Saturated fat and low-carb diets: Still more to learn?

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Various versions of low-carbohydrate diets have been popular for many years. The details of what is allowed and what is not vary quite a bit, and the amount of carbohydrates also differs. Too often these diets contain plates piled high with bacon, meat, eggs, and cheese. Due to the high saturated fat content in these diets, doctors and nutritionists worry about their potential adverse effect on cardiovascular disease.

The American Heart Association recommends aiming for about 13 grams of saturated fat, which is about 6% of 2,000 calorie diet. Recently, a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that at least in the short term a low carb diet with a higher amount of saturated fat might still be heart-healthy. But is it that simple? Let’s take a look at what this randomized diet trial did and what the results really mean.

What did the study actually involve?

The 164 participants in this study were all considered overweight or obese, and had just finished a weight loss trial to lose 12% of their body weight. They were randomly assigned to one of three diets containing different proportions of carbohydrates and fat. Protein content was kept the same (at 20% calories) for everyone. They were not planning to lose any more weight.

The three diets were:

  • Low carbohydrates (20%), high fat (60%), saturated fat comprising 21% of calories: this resembles a typical low-carbohydrate diet and has much higher saturated fat than recommended.
  • Moderate carbohydrate (40%), moderate fat (40%), saturated fat comprising 14% of calories: this is not far from the typical American diet of 50% carbohydrates and 33% fat, and it is quite similar to a typical Mediterranean diet, which is slightly lower in carbohydrates and higher in fat than an American diet.
  • High carbohydrate (60%), low fat (20%), saturated fat comprising 7% of calories: this meets the recommendation of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and is a typical high-carbohydrate diet, including a lot of grains, starchy vegetables, and fruits or juices.

The study participants received food prepared for them for 20 weeks. They had their blood measured for a number of risk factors of cardiovascular disease, and a lipoprotein insulin resistance (LPIR) score was calculated using a number of blood markers to reflect the risk for cardiovascular disease. (LPIR is a score that measures both insulin resistance and abnormal blood cholesterol all in one number, and it is used for research purposes.)

The researchers found that at the end of eating these diets for five months, the participants in each of the three groups had similar values of cardiovascular disease markers, such as the LIPR score an and cholesterol blood levels.

What were the participants actually eating?

Alas, those who were eating the low-carbohydrate diet were not piling up their plate with steak and bacon, and those eating the high-carbohydrate diets were not drinking unlimited soda. All three diets were high in plant foods and low in highly processed foods (it is easier to stick to a diet when all the food is prepared for you). Even the low-carbohydrate group was eating lentils, a good amount of vegetables, and quite a bit of nuts.

Even the two diets with higher than recommended amounts of saturated fats also were high in the healthy poly- and monounsaturated fats as well. For example, the diets contained a combination of higher amounts of healthy (salmon) and a small amount of unhealthy (sausage) choices. In addition, fiber intake (at about 22 grams/day) was slightly higher than the average American intake (18 grams/day). Overall, except for saturated fat being higher than recommended, the diet as a whole was quite healthy.

What is the take-home message?

Striving for a plant-based diet with saturated fat being limited to 7% of total calories remains an ideal goal. But for people who choose a low carb, high fat diet to jump start weight loss, keeping saturated fat this low even for a few months is challenging. This study at least provides some evidence that higher amounts of saturated fat in the context of a healthy diet do not seem to adversely affect certain cardiovascular risk markers in the short term. How it would affect actual disease — such as heart attack, stroke, and diabetes — in the long run is unknown. However, there is ample evidence showing that a diet that consists of healthy foods and has moderate amounts of carbohydrate and fat can lower the risk of these diseases.

Preventing diseases is a long-term process; a healthy diet must not only be effective, but it should also be flexible enough for people to stick to in the long run. Could a diet with lower amounts of healthy carbohydrates and ample healthy fats with a bit more saturated fat be healthy enough? As the researchers state, we need long-term testing to help answer the question.

Tinnitus: Ringing or humming in your ears? Sound therapy is one option

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That recurring sound that you hear but nobody else does? It’s not all in your head. Well, not exactly.

You may be one of the estimated 50 million-plus people who suffer from tinnitus. The mysterious condition causes a sound in the head with no external source. For many it’s a high-pitched ringing, while for others it’s whistling, whooshing, buzzing, chirping, hissing, humming, roaring, or even shrieking.

The sound may seem to come from one ear or both, from inside the head, or from a distance. It may be constant or intermittent, steady or pulsating. One approach to managing this condition is different forms of sound therapy intended to help people tune out the internal soundtrack of tinnitus.

What causes tinnitus?

There are many possible causes of tinnitus. Long-term exposure to loud noises is often blamed. But other sources include middle ear problems like an infection, a tumor or cyst pinching nerves in the ear, or something as simple as earwax buildup. Tinnitus also can be a symptom of Meniere’s disease, a disorder of the balance mechanism in the inner ear.

