PERSONAL HEALTH : Less Stress Can Mean Higher Blood Pressure
For years, scientists have studied specific strategies for reducing stress and lowering high blood pressure. Now a Wyoming researcher has found that the ways in which some people deal--and don’t deal--with stress might increase blood pressure.
University of Wyoming professor Thomas A. Wright measured the blood pressure of 95 San Francisco counselors and probation officers for juvenile offenders, then asked them to describe how they coped with the most stressful incident in the last 30 days.
He found that employees who wished for a miracle to solve their problems, those who avoided dealing with their problems altogether and those who refused to acknowledge that their problems affected their blood pressure had higher blood pressure than the workers using better coping mechanisms.
Wright recommends that people with high blood pressure consider alternative strategies such as relaxation therapy or biofeedback training.
In another study recently published in the Journal of Psychology, the researchers found that college students who employed a broader range of coping responses reported less stress than those who had a narrow range of strategies.
After Jet Lag Ends, Beware of the Bounce
Back from a transcontinental trip, you’re recovered nicely from jet lag and raring to go when--boom--it hits. A feeling of fatigue and moodiness, along with lackadaisical performance at work.
Blame it on “jet bounce”--a secondary, less severe jet lag. Jet bounce may hit most of us a week or so after the first jet lag subsides, New Jersey scientists say.
So far, Dr. Benjamin Natelson and his co-researcher Walter Tapp, both at the New Jersey Medical School and Veterans Administration Medical Center in East Orange, have only observed jet bounce in animals. No, their monkeys didn’t fly the friendly skies. Natelson and Tapp disrupted the animals’ biological clocks in the laboratory by changing daylight and work schedules, then measured the effects on performance.
The animals performed tasks poorly during their initial jet lag, as expected, but then came the surprise: Their performance dropped again 10 to 11 days after the original schedule change. They were slower at tasks and made more mistakes.
“We don’t know for sure if this happens in humans, but, if (it does), it is important,” says Tapp, whose findings are published in the American Journal of Physiology. A foreign track coach has observed such reduced performance in his athletes, Tapp adds.
Tapp’s advice? “Don’t schedule major tasks or sensitive negotiations during the time when jet bounce might be likely.” Or, enlist the help of a co-worker with a different travel schedule.
“Jet bounce sounds possible,” adds Michael Stevenson, clinical director of the North Valley Sleep Disorder Center, Mission Hills.
His advice? “Begin sleeping on your new time zone before you go. Set your watch (to destination time) as you take off.”
Magazines Rated on Their Health Coverage
How reliable are general circulation magazines that millions of Americans read for health and nutrition information?
The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a New York nonprofit consumer information agency, asked four independent nutrition experts to judge dozens of magazine health articles and rate the information--without ever knowing the magazines’ names.
Here’s their report card: Only two magazines got an “excellent” rating--Consumer Reports and Saturday Evening Post. Ten others got “good” ratings--Vogue, Redbook, Reader’s Digest, Parents, Good Housekeeping, Changing Times, Woman’s Day, Modern Maturity, Seventeen and McCall’s. Eleven received “fair” ratings--Better Homes & Gardens, Glamour, Self, Prevention, American Health, Health, Consumer Digest, Essence, Mademoiselle, Family Circle and Cosmo.
Only Gentlemen’s Quarterly and Ladies’ Home Journal were rated “poor” for articles that were too speculative or too superficial.
But even Consumer Reports’ rating wasn’t perfect. The council thought the magazine’s article on Alar, a growth regulator used on apples, overstated the risks; they also criticized the cover art that pictured a witch’s hand holding up an apple. (Alar use caused a stir this year when the Natural Resources Defense Council charged that it increases children’s cancer risk.)
“Not up to the magazine’s usual standards,” says Agnes Heinz, director of nutrition and biochemistry for the council.
Nonetheless, today’s magazines are doing better in delivering good health information.
