Three-dimensional molecular structure of a telomere (G-quadruplex) Wikepedia
A group of scientists led by BHF Professor Andrew Steptoe separated study participants into four groups, according to how long they stayed in education.
The researchers found that people who left education earlier had shorter ‘caps’, called telomeres, on the ends of their DNA – a marker of ageing in cells. As we age we’re more at risk from heart disease. [continue reading…]
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An article published in the April issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that our brains contain a sort of “behavioral immune system” that defends against disease even before disease-causing pathogens reach our bodies. Mark Schaller, of the University of British Columbia, who co-authored the article with Justin H. Park from the University of Bristol, suggests that a host of psychological factors combine to detect and avoid potentially infectious things in our immediate environment. This provides a “crude” first line of defense against infection, and reduces the workload of the “real” immune system. [continue reading…]
Many white people generally think racism against blacks isn’t much of a problem anymore; in fact, they see racism against whites as a bigger problem now. Those are the results of a new survey published in the May issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The researchers think that whites see racism as a zero-sum game; if there’s less racism against one group, there must be more against another.
Michael I. Norton of the Harvard Business School and Samuel R. Sommers of Tufts University wanted to compare the attitudes of white people and black people about racism. In their previous research on political correctness, they learned that whites felt oppressed by the discomfort they felt when they felt pressured to avoid certain words. They found that this was connected to a feeling of oppression that some whites had about policies like affirmative action. [continue reading…]
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Astudy published in the June 2011 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine examined the association between patient–physician gender concordance and weight-related counseling in obese individuals. Investigators from the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University found that obese male patients seeing male physicians had higher odds of receiving weight-related counseling than obese women seeing a female physician.
Commenting on the study, Octavia Pickett-Blakely, MD, MHS, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, observed that “Perhaps societal norms linking physical fitness to masculinity leads male physicians to view obese men as more receptive to weight-related counseling and contributes to open dialogue about weight in male gender-concordant relationships. [continue reading…]
