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Common Faults in Human Thought

Nirupama Surubhotla
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Common Faults in Human Thought

Confirmation Bias

The confirmation bias is the tendency to look for or interpret information in a way that confirms beliefs. Individuals reinforce their ideas and attitudes by selectively collecting evidence or retrieving biased memories. For example, I think that there are more emergency room admissions on nights where there is a full moon. I notice on the next full moon that there are 78 ER admissions, this confirms my belief and I fail to look at admission rates for the rest of the month. The obvious problem with this bias is that that it allows inaccurate information to be held as true. Going back to the above example, suppose that on average, daily ER admissions are 90. My interpretation that 78 are more than normal is wrong, yet I fail to notice, or even consider it. This error is very common, and it can have risky consequences when decisions are based on false information.

Availability Heuristic

The Availability heuristic is gauging what is more likely based on vivid memories. The problem is individuals tend to remember unusual events more than everyday, commonplace events. For example, airplane crashes receive lots of national media coverage. Fatal car crashes do not. However, more people are afraid of flying than driving a car, even though statistically airplane travel is safer. Media coverage feeds into this bias; because rare or unusual events such as medical errors, animal attacks and natural disasters are highly publicized, people perceive these events as having a higher probability of happening.

Illusion of Control

Illusion of Control is the tendency for individuals to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes that they clearly have no influence on. This bias can influence gambling behavior and belief in the paranormal. In studies conducted on psychokinesis, participants are asked to predict the results of a coin flip. With a two-sided fair coin, participants will be correct 50% of the time. However, people fail to realize that probability or pure luck is responsible, and instead see their correct answers as confirmation of their control over external events.

Interesting Fact: when playing craps in a casino, people will throw the dice hard when they need a high number and soft when they need a low number. In reality, the strength of the throw will not guarantee a certain outcome, but the gambler believes they can control the number they roll.

Planning Fallacy

The Planning fallacy is the tendency to underestimate the time needed to complete tasks. The planning fallacy actually stems from another error, The Optimism Bias, which is the tendency for individuals to be overly positive about the outcome of planned actions. People are more susceptible to the planning fallacy when the task is something they have never done before. The reason for this is because we estimate based on past experiences. For example, if I asked you how long it takes you to grocery shop, you will consider how long it has taken you in the past, and you will have a reasonable answer. If I ask you how long it will take you to do something you have never done before, like completing a thesis or climbing Mount Everest, you have no experience to reference, and because of your inherent optimism, you will guesstimate less time than you really need. To help you with this fallacy, remember Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

Interesting Fact: “Realistic pessimism” is a phenomenon where depressed or overly pessimistic people more accurately predict task completion estimations.

Restraint Bias

The Restraint Bias is the tendency to overestimate one’s ability to show restraint in the face of temptation, or the “perceived ability to have control over an impulse,” generally relating to hunger, drug and sexual impulses. The truth is people do not have control over visceral impulses; you can ignore hunger, but you cannot wish it away. You might find the saying: “the only way to get rid of temptation is to give into it” amusing, however, it is true. If you want to get rid of you hunger, you have to eat. Restraining from impulses is incredibly hard; it takes great self-control. However, most people think they have more control than they actually do. For example, most addicts’ say that they can “quit anytime they want to,” but this is rarely the case in real life.

Interesting Fact: unfortunately, this bias has serious consequences. When an individual has an inflated (perceived) sense of control over their impulses, they tend to overexpose themselves to temptation, which in turn promotes the impulsive behavior.

Just-World Phenomenon

The Just-World Phenomenon is when witnesses of an injustice, in order to rationalize it, will search for things that the victim did to deserve it. This eases their anxiety and allows them to feel safe; if they avoid that behavior, injustice will not happen to them. This peace of mind comes at the expense of blaming the innocent victim. To illustrate this, a research study was done by L. Carli of Wellesley College. Participants were told two versions of a story about interactions between a man and a woman. In both versions, the couple’s interactions were exactly the same, at the very end, the stories differed; in one ending, the man raped the woman and in the other, he proposed marriage. In both groups, participants described the woman’s actions as inevitably leading up to the (different) results.

Interesting Fact: On the other end of the spectrum, The Mean World Theory is a phenomenon where, due to violent television and media, viewers perceive the world as more dangerous than it really is, prompting excessive fear and protective measures.

Endowment Effect

The Endowment Effect is the idea that people will require more to give up an object than they would pay to acquire it. It is based on the hypothesis that people place a high value on their property. Certainly, this is not always an error; for example, many objects have sentimental value or are “priceless” to people, however, if I buy a coffee mug today for one dollar, and tomorrow demand two dollars for it, I have no rationality for asking for the higher price. This happens frequently when people sell their cars and ask more than the book value of the vehicle, and nobody wants to pay the price.

