Ed Yong There’s a chemical that can subtly shift your childhood memories of your own mother. In some people, it paints mum in a more saintly light, making them remember her as closer and more caring. In others, the chemical has a darker influence, casting mum as a less caring and more distant parent. All of this becomes heavily ironic when you consider that the chemical in question – a hormone called oxytocin – is often billed as the “hormone of love”, and even marketed as “Liquid Trust”. As a new study shows, the reality is much more complicated. Describing oxytocin as the “hormone of love” is like describing a computer as a “writing tool” – it does other things too, some of which aren’t pleasant. Oxytocin is a versatile actor, whose resume includes all sorts of jobs in sex, reproduction, social behaviour and emotions. It can increase trust among people and make them more cooperative (this works in meerkats, too). It can increase the social skills of autistic people. It’s released during orgasm. It affects lactating breasts, contracting wombs and the behaviour of sheep mothers towards their newly born lambs. The list goes on: drug addiction, generosity, depression, empathy, learning, memory. Despite these many roles, oxytocin is often reduced to a misleading label. While “hormone of love” may be great for catchy headlines and compelling marketing slogans, they are ultimately misleading. Jennifer Bartz from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine has found that oxytocin can have completely opposite effects on the way people behave, depending on how they view their relationships to other people. © 2010, Kalmbach Publishing Co.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 14714 - Posted: 11.30.2010

By Helen Briggs Health reporter, BBC News Sex hormones taken by women after the menopause may make their brains "younger", researchers claim. A small study of post-menopausal women found those on HRT performed better in tests measuring how the left and right hand sides of the brain work together. Psychologists at Durham University say it mirrors the brain activity of younger women who naturally produce the sex hormones in their bodies. The research is published in the journal Hormones and Behavior. The study involved 62 post-menopausal women aged between 46 and 71. Of these, 36 were on hormone therapy, while the rest were in the control group. All were right-handed. They were asked to carry out fine motor coordination tasks, such as tapping buttons with different fingers using both their left and right hands. The researchers say both hands performing together equally was a sign that the two brain halves were interacting more. This was found to be more pronounced in the women on HRT. BBC © MMX

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 14709 - Posted: 11.27.2010

By Amanda Chan If you're a guy who finds it hard to talk about your feelings, the problem might lie with your testosterone levels, a recent study suggests. A psychological condition called alexithymia is found in people who have an extraordinarily difficult time conveying emotions to others and interpreting others' feelings. Past studies have shown that alexithymia and depression are closely related, and the condition has long been associated with aging. Depression, low testosterone and erectile dysfunction are all known to become more common in men as they age. Researchers from Finland wanted to see if alexithymia is a result of aging itself, or if it is actually caused by other factors that typically come with aging, like a lower sex drive. In the study, nearly 1,400 men ages 25 to 65 filled out questionnaires during a three-year period, beginning in 1998, and reported difficulties they had in expressing thoughts and emotions, symptoms of depression and general life-satisfaction levels. Out of those 1,400 men, researchers chose 116, half who had symptoms of alexithymia and half who did not, and asked them to complete a follow-up survey and report their alcohol intake, smoking status, and other information, and were also given a blood test to check their testosterone levels, said study researcher Kirsi Honkalampi, a professor at the Kuopio Psychiatric Center in Finland. MyHealthNewsDaily Copyright © 2010.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 14579 - Posted: 10.21.2010

By Craig H. Kinsley and Elizabeth A. Meyer It seems that weekly we hear about some professional athlete who sullies himself and his sport through abuse of steroids. The melodrama unfolds, careers and statistics are brought low and asterisked, and everyone bemoans another fallen competitor. Yet there are millions of cases of steroid use that occur daily with barely a second thought: Millions of women take birth control pills, blithely unaware that their effects may be subtly seeping into and modulating brain structure and activity. It is a huge experiment whose resolution will not be known for a while, but a new study in the journal Brain Research demonstrates that the effects are likely to be dramatic. It found that birth control pills have structural effects on regions of the brain that govern higher-order cognitive activities, suggesting that a woman on birth control pills may literally not be herself -- or is herself, on steroids. The human brain is a remarkable structure, not least because of its seemingly infinite capacity for change, adapting millisecond by millisecond. Indeed, a structure with tens of billions of neurons, each of which has the ability to elaborate and branch and become more complex, while changing its activity in the process, is the very definition of change. This so-called neuroplasticity is a hallmark of the nervous system. It can, however, be augmented, boosted, by artificial means, and if we are not careful, the brain may go all catawampus. Steroid hormones, which are excreted by endocrine organs such as testes and ovaries, flow in abundance throughout the bloodstream, reach target organs and structures, and exert powerful effects on them. To wit, the cock’s comb, the buck’s antlers, the lion’s mane, the blood-engorged uterus. © 2010 Scientific American,

