Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The number of male eating disorder cases is on the rise. This NBC Nightly News segment takes a closer look at increasing prevalence of anorexia among boys and how the disorder differs between genders. In the video, James Lock, MD, PhD, a psychiatrist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, explains why anorexia is generally more advanced among boys by the time they seek treatment.

Previously: Shedding light on how binge eating affects men, What a teenager wishers her parents knew about eating disorders, Stanford’s eating disorder program owes its success to holistic treatment and KQED health program examines causes and effects of disordered eating

Engineers at Stanford have developed a tiny wireless chip, driven by magnetic currents, that is small enough to travel inside the human body. In the above video, Ada Poon, PhD, an assistant professor of electrical engineering, and colleagues describe how the device can propel itself though the bloodstream. They also discuss its wide range of potential biomedical applications, including delivering drugs and cleaning arteries.

Via Stanford Report

Previous studies have shown that stress can contribute to a range of health conditions, from the common cold to heart disease. Now new research from UC San Francisco suggests that the mere anticipation of a stressful situation may increase a person’s risk for age-related diseases.

In the study, researchers examined how major forms of stress in individuals’ lives can influence how they respond to more minor forms of stress and how this psychological response impacts neurobiology and cellular health. To do so, they informed 50 women, about half of which were caregivers for a relative with dementia (and who, presumably, deal with daily stress), that they would be asked to perform public speaking or math tasks. The researchers then assessed participants’ cellular age by measuring the women’s telomeres, the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes. Short telomeres index older cellular age and are associated with increased risk for a various chronic diseases of aging such as cancer, heart disease and stroke.

According to a university release:

…The psychologists found that those most threatened by the anticipation of stressful tasks in the laboratory and through public speaking and solving math problems, looked older at the cellular level.

…

The researchers also found evidence that caregivers anticipated more threat than non-caregivers when told that they would be asked to perform the same public speaking and math tasks. This tendency to anticipate more threat put them at increased risk for short telomeres. Based on that, the researchers propose that higher levels of anticipated threat in daily life may promote cellular aging in chronically stressed individuals.

Although the findings are preliminary, researchers say the study results are a significant step forward in their goal of understanding how psychological stress promotes biological aging and developing interventions to reduce the risk for disease in chronically stressed individuals.

The research is slated to appear in the May issue of Brain, Behavior and Immunity.

Previously: Workplace stress and how it influences health, How work stress affects wellness, health-care costs, Robert Sapolsky discusses stress physiology, Can stress increase risk of neurodegenerative diseases?, No surprise here: Anger and stress are bad for your health, Robert Sapolsky on stress and your health and New year, new (less stressed) you
Photo by bottled_void

Past research has shown that not getting enough sleep may have more serious consequences than feeling groggy in the morning. Trouble sleeping has been linked to heart problems, increased risk of Type 2 diabetes, development of Alzheimer’s disease and weight gain. Despite the health risks of not getting enough sleep, recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that more than a third of Americans are sleep deprived.

Changes to our sleep schedules, such as the upcoming daylight-saving time change, can cause difficulty falling or staying asleep and trigger sleep problems. To help you spring forward and stay on track, we’ve asked Stanford’s Rafael Pelayo, MD, to field your questions on sleep research and ways for making sure daylight-saving time doesn’t cut into your snooze time. An expert in sleep medicine, Pelayo has long researched and treated sleep conditions, including insomnia, sleep disruptions and sleep apnea. He sees both adult and pediatric patients.

Questions can be submitted to Pelayo about by sending an @reply message to @SUMedicine and include the hashtag #AskSUMed in your tweet. (Not a Twitter user? Then please submit a comment below.) We’ll collect questions until Feb. 29 at 5 pm. In submitting questions, please abide by the following ground rules:

• Stay on topic
• Be respectful to the person answering your questions
• Be respectful to one another in submitting questions
• Do not monopolize the conversation or post the same question repeatedly
• Kindly ignore disrespectful or off topic comments
• Twitter handles and/or names may be used in the responses

Medical school experts taking questions on the @SUMedicine feed will answer a selection of the questions submitted, but not all of them.

Finally – and you may have already guessed this – an answer to any question submitted as part of this feature is meant to offer medical information, not medical advice. These answers are not a basis for any action or inaction, and they’re also not meant to replace the evaluation and determination of your doctor, who will address your specific medical needs and can make a diagnosis and give you the appropriate care.