Interesting Fact: this bias is linked to two theories; “loss aversion” says that people prefer to avoid losses rather than obtain gains, and “status quo” bias says that people hate change and will avoid it unless the incentive to change is significant.

Self-Serving Bias

A Self-Serving Bias occurs when an individual attributes positive outcomes to internal factors and negative outcomes to external factors. A good example of this is grades, when I get a good grade on a test; I attribute it to my intelligence, or good study habits. When I get a bad grade, I attribute it to a bad professor, or poorly written exam. This is very common as people regularly take credit for successes but refuse to accept responsibility for failures.

Interesting Fact: when considering the outcomes of others, we attribute causes exactly the opposite as we do to ourselves. When we learn that the person who sits next to us failed the exam, we attribute it to an internal cause: that person is stupid or lazy. Likewise, if they aced the exam, they got lucky, or the professor likes them more. This is known as the Fundamental Attribution Error.

Cryptomnesia

Cryptomnesia is a form of misattribution where a memory is mistaken for imagination. Also known as inadvertent plagiarism, this is actually a memory bias where a person (inaccurately) recalls producing an idea or thought. There are many proposed causes of Cryptomnesia, including cognitive impairment, and lack of memory reinforcement. However, it should be noted that there is no scientific proof to validate Cryptomnesia. The problem is that the testimony of the afflicted is not scientifically reliable; it is possible that the plagiarism was deliberate and the victim is a dirty thief.

Interesting Fact: False Memory Syndrome is a controversial condition where an individual’s identity and relationships are affected by false memories that are strongly believed to be true by the afflicted. Recovered Memory Therapies including hypnosis, probing questions and sedatives are often blamed for these false memories.

Bias Blind Spot

The Bias blind spot is the tendency not to acknowledge one’s own thought biases. In a research study conducted by Emily Pronin of Princeton University, participants were described different cognitive biases such as the Halo Effect and Self-Serving Bias. When asked how biased the participants themselves were, they rated themselves as less biased than the average person.

Interesting Fact: Amazingly, there is actually a bias to explain this bias (imagine that!). The Better-Than-Average Bias is the tendency for people to inaccurately rate themselves as better than the average person on socially desirable skills or positive traits. Coincidentally, they also rate themselves as lower than average on

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Regulation of Energy Drinks

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Regulation of Energy Drinks

Amelia M. Arria, PhD & Mary Claire O’Brien, MD offer their opinion on energy drink regulation in JAMA

In this Commentary, we outline why regular (nonalcoholic) energy drinks might pose just as great a threat to individual and public health and safety.

Energy drinks are beverages that contain modest to relatively high levels and concentrations of caffeine (range: 50-505 mg caffeine/serving; 2.5-35.7 mg caffeine/oz) compared with other caffeinated beverages such as a 12-ounce cola (range 34-54 mg; 2.9-4.5 mg caffeine/oz) or a 6-ounce cup of coffee (range 77-150 mg; 12.8-25 mg caffeine/oz).

In contrast, energy “shots” are low-volume (1-2 oz) beverages and therefore have an even higher concentration of caffeine than other energy drinks (range 100-350 mg; 90-171 mg caffeine/oz).

Among adolescents, caffeine consumption has been linked to elevated blood pressure[7] and sleep disturbances.[8] Among pregnant women, high caffeine intake is associated with risk for late miscarriages, stillbirths,[9] and small-for-gestational-age infants.

any type of caffeine consumption after a drinking session might reduce sleepiness, it does not alleviate alcohol-related impairment. The state of being less likely to accurately appraise the true level of impairment has been labeled “wide-awake drunkenness” and can lead to engaging in risky behavior.

simultaneously consuming alcohol and energy drinks can prolong the drinking session by keeping the individual awake longer and therefore may lead to drinking much more alcohol than intended.

More research is needed in particular to guide the decision making of regulatory agencies related to placing a scientifically validated upper limit on the amount of caffeine a manufacturer can include in a single serving of any beverage. Currently, the maximum allowable caffeine limit set by the FDA for cola-like drinks is 0.02%, or 71 mg per 12-oz serving. It is unclear why this limit does not apply to energy drinks

The “High” Risk of Energy Drinks [JAMA]

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15 Styles of Distorted Thinking

