Tag: science

Carving Personalities From The Womb

Akshat Rathi8 Comments

How Much Is Decided Even Before Birth?

“The daughter of Virata… (was) exceedingly afflicted by grief on account of the death of her husband…they all feared that the embryo in her womb might be destroyed.” – The Mahabharata (~500 BC).

How much is decided for us even before we are born?

This quote from the Mahabharata, and many other examples from literature, reiterate the sentiment that the emotional state of a mother affects her unborn baby. In more recent times researchers have started to meticulously gather scientific evidence to show how exactly the growth and development of the foetus is jeopardised by a variety of intra-uterine stimuli, particularly maternal anxiety, depression and stress.

A study by Glynn and co-workers of the babies of 29 Californian women who were exposed to an earthquake during their pregnancy showed them to have been born at an early gestation, while another study by Engel and co-workers showed that pregnant women who either lived in close proximity to or escaped from one of the towers involved in the September 11 disaster delivered their infants at later dates than normally expected. Interestingly, these effects of stress during pregnancy are not merely limited to birth outcomes when babies of rodents and rhesus monkeys were exposed to laboratory induced stressors during pregnancy, they showed deficits in motor development, learning and exploratory behaviour and were unable to cope effectively in stressful situations.

Human inquiries undertaken by a variety of research groups in the U.S.A, U.K. and the Netherlands initially showed anxiety and depression during pregnancy to be associated with adverse birth outcomes, difficult temperament, emotional and behavioural problems and even attention deficit symptoms in their infants. Impairments in cognition such as learning and language abilities were soon added to the spectrum, and some studies even demonstrated that these effects persist into adolescence. Recently, a study from researchers at Cardiff University and King’s College London showed that adolescent children of mothers who were depressed during pregnancy were 6 times more likely to commit acts of violence, display antisocial behaviour and be arrested. This was found to be independent of their family and social environment. These are just examples of the many research projects undertaken to prove the adverse effects of prenatal stress on child development.

This post was chosen as an Editor's Selection for ResearchBlogging.org

Interestingly however, findings from studies conducted by DiPetro and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University, U.S.A have shown that mild to moderate amounts of psychological stress during pregnancy can benefit child development. Though these positive effects observed in infant cognition and behaviour are modest, they are consistent findings. Moreover this study presents a convincing argument against the accepted norm that prenatal psychological distress poses a significant threat to child development.

So how much of our life is decided from foetal origins? The ‘thrifty phenotype’ hypothesis proposed by Prof. D. J. P. Barker , seeks to explain the developmental origins of health and disease. It predicts that restrictions on the growth of the foetus within the womb are responsible for a higher incidence of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. It has been seen that in response to under-nutrition during foetal growth permanent metabolic and endocrine changes occur which will be beneficial if nutrition remains scarce after birth. But if after birth nutrition becomes plentiful then these changes predispose to obesity and impaired glucose tolerance. Simply put, the evolutionary purpose of this response is to prepare the developing offspring for the particular environment in which it will find itself after birth.

It is interesting to note however that all these studies on foetal and infant development have originated in the western world, where high levels of nutrition, education and socio-economic well being are seen in the study participants and where, more importantly, only 11% of all annual global pregnancies occur. The remaining 89% of global pregnancies occur in the developing world which amount to 146 million births annually.

To bridge this divide, Dr. Michelle Fernandes, a D.Phil. candidate at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, designed the Solur Mother and Baby Project. This study was carried out in Solur, a village in rural South India (60 miles from the city of Bangalore) in collaboration with St. John’s Medical College Hospital, Bangalore and Snehalaya Hospital, Solur. The study runs in three phases – a prenatal, birth and postnatal phase. With both the nature and magnitude of psychosocial stressors being different from those of the western world, Dr. Fernandes is currently investigating foetal heart rate patterns, birth outcomes and, infant growth, temperament and stress responsivity. In other words, she is studying the effects of prenatal stress on the neurobiobehavorial development of children thus establishing a study which is first of it’s kind in Asia.

It is studies like these that demonstrate just how much is decided before we are born. And more so, they reveal the urgent need for reduction of psychiatric morbidity in current populations, not only for the sake of those affected now, but also for the sake of the generations to come.

