Paxil Might Handicap Your Little Sperms

Great – as if taking an SSRI didn’t come with enough side-effects (erectile dysfunction, problems with ejaculation, your girlfriend no longer calling you Zeus), now comes word that up to half of men taking the compound paroxetine may suffer from increased DNA fragmentation, a predictor of compromised fertility.

First, let’s look at the bright side – since you’re medicated, you probably won’t be as anxious about this as you might have been, so that’s a plus.

From the study:

Lead author Dr Cigdem (Cori) Tanrikut explains that while the exact mechanism isn’t understood, the evidence points to the drug slowing sperm as it travels through the male reproductive tract from the testis to the ejaculatory ducts. Sperm gets “hung up,” she says, allowing it to get old and its DNA damaged.

Ack! My boys hit roadblocks and get punished on the way to the dance, so when they arrive, they’ve already got rumpled suits and tousled hair! They’ll never make it with the cute cheerleader now!

Since about half of all reproductive troubles are on the male side, this will be of particular interest to men who are looking to start (or increase) a family at the same time they are taking certain SSRI meds. Since the half-life of SSRIs isn’t very long, the study was able to show that guys returned to normal within a month of ceasing the medication.

It’s good information to have if you happen to be in that category of male patients being treated with SSRIs who are also trying to make a baby – certainly something to discuss with your doctor.

Paroxetine (Paxil®) may affect sperm quality , via Anxiety Insights

Napping and Anxiety

There’s an old saying that “if you snooze, you lose.” When it comes to anxiety and depression, that might not necessarily be true.

A study conducted on children between the ages of 4-5 (what, 4 1/4, 4 7/8 – that’s how kids count it) found that kids who stopped daytime napping between these ages had parent-reported higher incidence of anxiety, depression, and hyperactivity than kids who continued to take happy naps.

Reported during SLEEP 2009, an annual meeting of sleep professionals (sure wish I qualified for that), the results shed some new light on the benefits of daytime napping. The connection between poor sleep patterns and anxiety or depression are well-documented, but many believed that children could make up for the lack of daytime napping via nighttime sleep.

The quoted study demonstrated the potential for napping to be significantly more beneficial to children’s daytime functioning compared to nighttime sleep only. Any parent can provide anecdotal evidence that kids who nap tend to be less moody and more easily entertained than children who don’t nap.

Not mentioned in the article was any connection or bias on the part of parents whose children stay awake all day. If the study relied on parental reporting of the child’s anxiety or depression, I could easily see a situation where a parents’ own emotional state could impact on the reporting, as parents of kids who don’t nap can be every bit as frazzled as the children.

The article further points out that there’s still no data to suggest an optimal age to stop napping. I’d like to recommend that we never stop napping. In fact, if I had a cot in my office, and support from management, I’d nap every day. But that’s just me.

Napping, hyperactivity, anxiety and depression linked in preschoolers, via Anxiety Insights

Nature-nurture debate continues

It’s long been held that for folks suffering from emotional and behavioral conditions such as panic, anxiety, OCD, and so on, the genesis of their disorder could be traced to heredity, or via shaping by their environment, or both. Certain people were deemed to be more genetically vulnerable than others.

Anxiety Insights reports that new studies in the area of gene-by-environment interaction (GXE) surrounding the so-called “genetic vulnerability to adversity” is causing scientists to take another look.

The new thinking is that those with the “vulnerability” gene are not only more likely to be adversely impacted by negative experiences, but also more prone to benefit from positive environments, and they are noted as being more “malleable or plastic”, not just vulnerable.

Long story short – it’s not just vulnerability, it’s that these kinds of folks are more affected by all environmental conditions, both negative and positive.

“Our analysis of many published findings suggests that one potential solution to the nature-nurture controversy is to appreciate the role played by environmental experience and the role played by heredity in shaping who we are may actually differ across people,” said Prof Belsky.

Is it just me, or does it seem like this concept isn’t really breaking any new ground?

If there is a breakthrough here, it would be using this information to expand genetic research and gnome mapping to be able to someday identify the specific hereditary factors at work, which would allow a more tailored therapy approach based on the unique DNA of each individual.

From the article: “This could mirror the trend we are now seeing towards personalized medicine, where an understanding of the genetic make-up of an individual determines the type of drugs used to treat the patient based on their DNA,” said Prof Belsky.

Reframing the Nature-Nurture Debate , via Anxiety Insights

The Science of Fear

There’s something about knowledge that’s comforting to me. Perhaps it’s because I’m so data driven. The more information I have, the more prepared I feel to deal with things.

Anyway, always open to learning more about topics of interest, I’ve stumbled across a pretty well-rounded book that I’d like to share with you. Entitled “The Science of Fear“, it delves into how the brain processes risk and fear. Being in the threat & risk business, plus dealing with fear and anxiety as a hobby, this offering seemed perfect.

Not only does the author, Daniel Gardner, spend time on a number of psychological studies that allows even a novice to gain a foothold of knowledge into how the brain deals with fear, probability, likelihood, and many other components, but he also discusses how various groups make use of this information in areas such as sales, marketing, politics – essentially every entity that wants to influence or manipulate.

Fear has a role in almost every aspect of our lives, whether we choose to admit or not. Having a baseline understanding of the humanistic aspects and how they relate can be enormously beneficial. If this sounds like something up your alley, you can pick it up at Amazon.