• A number of sleep problems in childhood can point towards psychological problems in adolescence
• For example, less sleep at night and going to bed later is associated with borderline personality disorder
• Sleep can, however, be influenced with effective, early interventions

Teens who had sleep problems as babies or tots may be at risk for mental health disorders, a new study suggests.

Researchers analysed data from more than 13 000 people who were part of a British study in the 1990s. Their parents reported their sleep behaviour six times between the ages of six months and 5.8 years.

Those who had irregular sleep routines from six months on and who often woke at night at 18 months of age were more likely to experience psychotic episodes as teens, the study found.

Problems in adolescence

Getting less sleep at night and going to bed later at age 3.5 was associated with borderline personality disorder during adolescence, according to the University of Birmingham study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

“We know from previous research that persistent nightmares in children have been associated with both psychosis and borderline personality disorder. But nightmares do not tell the whole story – we’ve found that, in fact, a number of behavioural sleep problems in childhood can point towards these problems in adolescence,” said lead researcher Isabel Morales-Muñoz, an honorary research fellow at the university.

Senior author Steven Marwaha, a professor of psychiatry, said brain and hormone changes make adolescence a key period for studying the onset of mental disorders.

“It’s crucial to identify risk factors that might increase the vulnerability of adolescents to the development of these disorders, identify those at high risk, and deliver effective interventions,” he said, adding that the study helps explain what those risk factors might be.

“Sleep may be one of the most important underlying factors – and it’s one that we can influence with effective, early interventions, so it’s important that we understand these links,” Marwaha said.

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• ED medication may reduce the risk of death in men who suffer from colorectal cancer 
• The reason why the drugs have an anti-tumour effect isn’t yet clear
• However, according to an expert, they are known to block a protein that may play a role in cancer development

Erectile dysfunction (ED) drugs such as Viagra, Cialis and Levitra may do more than restore sexual function – they may also prolong the lives of men with colon cancer.

That’s the conclusion of a new Swedish study, which reported that the risk of premature death dropped by as much as 18% among colon cancer patients who used ED drugs.

The medications were also linked to a 15% reduction in risk for the key cause of death from colon cancer – that is, cancer that has spread.

“This is the first population-based study to explore the effect of these drugs on the death risk in men with colorectal cancer,” said lead author Wuqing Huang, a doctoral candidate at Lund University in Sweden.

Cancer-fighting potential

She and her colleagues focused on so-called “PDE5 inhibitors” – drugs that address impotence by regulating penile blood flow.

“There are two reasons why we considered the anti-cancer possibility of these drugs,” Huang said.

Prior studies suggested that ED drugs can inhibit tumour growth in mice and the activity of a gene called PDE5A. Huang said past work suggested colon cancer patients with lower PDE5A activity levels may live “significantly longer” than others.

To get a better handle on the cancer-fighting potential of the drugs, the researchers used a nationwide database to identify men in Sweden who were diagnosed with colon cancer between 2005 and 2014.

After excluding patients with late-stage cancer, researchers focused on more than 11 300 cancer patients who were not taking an ED drug and about 1 100 patients who were. (No one was instructed to use the drugs if they weren’t already doing so.)

Over more than four years of follow-up, about 10% of those who used an ED drug died, compared to 17.5% of patients who did not. The risk was even lower for those in the ED group who also had cancer surgery.

An observational study

Huang said the explanation for the drugs’ anti-tumour effect isn’t yet clear. It could have to do with the beneficial impact EDs have on immune function, reduced cell death and chemotherapy sensitivity, she said.

But until researchers can get a better understanding, “it is not suggested for colon cancer patients to get ED medications to control their cancer at this moment,” Huang said.

“The current evidence is not enough to provide recommendations, as our study is an observational study,” she stressed. “Clinical trials are necessary to confirm it.”

Still, Dr Andrew Chan, a professor at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who reviewed the study, said the findings were intriguing.

“The work extends a prior study from this group showing that these medications may reduce the risk of developing colorectal cancer,” he noted. “It is also biologically plausible that these medications may have an anti-cancer effect, since they are known to block a specific protein that may play a role in cancer development.”

The findings were recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

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Computer-designed small proteins have now been shown to protect lab-grown human cells from SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Like a comic book come to life, researchers at Stanford University have developed a kind of X-ray vision — only without the X-rays. Working with hardware similar to what enables autonomous cars to “see” the world around them, the researchers enhanced their system with a highly efficient algorithm that can reconstruct three-dimensional hidden scenes based on the movement of individual particles of light, or photons. In tests, detailed in a paper published Sept. 9 in Nature Communications, their system successfully reconstructed shapes obscured by 1-inch-thick foam. To the human eye, it’s like seeing through walls.

