‘Personality Genes’ May Help Account for Longevity

From the 24 May 2012 article at Science News Daily

It’s in their genes” is a common refrain from scientists when asked about factors that allow centenarians to reach age 100 and beyond. Up until now, research has focused on genetic variations that offer a physiological advantage such as high levels of HDL (“good”) cholesterol. But researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology of Yeshiva University have found that personality traits like being outgoing, optimistic, easygoing, and enjoying laughter as well as staying engaged in activities may also be part of the longevity genes mix….

…

“When I started working with centenarians, I thought we’d find that they survived so long in part because they were mean and ornery,” said Nir Barzilai, M.D., the Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert Chair of Aging Research, director of Einstein’s Institute for Aging Research and co-corresponding author of the study. “But when we assessed the personalities of these 243 centenarians, we found qualities that clearly reflect a positive attitude towards life. Most were outgoing, optimistic and easygoing. They considered laughter an important part of life and had a large social network. They expressed emotions openly rather than bottling them up.” In addition, the centenarians had lower scores for displaying neurotic personality and higher scores for being conscientious compared with a representative sample of the U.S. population.

“Some evidence indicates that personality can change between the ages of 70 and 100, so we don’t know whether our centenarians have maintained their personality traits across their entire lifespans,” continued Dr. Barzilai. “Nevertheless, our findings suggest that centenarians share particular personality traits and that genetically-based aspects of personality may play an important role in achieving both good health and exceptional longevity.”..

Related articles

• Do You Have What it Takes to Live to 100? (health.usnews.com)
• The Search For Longevity Genes (extremelongevity.net)
• The mystery of longevity (news.nationalpost.com)
• Clue to centenarians’ longevity lies in Mediterranean diet (mnn.com)
• The How and Why of 100 Years of Happiness (psychologytoday.com)
• The How and Why of 100 Years of Happiness (my.psychologytoday.com)
• Two New Longevity Genes Discovered (extremelongevity.net)
• Turn on Your Longevity Genes (lewrockwell.com)
• MORE ON LONGEVITY: Telomerase Gene Therapy Boosts Mouse Longevity. “This is an interesting result … (pjmedia.com)
• Angiotensin Receptor Gene Variant Linked to Extreme Longevity (extremelongevity.net)
• Telomerase Gene Therapy Boosts Mouse Longevity (futurepundit.com)

Stressed Men Are More Social

I don’t have my hands on the articles now…but recently I have read that men and women really are more alike than they are different..including their psychology…quite different from the “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” model….

Obviously, from the related articles below, gender differences (or lack of) is an ongoing research topic in many circles with differing research results.

 

From the 21 May 2012 Science News Daily article

 Freiburg researchers have refuted the common belief that stress always causes aggressive behavior.

A team of researchers led by the psychologists and neuroscientists Prof. Markus Heinrichs and Dr. Bernadette von Dawans at the University of Freiburg, Germany, examined in a study how men react in stressful situations — and have refuted a nearly 100-year-old doctrine with their results. According to this doctrine, humans and most animal species show the “fight-or-flight” response to stress. Only since the late 1990s have some scientists begun to argue that women show an alternate “tend-and-befriend” response to stress — in other words, a protective (“tend”) and friendship-offering (“befriend”) reaction. Men, in contrast, were still assumed to become aggressive under stress. Von Dawans refuted this assumption, saying: “Apparently men also show social approach behavior as a direct consequence of stress.”….

Related articles

• Study finds stressed men more social, refutes common belief that stress always causes aggressive behavior (medicalxpress.com)
• Stressed Men Are More Social (tricitypsychology.com)
• Stress Turns Men Into Social Butterflies (livescience.com)
• Stressed men are more social (factday.com)
• Stress Doesn’t Necessarily Make Men More Aggressive (news.softpedia.com)
• Men Deal With Stress More Aggressively than Women, Thanks to a Single Gene (motherboard.vice.com)
• The ‘macho’ gene that makes men aggressive has been found (dailymail.co.uk)
• Men respond more aggressively than women to stress (mayoclinic.com)

The Dirtiest Places In The Office

From the 24 May 2012 Medical News Today article

If you think the restroom is the place you are most likely to pick up germs at the office, perhaps you should think again, because new findings from the US suggest the dirtiest places in the office are in break rooms and kitchens, with sink and microwave door handles topping the list of germ “hot spots”…

..
An ATP **count of 300 or more means the surface has a high level of contamination and there is a high risk of illness transmission. When they analyzed the samples, the researchers found ATP counts of 300 and higher on:

• 75% of break room sink faucet (tap) handles,
• 48% of microwave door handles,
• 27% of keyboards,
• 26% of refrigerator door handles,
• 23% of water fountain buttons, and
• 21% of vending machine buttons.

**ATP  (adenosine triphosphate) is the universal energy molecule found in all animal, plant, bacteria, yeast and mold cells. Large amounts are present in food and organic residues, which when left on a surface can harbor and grow bacteria.

Related articles

• The 6 Dirtiest Work Places (webmd.com)
• Door Handles are the dirtiest place in a workplace (prweb.com)
• Germy Office Surfaces: Study Reveals Most Contaminated Items At Work (huffingtonpost.com)
• Where Do The Germs Lurk At Work? Not Where You Think… (wdok.radio.com)
• Germs Lurk in Office Kitchens, Break Rooms (news.health.com)
• Where do germs flourish in your office? – CBS News (cbsnews.com)
• Germs Lurk in Office Kitchens, Break Rooms (health.usnews.com)