Toronto Archive

Toronto, Nov 3 – Angry words and gestures are not the only way to get a sense of how temperamental a person is. A quick glance at someone’s facial structure may be enough for us to predict their tendency towards aggression, according to the latest research.

Facial width-to-height ratio (WHR) is determined by measuring the distance between the right and left cheeks and the distance from the upper lip to the mid-brow. During childhood, boys and girls have similar facial structures, but during puberty, males develop a greater WHR than females, the website Science Daily reported.

Previous research has suggested that males with a larger WHR act more aggressively than those with a smaller WHR. For example, studies have shown that hockey players with greater WHR earn more penalty minutes per game than players with lower WHR.

Psychologists Justin M. Carre, Cheryl M. McCormick and Catherine J. Mondloch of Brock University in Canada conducted an experiment to see if it is possible to predict another person’s propensity for aggressive behaviour simply by looking at their photograph. Volunteers viewed photographs of faces of men for whom aggressive behaviour was previously assessed in the lab. The volunteers rated how aggressive they thought each person was on a scale of one to seven after viewing each face for either 2000 milliseconds or 39 milliseconds.

The photographs were very revealing: Volunteers’ estimates of aggression correlated highly with the actual aggressive behaviour of the faces viewed, even if they saw the picture for only 39 milliseconds. Even more interestingly, the volunteers’ estimates were also highly correlated with WHR of the faces — the greater the WHR, the higher the aggressive rating, suggesting that we may use this aspect of facial structure to judge potential aggression in others.

These findings indicate that subtle differences in face shape may affect personality judgments, which may, in turn, guide how we respond to certain individuals.

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science.

Toronto, Nov 3 – Even one cigarette has serious adverse effects on young adults, according to new research.

The study found that smoking one cigarette increases the stiffness of the arteries in 18 to 30 year olds by a whopping 25 percent.

Arteries that are stiff or rigid increase resistance in the blood vessels, making the heart work harder. The stiffer the artery, the greater the risk for heart disease or stroke.

‘Young adults aged 20-24 years have the highest smoking rate of all age groups in Canada,’ says Stella Daskalopoulou, an internal medicine and vascular medicine specialist at the McGill University Health Centre.

‘Our results are significant because they suggest that smoking just a few cigarettes a day impacts the health of the arteries. This was revealed very clearly when these young people were placed under physical stress, such as exercise.’

The study compared the arterial stiffness of young smokers (five to six cigarettes a day) to non-smokers. The median age was 21 years. Arterial measurements were taken in the radial artery (in the wrist), the carotid artery (neck) and in the femoral artery (groin), at rest and after exercise, the website Science Daily reported.

Arterial stiffness in both smokers and non-smokers was measured using a new but well established method called applanation tonometry.

Daskalopoulou introduced the ‘arterial stress test’ which measures the arteries’ response to the stress of exercise. The test is comparable to a cardiac stress test, which measures the heart’s response to the stress of exercise.

‘In effect we were measuring the elasticity of arteries under challenge from tobacco,’ Daskalopoulou explained.

An initial arterial stress test was carried out to establish a baseline measurement for both the non-smokers and the smokers, who were asked not to smoke for 12 hours prior to the test. After the first meeting, smokers returned and smoked one cigarette each and then repeated the stress test. During the final meeting, smokers were asked to chew a piece of nicotine gum prior to the stress test.

Daskalopoulou found that after exercise the arterial stiffness levels in non-smokers dropped by 3.6 percent. Smokers, however, showed the reverse: after exercise their arterial stiffness increased by 2.2 per cent. After nicotine gum, it increased by 12.6 percent. After one cigarette, it increased by 24.5 per cent.

These findings were presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress 2009, co-hosted by the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society.

Toronto, Oct 26 – Three months of physical activity can improve elasticity in the arteries of older adults with Type 2 diabetes, cutting down the risk of heart disease and stroke, say researchers.

