Hitting a Pillow Can Just Make You Angrier, Study Finds
Beating up on pillows, hitting a punching bag or pounding on a partner with a foam baseball bat are not good ways of releasing anger, according to a new study. In fact, such actions only make you more hostile, according to researchers from Iowa State University.
The new study confirms some prior research and suggests that there are better ways to deal with anger, although the researchers do not reveal what those better ways might be.
In the study, 700 undergraduates were put in a situation in which they were insulted by an unseen study partner, then given a list of suggested activities that included hitting a punching bag. Some hit the bag, others did not.
The participants were then matched in a computer competition with either the partner who had offended them or an innocent student. During the competition, the subject was able to control the volume and duration of a blast of noise the partner would receive when slow to respond to a question.
The team reported in the March Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that those students who hit the punching bag were significantly more aggressive during the noise blast exercises, indicating that punching enhanced their anger rather than reduced it.
Big Apple Appears to Be Big Heart Attack Risk
People who live in New York City have one of the highest risks of developing heart disease in the United States, but a new study suggests that even visiting the Big Apple is enough to threaten your health.
Psychologist Nicholas Christenfield and his colleagues at UC San Diego studied death certificates from throughout the United States from 1985 to 1994 and identified those who died from heart disease, where they lived and where they died.
Christenfield told a meeting of the Society for Behavioral Medicine on Friday that residents of New York City were 55% more likely to die of heart attacks than people who lived elsewhere. People who are simply visiting the city are 34% more likely to die of heart attacks than they are at home. By contrast, residents of New York City who traveled outside the metropolis faced only 80% of their normal risk of heart attack death while away.
Similar analyses were performed on 10 other large cities, including Los Angeles and Chicago, but the team found no significant increased risk associated with either living in or visiting those cities.
“It seems plausible that the level of stress associated with living in, or even visiting, the city may be enough to trigger a heart attack, especially among those who are already at high risk,” Christenfield said. The inability of emergency squads to get patients to hospitals quickly because of traffic may also play a role.
But Fran Reiter, president of the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau, had a pithier comment. Christenfield, she said, “has really got to get a life.”
Admit Errors? Doctors and Patients Disagree
Doctors are significantly less likely to admit to mistakes than patients would like them to be, according to British researchers. Melanie Hingorami, a specialist registrar in the central eye unit at Central Middlesex Hospital in London, surveyed 48 ophthalmologists and 246 patients, asking whether physicians should tell patients if a mistake occurred in their treatment and whether all the potential implications of the mistake should be discussed. She reported in Friday’s British Medical Journal that 92% of patients thought they should be told about complications, but only 60% of the ophthalmologists agreed. Furthermore, while 81% of the patients thought they should be told all the implications of such a mistake, only 33% of the ophthalmologists agreed.
The authors suggested some possible reasons for doctors not telling patients, including the appearance of incompetence; the fact that explaining mistakes is time-consuming, difficult and unpleasant; and the fear of being sued.
Daily Coffee Habit Can Raise Blood Pressure
People who drink four to five cups of coffee a morning have slightly elevated blood pressure and higher levels of stress hormones all day, according to researchers at the Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina.
In a study of habitual coffee drinkers, Dr. James Lane and his colleagues found that the subjects experienced a 32% increase in adrenalin and a 14% increase in noradrenaline on days when they drank coffee. The subjects’ blood pressure rose an average of three points, Lane told the meeting of the Society for Behavioral Medicine on Thursday.
An excess of stress hormones has been shown to compromise health in a variety of ways, from damaging blood vessels to weakening the immune system. And even a three-point increase in blood pressure can impair health, he said, especially if a person is already hypertensive.
Acupuncture Combo Helped Ease Back Pain
A new technique combining elements of acupuncture and electrical stimulation proved most effective in treating lower back pain, researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas reported in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Assn. The technique, called percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation involves inserting thin needles into tissue around the spine and passing a minute current through the tissue.
The researchers compared the technique to a similar one in which pads are used instead of needles to administer the electrical current, to exercise therapy, and to a sham procedure in which the needles were inserted but no electrical current was applied.
Sixty patients received each of the treatments for three weeks. Ninety-one percent of the patients reported that they received the greatest relief with the new technique, the team reported. The patients had increased physical activity, improved quality of sleep and a greater sense of well-being while receiving the treatment.
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Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II can be reached by e-mail at thomas.maugh@latimes.com.
