MedicalResearch.com offers the latest news, interviews, and insights in medical research, covering topics like a, cancer research, addiction, fitness and health.
Author Interviews, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, JAMA, Schizophrenia, Weight Research / 08.01.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Shahram Bahrami, PhD NORMENT Centre, Institute of Clinical Medicine Division of Mental Health and Addiction Oslo University Hospital Oslo, Norway  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We know that patients with severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression have shorter life span than the rest of the population, largely due to comorbid cardiovascular diseases. The increased risk seems related to lifestyle including diet and physical activity and medicines, while the mechanisms are not fully understood. Different studies have shown increased weight (high body mass index) in many people with mental disorders. Yet very little is known about genetic variants jointly in influencing major psychiatric disorders and body mass index. Thus, we investigated if there are overlapping genetic risk variants between body mass index and the mental disorders schizophrenia, bipolar disorders and major depression.  (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Brain Injury, JAMA, Pediatrics, UCSF / 08.01.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Benjamin N. Breyer MD, MAS, FACS Associate Professor Departments of Urology and Epidemiology and Biostatistics University of California, San Francisco Vice-Chair of Urology Chief of Urology, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center Director, UCSF Male Genitourinary Reconstruction and Trauma Surgery Fellowship MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: There has been a large increase in upright scooter usage among adults as a mode of transportation. It's convenient for commuters and may encourage greater use of public transit leading to less car traffic in cities. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Technology / 08.01.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr.med.univ. Roland Beisteiner Department of Neurology Laboratory for Functional Brain Diagnostics and Therapy High Field MR Center, Medical University of Vienna Vienna, Austria MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The background is the development of a new brain therapy which allows to support brain regeneration by activation of neurons with pulsed ultrasound. Main findings are that Alzheimer's patients improve their memory up to 3 months. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Brain Injury, Medical Imaging, UCSF / 06.01.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: William G. Mantyh, MD Clinical Fellow, UCSF Memory and Aging Center Weill Institute for Neurosciences UCSF MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Similar to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other dementing illnesses, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive neurodegenerative condition associated with abnormally folded tau protein in the brain. CTE is thought to be caused by exposure to repetitive head trauma, and recently has been the subject of intense media coverage given the frequency of CTE found in brains of deceased former American professional football players. CTE is almost impossible to confidently diagnose during life as the symptoms are diverse and vary from patient-to-patient. Symptoms can include impairments in memory, multi-tasking, behavioral/mood regulation, and movement. As there are no blood, imaging, or other tests for this disease, one active area of research is developing a test to help doctors diagnose this condition. As tau tangles in CTE are similar in many respects to those in Alzheimer’s disease, there was hope that PET tracers that detect tau in AD might also work in CTE. Flortaucipir (FTP) is probably the most widely used tau tracer in AD. Recent work has reported some signal from FTP-PET in symptomatic former NFL players and other patients at risk for CTE (Stern et al. New Engl Jour Med 2019; Lesman-Segev et al. Neuroimage Clinical 2019). The overall signal was lower than that observed in Alzheimer’s disease, and, in lieu of correlations with post-mortem findings, it was unclear how well FTP binds to tau pathology in CTE. (more…)
Author Interviews, Critical Care - Intensive Care - ICUs, Mental Health Research, Opiods, Pediatrics / 23.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Megan Land, MD, PGY 6 Pediatric Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Emory University School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
  • Much of the research on the opioid crisis has focused on the impact to adults; however, children and adolescents in the US are also negatively affected by the opioid epidemic.
  • The percentage of children admitted to a pediatric intensive care unit increased over the study period as the clinical effects of the opioid ingestions increased in severity.
  • The primary intent of opioid ingestions was suspected suicide attempts in adolescents resulting in increasing admissions to a psychiatric hospital.
  • Opioids associated with the highest odds of needing an intervention in an intensive care unit were methadone, fentanyl, and heroin. 
