Transitioning from high school to college isn’t the easiest thing to do, and the work load difference can be a big adjustment for many. As I begin to stress about all my work and finals approaching, I began to think if there were any tips on getting better grades. As I looked for my answer, I came across the article, “Vigorous Exercise Linked With Better Grades.” I found it very interesting that they could link these two things together, but as I read through the article I began to second guess the conclusion. Let’s take a further look.

Exercise and physical activity has obviously been around since forever. According to Mayo Clinic, exercise controls weight, improves mood, boosts energy and even promotes better sleep. Now to add to the list… does it really also increase that GPA?

A study done by Saginaw Valley State University(located in Michigan) consisted of 266 students, specifically undergrads. The researchers kept track of how much they exercised and their grades. From this, they concluded that students who vigorously worked out seven days a week had higher GPA’s by about .4.

I feel there are other things to consider before assuming that exercising gives you a higher GPA. Maybe the results can be due to reverse causation, in that people who had higher GPA’s tended to be more physically active and exercise more. That in fact it wasn’t the exercise making them smarter and maybe it was the high grades that made them exercise. We also are unaware of what “vigorous exercise” the students did and if it mattered what kind of exercise was done. Maybe people who exercised just happened to be smarter in general or it was just in fact due to chance. To me, .4 does not seem that drastic and another larger study would have to be conducted to help prove this. The study was also only done at one University, so maybe this is just the case there. Setting up the experiment at another larger University can be effective. I wonder if this holds true to both male and female and if exercise effects their grades differently. Exercise may not have the direct cause on higher grades, maybe it is the fact that exercising can cause us to have things like improved moods and better sleep. Maybe these are the things that help our grades. The article does not mention how much we need to exercise in order to improve our grade either, we are left wondering.

In all, exercising is beneficial to our health so it should definitely be done regardless if it can help our grades or not. I can’t see it hurting us. If I were to do this experiment over I would take a large number of students, make them exercise once a day for an hour and see if their GPA’s improved at all. We need to see if there is a link between exercising and grades. Maybe if people start to exercise their grades will go up.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/vigorous-exercise-linked-with-better-grades/?_r=0

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/fitness/in-depth/exercise/art-20048389?pg=2

With the increasing obesity rate in the United States and the vast abundance of sugary sweets all around us, diabetes is becoming more and more of a common thing. My grandmother and good friend at home have diabetes and my grandfather passed away from it. This article from the New York Times sparked my attention on the topic in which it stated that yogurt can actually reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, could this be true?

According to Biomed Central, Type 2 diabetes affects 366 million people around the world and about 26 million just in the United States. These numbers seem frightening as is and the bad news is that the number is just continuing to rise. With this nonstop rise in number, we are trying harder and harder to find a cure. Good news is Dairy products may help to lower this risk and even more specifically yogurt. According to Biomed, The whey protein in these products are said to contain insulinotropic and lower glucose levels which is beneficial for diabetes.

A study was conducted to help prove this true. 200,000 participants(male and female) aging from 25-75 for time periods up to thirty years long. During this time, the participants were tracked, their health was kept on file, they received various surveys about their diets, and even were interviewed frequently. After gathering all the information, the researchers were able to conclude that dairy intake did in fact not have any association to type 2 diabetes as once believed, but yogurt did. When the study was completed 15,156 cases of type 2 diabetes were concluded. Researchers noticed that when people ate 12 ounces of yogurt a day they had an 18% less chance of getting type 2 diabetes. Although they found this information, the researchers do not want to conclude that it is true yet, it is just a suggestion.

I think the sample size of the experiment is large enough to say these results can be accurate but we defiantly need to take other things into consideration. Diabetes can be hereditary, so it is hard to say if the yogurt is helping or if people just didn’t really have a chance of getting diabetes to begin with. I also think that it is hard to base information on just surveys, people can falsely fill them out which can mess up the results. I wonder if other habits like exercise were taken into consideration, maybe the people who exercised more ate yogurt and it looked like the yogurt was decreasing the diabetes risk. We can’t say this experiment can be reverse causation in which having diabetes causes you to eat more yogurt.

Eating yogurt may help but why? According to Fitness Magazine yogurt is a high protein food, may prevent high blood pressure, naturally contains calcium, loaded with vitamins, contains good bacteria and more. Maybe these reasons can help prove that it can decrease diabetes rates. I do not feel that the study conducted gave enough information to prove it fully true, the article was very vague. Although I can’t completely doubt it, there could be other factors besides eating yogurt that are decreasing the risk of diabetes.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/12/215

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/recipes/healthy-eating/nutrition/health-benefits-of-yogurt/

Good news for all you people 60 years old and up who just love your alcohol so much you can’t even think about giving it up— studies suggest that drinking over the age of 60 actually be good for your health, increasing your memory!