Even old-fashioned aging can lead to tinnitus, which is common in people older than age 55. As people get older, the auditory nerve connecting the ear to the brain starts to fray, diminishing normal sounds.

“Neurons (nerve cells) in areas of the brain that process sound make up for this loss of input by increasing their sensitivity,” says Daniel Polley, director of the Lauer Tinnitus Research Center at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts Eye and Ear. “The sensitivity knobs are turned up so high that neurons begin to respond to the activity of other nearby neurons. This creates the perception of a sound that does not exist in the physical environment. It’s a classic example of a feedback loop, similar to the squeal of a microphone when it is too close to a speaker.”

At times, everyone experiences the perception of a phantom sound. If it only lasts for a few seconds or minutes, it’s nothing to worry about. However, if it pulsates in sync with your heart rate, it’s definitely something to get checked out by a physician, says Polley. If it’s a relatively continuous sound, you should see an audiologist or otolaryngologist (ears, nose, throat specialist).

Can sound therapy help tune out tinnitus?

There is no cure for tinnitus, but it can become less noticeable over time. Still, there are ways to ease symptoms and help tune out the noise and minimize its impact. Treatments are a trial-and-error approach, as they work for some people but not others.

One often-suggested strategy is sound therapy. It uses external noise to alter your perception of or reaction to tinnitus. Research suggests sound therapy can effectively suppress tinnitus in some people. Two common types of sound therapy are masking and habituation.

  • Masking. This exposes a person to background noise, like white noise, nature sounds, or ambient sounds, to mask tinnitus noise or distract attention away from it. Listening to sound machines or music through headphones or other devices can offer temporary breaks from the perception of tinnitus. Household items like electric fans, radios, and TVs also can help. Many people with tinnitus also have some degree of hearing loss. Hearing aids can be used to mask tinnitus by turning up the volume on outside noises. This works especially well when hearing loss and tinnitus occur within the same frequency range, according to the American Tinnitus Association.
  • Habituation. Also known as tinnitus retraining therapy, this process trains your brain to become more accustomed to tinnitus. Here, you listen to noise similar to your tinnitus sound for long periods. Eventually your brain ignores the tone, along with the tinnitus sound. It’s similar to how you eventually don’t think about how glasses feel on your nose. The therapy is done with guidance from a specialist and the time frame varies per person, usually anywhere from 12 to 24 months.

Additional approaches may help with tinnitus

Depending on your diagnosis, your doctor also may recommend addressing issues that could contribute to your tinnitus.

  • Musculoskeletal factors. Jaw clenching, tooth grinding, prior injury, or muscle tension in the neck can sometimes make tinnitus more noticeable. If tight muscles are part of the problem, massage therapy may help relieve it.
  • Underlying health conditions. You may be able to reduce the impact of tinnitus by treating conditions like depression, anxiety, and insomnia.
  • Negative thinking. Adopting cognitive behavioral therapy and hypnosis to redirect negative thoughts and emotions linked to tinnitus may also help ease symptoms.
  • Medication. Tinnitus can be a side effect of many medications, especially when taken at higher doses, like aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and certain antidepressants. The problem often goes away when the drug is reduced or discontinued.

Pandemic challenges may affect babies — possibly in long-lasting ways

The COVID-19 pandemic has been hard on so many people in so many ways. For babies born during this pandemic, a study published in JAMA Pediatrics suggests that the damage has potential to be lifelong.

The first three years of life are crucial for brain development. And it’s not just the health of babies that matters, but the interactions between babies and their caregivers. Babies need to be touched, held, spoken to, smiled at, played with. As they receive and respond to those interactions, in a “serve and return” kind of way, neural connections are built in the brain. When babies don’t have those interactions, or enough of them, their brains don’t develop as they should — and can even be literally smaller.

When you are a stressed or depressed parent or caregiver, it can be hard to find the time, let alone the energy or interest, to talk to and play with your infant. There are multiple studies showing that maternal depression, poverty, and other family stressors can change the development of a child forever.

How was the study done?

In this study, part of an ongoing study of mothers and babies, researchers from Columbia University looked at the development of three groups of 6-month-old babies. Two of the groups were born during the COVID-19 pandemic; the mothers of one group had COVID-19, while the mothers of the other did not. The third group was a historical cohort (a group of babies who were born before the pandemic).

Mothers participating in the study used an Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ-3) to record their babies’ development. The researchers noted no difference in the development of the two groups of babies born during the pandemic, suggesting that prenatal exposure to COVID-19 doesn’t affect development, which is great news. But the babies born during the pandemic scored lower in gross motor, fine motor, and social-emotional development than the babies born before the pandemic. Examples of developmental tasks for infants this age are rolling from back to tummy (gross motor), reaching for or grasping a toy with both hands (fine motor), and acting differently to strangers than to parents or familiar people (social-emotional development).

What does it suggest about infant development during the pandemic?

