Tag: loss

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Suggesting dieting may backfire

Urging a partner to diet may seem like a supportive thing to do, but a new study finds it can trigger unhealthy habits such as fasting and taking diet pills — measures that can then lead to severe eating disorders, reports MedMD

“Both women and men tended to react negatively to their partners’ well-meaning encouragement, said researcher Marla Eisenberg, an associate professor of adolescent health and medicine at the University of Minnesota.

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“Romantic partners provide important feedback about each other’s weight,” Eisenberg said. “Encouraging a loved one to diet, however, may do more harm than good.” In 2008 and 2009, she surveyed nearly 1,300 young adults in Minnesota, ages 20 to 31 and in relationships. More than 40 percent of those surveyed had used extreme dieting behaviors in the past year, she found. Binge eating nearly doubled among women whose partners encouraged dieting ”very much” compared to ”not at all.” While about 14 percent of women who were not urged to diet engaged in binge eating, more than 25 percent of those urged to diet ”very much” did so.

“While about 4 percent of men who were not urged to diet by their partner engaged in binge eating, 14 percent of those who experienced constant urging to diet engaged in the behavior, the investigators found. The study is published in the July/August issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion. About half of the men and women said their significant other encouraged them to diet either a little, somewhat, or very much. More than 56 percent said their partner dieted to lose weight. About half of the men and women were normal weight or underweight, 27 percent were overweight and 22 percent were obese, according to the report.Eisenberg didn’t ask the men and women why they resorted to unhealthy behaviors if they were urged to diet, but she has an idea. Continue reading “Suggesting dieting may backfire”

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Dementia’s early warning system

The man complained of memory problems but seemed perfectly normal. No specialist he visited detected any decline, begins a frightening story in today’s New York Timesimages

“He insisted that things were changing, but he aced all of our tests,” said Rebecca Amariglio, a neuropsychologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. But about seven years later, he began showing symptoms of dementia. Dr. Amariglio now believes he had recognized a cognitive change so subtle “he was the only one who could identify it.”Patients like this have long been called “the worried well,” said Creighton Phelps, acting chief of the dementias of aging branch of the National Institute on Aging. “People would complain, and we didn’t really think it was very valid to take that into account.”

“But now, scientists are finding that some people with such complaints may in fact be detecting early harbingers of Alzheimer’s.Studies presented Wednesday at an Alzheimer’s Association conference in Boston showed that people with some types of cognitive concerns were more likely to have Alzheimer’s pathology in their brains, and to develop dementia later. Research presented by Dr. Amariglio, for example, found that people with more concerns about memory and organizing ability were more likely to have amyloid, a key Alzheimer’s-related protein, in their brains. Continue reading “Dementia’s early warning system”