The Framingham Heart Study Offspring Cohort studied a group of 660 people. According to Fox News, “Scientists surveyed the participants on their alcohol consumption and demographics, a battery of neuropsychological assessments, the presence or absence of the genetic Alzheimer’s disease risk factor APOE e4 and MRIs of their brains.” The article does not mention male or female. It seems to be an observational study to me, the researchers did not set up and experiment to get the results, they based results off of the surveys.

In Medical Daily’s article on the same topic and study they mention the results,“late life, but not midlife, alcohol consumption status is associated with episodic memory and hippocampal volume…moderate consumers had larger hippocampal volume, and light consumers had higher episodic memory.” This consumption would be no more than two drinks a day for a man and one for a woman.

Although they got results from a wide range of people there could defiantly be other variables affecting them. Things that need to be taken into consideration is their past with drinking, do people who were heavy drinkers in the past also have higher memory? Why people over age 60, does it help to have a drink or two a day at age 21 too? This link can just be due to chance, maybe the older people who drink get, the less alcohol they start consuming and things start looking up for them— hence the increased memory and hippocampus size. I feel the study was lacking information to share with its readers, they just mention that there were assessments done without stating exactly how they were. I can’t doubt their accuracy but I feel I need more information to assess the study.

If I were to do the study over again, I would take a large number of women and men starting at age 50 and watch them until age 70. I would record their drinking habits of the past by giving them a survey of how many drinks they averaged on a daily basis, I would separate the group into drinkers and nondrinkers. I would give the drinkers each a drink or two—depending on their sex—daily and record the results of their memory. I would also do this to the nondrinkers. I think that the experiment mentioned earlier needs to have a control group to compare the results too. I also think that it needs to include the drinkers history of drinking because heavier drinking in the past may have a huge effect on the brain. After doing so I would compare the results and see if they were improving. Usually memory starts to go as you get older and genetics may also play a huge role, so I am confused as to how the results said that memory increased.

I find this crazy because alcohol is usually linked to things like brain damage and negative effects on the body. The studies and articles are not suggesting that you should go drink one/two drinks a day because not drinking at all is obviously better then drinking, but instead letting you know that it may not be the worse thing to do if its already being done. I don’t feel the study gives enough information to prove that it is in fact good for your memory over age 60. But then again it is suggesting that it really can’t hurt. Moderation is key to this!

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/10/23/drinking-alcohol-after-age-60-can-boost-your-memory-study-suggests/

http://www.medicaldaily.com/alcohol-linked-better-memory-bigger-hippocampus-among-people-older-60-307840

The other day, an article caught my eye because the headline was titled, “Poorer Kids May Be Too Respectful In Schools.” I went back to it because I was curious as to what possible reason there could be for poor children being so much more respectful in the classroom that there was an article on a scientific website about it.

The article actually went on to explain that an observational study found that, in a third through fifth grade classroom, working class children were less likely to ask for help than middle or upper class children and that when they do ask, they are “less aggressive about it.”

The study then said how it was likely due to the fact that working class parents may give their children less guidance and want them to work out problems on their own, while middle class parents encourage their children to seek out help and be assertive.

In my opinion, this is a lot of speculative conclusion from an unreliable study. It appears that a lot of classrooms were observed, but there could be so many third variables at play such as age, personality, location, even time of the year. Also, just because shy kids happen to more often be working class, doesn’t mean they are shy because they are working class, because correlation does not equal causation.

I think this study could use a lot of improvement, such as a bigger sample size and more look at the details instead of grand conclusions drawn from little evidence.

Sources:

scientificamerican.com

Could one of the most commonly used women’s undergarments cause breast cancer? There has been much talk about the possibility that the simple women’s bra is causing breast cancer. There has been multiple studies conducted upon this idea due to the fact that if this myth is true almost the entire population of women are in danger.

This myth has quickly been shut down as there has been no proven correlation to the cell in which causes cancer and the bra itself. There obviously have been women that have been diagnosed with breast cancer that wear bras yet there are also women who have been diagnosed who do not wear bras. Some of the ideas that contribute to the cancer and bra correlation are as follows.

• wearing your bra for too long
• not correctly fitted bra (too tight)
• underwire
• wearing your bra to sleep

Now do not be worried as the few studies that have been preformed have debunked the myth. One study has taken large group of women in “metropolitan area that compared 454 invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) cases and 590 invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) cases diagnosed between 2000 and 2004 with 469 control women between 55 to 74 years of age”( Chen, Malone, Li). This was an observational study and the data was collected by brining the subjects in one by one and interviewing them to get the different data needed. The data was not all numerical it also had to do with what the subjects lifestyle was like due to the idea of possibly a third variable that leads to the growth of the cell.

