Will Baum, LCSW

Food Allergies Less Common Than Believed, says a study.  How they did it:  Disguised food and placebos (e.g., peanut butter hiding in something else or something else dressed up as peanut butter).

[T]he true incidence of food allergies is only about 8 percent for children and less than 5 percent for adults…[y]et about 30 percent of the population believe they have food allergies.

Not addressed:  How many of those non-allergy allergies are due to stress?

A study says exercising for just a little bit–but outdoors, in nature–is good for mood and well-being.

Green areas with water added something extra. A blue and green environment seems even better for health…From a health policy perspective, the largest positive effect on self-esteem came from a five-minute dose.

Best medicine department: Repetitive Laughter Response Is Similar To The Effect Of Repetitive Exercise, according to researchers in Loma Linda, CA.

Their studies have shown that repetitious “mirthful laughter,” which they call Laughercise, causes the body to respond in a way similar to moderate physical exercise. Laughercise enhances your mood, decreases stress hormones, enhances immune activity, lowers bad cholesterol and systolic blood pressure, and raises good cholesterol (HDL).

A study of a set of psych meds (SSRIs) shows a side effect you may actually be interested in–improved heart health.

“There is clear evidence that depressed patients have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, and we want to eliminate that. Since depression can be treated with an SSRI, maybe the cardiovascular disease risk can also be decreased.”

A study finds a genetic link between stress, obesity, and diabetes.

‘We showed that the actions of single gene in just one part of the brain can have profound effects on the metabolism of the whole body,’ says Chen. This mechanism, which appears to be a ‘smoking gun’ tying stress levels to metabolic disease, might, in the future, point the way toward the treatment or prevention of a number of stress-related diseases.

A big NYT Magazine piece by Tara Parker-Pope surveys the research about marriage, health, and happiness, and finds mixed messages.

[W]hile it’s clear that marriage is profoundly connected to health and well-being, new research is increasingly presenting a more nuanced view of the so-called marriage advantage. Several new studies, for instance, show that the marriage advantage doesn’t extend to those in troubled relationships, which can leave a person far less healthy than if he or she had never married at all…

Article + resources: Social Networks a Lifeline for the Chronically Ill:

People fighting chronic illnesses are less likely than others to have Internet access, but once online they are more likely to blog or participate in online discussions about health problems [...] They are gathering on big patient networking sites like PatientsLikeMe, HealthCentral, Inspire, CureTogether and Alliance Health Networks, and on small sites started by patients on networks like Ning and Wetpaint.

In case you missed it, here’s the Globe and Mail reporting about a recent University of Chicago study showing a correlation between loneliness and high blood pressure.

While loneliness has been linked to other factors that could cause an increase in blood pressure, such as stress and depression, those factors could not account for the rise observed in the study.

“It’s certainly the case that loneliness is related to depressive symptoms and depression, to stress, to hostility, to how much social support you perceive you have. And we looked at each of those as possible explanations for the effect, and it wasn’t there,” Dr. Hawkley says. “It seems to be that there’s something unique about loneliness.”