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 14505 - Posted: 09.30.2010

Content provided by AFP High estrogen levels in women while they are ovulating may be directly responsible for sluggishness or problems concentrating, a Canadian study released Friday has found. Researchers at Concordia University's Center for Studies in Behavioral Neurobiology in Montreal linked high estrogen levels in laboratory rats to an inability to pay attention and learn. These high levels have also been shown to interfere with women's ability to pay attention, but the study, to be published in the journal Brain and Cognition, is the first to show "how this impediment can be due to a direct effect of the hormone on mature brain structures," said a statement. Both humans and rodents have similar brain physiology. "Although estrogen is known to play a significant role in learning and memory, there has been no clear consensus on its effect," said study lead author Wayne Brake. "Our findings...show conclusively that high estrogen levels inhibit the cognitive ability in female rodents." Researchers repeatedly exposed rats to a tone, with no consequences. Once they became used to it and ignored it, another stimulus was linked to the tone. © 2010 Discovery Communications, LLC.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 14501 - Posted: 09.28.2010

By Steve Connor The scourge of premenstrual tension, which affects more than half of women and causes physical as well as emotional trauma, could soon be eradicated by a safe, low-dose pill, scientists said yesterday. A laboratory-based study has found that very low doses of the anti-depression drug Prozac can eliminate the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome, which include mood swings, tiredness, irritability, headaches and joint pains. The scientist leading the research said the findings, which have so far been observed in laboratory rats, are strong enough to warrant a full-scale clinical trial with Prozac given that the drug has already undergone the necessary safety tests at the higher doses needed to treat depression. A clinical trial could begin within six months, and if the results are favourable, women could be taking the drug to treat premenstrual syndrome within two years, said Thelma Lovick, a neuroscientist at the University of Birmingham, who led the study. Not all women have the monthly symptoms associated with their menstrual cycle, but it is estimated that 75 per cent have experienced them at some time and that between 30 and 40 per cent have more severe symptoms that badly affect their work and family lives. The three-year study, funded by the Medical Research Council, has shown that Prozac taken in doses of about a tenth of that needed to treat depression can stop premenstrual symptoms in rats, animals which show physical and emotional changes, such as increased anxiety and sensitivity to pain, similar to those seen in women. Higher doses of Prozac have been prescribed to women suffering from premenstrual syndrome in the past, especially by doctors in the US, but usually for the treatment of more severe symptoms such as depression. ©independent.co.uk

Keyword: Depression; Aggression
Link ID: 14466 - Posted: 09.18.2010

Tim Kiladze A chief executive officer’s patience and co-operation can make or break a corporate merger or acquisition. That’s no secret. But researchers at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business now offer a biological explanation for male CEOs’ willingness, or lack thereof, to negotiate: testosterone levels. The UBC team crunched the numbers for 350 corporate deals completed between 1997 and 2007 and determined that the aggression-causing hormone directly affects a male CEO’s tendency to bid for a company – and to walk away from an unfavourable deal. “Normally, assets should go to buyers that value [them] the most,” finance professor and lead researcher Maurice Levi said, “if decisions are based purely on the basis of rationality.” However, his team found that hormones intervene and make CEOs bid for things they don’t necessarily need, or turn down offers out-of-hand, without trying to negotiate better terms. “They might be pursuing things that give them the most dominance, but do not give them the most value,” Mr. Levi said. Notably, men with higher testosterone levels are 20 per cent more likely to walk away from a takeover offer. They are also 4 per cent more likely to make takeover bids, a small effect but still statistically significant. The Sauder study was based on a 2007 Harvard University experiment in which pairs of male participants tried to make a deal to split $40. Participants with above-average testosterone levels, tested in a laboratory, were more likely to reject a lowball offer, whereas those with below-average levels were less likely to drive a hard bargain. © Copyright 2010 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 14449 - Posted: 09.14.2010

