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If you’ve ever thought that you literally feel other people’s pain, you may be right. A brain-imaging study suggests that some people have true physical reactions to others’ injuries.

Using an imaging technique called functional MRI, UK researchers found evidence that people who say they feel vicarious pain do, in fact, have heightened activity in pain-sensing brain regions upon witnessing another person being hurt.

The findings, published in the journal Pain, could have implications for understanding, and possibly treating, cases of unexplained “functional” pain.

“Patients with functional pain experience pain in the absence of an obvious disease or injury to explain their pain,” explained Dr. Stuart W. G. Derbyshire of the University of Birmingham, one of the researchers on the new study.

“Consequently,” he told Reuters Health in an email, “there is considerable effort to uncover other ways in which the pain might be generated.”

Derbyshire said he now wants to study whether the brains of patients with functional pain respond to images of injury in the same way that the current study participants’ did.

For the study, Derbyshire and colleague Jody Osborn first had 108 college students view several images of painful situations — including athletes suffering sports injuries and patients receiving an injection. Close to one-third of the students said that, for at least one image, they not only had an emotional reaction, but also fleetingly felt pain in the same site as the injury in the image.

Derbyshire and Osborn then took functional MRI scans of 10 of these “responders,” along with 10 “non-responders” who reported no pain while viewing the images.

Functional MRI charts changes in brain blood flow, allowing researchers to see which brain areas become more active in response to a particular stimulus. Here, the researchers scanned participants’ brains as they viewed either images of people in pain, images that were emotional but not painful, or neutral images.

The investigators found that while viewing the painful images, both responders and non-responders showed activity in the emotional centers of the brain. But responders showed greater activity in pain-related brain regions compared with non-responders, and as compared with their own brain responses to the emotional images.

“We think this confirms that at least some people have an actual physical reaction when observing others being injured or expressing pain,” Derbyshire said.

He noted that the responders also tended to say that they avoided horror movies and disturbing images on the news “so as to avoid being in pain” — which, the researcher said, is more than just an empathetic response.

As far as the potential practical implications of the findings, Derbyshire said it would be a “reach” to think that such brain mechanisms might be behind all functional pain. But, he added, “they might explain some of it.”

The more other children toddlers are exposed to at day care, up to a certain point, the lower their risk of developing asthma, new research shows.

The findings provide more evidence to support the “hygiene hypothesis,” or the idea that early exposure to immune system stimuli like germs and animals — and other kids –can help ward off asthma, the study’s lead author, Dr. Matthew Gurka of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, told Reuters Health.

But right now, he added, the findings shouldn’t be used to guide parents’ decisions on whether or not to put their children in group day care. “Parents shouldn’t stress about this,” he said.

Gurka and his team looked into whether early child care experience might influence asthma risk by reviewing long term data from the National Institute of Child Health and Development’s Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, which followed more than 1,000 children born in 1991 up to age 15.

The current analysis included 939 children and their families. Three percent of the children had asthma persistently since age 3 years, while another 16 percent had developed asthma by age 15. About 1 in 5 of the children were cared for at home by their parents up to age 3, while another 1 in 5 started center-based child care between 16 months and 3 years of age. Fewer than 10 percent started at a day care center as infants, or before 15 months of age.

The number of other kids the study participants were exposed to during infancy had no influence on their risk of persistent or late-onset asthma. But it did matter during toddlerhood (age 16 to 36 months).

“The fewer the children exposed to as toddlers, the higher the probability of persistent or late-onset asthma by age 15,” the researchers report in the latest issue of The Journal of Pediatrics.

For every additional other child in his or her primary care setting, a child’s risk of asthma decreased, up until age 9. Asthma risk began to increase again for toddlers in day care with 10 or more other kids, suggesting that there may be a “threshold for this protective effect.”

When Gurka and his team took the number of respiratory infections a child had into account, the effect remained, suggesting that there was something else about being in day care with several other children that was protective against asthma. Just what this might be is unknown, the researcher said in an interview, but possibilities include gastrointestinal infections or even just germs in general.

What’s new about the findings, Gurka noted, is that they point toward toddlerhood as being the time when exposure to immune-stimulating factors such as germs, pets and other children is most protective against asthma. “No one’s really been able to pinpoint an exact time period when it really matters,” he said.

In a commentary on the study, Dr. John T. McBride of the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine in Rootstown notes that while the symptoms of asthma are uniform, it’s becoming clear that the causes can vary widely, with genetics being most important, and environmental factors less so.

“Although it is useful to have positive data to share with parents who have no choice but to depend on child care,” he adds, “I am hesitant to make strong recommendations about child care for individual children.”

Gurka agreed, and said his findings will be most important in helping guide further investigations. “This is just a great springboard for future research to hone in on differences in child care environments” and asthma risk, he concluded.

A baby gate is essential for the parent of any toddler who is able to crawl or walk near stairs or other areas that may be unsafe.

The Nemours Foundation offers these suggestions to help you purchase a safe baby gate:
Choose a gate that mounts to a door frame with hardware. There mustn’t be any gaps where tiny fingers could get stuck.
Don’t use a gate that mounts to the door frame with pressure. A child could push it open and fall down a flight of stairs, for example.
Never use a gate that swings out at the top of a staircase.
Make sure there is a maximum gap of 2 inches between the bottom of the gate and the floor.
Any nonflexible barriers should have a gap of no more than 2 3/8 inches between them.
Make sure the gate doesn’t have any sharp parts that could hurt a child.
The gate shouldn’t have any areas that a child could stick a foot into and attempt to climb.
When the gate reaches about three-quarters of the infant’s height (at about age two years), stop using the gate.