Previously: Stanford sleep expert Rafael Pelayo featured on KGO, How lack of sleep affects the brain and may increase appetite, weight gain, Can regular exercise improve your quality of sleep?, Helping kids ‘spring forward’, Tips for not losing sleep over daylight-saving time, Study estimates Americans’ insomnia costs nation $63 billion annually, CDC report highlights the dangers of sleep deprivation and Stanford expert: Quality, not quantity, of sleep is what counts
Photo by hang_in_there

There’s a fascinating profile of Larry Smarr, PhD, a physicist turned quantified-self pioneer in Technology Review today. Over the years, Smarr has scrupulously measured and tracked his own biological data using laboratory analysis services and devices that monitor his sleep, fitness and eating habits. The information not only improved his health but lead to a surprising diagnosis. Jon Cohen writes:

Smarr, who directs the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology in La Jolla, dropped from 205 to 184 pounds and is now a fit 63-year-old. But his transformation transcends his regular exercise program and carefully managed diet: he has become a poster man for the medical strategy of the future. Over the past decade, he has gathered as much data as he can about his body and then used that information to improve his health. And he has accomplished something that few people at the forefront of the “quantified self” movement have had the opportunity to do: he helped diagnose the emergence of a chronic disease in his body.

…

On top of his pioneering computer science work—he advocated for the adoption of ARPAnet, an early version of the Internet, and students at his University of Illinois center developed Mosaic, the first widely used browser—Smarr spent 25 years as an astrophysicist focused on relativity theory. That gave him the expertise to chart several of his biomarkers over time and then overlay the longitudinal graphs to monitor everything from the immune status of his gut and blood to the function of his heart and the thickness of his arteries. His meticulously collected and organized data helped doctors discover that he has Crohn’s, an inflammatory bowel disease.

As the story goes on to explain, Smarr plans to go public with his personal health data and is working to convince others to do the same in hopes that crowdsourcing the information will generate new insights about the links between DNA sequences, biomarkers and disease. The article is well worth a read and both illustrates and foreshadows the ongoing digital transformation of medicine

Previously: How the C3N project is working to rewrite the medical script and empower patients and ePatient discusses how web-savvy patients are changing the practice of medicine.
Photo by Spanish Flea

Past research has down that exercise during pregnancy benefits mom as well as baby by, among other things, helping the fetal cardiac system grow stronger and healthier. Now findings published online in PLoS One suggest that owning a dog can be a powerful motivator to get pregnant women moving.

In the first-of-its-kind study, researchers from the United States and England examined the relationship between pet ownership and physical activity levels among pregnant women. The team drew on the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children to gather data on more than 11,000 pregnant women in the United Kingdom, and they found:

Dog ownership was associated with an increased (1.5 times) likelihood of undertaking at least 3 hours per week of activity ‘enough to work up a sweat’. Dog owners showed increased levels of brisk walking, but not other types of activity, thus the specificity of the finding makes it more likely that the association is causal. In addition, the trend of increasing likelihood of dog ownership with higher levels of activity and more hours of brisk walking per week also suggests a real effect of owning a dog.

The study showed that, overall, mothers-to-be who owned dogs were approximately 50 percent more likely to stay physically active during their pregnancy. Funding for the research was provided by a grant from WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition, a subsidiary of Mars Petcare.

Previously: Extreme pregnancy: A look at exercise and expectant moms, Study: Exercise may not stave off gestational diabetes, How safe is rigorous exercise during pregnancy?, Could exercise before and during early pregnancy lower risk of pre-eclampsia? and Pregnant and on the move: The importance of exercise for moms-to-be
Photo by Tomas Hellberg

Add this to your list of reasons to kick your cigarette habit: Recent research shows smoking may cause the body to turn against helpful bacteria leaving people who smoke more vulnerable to disease.

In the small study (subscription required), Ohio State University researchers took samples of oral biofilm from health non-smokers and healthy smokers one, two, four and seven days after receiving a professional cleaning. By analyzing DNA signatures found in dental plaque, researchers determined which bacteria were present and then monitored whether participant’s bodies were treating the microbes as a threat. According to a university release:

The team found that for nonsmokers, bacterial communities regain a similar balance of species to the communities that were scraped away during cleaning. Disease-associated bacteria are largely absent, and low levels of cytokines show that the body is not treating the helpful biofilms as a threat.