By Emily Sohn When a woman is ovulating, her behavior changes in a startling number of ways from the way she walks, talks and dresses to the men she flirts with, according to new research. The findings might offer some practical tips for women to boost their online dating prospects; for scientists to develop new kinds of ovulation detection kits; or for marketers to target sales of clothes and jewelry. The work also suggests that going on or off the birth control pill might influence a woman's choice in men. Why does ovulation change women's behavior in such subtle yet fundamental ways? Experts propose that it's an innate and subtle strategy to both attract the most desirable guys and convince them to stick around for the long haul. "The idea is that women turn up everything that has to do with femininity" at ovulation, said Greg Bryant, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. "This is showing that there are all sorts of phenomena that happen in our behavior that we're not actually aware of." For a long time, scientists assumed that the hormonal shifts of ovulation happened without measurable changes in how women behaved. That's because women have a strong motivation to hide the fact that they're fertile, unlike other members of the animal kingdom. While a female baboon's swollen red rump encourages males to mate and go, for example, a female human's ability to keep a man guessing should up the chances of him mating and then staying to help take care of their children. © 2010 Discovery Communications, LLC.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 14374 - Posted: 08.20.2010

By Jenifer Goodwin (HealthDay News) -- Menstrual cramps are often dismissed as a mere nuisance, but new research suggests the monthly misery may be altering women's brains. Researchers in Taiwan used a type of brain scan known as optimized voxel-based morphometry to analyze the anatomy of the brains of 32 young women who reported experiencing moderate to severe menstrual cramps on a regular basis for several years, and 32 young women who did not experience much menstrual pain. Even when they weren't experiencing pain, women who had reported having bad cramps had abnormalities in their gray matter (a type of brain tissue), said study author Dr. Jen-Chuen Hsieh, a professor of neuroscience at the Institute of Brain Science at National Yang-Ming University in Taipei, Taiwan. Those differences included abnormal decreases in volume in regions of the brain believed to be involved in pain processing, higher-level sensory processing and emotional regulation, as well as increases in regions involved in pain modulation and regulation of endocrine function. Exactly how the changes in the brain could affect women's experience of pain is unknown, researchers said. But the brain abnormalities suggest that menstrual pain may have similarities with other chronic pain conditions in that over time, repeated bouts of excruciating aches make the brain unusually sensitive to pain -- in effect, making the experience of pain worse. ©2010 Bloomberg L.P.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Aggression
Link ID: 14347 - Posted: 08.12.2010

Women are more likely to select clingy clothes when they are ovulating, a study has found. But the University of Minnesota study of 100 women found these hormonal shopping habits were triggered by the proximity of attractive women. The researchers suggest in selecting tighter clothes, the women were trying to stand out from love rivals. The Journal of Consumer Research study said there should be more analysis of how hormones affected shopping habits. Women at different stages of their menstrual cycle were shown images of attractive women living locally or far away. They were then asked to choose clothes and accessories which they would like to buy. Women who were ovulating and who had seen photos of attractive local women were most likely to buy "sexier" clothes compared with those shown photographs of unattractive local women or women who lived more than 1,000 miles (1,600km) away. Dr Kristina Durante, who led the research, said: "The desire for women at peak fertility to unconsciously choose products that enhance appearance is driven by a desire to outdo attractive rival women. If you look more desirable than your competition, you are more likely to stand out." The team said even though the end result was about attracting the best romantic partner available, ovulating women's choice of dress was motivated by the other women in their environment. (C)BBC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 14339 - Posted: 08.09.2010

