(Press-News.org) Being in good physical shape at 18 years of age can be linked with a reduced risk of attempted suicide later in life. So says a study of over one million Swedish men conducted by researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
A new, extensive report from the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare on child and adolescent health shows that teenagers and young adults in Sweden have worse mental health than their age cohorts in other western countries.
Another report that is part of a new social welfare study shows that the number of serious suicide attempts among 19-23 year olds with activity compensation has increased from 115 per year to 460 per year in Sweden between 1995-2010.
At the same time, the number of suicides in the 10 to 45 age group increased. Even the percentage of young people with no activity compensation who attempted to take their life increased.
In order to break this trend, research has now focused on the factors that can prevent mental illness and the risk of suicidal behavior.
Researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, have been able to use a study of 1,136,527 Swedish men to show that there is a link between exercising as a young person and a reduced risk of suicidal behavior later in life.
"Being in poor physical shape at 18 years of age, measured as the test results on an exercise bike during their medical exam for compulsory military service, can be linked to a risk of suicidal behavior as an adult that is 1.8 times greater," says Margda Waern, researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg.
The study shows that the increased risk was evident even 42 years after the exam for military service.
It has previously been shown that physical exercise has a highly positive effect on brain function, e.g. more nerve cells are developed with physical exercise.
"The teenage years are a critical period in terms of brain development since this is when social and emotional faculties are established. Therefore, it was important to do a larger study on the importance of physical fitness in terms of suicidal behavior in this age group," says Maria Åberg, researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy who led the study together with Professor Margda Waern.
In the study, which covers all Swedish men born between 1950 and 1987 who completed the previously mandatory exam, researchers compared the results from physical tests during the exam with the national registers of disease and death.
By carefully examining the roughly 340,000 brothers who took part in the study, researchers were able to study how hereditary factors and the home environment affect this relationship.
In a much discussed study published in 2012, the researcher group showed that good physical fitness as a teenager can also be linked to decreased risk of severe depression later in life.
"But even when we exclude individuals who suffer from severe depression in connection with suicide or attempted suicide, the link between poor physical shape and an increased risk of suicidal behavior remains," says Margda Waern.
While depression is a particularly strong predictor of suicidal behavior in later life, the picture among younger people is complex and many factors are involved.
"One theory is that the brain becomes more resistant to different types of stress if you are physically active," says Maria Åberg.
Researchers think that physical exercise should be considered in suicide prevention projects aimed at young people.
The new findings are supported by earlier cross-sectional studies where teenagers are interviewed about their physical fitness connected with the risk for suicidal thoughts.
The article Cardiovascular fitness in early adulthood and future suicidal behavior in men followed up to 42 years was published in Psychological Medicine.
Contact:
Maria Åberg
researcher at Sahlgrenska Academy
University of Gothenburg and physician at Åby district health center in Mölndal
+4610-47 33 960
+46709-668274
mab@neuro.gu.se,
Margda Waern
psychiatrist and professor at the Sahlgrenska Academy
University of Gothenburg
+4631-342 21 64
+46702-272205
margda.Waern@neuro.gu.se
Teenage physical fitness reduces the risk of suicidal behavior later in life
2013-06-26
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Sailors most often injure their knees -- on land
2013-06-26
The knees are the body part that is injured the most by dinghy sailors. The injuries are primarily due to overstrain and most often occur during physical training. This was shown in a study at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
"Studies have been made on the risk of injury for many sports, but not for dinghy sailing. With more knowledge, we can create recommendations that will prevent sailors from getting injured," says Lena Bøymo-Having, who conducted the study at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg.
During the study, researchers followed ...
Having a job helps women with HIV manage their illness, according to new research
2013-06-26
Having a job helps women with HIV manage their illnesses, according to researchers from Case Western Reserve University and the University of California at San Francisco.
The routine of a work schedule, plus the job-related money and benefits, provides extra emotional support for these women, said Allison Webel, assistant professor of nursing at Case Western Reserve University's Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing and the study's lead author.
