Year: 2023

Categories : NeurologyTags :

MRI Reveals How a Dip in Cold Water Boosts Mood

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Photo by Yaroslav Shuraev

Observations of the brain when the body is immersed in cold water reveal changes in connectivity between areas which process emotion, which could explain why people often feel more upbeat and alert after swimming outside or taking cold baths.

During a research trial, published in the journal Biology, 33 healthy volunteers were given a functional MRI (fMRI) scan immediately after bathing in cold water. The team included imaging experts from Bournemouth University and University Hospitals Dorset (UHD), and extreme environments researcher, Dr Heather Massey, from the University of Portsmouth. 

Dr Massey, from the School of Sport, Health and Exercise Science, said: “It has been a really pleasing experience to work with this interdisciplinary team to develop a method and publish this piece of research that could only be completed by a group with such a diverse skill set.

“With the growing popularity of outdoor swimming and cold water immersion, which many now use to support improved mood, it is long overdue that we study how it may affect us. We know so much about the impact cold water immersion can have on the body, but the brain has had little focus, primarily as it has been more challenging to study. It is only now that technology is developing, can we start to get some insight.”

Dr Ala Yankouskaya, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Bournemouth University, led the study. She said: “The benefits of cold-water immersion are widely known from previous studies where participants were questioned on how they feel afterwards, but we wanted to see how the shock of going into the cold water actually affects the brain.” 

Each participant was given an initial fMRI scan and then immersed in a pool of water at 20°C for five minutes whilst an ECG and respiratory equipment measured their bodies’ physiological responses. After being quickly dried they were given a second fMRI scan so the team could look for any changes in their brains’ activity.

“All tiny parts of the brain are connected to each other in a certain pattern when we carry out activities in our day-to-day lives, so the brain works as a whole.” said Dr Yankouskaya. “After our participants went in the cold water, we saw the physiological effects – such as shivering and heavy breathing. The MRI scans then showed us how the brain rewires its connectivity to help the person cope with the shock.”  

Comparing the scans showed that changes had occurred in the connectivity between specific parts of the brain, in particular, the medial prefrontal cortex and the parietal cortex.

“These are the parts of the brain that control our emotions, and help us stay attentive and make decisions,” Dr Yankouskaya said. “So when the participants told us that they felt more alert, excited and generally better after their cold bath, we expected to see changes to the connectivity between those parts. And that is exactly what we found.”

The team are now planning to use their findings to understand more about the wiring and interactions between parts of the brain for people with mental health conditions. 

“The medial prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex have different wiring when people have conditions such as depression and anxiety,” Dr Yankouskaya explained.

“Learning how cold water can rewire these parts of the brain could help us understand why the connectivity is so different for people with these conditions, and hopefully, in the long-term, lead to alternative treatments,” she concluded.

Source: University of Portsmouth

Categories : CancerTags :

Why Lung Cancer Doesn’t Respond Well to Immunotherapy

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A new MIT study explains why dendritic cells (green) in lymph nodes that drain from the lungs fail to stimulate killer T cells (white) to attack lung tumours.
Credits: MIT/ Courtesy of the researchers

Immunotherapy works well against some types of cancer, but it has shown mixed success against lung cancer. A new study from MIT helps to shed light on why the immune system mounts such a lacklustre response to lung cancer, even after treatment with immunotherapy drugs. In a study of mice, the researchers found that bacteria naturally found in the lungs help to create an environment that suppresses T-cell activation in the lymph nodes near the lungs.

The researchers did not find that kind of immune-suppressive environment in lymph nodes near tumours growing near the skin of mice. They hope that their findings could help lead to the development of new ways to rev up the immune response to lung tumours.

“There is a functional difference between the T-cell responses that are mounted in the different lymph nodes. We’re hoping to identify a way to counteract that suppressive response, so that we can reactivate the lung-tumour-targeting T cells,” says Stefani Spranger, the Howard S. and Linda B. Stern Career Development Assistant Professor of Biology, a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and the senior author of the new study.

MIT graduate student Maria Zagorulya is the lead author of the paper, which appears today in the journal Immunity.

Failure to attack

For many years, scientists have known that cancer cells can send out immunosuppressive signals, which leads to a phenomenon known as T cell exhaustion. The goal of cancer immunotherapy is to rejuvenate those T cells so they can begin attacking tumours again.

One type of drug commonly used for immunotherapy involves checkpoint inhibitors, which remove the brakes on exhausted T cells and help reactivate them. This approach has worked well with cancers such as melanoma, but not as well with lung cancer.

