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It seems that couples and roommates tend to have similar emotional reactions as time goes by. So if your roommate or lover laughs out loud at movies or gets weepy over hurt puppies, you may too -- given time.
This so-called emotional convergence seems to be beneficial to friendships and romantic relationships, making them stronger and longer lasting.
Everyday experience suggests that people are capable of "catching" the mood of a spouse or friend, said lead author Dr. Cameron Anderson. But he told Reuters Health that he was surprised by the extent to which peoples' emotions converged in his study, which is reported in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
"The romantic partners and roommates were virtually becoming the same emotional person over time," said Anderson, a visiting assistant professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
In the first part of the study, 60 heterosexual couples at the University of Wisconsin in Madison answered questions about their personality, their satisfaction with their relationship and the balance of power within it.
To test emotional convergence, partners discussed positive and negative situations -- such as a recent success or an ongoing worry. Then each partner privately reported his or her feelings regarding the issue.
Six months later, the 38 couples that were still together repeated the experiment. The couples maintained distinct personalities, but they were more closely attuned emotionally than they had been at the start of the study, the researchers found.
Although couples' emotions converged over time, similar emotions might have drawn them together in the first place. Couples that stayed together during the study were more emotionally similar than couples that broke up, the researchers point out.
Anderson's team also found that the partner who had less power in the relationship did most of the changing in terms of emotions. This works equally as well with depression. If the person with the power is a depressive then both are susceptible
In other experiments, which involved college students who lived together in dormitories, the researchers found that roommates tended to have more similar emotional responses toward the end of the school year. The researchers gauged emotion by having students watch film clips that tend to elicit laughs or tears.
Roommates whose emotions converged the most during the school year tended to become closer friends than roommates whose emotions did not become as similar, according to the report.
The study also found that the roommate who had a lower social status in the dormitory tended to change more than popular roommates.
Anderson said these results show that "people's emotional responses to events are not completely fixed and rigid."
According to the Illinois researcher, emotional similarity could be helpful in assembling the most productive corporate team, and might be an important consideration when searching for love or friendships.
SOURCE: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2003;84:1054-1068.
By Colette Bouchez
HealthDay Reporter
April 26 (HealthDayNews) -- The U.S. Surgeon General recently issued this sobering statistic -- more than 61 percent of adult Americans are now overweight.
It's no wonder that over-the-counter weight-loss products are flying off store shelves in what is reportedly one of the fastest-growing segments of the consumer market.
Among the top sellers are herbal or "all natural" remedies and treatments that ostensibly help you lose weight without the usual side effects of more traditional diet drugs, such as appetite suppressants.
But do they really work? And more important, are they as safe as they claim?
Many doctors offer a resounding "no" to both questions.
"The ads for these products make you believe that because they are natural, they are safe, at the same time claiming to 'melt' the fat from your body, sometimes even while you sleep," says one of the nation's leading weight-loss experts, Dr. Lou Aronne, an endocrinologist at the New York Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City.
Unfortunately, says Aronne, you can't have it both ways.
"If it's powerful enough to 'melt' fat off your body, you better believe it's not going to be harmless -- whether it's natural or not," he says.
Many of the most popular of these natural weight-loss products contain the herb ephedra, also known as ephedrine or Ma Huang.
While it's true that some doctors will use ephedra to speed up your metabolism to help you lose weight, you should never use it on your own, says Aronne.
"It can cause a dangerous rise in blood pressure, and an equally dangerous increase in heart rate, which, for some people, could even prove fatal," says Aronne.
Dr. James Dillard says these products can also shoot your anxiety level sky high.
"The effect in the body is similar to adrenalin, only longer acting," says Dillard, clinical advisor to Columbia University's Rosenthal Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in New York City.
And, Dillard cautions, ephedra can also be habit-forming. Use ephedra-based products for any length of time and "your body becomes resistant" -- meaning you'll have to take more of them to achieve any weight loss, he says.
