Word: stressful
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...best that medicine can do is keep the disease's sufferers--like former President Ronald Reagan--functioning at higher levels for longer periods of time. Many Alzheimer's patients, for example, perk up when they are given antidepressant drugs. They also become less agitated when placed in a structured, stress-free environment. And sometimes--though not always--their intellectual performance can be enhanced by a particular drug that increases levels of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that is critical to the retrieval of memories...
...Human cells appear to have some sort of counting mechanism and "remember" where they are in the sequence of divisions they must go through. Certain "longevity assurance" genes then make sure that the cell population keeps dividing until the clock winds down. A newer theory champions the role of stress-response genes, which regulate the body's maintenance and repair functions. As yet, researchers are unsure whether these genes merely affect susceptibility to disease or actually control the aging processes...
...maze of nerves and tissue is also a veritable laboratory of chemicals whose workings and interactions largely determine the state of our mental health, down to the latest mood swing. Many mental illnesses once thought to be purely psychological conditions--among them schizophrenia, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and ocd--turn out to be caused by specific chemical imbalances. Those who suffer from them are racked not by toilet-training traumas or the "unceasing terror and tension of the fetal night" (as an early psychoanalyst put it) but by something as simple--and complex--as an imperfectly mixed chemical...
Many parents know ultrasound as the device that gives them the first grainy, in-utero glimpse of their baby. Now doctors are using it to speed up bone healing. Even a sonogram's low-intensity waves are enough to stimulate bone-cell formation. When treated within seven days, stress fractures heal as much as 40% faster than they would without treatment. Patients take home a portable device and zap the fracture for about 20 minutes a day until their doctor deems the fracture healed...
White-coat hypertension--when BLOOD PRESSURE readings spike under the stress of a doctor's visit--may not be as innocent as once thought. Research now suggests that it may lead to cardiovascular abnormalities similar to those caused by persistently elevated readings...