Spranger’s recent work has offered one possible explanation for this: She found that some T cells stop working even before they reach a tumour, because of a failure to become activated early in their development. In a 2021 paper, she identified populations of dysfunctional T cells that can be distinguished from normal T cells by a pattern of gene expression that prevents them from attacking cancer cells when they enter a tumour.

“Despite the fact that these T cells are proliferating, and they’re infiltrating the tumour, they were never licensed to kill,” Spranger says.

In the new study, her team delved further into this activation failure, which occurs in the lymph nodes, which filter fluids that drain from nearby tissues. The lymph nodes are where ‘killer T cells’ encounter dendritic cells, which present antigens (tumour proteins) and help to activate the T cells.

To explore why some killer T cells fail to be properly activated, Spranger’s team studied mice that had tumours implanted either in the lungs or in the flank. All of the tumours were genetically identical.

The researchers found that T cells in lymph nodes that drain from the lung tumours did encounter dendritic cells and recognise the tumour antigens displayed by those cells. However, these T cells failed to become fully activated, as a result of inhibition by another population of T cells called regulatory T cells.

These regulatory T cells became strongly activated in lymph nodes that drain from the lungs, but not in lymph nodes near tumours located in the flank, the researchers found. Regulatory T cells are normally responsible for making sure that the immune system doesn’t attack the body’s own cells. However, the researchers found that these T cells also interfere with dendritic cells’ ability to activate killer T cells that target lung tumours.

The researchers also discovered how these regulatory T cells suppress dendritic cells: by removing stimulatory proteins from the surface of dendritic cells, which prevents them from being able to turn on killer T cell activity.

Microbial influence

Further studies revealed that the activation of regulatory T cells is driven by high levels of interferon gamma in the lymph nodes that drain from the lungs. This signalling molecule is produced in response to the presence of commensal bacterial – bacteria that normally live in the lungs without causing infection.

The researchers have not yet identified the types of bacteria that induce this response or the cells that produce the interferon gamma, but they showed that when they treated mice with an antibody that blocks interferon gamma, they could restore killer T cells’ activity.

Interferon gamma has a variety of effects on immune signalling, and blocking it can dampen the overall immune response against a tumour, so using it to stimulate killer T cells would not be a good strategy to use in patients, Spranger says. Her lab is now exploring other ways to help stimulate the killer T cell response, such as inhibiting the regulatory T cells that suppress the killer T cell response or blocking the signals from the commensal bacteria, once the researchers identify them.

Reprinted with permission of MIT News

Categories : COVID HospitalsTags :

Ceiling Vents Above COVID Patient Beds Provide Optimal Protection for HCWs

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Source: Martha Dominguez de Gouveia on Unsplash

Researchers have modelled the transmission of SARS-CoV-2-containing aerosol particles within an isolation room, and found the optimal layout to reduce the exposure risk for health care workers. In Physics of Fluids, Wu et al. share their findings and guidance for isolation rooms. Their work focuses on the location of the room’s air extractor (air outlet) and filtration rates, the location of the patient’s bed, and the health and safety of the health care workers (HCWs) within the area.

The researchers modelled an isolation room at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, with the aim of finding out the optimal room layout to reduce the risk of infection for health care staff.

“We modelled the virus transport and spreading processes and considered the effect of the temperature and humidity on the virus decay,” said Fangxin Fang, of Imperial College London. “We also modelled fluid and turbulence dynamics in our study, and explored the spatial distribution of virus, velocity field, and humidity under different air exchange rates and extractor locations.”

They discovered that the area of highest risk of infection is above a patient’s bed at a height of 0.7 to 2 metres, where the highest concentration of SARS-CoV-2 virus is found. After the virus is expelled from a patient’s mouth, it gets driven vertically by buoyancy and wind forces within the room.

Based on the group’s findings, the optimal layout for an isolation room to minimise infection risk is to use a ceiling extractor with an air exchange rate of 10 air changes per hour. The study focused on an isolation room within a hospital and its numerical results are limited due to the omission of droplet evaporation and particle matters, the researchers point out.

Now, the group plans to include evaporation and particle processes in models of a standard hospital patient room, intensive care unit, and waiting room.

“Further work will also focus on artificial intelligence-based surrogate modelling for rapid simulations, uncertainty analysis, and optimal control of ventilation systems as well as efficient energy use,” said Fang.

