safely breastfeed without worrying that the practice will increase their child’s asthma risk, a new study shows.

Researchers followed children in the United Kingdom from birth until around age 12 to assess the impact of breastfeeding, if any, on lung development.

They found that kids who were breastfed as babies had modestly better lung function than those who were not — and breastfeeding seemed to convey the most protection to children whose mothers had asthma.

Breastfeeding Hints & Hurdles

Researcher: Moms With Asthma Should Breastfeed

The findings appear to contradict several earlier studies that raised concerns that breast milk may not always be best for babies born to mothers with the respiratory disease.

The new study was published online ahead of print in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

“We found evidence for improvement in some aspects of lung function in children who were breastfed, which was strongest in those whose mothers had asthma,” says researcher Claudia E. Kuehni, MD, of the University of Bern’s Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine in Bern, Switzerland.

“This is reassuring for new mothers with asthma,” she says. “Like other mothers, they should be encouraged to breastfeed.”

Kuehni and colleagues analyzed data from almost 1,500 children born in the early to mid-1990s who were enrolled in a larger child development study.

Parents provided information on breastfeeding history when their children were 12 months old, and the children had a series of tests to assess lung function between the ages of 8 and 14.

Children who were breastfed for at least four months showed evidence of significantly better lung function by one measure.

Being breastfed as babies was associated with better scores on all the lung function measures among children whose mothers had asthma.

Breastfed Babies Healthier Overall?

The evidence as a whole suggests that breastfeeding is beneficial for lung development, even when mom has asthma, says pediatrician Roya Samuels, MD, of Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y.

She says it is clear that babies who are breastfed tend to be healthier overall, with fewer ear infections, respiratory illnesses, and gastrointestinal problems.

“Moms with asthma can absolutely be reassured that breastfeeding will provide significant benefits for their children,” she says.

She says the new study finds no support for the theory that new moms with poorly controlled asthma may expose their babies to hormones through their breast milk that cause inflammation and increase asthma risk.

“No research has been able to prove this theory or debunk it, until now,” she says.

webmd.com

Feb. 3, 2012 — People pleasers may want to steer clear of this weekend’s Super Bowl parties in order to avoid a dietary fumble.

A new study shows people who have a strong desire to please others tend to overeat in social situations, even if they’re not hungry.

They’re also more likely to indulge in foods they’d normally avoid, like fatty snacks and sweet desserts.

“People pleasers feel more intense pressure to eat when they believe that their eating will help another person feel more comfortable,” says researcher Julie Exline, PhD, a Case Western Reserve psychologist, in a news release.

According to the researchers, saying no to Buffalo wings or pizza at a party is hard for everyone when others are eating them. But people pleasers are especially sensitive to peer pressure and want to match what others are eating.

In addition to spoiling their diet, researchers say peer pressure-induced eating comes at an emotional cost for people pleasers.

“Those who overeat in order to please others tend to regret their choices later,” says Exline. “It doesn’t feel good to give in to social pressures.”

Simple Secrets to Portion Control and Healthy Eating

Eating to Please

In the study, researchers looked at the effect of social pressures on eating in two different situations involving about 100 undergraduate students. All of the participants completed a survey beforehand that indicated how strong their desire was to please others.

In the first situation, the students were offered a bowl of M&M candies from a stranger, who they thought was another participant in the study. Researchers measured how much candy they took and then questioned the students about how much they ate and why.

The results showed people pleasers tended to eat more if they thought their peer wanted them to eat.

In addition, people pleasers had a greater desire to match the quantity their peer ate. They were also more likely to say they wanted to make the other person feel comfortable.

“They don’t want to rock the boat or upset the sense of social harmony,” says Exline.

Researchers say these effects were especially significant because the situation — a brief exchange with a stranger — was one in which social pressure should have been minimal.

Peer Pressure Prompts Overeating

In the second experiment, researchers asked the participants to recall a situation in which they were trying to avoid overeating or eating a certain food (like junk food or dessert), and they were with another person who wanted to eat or overeat the food they were trying to avoid.

Most of the study participants’ situations involved a close relationship. The results showed that people who were people pleasers were more likely perceive that the other person would feel threatened if they didn’t eat.

People pleasers were also more likely to report:

Feeling concerned about their relationship with the other personMore emotional distress about the situationA greater desire to satisfy othersGiving in to social peer pressure by eating moreFeeling less satisfaction with the outcome

Researchers say people pleasers have a strong desire to avoid posing a threat to others and put a lot of effort into making others feel comfortable. In situations where food is the focus, this desire to please could be dangerous to their diets.

“Almost everyone has been in a situation in which they’ve felt this pressure, but people pleasers seem especially sensitive to it,” says Exline.

webmd.com

Feb. 3, 2012 — Researchers say they have developed a blood test that may reliably detect depression.

If the test continues to perform well in studies, experts say it could become one of the first objective ways to look for depression, which affects nearly 1 in 10 American adults.

“Psychiatry is a field that is begging for tests because all of our diagnoses, for the most part, are based on clinical assessments, and clinical assessments are very subjective and can be biased,” says Jennifer L. Payne, MD, a psychiatrist and co-director of the Mood Disorders Center at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

Payne reviewed the study for WebMD but was not involved in the research, which is published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

“We’d love to have tests that tell us if someone has a particular illness or not,” she says. “This is a very nice step in that direction, but there’s a heck of a lot more work to be done before this is used as a clinical test for major depression.”

Depression Overview

Study Results ‘Quite Exciting’

The new test, called MDDScore, was developed by a company called Ridge Diagnostics. And it’s not the only objective test for depression under study.

