LinkBlog
Can We Control Our Fears?
Information for People with Anxiety Disorders
Pondering: The Neurobiology of Dread
Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel on CBT & the neuroscience of psychiatric disease
blog roll
- Agoraphobia
- Anxiety 2 Calm
-
Anxious Living : An Exploration
into Social Anxiety - Dare to Dream
- Dear Tobacco
-
Dr. Deborah Serani's:
Psychological Perspectives - Fast Weight Loss?
- Finding the Confidence
- GNIF Brain Blogger
- Legacy of War
- Mental Health Minutes
- PTSD Combat
- The Happiness Guy
- The Trouble With Spikol
-
WebMD: Anxiety and
Stress Management
recommended links
-
ABIL: Agoraphobics Building
Independant Lives -
Agoraphobia and Panic
Disorder Foundation -
Anxiety Disorders Association
of America - Anxiety Network Australia
- Anxiety-Panic.Com
- AnxietyZone
- BrainPhysics - OCD
-
Canadian Network for Mood
and Anxiety Treatments - Choices in Mental Health (UK)
-
David Baldwin's
Trauma Information Pages - EMDR Institute, Inc.
- EMDR Network Japan
- Fear of Flying course (free)
- Healthy Minds
- Information for People with Anxiety Disorders
- Internet Guide to REBT, CBT
- Living with a Brain Disorder
- Morita Therapy
- Mayo Clinic : Depression
- Mayo Clinic : GAD
- Mayo Clinic : OCD
- Mayo Clinic : Panic Attacks
- Mayo Clinic : PTSD
- Mayo Clinic : Social Anxiety
-
Medicines.org.uk - Anxiety &
Depression guides - Mind-Your-Mind Canada
- National Center for PTSD
-
National Institute of Mental
Health (NIMH) - No Such Thing As Crazy
- OCD Action, UK
- OCD Ireland
- Obsessive Compulsive Foundation
- Open Minds, Open Doors
- Paniccure.com
- Partners With PTSD
-
Rational Emotive Behavior
Therapy (REBT) - Sane Australia
-
Shyness & Social Anxiety
Service of Australia -
Social Phobia/Social Anxiety
Association - Social Anxiety Support board
-
South African Depression &
Anxiety Group - Suicide Prevention Help
-
tAPir - the Anxiety Panic
internet resource -
The Panic Center (Free
CBT based programs)
"just don't smoke"
Yul Brynner
- Menthol cigarettes harder to quit
- Secondhand smoke in cars serious threat to kid's health
- Starting smoking young increases addiction risk
-
Smoking doesn't slim girls;
stunts boys' growth - 40 reasons why you should quit smoking
- Pregnant smokers 'prime' their kids to smoke
- Smoking related coronary artery disease quickly reversed if young smokers quit
- Not ready to quit? Try cutting back
- Half smoking again within year of lung cancer surgery
- Cutting back 'compensation' increases toxin load per cigarette
- Tobacco companies upped nicotine level 11% since 1998
- Workplace passive smoke increases lung cancer risk
- Hooked by genes: The DNA sequences cigarette companies love
- Smoking causes long lasting changes to brain's bio chemistry
- Nicotine receptor stimulant trebles the odds of stopping smoking
- Bupropion, nortriptyline double chances of quitting
- Nicotine's powerful role in reinforcing smoking
- Pregnant smokers raise child's risk of stroke, heart attack
- Smoking linked to pancreatic cancer
- Neurobiology of Smokers' Cravings
- 'Low cancer risk' cigarettes as deadly as regular kind
- Quitting reduces lung cancer death risk by 70%
- Fetal nicotine exposure linked to teen attention problems
anti torture campaign
- Torture experts write APA policy
- [APA] still rocked by torture debate
- Petition for psychologists
- AMA president says APA "did not accurately represent our ethical guidelines"
- Psychologists Aiding Torturers
-
Annual conference endorses
APA's torture policy :( - Physicians for Human Rights call on Congress to vote No on Military Commissions Bill
-
Torture is a Form of Trauma;
Trauma Causes PTSD - Psychoanalysts' association condemns torture use
- Humiliating, inhumane or degrading treatment IS torture
Deputy Army Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Lt. General John (Jeff) Kimmons, has stated that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through abusive interrogation methods in the last 5 years.
monument, Monmouth County
New Jersey.
Chronic stress, depression associated with higher levels of inflammatory markers
Psychosocial factors, such as cynical distrust, chronic stress and depression, may be associated with higher levels of inflammatory markers measured in the blood, which in turn are related to an increased risk for cardiovascular disease, according to a report in the January 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
A number of studies have linked psychosocial characteristics with cardiovascular disease and death, according to background information in the article. However, the mechanisms by which they are related are unclear. "Research has highlighted the importance of inflammation in the initiation and development of atherosclerosis and in the precipitation of cardiovascular events," the authors write. "Inflammation may be a mechanistic pathway linking psychosocial factors to cardiovascular disease."
Nalini Ranjit, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and colleagues used data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, a study of 6,814 men and women who were between the ages of 45 to 84 years (average age 62.2) when they enrolled, between 2000 and 2002. Participants filled out a questionnaire with demographic information, and several separate questionnaires that assessed the psychosocial risk factors of depression and chronic stress. Cynical distrust was measured at a follow-up visit between 2002 and 2004. Blood samples obtained at the initial examination were analyzed for IL-6, C-reactive protein and fibrinogen, all markers for inflammation.
The researchers found graded associations between all three psychosocial factors and inflammatory markers. "The strongest and most consistent associations were observed for cynical distrust, which was positively associated with all three inflammatory markers," the authors write. "Chronic stress was positively associated with the IL-6 level and had a moderately positive association with the CRP level, whereas depression was associated only with the IL-6 level."
"Associations of psychosocial factors with inflammatory markers were reduced by 20 percent to 55 percent after adjustment for behavioral factors and by 45 percent to 100 percent after adjustment for body mass index (BMI) and diabetes, mostly owing to the effect of BMI," they continue. "No associations remained after controlling for socioeconomic position, behaviors, BMI and diabetes."
According to the authors, this suggests that at least part of the link may be due to the mediating role of behaviors — for instance, psychosocial factors may increase the chance that an individual takes up behaviors such as smoking, which results in higher levels of inflammatory markers. Stress and psychosocial factors may contribute to obesity and related metabolic problems, thus explaining the weakening of the association after controlling for BMI and diabetes. In addition, "socioeconomic position is likely to be an antecedent to psychosocial characteristics, as well as to other factors (e.g. behaviors, BMI and diabetes) associated with inflammation," the authors write. However, further studies are needed to determine the nature of the relationship between inflammation and these mediating factors.
The study was supported by grants from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Ranjit N, Diez-Roux AV, Shea S, Cushman M, Seeman T, Jackson SA, Ni H.
Psychosocial factors and inflammation in the multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis.Arch Intern Med. 2007 Jan 22;167(2):174-81. [Abstract]