The study has resulted in once again no correlation between the two. There is nothing in the bra that we know of or habits while in the bra that cause the cancer cell to grow. As of now you can continue to sell and wear bras without any worry. until further study is done the idea cannot be put to rest, yet there is sufficient evidence to help put your mind at ease.

http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2014/08/27/1055-9965.EPI-14-0414.abstract

http://www.maurerfoundation.org/can-wearing-a-bra-cause-breast-cancer/

First reports of the Ebola outbreak in Western Africa appeared in March 2014 and over time, it has developed rapidly as the deadliest outbreak of the of the disease since its discovery. Ebola is transmissible by means of bodily fluids and can affect a person anytime from 2 to 21 days after. During this time, victims may have no knowledge that they are infected. For this reason, it is vital to be able to track where people have been and where they are going.

Epidemiologist and associate director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, Caroline Buckee, has recently been working with a team of researchers to use cell phone data to track people’s travel patterns across West Africa in an effort to fight the Ebola epidemic.

For a moment, consider how often you carry your cell phone. Personally, I never forget this important device whenever I travel. Cell phones are ubiquitous in almost all countries – even those of different financial backgrounds. They have the ability to generate massive amounts of data about human mobility. Cell phone “ping” towers make this possible.

A cell phone’s “ping” refers to the process of determining its location, with reasonable accuracy, at any given point in time. By using a phone’s GPS location capabilities, it is relatively easy to track its movements. Specifically, “to ping” is the process of sending a signal to a particular cell phone and in return, receiving the requested data. Thus, these “pings” from cell phone towers have the capability to exhibit where people have traveled after leaving an area with an Ebola outbreak. This can indicate where a disease cluster may appear next and where to concentrate health care efforts.

According to the Harvard School of Public Health, Buckee and her colleagues are currently working with a Swedish nonprofit organization named Flowminder, in an effort to analyze data from Senegal and Ivory Coast. The West African mobile carrier, known as Orange Telecom, has used the aforementioned data collecting method to provide the information for this research.

Nevertheless, in a November article in the Boston Globe, Buckee asserted, “The first priority has to be clinical, just getting people cared for and treated.” She goes on to describe the necessary planning policies, including projections for “how many beds they’ll need, how many gowns to send out, and where to send them.”

Last month, in a separate study published in Science, Yale researchers developed a model that tested the effects of interventions, such as tracing all the contacts of a sick person. This model suggests the virus will infect 224 new people each day in Liberia alone. They asserted that unlike past outbreaks, “where single measures such as ensuring burials were don’t in a sanitary way may have been sufficient,” their study found that multiple actions may be needed to contain the disease. Their study design helps to reduce biases and is thus more credible. Ultimately, this study is relevant in accessing the actions that health care officials can potentially take after gaining knowledge of Ebola from cell phone data.

Data collection with cell phones is just one means examining the spread of this epidemic. Researches have continued to use conventional methods, such as surveys, in order to analyze population movements. However, mobile phones can amass huge databases containing information on population movements and social patterns in a way that other sources can’t. For this reason, they may have life-saving potential.

Sources:

http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/513721/big-data-from-cheap-phones/

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/caroline-buckee/

Locating Mobile Phones through Pinging and Triangulation

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/11/02/ebola-disease-modelers-new-england-help-predict-future-spread-best-strategies/LZHSEGlInJs6SflLWW0yaP/story.html

PTSD is a very serious issue today that controls the lives of many people. However, a scientist at the University of Bonn believes she may have found a new breakthrough in treatment. She has found that the hormone oxytocin, which already exists in our brain, called the “love hormone,” may be the key to relieving anxieties of PTSD stricken people.

Her experiment included 62 men who were subjected to a type of “Pavlovian fear conditioning” in which they would be presented certain images and then given a small electric shock. After an initial MRI, half of the participants were given oxytocin and half were given a placebo and were given the test again without the electric shocks.

What they found was that those who had been given the oxytocin had increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, where fear is controlled, than those who did not receive the hormone.

I think this is a good example of a well done experiment that could have a lot of potential. Double-blind placebo trials can be very successful, and although it was unspecified whether it truly was a double-blind trial if the administrators knew what they were giving to the subjects, this experiment was well conducted. Because they had a control group and measured the subjects before and after the hormone was injected, it’s unlikely third variables are at play and the findings are much more credible. One thing that is concerning however is the sample size. 62 males is not a very diverse or conclusive group, but because it was the first trial there could be more chances to expand the study. I certainly hope this continues to be researched because from this study it looks like a promising possible solution for a problem that so many people are struggling with.

Sources:

scientificamerican.com

Mindfulness Meditation is a very popular type of self reflection and is commonly used to relieve stress. When participating in mindfulness meditation the person is asked to focus on one thing for example their breathing. The goal of this type of meditation is to be completely focused on what is happening in the present moment and to not think about any problems one may be facing. This simple act of meditating has incredible health benefits that often go un noticed.
It can be argued that the most important skill obtained from meditation is the increased ability to pay attention. In our day and age, especially as college students, we have numerous things on our minds at once. We are constantly consumed by technology, school work, having a social life, and the list goes one. People who practice meditation are able to train their brains to tune all of the nonsense out and allow their bodies to truly relax and distress. A few years ago, a study was done which observed people who meditated for five hours a day for three months. Although not many of us have time to devote so much of our daily lives to meditation, these people were able to complete tasks with a high ability to effortlessly sustain attention to what they were doing. By simply focusing on one thing for a minimum on twenty minutes a day, we each hold the ability to transform our own brains.

