NEW YORK, Nov. 30 (UPI) — Cadets whose stress hormone cortisol increased the most at waking were more likely to show stress symptoms later as police officers, U.S. researchers say.

Dr. Charles Marmar of the new York University’s Langone Medical Center, in collaboration with the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco, assessed 296 police recruits during academy training for salivary cortisol at first awakening and after 30 minutes.

The difference between the two levels is known as cortisol awakening response. the study found the greater cortisol awakening response during academy training predicted greater peritraumatic dissociation and acute stress disorder symptoms over the first three years of police service.

Police academy recruits who showed the greatest rise in cortisol after waking up were more likely to show post-traumatic stress disorder in response to trauma years later as police officers, Marmar said.

“This study is significant as a potential indicator in determining when people may exhibit stress symptoms in the future,” Marmar said in a statement.

“Few studies have prospectively examined the relationships among pre-exposure hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal activity, acute stress reactions and PTSD. the findings may lead us to new insights on how to identify those who are at a higher risk of PTSD.”

The study is to be published in Biological Psychiatry.

By Diane Mapes

Back in the day, our grandparents turned to their family doctor with questions about their health. these days, we turn to someone much closer — our computers.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, eight in ten Internet users look online for health information. But can Googling our symptoms actually provide not just us — but medical researchers — with crucial information about disease and its causes?

Dr. Benjamin Breyer, an assistant professor of urology at the University of California San Francisco, says yes.

“Search engines can help us see the patterns,” says Breyer, lead author of a new study in the journal Urology entitled “Use of Google Insights for Search to Track Seasonal and Geographic Kidney Stone Incidence in the United States.”  “There are all types of phenomena in the environment and compared to search data, we can see if any of these things influence disease.”

In the study, Breyer took kidney stone patient data from hospitals around the country and compared it with people’s Google searches for kidney stone-related terms.

“We looked at the data and lo and behold, the searches mirrored the known regional and temporal data,” he says.

In other words, peoples’ searches for information on kidney stones — which affect 13 percent of men and 7 percent of women in the U.S. — mirrored previous findings that show kidney stones to be more prevalent in the summer and in the so-called “stone belt”:  the Southeast.

“It’s partly related to dehydration,” says Breyer regarding the summer-stone connection. “People are more active in the summer, plus it’s hotter and they’re sweating more. That precipitates the minerals that compose kidney stones.”

As for the “kidney stone belt,” Breyer says this could be temperature-related and/or be linked to the higher levels of obesity found in the region.

“It’s one of those diseases that’s multifactorial,” he says.

But kidney stones aren’t the only disease affected by the seasons, he says.

“Other diseases have temporal incidence,” says Breyer. “Having a heart attack is more common in the winter, probably due to the effects of the cold on vasculature.”

Breyer hopes that in the future, search data will allow researchers to explore new ideas about possible links between illnesses and changes in our surroundings.

“We can potentially collect data that’s input from millions and millions of people in real time all over the country and the world and use that to study disease,” he says.

 as for those concerned about a kidney stone attack in this summer of sizzling hot temperatures (and considering how painful these puppies can be, who wouldn’t be?), Breyer recommends drinking lots of water and avoiding salt — not just from the shaker but from processed foods and high-sodium restaurant meals.

“Staying hydrated and avoiding salt is the main adage for kidney stone prevention,” he says. “People who eat a lot of salt are more prone to forming stones — and to repeat stones.”

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Haitian cholera underestimated the United Nations might be underestimating the human toll posed by Haiti’s ongoing cholera epidemic, according to researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Francisco. Using a mathematical model, the team calculates that nearly 800,000 more cases of cholera could occur before the epidemic ends, killing an additional 11,000 people. Current U.N. estimates predict 400,000 cases and 4,000 deaths occurring between December 2010 and December 2011. Vaccinating 10 percent of the population could avert 63,000 cases, the researchers predict in a study posted online March 16 in the Lancet. —Nathan Seppa

Omega-3s vs. vision loss Consuming omega-3 fatty acids found in fish might lessen the risk of vision loss caused by age-related macular degeneration, Harvard University researchers report online March 14 in the Archives of Ophthalmology. Starting in 1993, more than 38,000 women filled out questionnaires regarding their health status and lifestyle. After 10 years, 235 had developed age-related macular degeneration. Those eating fish at least once a week were 13 to 62 percent less likely to develop the disorder than those who ate fish less than once a month, the researchers calculate. Researchers took into account confounding factors such as smoking, blood pressure and diabetes. —Nathan Seppa

Heavy smoking declines Since the first Surgeon General report warning against smoking came out in 1964, the percentage of smokers in the United States has fallen, as has the number of actual cigarettes lit up by those smokers per day, an international team of researchers reports in the March 16 Journal of the American Medical Association. Roughly 23 percent of U.S. adults smoked a pack a day or more in 1965, a rate that fell to 2.6 percent in California by 2007 and to 7.2 percent in the rest of the country. California has led the nation in antismoking programs. only 4.6 percent of Californians born during the 1970s who had reached age 35 were moderate-to-high-intensity smokers, compared with 13.5 percent nationwide. —Nathan Seppa

New test for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease Doctors may soon be able to diagnose a human brain-wasting condition similar to mad cow disease without taking a sample of brain tissue. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is caused by an infectious protein called a prion. the disease produces symptoms similar to other forms of dementia, so definitive diagnosis usually requires a brain biopsy or an autopsy after death. Now, researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland have developed a test that measures levels of an iron-carrying protein in the spinal fluid. low levels of transferrin protein in the spinal fluid can diagnose the disease with 80 percent accuracy, the researchers report online March 9 in PLoS one. —Tina Hesman Saey

Apple bodies no worse than pears A new study of more than 220,000 people in 17 countries finds no exaggerated heart risk for apple-shaped people — those who wear their excess fat around the belly. A major international research consortium confirmed what other studies have found: Excess weight increases an individual’s risk of heart attack and stroke. but contrary to a host of research, having that fat aggregated around the waist was no worse than having it amass at the hips or elsewhere, the authors report online March 11 in the Lancet. the findings linked heart risk primarily to factors associated with excess weight: blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol. —Janet Raloff

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