By Janet Raloff Cash register and other receipts may expose consumers to substantial amounts of bisphenol A, a hormone-mimicking chemical that has been linked with a host of potential health risks, according to a trio of recent studies. Each study offers preliminary evidence that a large number of retail outlets print sales receipts on certain types of heat-sensitive, or thermal, paper that use BPA as a color developer. Two of the new studies also showed that the BPA coating easily rubs off onto fingers. And one found evidence that BPA from receipts may penetrate skin. The pollutant, which mimics the biological activity of estrogen, has been tied to health risks from behavioral problems in children to obesity and heart ailments. In animals, exposures in the womb put moms and their offspring at risk for later metabolic diseases. Based on growing concern about possible risks from ubiquitous exposure to BPA, especially in children, the federal government recently issued warnings to parents about where their families were most likely to encounter the chemicals. Store receipts did not make the list, although there have been hints for years that thermal receipt paper could be a rich source. Chemist John Warner learned about the chemistry of thermal- and pressure-sensitive papers while working for Polaroid years ago. Manufacturers lay a powdery coating containing BPA, a dye and a solvent onto one side of a piece of paper. When heat or pressure is applied, the coating’s constituents merge to release the ink’s color, he explains. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2010

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 14321 - Posted: 08.05.2010

By THE NEW YORK TIMES Dr. Dodick — I have been getting non-aura migraines since childhood, around the time my menstrual cycle began. I cut out caffeine, chocolate and red wine in my mid-20s but continue to have migraines once a month in conjunction with my cycle. I am curious if taking a birth control pill that limits the number of periods will also lessen the frequency of migraines? Lauren, Austin Dr. David Dodick of the Mayo Clinic responds: Menstruation is a very common and powerful trigger in women who suffer from migraine. There is evidence — and it has certainly been my experience with patients — that in some women, these attacks are also more severe and last longer than those attacks that occur outside the menstrual period. By definition, attacks of migraine that are triggered by menstruation occur within two days prior and three days after the onset of menstrual flow. While the mechanism by which menstruation triggers migraine is not completely clear, experts believe that the precipitous drop in estrogen levels prior to menstruation leads to changes in the excitability of the central nervous system, including the regions of the brain that are involved in migraine. The answer to your question is yes, for some women, there is evidence that taking a combination oral contraceptive pill continuously does reduce the frequency of migraine attacks associated with menstrual periods. However, you should discuss the risks and benefits of this strategy with your primary care physician or gynecologist. Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Aggression
Link ID: 14304 - Posted: 07.29.2010

by Andy Coghlan NASAL sprays containing the hormone oxytocin, nicknamed the "cuddle chemical" because it helps mothers bond with their babies, have helped people with schizophrenia. Although the 15 participants used the sprays for three weeks only, most reported measurable improvements in their symptoms in this the first trial to test oxytocin in schizophrenia. "It's proof of concept that there's therapeutic potential here," says David Feifel at the University of California in San Diego, head of the team running the trial. Each participant received oxytocin or a placebo for three weeks, then the opposite treatment for three weeks with a week break in between. On the basis of two standard tests for schizophrenia, taken before and after each block of treatment, participants averaged improvements of around 8 per cent when taking the oxytocin compared with the placebo (Biological Psychiatry, DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.04.039). The effects didn't kick in until the final week, suggesting that it takes a while for the hormone to begin acting. "Standard antipsychotic drugs increase their efficacy several weeks later too, so oxytocin fits that profile," says Feifel. Feifel thinks that oxytocin is dampening down the excessive production of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which can trigger schizophrenic symptoms such as hallucinations. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Aggression
Link ID: 14268 - Posted: 07.17.2010