Source: American Institute of Physics

Categories : Diet and Nutrition GastrointestinalTags :

A High-fat Diet Might be Useful in Expelling Intestinal Worms

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Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

Scientists have discovered that a high-fat diet might actually have a benefit in some cases: it allows the immune system to eliminate a parasitic worm which is a major cause of death and illness in the developing world. Their findings appear in the journal Mucosal Immunology.

Parasitic worms affect up to a billion people, particularly in developing nations with poor sanitation. One of these parasites known as “whipworm” can cause long lasting infections in the large intestine.

Lead author Dr Evelyn Funjika, formerly at Manchester and now at the University of Zambia, said: “Just like the UK, the cheapest diets are often high in fat and at-risk communities to whipworm are increasingly utilising these cheap diets. Therefore, how worm infection and western diets interact is a key unknown for developing nations.

“In order to be able to study how nutrition affects parasite worm infection, we have been using a mouse model, Trichuris muris, closely related to the human whipworm Trichuris trichiura and seeing how a high-fat diet impacts immunity.”

It has been previously shown that immune responses which expel the parasite rely on white blood cells called T-helper 2 cells, specialised for eliminating gastrointestinal parasites.

The findings demonstrate how a high-fat diet, rather than obesity itself, increases a molecule on T-helper cells called ST2 and this allows an increased T-helper 2 response which expels the parasite from the large intestinal lining.

Dr John Worthington from the Department of Biomedical and Life Science at Lancaster University co-led the research.

“We were quite surprised by what we found during this study. High-fat diets are mostly associated with increased pathology during disease. However, in the case of whipworm infection this high fat diet licenses the T-helper cells to make the correct immune response to expel the worm.”

Co-lead Professor Richard Grencis from the University of Manchester said: “Our studies in mice on a standard diet demonstrate that ST2 is not normally triggered when expelling the parasite, but the high-fat diet boosts the levels of ST2 and hence allows expulsion via an alternative pathway.”

Co-lead Professor David Thornton from the University of Manchester added: “It was really fascinating that simply altering the diet completely switched the immune response in the gut from one that fails to expel the parasite, to one that brings about all the correct mechanisms to eliminate it.”

However, Dr Worthington added caution to the findings.

“Before you order that extra take-away, we have previously published that weight loss can aid the expulsion of a different gut parasite worm. So these results may be context specific, but what is really exciting is the demonstration of how diet can profoundly alter the capacity to generate protective immunity and this may give us new clues for treatments for the millions who suffer from intestinal parasitic infections worldwide.”

Source: Lancaster University

Categories : AgeingTags :

Can Revitalising Old Blood Stem Cells Slow Ageing?

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https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-close-up-shot-of-bags-of-blood-4531306/
Photo by Charlie-Helen Robinson on Pexels

Studies over the past several years have shown that infusions of young blood seem to produce a rejuvenating effect when infused into older bodies. Ageing hearts beat stronger, muscles become stronger, and thinking becomes sharper.

While some scientists have considered trying to replicate this effect with a pill, others have focused on rejuvenating the haematopoietic stem cells that actually make the blood – something which may be possible, based on recent findings from a study published in Nature Cell Biology.

“An ageing blood system, because it’s a vector for a lot of proteins, cytokines, and cells, has a lot of bad consequences for the organism,” says Emmanuelle Passegué, PhD, director of the Columbia Stem Cell Initiative, who’s been studying how blood changes with age. “A 70-year-old with a 40-year-old blood system could have a longer healthspan, if not a longer lifespan.”

Passegué, with her graduate student Carl Mitchell, found that an anti-inflammatory drug, already approved for use in rheumatoid arthritis, can turn back time in mice and reverse some of the effects of age on the hematopoietic system.

“These results indicate that such strategies hold promise for maintaining healthier blood production in the elderly,” Mitchell says.

Returning blood stem cells to a younger state

The researchers only identified the drug after a investigation of stem cells for blood and the niches where they reside in the centre of the bones.

All blood cells in the body are created by a small number of stem cells that reside in bone marrow. Over time, these haematopoietic stem cells start to change, producing fewer red blood cells (leading to anaemia) and fewer immune cells (which raises the risk of infection and impedes vaccination efforts), and they have trouble maintaining the integrity of their genomes (which can lead to blood cancers).

In a 2021 Journal of Experimental Medicine paper, Passegué and her team first tried to rejuvenate old haematopoietic stem cells in mice, with exercise or a calorie-restricted diet, both generally thought to slow the ageing process. Both failed, as did transplanting old stem cells into young bone marrow. Even young blood had no effect on rejuvenating old blood stem cells.