“By contrast,” said [Ohio State researcher Purnima Kumar, PhD,] “smokers start getting colonized by pathogens – bacteria that we know are harmful – within 24 hours. It takes longer for smokers to form a stable microbial community, and when they do, it’s a pathogen-rich community.”

Smokers also have higher levels of cytokines, indicating that the body is mounting defenses against infection. Clinically, this immune response takes the form of red, swollen gums – called gingivitis – that can lead to the irreversible bone loss of periodontitis.

In smokers, however, the body is not just trying to fight off harmful bacteria. The types of cytokines in smokers’ gum swabs showed the researchers that smokers’ bodies were treating even healthy bacteria as threatening.

Researchers say the findings could shape dental care practices for patients who smoke and motivate dentists to play a more active role in helping patients get the necessary support to kick their nicotine habit.

Previously: National Cancer Institute introduces free text message cessation service for teens, Kicking the smoking habit for good, How have U.S. tobacco regulations affected smokers?, Lung cancer rates declining in the U.S. and Study shows anti-tobacco programs targeting adults also curb teen smoking
Photo by LawPrieR

Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported findings showing binge drinking in the United States is a bigger problem than previously thought. Statistics show an estimated 10.8 million young people between the ages of 12-20 are current drinkers and nearly 7.2 million binge drink.

Now findings (subscription required) published today in the Journal of Adolescent Health estimate that the total cost for hospitalizations related to underage drinking is about $755 million per year.

In the study, Mayo Clinic researchers analyzed most 2008 data from Nationwide Inpatient Sample, the largest all-payer inpatient care database in the United States, data from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2008 to determine the incidence rate of underage drinking hospitalizations, identify geographic and demographic differences in the incidence of alcohol-related hospital admissions and calculate costs of these hospitalizations. According to a Mayo Clinic release:

For adolescent males and females, hospitalization incidence was highest in the Northeast and Midwest, lowest in the South, and intermediate in the West. On multivariable analysis, older age and male gender were associated with alcohol-use disorder hospitalizations. In general, black Americans had lower hospitalization rates than whites, and Hispanics and Asian/Pacific Islanders had the lowest rates. The rates tended to be highest for Native and other/mixed-race Americans; however, the number of hospitalizations was relatively small, making estimates imprecise. The findings may help target substance abuse prevention efforts toward geographic and demographic groups at greatest risk.

Much of the hospitalization cost ($505 million) involved treatment of injuries. A total of 107 of those hospitalized died (.27 percent): Their age was 18.6 years, and 82 percent were male. Seventy-three percent of the deaths occurred during a hospitalization for injuries.

Previously: Study offers insights on how alcohol affects the brain, CDC binge-drinking study demonstrates cell phones’ value in research, Patterns of alcohol consumption may determine alcohol’s influence on heart health, A sobering study suggests that binge drinking may lead to permanent brain damage, Fighting binge drinking on campus, College without booze: harder than it sounds and Does drinking alcohol in moderation improve health?
Photo by Tracie Masek

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, quarterly DVD magazine Wholphin has released a short film documenting an experiment by Stanford neuroscientists to determine if it’s possible for one person to love more than another person can.

In the film, titled The Love Competition, researchers at the Stanford Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the brain activity of seven people as they ponder love. Bob Dougherty, PhD, research director at the center, helped develop the love test and Stanford psychology postdoctoral fellow Melina Uncapher, PhD, served as scientific director for the film.
Wired reports:

It turns out — based on the levels of activity in the dopamine, serotonin and ocytocin/vasopressin pathways — it is possible for one person to exhibit that they can love someone more deeply than another person can. But what’s amazing about The Love Competition is seeing the participants talk about their loves and the effects the fMRI tests had on them. Many come out almost giddy when the test is complete, and one woman tearily explains that she just feels lucky for the love she’s had in her life.

The film is definitely worth watching. Personally, my favorite contestant is 10-year-old Milo.

