Dying of a broken heart: Grief may increase the risk of heart problems shows new study

Losing loved ones may have a significant impact on both psychological and physical health. The University of Arizona researched the influence of grief on heart function and discovered that intense grieving might induce a significant increase in blood pressure. According to the data, grieving may be a risk factor for cardiac events.

The study, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, demonstrates an association between grief severity and elevated systolic blood pressure response.

The idea of "dying of a broken heart," which can happen following the loss of a loved one, was the motivation for the research, said Mary-Frances O'Connor, senior author of the study and a UArizona associate professor of psychology who specializes in grief. Increased risk of mortality after the death of a loved one has long been documented in epidemiological studies. The study by O'Connor and her colleagues looked at blood pressure as a possible contributing factor.

The study included 59 participants that had lost a close loved one in the past year. (Also Read | Why many Indians don't trust mental health advice)

"We were looking for a way to test the cardiovascular effects of grief during that vulnerable time in the first year after the loss," said lead study author Roman Palitsky, who was a doctoral student at UArizona when the study was conducted and is now the director of research projects in spiritual health at Emory University Woodruff Health Sciences Center.

Study participants were interviewed and asked to focus on feelings of separation and attachment through a process researchers call "grief recall."

The researchers talked to each participant for 10 minutes and asked them to share a moment when they felt very alone after the death of their loved one. The researchers then measured the study participants' blood pressure.

"When you go to a cardiologist, they don't just measure your blood pressure. They also sometimes do a stress test, like a treadmill, and measure your blood pressure. This is sort of like an emotional stress test," O'Connor said.

After grief recall, participants' systolic blood pressure - which is the pressure that the heart exerts on the arteries while beating - increased. From the baseline level, systolic blood pressure climbed by an average of 21.1 millimeters of mercury - the unit used to measure blood pressure. That is approximately as much of an increase as would be expected during moderate exercise.

Among the 59 participants, those who showed the highest level of grief symptoms experienced the greatest increase in blood pressure during the grief recall.

"This means that it isn't just the death of a loved one that impacts the heart, but our emotional response to loss that is affecting our heart," O'Connor said.

The study's findings are helpful for clinicians, as they show that people who are experiencing bereavement are at higher risk for hypertension and other heart-related problems, O'Connor said.

"It's important for psychologists and therapists to encourage grieving clients to get their regular medical check-ups. Often, when we've been caring for a loved one who's dying, we neglect our own health care," she said.

In her Grief, Loss, and Social Stress Lab in the Department of Psychology, O'Connor studies an intervention called "progressive muscle relaxation." It teaches grieving people to tighten and then fully relax the major muscle groups in their body. This kind of body-based intervention can be helpful for people in terms of their grief and curbing their stress levels, O'Connor said.

"I continue to look for interventions that will help address the physical and medical side of grieving, in addition to the emotional side," she said. (ANI)

Study: Family and loved ones may be conspiring to sabotage your weight loss journey

Family and loved ones may be conspiring to sabotage your weight loss journey, according to a new study from the University of Surrey. The study is part of a growing body of evidence which suggests that not all social support results in positive health outcomes.

Reviewing literature in this area, researchers found the negative side of social support in the form of sabotage, feeding behavior and collusion, which all undermine the attempts of those trying to lose weight. The Surrey team found acts of sabotage, discouraging healthy eating, and putting up barriers to attending support groups, often undermined an individual's confidence and self-esteem, negatively impacting their attempts at weight loss.

Weight loss often results in change, from giving a person more confidence to a change in social dynamics in their relationships. Many do not welcome such changes and may, consciously or subconsciously, try to derail a person's attempts to lose weight in order to keep things the way they are.

We need to explore this area further to develop interventions which could target family and friends and help them be more supportive in helping those they are close to lose weight."

Jane Ogden, Professor of Health Psychology and lead author of the study, University of Surrey

Closely linked to sabotage, researchers identified 'being a feeder' as a harmful form of social support. Although often done as a gesture of love or as a sign of wealth and status, researchers found that deliberately providing food when the person is not hungry or trying to eat less can be detrimental to weight management.

Interestingly, researchers also pinpointed collusion, which is often seen to reflect kindness and friendship, as a form of negative social support. Analyzing a number of studies, researchers found a examples of family, friends and partners colluding with those trying to lose weight through 'going along' with their behavior when it is not in line with their weight loss goals.

Professor Ogden added:

"People pursue weight loss for a number of reasons, be it for their overall health or to feel better about themselves. Support from friends and family can be an invaluable tool in helping people achieve their goals however sometimes those closest to them thwart their efforts by tempting them with unhealthy food or acting as a barrier in helping them adopt a healthier lifestyle."

This research was published in Current Obesity Reports.