Mitchell and Passegué then took a closer look at the stem cells’ environment, the bone marrow. “Blood stem cells live in a niche; we thought what happens in this specialised local environment could be a big part of the problem,” Mitchell says.

With techniques developed in the Passegué lab that enable detailed investigation of the bone marrow milieu, the researchers found that the ageing niche is deteriorating and overwhelmed with inflammation, leading to dysfunction in the blood stem cells.

One inflammatory signal released from the damaged bone marrow niche, IL-1B, was critical in driving these ageing features, and blocking it with the drug, anakinra, remarkably returned the blood stem cells to a younger, healthier state.

Even more youthful effects on both the niche and the blood system occurred when IL-1B was prevented from exerting its inflammatory effects throughout the animal’s life.

The researchers are now trying to learn if the same processes are active in humans and if rejuvenating the stem cell niche earlier in life, in middle age, would be a more effective strategy.

Meanwhile, “treating elderly patients with anti-inflammatory drugs blocking IL-1B function should help with maintaining healthier blood production,” Passegué says, and she hopes the finding will lead to clinical testing.

“We know that bone tissue begins to degrade when people are in their 50s. What happens in middle age? Why does the niche fail first?” Passegué says. “Only by having a deep molecular understanding will it be possible to identify approaches that can truly delay ageing.”

Many societies have added more than 30 years to life expectancy in the past century. “Now it is imperative to conduct the science to determine how to create health and well-being across the full length of those lives,” says Linda Fried, MD, MPH, dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and director of the Butler Columbia Aging Center. “This must include research to understand the mechanisms of normal aging and how to fully develop the huge opportunities to create healthy longevity for all.”

Source: Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Categories : Ageing GenderTags :

Sex and Age Influence the Circadian Rhythm

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In a new study published in the journal Science, researchers exploring circadian molecular rhythms were able to uncover the organisation of gene expression rhythms in particular human tissues, and found that sex and age are involved, with females having a more regular pattern of rhythms.

In model organisms, analysing molecular rhythms is usually done using time-stamped measurements, but such data are not readily available in humans. To work around this, the researchers used existing measurements from a large cohort of post-mortem donors, combined with a novel computer algorithm that was designed to assign internal clock times to nearly one thousand donors.

“Interestingly, the data-science algorithm we developed turned out to resemble models from magnetic systems, which are well studied in statistical physics,” says study leader Felix Naef at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Using this innovative approach, the researchers obtained the first comprehensive and accurate whole-organism view of 24-hour gene expression rhythms in 46 human tissues.

While the core clock machinery properties are conserved across the body and do not change significantly with sex and age, their analysis also revealed extensive programs of gene expression rhythms across major compartments of metabolism, stress response pathways and immune function, and these programs peaked twice a day.

In fact, the emerging whole-body organisation of circadian timing shows that rhythmic gene expression occurs as morning and evening waves, with the timing in the adrenal gland peaking first, while brain regions displayed much lower rhythmicity compared to metabolic tissues.

Dividing the donors by sex and age revealed a previously unknown richness of sex- and age- specific gene expression rhythms spread across biological functions. Strikingly, gene expression rhythms were sex-dimorphic (different in males and females) and more sustained in females, while rhythmic programs were generally reduced with age across the body.

Sex-dimorphic rhythms were particularly noticeable in the liver’s “xenobiotic detoxification,” the process by which liver breaks down harmful substances. Additionally, the study found that with age, the rhythm of gene expression decreases in the heart’s arteries, which may explain why older people are more susceptible to heart disease. This information could be useful in the field of “chronopharmacology,” which is the study of how a person’s internal clock affects the effectiveness and side effects of medication.

This study provides new insights into the complex interplay between our body clock, sex, and age. By understanding these rhythms, we might find new ways of diagnosing and treating pathologies such as sleep disorders and metabolic diseases.

Source: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Categories : Environmental EffectsTags :

Traffic Noise may Increase the Risk of Tinnitus

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There is a correlation between traffic noise and risk of developing tinnitus, researchers have found. They point to a vicious cycle involving stress reactions and sleep disturbance as a potential cause. Living near a busy road, it may increase stress levels and affect sleep – and during times of stress and poor sleep, people may be at a higher risk of developing tinnitus.

Published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a new study with data from 3.5 million Danes has revealed that the more traffic noise Danish residents are exposed to in their homes, the more they are at risk of developing tinnitus.

