Author Archives: Martin Anthony Lazzaro

Are Over The Counter Decongestants a Rip-Off?

In the first few months of college everyone gets sick. Common colds spread throughout East Halls. Although often overlooked, a common cold can really put someone on his or her butt. Extreme nasal congestion, a sore throat, mild fatigue, and coughing all can be a result of “just” a cold. Naturally, as a freshman in East, I got sick. After a week of continued cough and congestion while using Tylenol Cold, I went to University Health. My doctor diagnosed me with a common cold. Since the common cold is viral an antibiotic was of no use. For relief, he told me to get Sudophed and that basically all OTC cold medicines for decongesting are a rip off. I decided to do some more research into the topic to inform you all reading this.

The value of all medications and remedies comes in the active ingredients. These are the components that are effective in relieving whatever it is the product sets out to combat. The active ingredient in Tylenol Cold, and many OTC cold medications, is phenylephrine, which is supposed to be an effective decongestant. However, University of Florida questioned phenylephrine’s effectiveness in relieving congestion in 2006. Lots of articles have been written like this one, which claims over the counter cold medications are worthless. They cite studies that have been conducted to test if phenylephrine provides any more relief than a placebo. These experiments are all structured similarly.

The X variable is the whether or not the nasally congested participant receives phenylephrine or a placebo. The Y variable is the difference (the relief) between the congestion at the start and after a period of time passes since the administration of the pill.

The null hypothesis is that phenylephrine is no more effective than a placebo as a decongestant.

The alternative hypothesis is that phenylephrine provides significant congestion relief (compared to the placebo).

The subjects were randomly assigned and I saw no issues in the design. In many experiments designed like this including one by , the results showed no significant statistics. Therefore, many times the null hypothesis has not been rejected, meaning that phenylephrine does not help nasal congestion.

So why is an industry worth billions of dollars using a drug that isn’t working to decongest?

Turns out that the more effective drug, Pseudoephedrine, is no longer allowed to be sold over the counter. The Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005 signed by President Bush restricted cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine to behind the counter. This is because large quantities were bought and used to make Methamphetamines. Now, to purchase cold medicines like Psudophed, you need to show ID and your monthly purchases are limited.

So was pseudoephedrine actually more effective than phenylephrine?

Yes, according to a study by the ENT University Clinic at the University of Vienna who did an experiment comparing phenylephrine, pseudoephedrine, and a placebo. Their conclusion for patients suffering from rhinitis is that Psuedoephedrine provided significantly more relief.

So what is the take away?

 If you are suffering from nasal congestion from a common cold, or allergies it is worth getting a product with pseudo ephedrine and not worth buying the typical over the counter cold medicines.  The studies referenced above have shown that the lesser drug of phenylephrine is the same as a placebo.

 

http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/InformationbyDrugClass/ucm072423.htm

http://www.salon.com/2015/11/05/its_a_ripoff_the_cold_truth_about_cold_medicine_partner/

http://news.ufl.edu/archive/2006/07/uf-researchers-question-effectiveness-of-decongestant.html

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/common-cold/basics/symptoms/con-20019062

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/24028315_Placebo-controlled_study_of_the_nasal_decongestant_effect_of_phenylephrine_and_pseudoephedrine_in_the_Vienna_Challenge_Chamber

http://www.jwatch.org/na39054/2015/09/17/phenylephrine-no-more-effective-placebo-nasal-congestion

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00276016

 

 

What’s the deal with backpacks and kids?

Healthy-Children-Backpack-Safety

Throughout middle school I remember wheeled backpack becoming popular. Claims that heavy backpacks were giving children bad backs prompted many parents to take this route for their kids. Having suffered from low back pain since my early teenage years I thought it would be interesting to investigate the effects of a backpack on adolescence back.

 

Unsurprisingly hundreds upon thousands of different articles showed links between backpacks and lower back pain in adolescents. According to an academic journal entitled Backpacks Back Pain Sagittal Curves And Trunk Alignment In Adolescences, the negative effects on the back from backpack for obvious. In a study involving over 1200 students, 46% suffered backpack related backpack pain. Other interesting findings included that backpack carriers who carry on one shoulder are on average 2.9 to 5 times more likely to suffer from dorsal pain and low back pain compared to those who carry backpacks symmetrically. The unequal distribution of the weight causes a shift in the shoulder level and is carried down the spine to create an upper trunk shift. These asymmetric carriers also or four times more likely you have extreme back pain.