Genetic engineers, move over: the latest scheme for creating children to a parent’s specifications requires no DNA tinkering, but merely giving mom a steroid while she’s pregnant, and presto—no chance that her daughters will be lesbians or (worse?) ‘uppity.’ Or so one might guess from the storm brewing over the prenatal use of that steroid, called dexamethasone. In February, bioethicist Alice Dreger of Northwestern University and two colleagues blew the whistle on the controversial practice of giving pregnant women dexamethasone to keep the female fetuses they are carrying from developing ambiguous genitalia. (That can happen to girls who have congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), a genetic disorder in which unusually high prenatal exposure to masculinizing hormones called androgens can cause girls to develop a deep voice, facial hair, and masculine-looking genitalia.) The response Dreger got from physicians and scientists who were outraged over this unapproved use of dexamethasone caused her to dig deeper into the scientific papers of the researcher who has promoted it. The result of that digging is a discovery that is much less outrageous than the PR push, and some media coverage, would have you believe, but one that nonetheless raises important questions about gender, sexuality, and research on unknowing patients. In an essay titled “Preventing Homosexuality (and Uppity Women) in the Womb?” and posted on the bioethics forum of The Hastings Center, a think tank in Garrison, N.Y., Dreger and her colleagues pluck numerous brow-raising statements from the writings of pediatric endocrinologist Maria New of Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, who has long promoted prenatal dexamethasone to treat CAH. But if that position is controversial (as I’ll explain below), what Dreger and her colleagues claim to have uncovered is even more so. New, they say, wants to use dexamethasone to prevent CAH girls from becoming lesbians, from rejecting motherhood, and from choosing traditionally masculine careers. © 2010 Newsweek, Inc

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 14229 - Posted: 07.06.2010

By Elizabeth Cooney Adam Davis says one of his brightest friends makes the most ridiculous mistakes. For all his smarts, he’ll cross the street without looking. “I know some people who are heavy drinkers, and they’ve actually told me they feel their memory is going. They drink and then they black out, more and more,’’ said Davis, a 20-year-old Lexington High graduate who attends Occidental College in Los Angeles. “They don’t change their behavior. I don’t think it’s addiction. I guess that gets into judgment.’’ Smart kids doing stupid things: It’s the teen brain paradox. Extraordinarily quick to learn and rapidly reaching fluency in abstract thought, teens still make bonehead decisions, perhaps more so when routines relax in summer. But that’s because they’re operating with brains that are still a work in progress. Of all the organs in our bodies, the brain takes the longest to develop. Frontal lobes — the seat of judgment — are the last pieces to be fully connected to the parts of the brain that sense danger or solve calculus problems. A growing body of neuroscientific evidence places full brain maturity at about age 25, well past the point when young people begin to drive, drink, vote, or go off to war. “We all know what the frontal lobe does,’’ said Dr. Frances Jensen, a neurologist at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston. “It’s insight, judgment, inhibition, self-awareness, cause and effect, acknowledgment of cause and effect. And big surprise: It’s not done in your teen years. Hence [teens’] impulsiveness, their unpredictable behavior, their lack of ability to acknowledge and see cause and effect, despite the fact they are getting 800s on their SATs and can be cognitively highly functional and memorize at a much more impressive rate than we as adults do later.’’ © 2010 NY Times Co.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Aggression
Link ID: 14209 - Posted: 06.28.2010

By NICHOLAS WADE The glue that binds a human society together is trust. But people who trust others too much are likely to get taken for a ride. Both trust and distrust, it now seems, are influenced by hormones that can induce people to ratchet their feeling of trust up or down. The trust side of the equation is mediated by a brain hormone known as oxytocin. A soft touch or caress will send a pulse of oxytocin into a person’s bloodstream. Swiss researchers found in 2005 that a squirt of oxytocin would make players in an investment game more willing to hand over their money to strangers. It may seem strange that there is a hormonal influence in such a delicate calculation as to whether or not to trust someone. But perhaps trust is so important to a society’s survival that natural selection has generated a hormonal basis for it. In any event, trust has a downside — one may hand over too much money to a Mr. Madoff who promises to generate steady returns in both up and down markets. There needs to be an antidote to oxytocin that makes a person keep those warm, fuzzy feelings suppressed in the appropriate circumstances. Researchers at Utrecht University in Holland now report that they have identified this antidote: it is testosterone. They gave young women a dose of the hormone in the form of a drop of liquid placed under the tongue, then asked them to judge the trustworthiness of a series of men’s faces shown in photographs. The women were significantly less inclined to trust a face when given testosterone than when they had taken a placebo, the Dutch team reported last month in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 14161 - Posted: 06.24.2010