It’s just one study, and we need to do more research to better understand this, but the findings are not really surprising given what we know about infant development. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a lot of stress — emotional, financial, and otherwise — for so many families. It has also markedly affected the number and kind of interactions we have with other people. Babies are on average interacting with fewer people (and seeing fewer faces because of masking) than they did before the pandemic.

Even though we need to do more research, this study should serve as an alarm bell for us as a society. The children of this pandemic may carry some scars forever if we don’t act now. We’ve been seeing the emotional and educational effects on children; we need to be aware of the developmental effects on babies, too. All of these could permanently change their lives.

What can we do to address these challenges?

We need to find ways to support families with young children, financially and emotionally. We need to be energetic and creative, and work every angle we can. While our government should play a role, communities and individuals can help too.

We need to refer families to and fund early intervention programs around the country that support the development of children from birth to 3 years of age. Because of the pandemic, many of these programs have moved to virtual visits, which can make them less effective. So we need to get creative here, too. We can’t just wait for the pandemic to be over.

And parents and caregivers of infants and toddlers need to know about this research — and ask for help. It’s understandable and natural for parents to think that babies are too small and unaware to be affected by the pandemic. But they are affected, in ways that could be long-lasting. Talk to your doctor about what you can do to help yourself, your family, and your baby’s future.

Follow me on Twitter @drClaire

Tics and TikTok: Can social media trigger illness?

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A student suddenly develops leg pain and paralysis; soon hundreds of schoolmates have similar symptoms. Nuns begin biting each other, and soon the same thing is happening at other nearby convents. Three schoolgirls begin laughing uncontrollably, sometimes going on for days. When nearly 100 classmates develop the same problem, the school is forced to close down.

Yet in each case, no medical explanation was ever found. Eventually, these came to be considered examples of mass sociogenic illness, which many of us know by different names: mass hysteria, epidemic hysteria, or mass psychogenic illness. Over the years, many possible sources for these illnesses have emerged — and today TikTok and other social media sites may be providing fertile ground.

What is sociogenic illness?

The hallmark of these conditions is that multiple people within a social group develop similar, medically inexplicable, and often bizarre symptoms. In some cases, those affected believe they have been exposed to something dangerous, such as a toxin or contagion, although thorough investigation finds none.

The suffering caused by these illnesses is quite real and profound —even in the absence of a clear cause and presence of normal test results. And no, a person with sociogenic illness is not "just looking for attention" or "doing it on purpose."

Labeling people as hypochondriacs or "crazy," or illness as "hysteria," isn’t helpful. Hysteria and hysterical — drawn from hystera, the Greek word for womb — are loaded terms, often used to diminish women as psychologically unstable or prone through biology to uncontrollable outbursts of emotion or fear. And while some researchers suggest these illnesses more commonly affect women, most of the published literature on this condition is decades old and based on a limited number of cases.

Common features of mass sociogenic illness

Past outbreaks include illnesses in which people suddenly fainted; developed nausea, headaches, or shortness of breath; or had convulsive movements, involuntary vocalizations, or paralysis. Usually, these outbreaks occurred among people in close proximity, such as at a school or workplace. Rarely, cases appear to have been spread by shows on television. Now, social media is a possible new source.

Certain features are typical:

  • experiencing symptoms that have no clear medical explanation despite extensive investigation
  • symptoms that are temporary, benign, and unusual for those affected
  • rapid onset of symptoms and rapid recovery
  • those affected are connected by membership and interaction within a social group or by physical proximity.

Generally, treatment includes:

  • ruling out medical explanations for symptoms
  • shutting down a facility where it occurred
  • removing people from the site of supposed exposure (online or not)
  • separating affected individuals from one another.

Reassurance regarding the lack of danger, and demonstrating that the outbreak stops once individuals are no longer in close contact with each other, generally reduces anxiety and fosters recovery.

Tics and TikTok: a new driver of sociogenic illness?

The first known examples of social media-induced sociogenic illness were recognized in the last year or two, a time coinciding with the pandemic. Neurologists began seeing increasing numbers of patients, especially teenage girls, with unusual, involuntary movements and vocalizations reminiscent of Tourette syndrome. After ruling out other explanations, the tics in these teenagers seemed related to many hours spent watching TikTok videos of people who report having Tourette syndrome and other movement disorders. Posted by social media influencers, these videos have billions of page views on TikTok; similar videos are available on YouTube and other sites.

What helped? Medications, counselling, and stress management, according to some reports. Avoiding social media posts about movement disorders and reassurance regarding the nature of the illness also are key.

Geographic boundaries may have become less relevant; now, the influences driving these illnesses may include social media, not just physical proximity.

Dancing plagues, mad gassers, and June bugs

Sociogenic illnesses are nothing new. If you had lived in the Middle Ages, you might recall the "dancing plague." Across Europe, scores of afflicted individuals reportedly began to involuntarily and deliriously dance until exhaustion. And let’s not forget the writing tremor epidemic of 1892, the Mad Gasser of Mattoon during the mid-1940s, and the June bug epidemic of 1962.