Nirupama Surubhotla
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15 Styles of Distorted Thinking
  1. Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them, while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. A single detail may be picked out, and the whole event becomes colored by this detail. When you pull negative things out of context, isolated from all the good experiences around you, you make them larger and more awful than they really are.
  2. Polarized Thinking: The hallmark of this distortion is an insistence on dichotomous choices. Things are black or white, good or bad. You tend to perceive everything at the extremes, with very little room for a middle ground. The greatest danger in polarized thinking is its impact on how you judge yourself. For example-You have to be perfect or you’re a failure.
  3. Overgeneralization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, you expect it to happen over and over again. ‘Always’ and ‘never’ are cues that this style of thinking is being utilized. This distortion can lead to a restricted life, as you avoid future failures based on the single incident or event.
  4. Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to divine how people are feeling toward you. Mind reading depends on a process called projection. You imagine that people feel the same way you do and react to things the same way you do. Therefore, you don’t watch or listen carefully enough to notice that they are actually different. Mind readers jump to conclusions that are true for them, without checking whether they are true for the other person.
  5. Catastrophizing: You expect disaster. You notice or hear about a problem and start “what if’s.” What if that happens to me? What if tragedy strikes? There are no limits to a really fertile catastrophic imagination. An underlying catalyst for this style of thinking is that you do not trust in yourself and your capacity to adapt to change.
  6. Personalization: This is the tendency to relate everything around you to yourself. For example, thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who’s smarter, better looking, etc. The underlying assumption is that your worth is in question. You are therefore continually forced to test your value as a person by measuring yourself against others. If you come out better, you get a moment’s relief. If you come up short, you feel diminished. The basic thinking error is that you interpret each experience, each conversation, each look as a clue to your worth and value.
  7. Control Fallacies: There are two ways you can distort your sense of power and control. If you feel externally controlled, you see yourself as helpless, a victim of fate. The fallacy of internal control has you responsible for the pain and happiness of everyone around you. Feeling externally controlled keeps you stuck. You don’t believe you can really affect the basic shape of your life, let alone make any difference in the world. The truth of the matter is that we are constantly making decisions, and that every decision affects our lives. On the other hand, the fallacy of internal control leaves you exhausted as you attempt to fill the needs of everyone around you, and feel responsible in doing so (and guilty when you cannot).
  8. Fallacy of Fairness: You feel resentful because you think you know what’s fair, but other people won’t agree with you. Fairness is so conveniently defined, so temptingly self-serving, that each person gets locked into his or her own point of view. It is tempting to make assumptions about how things would change if people were only fair or really valued you. But the other person hardly ever sees it that way, and you end up causing yourself a lot of pain and an ever-growing resentment.
  9. Blaming: You hold other people responsible for your pain, or take the other tack and blame yourself for every problem. Blaming often involves making someone else responsible for choices and decisions that are actually our own responsibility. In blame systems, you deny your right (and responsibility) to assert your needs, say no, or go elsewhere for what you want.
  10. Shoulds: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act. People who break the rules anger you, and you feel guilty if you violate the rules. The rules are right and indisputable and, as a result, you are often in the position of judging and finding fault (in yourself and in others). Cue words indicating the presence of this distortion are should, ought, and must.
  11. Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true-automatically. If you feel stupid or boring, then you must be stupid and boring. If you feel guilty, then you must have done something wrong. The problem with emotional reasoning is that our emotions interact and correlate with our thinking process. Therefore, if you have distorted thoughts and beliefs, your emotions will reflect these distortions.
  12. Fallacy of Change: You expect that other people will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them enough. You need to change people because your hopes for happiness seem to depend entirely on them. The truth is the only person you can really control or have much hope of changing is yourself. The underlying assumption of this thinking style is that your happiness depends on the actions of others. Your happiness actually depends on the thousands of large and small choices you make in your life.
  13. Global Labeling: You generalize one or two qualities (in yourself or others) into a negative global judgment. Global labeling ignores all contrary evidence, creating a view of the world that can be stereotyped and one-dimensional. Labeling yourself can have a negative and insidious impact upon your self-esteem; while labeling others can lead to snap-judgments, relationship problems, and prejudice.
  14. Being Right: You feel continually on trial to prove that your opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness. Having to be ‘right’ often makes you hard of hearing. You aren’t interested in the possible veracity of a differing opinion, only in defending your own. Being right becomes more important than an honest and caring relationship.
  15. Heaven’s Reward Fallacy: You expect all your sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score. You fell bitter when the reward doesn’t come as expected. The problem is that while you are always doing the ‘right thing,’ if your heart really isn’t in it, you are physically and emotionally depleting yourself.

*From Thoughts & Feelings by McKay, Davis, & Fanning. New Harbinger, 1981. These styles of thinking (or cognitive distortions) were gleaned from the work of several authors, including Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, and David Burns, among others.

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Energy drinks, alcohol lead to risky sex, study shows

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Energy drinks, alcohol lead to risky sex, study shows

U.S. college students who drink caffeinated energy drinks mixed with alcohol are more likely to have casual sex, which is often risky sex, a new study finds.

