Knowledge Update

​New York, March 23 (IANS) Many people endlessly treat themselves with medications for their low-back pain. A team of US researchers has found mindfulness meditation as an effective alternative that may help reduce chronic low-back pain.

Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBRS) involved training in observing, acknowledging and accepting thoughts and feelings including pain. The training also includes some easy yoga poses to help participants become more aware of their bodies. 

"The results were encouraging and we're constantly looking for new and innovative ways to help our patients," said study author Daniel Cherkin from Group Health Research Institute in the US.

"The research suggests that training the brain to respond differently to pain signals may be more effective -- and last longer -- than traditional physical therapy and medication," Cherkin added in the paper published in the journal JAMA.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a kind of talk therapy that helped people reframe how they think about their pain, so that they can manage it more successfully and change their behaviours.

Researchers compared MBSR along with CBT to see if these interventions might ease pain.

The study enrolled 342 participants aged 20 to 70 with low-back pain that had lasted at least three months and could not be attributed to a specific cause. 

The participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups. One of these groups received training in MBSR and the other in CBT. The third group received only their usual care.

Training in MBSR led to meaningful improvements in functioning and chronic low-back pain at six months.

The results showed that compared to the group receiving usual care, participants in both the MBSR and CBT groups were significantly more likely to experience clinically meaningful (at least 30 percent) improvements. 

"We found that these approaches were as helpful for people with chronic back pain as are other effective treatments for back pain. They also had longer-lasting benefits and were safer than many other treatment options," the authors said.​

​New York, March 21 (IANS) The animal right organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has reportedly filed an appeal against a lower court's decision in January this year that declined to give a macaque monkey the right to his famous selfie taken in Indonesia in 2011.

The appeal brief was filed at the northern district of California and the appeals court will now decide whether or not to uphold the earlier court ruling, Ubergizmo reported on Monday.

In an earlier ruling, a federal judge in San Francisco declined to give a macaque monkey the right to his famous selfie in Indonesia in 2011.

PETA had filed a lawsuit last September asking a US federal court in San Francisco to declare Naruto - a then six-year-old male, free-living crested macaque - the author and owner of the internationally famous monkey selfie photographs that he took himself a few years ago.

The organisation filed the lawsuit against photographer David J. Slater and his company, Wildlife Personalities Ltd. - both of which claim copyright ownership of the photos that Naruto indisputably took.

Naruto is known to field researchers in Sulawesi who have observed and studied him for years as they work in the region.

In 2011 in Indonesia, Slater left an unattended camera on a tripod.

That was tempting for Naruto, a curious male crested black macaque, who took the camera and began taking photographs -- some of the forest floor, some of other macaques and several of himself one of which resulted in the now-famous "monkey selfie".

In an earlier statement, PETA said: "The US Copyright Act grants copyright ownership of a 'selfie' to the 'author' of the photograph, and there's nothing in the law limiting such ownership on the basis of species."

"Naruto has been accustomed to cameras throughout his life, saw himself in the reflection of the lens, made the connection between pressing the shutter and the change in his reflection, and posed for the pictures he took," PETA said in a statement.​

​New York, March 20 (IANS) Bouncing back when someone goes through a rough period in life -- say a divorce or losing a job, people can struggle considerably and take much longer time to recover back to previous levels of functioning, says a new study.

The new research finds that natural resilience may not be as common as once thought and that when confronted with a major life-altering event many people can struggle considerably and for longer periods of time."Give the person time to heal" has been the common mantra. This often meant that when these people struggled, they would be left to deal with their situation largely on their own.
"We show that contrary to an extensive body of research, when individuals are confronted with major life stressors, such as spousal loss, divorce or unemployment, they are likely to show substantial declines in well-being and these declines can linger for several years," said co-author of the new study Frank Infurna from Arizona State University in the US.

"Whereas when we test these assumptions more thoroughly, we find that most individuals are deeply affected and it can take several years for them to recover and get back to previous levels of functioning," Infurna added in the paper published in the journal of Perspectives on Psychological Science.



Most psychological studies have supported the idea of a person's innate resilience to the struggles of life.The new research questions prior claims that resilience is the "usual" response to major life stressors by looking at longitudinal data in a more nuanced way and making less generalisation about the human response to such dramatic events.he team used existing longitudinal data from Germany (the German socioeconomic panel study), which is an on going survey that began in 1984 and annually assesses participants over a wide range of measures.

The outcome that they focused on was life satisfaction, which assesses how satisfied individuals are with their lives, all things considered, as they pass through years of their lives.The previous research postulated that most people, anywhere from 50 to 70 percent, would show a trajectory characterised by no change.