Kenneth Madden, geriatric specialist at the University of British Columbia (UBC), studied adults between 65 and 83 years with controlled Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high blood cholesterol to see how increased activity might ease their stiff arteries.

‘The theory is that aerobic activity makes your arteries less stiff and makes artery walls more elastic,’ says Madden.

An improvement was seen in the elasticity of the arteries of the group that performed the activity compared to those who didn’t exercise. ‘There was an impressive drop in arterial stiffness after just three months of exercise. In that time we saw a 15 to 20 percent reduction.’

The subjects were divided into two groups to either receive three months of vigorous physical activity (one hour, three times per week) or to get no aerobic exercise at all.

Subjects were classified as sedentary at the beginning of the study but gradually increased their fitness levels until they were working at 70 percent of their maximum heart rate, using treadmills and cycling machines. They were supervised by a certified exercise trainer.

Beth Abramson, spokesperson for the Heart and Stroke Foundation, stresses the importance of lifestyle factors on heart health, especially with the ageing population.

‘Almost everyone can benefit from active living,’ she says. ‘The foundation recommends that, like adults of any age, older adults — with the consent of their physicians — need 30 to 60 minutes of moderate activity most days of the week.’

Abramson advises elders to choose activities they enjoy, such as walking, gardening, golfing, dancing, or joining a yoga or tai chi class. If weather is a barrier, she suggests climbing stairs at home, joining a mall-walking group, or strolling the halls of their apartment building or retirement residence.

These findings were presented at the 2009 Canadian Cardiovascular Congress.

Toronto, Oct 24 – Below normal levels of a natural fat hormone may heighten death risk from sepsis — an overwhelming infection of the blood which claims thousands of lives every year — says an Indian-origin Canadian scientist.

The study by St. Michael’s Hospital researchers and the University of Toronto (U-T) focussed on adiponectin, a hormone secreted by visceral fat surrounding the abdominal organs.

‘We hypothesised that low adiponectin levels might predispose such individuals to develop sepsis and sepsis-related problems,’ says Subodh Verma, associate professor of surgery at the University of Toronto.

‘This initial hypothesis was borne out by our latest research.’

Using an animal model designed to mimic what occurs in people with low levels of adiponectin, scientists observed that mice with low levels of the hormone were at much greater risk of dying from a blood infection. Sepsis could be prevented if the animals were given additional adiponectin.

The risk of dying from sepsis after surgery is known to be two-and-a-half to three times higher in people with ‘metabolic syndrome’ — a combination of factors including abdominal obesity, high blood fat composition, high blood pressure, diabetes and high inflammatory and blood clot indicators.

People with these conditions tend to have lower levels of adiponectin which may prime them to greater sepsis related complications, says an U-T release.

The findings were presented this week at the 2009 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons held in Chicago.

Toronto, Oct 23 – Women are better than men at differentiating between emotions, especially fear and disgust, according to a new study.

Olivier Collignon and a team from the University of Montreal demonstrated that women are better than men at processing auditory, visual and audiovisual emotions.

While women have long been thought to outperform men in neuro-psychological tests, until now these findings were inconsistent.

To obtain more conclusive evidence, Montreal University researchers did not use photographs to analyse the reaction of subjects. Instead, they hired actors and actresses to simulate fear and disgust.

‘Facial movements have been shown to play an important role in the perception of an emotion’s intensity as well as stimulate different parts of the brain used in the treatment of such information,’ says Collignon.

As part of their study, the research team exposed subjects to the facial expressions of live actors combined with recordings of human emotions, says a Montreal release.

Participants were asked to quickly categorise emotions they identified as fear or disgust. Emotions were based on auditory stimuli, visual stimuli, followed by compatible audio-visual stimuli and contradictory audio-visual stimuli (i.e. a face that expressed fear with a voice that expressed disgust).

The study found that women were superior in completing assessments and responded quicker when emotions were portrayed by a female rather than a male actor. Compared to men, women were faster at processing facial and multi-sensory expressions.

These findings were published online in Neuropsychologia.