Drinks such as Red Bull & vodka, and Jagerbombs (energy drinks combined with a shot of Jagermeister), rank among the best-selling mixed drinks in bars and clubs serving college-age adults, according to background information in the report.

The study, published online in the Journal of Caffeine Research, included about 650 students at a large public university. Their ages ranged from 18 to 40, but more than 60 percent of them were younger than 21.

The University at Buffalo researchers found that more than 29 percent of the sexually active participants said they had consumed alcohol mixed with energy drinks in the previous month.

During their most recent sexual encounter, about 45 percent of the participants had a casual partner, 25 percent were drunk, and 44 percent said they did not use a condom. Those who reported drinking alcohol mixed with energy drinks were more likely to have casual sex and/or to be drunk during their most recent sexual encounter.

However, students who drank alcohol mixed with energy drinks were no less likely than nondrinkers to have used a condom during their most recent sexual encounter.

The findings suggest that alcohol/energy drink mixes may play a role in the “hook-up culture” that exists on many college campuses, according to study author Kathleen E. Miller, a senior research scientist at the University at Buffalo‘s Research Institute on Addictions, in Buffalo, N.Y.

She noted that having casual sex or sex while intoxicated can lead to problems such as unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, sexual assault and depression. Previous research has linked energy drinks with dangerous behaviors such as impaired driving, binge drinking and fighting.

“Mixing energy drinks with alcohol can lead to unintentional overdrinking, because the caffeine makes it harder to assess your own level of intoxication,” Miller said in a university news release.

She noted that energy drinks mixed with alcohol “have stronger priming effects than alcohol alone. In other words, they increase the craving for another drink, so that you end up drinking more overall.”

The research doesn’t prove that drinking energy drinks with alcohol causes drunkenness and promiscuity, Miller said. But she hopes the findings lead to safety legislation or educational campaigns.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about caffeinated alcoholic beverages.

Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

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US watchdog says caffeinated alcoholic drinks unsafe

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US watchdog says caffeinated alcoholic drinks unsafe

The US food safety watchdog on Wednesday warned that drinks combining caffeine and alcohol are unsafe and illegal, and ordered companies that make them to remove them from shop shelves. “These products are adulterated and do not meet standards for safety,” Food and Drug Administration (FDA) principal deputy commissioner Joshua Sharfstein told a news conference. Companies that make and market certain very popular brands of the drinks have “failed to demonstrate that the addition of caffeine to their beverages is generally recognized as safe, and as a result, caffeine is an illegal food additive in these products,” Sharfstein said. The FDA and Federal Trade Commission sent out warning letters to four companies that make the drinks, saying if they fail to remove them from sale, they could face legal action. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the effort was part of a process that could lead to the products being permanently removed from the market. “Additional steps can be taken if necessary to protect the health of the public, depending on the ability of the companies to address the concerns we have raised,” she said. The drinks targeted in the warning letters include Core High Gravity HG, Moonshot, Joose, Max and Four Loko. According to New York Senator Charles Schumer, who has spearheaded a campaign to have alcohol-caffeine drinks banned in his state, the beverages deliver a caffeine boost equivalent to two to three cups of coffee and a dose of alcohol equivalent to three cans of beer. “This ruling should be the nail in the coffin of these dangerous and toxic drinks,” he said in a statement. Just weeks before Wednesday’s ruling, nine university students in Washington state passed out and had to be hospitalized after drinking the popular alcohol-caffeine drink Four Loko. Washington state Attorney General Robert McKenna called the drinks “a potent and dangerous combination of huge amounts of caffeine and other stimulants with very potent alcohol. “We didn’t see these kinds of incidents when people were drinking Irish coffee or drinking regular energy drinks and adding alcohol,” said McKenna. “What we’re seeing now is striking and it calls for swift action,” he said, applauding the FDA’s action. State-run liquor stores in New York have stopped selling the energy-alcohol concoctions, which have also been banned in Michigan, Oklahoma, Utah and Washington state and on a number of college campuses. Robert Brewer of federal health agency the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called caffeinated alcoholic drinks “a serious public health concern that can enable binge drinking, which kills 40,000 people in the United States each year.” White House drug policy director Gil Kerlikowske agreed, saying the drinks are “designed, branded, and promoted to encourage binge drinking.” Many of the drinks are sold in colorful containers that are about twice the size of a normal beer can or bottle. They also contain around twice the alcohol by volume. The drinks are marketed to young people and have gained a sizeable following among youngsters in the past few years. The action by the FDA follows a scientific review that began nearly a year ago, after several states attorneys general voiced concerns about the safety of the drinks. (c) 2010 AFP

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Non-alcoholic energy drinks may pose ‘high’ health risks