"We found that it usually took people much longer, several years, to return to their previous levels of functioning," Infurna said.



A finding that means giving a person time alone to deal with the stressor might not be the best approach to getting them back to full functionality, Infurna said.



"It provides some evidence that if most people are affected then interventions certainly should be utilized in terms of helping these individuals in response to these events."​

​Tokyo, March 18 (IANS) Calcium has been known long as good for our bones, but it might also be the key to a good night's sleep, says a new study, unveiling a new theory how sleep works.

The study showed that sleep depends on the activity of calcium inside neurons.

Moreover, it was also revealed that a mechanism regulated by calcium ions is indeed responsible for controlling the sleep duration.

The study, published in the journal Neuron, contributes to the understanding and treatment of sleep disorders like insomania and sleep apnea and other associated neuro-degenerative diseases.

Over a life time the amount of sleep needed gets gradually reduced, in both animals and humans.

Sleep allows the body to recover from the effects of daily life, such as removing waste products from the brain and restoring the immune system, and may use the time to process experiences and lay down long-term memories. 

However, the fundamental reasons for sleep and the mechanisms by which sleep duration is regulated remain largely unknown.

"Although sleep is a fundamental physiologic function, its mechanism is still a mystery," said corresponding author Hiroki Ueda from the University of Tokyo in Japan.

The team developed a computational model of sleep and identified seven genes responsible for causing mice to stay awake or fall asleep. 

The research group then tested their predictions against 21 different genetically modified mouse types.

Out of the 21, seven exhibited significant changes in sleep duration. 

In addition, the research group also showed that the inflow of calcium ions into neurons is required for mice to fall asleep and that pumping calcium ions out of neurons is required for mice to wake up. 

"Sleep is one of the most fundamental physiological functions. From flies to humans, it seems that most animals sleep, but we still know so little about the molecular processes by which sleep duration is regulated," Ueda added. 

In addition to becoming new molecular targets for sleep drugs, the genes we have identified could also become targets for drugs that treat certain psychiatric disorders that occur with sleep dysfunction, the researchers suggested.​

​London, March 18 (IANS) Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are often prescribed to treat a variety of painful conditions but popping these pain-killers may be putting you at the risk of ulcers, increased blood pressure and heart problems, warns a new study.

"It's been well known for a number of years that newer types of NSAIDs -- what are known as COX-2 inhibitors -- increase the risk of heart attacks," said Morten Schmidt from Denmark's Aarhus University, who was in-charge of the study. 

"For this reason, a number of these newer types of NSAIDs have been taken off the market again. We can now see that some of the older NSAID types, particularly Diclofenac, are also associated with an increased risk of heart attack and apparently to the same extent as several of the types that were taken off the market," Schmidt added.

The study, published in the European Heart Journal, emphasised that arthritis medicine is particularly dangerous for heart patients, and also that older types of arthritis medicine, which have not previously been in focus, also appear to be dangerous for the heart.

"This is worrying, because these older types of medicine are frequently used throughout the western world and in many countries available without prescription," Schmidt noted.

The study was carried out in collaboration between 14 European universities and hospitals. The researchers gathered all research on the use of NSAIDs in patients with heart disease. 

"When doctors issue prescriptions for NSAIDs, they must in each individual case carry out a thorough assessment of the risk of heart complications and bleeding," said professor Christian Torp-Pedersen from Aalborg University. 

"NSAIDs should only be sold over the counter when it comes with an adequate warning about the associated cardiovascular risks. In general, NSAIDs are not be used in patients who have or are at high-risk of cardiovascular diseases," the professor added. 

NSAIDs are not antibiotics and therefore do not help to fight infections caused by bacteria.

These drugs are particularly used in the treatment of disorders related to the muscular and bone system, where they counteract swelling, pain and limitations in movement associated with inflammation.​

New York, March 16 (IANS) Facebook's photo-sharing platform Instagram is testing a new feature for more personalised feed that would show posts according to the user's interest.

The reorganised feed relies on an algorithm to sort images and videos based on what users are likely to be most interested in, resembling the feature of its parent company Facebook, The Verge reported on Tuesday.

The social media platform currently organises feeds from newest to oldest. 

According to Instagram co-founder and chief executive Kevin Systrom, people miss an average of 70 percent of the posts in their feeds, adding: "What this is about is making sure that the 30 percent you see is the best 30 percent possible."

The company is using machine-learning technology, as well as other signals of interest, to determine how to sort content. The people you interact with more often appear higher in the feed, the report said.

For now, only an unspecified single-digit percentage of users will test the algorithm. The results of the initial tests will determine whether the changes are made permanently across the platform. 

