Depression Archive

 Image: Attila Barabas/Thinkstock

News Briefs

Caring for an elderly family member with disability, dementia, or both is a tough job. And those with the heaviest responsibilities suffer the most consequences, finds a study published Feb. 15, 2016, in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Researchers looked at information from two large national surveys of older adults and their family caregivers. They noted that about 15 million family caregivers are assisting almost eight million adults 65 or older, and 44% of caregivers are providing substantial care—about 28 hours per week—by helping with medication management, doctor visits, and transportation. Researchers found that people providing substantial care are more likely to live with the person they care for and are more likely to experience significant emotional, physical, and financial difficulty compared with caregivers who don't provide substantial help. Researchers also said people providing substantial care are more than five times as likely to miss out on activities they value and three times as likely to be less productive at work, compared with those who don't have such a heavy caregiving load.

Many people cite a lack of “motivation” or “willpower” as the reason that overweight people can’t control their eating habits. But a wealth of evidence has come to light that obesity is linked to insufficient sleep. Most recently, an experimental study has found that restricted sleep can increase the levels of brain chemicals that make eating pleasurable. Could it be that insufficient sleep makes the brain addicted to the act of eating?

Several long-term treatments can help people overcome opioid addiction. One of them, naltrexone, may help people who have trouble sticking with taking a pill every day. Naltrexone can be offered as a monthly injection called Vivitrol, which has been shown to help more people stay on treatment as compared to the pill form. However, it’s not for everyone, and like all treatments for opioid addiction, it must be used very carefully.

A negative attitude about aging appears to be associated with a higher likelihood of Alzheimer's disease.

A study in the journal Psychology and Aging examined healthy, dementia-free subjects from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, the nation's longest-running scientific study of aging.

Although the two conditions seem unrelated, Alzheimer’s and heart disease actually share a genetic link. People who have a certain gene variant have both a somewhat elevated heart disease risk and a significantly elevated Alzheimer’s risk. Fortunately, a recent study has suggested that when people know they have this variant, they’re more likely to make healthy lifestyle choices that benefit their heart — and what’s good for the heart is good for the brain.

Many older adults take PPIs to treat heartburn, GERD, or stomach ulcers. Recently, a new study identified a link between chronic PPI use and an increased risk for dementia. If you take a PPI, check in with your doctor — you may be able to take it only when you have symptoms, not continuously (and this kind of usage was not associated with a dramatically increased dementia risk in the study).

A recent study that tracked healthy volunteers’ exercise and drinking habits found that they tended to drink more on days when they exercised more. But this study might have had drastically different results if conducted with different groups. For example, what results might we see if the volunteers were sedentary people looking to exercise more — or people with unhealthy drinking patterns who were working to cut back?

Ask anyone who’s ever tried to make a healthy change — after a while, the motivation to keep at it just stops. Indeed, it can be incredibly hard to break old habits, or make new ones. But research has revealed that there are actually two different types of rewards in the brain — and that focusing on the less commonly pursued of the two can help you make lasting changes.