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Non-alcoholic energy drinks may pose ‘high’ health risks

“Energy drinks have become enmeshed in the subculture of partying,” the paper says. Credit: UMD-SPH

Highly-caffeinated energy drinks – even those containing no alcohol – may pose a significant threat to individuals and public health, say researchers at the University of Maryland School of Public Health and Wake Forest University School of Medicine. In a new online commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), they recommend immediate consumer action, education by health providers, voluntary disclosures by manufacturers and new federal labeling requirements. “Recent action to make pre-mixed alcoholic energy drinks unavailable was an important first step, but more continued action is needed,” says University of Maryland School of Public Health researcher Amelia Arria, who directs the Center on Young Adult Health and Development. “Individuals can still mix these highly caffeinated energy drinks with alcohol on their own. It is also concerning that no regulation exists with regard to the level of caffeine that can be in an energy drink.” Arria and co-author Mary Claire O’Brien, associate professor of emergency medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, alerted various state attorneys general to the risks of alcoholic energy drinks starting in 2009, actions that culminated last November in actions against Four Loko and similar products by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission. HEALTH RISKS The JAMA paper cites three public health concerns surrounding all packaged energy drinks containing moderate to high levels of caffeine: Consumers often mix alcohol and energy drinks: “Energy drinks have become enmeshed in the subculture of partying,” the paper says. “The practice of mixing energy drinks with alcohol – which is more widespread than generally recognized – has been linked consistently to drinking high volumes of alcohol per drinking session and subsequent serious alcohol-related consequences such as sexual assault and driving while intoxicated… Research has demonstrated that individuals who combine energy drinks with alcohol underestimate their true level of impairment.” Caffeine can have adverse health effects in susceptible individuals: “Therefore continued public health awareness regarding high levels of caffeine consumption, no matter what the beverage source, in sensitive individuals is certainly warranted,” the researchers write. Energy drink use appears to be associated with alcohol dependence and other drug use: More research is needed to clarify the possible mechanisms underlying the associations that have been observed in research studies. RECOMMENDATIONS The commentary recommends several “proactive steps to protect public health:” Health care professions should inform their patients of the risks of consuming highly caffeinated energy drinks; Individuals should educate themselves about those risks; Manufacturers should warn consumers about the risks of mixing their products with alcohol; Regulatory agencies should require energy drink manufacturers to disclose caffeine content on product labels and display appropriate warnings. More information: The JAMA paper, The ‘High’ Risk of Energy Drinks is available online: jama.ama-assn.org/content/early/2011/01/21/jama.2011.109.full Provided by University of Maryland

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Depression triples between ages 12 and 15 in girls in U.S.

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Depression triples between ages 12 and 15 in girls in U.S.

An average of 12.0 percent of girls aged 12 to 17 years have experienced a major depressive episode in the past year, with the rates tripling for girls between the ages of 12 and 15, according to a report published July 19 by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (HealthDay) — An average of 12.0 percent of girls aged 12 to 17 years have experienced a major depressive episode (MDE) in the past year, with the rates tripling for girls between the ages of 12 and 15, according to a report published July 19 by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Researchers from SAMHSA, located in Rockville, Md., used data from the 2008 to 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health to examine the incidence of MDE among adolescents in the past year. The researchers found that an annual average of 1.4 million girls (12.0 percent) aged 12 to 17 years experienced a MDE in the past year, compared with 4.5 percent of their male peers. Between the ages of 12 and 15, the percentage of girls who experienced a MDE tripled, from 5.1 to 15.2 percent. In the past year, about one-third of girls aged 12 to 14 with MDE received treatment, compared with about two-fifths of those aged 15 to 17. “It is crucial that we provide adolescent girls the coping skills and social supports they need to avoid the onset of depression, and to offer behavioral health services that foster resilience and recovery if they experience it,” Pamela S. Hyde, J.D., a SAMHSA administrator, said in a statement. “These efforts are a sound investment in girls’ health and well-being and in our nation’s future.” More information: More Information Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved

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Alcohol, energy drinks add up to higher intoxication levels, increased driving risk

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Alcohol, energy drinks add up to higher intoxication levels, increased driving risk