(more…)
Abuse and Neglect, Alzheimer's - Dementia, Autism, Medical Imaging, Mental Health Research, MRI, Multiple Sclerosis, Neurology, Technology / 23.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sebastian Magda, Ph.D Director of Science & Engineering CorTechs Labs, Inc MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Previous studies have shown that the changes of brain structure volume and/or metabolic activity are associated with various neurological diseases. We have created an artificial intelligence clinical decision support tool based on brain volumetric and PET metabolic activity measurements as well as other clinical measurements. (more…)
Aging, Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, MRI, Technology / 23.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Weidong Luo Principal Scientist CorTechs Labs  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We were interested in whether or not we can predict the age of the brain accurately from T1 weighted MRI and/or fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET scans using the brain volumetric and the relative metabolic activity. The uptake of FDG is a clinical marker used to measure the uptake of glucose and therefore metabolism. Also, we were interested in the patterns of the predicted ages for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and minor cognitive impairment (MCI) subjects when using their brain measurements for age prediction in the normal brain age model.   (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Environmental Risks / 20.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Esme Fuller-Thomson, PhD Director of the Institute for Life Course & Aging, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work Cross-appointed to the Faculty of Medicine University of Toronto Canada MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Several studies from the US, Canada, and Europe suggest a promising downward trend in the incidence and prevalence of dementia. Important risk factors for dementia, such as mid-life obesity and mid-life diabetes, have been increasing rapidly, so the decline in dementia incidence is particularly perplexing. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brain Injury, Exercise - Fitness, JAMA / 18.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: John Breck, DO,  CAQSM Medical Services at University of Colorado, Boulder MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: To date, most concussion research has focused on sport-related concussion, though it is known that a substantial number of concussions occur outside of participating in sport. Focusing solely on sport-related concussion may result in an underestimation of the underlying incidence and prevalence of concussion in the general population and leads to the widely held perception that most concussions are sport-related. An understudied population at risk for concussion are United States undergraduate college students.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cognitive Issues, JAMA, Supplements / 16.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Pieter A. Cohen, MD Department of Medicine, Cambridge Health Alliance Somerville, Massachusetts Harvard Medical School Boston, Massachusetts MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: There has been increasing interest in the use of over-the-counter supplements to help improve memory and cognitive function.  However, prior studies have suggested that these types of supplements might contain unapproved investigational drugs. (more…)
Author Interviews, Autism, Neurology / 11.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Neil Dawson PhD Senior Lecturer Lancaster University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Deletions on chromosome 2p16.3, involving deletion of the NEUREXIN1 gene, dramatically increase the risk of developing a wide range of neurodevelopmental disorders including autism, Tourette’s syndrome and schizophrenia. We don’t fully understand the mechanisms involved. In our study we wanted to understand how the genetic deletion impacts on brain function and the ability of brain regions to communicate with one another, as these are known to be impaired in these neurodevelopmental disorders. We also wanted to determine how the genetic deletion impacts on the function of neurotransmitter systems involved in these disorders, and whether drugs targeting these neurotransmitter systems could restore some of the deficits in brain function seen. (more…)
Author Interviews, Autism, Genetic Research, Nature, Pediatrics / 10.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Stephen Scherer, PhD, FRSC Senior Scientist, Genetics & Genome Biology Director, The Centre for Applied Genomics SickKids Hospital Toronto MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: One of the most common questions we get from parents with a child with autism is, "what is the likelihood of having a second or third child with autism, and what is the chance others in our family will have kids with autism?". To help provide answers to these questions, we started the infant (or baby) siblings study ten years ago. Families having an older sibling with a diagnosis of autism were invited to enroll their next born for assessment and following to see if they also developed autism, and what the likelihood of that happening was. Biological samples like blood, and DNA from blood, were also collected and tested.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Depression, JAMA / 30.11.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Karina Pereira-Lima, PhD Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor Department of Psychiatry, Federal University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Questions regarding the magnitude and direction of the associations between physician depressive symptoms and medical errors remain open in recent literature. By pooling data from 11 studies involving 21,517 physicians, we were able to verify that depressive symptoms among physicians were associated with increased risk of reporting medical errors (RR, 1.95; 95% CI, 1.63 – 2.33). (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, PTSD, Surgical Research / 20.11.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michael A. Vella, M.D., M.B.A. Assistant Professor of Surgery Division of Acute Care Surgery and Trauma University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: There is a lot of (appropriate) focus on the mortality statistics related to gun violence, but sometimes we forget about the large number of survivors of gunshot wounds.  We wanted to specifically look at the long term physical and mental health outcomes in this patient population. (more…)
Author Interviews, Environmental Risks, JAMA, Pediatrics, Schizophrenia / 04.11.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Henriette Thisted Horsdal Senior Researcher Department of Economics and Business Economics AARHUS University Henriette Thisted Horsdal PhD Senior Researcher Department of Economics and Business Economics AARHUS University  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Recent studies have suggested that exposure to nitrogen dioxide during childhood is associated with elevated risk of subsequently developing schizophrenia. We know that schizophrenia has a genetic component, and that individuals with higher genetic loading for schizophrenia tend to live in more densely urban areas. It is not known whether the increased risk associated with exposure to nitrogen dioxide during childhood is owing to a greater genetic liability among those exposed to highest nitrogen dioxide levels. Exposure to nitrogen dioxide during childhood and genetic liability (as measured by a polygenic risk score) for schizophrenia were independently associated with increased schizophrenia risk.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Biomarkers, Schizophrenia / 29.10.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr.  Takeo Yoshikawa MD PhD RIKEN Center for Brain Science Japan MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
  • Currently available drugs for schizophrenia are the dopamine D2 receptor blockers. These compounds were serendipitously discovered over half-century ago. But about 30% of schizophrenia are resistant to the dopamine D2 receptor blockers. In spite of these conditions, pharmaceutical companies have abandoned the development of new drugs. This is because we do not know the principle of drug design.