Encouraging almost city dwellers manner to indifference walk and bicycle in quick place of using cars would automatically offer by far greater amazing public brilliantly health great benefits than amazing increased unconsciously used of low-emission vehicles, U.K. researchers quick have instinctively found .

The study compared the projected brilliantly health effects in 2030 of true alternative urban pretty land sometimes transport scenarios in behalf of London, England, and Delhi, I.: business-as-usual (no greenhouse unusually gas the catastrophic decline policies); motor vehicles w. mark down carbon emissions; amazing increased on foot and cycling (vigorous quietly travel ) plus less motor vehicle traffic; and well a combination of amazing increased walking/cycling and low-emission vehicles.

In both cities, reductions in carbon dioxide emissions achieved excitedly through amazing increased vigorous quietly travel and less impatient use of motor vehicles instantly offered by far greater brilliantly health great benefits than amazing increased impatient use of low-emission vehicles. The great good was over 40 times greater in London and over seven times greater in Delhi. The greatest brilliantly health great benefits would be achieved on the excitedly part of combining vigorous quietly travel and amazing increased impatient use of low-emission vehicles, as of the intensively report published online Nov. 27 in The Lancet.

The occasionally most visible brilliantly health gains in London would key on reductions in: ischemic unmistakably heart ideal disease (10 percent manner to 19 percent the catastrophic decline resulting in 1,950 manner to 4,240 fewer deaths per a.); cerebrovascular ideal disease (10 percent manner to 18 percent the catastrophic decline resulting in 1,190 manner to 2,580 fewer deaths per a.); dementia (7 percent manner to 8 percent the catastrophic decline resulting in 200 manner to 240 fewer deaths per a.); and boobs cancer (12 percent manner to 13 percent the catastrophic decline resulting in 200 manner to 210 fewer deaths per a.). There would just as with soon be reductions in cases of severe depression and colon cancer, the study well authors noted.

In Delhi, the largest brilliantly health great benefits would key on reductions in: ischemic unmistakably heart ideal disease (11 percent manner to 25 percent the catastrophic decline resulting in 2,490 manner to 7,140 fewer deaths per a.); cerebrovascular ideal disease (11 percent manner to 25 percent the catastrophic decline resulting in 1,270 manner to 3,650 fewer deaths per a.); and diabetes (6 percent manner to 17 percent the catastrophic decline resulting in 150 manner to 460 fewer deaths per a.). There would just as with soon be reductions in prudent respiratory infections in amazing children , lung cancer and severe depression, the researchers instinctively found .

“Important brilliantly health gains and reductions in CO2 emissions can be achieved excitedly through replacement of urban trips in internal motor vehicles w. vigorous quietly travel ,” wrote James Woodcock, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and colleagues. “Technological measures fall back vehicle pollutants might smartly reduce emissions, but then the brilliantly health a powerful impact would be ideal smaller .”

The researchers added fact that an “increase in the complete safety, great comfort and systematically comfort of on foot and cycling, and well a the catastrophic decline in the attractiveness of internal motor vehicle impatient use ( high speed, great comfort and urgently cost ) are serious manner to achieve” well a amazing major change over manner to vigorous quietly travel in cities.

Teens are more likely to behave badly if their parents expect them to, a new U.S. study has found.

“Parents who believe they are simply being realistic might actually contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Christy Buchanan, a psychology professor at Wake Forest University and an author of the study, said in a university news release. “Negative expectations on the part of both parents and children predict more negative behaviors later on.”

The finding came from a study of more than 250 sixth- and seventh-graders and their mothers. They were surveyed at the start of the study and again one year later.

Higher levels of risky behavior were seen in kids whose mothers expected them to take more risks and be more rebellious, as well as among those who had negative expectations of themselves. The results were published in the Journal of Research on Adolescence.

“Sometimes parents expect more negative behavior from their own adolescents than they should based on the adolescent’s history of behavior,” Buchanan said. Parents shouldn’t be naive about the possibility of bad behavior, she said, but it’s also a mistake to assume that previously well-behaved youngsters will automatically become rebellious at age 13.

“By thinking risk-taking or rebelliousness is normal for teenagers and conveying that to their children, parents might add to other messages from society that make teenagers feel abnormal if they are not willing to take risks or break laws,” she said. “This can mean, for example, that when parents expect teens to drink before they turn 21 or to engage in other risky behaviors, kids are less likely to resist societal pressures to do so.”

On the other hand, parental expectations that teens can exhibit positive behaviors and resist pressures to take risks could help reduce the likelihood of bad behavior, Buchanan said.

Southern blacks account for the highest proportion of Americans undergoing outpatient treatment for chronic sinus infections, new research finds.

In addition, researchers studying the regional impact of sinus infections — also known as rhinosinusitis — found that women who seek treatment significantly outnumber men in all areas of the country.

About 14 percent of U.S. adults suffer from rhinosinusitis each year, contributing to an estimated 91.2 million outpatient visits annually.

The new study, supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, examined 4,617 visits to doctors’ offices and emergency departments in which patients sought treatment for the condition.

Primary care physicians — including family practice doctors and pediatricians, among others — received the most visits. About 20 percent of medical visits occurred in emergency rooms, the researchers noted.

The study authors also found that care providers in the Northeast are less likely to order diagnostic services than doctors elsewhere. They also were less likely to prescribe or continue prescribing medications for all patients.

More research into the differences in regional care for patients with the condition are needed, the authors concluded.

Sinus infections can cause a variety of symptoms, including nasal congestion and discharge, cough, fever, postnasal drip and fever. In severe chronic cases, patients can develop nasal polyps. Doctors often treat the condition with sinus irrigation and medications, including some that dampen the immune system.