Energy drinks, favored among young people for the beverages? caffeine jolt, also play a lead role in several popular alcoholic drinks, such as Red Bull and vodka. But combining alcohol and energy drinks may create a dangerous mix, according to University of Florida research. Energy drinks, favored among young people for the beverages’ caffeine jolt, also play a lead role in several popular alcoholic drinks, such as Red Bull and vodka. But combining alcohol and energy drinks may create a dangerous mix, according to University of Florida research. In a study of college-aged adults exiting bars, patrons who consumed energy drinks mixed with alcohol had a threefold increased risk of leaving a bar highly intoxicated and were four times more likely to intend to drive after drinking than bar patrons who drank alcohol only. The study appears in the April issue of the journal Addictive Behaviors. “Previous laboratory research suggests that when caffeine is mixed with alcohol it overcomes the sedating effects of alcohol and people may perceive that they are less intoxicated than they really are,” said the study’s lead researcher Dennis Thombs, an associate professor in the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions’ department of behavioral science and community health. “This may lead people to drink more or make uninformed judgments about whether they are safe to drive.” Experts believe that among college drinkers, as many as 28 percent consume alcohol mixed with energy drinks in a typical month. The UF study is the first of its kind to evaluate the effects of alcohol mixed with energy drinks in an actual drinking environment, that is, at night outside bars. Research on college student alcohol use in campus communities has traditionally relied on self-report questionnaires administered to sober students in daytime settings, Thombs said. Data for the UF study were collected in 2008 from more than 800 randomly selected patrons exiting establishments in a college bar district between the hours of 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. Researchers conducted face-to-face interviews with participants to gather demographic information and details on participants’ energy drink consumption and drinking behavior. Participants also completed self-administered questionnaires that asked about their drinking history and intention to drive that night. Next, researchers tested participants’ breath alcohol concentration levels. Participants received feedback on their intoxication levels and advice about driving risk. Bar patrons who reported drinking alcohol mixed with energy drinks — 6.5 percent of study participants — were three times more likely to be intoxicated than drinkers who consumed alcohol only. The average breath-alcohol concentration reading for those who mixed alcohol and energy drinks was 0.109, well above the legal driving limit of 0.08. Consumers of energy drink cocktails also left bars later at night, drank for longer periods of time, ingested more grams of ethanol and were four times more likely to express an intention to drive within the hour than patrons who drank alcohol only. Consumers of alcohol mixed with energy drinks may drink more and misjudge their capabilities because caffeine diminishes the sleepy feeling most people experience as they become intoxicated. It’s a condition commonly described as “wide awake and drunk,” said study co-author Bruce Goldberger, a professor and director of toxicology in the UF College of Medicine. “There’s a very common misconception that if you drink caffeine with an alcoholic beverage the stimulant effect of the caffeine counteracts the depressant effect of the alcohol and that is not true,” Goldberger said. “We know that caffeine aggravates the degree of intoxication, which can lead to risky behaviors.” The study, funded by the University of Florida Office of the President, raises a lot of questions and suggests topics for future research, Thombs said. “This study demonstrates that there definitely is reason for concern and more research is needed,” he said. “We don’t know what self-administered caffeine levels bar patrons are reaching, what are safe and unsafe levels of caffeine and what regulations or policies should be implemented to better protect bar patrons or consumers in general.” Thombs’ study is a very valuable addition to the existing body of research on the association of energy drink consumption and alcohol-related consequences, said Dr. Mary Claire O’Brien, an associate professor of emergency medicine and public health sciences at Wake Forest University who has studied the relationship between energy drink cocktails and high-risk behavior. “His approach is unique because it was conducted in a natural drinking environment — college bars,” O’Brien said. “His results clearly support the serious concern raised by previous research, that subjective drunkenness may be reduced by the concurrent ingestion of caffeinated energy drinks, increasing both the likelihood of further alcohol consumption, and of driving when intoxicated.” Provided by University of Florida

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Smiling Reduces Stress And Helps The Heart

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Smiling Reduces Stress And Helps The Heart

 

A new study suggests that holding a smile on one’s face during periods of stress may help the heart. The study, due to be published in a forthcoming issue ofPsychological Science, lends support to the old adage “grin and bear it”, suggesting it may also make us feel better.

The study is the work of psychological scientists Tara Kraft and Sarah Pressman of the University of Kansas. They looked at how different types of smiling, and people being aware of smiling, affected their ability to recover from stressful episodes.

Kraft told the press they wanted to explore whether old adages like “grin and bear it” had any scientific merit.

The age-old saying suggests smiling not only signals happiness to others, but could also be a way to help cope with life stresses.

Previous studies have shown that smiling affects emotion, and that positive emotions have an effect on stress. But Kraft and Pressman are the first to experiment with types of smile to see what effect they have on stress.

Researchers often class smiles as being of two types: standard smiles, where only the mouth shapes the smile, and genuine or Duchenne smiles, where the muscles around the mouth and the eyes shape the smile. (The latter was named after Guillaume-Benjamin Duchenne, who used electrophysiology to show how truly happy smiles also use the muscles around the eyes).

Smiling young woman
Kraft and Pressman experimented with types of smile to see what effect they had on stress

For their latest study, Kraft and Pressman invited 169 volunteers from a Midwestern university to undergo an experiment in two stages: training and testing.