ResearchBlogging.org
DiPietro, J., Novak, M., Costigan, K., Atella, L., & Reusing, S. (2006). Maternal Psychological Distress During Pregnancy in Relation to Child Development at Age Two Child Development, 77 (3), 573-587 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00891.x

Also published at Matter Scientific, Cherwell’s Science Blog.

How to stay awake for 22-hours everyday?

Akshat Rathi4 Comments

Physicists have not yet found a way to alter the Earth’s speed of rotation to give us a thirty-hour day, but sleep researchers may have found a way to get an eight-hour sleep in just two hours—letting you cram in six more wakeful hours a day. The key to this superhuman ability is polyphasic sleeping, a form of sleeping which was first reported was reported in Time Magazine in 1943. Buckminster Fuller, the great inventor and futurist, trained himself to take a half-hour nap every six hours, a pattern which he maintained for two years. This was the first polyphasic sleep schedule invented, and is known as Dymaxion sleep.

Today, there exist three polyphasic sleep schedules; Everyman, Uberman and Dymaxion in the decreasing order of sleep. Little scientific research has been done to show the safety of such sleep schedules, but enough proof exists for a thriving community of polyphasic sleepers. The longest scientific experiment was performed on a single subject, Francesco, by the founder of the Chronobiology Research Institute, Claudio Stampi. Francesco followed a schedule of sleeping for twenty minutes every four hours, now known as the Uberman sleep schedule. After the 48-day study, Stampi reports in his book, Why we nap: Evolution, Chronobiology, and Functions of Polyphasic and Ultrashort Sleep that Francesco’s performance did not seem to suffer as a result of adopting the polyphasic sleeping pattern. The studies showed a change in the brain wave pattern during the short naps. It is only recently that a greater understanding of these brain wave patterns has been developed.

Natural sleep is divided into rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM (NREM) sleep. In normal sleeping REM sleep is observed only at the end of a 90-minute cycle. REM sleep is associated with dreaming and consolidation of memories. However, when deprived of sleep, as in polyphasic sleeping, subjects fall into REM sleep within minutes of starting a nap. Based on these observations, polyphasic sleepers believe that REM sleep is the most important form of sleep & the brain when deprived of sleep capitalises on any chance to sleep in this mode. The online community of people who adapted themselves to the Uberman schedule reports on the blogosphere that they achieve heightened alertness and concentration when fully adapted. Polyphasic sleeping also seems to induce lucid dreaming, a form of dreaming in which the dreamer can consciously participate in the dream.

These anecdotal theories gained some credence in a study recently published in PNAS, which shows that REM sleep is responsible for improving associative networks in the brain. The study involved 77 young adults who were given a number of creative tasks in the morning. They shown multiple groups of three words (such as: cookie, heart, sixteen) and asked to find a fourth word that can be associated to all three words (like sweet). Later in the day, some were allowed a nap, and monitored using brain scans to see what kind of sleep they entered. They were then given the same and new tasks. For the same tasks, the passage of time and sleep allowed them to “incubate” their thoughts and come up with better and more varied solutions. However, for new tasks those participants that entered REM sleep improved by almost 40% over their morning performances.

If these theories are proven on a scientific basis, does it mean that people on polyphasic sleep schedules not only sleep less but are also capable of performing better than normal people? That seems a little counter-intuitive, but a fast growing community of polyphasic sleepers is trying to prove otherwise. More research in this field can lead to development of medically-endorsed techniques which could let to polyphasic sleeping being rolled out to a wider community.

Also published on Cherwell’s Science Blog: Matters Scientific

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Shilpa Shetty and other celebrity quacks

Akshat Rathi1 Comment

Shilpa Shetty claims that use of fizzy drinks causes wrinkles but the fact is that the amount of the gas in soft drinks is dwarfed by levels naturally produced by the body. In any case, scientists cannot see how it would age the skin. This and other such theories, therapies and campaigns (see below) that make no scientific sense are often promoted by celebrities. For the past four years Sense about Science, a UK-based charity organisation, is on a mission to correct these influential people.

Their motto is simple “before making scientific claims, check your facts – all it takes is a phone call”. They provide a free service to address the concerns of the common man by connecting them with scientists. The main message from 2009 is that nutrition is neither cure nor cause of everything. It springs from the claims made by Roger Moore about foie gras causing Alzheimer’s disease and Heather Mills claim that meat gives you ‘the illness you die of’.