WASHINGTON - A hormone thought to encourage bonding between mothers and their babies may foster social behavior in some adults with autism, French researchers said on Monday. They found patients who inhaled the hormone oxytocin paid more attention to expressions when looking at pictures of faces and were more likely to understand social cues in a game simulation, the researchers said in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Angela Sirigu of the Center of Cognitive Neuroscience in Lyon, who led the study, said the hormone has a therapeutic potential in adults as well as in children with autism. "For instance, if oxytocin is administered early when the diagnosis is made, we can perhaps change very early the impaired social development of autistic patients," Sirigu said in an email. Sirigu said the study focused on oxytocin because it was known to help breast-feeding mothers bond with their infants and because earlier research has shown that some children with autism have low levels of the hormone. People with Asperger's syndrome and other autism spectrum disorders often have problems with social interaction. Sirigu said oxytocin could help autism patients who have normal intellectual functions and fairly good language abilities because it improves eye contact. Copyright 2010 Reuters

Keyword: Autism; Aggression
Link ID: 13776 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Many women say their moods follow a monthly cycle. Now brain researchers have scientific evidence that women's hormonal changes affect the reward circuits -- areas of the brain that produce feelings of pleasure. "No one had ever actually imaged the reward system of the brain during the menstrual cycle," says Karen Berman, who led the research at the National Institute of Mental Health. "This is a very fundamental part of our brain that has great evolutionary significance because it helps us to find out what in the environment is important for us to pay attention to for survival," she explains. "We thought this would be a very important brain network to study because people who have mood disorders, women who have menstrually related mood problems likely aren't activating and processing with this system in a normal fashion." Berman and her team used functional MRI to image women's brains at two key points in their cycle -- before ovulation when the hormone estrogen increases, and after ovulation when the hormone progesterone dominates. The volunteers played a slot-machine game to win money, activating the brain's reward systems. © ScienCentral, 2000-2007.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 10075 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Fluctuations in sex hormone levels during women’s menstrual cycles affect the responsiveness of their brains’ reward circuitry, an imaging study at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has revealed. While women were winning rewards, their circuitry was more active if they were in a menstrual phase preceding ovulation and dominated by estrogen, compared to a phase when estrogen and progesterone are present. “These first pictures of sex hormones influencing reward-evoked brain activity in humans may provide insights into menstrual-related mood disorders, women’s higher rates of mood and anxiety disorders, and their later onset and less severe course in schizophrenia,” said Karen Berman, M.D., chief of the NIMH Section on Integrative Neuroimaging. “The study may also shed light on why women are more vulnerable to addictive drugs during the pre-ovulation phase of the cycle.” Berman, Drs. Jean-Claude Dreher, Peter Schmidt and colleagues in the NIMH Intramural Research Program report on their functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study online during the week of January 29, 2007 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Reward system circuitry includes: the prefrontal cortex, seat of thinking and planning; the amygdala, a fear center; the hippocampus, a learning and memory hub; and the striatum, which relays signals from these areas to the cortex. Reward circuit neurons harbor receptors for estrogen and progesterone. However, how these hormones influence reward circuit activity in humans has remained unclear.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 9917 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. ASTANA, Kazakhstan — Valentina Sivryukova knew her public service messages were hitting the mark when she heard how one Kazakh schoolboy called another stupid. “What are you,” he sneered, “iodine-deficient or something?” Ms. Sivryukova, president of the national confederation of Kazakh charities, was delighted. It meant that the years spent trying to raise public awareness that iodized salt prevents brain damage in infants were working. If the campaign bore fruit, Kazakhstan’s national I.Q. would be safeguarded. In fact, Kazakhstan has become an example of how even a vast and still-developing nation like this Central Asian country can achieve a remarkable public health success. In 1999, only 29 percent of its households were using iodized salt. Now, 94 percent are. Next year, the United Nations is expected to certify it officially free of iodine deficiency disorders. That turnabout was not easy. The Kazakh campaign had to overcome widespread suspicion of iodization, common in many places, even though putting iodine in salt, public health experts say, may be the simplest and most cost-effective health measure in the world. Each ton of salt needs about two ounces of potassium iodate, which costs about $1.15. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 9757 - Posted: 06.24.2010