The anxieties and concerns of the times play a role. Before the 1900s, spiritual or religious overtones were common. When concerns were raised about tainted foods and environmental toxins in the early 1900s, unusual odors or foods sparked a rash of palpitations, hyperventilation, dizziness, or other anxiety symptoms. More recently, some residents of the West Bank who thought nearby bombings released chemical weapons reported dizziness and fainting, although no evidence of chemical weapons was found.

Closer to home, reports are swirling that Havana syndrome may represent another example of mass sociogenic illness, although no firm conclusions can yet be made. Initially described among members of the US State Department in 2016 in Havana, Cuba, individuals who experienced this suddenly developed headache, fatigue, nausea, anxiety, and memory loss.

These symptoms have been reported by hundreds of people in different parts of the world. Many are foreign service workers attached to US diplomatic missions. Soon after the first case reports, suspicion arose that a new weaponized energy source was causing the illness, such as microwaves fired from some distance. Cuba, Russia, or other adversaries have been blamed for this. Thus far, the true nature and cause of this condition is uncertain.

Nocebo, not placebo

One theory suggests that sociogenic illness is a form of the nocebo effect. A placebo — like a sugar pill or another inactive treatment — may help people feel better due to expectation of benefit. The nocebo effect describes the potential that people could have a negative experience based purely on the expectation that it would occur.

Think of it this way: you may be more likely to experience a headache from a medication if you’ve been warned of this possible side effect, compared with another person warned about a different side effect. Similarly, let’s say you see people fainting. If you believe this is caused by a substance they — and you! — were exposed to, you may faint, too, even if there’s no actual exposure to a substance that could cause fainting.

The bottom line

We don’t know why some develop sociogenic illness while others don’t. Plenty of people have lots of stress. Millions of people were stuck inside during the pandemic and turned to social media for more hours each day than they’d like to admit. Many people are prone to the power of suggestion. Yet, sociogenic illness remains relatively rare. Despite existing for hundreds of years, much about this condition remains mysterious. An open mind is important. Some cases of sociogenic illness may be due to an environmental toxin or contagion that wasn’t detected at the time.

If you or a loved one spends a lot of time on social media and has developed an illness that defies explanation, talk to your healthcare providers about the possibility of social media-induced sociogenic illness. We may soon learn that it’s not so rare after all.

5 skills teens need in life — and how to encourage them

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All parents want their children to be successful in life — and by successful, we mean not just having a good job and a good income, but also being happy. And all parents wonder how they can make that happen.

According to Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child, it’s less about grades and extracurricular activities, and more about a core set of skills that help people navigate life’s inevitable challenges. These skills all fall under what we call executive function skills, which we use for self-regulation. Most people who are successful and happy in life have strong executive function skills.

What are five important core skills?

  • Planning: being able to make and carry out concrete goals and plans
  • Focus: the ability to concentrate on what’s important at a given time
  • Self-control: controlling how we respond to not just our emotions but stressful situations
  • Awareness: not just noticing the people and situations around us, but also understanding how we fit in
  • Flexibility: the ability to adapt to changing situations.

While these are skills that children (and adults) can and do learn throughout their lifetimes, there are two time periods that are particularly important: early childhood (ages 3 to 5) and adolescence/early adulthood (ages 13 to 26). During these windows of opportunity, learning and using these skills can help set children up for success. In this post, we’ll talk about that second window of adolescence.

The best way to learn any skill is by actually doing it. Here are some suggestions for parents wondering how to help and when to step back.

Planning

When children are little, it’s natural for parents and caregivers to do the planning for them. But as children grow into teens, they need to learn to do it for themselves.

  • Avoid micromanaging your teen’s life. Instead, set some ground rules — simple ones like: homework needs to get done, they need seven to eight hours of sleep, and regular exercise is important. You may have some other ground rules, like attending family meals or religious services. Then let your teen figure out how to get it done. Step in only if ground rules are clearly being broken consistently.
  • When teens have long-term projects, such as a research project or college applications, sit and talk with them about how they want to get it done. Let them come up with ideas before you do!
  • Involve your teens in planning family activities or vacations, home renovations, or other projects. Let them make some of the decisions (even if you don’t always agree).

Focus

The explosion of device use has caused all sorts of problems with focus in people of all ages. There is an instant gratification to screens that makes it hard to put them aside and focus on less stimulating tasks — so now, more than ever, it’s important to

  • talk about how social media and the Internet can interfere with daily life (and homework), and help them come up with strategies to manage the distraction.
  • have screen-free meals and family time.
  • encourage hands-on activities that don’t involve screens, like cooking, baking, building things, sewing, crocheting, drawing, painting, or gardening.

Self-control

This is one where being mindful of your own reactions to situations is important. How do you react to anger and frustration? Is road rage a problem for you? Remember that our children always pay more attention to what we do than what we say. To help your teen learn self-control, you can:

  • Talk about feelings, and about strategies for managing strong feelings — like taking a deep breath, stepping away from the situation, screaming into a pillow, etc.
  • Debrief after upsets, once everyone has calmed down. What might your teen have done differently? What could they do next time?
  • Talk about how their behavior affects others, and why it’s important to be mindful of that (a practice that also teaches awareness).