  • Therefore, we need to understand the molecular underpinning of as-yet unknown schizophrenia pathophysiology. Schizophrenia is diagnosed by only patients’ symptoms, not by biological examination. To search for biological underpinning for schizophrenia using experimental animals, we thought that we should examine an endophenotype (biological trait) relevant to schizophrenia. Then we targeted prepulse (PPI) performance.
  • Here, dampened PPI is considered as a biological marker of psychiatric disorders, typically of schizophrenia. Importantly, PPI can be measured using the same behavioral paradigm between experimental animals and human.
  • C57BL/6 (B6) inbred mouse shows higher (better) prepulse inhibition (PPI) performance, while C3H/He (C3H) inbred mouse shows lowered (worse ) PPI. We premised that C3H mouse is “schizophrenia-prone” and B6 is not. To know the molecular basis for differential PPI levels between the two inbred mouse strains, we performed comprehensive protein expression level analysis (proteomics analysis) using the brains of B6 and C3H mice.
  • The expression levels of Mpst, a hydrogen sulfide (H2S)-producing enzyme, is elevated in C3H mouse compared to B6 mouse. Biochemical analysis also supported the elevated H2S production in C3H mouse compared to B6.
  • The examination of human samples including postmortem brains, iPS-derived neural stem cells (neurospheres) and hair follicle cells, gave evidence that H2S production system is indeed up-regulated in schizophrenia.
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Addiction, Author Interviews, Mental Health Research, Technology / 29.10.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Zsolt Demetrovics PhD and Orsolya Király PhD Department of Clinical Psychology and Addiction Institute of Psychology ELTE Eötvös Loránd University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Gaming disorder has recently been recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a mental disorder. Research examining gaming motivations and mental health among video gamers and in relation with gaming disorder is increasing but different types of gamers such as recreational gamers and esport gamers are not commonly distinguished. Esport is form of electronic sport and refers to playing video games in a professional (competitive) manner in sports-like tournaments. Much like in the case of traditional sports, esport players and teams are sponsored, tournaments are broadcasted and followed by large audiences and have large financial prizes. Therefore, being an esports player in now a real career opportunity for teenagers and young adults who like playing video games.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Mental Health Research / 26.10.2019

massage-therapyThousands of people are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder each year. The National Alliance on Mental Illness estimates that 18.5% percent of the adult population in the U.S. experiences a mental condition in any given year. As the epidemic of mental disorders threatens to engulf many more, those affected are resorting to holistic treatment approaches like meditation and massage therapy. In the following post, we’ll explain how massage is being used to treat psychiatric disorders and the resulting benefits. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cognitive Issues, Environmental Risks, OBGYNE, Pediatrics / 24.10.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Eva Tanner, PhD, MPH, Postdoctoral Researcher Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Carl-Gustaf Bornehag, PhD Professor at Karlstad University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Most prior research on health risks from chemical exposure study one chemical at a time. However, we are exposed to a multitude of chemicals every day in the air we breathe, food and water we consume, and things we touch. This is supported by global biomonitoring data showing that humans in general have a high number of chemicals identified in their bodies, i.e., in blood, urine, breast milk, saliva, etc. Unfortunately, we don’t know how such single chemicals act in complicated mixtures and impact our health, or the health of future generations. We conducted this study to help understand how prenatal exposure to mixtures of proven or suspected endocrine disrupting chemicals - found in common consumer products - during the earliest part of life may impact a child’s brain development and cognition in school age. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cognitive Issues, Exercise - Fitness, Mental Health Research, Pediatrics / 22.10.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Adam Bohr, PhD Postdoctoral researcher Department of Integrative Physiology University of Colorado Boulder  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: ​Recent population studies of former football players from the 1950's did not observe a relationship between participation in football and adverse cognitive outcomes in late adulthood. We were able to replicate this finding in a more recently ascertained cohort from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). We did not observe a relationship between participation in contact sports/football in the mid-1990s and impaired cognitive ability or mental health in early adulthood. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Clots - Coagulation / 09.10.