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February 2nd, 2011
11:54 AM ET
Mind-body: Psychotherapy helps your heartDr. Charles Raison, CNNHealth's Mental Health expert and an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University, writes regularly on the mind-body connection for better health. God forbid, but suppose you’ve just had a heart attack. You’re about to leave the hospital. You’re going to live, but you have new stitches inside your chest and all sorts of new worries in your life.To make these worries worse, you’ve gone online and read that psychosocial factors like stress contribute 30% of the risk for having another cardiac event, and contributed at least as much to the event you just had. Depression is even more of a problem, at least as bad as continuing to smoke 2 packs of cigarettes a day. As you mull these thoughts, a cheery young researcher comes into your room and encourages you to enroll in a study designed to examine treatments that might decrease your chance of having another heart attack and that might thus help you life longer. The researcher gives you a choice: You can go on an antidepressant medicine for protection or you can attend 20 hours of group psychotherapy. Which would you choose? If you chose medications you may have made the wrong choice based on an important new study from Sweden published last week in the Archives of Internal Medicine that reported that group cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) appears to have the ability to protect people with heart disease from dying of their illness. On the other hand, almost a decade ago the largest study ever to examine whether antidepressants have the same long-term, lifesaving effects in people who have had a cardiac event came up negative. 
February 1st, 2011
05:00 PM ET
Sleep keeps important memories safeHere's another reason to get some good sleep in the week leading up to a major test or presentation: Sleep selectively enhances memories that you expect to need in the future, a new study suggests. Researchers in Germany tested a group of 141 healthy adult participants on tasks involving recalling words, locating a two-dimensional object, and reproducing a sequence of finger taps. Their results are published in the Journal of Neuroscience. They found that participants who knew they would be tested on these things later remembered them better than those who didn't know after a good night's sleep of about 7 to 8 hours. Participants who were not permitted to sleep did not show memory improvement, regardless of whether or not they thought there would be a test. 
January 26th, 2011
05:23 PM ET
Mind-body: The connections in tears, sweatDr. Charles Raison, CNNHealth's Mental Health expert and an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University, writes regularly on the mind-body connection for better health. My 82-year old-mom should be a poster child for the power of the mind. Wracked with a debilitating and progressive neurological condition that has made her barely able to stand, she nonetheless manages to lean on her walker and shuffle out to her car every Sunday morning, and then drive 30 miles to attend church. Not just any church, but the only New-Age type church within a hundred-mile radius that believes—what else?—that you can change reality through the power of positive thinking. Those of us who do research in the field of mind-body medicine often seem to be not so different from my mom. Much of our work focuses on ways in which the mind can affect the body for good or ill. While we wouldn’t make claims as outrageously hopeful as my mom’s church, scientific studies increasingly demonstrate that the mind can indeed be very powerful in terms of health outcomes. 
January 13th, 2011
04:11 PM ET
Mind-body: How mental, physical pain are linkedMaybe it’s because many of us have so much stuff and so many opportunities to satisfy our desires that we crave something more, something deeper, something that would give our lives touch of transcendent meaning. As a society we’ve come to the point at which more possessions or more fame, or more fortune don’t bring any more happiness. We feel it in our stress levels and know we need something beyond. Throughout history this yearning for “something more” has been the province of religion, but in the last generation or so, science has entered this domain with impressive results. In fact, if we knew as much about treating cancer as we do about the science of health and happiness we’d be tempted to pronounce the disease cured. 
January 12th, 2011
01:42 PM ET
On the Brain: Craving musicScientists are learning how music affects the brain, how to treat seasonal affective disorder better and how the brain develops in infancy. Here's what's new in brain and psychology research this week: High on music
January 6th, 2011
02:00 PM ET
Why we cry: What's inside tearsWhether you just had a fight with a partner or just watched "Revolutionary Road," crying is a natural expression of sadness. But surprisingly little is known about why humans evolved to cry, and what purpose tears serve. New insights come from the journal Science this week. Israeli researchers studied the question of why we have tears, and found that tears may actually have chemical signals that - at least in men - lower testosterone and reduce sexual arousal. 
December 22nd, 2010
05:41 PM ET
The power of placebosHoping to get around the practice of deceiving patients with fake treatments, researchers tried to determine whether placebos, also known as dummy pills, would work even if the patients knew they weren't taking an active drug. Patients knowingly taking a placebo still found relief from symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) a new study published in the journal PLoS ONE found. 
November 7th, 2010
05:00 PM ET
Tai chi helps arthritis pain, stiffnessThe ancient Chinese martial art of tai chi may be an effective way to help alleviate problems associated with arthritis, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine report. An estimated 50 million adults in the U.S. have some form of arthritis, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although many of these people turn to medication to help them deal with the pain, the medical community continues to look for ways to help these patients.
November 5th, 2010
11:02 AM ET
Human Factor: A young soprano, hope and realityMy parents had a penchant for giving their kids unusual names. Zenith Wisdom, the last of 11 living siblings, was no exception. My medical drama demanded unselfishness from our big family. I hoped Zen would be spared. But when I landed in the hospital, mom would come, leaving Zen behind. Others were there who loved him, but I spent nights, thinking and worrying about his past, present and future. I grew up with two adoring parents, lots of brothers and sisters to play with and a caring community that took an active interest in my future. Home was happy and crazy. When Zen was 6, I was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension. Our dad died suddenly when Zen was 11. As our family’s magical world became more complicated, Zen’s craziness was markedly less jubilant.
November 1st, 2010
12:01 AM ET
Why party animals are always sleepy
Do your personality and social life say something about the way you sleep? According to a new study in the journal Sleep, patterns of sleep can be based on the kind of social activities we partake in, and the type of people we are. The study results showed that people who were outgoing, or extroverts, who were exposed to 12 hours of social interaction, were more vulnerable to being sleepy than those extroverts who participated in 12 hours of isolated activity. Response tests showed that extroverts who had great social lives were slower in the early hours of the day, as well as noon time, compared with extroverts who were by themselves. For those who were less outgoing, or the introverts, their response tests were unaffected and remained stable no matter what their activities. |
  About this blog
Get a behind-the-scenes look at the latest stories from CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and the CNN Medical Unit producers. They'll share news and views on health and medical trends - info that will help you take better care of yourself and the people you love. Recent Comments
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