Previously: Ask Stanford Med: Neuroscientist taking questions on pain and love’s analgesic effects, Long-term love may dull pain, study shows and Love blocks pain, Stanford study shows

A recent post on the Wellcome Collection blog examines how ancient artifacts, such as this Etruscan votive offering, can provide fascinating insights into cultures that existed thousands of years ago and how people at this time understood their bodies. Catherine Walker writes:

The knowledge of what was going on inside the body was limited, so what couldn’t be observed would have been assumed. If we take the votive uterus pictured above as an example, we can see that there was little knowledge of what the organ actually looked like. Autopsies would not have been carried out at this time; there are isolated cases in third-century BCE Alexandria, but these are not the norm. The form of this votive is based on assumptions and what observation could have been made. They would have been aware of the function of the organ and could have observed childbirth, so we see that this understanding has been incorporated into the votive as the wavy lines represent contractions…

This is why these votives are my favourite objects in the Medicine Man gallery. While we can gain insight into how much people knew about what was going on inside their bodies from classical texts, these votives show us how this knowledge impacted day-to-day life.

The full post is worth a read and will give you a greater appreciation of the dramatic advancements in both medicine and the technologies used to better understand our bodies.

Previously: A look at the history of X-rays
Photo by Wellcome Images

Here’s something to reflect on this Valentine’s Day. A recent study shows that Americans’ deep-seated regrets most often involve personal relationship mishaps, not missed career opportunities.

In the study (subscription required), researchers surveyed 500 U.S. adults about their biggest disappointments in life and then analyzed their remorse to identify what parts of their lives were most directly impacted. Healthland reports:

Study participants were asked to describe regrets that they considered both strong and weak, along with the situation that surrounded the regret. Analysis revealed that regrets involving love — think ending a relationship or cheating — rankle more than those related to less intimate choices such as dropping out of college or quitting a job. The study, published online last week in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, reported that love regrets outnumbered work regrets by more than 2 to 1 — 56% to 20% — in some of the comparisons. The more intense a regret, the more likely it was to be connected to personal relationships.

…

What that means in general is that being bad at keeping in touch with old friends or forgetting to buy Valentine’s chocolates for your sweetie has the potential to make you feel worse — much worse — than making a mistake at work. “As you are thinking about how to feel good about your life, the thing you will feel most strongly about is protecting and strengthening your personal relationships,” says [Neal Roese, PhD, a marketing professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University].

Previously: How social ties can influence our health, happiness
Photo by Chris Sloan

When you ask someone to describe the physical sensation of love, chances are you’ll get an answer like falling head-over-heels, having butterflies in the stomach or walking on sunshine. As it turns out, and as described in a recent Stanford study, those intense, consuming feelings of love can do more than make you happy: They appear to block pain in ways similar to painkillers or illicit drugs.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, we’ve asked Sean Mackey, MD, PhD, senior author of that study, to respond to your questions about the analgesic effects of love – and he’s happy to answer general questions about pain research, too.

Mackey’s research is focused on explaining the mechanisms of pain perception and control using neuroimaging techniques such as virtual reality and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). He has shown that chronic pain sufferers may be able to reduce pain levels by studying their own live brain images, and he is working with colleagues to develop a diagnostic tool that uses patterns of brain activity to give an objective assessment of whether someone is in pain. He also recently served on an Institute of Medicine committee that issued a report calling for coordinated, national efforts to tackle the chronic-pain epidemic.

To submit your questions to Mackey about the pain-relieving effects of love and the science of pain, send an @reply message to @SUMedicine and include the hashtag #AskSUMed in your tweet. (Not a Twitter user? Then please submit a comment below.) We’ll collect questions until Friday at 5 pm. In submitting questions, please abide by the following ground rules:

• Stay on topic
• Be respectful to the person answering your questions
• Be respectful to one another in submitting questions
• Do not monopolize the conversation or post the same question repeatedly
• Kindly ignore disrespectful or off topic comments
• Twitter handles and/or names may be used in the responses

Medical school experts taking questions on the @SUMedicine feed will answer a selection of the questions submitted, but not all of them.

Finally – and you may have already guessed this – an answer to any question submitted as part of this feature is meant to offer medical information, not medical advice. These answers are not a basis for any action or inaction, and they’re also not meant to replace the evaluation and determination of your doctor, who will address your specific medical needs and can make a diagnosis and give you the appropriate care.

