Healthy Me - At Home and Away: Fatigue

Showing posts with label Fatigue. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Research Backs a Traditional Balm: Nature

English: unidentified plant in Singapore Botanical Garden (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dawn crepuscule in the Singapore Botanical Gardens (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

orchid (Singapore botanical gardens) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Singapore Botanical gardens (Photo credit: j0055)

Singapore Botanical Garden (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

July 29, 2014
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And as if to say, health can't be bought, nature comes to the rescue - abundant, free, natural... and it just doesn't soothe tired eyes, but green, leafy scenery soothe tired brains as well...
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by Gretchen Reynolds

Scientists have known for some time that the human brain's ability to stay calm and focused is limited and can be overwhelmed by the noise and hectic demands of city living, sometimes resulting in a condition informally known as brain fatigue. With brain fatigue, you are easily distracted, forgetful and mentally flighty.

But a new study from Scotland suggests you can ease brain fatigue by simply strolling through a leafy park.

Researchers have long theorized that green spaces are calming, requiring less of our directed mental attention that urban streets do. Instead, natural settings invoke "soft fascination," a term for quiet contemplation, during which the brain can reset overstretched resources of attention and reduce mental fatigue.

But this theory has been difficult to put to the test. Previous studies have found that people who live near trees and parks have lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, in their saliva than whose who live primarily amid concrete, and that children with attention deficits tend to concentrate and perform better on cognitive tests after walking through parks. Scientists have studied volunteers and found that brain wave readouts show that the volunteers are more calm when they view natural scenes.

But it had not been possible to study the brains of people while they were actually outside until the recent development of a lightweight, portable version of the electroencephalogram, a technology that studies brain wave patterns.

For the new study, published in March in The British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and the University of Edinburgh attached these new, portable EEGs to the scalps of 12 healthy young adults. The electrodes sent brain wave readings wirelessly to a laptop carried in a backpack by each volunteer.

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Essential body renewal
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The researchers then sent the participants on a short walk throguh Edinburgh, first through a historic district, then through a parklike setting and finally through a commercial district. Afterward, the researchers looked for wave patterns that they felt were related to measures of frustration, directed attention, mental arousal and meditativeness or calm. What they found confirmed the idea that green spaces lessen brain fatigue: in the commercial area their brain waves were aroused; in the park the readings became more meditative.

The study was small, more of a trial study of the new EEG technology than a definitive examination of the cognitive effects of seeing green.

But even so, said Jenny Roe, a lecturer at Heriot-Watt who oversaw the study, the findings were consistent, strong and valuable. The study suggests that, right about now, you should consider "taking a break from work," Dr. Roe said, and "going for a walk in a green space or just sitting, or even viewing green spaces from your office window." This is not a waste of time, Dr. Roe said. "It is likely to have a restorative effect and help with attention fatigue and stress recovery."

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Taken from TODAY Saturday Edition, 13-April-2013

Monday, July 18, 2011

No evidence that mouse virus causes chronic fatigue

Posted: 01 June 2011

WASHINGTON - A major study in 2009 that claimed a mouse virus was the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome was wrong, and its findings were likely based on contaminated lab samples, US researchers said Tuesday.

"There is no evidence of this mouse virus in human blood," said Jay Levy of the University of California, San Francisco, senior author of the study to be published this week in the journal Science.

Instead, the mouse virus XMRV that was picked up in samples from chronic fatigue patients probably got there because "chemical reagents and cell lines used in the laboratory where it was identified were contaminated with the virus," the university said in a statement.

The 2009 study was hailed as a breakthrough for the estimated one to four million Americans who suffer from the elusive but debilitating illness, and led to many being treated with antiretroviral drugs used against HIV/AIDS.

The study authors said experts need to keep searching for the cause of the disease, which can last for years and cause memory loss, muscle pain, extreme tiredness and possibly insomnia.

"Individuals with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome need to know that taking antiretroviral therapies will not benefit them, and may do them serious harm," said co-author Konstance Knox of the Wisconsin Virus Research Group in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

"Physicians should not be prescribing antiviral compounds used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS to patients on the basis of a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome diagnosis or a XMRV test result."

The 2009 study was conducted by researchers in Nevada and Maryland who found xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) in about two-thirds of blood samples taken from 101 patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Levy, a prominent HIV/AIDS researcher, said he was contacted by the original team to try to replicate its findings by examining blood samples from other chronic fatigue patients.

Using similar procedures to examine the blood of 61 patients, "Levy and colleagues found no evidence of XMRV or any other mouse-related virus," UCSF said.

They also determined that it was highly unlikely that humans could become infected with the mouse virus in the first place, because "human serum quickly kills it."

Other scientists involved in the follow-up research came from the Wisconsin Viral Research Group in Milwaukee, the Blood Systems Research Institute in San Francisco, the Open Medicine Institute in Mountain View and Abbott in Abbott Park.

"With this extensive study, we could not confirm any of the results of the earlier papers," Levy said.

- AFP/al

Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
No evidence that mouse virus causes chronic fatigue

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Young and Tired

Image via Wikipedia

Ask the Doc

YOUNG AND TIRED

Query from Mrs KT Lim

My 12-year-old daughter has a fatigue issue. She feels lethargic all the time and requires more than 10 hours, at times 14 hours, of rest. She is not overweight and does not snore when she sleeps, so I have ruled out poor-quality sleep. When she was less than eight months old, she rolled and fell from the bed. Most girls her age have reached, or are reaching, puberty, but she has yet to experience any changes. I wonder if these factors are causing her to be tired all the time. Or, could she be suffering from some underlying medical problems?

Reply by Dr Chan Poh Chong
Head and Senior Consultant, Division of Ambulatory and Adolesc ent Paediatrics,
University Children’s Medical Institute, National University Hospital

The fall she had when she was eight months old is unlikely to have caused her current symptoms. And a proportion of young girls start puberty only when they are 12 to 14 years of age. Obesity and poor-quality sleep caused by an obstructed airway can also contribute to lethargy and tiredness, but in her case, it is less likely.

Other causes of prolonged fatigue and tiredness could be anaemia, either from blood loss or decreased production, or poor dietary intake; infections — some, such as dengue, can cause prolonged lethargy and tiredness; hormonal problems, such as hypothyroidism or diabetes mellitus; chronic illnesses, such as kidney or liver diseases; lack of exercise or excessive physical exertion.

Stresses in balancing school work, CCAs and social/recreational activities could also lead to anxiety, depression, withdrawal from social contact and, consequently, chronic fatigue.

Sometimes, there may be no underlying cause found after extensive investigations, and a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome, which could inflict a child for a prolonged period of time, may be offered.

Consult a doctor to ensure that any underlying medical problem is excluded and appropriate lifestyle changes instituted to get the child back to her normal, healthy state. Think a balanced diet with sufficient fruits and vegetables, regular and appropriate exercises, and a conducive school and home environment for mental and social well-being.

The information provided above is for your general knowledge only. You should seek medical advice or treatment for your condition. Email questions to health@newstoday.com.sg.

From TODAY, Health - Tuesday, 23-March-2010
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