It has also been said that meditation before multitasking can make everything less stressful and actually go much smoother. A study that tested this was carried out by David Levy and Jacob Wobbrock who are professors at the UW Information School. For this study they chose 36-45 human resource managers and split them into three groups. One group was given eight straight weeks of mindfulness-based meditation training. The second group received eight weeks of body relaxation training. The third group stated off without receiving any training. After eight weeks they received the same amount of training as the first group. The third group can be viewed as the control group. All three groups were given tests that forced them to multitask in a real world work environment before and after they received training in meditation. During the test, researchers were observing variables such as how long it took them to switch tasks, speed of which they completed the tasks, and accuracy while doing so. The results came out as expected. During multitasking, the first group had much lower levels of stress. The second group and the control group however did not. Once the control group had completed the eight weeks of training, they showed results identical to the first group.

Lower levels in stress were shown through an increased amount of time spent on each task because the participant was calmly completing the task and just giving their undivided attention to what they were doing in the moment rather than thinking about whats next.
Levy positively responded to the results by saying, “We are encouraged by these first results. While there is increasing scientific evidence that certain forms of meditation increase concentration and reduce emotional volatility and stress, until now there has been little direct evidence that meditation may impart such benefits for those in stressful, information-intensive environments.”

In my psychology class in high school we spent some time learning about meditation and I completely agree with the study. For two weeks straight in the beginning of my class my teacher played twenty minute guided meditation videos. The whole class would sit on the floor and follow the videos really trying to focus simply on inhaling and exhaling. Although this seems quite easy, in the beginning I found it incredibly difficult to channel my brain to one specific thought when so much was happening in the day. With practice though I was better able to focus my attention. After seeing how meditating for twenty minutes was able to effect me and help me to distress, I have no doubt in my mind that the people who were involved with the study were able to relax and effectively multitask.

Sources:

http://io9.com/how-meditation-changes-your-brain-and-makes-you-feel-b-470030863

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120614094118.htm

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200105/the-science-meditation

https://www.headspace.com/science

Wherever you are on campus, it is common that you will see students on their cell phones. Cell phones have become a major obsession with our generation and I will admit that I am guilty of using my cell phone quite often. Cell phones are distracting and cause students unnecessary anxiety throughout the day. A new study done in Ohio claims that students with high cell phone usage will have lower GPAs and higher anxiety.

The study consisted of 500 randomly-chosen college students. The participants had to complete a survey about how often they use their cell phones. The students with low cell phone usage had a GPA of 3.2 and the high users had a GPA of 2.8. The data was collected over a 6 month period and over that time the study also showed that students who used their cell phone more had more anxiety.

Although the outcome of the study is realistic and most people can agree that cell phones are a big distraction in school, there are some flaws in the study. It was an observational study, therefore third variables were not ruled out. The study mentioned that students who used their cell phones more often also had more anxiety. Anxiety could be the third variable here. Students with higher anxiety could be drawn to use their cell phone more because they have a fear of missing out on what their friends are doing. Also, students with anxiety are found to have lower GPAs because they cannot focus in class. In addition to this, reverse causation could be a possible reason for the given correlation. Less intelligent students could be more likely to use their cell phones more. Also, students with high anxiety can look to their cell phone for some sort of comfort. Also, the study’s findings can always be due to chance and it is important to remember that correlation does not equal causation.

The size of the study is decent size. Observing 500 students will give you accurate results but surveying thousands of students would be more assuring. The study also consisted of the students filling out a survey. Surveys are not always accurate because students are not always clear on how to evaluate themselves. Therefore, a student with “high cell phone usage” might classify themselves as a moderate user because they do not know the criteria for the given category. In order for the study to have more accurate results, the researchers should have followed a student throughout his/her day and record how many hours they use their phone. Of course this would take a lot more time to complete but it would present us with more trustworthy results.

I think that this study will have different effects on every student. Everyone values their time differently. Some students value their social life more and others value their grades more. Some students reading this study will significantly decrease their cell phone usage because they will do anything to get close to perfect grades. Others might look at this and think that there is no big difference between a 2.8 GPA and a 3.2 GPA. Those students would not decrease their cell phone usage because in their opinion keeping up with their friends is more important.

Cell phones are a common topic in today’s world. Everyone has their different views on them, but in reality most of us are all addicted to our gadgets. I am very against cell phone use, especially during classes. However, I am guilty of looking at my phone in class even though I know it is wrong. I think that although this study had some errors, students should strongly consider to reduce their cell phone usage.