 

Another article by akronchildrens.org suggests that back packs cause poor posture and children. I from experience understand that poor posture can result in a in an array of issues including muscular and spinal pain. Poor posture has limited my ability to golf frequently.

 

Easily convinced that back pains resulted from packs I decided to see what doctors recommended to contradict this issue. Dr. Brian Lane suggested the parents begin to examine the contents of your child pack and to suggest certain items that can stay at home or at school. Another helpful tip from the New York Times was to find a well-designed backpack that set on the children’s back properly and of course I suggested the rolling backpack. I know I wouldn’t have used one. But maybe someone else will. Akron children’s.org also said distribute the weight evenly in the backpack to put padded straps and make sure that your child’s backpack is no more than 10 to 15% of their body weight.

 

This topic may have been simple I have found out exactly what the long-term consequences can be of wearing backpacks. I think heading in the direction of laptops with online books will help decrease backpack wait and ultimately save children from chronic back pain.

 

http://ovidsp.tx.ovid.com/sp-3.16.0b/

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/heavy-backpacks-can-spell-chronic-back-pain-for-children/

https://www.akronchildrens.org/cms/sharing_blog/c7795fbcf89d5409/

http://www.everydayhealth.com/hs/back-to-school/backpack-causing-chronic-back-pain/

Does music make us get a better workout?

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The other day, I walked into the IM Building to complete my usual weight-lifting workout. As I swiped in I reached in my pocket for my earphones. I had left them in my dorm. I was disappointed not only because I couldn’t listen to music, but because I felt without them I wouldn’t get as solid of a workout. Eager to see if my thoughts were rational, I researched if listening to music is beneficial for working out.

 

A quick Internet search lead me to plenty of different sources making the broad claim that music helps improve exercise. One particular academic journal by the British Association of Sports and Exercise Sciences cited work over the last century to conclude that music has consistent effects on behavior and psychological states of male and female exercise participants. One particular statistic said that motivational music improves people’s endurance on a treadmill by 15%. The journal also made broad statement the music improves endurance and intensity. Though this journal gave concrete studies back up their claims, I wanted to learn more about the psychology and science behind this claim.

 

I found out that the improvement stemmed from distraction. It was determined by an experiment by White and Potteiger that cyclers, who were faced with an auditory distraction alone or paired with a visual distraction, had a lowered perception of exertion compared with those who only faced a visual distraction. I felt it was merited to conclude from this experiment that the auditory distraction takes the mind off of the effort we are putting in and the pain and allows us to have a heightened endurance. I could relate to this finding and thought I had experienced it before during a run or stationary bike workout.

 

However I wanted to go further and see if they stay the same type of ideas applied for muscular strength activities like weight training. In an experiment done by Crust, 27 undergraduate students or put into three groups randomly. They all had to hold a free weight out in front of them. The differences between them were that one group had music played before the exercise, one group had music played before and during the exercise, and the third group had no music. Not only did the study conclude that the presences of music improve muscular endurance, it showed that music was beneficiary during the muscular endurance exercise. This contradicted the prior studies that concluded that it only helps to listen before the muscular exercise.

 

Hundreds of studies of been conducted pertaining to what types of music are the best, what tempo is her best, and if volume plays apart. Leaving your music choice to your intuition and picking the music you feel most motivated by seems to get the correct effect. Music with quick tempos and building energy make the best playlists according to Costas.

 

Having been satisfied that my gut instinct was correct and that music did help me heighten my physical activity, my research was . I will be sure to have my headphones with me in the future and suggest that everyone who works out does.

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.bases.org.uk/Music-in-Exercise

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8774016

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3339578/#R11

 

Www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15209316

 

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-running-blog/2013/mar/13/running-with-music-for-against

 

What makes chords sound good?

