Depression + CHD = Bad

Medical News: Depression Plus Heart Disease Equal Lethal Combo – in Psychiatry, Depression from MedPage Today

The risk of all-cause mortality was elevated 67% for patients with coronary heart disease (P<0.05) and 2.10 times for those with depressive symptoms (P<0.001) in the long-running Whitehall II study of British civil servants.

But patients who had both conditions had a nearly five-fold risk compared with those who had neither (hazard ratio 4.99, P<0.001), Hermann Nabi, PhD, of the University of Versailles, France, and colleagues reported online in Heart.

Learning Disability and/or ADHD Ages 5-17 United States 2006-2009

How do you spell P-R-O-Z-A-C?

QuickStats: Percentage of Youths Aged 5–17 Years Ever Diagnosed as Having a Learning Disability and/or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD),* by Sex — National Health Interview Survey, United States, 2006–2009

Stress Increases IHD Risk in Women

Medical News: Work Stress Adds to Women’s Heart Disease Risk – in Cardiovascular, Prevention from MedPage Today

On-the-job pressure significantly increases the likelihood that women will develop ischemic heart disease, a large Danish study found.

Compared with women who felt their workplace pressure was suitable, those who reported that the pressure was much too high had a nearly 50% increased risk of developing ischemic heart disease (HR 1.47, 95% CI 1.14 to 1.88), according to Karen Allesøe, PhD, and colleagues from Glostrup University Hospital.

Work as Paradox

The Job Satisfaction Paradox for the Self-Employed – BusinessWeek

How can the self-employed earn less money, work more hours, and experience more work-related stress than the wage employed—yet still report greater overall job satisfaction? The answer appears to be that people value highly the autonomy, flexibility, and opportunity to work in a small organization .

Many studies show that the desire to be one’s own boss is one of the leading motivators of self-employment. Others report flexible schedules are a key motivator of self-employment. Moreover, human beings have a preference for working in settings where they can interact with all the members of the organization, according to research by Bruno Frey and Matthias Benz of the Institute of Empirical Economics of the University of Zurich.

In short, the paradox isn’t such a paradox after all. People will work harder, earn less, and put up with more stress so that they can enjoy the freedom, flexibility, and work environment that self-employment provides.

CTE = Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy

NFL Brain Collector Shows Violence in Slices of Gray Matter – Bloomberg.com

Healthy tau helps strengthen the neurons in the brain, like steel reinforcements in a concrete bridge. Repetitive trauma can lead to a change in tau, making it clump like tangles of yarn. The more tangles, the more the communication between cells is hampered. Functions such as memory and anger control can disappear; dementia and death can follow.

CTE is a unique pathological condition, according to Stern. The postmortem diagnosis of Alzheimer’s requires the presence of deformed tau and another protein, beta amyloid. The diagnosis of CTE requires only the presence of deformed tau.