Awareness

Teens can be very aware — but mostly of their own world. Help them learn to see beyond that.

  • Talk about current events and stories in the news. In particular, talk about how these affect people, and how different people might see them differently.
  • Go places with your teen — even just a walk in the woods or a visit to a nearby town can give them opportunities to look around them and see things they might otherwise miss.
  • Join community service activities as a family; show teens how they can make a difference.
  • Have rituals of checking in as a family, like at dinner. Give everyone a chance to talk about their day.

Flexibility

Life throws curve balls all the time, and teens need to be able to adjust.

  • Don’t be too rigid about your teen’s schedule. Help them prioritize, and see which things can be missed or postponed when something happens, good or bad.
  • Encourage some spontaneity. This, too, is about learning to prioritize and not getting too stuck in routines.
  • Be a role model. Be spontaneous yourself — and don’t get too upset when plans change. Make new plans.

Any time you let your teen do something, there is a reasonable chance that they will fail. Resist the urge to jump in right away. While it’s important to have your child’s back (now and for the rest of their life), sometimes teens need to fail in order to learn. Give them a chance to figure it out themselves before you offer help. They may just surprise you.

Are poinsettias, mistletoe, or holly plants dangerous?

Last winter, my wife shooed the dog and visiting toddlers away from our poinsettia plants, saying "they’re poisonous, you know."

I did not know. But it turns out that the belief that poinsettias are deadly is widespread. The same could be said for mistletoe and holly. But are their reputations for danger well-deserved? Since these plants are especially popular to brighten up homes or give as gifts during the holidays, I decided to look into it.

The risks of poinsettia

Could a plant so common and so well-liked in the winter holidays also be so dangerous? If it is dangerous, what problems does it cause? Must it be eaten to cause problems, or is it harmful to just be nearby? And if it’s not dangerous, why does the myth live on?

The answers to these questions are not easy to find. In fact, the bad reputation may have started in 1919, when an army officer’s child reportedly died after eating part of a poinsettia plant. It is unclear if the plant was responsible, though: many other reports describe mild symptoms, such as nausea or vomiting, but no deaths.

Decades ago, a study in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine analyzed nearly 23,000 cases of people eating poinsettia and found

  • no fatalities
  • nearly all cases (96%) required no treatment outside the home
  • most cases (92%) developed no symptoms at all.

According to one estimate, a 50-pound child would have to eat more than 500 poinsettia leaves to approach a dose that could cause trouble. Similarly, pets may develop gastrointestinal symptoms after eating poinsettia, but these plants pose no major threat to animals.

The risks of mistletoe

The story is much the same for mistletoe. It’s not particularly dangerous, but may cause an upset stomach if eaten. In fact, mistletoe has been used for centuries as a remedy for arthritis, high blood pressure, infertility, and headache. The evidence isn’t high-quality for any of these uses, though.

Interest also centers on this plant’s potential as an anticancer treatment. Some extracts of mistletoe contain chemicals shown to kill cancer cells in the laboratory and to stimulate human immune cells. For example, a substance called alkaloids has similar properties as certain chemotherapy drugs used in the past to fight leukemia and other forms of cancer. However, a two-part 2019 review found that adding mistletoe extracts to conventional cancer treatments did not improve survival or quality of life.

No one suggests it's a good idea to eat this plant, accidentally or otherwise. But eating one to three berries or one or two leaves is unlikely to cause serious illness, according to the authors of a 1986 review of multiple studies. And no significant symptoms or deaths were described in one report of more than 300 cases of eating mistletoe. However, some sources warn that serious problems or even death may occur if enough is ingested. The specific dose required to cause death is unknown but, fortunately, it appears to be so high that consuming enough to be lethal is extremely rare.

The risks of holly

This plant can be dangerous to people and pets. The berries of holly plants are poisonous. If eaten, they may cause crampy abdominal pain, drowsiness, vomiting, and diarrhea. While no one would recommend eating holly, it is unlikely to cause death. And for at least one type of holly, knowing the Latin name would be enough to discourage ingestion: the yaupon holly is also called Ilex vomitoria.

The bottom line

No one should eat poinsettias, mistletoe, and holly, but if small amounts are consumed, they are unlikely to cause serious illness. It seems to me that the dangers of these plants appear to be vastly overestimated.

Perhaps the most dangerous thing about mistletoe and poinsettias is the choking hazard the berries pose for young kids, although that risk is not unique to plants: any small object poses similar risks. Try to keep holiday plants out of the reach of small children and pets. And keep in mind that berries may fall from these plants and wind up on the floor.

If a child or pet eats leaves or berries from these holiday plants, or any other plants, check in with poison control, your pediatrician, or your veterinarian. But unless a particularly large "dose" is consumed, don’t be surprised if the recommendation is to simply watch and wait.

