ScienceDaily: Living Well News

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• Looking to have fun during March madness? Don't bet on it!
• New heart failure symptom: Shortness of breath while bending over
• Mental health on the go: Reducing anxiety with smartphone app
• Analysis of 50 years of hit songs yields tips for advertisers
• Electronic media associated with poorer well-being in children
• Simple changes to homework improved student learning
• When parents need care: Division of labor among siblings
• Program offers parents medical guidance for international adoptions
• Children’s preferences for sweeter and saltier tastes are linked to each other and to measures of growth
• Knowing whether food has spoiled without even opening the container
• Nearly half of pregnant low-income women do not want to be sent home from hospital after diagnosis of false or early labor

Looking to have fun during March madness? Don't bet on it! Posted: 18 Mar 2014 12:47 PM PDT Planning to enter an office pool during this year's NCAA March Madness tournament? Be careful. You might not enjoy the games very much if you bet, says a researcher.

New heart failure symptom: Shortness of breath while bending over Posted: 18 Mar 2014 09:46 AM PDT A novel heart failure symptom in advanced heart failure patients has been identified by cardiologists: shortness of breath while bending over, such as when putting on shoes. The condition, which cardiologists named "bendopnea" (pronounced "bend-op-nee-ah"), is an easily detectable symptom that can help doctors diagnose excessive fluid retention in patients with heart failure, according to the findings.

Mental health on the go: Reducing anxiety with smartphone app Posted: 18 Mar 2014 08:19 AM PDT Playing a science-based mobile gaming app for 25 minutes can reduce anxiety in stressed individuals, according to research. The study suggests that 'gamifying' a scientifically-supported intervention could offer measurable mental health and behavioral benefits for people with relatively high levels of anxiety. The game is based on an emerging cognitive treatment for anxiety called attention-bias modification training. The treatment involves training patients to ignore a threatening stimulus (such as an angry face) and to focus instead on a non-threatening stimulus (such as a neutral or happy face). This type of training has been shown to reduce anxiety and stress among people suffering from high anxiety.

Analysis of 50 years of hit songs yields tips for advertisers Posted: 18 Mar 2014 08:13 AM PDT Researchers have analyzed 50 years' worth of hit songs to identify key themes that marketing professionals can use to craft advertisements that will resonate with audiences. The researchers used computer programs to run textual analysis of the lyrics for all of the selected songs and analyzed the results to identify key themes. The researchers identified 12 key themes, and related terms, that came up most often in the hit songs. These themes are loss, desire, aspiration, breakup, pain, inspiration, nostalgia, rebellion, jaded, desperation, escapism and confusion.

Electronic media associated with poorer well-being in children Posted: 18 Mar 2014 06:39 AM PDT The use of electronic media, such as watching television, using computers and playing electronic games, was associated with poorer well-being in children. Researchers noted that using electronic media can be a sedentary behavior and sedentary behavior is associated with adverse health outcomes, and may be detrimental at a very young age. Similarly, less monitoring by mothers of the time their children spent watching TV or playing video games appears to be associated with higher BMI for children at age 7 and increasing deviance from child BMI norms between the ages of 5 to 9 years.

Simple changes to homework improved student learning Posted: 18 Mar 2014 06:37 AM PDT A new educational study offers evidence that simple and inexpensive changes to existing courses can help students learn more effectively. The study found that making a few changes to homework assignments significantly boosted student learning in an undergraduate engineering course.

When parents need care: Division of labor among siblings Posted: 18 Mar 2014 06:34 AM PDT Siblings are not equally involved in caregiving when their aging parents start needing care. In 75 percent of all cases, only one adult child will become a caregiver. Mothers are primarily cared for by their daughters, whereas sons continue to be less willing to become the sole caregivers for their parents. In families without daughters, brothers frequently divide the caregiving work among them, research shows.

Program offers parents medical guidance for international adoptions Posted: 18 Mar 2014 06:30 AM PDT With thousands of internationally adopted children arriving in the United States each year, there is a growing demand for a specialized health-care support system that helps adoptive parents and children navigate through the international adoption process. Now, pediatric infectious disease specialists in California have created a new program to meet this need.

Children’s preferences for sweeter and saltier tastes are linked to each other and to measures of growth Posted: 17 Mar 2014 02:43 PM PDT Children who most prefer high levels of sweet tastes also most prefer high levels of salt taste and, in general, children prefer sweeter and saltier tastes than do adults. These preferences also relate to measures of growth and can have important implications for efforts to change children's diets. Many illnesses of modern society are related to poor food choices. Because children consume far more sugar and salt than recommended, which contributes to poor health, understanding the biology behind children's preferences for these tastes is a crucial first step to reducing their intake.

Knowing whether food has spoiled without even opening the container Posted: 17 Mar 2014 02:06 PM PDT A color-coded smart tag could tell consumers whether milk has turned sour or green beans have spoiled without opening the containers, say researchers. The tag, appearing on the packaging, also could be used to determine if medications and other perishable products were still active or fresh.

Nearly half of pregnant low-income women do not want to be sent home from hospital after diagnosis of false or early labor Posted: 17 Mar 2014 02:06 PM PDT More than 40 percent of pregnant low-income women discharged from the hospital after a diagnosis of false or early labor did not want to be sent home, with the most common reasons being that they were in too much pain or lived too far away, according to a study. Many of the women dissatisfied with being sent home stated that receiving specific written instructions about when to return to the hospital may have made them happier about going home.

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