In 2010, the company Rules-Based Medicine, which is headquartered in Austin, Texas, began offering a blood test that checks for recent-onset schizophrenia. The company is reportedly tweaking that test to make a version that looks for depression.

MDDScore measures nine indicators in blood called biomarkers that are thought to be altered in adults with major depressive disorder. 

“A large number of the markers that constitute the test come from the inflammation family,” says researcher George Papakostas, MD, a psychiatrist and director of treatment-resistant depression studies at Massachusetts General Hospital. 

“Chronic inflammation [is] part of a risk factor or part of the process of depression itself,” says Papakostas, who is also an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a consultant for Ridge Diagnostics.

Additional indicators include hormones, growth factors, enzymes, and other proteins that act as chemical messengers.

In two studies that involved 70 people with depression and 43 people who were not depressed for comparison, the test correctly identified depression about 91% of the time and correctly ruled it out about 81% of the time.

“Those numbers are high, and I think that’s quite exciting,” says Payne.

Still, the test missed depression in about 9% of people tested and falsely diagnosed depression in about 19% of people who were actually healthy.

Papakostas says those error rates may be acceptable since the test isn’t meant to be used as a standalone diagnostic tool.

“The goal in developing a test is not to kind of nullify clinical judgment or patient experience, but to kind of supplement or help with that,” he says.

According to the Ridge Diagnostics’ web site, the test is available to patients but must be ordered by a doctor. The list price of the MDDScore is $745. The cost to patients is $90 if it is covered by insurance.

webmd.com

Feb. 3, 2012 — New moms with asthma can safely breastfeed without worrying that the practice will increase their child’s asthma risk, a new study shows.

Researchers followed children in the United Kingdom from birth until around age 12 to assess the impact of breastfeeding, if any, on lung development.

They found that kids who were breastfed as babies had modestly better lung function than those who were not — and breastfeeding seemed to convey the most protection to children whose mothers had asthma.

Breastfeeding Hints & Hurdles

Researcher: Moms With Asthma Should Breastfeed

The findings appear to contradict several earlier studies that raised concerns that breast milk may not always be best for babies born to mothers with the respiratory disease.

The new study was published online ahead of print in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

“We found evidence for improvement in some aspects of lung function in children who were breastfed, which was strongest in those whose mothers had asthma,” says researcher Claudia E. Kuehni, MD, of the University of Bern’s Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine in Bern, Switzerland.

“This is reassuring for new mothers with asthma,” she says. “Like other mothers, they should be encouraged to breastfeed.”

Kuehni and colleagues analyzed data from almost 1,500 children born in the early to mid-1990s who were enrolled in a larger child development study.

Parents provided information on breastfeeding history when their children were 12 months old, and the children had a series of tests to assess lung function between the ages of 8 and 14.

Children who were breastfed for at least four months showed evidence of significantly better lung function by one measure.

Being breastfed as babies was associated with better scores on all the lung function measures among children whose mothers had asthma.

Breastfed Babies Healthier Overall?

The evidence as a whole suggests that breastfeeding is beneficial for lung development, even when mom has asthma, says pediatrician Roya Samuels, MD, of Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y.

She says it is clear that babies who are breastfed tend to be healthier overall, with fewer ear infections, respiratory illnesses, and gastrointestinal problems.

“Moms with asthma can absolutely be reassured that breastfeeding will provide significant benefits for their children,” she says.

She says the new study finds no support for the theory that new moms with poorly controlled asthma may expose their babies to hormones through their breast milk that cause inflammation and increase asthma risk.

“No research has been able to prove this theory or debunk it, until now,” she says.

webmd.com

Feb. 3, 2012 — Small hits to the head may add up to injuries for high school football players, according to a new study by the Purdue Neurotrauma Group at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.

The researchers suggest that the effects of blows to the head while playing football may last longer than previously thought. During this time, players’ brains are vulnerable, so the blow that results in a concussion may be the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” the researchers write.

“Taking a large number of hits to the head is not good for you,” says study researcher Evan L. Breedlove, a graduate student in mechanical engineering at Purdue.

And the high school players that Breedlove and his colleagues studied took a lot of such hits. After following about two dozen players over two seasons, they calculated that players received 200 to almost 1,900 head blows each season. They got these numbers from the special helmets that each participating player wore. Sensors inside the helmet cataloged the hits taken, the force of the impact, and the region of the head that was struck.

The players also underwent brain scans so that the researchers could compare the data from the helmets with the effect that each blow had on the players’ brains.

“It gave us a sense of how things changed throughout the season,” says Breedlove.

Over the course of the two seasons, six of the players suffered concussions, while the scans of 17 of the players showed changes in brain function that the researchers could tie to the hits on their heads.

Questions Raised by Study

It’s the first human study looking at the accumulation of sub-concussive blows and their effect on the brain, says Gerard Gioia, PhD, chief of pediatric neuropsychology and director of the Safe Concussion Outcome, Recovery, & Education (SCORE) Program at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

“The study raises questions of whether we should be reducing the number of blows an individual takes,” says Gioia, who reviewed the study for WebMD.

As the study authors and Gioia point out, changes to the brain are not necessarily indicative of damage. More research will be needed to determine that.

“We are currently in a gray area of research when it comes to concussions,” says Gioia. “We’re still trying to understand the problem and translate it into education and prevention.”

No Clear Cut Answers for Parents

That puts parents in a difficult position, because there are no clear answers about the extent of the risks their child faces when he suits up for a football game.

“I have families who are constantly asking me about these things,” Gioia says. “We take the research we have and try to apply it to their kids as best we can, but we can only make educated guesses.”

webmd.com