Tinnitus is most clearly manifested by annoying whistling tones in the ears, which are disturbing for many.

Risk increases with noise levels

It is the first time that researchers have found a link between residential traffic noise exposure and hearing-related outcomes.

“In our data, we have found more than 40 000 cases of tinnitus and can see that for every ten decibels more noise in people’s home, the risk of developing tinnitus increases by six percent,” says Manuella Lech Cantuaria, PhD, Assistant Professor at the Mærsk Mc-Kinney-Møller Institute.

She and her colleague Jesper Hvass Schmidt, Associate Professor at the Department of Clinical Research and Chief Physician at Odense University Hospital (OUH) are concerned about the many health problems that traffic noise seems to cause. In 2021, they found a correlation between traffic noise and dementia.

“There is a need for more focus on the importance of traffic noise for health. It is alarming that noise seems to increase the risk of tinnitus, cardiovascular diseases and dementia, among other diseases,” says Jesper Hvass Schmidt.

Tip of the iceberg

Only the worst cases of tinnitus are referred from their own doctor or an otorhinolaryngologist. The high number of reported cases of tinnitus are probably only the tip of the iceberg, he believes.

“In general, about ten percent of the population experience tinnitus from time to time. It is associated with stress and poor sleep, which can be worsened by traffic noise, and here we have a potential cycle.”

More studies are needed so that researchers can be sure that traffic noise causes tinnitus, and how this happens.

“But we know that traffic noise can make us stressed and affect our sleep. And that tinnitus can get worse when we live under stressful situations and we do not sleep well,” Jesper Hvass Schmidt says.

Nighttime noise is worse

The researchers believe that noise at nighttime can be even worse for health. It affects our sleep, which is so important for restoring both our physical and mental health. “Therefore, it is worth considering whether you can do something to improve your sleep if you live next to a busy road,” Manuella Lech Cantuaria says.

What to do

In the study, higher associations were found when noise was measured at the quiet side of their houses, that is, the side facing away from the road. This is where most people would place their bedroom whenever possible, therefore researchers believe this is a better indicator of noise during sleep.

“There are different things one can do to reduce noise in their homes, for example by sleeping in a room that does not face the road or by installing soundproof windows,” says Manuella Lech Cantuaria.

But not everyone has those options, so she says that traffic noise should be considered a health risk to be taken into account in urban planning and political decision-making.

Electric cars will not make cities quieter

The Danish guidance level for harmful traffic noise is 58 decibels. It is a myth that replacing fuel cars by electric cars can significantly reduce traffic noise exposure at people’s houses. The noise comes mainly from the contact between the tires and the road.

Source: University of Southern Denmark Faculty of Health Sciences

Categories : Medical Industry Surgeries & ProceduresTags :

Inaccurate Anaesthesia Start Times Leading to Lost Revenue

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Inaccurately recording the start of anaesthesia care during a procedure is common and results in significant lost billing time for anaesthesia practices and medical centres, suggests a study being presented at the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ ADVANCE 2023, the Anesthesiology Business Event.

The anaesthesia start time (AST) must be documented from a computer logged into the electronic health record (EHR), and typically occurs once the patient is in the operating room (OR). However, the anaesthesiologist meets with the patient prior to their arrival in the OR and begins tasks that are vital to the procedure, such as administering pre-medication and attaching monitors, time which is is not typically recorded. Depending on the patient and procedure, adding two to five minutes to the AST when logging it would account for the preparation and transit time, researchers say.

“These seemingly minor inaccuracies of recorded AST can cost medical centres and anaesthesia practices hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue,” said Nicholas Volpe Jr, MD, MBA, lead author of the study and an anaesthesiology resident physician at Northwestern University McGaw Medical Center, Chicago. “We suspect most anaesthesiologists are unaware that they aren’t recording AST accurately. It’s not a result of negligence, but rather reflects that workflow hasn’t been optimised for accuracy.”

For the study, the researchers analysed 40 312 procedures with anaesthesia over 12 months at a single academic centre. In 68.74% of cases , AST was recorded as starting once the patient was in the OR, without factoring in the preparation time. Using the national average charge for anesthaesia time, the missing time translated to over $600 000 in lost revenue for the year, the researchers determined.*

“Logging AST is one of the many new tasks that anaesthesiologists learn when starting a new role,” said Dr Volpe. “Transitioning from an internship to clinical anaesthesia practice involves learning a significant amount of new information, and understanding the importance of an accurately recorded AST may seem like a relatively minor issue compared to important patient-care information.”