Still concerned even if you know the risks are low? You can always regift holiday plants you receive to friends with no children or pets, or find other ways to decorate your home for the holidays.

How to address opposition in young children

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"No!"

It might have been endearing as your child’s first word, but dread often kicks in when that word starts to follow parental requests. Experiencing resistance to small or big asks? Stuck in arguments that seem to go in circles and leave you exasperated with unmet requests? The good news is that this pattern can be disrupted. First, you’ll need to identify reasons behind the opposition. Then you can apply relevant strategies to see more helpful behaviors instead.

Below are some examples of opposition drivers and tips to address them.

Difficulty with transitions

If you find that your child resists a request right after engaging in an activity, it might be that your child first needs time to transition. This can be a common experience when parents make requests while children are playing video games or another stimulating activity. One way to manage this is to give your child a five- or 10-minute heads-up (whichever they might need) that you will be asking for the game to stop. This gives your child time to find a place to pause if playing a video game and to transition.

Some families find it helpful to talk with their children before playtime begins to learn what game or activities will be taking place, and how much advance notice might be helpful before the activity would need to stop. This invites collaboration and shows that you respect that not all moments are ideal for stopping a game.

Independent streak

Children almost never are in control, and resistance can show up when that wears on them. Try to fold in elements of choice and control throughout the day for children (that are within a framework you determine) to create more of a balance with your requests. Perhaps you let a young child know that they will need to wear long sleeves and pants because of the weather, but they can pick which top and pair of pants to wear that day. Another idea is to invite your child to pick a side dish for a future dinner from a premade list of a few options.

It also helps to create opportunities for your child to practice being independent. This fosters mastery and offers experiences of feeling in control. This could look like your child preparing any parts of meals that are age-appropriate (for example, a three-year-old could pour cereal into a bowl; a five-year-old could measure ingredients for baking). The kitchen counter may be extra sticky as your child learns new skills. With time, your child will be more adept, and your counters will be cleaner.

Hunger and tiredness

We need both food and sleep to recharge our batteries. When we run low on either or both, it’s extra difficult to be our best selves. If you find that your child is crankier than usual, reflect on when your child last ate and how your child slept the night before (or napped if your child is of napping age). If it’s been a while since your child has eaten and/or your child did not sleep as much as usual, your child may need to recharge before being more receptive to requests. Have your child grab a healthy snack or meal if needed. If sleep is the issue, validate to yourself that this is frustrating that there is no quick fix. Acknowledge privately they are not their usual self at this moment and may be more receptive tomorrow.

Resistance also may crop up when children are coming down with a viral illness, so keep an eye out for any symptoms that may emerge.

Mental health challenges

Everyone has off days, but a persistent pattern of resistance to requests and distress following them may suggest that a child is experiencing mental health difficulties. For example, if a child appears oppositional every morning before school, it could be that they experience anxiety about going to school and are trying to avoid the distress they experience when there. In this case, it is important to ignore the "no" bait and focus on the emotion behind the refusal. Validate or acknowledge how your child is feeling to open the door to learn more. For example, you could say, "You seem really worried about going to school. What about school has been so tough lately?"

Use a similar approach for symptoms of depression, such as withdrawing from and refusing to engage in activities: validate your child’s feelings and invite your child to share more to help you understand their experiences. Discovering what is driving the resistance can allow you to develop a collaborative plan to support your child’s needs and get extra help if needed. Cognitive behavioral therapy is an evidence-based treatment for children experiencing anxiety and/or depression. Your pediatrician can be a helpful resource for mental health treatment referrals. The Anxiety & Depression Association of America also provides treatment resources.

Sometimes, oppositional behavior is pervasive. It can include a frequent loss of temper, irritability, difficulty following the rules, defiance of authority figures, spitefulness, and more. If these behaviors occur at home and also show up in other settings, such as at school, a child may be experiencing symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder. Parent training programs such as parent management training, along with problem-solving skills training, are evidence-based treatments, and pediatricians also may be able to provide relevant referrals.

Your patience understandably can wear thin if you find yourself facing repeated resistance. That experience, though, does not have to continue. You can help shift these patterns once you discover what is driving the "no."

When the doctor becomes the patient: A transformative experience

A colorful butterfly emerging from an injured heart, a transformation.

I grew up in India with my loving family, living in a 1,000-square-foot room. I was fearless and often experienced the bumps and bruises of an active boyhood. I always got up, dusted myself off, and walked again. I learned resilience and was a happy child.

Throughout my work as a physician, the importance of resilience has resonated. I lead research on the effects of consciousness, meditation, yoga, and spirituality on health. Little did I know my understanding of these issues was going to hit close to home.

Becoming a patient: A transformative day

It was an ordinary day. After long hours at work, I went home to enjoy dinner with my family. I did my daily exercise on the treadmill and relaxed, watching television with my son.