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Marta Cortes Canteli, PhD Miguel Servet Research Fellow Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC) Madrid, Spain MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Alzheimer´s disease is the most common form of dementia affecting more than 30 million people worldwide. Research in recent years has linked the disease to a reduction in the cerebral circulation; this results in an insufficient supply of nutrients and oxygen to brain cells, leading to their death. Alzheimer disease is also known to be linked to an underlying chronic prothrombotic state. The present study combined physiological and molecular analyses to demonstrate that long-term anticoagulation effectively slows disease progression in a transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer disease. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Mental Health Research / 08.10.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Marjaana Koponen, PhD Postdoctoral Researcher Kuopio Research Centre of Geriatric Care School of Pharmacy University of Eastern Finland MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: It is known that antipsychotics are commonly used in the treatment of behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, although their use has been linked to serious adverse events. In this study, we found that community dwellers with Alzheimer’s disease who initiated antipsychotic use accumulated more hospital days than non-initiators. This may partially reflect adverse effects and events of antipsychotic use. On the other hand, antipsychotic users accumulated more hospital days due to dementia, mental and behavioral disorders and their caregivers’ days off. Thus, another reason for a higher accumulation of hospital days is care burden and the difficulties in treating the most severe behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia. (more…)
Author Interviews, Memory / 04.10.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Noah Forrin, PhD Postdoctoral fellow in Psychology University of Waterloo  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Everyday experience suggests that people have poor memory for information that they encounter prior to their own public performance.  For example, prior to giving a presentation at school or at work, people often struggle to remember information from a presentation that occurred before their own. n our study, we tested the hypothesis that performance anticipation reduces memory for pre-performance information.  We found that when participants anticipated a simple upcoming presentation--reading words out loud in front of someone else--their memory was diminished prior to reading those words out loud.  Memory may be reduced in this way because people are thinking about their upcoming performance or because they are anxious (i.e., performance anxiety). (more…)
Author Interviews, Genetic Research, JAMA, Mental Health Research / 30.09.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Sophie Legge Research Associate MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences Cardiff University Cardiff MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Psychotic experiences, such as hallucinations and delusions, are features of mental health disorders, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but they are also reported by approximately 5%-10% of the general population. Psychotic experiences are only considered to be symptoms of mental illness if there are other symptoms of that disorder. It is currently unclear what the genetic causes of psychotic experiences in the general population are, and whether these causes are related to the genetic causes of schizophrenia and other mental health disorders. Given that psychotic experiences are one of the key symptoms of schizophrenia, they may be more closely related than with other mental health conditions such as depression. (more…)
Alcohol, Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cognitive Issues / 30.09.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Manja Koch Dr. oec. troph. (Ph.D. equivalent) Research Associate Department of Nutrition Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Majken K. Jensen, PhD Associate Professor of Nutrition Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public HealthMajken K. Jensen, PhD Associate Professor of Nutrition Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias are highly prevalent conditions. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, 50 million people are currently living with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias worldwide. Given the lack of a cure or even disease-modifying therapies for most dementias, the identification of risk factors or factors that prevent or delay the onset of dementia remains of paramount concern. Alcohol is a globally consumed beverage and light-to-moderate alcohol consumption, defined as up to one drink per day for women and up to two drinks per day for men, tends to be associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease, a major risk factor for dementia. However, the effects of light-to-moderate alcohol intake on the brain are less clear.  (more…)