Several approaches could help address inaccurate AST documentation, including educating anaesthesiologists on how to improve their AST recording practices and providing visual reminders such as signs in the OR, Dr Volpe said. Also, an AST capture function could be built into the EHR mobile application so that AST can be noted by anaesthesiologists on the way to the OR, or the EHR could automatically add two minutes to the AST log time, he said. The researchers plan to roll out some of those initiatives in the spring and determine if they are effective.

*The projected savings are theoretical and not linked to billing at the institution where the study was conducted. 

Source: American Society of Anesthesiologists

Categories : Medical Research & TechnologyTags :

A New Possibility for Non-hormonal Male Contraceptives

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Photo by Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition on Unsplash

Thus far, very few contraceptive options being developed target the sperm cells. Researchers are now developing approaches that target testosterone or otherwise interrupt the sperm’s ability to fertilise an egg, yet these may not work for everyone. But now, researchers publishing in ACS’ Journal of Medicinal Chemistry have identified a new candidate molecule that could become an effective non-hormonal contraceptive for males.

Previously, Gunda I. Georg and colleagues investigated non-hormonal contraceptive options, as approaches targeting testosterone produced unwanted side effects. They developed a drug targeted at a specific vitamin A receptor and found that it worked as a highly effective contraceptive with no side effects. But numerous proteins are involved in forming sperm, and exploring multiple options would maximise chances for a drug that would eventually make it to market.

Another set of proteins involved in the cell cycle are the cyclin-dependent kinases, or CDKs, which play a role in sperm cell production and tumour development. Mice without the CDK2 receptor are sterile, so a drug that targets this protein could serve as an effective contraceptive. It also has potential as a cancer therapeutic because inhibiting the enzyme slowed tumour growth in previous studies. However, CDK2 has a very similar shape to other enzymes in its family, and currently available inhibitors tend to produce undesirable off-target effects by accidentally binding the others as well. So, Georg and her team wanted to develop a drug that could selectively inhibit CDK2 to serve as another contraceptive option.

The team previously discovered an unknown binding site in CDK2 and a commercially available dye molecule that successfully bound to it. Using the dye as a starting point, the researched screened tens of thousands of different compounds in their current work to find ones that also bound the pocket well. They narrowed the list down to just three, picking one to further optimize. The best version, named EF-4-177, demonstrated a long half-life and good diffusion into the testes of mice. After a 28-day exposure, the animals’ sperm counts decreased by about 45%. Additionally, EF-4-117 bound much more strongly to the CDK2 pocket than the dye, making it the highest affinity inhibitor for this site reported to date. The researchers say that this work proves the potential of this inhibitor for future therapeutic applications.

Source: Michigan State University

Categories : Mental Health PaediatricsTags :

Boys can Also be at Risk for Eating Disorders

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Depression, young man
Source: Andrew Neel on Unsplash

In the public mind, eating disorders are associated mainly with girls from wealthy backgrounds. Now, a new study on twins published in the Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science has found that boys living in disadvantaged circumstances are at an increased risk for disordered eating – particularly if they have underlying genetic risk factors.

“This is critical information for health care providers who might not otherwise screen for or recognize disordered eating in this population,” said Megan Mikhail, lead author of the study and Ph.D. candidate in the MSU Clinical Psychology program. “It is also important for the public to recognize that eating disorders can affect everyone, including people who do not fit the historical stereotypes.”

The study from Michigan State University, is the first to look at associations between multiple forms of disadvantage and risk for disordered eating in boys, as well as how disadvantage may interact with biological risks to impact disordered eating in boys.

Using a large population-based sample of male twins from the Michigan State University Twin Registry, the researchers found that boys from more disadvantaged backgrounds reported greater disordered eating symptoms and had earlier activation of genetic influences on disordered eating, which could lead to increased long-term risk.

By using population-based sample, the researchers could avoid overlooking those unable to afford mental health care. They examined factors such as parental income, education and neighbourhood disadvantage to see how those factors related to disordered eating symptoms in the boys. Since all the participants were twins, researchers were also able to study genetic influences on disordered eating.

“This research is particularly relevant following the COVID pandemic when many families experienced financial hardship,” said Kelly Klump, MSU Foundation Professor of Psychology and co-author of the study. “Those financial stressors are putting many young people at risk for an eating disorder, so it’s vital that there be increased screening and access to care for these young people.”

Source: Michigan State University