 

#8 of #21.  PLEASE KEEP IN SEQUENTIAL ORDER FOR THE CONTINUITY OF THE GALLERY.  - John Mayer performs. John Mayer brought his Born and Raised World Tour 2013 to sold out Aaron's Amphitheatre Friday night. American Idol winner and Albany native Phillip Phillips opened the show. Robb D. Cohen /www.RobbsPhotos.com

Learning to play acoustic guitar over the summer was a lot of fun and provided me with my new favorite hobby. When I was learning the basic chords, it was easy to tell when I got it right and even easier to hear when I got it wrong. My questions I wanted answered was what makes chords sound pleasant to ear and other combinations of notes unpleasant.

chords

In a study done at Minnesota University, 250 college students were played sounds and asked their preferences of them. The study was set out to answer my question better than it had been answered previously: “What makes certain combinations of musical notes pleasant or unpleasant?” Chords and their frequencies and frequency intervals were manipulated and played. The study concluded that the chords sounded good only if harmonically related. I learned that harmonic chords are a combination of sounds with frequencies that are multiples of a fundamental frequency. For example, 150, 200, 250, and 300 are all multiples of the base frequency of 50. The study also found that non-harmonica chords which have beating, or notes with frequencies too close together that buzz are unpleasant to people’s ear. Another finding was that the chords found in people’s native music were given higher ratings.

 

However another study was skeptical of the fact that buzzing was what made the chords unpleasant. This study took people who were unable to detect beating (buzzing of notes) and played them a variety sounds like the previous one. The interesting finding was that these people disliked the non-harmonious sounds just as much as people who could hear the beating. This means that the buzzing from beating in non-harmonious is not the most important factor or perhaps not a factor or all in why we do not like them. Though not entirely proven, this suggests that our ear structure and/or brain are specifically designed to accept frequencies in equal intervals. We know our inner ear and brain have auditory nerves that accept and transfer sounds to the brain. We know that the sounds are combined to make a comprehendible and meaningful sound. Mark Tramo is continuing research into what part of the auditory cortex actually compiles these sound bytes.

 

I thought that after this research I could explain what makes chords sound good to my ear. It’s the fact that the notes are harmonious. It makes sense to me that by fretting a string incorrectly would make two notes in the chord too close to each other which is not pleasant to the ear. I would hope that research is conducted on what biologically makes these even ratios pleasant and more receivable. For the time being, it is positive to have gained knowledge on what makes certain notes sound good together as I continue to learn about music.

 

 

 

 

Works Cited:

http://www.wired.com/2012/11/human-brain-harmony

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100520131431.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2885564/

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/11.13/HowYourBrainLis.html

 

Does getting a dog change your life?

 

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When I was in elementary school, all I wanted was a golden retriever. However, my brother was allergic to cats and dogs preventing our family from getting a dog. I have always wanted a dog and enjoyed the company of my friends’ and neighbors’ dogs. Present day, the questions popped into my head: Would I be any different of a person if I had a dog growing up? How does having a dog affect people?

It did not take long to find articles on this topic. In a piece on Everyday Health, reviewed by a veterinarian, several large scales studies were cited stating the benefits of dogs for children. These benefits described included less sick days in school, higher self-esteem, less trips to the doctors, and higher scores on empathy tests. Though these findings seem convincing, I looked deeper and analyzed the studies. The immense number of confounding variables that could be the real root behind the so-called positive effects of dogs makes me skeptical. For example, a family that can afford a dog is better off financially, often times due to successful parents who can both teach and protect children. I wasn’t convinced but I wasn’t prepared to discredit the notion entirely.

I eventually ended up on an academic journal by J.P Serpell pertaining to an experiment involving the affects of pets, including dogs, on people. The experiment took 97 non-pet owners and gave 47 of them dogs, 24 of the cats, and 26 remained pet-less. The three groups were randomly assigned and showed no differences initially. Surveys after ten month showed significant increases in self-esteem in the pet owner groups. They also showed more successful companionship and relationships. Additional benefits included more walking and exercise. With all things for the groups being equal, I took these findings as credible.

My conclusion from the research is two-tiered. I do not believe that growing up with a dog affects the children’s health based on the correlations shown. However, the evidence shown in the experiment done by J.P. Serpell warrants a conclusion that dogs have legitimate positive effects on people’s relationships and self-esteem. With this newfound knowledge and the other desirable traits of dogs confirm my decision to get a dog at some point. My next research may be what breed is best!

 

 

http://www.everydayhealth.com/pet-health/effects-of-pets-on-kids.aspx

 

http://oliviahicks.yolasite.com/resources/Evidence%20for%20long%20term%20effects%20of%20pet%20ownership%2041990.pdf (from Google Scholar)

Why do we like wearing sunglasses? What are we hiding when we do?