Previously: A call to fight chronic-pain epidemic, Stanford scientists work towards developing a “painometer”, Stanford’s Sean Mackey discusses recent advances in pain research and treatment, Relieving Pain in America: A new report from the Institute of Medicine, Long-term love may dull pain, study shows, Love blocks pain, Stanford study shows and Oh what a pain
Photo by Ryan Weisgerber

Although home births account for fewer than 1 percent of births in the United States, the percentage of women choosing to deliver at home has increased notably since 2004, according to the most recent data (.pdf) from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Now new research from UC San Francisco shows that babies delivered at home may be at higher risk of complications after birth including low Apgar scores and seizures. In the study, researchers examined birth certificate data on nearly 2.3 million singleton U.S. births in 2008. Health Day reports that researchers found:

Babies born at home were more than twice as likely to have an Apgar score of under 7 as children born in a hospital or at a birthing center, and also had double the chances of having a seizure.

The Apgar score is a test used to measure a child’s skin color, pulse and overall vigor in the moments after birth.

The overall number of kids who had seizures was low — less than 1 percent at any location.

However, researchers say that some of these risks were reduced if a certified nurse midwife was present at the home birth.

Further down in the story, Mary Norton, MD, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford, comments on the findings and advises women considering a home birth to recognize that it involves certain risks. She says:

Even in a normal-health woman with a normal pregnancy, there will always be unanticipated things that can happen and unanticipated emergencies.

…

This data does indicate there is a higher level of risk to the baby when delivering at home. If someone is carefully monitored, is in close proximity to the hospital and willing to go to the hospital if needed, then the risks are lower.

Previously: Tensions high in debate over safety of home births and Should midwives take on risky deliveries?
Photo by David Roseborough

Doctors and health-care professionals are increasingly talking to patients about how physical activity can benefit their health and recommending that they regularly exercise. That’s according to a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The report examined trends in the prevalence of U.S. adults receiving advice to exercise among those who had seen a health professional in the past 12 months. WebMD reports:

In 2010, 1 in 3 adults who saw a doctor or other health care professional was advised to increase their physical activity as a means of maintaining or improving their health. That’s a significant increase over 2000, when less than a quarter of consultations included such advice.

…

It’s an important development, the report indicates, because patients listen to their doctors. According to a 2008 study, overweight patients were nearly five times more likely to exercise if their doctors counseled them to do so. They were even more likely to keep active if their doctor followed up with them after the initial prescription.

Other key findings include:

• Among adults aged 85 and over, the percentage receiving advice to exercise nearly doubled between 2000 (15.3%) and 2010 (28.9%)
• Receiving advice to exercise increased for adults with hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes
• Adults who were overweight or obese had the largest percentage point increases over the decade 2000–2010 in being advised to exercise
• At each time point, women were more likely than men to have been advised to exercise.

Previously: Study shows benefits of exercise for patients with chronic health conditions, How physical activity influences health, Stanford cardiologist discusses the importance of exercise and nutrition for heart health and Researchers find link between fitness and cognition
Photo by JERVIS_PICS

Having farmers markets on medical center campuses could prove useful in boosting wellness in surrounding communities, according to researchers with the Pennsylvania State College of Medicine.

In a case study (subscription required) published in the American Journal of Public Health, the researchers describe the process of creating a seasonal market at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. The market, as described in a university release:

… is held once a week and aims for at least 80 percent organic items for sale, including fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meats, baked goods, coffee and specialty items such as spices, honey, sauces, flowers and prepared foods. Community wellness programming through medical professional-led activities that promote public health education is a major strategic focus that differentiates [this farmers market] from other markets. Three rent-free booths are reserved each week for community health outreach.

The researchers outline the goals of the market – one of which is to increase community access to healthy locally grown foods – and explain how such markets can help promote healthful lifestyle changes:

For example, medical center markets can enable nursing and medical students and residents to develop their health screening and program management skills, researchers and graduate students interested in evaluating market-based initiatives, and volunteer staff committed to improving community health. In addition, market vendors can contribute to this sustainability through health-related programming such as healthy food demonstrations, distributing healthy recipes and participating in federal nutrition supplementation programs…

More than 100 of the 7,175 known farmers markets in the United States are located on medical campuses, and these researchers call for more analysis on how such markets are impacting public health.

Previously: Should the lack of access to good food be blamed for America’s poor eating habits?, When it comes to nutritional value, debating “organic” vs. “conventionally grown” may be beyond the point, Living near fast food restaurants influences California teens’ eating habits, CDC calls for improving kids’ access to healthy food and Mapping out our country’s “food deserts”
Photo by Corey Templeton