In the training stage, the researchers taught the volunteers how to either hold their faces in a neutral expression, hold a standard smile, or hold a Duchenne smile.

They also got some of the volunteers to hold their face in a forced smile by holding chopsticks in their mouths.

In the testing phase, the volunteers performed some multi-tasking activities, during which they held their faces in the manner instructed.

The activities were designed to increase stress levels, but the volunteers didn’t know this. One test for instance, asks the participant to use their non-dominant hand to follow the path of a moving star that they observe in a mirror. The other test involves plunging a hand into a bucket of ice water.

The researchers monitored the participants’ heart rates as they performed their various tasks.

They found the participants who were instructed to smile, and in particular those whose faces expressed genuine or Duchenne smiles, had lower heart rates after recovery from the stress activities than the ones who held their faces in neutral expressions.

Even the volunteers who held chopsticks in their mouths, that forced the muscles to express a smile (but they had not explicitly been instructed to smile), had lower recovery heart rates compared to the ones who held neutral facial expressions.

The researchers say their findings suggest smiling during brief periods of stress may help reduce the body’s stress response, regardless of whether the person actually feels happy or not.

Pressman said this could be useful to know, for instance if you find yourself stuck in a traffic jam, try to hold your face in a smile for a few moments: it may do more than just help you “grin and bear it”, it may actually help your heart health too.

Written by Catharine Paddock PhD
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

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Drinking energy beverages mixed with alcohol may be riskier than drinking alcohol alone

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Drinking energy beverages mixed with alcohol may be riskier than drinking alcohol alone

Energy drinks mixed with alcohol, such as Red Bull and vodka, have become trendy. While this consumption has been implicated in risky drinking practices and associated accidents and injuries, there is little laboratory research on how the effects of this combination differ from those of drinking alcohol alone. A recent laboratory study, comparing measures of intoxication due to alcohol alone versus alcohol/energy drink, has found that the combination of the energy drink enhanced feelings of stimulation in participants. However, the energy drink did not change the level of impairment for impulsive behavior. These findings suggest that energy drinks combined with alcohol may increase the risks associated with drinking. Results will be published in the July 2011 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View. “Young people are now drinking alcohol in different ways than they have in the past,” said Cecile A. Marczinski, assistant professor of psychology at Northern Kentucky University and first author of the study. “Classic mixed drinks such as rum and coke have been replaced with mixed drinks that use energy drinks instead, such as yagerbombs and Red Bull™ and vodka.” “We have sales data showing that energy drinks have gained in popularity, and we know anecdotally that this practice is popular, but we have little data on objective and subjective responses that support growing concern about the safety of mixing energy drinks with alcohol,” said Amelia M. Arria, director of the Center on Young Adult Health and Development at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. Marczinski concurred. “While consuming energy drinks with alcohol is thought of as a risky drinking practice, the laboratory evidence demonstrating this is quite limited,” she said. “In fact, most of the evidence that consuming alcohol/energy drinks is risky comes from epidemiological studies that have reported an increased risk of accidents and injuries associated with their use. However, those studies do not address the key confound that risky drinkers, who are prone to drinking heavily anyways, are just attracted to these drinks since they are trendy. Our study was designed to demonstrate that alcohol/energy drinks are pharmacologically distinct from alcohol alone and are adding to the risks of drinking.” Marczinski and her colleagues randomly assigned 56 college student participants (28 men, 28 women), between the ages of 21 and 33, to one of four groups that received four different doses: 0.65 g/kg alcohol, 3.57 ml/kg energy drink, energy drink/alcohol, or a placebo beverage. The participants’ behavior was measured on a task that measures how quickly one can execute and suppress actions following the dose. Participants also rated how they felt, including feelings of stimulation, sedation, impairment, and levels of intoxication. “We found that an energy drink alters the reaction to alcohol that a drinker experiences when compared to a drinker that consumed alcohol alone,” said Marczinski. “A consumer of alcohol, with or without the energy drink, acts impulsively compared to when they had not consumed alcohol. However, the consumer of the alcohol/energy drink felt more stimulated compared to an alcohol-alone consumer. Therefore, consumption of an energy drink combined with alcohol sets up a risky scenario for the drinker due to this enhanced feeling of stimulation and high impulsivity levels.” “To reiterate,” said Arria, “the investigators found that the presence of an energy drink did not change the level of impairment associated with alcohol consumption.” It did, however, change the perception of impairment. “The findings from this study provide concrete laboratory evidence that the mixture of energy drinks with alcohol is riskier than alcohol alone,” said Marczinski. “College students need to be aware of the risks of these beverages. Moreover, clinicians who are working with risky drinkers will need to try and steer their clients away from these beverages.” Provided by Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research