Another common message from the organisation is that, everything is made of chemicals so nothing is ‘chemical-free’ and the effect of the chemical depends on the dose. Prominent examples that lead to this message are those of television presenter Denise Van Outen endorsed a ‘chemical-free’ deodorant and Atomic Kitten’s singer Natasha Hamilton chemicals from deodorants causing breast cancer.

Claims and Facts:

Shilpa Shetty, Bollywood actress “I avoid carbonated drinks — they sap all the oxygen from your body and make your skin wrinkly and dehydrated” Professor Ron Maughan, physiologist, Loughborough University: “Carbonated drinks have no effect on oxygen levels in the body. At rest, the body is constantly producing carbon dioxide and this amount increases during exercise. By comparison, the amount from a fizzy drink is trivial.”

Heather Mills, former model “[Meat] sits in your colon for 40 years and eventually gives you the illness you die of. And that is a fact.” Melita Gordon, gastroenterologist at the University of Liverpool: “Meat proteins, like all other proteins, are digested by enzymes, and absorbed in the small bowel before they ever reach the colon. Any indigestible matter is … expelled”

Roger Moore, actor “There are even surveys suggesting that eating foie gras can lead to Alzheimer’s, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. In short, eating foie gras is a tasty way of getting terminally ill.” Dr Stuart Rulten, molecular biologist, University of Sussex: “There is no scientific evidence that eating foie gras will directly cause Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes or arthritis.”

Antony Worrall Thompson, chef “Locally produced food is better for your health because the ingredients are far more nutritious than something that has been shipped from thousands of miles away.” Dr Mark Reuter, molecular microbiologist, Institute of Food Research: “The nutritional benefits of food depend on the ingredients, how they have been stored, prepared and cooked, not the distance travelled.”

Gwyneth Paltrow, actress “When I’d read about what pesticides do to small animals, I thought, Why would I expose my child to that?” Professor Alan Boobis, toxicologist, Imperial College London: “Animals are exposed to doses substantially greater than those to which consumers will ever be exposed. If studies produce doubt about the safety of a pesticide, it is not approved for use.”

Fergie from Black Eyed Peas “I do vinegar shots. It has to be organic apple cider, unfiltered. Two tablespoons. For some reason I’ve noticed a difference on my stomach.” Lucy Jones, a dietician at the Whittington NHS Trust: “As attractive as it sounds, there’s no magic pill, lotion or potion for a quick fix to weight loss. The body, including the liver, is a well-oiled detoxing machine, which will not be improved by vinegar, whether it be organic, apple cider, unfiltered, or your bog standard malt vinegar.”

Suzanne Somers, actress claims chemotherapy helped to kill cancer sufferer Patrick Swayze “[They] put poison in his body … Why couldn’t they have built him up nutritionally and gotten rid of the toxins?” Marianne Baker, of Cancer Research UK: “Chemotherapy is poison, it must be in order to kill cancer cells. The drug doses are optimised so that they target the cancerous cells but are flushed out before damaging most healthy cells.”

Denise Van Outen, entertainer on a new deodorant “free from harmful chemicals, aluminium and parabens, which have been linked to breast cancer”. Natasha Hamilton, former pop singer: “I was unaware of the dangerous chemicals antiperspirants contain which have been linked to breast cancer” Gary Moss, pharmaceutical scientist at the University of Keele: “Research has also shown that it is unlikely that these products would even enter the body, as the molecules are too large to reach the bloodstream.”

Annabel Croft, TV presenter on treating her daughter for food poisoning “I gave her arsenicum album [a homoeopathic product derived from arsenic], which worked very quickly. She went from throwing up all night to dancing at the party.” Dr Keith Hopcroft, GP: “Food poisoning can clear up quite quickly in some cases just with clear fluids.”

Robin Van Persie, footballer on treatment for his ankle injury “She is vague about her methods but I know she massages you using fluid from a placenta. I am going to try it. It cannot hurt and, if it helps, it helps.” Professor Greg Whyte, sports scientist, Liverpool John Moores University: “Any benefits from the placenta treatment would more likely be due to the massage.”