The Food and Drug Administration has received more than 1,000 reports of "adverse events" stemming from the use of ephedra products. In response, the FDA is seeking to limit over-the-counter sale of products containing ephedra.
Another controversial "natural" weight-loss supplement is known as guarauna. A plant that grows in the jungles of South America, guarauna has seeds that are touted as having almost magical fat-burning powers.
But, according to Dillard, there's no magic in how guarauna works. Its effects, he says, are purely the result of the high caffeine content of the seeds.
"It's a stimulant, pure and simple. And at best, its effects are temporary," says Dillard, who adds you can save your money and just grab a cup of coffee for a similar short-term effect. In high or sustained doses, however, guarana "can cause rapid heartbeat, elevated blood pressure, vomiting and abdominal spasms," he says.
Many herbal diet supplements combine both ephedra and caffeine, for what is often termed "super-effective fat-burning potential."
According to a recent report by the Mayo Clinic, however, while this combination may stoke up your metabolism, it also dramatically increases the risk of heart attack, stroke, seizure and sudden death.
A third popular weight-loss supplement is called chitosan, a substance taken from the skeletons of crabs and other crustaceans. It was originally used to mop up industrial oil spills, and some enterprising nutrition gurus thought it might help weight loss by binding to fat in the body, thereby flushing it out before those calories hit the hips.
Aronne says there's no truth to its weight-loss claims.
"Every reputable study done on chitosan has shown that, while it binds to fat, it only carries it as far as the intestines," says Aronne. Once there, he says, the body breaks down the fat the same way it would as if the chitosan weren't present. So, it makes no difference at all.
According to a recent study published in The European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers found no correlation between chitosan and weight loss.
What To Do
If you need to lose weight, and diet and exercise alone don't seem to help, experts say talk to your doctor about any number of new prescription drugs now available.
At a Healing Advantage we prefer "none-drug" approaches such as hypnotherapy, see Using Hypnosis for Weight Control
You can find more information about losing weight by visiting the The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, or its Weight Control Information Center, or visit the American Heart Association for some super diet and weight-loss tips.
SOURCES: Lou Aronne, M.D., endocrinologist and weight-loss expert, New York Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York City; James Dillard, M.D., director of alternative medicine, Oxford Health Plans, and clinical medical advisor, Rosenthal Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Columbia University, and assistant clinical professor, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City
Copyright © 2002 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
April 14 - Elderly people who live alone, have no friends or have a bad relationship with their children are 60 percent more likely to develop dementia than those whose social contacts are more satisfying, a new study suggests.
Scientists at the Stockholm Gerontology Research Center at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, whose study is published this week in The Lancet medical journal, found that the more socially isolated old folks were, the more likely they were to develop the brain condition.
Richard Suzman of the U.S. National Institute of Aging called the research an intriguing and important extension of recent findings that social engagement and close relationships are powerfully associated with general health and longevity.
``It's a very good start, a very good first study,'' he said, adding that he will remain skeptical that there is a real protective effect of a social life until further research confirms the findings.
Dementia is a component of diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Experts believe that by 2050, the ranks of the elderly, which will include the Baby Boomers, will swell by at least 10 times what it is today.
''(Dementia) is already a large problem, but it's going to become an enormous problem unless there are ways to intervene,'' Suzman said.
The Swedish researchers asked 1,200 people aged 75 or older whether they lived alone and had no friends to speak of, and whether they had a unsatisfying relationship with their children.
A bad relationship with their children was not defined by how often they saw them or spoke to them, but by the quality of the rapport.
The scientists then monitored them for three years to see who developed dementia.
The people whose lives were lacking in all three areas were considered to have a poor social network, while those who had two of the factors were considered to have a limited social network.
Those two groups together had a 60 percent higher chance of developing dementia than their counterparts who had only one negative aspect or an extensive social network.