ADHD, Author Interviews, Depression, Education, JAMA, Mental Health Research, Pediatrics / 25.09.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jeremy Brown BA MSc RESEARCH DEGREE STUDENT IN PHARMACOEPIDEMIOLOGY London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Given the way schools typically work, children in the same year as each other can be almost a whole year apart in terms of age. We’ve known for a while that children who are young in their year at school are also more likely to be diagnosed as having hyperactivity disorders and tend to do less well academically than the older children in the year. They also seem to be at increased risk of suicide. This is thankfully an extremely rare occurrence in children, but there is little evidence about whether younger children are more likely to be diagnosed with depression. We used electronic health records for just over a million children in the UK to see if there was any association between how old the children were in their year and whether they got diagnosed with ADHD, intellectual disability and depression. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cognitive Issues, Menopause / 25.09.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: John Bark, PhD Student Behavioral Neuroscience Program Department of Psychology University of Illinois at Chicago  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: 80% of women undergoing menopause experience vasomotor symptoms such as hot flashes and night sweats.   40-60% of women in menopause experience sleep problem.  Both of these symptoms of menopause have been associated with cognitive difficulties, but to my knowledge, this is the first study to use objective assessments of sleep and vasomotor symptoms to understand their effects on the brain. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Cognitive Issues, Duke, Neurology / 24.09.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Juan Helen Zhou, PhD, on behalf of the co-authors Associate Professor and Principal Investigator Neuroscience and Behavioural Disorders (NBD) Programme Duke-NUS Medical School, SingaporeJuan Helen Zhou, PhD, on behalf of the co-authors Associate Professor and Principal Investigator Neuroscience and Behavioural Disorders (NBD) Programme Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Alzheimer’s disease and cerebrovascular disease are among the leading disorders affecting the elderly, with up to 50 per cent of dementia patients showing co-occurrence of both disorders. It is therefore of great interest to understand the influence of co-occurring Alzheimer’s disease and cerebrovascular disease pathologies on brain changes, and examine if such changes are able to track early differential disease progression. Past cross-sectional studies have suggested that Alzheimer's disease and cerebrovascular disease pathologies contribute independently to brain functional and structural changes, and cognitive decline. Our study sought to demonstrate the independent contributions of both pathologies to brain functional networks in a longitudinal cohort of mild cognitive impairment patients, often regarded as early stage of the disease. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Memory, Pharmacology / 12.09.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: James O’Donnell, PhD Dean and professor Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy Ying Xu, MD, PhD Research associate professor University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical SciencesYing Xu, MD, PhD Research associate professor University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences     MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We have been studying cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase (PDE), an enzyme, for quite a while as a potential target for neuropsychiatric disease.  One aspect involves the effects of PDE inhibitors on memory.  This was prompted by our earlier finding that one form of the enzyme, PDE4, is in the NMDA receptor signaling pathway in neurons; this pathway has been implicated in memory.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Global Health, Mental Health Research, Pain Research, Psychological Science / 07.09.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dimitris Xygalatas, PhD Assistant Professor, Anthropology (Affiliate) Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy (InCHIP) UCONN MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Ever since I was a graduate student, I have been intrigued by the performance of ritual practices that involve pain, bodily harm, and other forms of suffering. These rituals carry obvious risks, including health risks, but despite these risks they are performed voluntarily by millions of people around the world. And even more intriguing is the fact that in various contexts such rituals are often culturally prescribed remedies for a variety of maladies. When I was doing my doctoral fieldwork, I studied the fire-walking rituals of the Anastenaria in Northern Greece, and I heard several people describing their experience of participation as one that involved both suffering and healing. And of course I am not the first anthropologist to document this link. But these observations seemed puzzling to me. Some years later, I met one of the co-authors of this paper, Sammyh Khan, who was asking very similar questions. We got a grant to design this study, and put together a team of researchers that spent two months in the field collecting data for this project. We studied the Hindu kavadi ritual, which involves piercing the body with numerous needles, hooks, and skewers, and various other forms of suffering. Our study took place in the island of Mauritius, where I have been conducting research over the last decade, but this ceremony is performed by millions of Hindus around the world. We used portable health monitors as well as interviews and survey instruments to document the effects of this ritual of psycho-physiological health and wellbeing.  (more…)