A new theory about the nature of dark matter helps explain why a pair of galaxies about 65 million light-years from Earth contains very little of the mysterious matter, according to a study led by a physicist at the University of California, Riverside.

Boris Johnson outlines a new “rule of six” on gatherings and details a “moonshot” testing plan.

The health secretary says ‘inappropriate’ use was making it harder for people to get tested.

• Stress and anger appear to make heart disease worse
• Pandemic-related stressors may further exacerbate the situation  
• More work is needed to find out if stress management can improve outcomes for heart failure patients

If you suffer from heart failure, try to stay calm. Stress and anger may make your condition worse, a new study suggests.

Mental stress is common in heart failure patients due to the complexities of managing the disease, progressively worsening function, and frequent medical issues and hospitalisations, according to lead author Kristie Harris, a postdoctoral associate in cardiovascular medicine at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

“We have evidence that patients who experience chronically elevated levels of stress experience a more burdensome disease course with diminished quality of life and increased risk for adverse events,” Harris said in a university news release.

Mental stress test

“Clarifying the relevant behavioural and physiological pathways is especially important in the era of Covid-19 when the typical stressors of heart failure may be further compounded by pandemic-related stressors,” Harris added.

The new study included 24 heart failure patients who completed daily questionnaires for one week about their stress, anger and negative emotions.

That was followed by a mental stress test in which the patients solved maths problems and described a recent stressful experience. Echocardiograms were done to assess diastolic heart function at rest and during stress.

Diastolic function is the heart’s ability to relax and refill between beats. In heart failure, a damaged or weakened heart doesn’t pump as much blood as the body needs – a condition that can be life-threatening.

Patients who reported experiencing anger in the week before the mental stress test had worse resting diastolic pressure, the researchers found.

Stress management

According to senior study author Matthew Burg, “Factors such as mental stress and anger often go unrecognised and are under-addressed. This study contributes to the extensive literature showing that stress and anger affect clinical outcomes for patients with heart disease, adding chronic heart failure to the list that includes ischaemic heart disease (narrowed arteries) and arrhythmic disease.”

Burg, a clinical psychologist at Yale, said more work is needed to identify factors that increase vulnerability to stress in heart failure, and to find out if stress management can improve outcomes for these patients.

The study findings were published online recently in the Journal of Cardiac Failure.

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• Lost productivity due to eating disorders is costing the US economy billions every year
• Sufferers aren’t receiving the care they need due to barriers to healthcare and lack of training for healthcare providers
• The number of eating disorder cases is expected to increase nearly 5% over the next decade

Eating disorders – such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia and binge-eating disorder – cost the US economy nearly $65 billion in one recent year, a new report shows.

About 75% of that ($48.6 billion) was due to lost productivity, according to the researchers.

“Our study lays bare the devastating economic impact that eating disorders have in the United States, a country where the majority of people affected suffer alone and never receive appropriate treatment because of barriers to healthcare and lack of training for healthcare providers,” said researcher Dr S. Bryn Austin.

Critical data

Austin is director of STRIPED (Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders) and a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Boston Children’s Hospital.

“With our study, we now have the critical data we need to begin to estimate the cost-effectiveness, improved quality of life, and, most importantly, lives to be saved by scaling up effective prevention, early detection and treatment interventions for eating disorders,” Austin added in a news release from the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED).

The research team found that there were nearly 54 000 emergency department visits due to eating disorders in fiscal year 2018 to 2019, costing $29 million, and over 23 500 in-patient hospitalisations due to eating disorders, costing $209 million.

In addition, there were 10 200 deaths directly related to eating disorders during that same period.

Trouble getting treatment

The recently released report also said that 9% of the US population (28.8 million people) will have an eating disorder in their lifetime. This mental illness affects all genders and ages, but women and girls are twice as likely to have an eating disorder as males.

The number of eating disorder cases is expected to increase nearly 5% over the next decade, Austin’s team noted.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, eating disorders directly related to the crisis are on the rise, and patients are having trouble getting treatment, the researchers added. Experts predict that suicides will increase during the pandemic, and people with eating disorders have a 23 times higher rate of suicide.

According to Elissa Myers, executive director and CEO of the AED, “This important study on the wide-reaching economic impacts of eating disorders hammers home the urgent need for policymakers to prioritise advancing prevention, early detection, and evidence-based treatment for those suffering from these pernicious diseases.”

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A new legal limit will be enforced through a £100 fine but will not apply to schools or workplaces.