Suddenly, I experienced crushing pain. At first I didn’t want to take it seriously, but this pain was too much to bear and I fell on my knees. My wife quickly called 911, thinking it was a food allergy. When the EMTs arrived, I asked them to take me to the hospital where I work. There wasn’t time for that, they told me.

Those were the last words I heard.

Mindful awareness: Pain, but no suffering

I woke next to the squeaking sound of the bed wheels. I heard my best friend screaming, “I am here!” I felt a severe pain on my left shin. At that moment, I was simply aware of what was happening. The “watching myself” began. Was this a spiritual self-awareness, or the meta-awareness described by neuroscientists?

For the next few hours in the ICU, I had the range of disconcerting symptoms that accompanies a severe heart attack — the type of heart attack that only 5% of people survive. Yet it was like I was watching myself in a movie. While I was aware of profound discomforts that should have been terrifying, I felt no suffering. This experience stands out to me even today.

During my heart attack, I experienced a distance between myself, my body, and my mind. I was the witness of the event, not its victim. I believe that this is the result of a regular yoga and meditation practice that transformed my life forever. The type of yoga I practice emphasizes this distance between mind and body, but such benefits are not unique to any single type of yoga or method of meditation. My personal preference is Sadhguru yoga — you can try a simple Sadhguru meditation exercise here.

Bringing intention to illness

My experience is a powerful reminder that aligning spirituality with health not only can help you stay well, but can help you weather “dis-ease” with more intention.

Facing our own mortality can shake us into acknowledging that our time on this earth is indeed short. It serves up a strong reminder to prioritize the things that matter the most in your life. Before the heart attack, my life was driven primarily through intellectual knowledge. But now, I experientially know that there is much more to life than what my intellect perceives. I ask myself: Have I lived my life to the fullest? What impact have I had on the people around me, the city I live in, and the planet I walk on?

We have no control over what life throws at us. But we have a lot of say over what happens within us. I am grateful to the unbroken chain of resuscitation, science, and, I believe, my spiritual practices. As the new year begins, I’d encourage you to consider making spirituality — however you define it — a part of your health goals.

Seeing red? 4 steps to try before responding

Angry red icons that look furious

Breathe. Count to 10. Take a walk. These strategies have long been advised to help you pause and rethink your reaction when you’re seeing red and an inch away from exploding. Under normal circumstances — maybe a little stress at home or at work — those strategies can be useful. But you may find they’re less effective in the pressure cooker we’ve been living in since the pandemic began. What can you do to avoid reaching your boiling point?

For insight, I turned to psychologist Stuart Ablon, founder and director of Think:Kids in the department of psychiatry at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital. Ablon is an expert at defusing explosive behavior among kids and teens with severe developmental delays in problem solving, flexibility, and tolerance to frustration — the skills that keep us from melting down.

Pandemic stress blocks our coping abilities

Ablon says many adults are struggling with a lack of these skills right now — not because we haven’t developed them, but because pandemic stress is blocking them. “When we humans are chronically stressed, we lose access to the part of our brain that performs skills like flexibility and tolerance,” Ablon says.

Blocked skills can reduce our coping abilities to those of little children, like toddlers who scream when they don’t get their way.

Practice empathy

Ablon says it’s crucial to stay calm or “regulated” when you’re feeling mad or upset, so you can access the skills needed to maintain control. And the best way to remain calm, Ablon says, is by practicing empathy — trying to sense another person’s perspective or point of view.

“Empathy is the most powerful human regulator we have. It’s been proven to de-escalate people in the most challenging of prison settings, and it can also work on an airplane or in line at Starbucks,” Ablon says. “Think about it: when someone listens to you and tries to understand your point of view, it calms you. You can feel your heart rate drop.”

How does empathy help you?

Calming others is great, but how does being empathetic keep you from exploding? It has a domino effect.

  • Trying to understand someone else's point of view may change your mind about how you want to react. It will also give you something important to do, which will keep you focused so you can remain calm.
  • Being calm enables you to access coping skills like problem solving, flexibility, and tolerance to frustration.
  • Accessing your coping skills strengthens your ability to keep your cool.
  • Because you’re calm, you’ll keep someone else from exploding, which in turn helps you continue to stay calm.

Four steps to help you stop seeing red

To practice empathy, Ablon recommends the following steps.

  • Adopt a mindset that people are doing the best they can. “We’re all trying our best to handle what the world is throwing at us, with the skills we’re able to access at that moment. None of us wants to be losing it,” Ablon says. “Think to yourself, ‘This person I’m interacting with isn’t giving me what I want, but this person is doing the best they can right now.’ If you can exude that, you will help regulate them. It’s incredibly contagious — the same way a parent who stays calm can soothe a crying baby, or a kindergarten teacher with supreme calmness can regulate a whole class.”
  • Be curious, not furious. Ablon recommends asking questions without jumping to conclusions, so you can find out where people are coming from. What are their circumstances? What’s driven them to this moment? What do they need?
  • Practice active listening. “One of the most powerful things you can do to regulate someone is to repeat back to them what you’re hearing from them in your own words. It makes them feel heard,” Ablon says. “So ask questions, and when you get information, reflect back what you’ve heard. It’s called active listening.”
  • Offer reassurance. Remind the person you’re talking to that you’re trying to help. “Say, ‘I’m just trying to understand. I know you must have an important reason and I want to hear more. I’m not trying to get you upset. I want to work things out.’ That’s very calming and regulating,” Ablon says.