Lets be honest here we wake up in the morning in a rush, usually late. We hop out of bed, jump into the shower, throw on clothes and run to class. More times than not breakfast is not in the daily routine of kids in College around 30% of college age students don’t eat breakfast every day. That may not seem like a high number but at a school like Penn State that means around 12,000 kids don’t eat breakfast every single day. There are a lot of negative externalities that come from not eating breakfast.

Studies show that kids who eat breakfast perform better in school. In “Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine” they released a study that showed that kids who ate breakfast every day had overall a higher math score on their tests. The sample size of this experiment was big enough where a confounding variable would not change the outcome of the study. Also this study is accurate because nothing is being changed in the kids diets. People are merely seeing how kids who eat breakfast do in school compared to kids who do not eat breakfast. Another bad outcome of not eating breakfast is trouble paying attention in class. Also kids who eat breakfast have an easier time paying attention in class. To go further into it kids who ate a breakfast low in sugar paid attention better and got less frustrated while trying to complete school assignments.

Also breakfast is important because when you wake up your body needs fuel. But instead of going to a gas station all you need to do is make a bowl of Cheerios or a plate of eggs. Studies show that the first 15-20 carbohydrates consumed a day go directly to the brain to get the body functioning.

Not eating breakfast can also lead to obesity. 22% of kids who don’t eat breakfast are obese. This doesn’t seem right because you would assume that if someone skips a meal they should be losing weight because of the lack of a meal. But when people skip breakfast they end up filling up on other unhealthier food throughout the day to try and fill in for the skipped meal. I think that this statistic is a great way to prove the point of the importance of breakfast. The statistic was taken from a large sample size and since there was no experiment needed no confounding variables affected the outcome.   

Overall, breakfast is crucial to success in school and in life. Without breakfast people spend the start of their days moping around unable to concentrate or be productive. Although eating breakfast makes kids perform better in school there is not a direct causation between the two. Just because someone eats breakfast does not mean that they will do amazing in school. But eating breakfast does give kids the tools to do well because they are more attentive. It is called the most important meal of the day for a reason and we need to make people remember that.

Works Cited:

http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/benefits-eating-breakfast-students-7697.html

http://www.healthychildren.org/English/healthy-living/nutrition/Pages/The-Case-for-Eating-Breakfast.aspx

http://www.foodinsight.org/Content/6/IFIC%20Brkfast%20Review%20FINAL.pdf

http://www.statisticbrain.com/breakfast-eating-statistics/

Photo courtesy of www.sodahead.com

My mom has always told me that if i wanted to drink soda it had to be light. When I asked why, she simply replied that it was better than drinking dark soda. I wondered how this could be if both drinks contained a good amount of sugar. Is lighter soda a healthier option as opposed to dark soda or should people steer clear from both?

When determining which is “healthier” it comes down to the contents of light and dark soda. What sets apart dark soda from light soda are the ingredients caffeine and phosphoric acid. Caffeine and phosphoric acid are the sources of several health concerns. According to LIVESTRONG, “caffeine can cause an increase in heart rate… phosphoric acid can be damaging and taxing on the kidneys, as reported from the University of Virginia Health System.” (Sundstrom) This article shines a bad light on dark soda, but keep in mind there are exceptions. Root Beer and Sunkist Grape Soda both dark drinks do not contain caffeine putting them on the same level as some lighter drinks. Lighter drinks as well have their exceptions with one of the ingredients in Mountain Dew being caffeine.

Now just because some light and dark sodas do not contain caffeine doesn’t mean that there are no health risk. Both drinks do contain sweetener so the best choice would be to choose a soda that is made with natural sugars. So, when it comes down to which is healthier, it all depends on the ingredients and “how much is too much?”(Editors of the Huffington Post Healthy Living), not the color of the drink. There are several factors that should be taken into consideration when drinking soda regarding ones health. Both light and dark soda can be harmful to those who have blood sugar and kidney issues (Sundstrom). The effects of caffeine and phosphoric acid as mentioned before can lead to: damage in the kidneys, diabetes, or hyperglycemia. After reading this research on the ingredients these drinks contain, I will just take a water.

Works Cited

Sundstrom, Kelly (2013). Which Is Healthier: Clear or Dark Soda? Retrieved from www.livestrong.com

The Editors of Huffington Post Healthy Living (2013). 8 Sugary Drink Myths, Busted. Retrieved from www.shape.com

A lot of my friends take medicine to help them concentrate because of their ADD (Attention deficit disorder) or ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). They either take adderall or vyvanse. I have asked them what the medicene does to them and every time I get the same response. “It makes me focus” or “I don’t it just makes me do well in school”. And now that I am at Penn State it seems like every other person has “ADD” and takes these pills. So that got me thinking about ADD and what the disease consists of.