Source:

Journal reference:

Ogden, J. & Quirke-McFarlane, S., (2023) Sabotage, collusion and being a feeder: towards a new model of negative social support and its impact on weight management. Current Obesity Reports. doi.org/10.1007/s13679-023-00504-5.

Study proposes a new index to understand the link between gender and mental health in adolescence

Half of mental health disorders first manifest themselves before the age of 14. Seventy per cent appear before the age of 18, according to data from the European Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The relationship between mental health, age, socio-economic status and gender is the subject of increasing research. But how do adolescents perceive their mental health in relation to their gender? And how does their gender influence the way that they deal with mental health issues?

Until now, most studies looked at this relationship through a binary sex labeling that has proven insufficient to understand the links between mental health and gender. A new study, published in European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, explores these links and proposes an index to work with in the future that includes a broader and more complex view in this type of study of the relationship between mental health and gender. The study was led by Xavier Cela Bertran, who has a PhD from Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) and is a former course instructor with the UOC's Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences. This article is based on his doctoral thesis, supervised by ángel Martínez-Hernáez, professor in the Department of Anthropology, Philosophy and Social Work at URV, and by Asun Pié Balaguer, professor and researcher in the CareNet group of the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), as part of URV's doctoral programme in Anthropology and Communication. Both thesis supervisors are also co-authors of the article.

Every four years, the Barcelona Public Health Agency (ASPB) produces a comprehensive report on adolescence and health: Risk Factors in Secondary School Students (FRESC). The ASPB conducts a survey with almost 4,000 adolescents aged between 13 and 19 years old that covers a very broad range of questions, from substance use patterns to eating habits. However, like other similar studies, it conceptualizes gender in a binary way, through a simple question: whether the respondent is a boy or a girl.

The FRESC data are very interesting, but we found that they were not always analysed in detail. We believed they held much more valuable information. The Barcelona Public Health Agency was delighted to be part of the analysis team and to provide us with the data. Based on this, our research team searched for trends in mental health."

Xavier Cela Bertran, PhD from Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV)

The study confirmed that both age and having a low socio-economic status have a negative impact on the self-perceived health and level of psychological distress or emotional well-being of young women.

"We can say that gender influences the ways in which people express mental suffering, but also the ways in which they seek help. As such, adolescents who identify as girls are more likely to suffer from emotional issues, although they behave in a more prosocial way [positive behaviour for socializing and communicating with others]," added Pié. "By contrast, adolescents identifying as boys are more likely to suffer from behavioral issues, symptoms associated with attention deficit and problems with their parents."

According to Pié, the poorer mental health or greater mental distress expressed in socialized women could be explained by two reasons. First, it is the result of a sexist and patriarchal social system, where gender inequalities and male violence against women have an impact on their mental health. Second, it is related to the capacity of girls to express vulnerability and affection, a trait associated with female socialization that is much more developed than in people who socialize as men.

The first objective of the study was to demonstrate the existence of a clear relationship between gender and mental health. The other objective was to take this further by creating a gender adherence index that proposes starting from a non-binary idea of mental health and gender that takes a deeper look at what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman and what mental health is. "We were seeking to develop tools that could capture a non-binary reality at a scientific level," said Cela.

The study puts forward the Gender Adherence Index (GAI), an index based on a multivariate analysis of behaviours and social habits and beliefs associated with gender. "The calculation of this index is used to analyse the relationships between the mental health of adolescents, their behavioural patterns and their gender socialization, irrespective of their sex determination or, where appropriate, providing an accompanying explanation to this binary label," added Pié.

The general hypothesis of the study is that gender, as a social process, influences the level and ways of expressing mental distress among adolescents. As such, gender conditions the processes of seeking help, both formal and informal, as well as the strategies with which they confront difficult situations. Accordingly, the Gender Adherence Index is intended to add explanatory value to the data that can help to design better measures for prevention and care.

In this first study, the researchers acknowledge that, although the contribution of the GAI is significant, its effect is still moderate. This is mainly due to the fact that the available data are insufficient, since the FRESC report survey was not designed for this purpose. Moving forward, it is necessary to carry out a more detailed and in-depth study of the variables and their relationships in order to improve the interpretative power and to design the questions of the Gender Adherence Index appropriately.

"We aim to develop an effective tool for a more in-depth study of the relationship between gender and mental health in future editions of the FRESC or any other study of this kind. The end goal would be to integrate this tool into larger public health studies that typically address the gender issue very quickly, with a simple binary question," concluded Cela.

Source:

Journal reference:

Xavier, C.-B., et al. (2023). Understanding the relationship between gender and mental health in adolescence: the Gender Adherence Index (GAI). European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. doi.org/10.1007/s00787-023-02150-7