When each factor was taken separately, those who lived alone were 50 percent more likely to develop dementia, as were those who were friendless.
A poor relationship with their children doubled the subjects' chances of becoming demented.
``Particularly alarming is the indication that risks are higher among those having unsatisfactory contact with children than among those having no children at all,'' said Lisa Berkman of Harvard University's School of Public Health in a critique of the study.
Berkman added that the sense of belonging and worthiness that social ties bring may be an important buffer against the onset of dementia. A diversity of relationships is critical and having one strong bond is not enough, she hypothesized.
By the end of the study, about 176 people had developed dementia and 300 others had died.
Suzman said it remains unclear why social ties might protect the elderly from dementia. He said it could be that social engagement uses the cognitive functions of the brain, keeping it active.
``It might be that social networks buffer them from stress,'' Suzman said, adding that high cumulative levels of stress increase the risk of dementia.
The study could not tell whether mild, undiagnosed brain decline could have prompted the people to withdraw socially.
It also could not show how long ago those leading isolated lives had become cut off, which would make it difficult to predict whether intervention later in life would do any good.
In the study of 30 nuns who participated in a long-term study of Alzheimer's disease, half had brain changes consistent with the memory-robbing illness at autopsy. The women, aged 78 to 101 when they died, had lived at the same convent for most of their lives, according to Dr. David A. Snowdon and colleagues at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
Snowdon's team looked at data collected earlier in the study and found that those women with Alzheimer's disease were more likely to have low blood levels of folate than women without the illness. None of the other nutritional markers analyzed in the blood samples was related to brain degeneration or Alzheimer's disease, according to the report in the April issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The authors note that the study could not determine whether low levels of folate actually cause Alzheimer's. And the findings do not provide any evidence that taking folic acid supplements can prevent the disease or slow it down. It is possible that the women had low blood levels of folate due to problems absorbing or metabolizing the nutrient. The women all ate in the same kitchen and, presumably, had similar intakes of folic acid.
The researchers call for further research in this area, noting that there are several possible explanations for the relationship between the nutrient and this disease.
Folic acid, a nutrient found in green leafy vegetables, liver, kidney, whole grains and nuts, is important in the development of the central nervous system and in the maintenance of blood vessels. Lack of this nutrient can cause birth defects in the developing fetus.
SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2000;71:993-998.
Although the amount of iron in a vegetable remains unchanged, cooking makes more of that iron available for absorption by the body, explained Tung-Ching Lee, a food scientist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Lee presented the findings at the American Chemical Society meeting here.
For example, cooking increases the available iron in cabbage from about 5% to 15%, and in broccoli from 6% to more than 30%. In comparison, the amount of iron that can be absorbed from red meat is 25%.
The fruit that benefited most from cooking was peaches, although kiwi was found to have the most available iron in its fresh form, Lee said. In general, fruits are not a big source of iron.
Lee tested 48 vegetables in all, purchased fresh from retail groceries in Taiwan, and found that 37 of the 48 benefited from cooking for approximately 15 minutes.
Some vegetables benefited dramatically while others, such as spinach, are equally nutritious whether raw or cooked.
Lee also discovered that storing cooked vegetables overnight, even under refrigeration, results in dramatic losses in the available iron content. So to get the most out of your veggie meal, ``you need to consume it fresh cooked,'' he said.
Cooking tomatoes with other vegetables also enhances the nutritional value of the other vegetables, such as broccoli and cauliflower, Lee added. Blending vegetables after they are cooked leaves the iron availability unchanged, but blending vegetables before cooking will lower their iron availability almost to that of the raw form.
Cooking enhances the body's ability to absorb the iron because in plants, iron is stored as ferritin, a compound that releases its iron when it is heated. Blending before cooking disrupts the cell walls of the plant and interferes with this process.
Iron deficiency anemia is the most prevalent nutritional problem in world today, Lee said in explaining his motivation for this research.
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