After doing research about ADD I found out that ADD is caused by a chemical imbalance in someones brain. There is an imbalance in the neurotransmitters which control how people behave. A study by The National Institute of Mental Health showed that the brain uses glucose at a slower rate in people who have ADD and ADHD. This is a problem because glucose is the main fuel for the brain. So if the brain is not getting its fuel it can lead to issues in school and other formal situations. Since the disease is neurological scientist know that it is not caused by a boring teacher or bad parenting. Since the disease affects the brain how does a pill suddenly turn a hyper kid into a scholar?

Most ADD medicine is a stimulant. It seems weird to treat a hyperactivity disorder with a stimulant but studies done by the NIMH have shown that the stimulants actually have a calming affect on kids who have ADD and ADHD. Although ADD is a real disease I think that when a parent sends their child in to get tested variations of the sharp shooter issue arise. This happens because in todays society as soon as something is wrong with a child their parents assume they are sick and in need of help.

An MTA experiment tested around 300 children around the country who were diagnosed with ADHD. The children were split into 4 different groups and each group got a different treatment for their ADHD. The first group was given pills to see if they would change the child’s behavior. The first month the scientists used a double blind placebo to see how the child acted. Once this was over the kids got different variations of medicine treat their ADHD. The second group got behavioral training to treat the ADHD. It consisted of a combination of group sessions and individual meetings to teach the child and their families was to treat the ADHD. The third group got a combination of medicine and behavioral training. And the final group got community care. In this case the child’s parents looked for resources available in their community to help with the ADHD. This experiment worked well because the sample size was large enough to not be offset by a confounding variable. Also the children were taken from all across the country so they are subjected to different family lifestyles and environments. The double blind placebo also strengthened the study because it showed how a child acted when they thought they were taking medicine. This study showed that each treatment was helpful in combating the ADHD. The study also showed that each child responded differently to the treatments which is a reason why there are so many different ways to treat ADD.

Works Cited:

http://www.add-adhd.org/ADHD_attention-deficit.html

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd/index.shtml#part3

http://www.helpforadd.com/mta-study/

For sometime I have heard a lot of people say that kissing can be good for your health. I didn’t understand if that meant physically or emotionally. I’m sure now after my research that it is not just healthy emotionally but also has benefits for your overall physical health as well. I know kissing can be goof for your health emotionally because it can easily make you happier than you were previously, and kissing is said to release hormones which in turn increases ones mood positively. In my research I had learned many ways kissing is beneficial to the human body in a more physical sense. Kissing aids in reducing blood pressure, it increases heartbeat lowering blood pressure overall. At first it was hard for me to understand why kissing could help in fighting cavities but it makes sense because kissing develops more saliva in the mouth therefore ridding of excess plaque, which causes the cavity. Kissing isn’t a replacement for physical activity like exercise however it can burn a couple of calories. According to CNN “a vigorous make out session can burn 8 to 16 calories per smooch.” Kissing can help tighten the muscles in your face such as the neck and jawline, which can make one appear younger than they are. To address more of the emotional advantages of kissing it can easily increase hormones that make you happier, the chemicals that cause this happiness to occurs are chemicals such as serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin. Kissing provides a natural form of pain relief. Kissing releases natural chemicals in the body known as endorphins, which in some cases can be more effective than morphine and will ease pain without the negative side effects of using a narcotic. Kissing is able to aid in decreasing the stress hormone cortisol, it has also been measured to lower anxiety. Kissing has very similar benefits that meditation has, it is a way to relax and rewind. It promotes togetherness in couples, and has been known to keep relationships together for a longer duration of time than couples that don’t kiss regularly.

Reiss, Valerie. “8 Health Benefits of Kissing.” CNN. Cable News Network, 01 Jan. 1970. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.

Feature, Jeanie Lerche DavisWebMD. “What’s So Great About Kissing?” WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.

I wanted to do a blog post on why gall stones form because in ninth grade I had a gall stone attack. I was waking up from a nap and all of a sudden I began to feel intense stomach pains. The pain began rushing down my back and up and down my stomach into what felt like my heart. The pain would not subside and I started to panic, losing my breath and my patience. I had my mom drive me to the emergency room, it turned out I was experiencing a severe gall stone attack and the gallstones would have to be removed through surgery as soon as possible. I had to have laparoscopic surgery and three incisions were made in my stomach. This was the absolute worst experience of my life in terms of pain. Due to this excruciating experience I wanted to write this blog post on why gallstones form. According to google “Gallstones may form if bile contains too much cholesterol, too much bilirubin, or not enough bile salts.” Scientists unfortunately do not entirely comprehend why such imbalances occur within the human body. Gallstones also may form if the gallbladder does not empty completely or often enough. Your chances of forming gallstones that cause symptoms are higher if you are female. Females are actually twice as likely as males to have gallstones. You are more at risk if you are older than age 55, if you are Native American or Mexican American, and if you have a history of gallstones in among your family. You may also be increasing your risk for gallstones if you are overweight, lose weight quickly or from dieting than gain it back, if you are pregnant or taking estrogen such a high-dose birth control pills, and if you get very little to no exercise. Although it is not absolutely certain why people develop gallstones most doctors believe that they form if the bile has too much cholesterol, if the liver creates more cholesterol than the bile is able to dissolve the addition cholesterol can develop into gallstones. Another reason is that your bile can contain an excess amount of bilirubin which is a chemical made when the body breaks down red blood cells. There are specific conditions, which lead to the liver making too much bilirubin. This year after spring break I had experienced problems with my liver and was hospitalized for the pain I was experiencing. My liver enzymes were off the charts, I had blood taken twice a week for many weeks and was rushed to the emergency room the night before prom and had to sleep there. They though that this may have something to do with a stone still being stuck in the bile duct but it turns out my liver was inflamed and everything is back to normal again.