Findings in the National Institutes of Health-supported study were published this month in Social Science & Medicine.
The ...
Songbirds turn on and tune up
2013-06-26
Bullfinches learn from human teachers to sing melodies accurately, according to a new study by the late Nicolai Jürgen and researchers from the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany. Their analysis of human melody singing in bullfinches gives insights into the songbirds' brain processes. The work is published online in Springer's journal Animal Cognition.
Music performance is considered to be one of the most complex and demanding cognitive challenges that the human mind can undertake. Melody singing requires precise timing of several organized actions as well as accurate ...
New research: Wolf Lake ancient forest is endangered ecosystem
2013-06-26
New research from the University of Guelph, published Tuesday in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation, says that allowing industrial extraction in a northern Ontario old-growth red pine forest – the largest remaining in the world – would significantly threaten biodiversity in Canada.
The study says that Wolf Lake Forest Reserve is a "scientifically irreplaceable system."
"Wolf Lake Forest deserves intensive study, monitoring and full protection from future development," said Guelph environmental sciences professor Madhur Anand, the study's lead author.
Old-growth ...
Socioeconomic status plays major role in opioid pain control
2013-06-26
Patients in moderate to severe pain in emergency rooms across the U.S. are less likely to receive opioid pain medications if they are black, Hispanic, poor, or have less education, compared to more affluent patients, according to a University of Rochester Medical Center study reported in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
The study took place against the backdrop of a national epidemic of narcotics abuse, combined with a need to satisfy patients' legitimate complaints of pain.
Racial and ethnic disparities are already well-documented in the scientific literature, ...
Drug-induced liver injury is on the rise
2013-06-26
Bethesda, MD (June 26, 2013) — More people are being affected by drug-induced liver injury (DILI) than ever before, according to a new study in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. This type of liver injury results from the use of certain prescription and over-the-counter medications, as well as dietary supplements, and is among the more challenging forms of liver disease due to its difficulty to predict, diagnose and manage.
Investigators conducted a population-based study in Iceland uncovering 19.1 cases of drug-induced ...
Crabgrass' secret: The despised weed makes herbicide to kill neighboring plants
2013-06-26
Contrary to popular belief, crabgrass does not thrive in lawns, gardens and farm fields by simply crowding out other plants. A new study in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry has found that the much-despised weed actually produces its own herbicides that kill nearby plants.
Chui-Hua Kong and colleagues point out that crabgrass is not only a headache for lawns and home gardens, but also a major cause of crop loss on farms. Scientists long suspected, but had a hard time proving, that the weed thrived by allelopathy. From the Greek "allelo-," meaning "other," ...
ISFR-IOF experts propose standardized measurements of clinical outcomes in wrist fractures
2013-06-26
Distal radius fractures (often simply termed wrist or Colles' fractures) are the second most common fractures in the elderly. Beyond the immediate impact on the patient, wrist fractures in older adults often indicate underlying osteoporosis and high risk of subsequent fragility fractures.
Despite their clinical significance, evidence-based practice and clinical research on wrist fractures are hampered by the lack of standardized methods of outcome measurement. A new publication* by the Distal Radius Working Group of the International Society for Fracture Repair (ISFR) ...
Toward broad-spectrum antiviral drugs for common cold and other infections
2013-06-26
Scientists are reporting progress in the search for the first broad-spectrum drugs to combat human rhinoviruses (HRVs), which cause humanity's most common infectious diseases. Their study on these potential drugs for infections that include the common cold appears in the journal ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters.
Angus MacLeod and colleagues note that although many HRV infections cause mild disease, they can lead to dangerous complications for millions of people with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Previous potential drugs for HRV either didn't work or ...
21 percent of homes account for 50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions
2013-06-26
Energy conservation in a small number of households could go a long way to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, scientists are reporting. Their study, which measured differences in energy demands at the household level, appears in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Dominik Saner and colleagues point out that the energy people use to power their homes and to satisfy their mobility needs accounts for more than 70 percent of emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas involved in global climate change. To cope with that problem, policymakers and environmentalists ...