Instagram currently has more than 400 million users and is available for download on Android, iOS and Windows.​

New York, March 16 (IANS) If you want to eat less, pull out your earbuds, stop the music system and switch off the television before heading to the dining table, and tune into the sweet sound of your food while it is being chewed.
Researchers have found that the noise your food makes while you are eating can have a significant effect on how much food you eat.
Therefore, watching loud TV or listening to loud music while eating can mask eating sounds that keep you in check.
"If people are more focused on the sound the food makes, it could reduce consumption," said one of the researchers Ryan Elder, assistant professor of marketing at Brigham Young University in Utah, US.
The study was published in the journal Food Quality and Preference.
The researchers carried out three separate experiments on the effect of that "food sound salience".

In one of the experiments, the researchers discovered that people eat less when the sound of the food is more intense. 

In that study, the researchers compared how much participants ate while listening to loud music to those who were not disturbed by music while eating their snacks. 

They found that the louder noise masked the sound of chewing and that group ate more -- four pretzels compared to 2.75 pretzels for the "quiet" group.

"When you mask the sound of consumption, like when you watch TV while eating, you take away one of those senses and it may cause you to eat more than you would normally," Elder said. 

"The effects many not seem huge -- one less pretzel -- but over the course of a week, month, or year, it could really add up," Elder explained.

The findings suggest that being more mindful of not just the taste and physical appearance of food, but also of the sound it makes can help in "nudge" consumers to eat less.​

​New York, March 17 (IANS) Poor and unhealthy diet coupled with lack of exercise and a sedentary lifestyle may accelerate the ageing process in humans, warn US researchers.​
A type of cells called senescent cells contribute to diseases and conditions associated with age. 

The researchers found that exercise prevents premature senescent cell accumulation and protects against the damaging effects of an unhealthy diet, including deficiencies in physical, heart and metabolic function.

"We think that at both biological and clinical level, poor nutrition choices and inactive lifestyles do accelerate ageing," said senior author Nathan LeBrasseur from Mayo Clinic in the US.

In the study, researchers introduced mice to either a normal, healthy diet or a diet that they termed a "fast food diet" -- one that was high in saturated fat and cholesterol along with a sugar-sweetened beverage. 

Mice on the fast food diet showed harmful changes in health parameters, including body weight and composition, increasing their fat mass by nearly 300 percent over the course of about four months. 

Half the mice, including mice on both the healthy and unhealthy diets, were given exercise wheels.

The findings showed mice that had been exposed to the fast food diet but exercised showed suppression in body weight gain and fat mass accumulation and were protected against the accumulation of senescent cells. 

"It doesn't mean that we need to be marathon runners but we need to find ways to increase our habitual activity levels to stay healthy and prevent processes that drive ageing and ageing-related diseases," LeBrasseur noted.​

​New York, March 17 (IANS) Researchers have developed a high-tech, food-tracking necklace that will alert you about the unique sounds that foods make as you bite, grind and swallow them.

Each food as it's chewed has its own unique sound and the device can help people suffering from diabetes, obesity, bowel disorders and other ailments by enabling them to better monitor their food intake and improve how they manage their conditions.

“There is no shortage of wearable devices that tell us how many calories we burn but creating a device that reliably measures caloric intake isn't so easy,” said Wenyao Xu, assistant professor of computer science at University at Buffalo.

Xu is creating a library that catalogues the unique sounds that foods make as we eat.

The library is part of a software package that supports “AutoDietary”, a necklace being developed by Xu and researchers at Northeastern University in China.

“AutoDietary” is like Fitbit and other wearable devices. Only instead of tracking burned calories, it monitors caloric intake - in other words, what we eat - at the neck.

AutoDietary wraps around the back of the neck like a choker necklace.

A tiny high-fidelity microphone -- about the size of a zipper pull -- records the sounds made during mastication and as the food is swallowed.

That data is sent to a smartphone via Bluetooth where food types are recognised.

The study, published in the IEEE Sensors Journal, describes how 12 participants ages 13 to 49 were given water and six types of food: apples, carrots, potato chips, cookies, peanuts and walnuts.

“AutoDietary” was able to accurately identify the correct food and drink 85 percent of the time.

Xu plans future studies to build upon his library by testing different foods and recording the sounds they make.

He also plans to refine the algorithms used to differentiate the foods to improve AutoDietary's ability to recognise what's being eaten.

While promising, a wearable necklace that measures sound has limitations when used alone. For example, it cannot differentiate similar foods such as frosted corn flakes and regular corn flakes. It also can't distinguish the ingredients of complex foods such as soup or chili.

To address these limitations, Xu is planning a biomonitoring device which would complement AutoDietary.

The device is under development but it would be activated once the necklace recognises that the user is eating a general category of food.​