“Gallstones-What Increases Your Risk.” WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.

“Gallstones.” Tests and Diagnosis. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.

Gender has always been an issue with common situations that we face. It is hard to say whether or not a boy is better than a girl or vise versa. Usually, it depends one’s opinion. It has been shown that since teachers are becoming more gender bias that more women are not as willing to have a leadership role in activities that they may participate in.

It has been noted that more boys are taking leadership positions in science and math class rather than females. A survey, taken by the National Education Association, concluded this when they interviewed 40,000 middle and high school educators. Newer teachers have been seen to have a gender-neutral view of leadership rather than educators who have been working for awhile. I think a study as to why this is the case would be great to find out. What is the reason for older teachers to have gender-bias views? It could be the way they were brought up or what they have seen happen around them. In the Huffingtonpost article, it stated that “confident” is a term typically associated with males, while “compassionate” is a term associated with women. I have to disagree immensely with this statement. I believe that girls can be just as confident boys.  I think that in the past the science and math fields were not as readily accessible to females as an area of interest or a means of employment. A 2011 report by the U.S. Department of Commerce found only one in seven engineers is female. Women have become more confident and comfortable in their abilities in these areas and are now able to stand up and do just as well or even better than the males. I think most words are gender-neutral. It is often just the way one person views the word themselves.  Some common gender-neutral words to describe a leader are: Collaborative, intelligent, conscientious, problem-solvers.

When a group of people were asked to listen to a description of a person and told it was a male they used descriptive words such as aggressive and assertive.  While the other group listened to a description of a person and was told the person was a girl, they commented saying, “bubbly” and “hard-working”.

I think the lack of attention that females are getting from their professors can hurt the confidence they may have in their ability to be successful.  One of the reasons why men are more “confident” is because they are getting all the praise when women are doing just as much work. It is extremely hard to focus on being gender-neutral sometimes but all in all it would be for the better and the outcome’s benefits would help both males and females. Discrimination should never occur. Women and men can work extremely well with each other sometimes so don’t be afraid to ask the person of the opposite sex next to you to work on a class group project together!

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/01/nea-girls-leadership-study_n_5910944.html?utm_hp_ref=girls-in-stem

http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2012/06/20/stem-fields-and-the-gender-gap-where-are-the-women/

This time of year is the absolute worst for my skin. Unless I moisturize constantly my skin can become ashy, dry, and flakey. Besides being completely dried out from head to toe my breakouts tend to get worse in this weather and because of the overwhelming stress of schoolwork and finals. Most of the time my breakouts have to do with hormones or because of stress. Since I have been experiencing some horrendous breakouts recently I decided to do some research on the matter, so I googled it of course like I google everything. I came up with many reasons I may be an experiencing breakout besides just stress and hormones. I don’t ever wash my makeup brushes, which was the first reason I came across in my research. I learned that if you do not wash your makeup brushed bacteria will grow on them and transfer to your skin. Of course genetics is one of the main reasons behind acne, I wouldn’t call my breakouts acne but I do have a couple blemishes pop up here and there and so does my father. Like I previously suggested hormones is a huge part of breaking out, especially if it is “that time of month”. According to pop sugar beauty “Hormones called androgens over stimulate the skin’s oil glands, which frequently leads to a breakout around menstruation. (If you break out along your jawline, this is the likely culprit.)” I found this to be extremely true because during this time I find my breakouts to prominently be located around my chin area. Another reason I found to be true is picking at the flaws on your face. This is something I actively participate in whether I want to or not. Most of the time I don’t even realize I am attacking my face, however I always regret doing so after because of the inflammation and scarring that occurs after doing so. The cold whether really does a number on my skin, not only my face but also my entire body dries out. When I am away on vacation I never seem to have breakouts because the sun usually clears them and the lack of stress relieves my skin. Lack of sleep could also be increasing your breakouts. “Not sleeping enough inflicts stress on the body, which raises levels of cortisol, the so-called stress hormone.” Therefore cortisol is another reason behind breakouts. Sometimes when I stay out late I don’t end up washing my makeup off when I get home and go to sleep with it on which can easily clog my pores and result in a pimple forming. It is not always easy to take care of tour skin in college, because your diet is poor, there are not many healthy options, you have little time to do laundry so your sheets can end up dirty a lot of the time, and you are extremely stressed because of your workload. All of these reasons are causes of breakouts, and although they cannot all be solved you can be more aware of how to better take care of your skin. Recently I myself have been trying to apply these solutions into my life and for the most part they seem to be working, however stress really is a major reason for breakouts and due to the amounts of stress in my life currently my breakouts have been more prominent than usual.