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Alcohol is a social lubricant, study confirms

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Alcohol is a social lubricant, study confirms

Moderate boozing encourages ‘true smiles’ and group engagement. (HealthDay) — You’ve seen those commercials with fun-loving people sharing a laugh over a cold brew. Now, a new study lends scientific support to the notion of alcohol as a social icebreaker. Researchers found that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol in a group setting boosts people’s emotions and enhances social bonding. The study also found that moderate consumption of alcohol can minimize negative emotions — or at least reduce displays such as being silent in a group or making faces with wrinkled noses or pursed lips. In the study, published recently in the journal Psychological Science, researchers randomly assigned 720 men and women to groups of three people who didn’t know one another. They said previous studies have focused on alcohol’s effect on individuals. “We felt that many of the most significant effects of alcohol would more likely be revealed in an experiment using a social setting,” study author Michael Sayette, a professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, said in a journal news release. In total, 20 groups were formed consisting of every combination of genders. Each group was assigned one of the following scenarios: drink an alcoholic beverage, drink a placebo beverage or drink a nonalcoholic control beverage. The alcoholic beverage contained one part vodka and 3.5 parts cranberry-juice cocktail, with a lower dose of vodka for women. To make placebo beverages more credible, glasses were smeared with vodka. While seated at a round table, the participants drank three of their assigned beverages over the course of 36 minutes. Group drinking sessions were videotaped so the researchers could analyze individual and group interactions frame by frame for facial action and group speech behavior. Alcohol fueled social bonding and increased the amount of time people spent talking to one another. It also increased the frequency and enhanced the coordination of “true” smiles, the researchers said: All three members of the groups drinking alcohol were more likely to smile at the same time than the other groups. Imbibers also were more likely to have all three members stay engaged in the group discussion. Alcohol affected how strongly participants agreed with survey statements such as, “I like this group” and “the members of this group are interested in what I have to say.” [From these results], “we can begin to ask questions of great interest to alcohol researchers: Why does alcohol make us feel better in group settings? Is there evidence to suggest a particular participant may be vulnerable to developing a problem with alcohol?” Sayette said. The study was funded by the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. More information: The U.S. National Institutes of Health has more about alcohol. Journal reference: Psychological Science

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New genetic target found for Diuretic Therapy

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New genetic target found for Diuretic Therapy

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have identified a new genetic target for diuretic therapy in patients with fluid overload—like those with congestive heart failure, liver cirrhosis or kidney failure. These results, being presented in the July 30 advance online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), may lead to the first new diuretic therapy in 25 years and could help patients who experience diuretic resistance. Manoocher Soleimani, MD, professor and chief in the division of nephrology and hypertension, says the role of diuretics is to increase urine output and help patients rid themselves of excess fluid when their kidneys are unable to do so. “For the last several decades, physicians have been using diuretics either alone or in combination to help patients experiencing water retention,” he says, adding that this can occur in patients with heart failure, kidney failure or other serious illnesses. “The most common diuretic used worldwide is hydrochlorothiazide, which works by inhibiting the kidneys’ ability to retain water; these drugs can also be used to lower blood pressure. The reason they are so widely used is because they are mild and don’t cause severe loss of fluid. “However, they aren’t effective with every patient.” In this study, researchers examined the specific segments of the kidneys, called tubules, and the salt-absorbing genes working there. “The NaCl, or sodium-chloride, co-transporter (NCC), is targeted by hydrochlorothiazide and drugs in that class; it is located in the close proximity of the chloride-absorbing transporter pendrin, both of which absorb salt in the kidney,” Soleimani says. “When pendrin is deleted from the body, there is no effect on salt excretion. We thought that pendrin was present to help NCC function in some way, and by using knockout animal models in this study, we found that these two genes cross-compensate for one another, and if NCC is not working, pendrin kicks in to do its job.” He says genetically engineered animal models without NCC had regular urine output and salt excretion; the same results occurred in models without pendrin. However, models lacking both genes lost large amounts of salt, were 40 percent smaller in size and produced an excessive volume of urine. “In addition to experiencing major volume depletion, mice lacking both genes developed kidney failure,” Soleimani says. “We were able to show that all of these problems resulted from salt wasting; when we put these models back on high-salt diets, the problems including electrolyte abnormalities and volume depletion were all corrected after just one week.” Soleimani says these findings could lead to a targeted diuretic therapy that inhibits pendrin, further helping patients with severe fluid overload who may not respond well to hydrochlorothiazide. “By giving a pendrin inhibitor in conjunction with thiazide, a mild diuretic, it could greatly relieve fluid retention, providing another treatment option and improving patient outcomes,” he says.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Provided by University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center

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