Leonardo-DiCaprio-Sunglasses_COVER

Each time I have left my dorm the last week to head to a class, meeting, or meal, I have always found myself grabbing my trusty Ray-Ban sunglasses.  Though often times the sun has been out, even on a day of overcast I wanted to wear them. I have always felt “better” when I am in my shades.  I wanted to know if there was anything behind this feeling besides looking “cool. ”I figured there may be a study on this and searched around to find one that lead me into other research.

 

The particular study that grabbed my attention dealt with why sunglasses boost the wearer’s self-confidence. The man in charge of the study, Dr. Glenn Wilson drew several conclusions from his work. He stated that the sunglasses mask the wearer’s eyes and thus allows less information for others to read emotions and expressions. This gives the wearer a sense of unpredictability and power that leads to more confidence according to the summary done by BBC of the study.

 

With a possible reason as to why I feel “better” with sunglasses found, I wanted to dig deeper into what we can read on people’s faces and especially the region our sunglasses hide. I found an informative page on microexpressions, which defined them as “a brief, involuntary facial expression that is shown on the face of humans according to the emotions that are being experienced.”  These fraction-of-a-second contractions of facial muscles and eye movement are vital to comprehension of a person’s thoughts. They can be hard to pick up on because of their brief nature. There are several different expressions that all include movements of the eyelids and brow. Examples include fear, surprise, disgust, and sadness. I found that a lot of these micro expressions are either hidden or made ambiguous by wearing sunglasses. I would love to see an experiment done comparing people’s ability to read emotions of others with and without sunglasses just to see how affective sunglasses are in masking.

 

When the lenses are dark enough, sunglasses prevent direct eye contact from being made.  So what else does our eye contact give another person that sunglasses hide? In a psychology research journal by Michael Argyle and Janet Dean I found that eye contact has a huge input into an interaction. It signals to the person talking that they are listening and ready to receive more information. Argyle and Dean cite the way people look away when thinking as an action used to free more of the brain to think because eye contact engages part of the brain with information.  Further conclusions can be drawn from eye contact or lack there of about personality and insecurity. People who make lots of eye contact and therefore demand that in return can be seen as needing to be loved and paid attention to. People who refrain from eye contact do not want to be seen. They feel as if they are no good from the eyes of the other and fear rejection.  All of this information is lost behind the lenses of our sunglasses.

 

The last thing I looked into was if we could gauge someone’s intelligence by looking at his or her eyes. I have always felt that competence and intelligence are detectable by eye contact. Though I did not find a study focusing only on looking at eyes to determine intelligence I found one along those lines.  Czech Republic research had 160 people look at 80 pictures of people (40 men 40 women) straight faced and close up. Though they were no better than chance at gauging the 40 women’s IQ they were better than chance with the men. This suggests that facial features may be used to gauge IQ. I think that the eyes have a lot to do with that. Once again, I would like to see a study in which we isolate the variable of sunglass wear and see how it skews how people perceive that person’s intelligence.

 

From simply wanting to wear my sunglasses, my curiosities grew and lead me on a path of research. Sunglasses give some of us self-confidence from hiding behind them. I have found out that we are hiding a lot. From our microexpressions, to our personality, to our insecurities, and possibly our intelligence our eye region tells people a lot. So next time you head out, make sure you are wearing sunglasses for the right reason.

 

 

 

 

Works Cited:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2786027?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/374484.stm

http://www.scienceofpeople.com/2013/09/guide-reading-microexpressions/

http://www.businessinsider.com/perceived-intelligence-and-measured-iq-2014-4

First Blog Post for SC200

Hello everyone! My name is Martin Lazzaro and I am a freshman pursuing a degree in either Finance or Accounting. I am from Pittsburgh PA.

I am taking SC200 to fulfill Gen Ed science requirements in a way that is intellectually stimulating, applicable to everyday life, and covers broad topics.

I am not becoming a science major because the lifestyle and day to day operations of people in this field does not interest me. I have always been a solid science student and grasped the concepts but never took a real interest or passion for it (at least in the technical parts of it)

I enjoy reading about new advancements in many fields and am interested in learning more about some of our topics.

Below I am attaching a photo of Donald Trump and the link to his campaign. Let’s Make America Great Again! #BuildAWall #RosieODonnell