“7 Ways to Get the Best-Looking Thighs of Your Life.” RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.

“What’s Causing Your Breakout?” Womenshealthmag.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.

When I babysat for some of my family friend’s children, I would enjoy watching the kids color. But as I picked up the piece of paper, I would never know exactly what they were drawing. Whether or not they told me what they had drawn, I would praise them for such a creative design. A recent study showed that those with a “better” drawing will have a higher intelligence level when they are older. According to Dr. Rosalind Arden, a researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College, stated in a Huffingtonpost article, “Drawing is the end result of lost cognitive processes: Perception, focus, observation, attention, figuring out how to get a shape down on paper, and staying on task.”

7,752 pairs of four-year-old identical and fraternal twins were asked to draw what they thought a child looked like. It was graded on how well it realistically reflected human characteristics. Along with the drawing, they were given a verbal and non-verbal intelligence test. The researchers (or researchers in the future) should do this study with different ages and not just with twins. Maybe siblings could have a correlation as well.

A decade later, they were asked to do the same thing. The results of the study found that kids whose drawings got high scores at age four tended to score higher on the intelligence test at age 14. This could be just a coincidence. Chance is very likely in this situation. Over a period of years, a child could develop mentally and excel in school although it might not have seemed like that was going to happen when they were younger. The study also found that identical twins were more similar to each other than non-identical twins. Could this happen with siblings of different ages as well? What if the study found that later intelligence was influenced by genes? What if you had the genes, you would be more intelligent? Not always the case.

Not to worry though…Arden later on stated, “The correlation is moderate, so our findings are interesting, but it does not mean that parents should worry if their child draws badly.” Andrew Read often touches on the in class-the “safe enough to try” idea. Since there is no significant negative implications of encouraging children to express themselves creatively, I recommend that parents draw with their children for at least an hour a week! It will encourage positive attitudes and bring happiness to your family!

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/19/childrens-drawings-intelligence-study_n_5688396.html?utm_hp_ref=brain

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-28852471

For as long as I can remember I have had the worst memory of all time. It sometimes really bothers me when my friends and I are discussing things that have happened during our childhood or in the past and most of my childhood is a blur I honestly cannot remember. Due to my inability to remember a lot from the past I decided to write this blog post on why we forget things. Our brains are overcrowded with massive amounts of memories that we have formed over a lifetime of experiences. A lot of my unclear memories are from my early childhood, which is most likely linked to childhood amnesia. Childhood amnesia is a term coined from Sigmund Freud the definition as defined on Google is, “The general inability of people to remember specific events from the early years of their lives. Typically from before the first three and sometimes four years of life. In studies, the average age of the earliest memory reported is about three-and-a-half years-old.” Infantile or childhood amnesia is characterized by the relative absence of memory before 3 or 4 years of age. However years after that are hard for my memory to recall as well. There are a couple of theories on why children develop amnesia for example, parts of the brain are somewhat undeveloped in children of such young ages, therefore the memories they make at these ages are not fervent enough to remain in the area of the brain that holds memories. You are more likely to remember something in your life if it had much importance, if not the brain will have a more difficult time remembering. Another reason for difficulty recalling memories from your earliest years has to do with if you are a focused individual and are able to organize your thoughts or if you are a rather stressed out anxious individual and have more trouble being efficient with detail. The level of stress you have is a huge restriction with your ability to remember things. In order to intensify your memories are by looking at old pictures and home videos, going back to old places you visited when you were a child, as well as reviewing old music you once listened to. Although it is not out of the ordinary for one not to recall their earlier memories in life it could also have to do with a past trauma experienced. Often traumas that occurred as a child limit memory, a reason for this is because of the unconscious mind trying to block out such incidences. The reason for your blain trying to forget these memories is because the person who has dealt with such occurrences may not be ready to handle what has previously happened to them. The more prepared the individual becomes to deal with the previous traumas may slowly begin to remember the experiences. I completely agree with this study because when I am informed of events that have occurred in my past they slowly reappear into my memory, vaguely yet surely, I believe this study is pretty accurate.

“Bustle.” Bustle. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.

“I Can’t Remember My Childhood.” Ask the Psychologist Online Licensed Psychologist RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.

“Unable To Fully Remember Childhood.” Psych Central.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.