It may not be easy to remain empathetic in these challenging times. But the more you practice this skill, the more empathetic you’ll become. That can deliver significant results. “If you can stay calm and approach someone kindly and with understanding,” Ablon says, “it will head things off at the pass for both of you.”

If you have knee pain, telehealth may help

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Just about everyone experiences knee pain at some point in their lives. Most of the time, it follows an injury or strenuous exercise and resolves in a few days, but knee pain can last months or even years, depending on the cause. A new study suggests telehealth programs designed for people with knee osteoarthritis may help ease pain, improve ability to function, and possibly even lead to weight loss.

What is osteoarthritis of the knee?

Osteoarthritis (OA) — the age-related, “wear-and-tear” degeneration of the knee joint — is the number one cause of chronic knee pain, affecting nearly a quarter of people age 40 or older. It’s responsible for most of the 600,000 knee replacements in the US each year, and more than $27 billion in annual healthcare spending.

How is it treated?

No treatment for knee OA is ideal or works in every case. Standard approaches to treatment include pain management, exercise, and loss of excess weight.

For pain, people with knee OA may consider

  • anti-inflammatory drugs that are rubbed on the skin, such as diclofenac gel
  • anti-inflammatory medicines, such as ibuprofen
  • pain relievers, such as acetaminophen
  • injections of corticosteroids.

Opiates, arthroscopic surgery, and other injected treatments are not routinely recommended due to risks, lack of proven benefit, or both. Knee replacement surgery has a high success rate for knee OA, but is generally considered a last resort because it’s major surgery that requires significant recovery time.

Virtual visits can help

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, many people with knee OA regularly saw their healthcare providers to

  • monitor their pain and ability to function
  • consider changes in treatment
  • check for treatment side effects
  • determine if other problems are contributing to symptoms.

It turns out, much of this can be done virtually. The pandemic made it a necessity. And a new study suggests it works.

What did the study on knee osteoarthritis find?

The study demonstrated that telehealth visits are a good way to provide care to people with knee OA. The researchers enrolled nearly 400 participants who had knee OA and were overweight or obese. They were divided into three groups:

  • Group 1 was given access to a website that provided information about OA, including pain medications, exercise, weight loss, and pain management.
  • Group 2 received the same information as group 1, and also engaged in six exercise sessions with a physical therapist by videoconference. These sessions lasted 20 to 45 minutes and included advice about self-management, behavioral counseling, and education about choosing exercise equipment.
  • Group 3 followed the same format as group 2, and also had six consults by videoconference with a dietitian about weight loss, nutrition, and behavioral resources. These sessions also lasted 20 to 45 minutes.

After six months, participants in groups 2 and 3 reported pain relief compared to Group 1. On a pain scale of 1 to 10:

  • group 3 improved more than group 1 by 1.5 points
  • group 2 improved more than group 1 by about 1 point.

People in groups 2 and 3 also had better scores for function compared to group 1. All of these improvements were considered meaningful and held up for at least 12 months.

In addition, those assigned to group 3 lost about 20 pounds over the course of the study, while the other groups’ weights were nearly unchanged. That’s an important finding, because excess weight can worsen osteoarthritis of the knee. Losing excess weight can improve symptoms and help prevent the arthritis from getting worse.

Since there was no comparison with in-person care, it’s impossible to say whether these virtual visits were better, worse, or similar to an office visit. In addition, this study did not report the costs of these virtual sessions, the long-term impact of virtual visits, or whether repeated virtual visits could maintain the improvements people reported.

The bottom line

The pandemic is giving researchers an opportunity to seriously study the potential value and limitations of virtual care on a large scale. If these visits are as good as or better than in-person visits for certain conditions and the costs are no greater, that’s a big deal. A virtual visit can eliminate time spent in travel and the waiting room, and possible parking fees that can make a brief doctor’s visit an expensive undertaking that takes half the day. Virtual care also has the potential to reach patients who otherwise cannot get to their doctor’s office.

Of course, telehealth isn’t equally available to everyone due to language barriers, technical abilities, health insurance plans, or simply not having access to smartphones, computers, or data plans. Some states are letting emergency measures supporting telehealth services expire. And some insurers may resort to pre-pandemic rules about coverage or physician licensing that create uncertainty about the future of telehealth.

This study and others suggest that it may be a mistake to curb telehealth just when it’s catching on. More studies like the one described here may make the case to insurers, regulatory agencies, healthcare providers, and patients that the future of medical care should rely on more, not less, virtual healthcare, and encourage approaches that overcome barriers to its use.