As the holidays approach, we may be more aware of the stresses surounding our working lives. Perhaps you always have a stressful job, or perhaps projects become more stressful when attempting to complete projects before the new year deadline. Whatever the reason, our jobs can be stressful and it is important to know how this stress can impact our cardiovascular health. In fact, women who report having high job strain have a 40 percent increased risk of cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and the need for procedures to open blocked arteries, compared to those with low job strain.

In addition, job insecurity -- fear of losing one's job -- was associated with risk factors for cardiovascular disease such as high blood pressure, increased cholesterol and excess body weight. However, it's not directly associated with heart attacks, stroke, invasive heart procedures or cardiovascular death, researchers said.  Job strain, a form of psychological stress, is defined as having a demanding job, but little to no decision-making authority or opportunities to use one's creative or individual skills.

"Our study indicates that there are both immediate and long-term clinically documented cardiovascular health effects of job strain in women," said Michelle A. Albert, M.D., M.P.H., the study's senior author and associate physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Mass. "Your job can positively and negatively affect health, making it important to pay attention to the stresses of your job as part of your total health package."

Researchers analyzed job strain in 17,415 healthy women who participated in the landmark Women's Health Study. The women were primarily health professionals, average age 57 who provided information about heart disease risk factors, job strain and job insecurity. They were followed for more than 10 years to track the development of cardiovascular disease. Researchers used a standard questionnaire to evaluate job strain and job insecurity with statements such as: "My job requires working very fast." "My job requires working very hard." "I am free from competing demands that others make."

The 40 percent higher risks for women who reported high job strain included heart attacks, ischemic strokes, coronary artery bypass surgery or balloon angioplasty and death. The increased risk of heart attack was about 88 percent, while the risk of bypass surgery or invasive procedure was about 43 percent.

"Women in jobs characterized by high demands and low control, as well as jobs with high demands but a high sense of control are at higher risk for heart disease long term," said Natalie Slopen, Sc.D., lead researcher and a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University Center on the Developing Child in Boston.

Previous research on the effects of job strain has focused on men and had a more restricted set of cardiovascular conditions. "From a public health perspective, it's crucial for employers, potential patients, as well as government and hospitals entities to monitor perceived employee job strain and initiate programs to alleviate job strain and perhaps positively impact prevention of heart disease," Albert said.

Source:   American Heart Association (2010, November 15). ScienceDaily.

Autoimmune diseases are those where the body, for whatever reason, starts fighting its own cells with an immune response in the same way it would if the cells were a foreign invader (bacteria, virus etc). Women are more likely to get a whole host of autoimmune diseases than men are (see table to the left), including multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus. Apparently, out of all the people suffering from auto-immune diseases in the US, 80% are female. That’s a phenomenal bias for a condition that, on the surface at least, has no clear tie to gender. According to the research (great review here), our increased risk of getting these diseases is simply our great immune systems working against us. Apparently, our immune systems are so great that we’re less prone to infection and have a much greater antibody response to those little invaders that do get in. Unfortunately, our systems are so strong that they also tend to go into overdrive, leading to this attack of our own bodies.

The culprits (or overachieving heroes, depending on how you look at it), are likely exactly what you’d expect: hormones or chromosomal influences. The hormone research actually shows that during pregnancy, women's immune systems switch to a far less aggressive regimen, likely to avoid attacking the fetus as an invader. This decreased immunity is the reason for the increased risk of pregnant women getting the flu, but it’s also the reason that many pregnant women notice a decrease in their symptoms of autoimmune disorders. It’s amazing to think that both the bad and the good stem from the same source: an incredibly strong immune system.

Eileen Pollack, author of "The Only Women in the Room: Why Science is Still a Boys' Club" wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times about her observations on women in the tech field--that we just had to share. Women only make up roughly 10-17% of all tech jobs in today's companies. While these companies are becoming more aware of their gender diversity problem, more research needs to be done to understand why women and minority students aren't opting to study computer science or engineering--and why they're not electing to continue in these fields. Indeed, female college students are four times less likely than their male peers to major in computer science or engineering, despite equal test scores in math!

Dr. Sapna Cheryan, a researcher at the University of Washington, has been studying this field for over six years and has interestingly discovered subtle ways that women feel excluded from tech-related majors. "Over and over, Dr. Cheryan and her colleagues have found that female students are more interested in enrolling in a computer class if they are shown a classroom decorated not with 'Star Wars' poster, science-fiction books, computer parts and tech magazines, but with a more neutral decor" that doesn't alienate members of the opposite sex. Beyond this, the cultural stereotypes surrounding computer scientists influence a woman's desire to take those sorts of classes. The media and popular culture often portray computer scientists as "socially isolated young men whose genius is the result of genetics rather than hard work." So, where do women fit into this? If the media doesn't show successful women in these types of positions, it's no wonder many women report feeling unwelcome in these fields. In fact, studies suggest that the public's image of a scientist hasn't changed since the 1950's! Yikes!

The face of tech needs to evolve and women need to feel accepted for being smart and hardworking in these fields. Computer scientists and engineers are "going to be designing the future everyone inhabits," so we need women and minorities to know they have a place in this future where they can be accepted.

No methods currently exist for the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease, which affects one out of nine people over the age of 65. However, an interdisciplinary team of Northwestern University scientists and engineers has developed a noninvasive MRI approach that can detect the disease in a living animal. And it can do so at the earliest stages of the disease, well before typical Alzheimer’s symptoms appear.

Led by neuroscientist William L. Klein and materials scientist Vinayak P. Dravid, the research team developed an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) probe that pairs a magnetic nanostructure (MNS) with an antibody that seeks out the amyloid beta brain toxins responsible for onset of the disease. The accumulated toxins, because of the associated magnetic nanostructures, show up as dark areas in MRI scans of the brain.

This ability to detect the molecular toxins may one day enable scientists to both spot trouble early and better design drugs or therapies to combat and monitor the disease. And, while not the focus of the study, early evidence suggests the MRI probe improves memory, too, by binding to the toxins to render them “handcuffed” to do further damage.

“Using MRI, we can see the toxins attached to neurons in the brain,” Klein said. “We expect to use this tool to detect this disease early and to help identify drugs that can effectively eliminate the toxin and improve health.”

With the successful demonstration of the MRI probe, Northwestern researchers now have established the molecular basis for the cause, detection by non-invasive MR imaging and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Dravid introduced this magnetic nanostructure MRI contrast enhancement approach for Alzheimer’s following his earlier work utilizing MNS as smart nanotechnology carriers for targeted cancer diagnostics and therapy. (A MNS is typically 10 to 15 nanometers in diameter; one nanometer is one billionth of a meter.)

Details of the new Alzheimer’s disease diagnostic were published by the journal Nature Nanotechnology. Klein and Dravid are co-corresponding authors.

The emotional and economic impacts of Alzheimer’s disease are devastating. This year, the direct cost of the disease in the United States is more than $200 billion, according to the Alzheimer’s Association’s “2014 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures.” By the year 2050, that cost is expected to be $1.1 trillion as baby boomers age. And these figures do not account for the lost time of caregivers.

This new MRI probe technology is detecting something different from conventional technology: toxic amyloid beta oligomers instead of plaques, which occur at a stage of Alzheimer’s when therapeutic intervention would be very late. Amyloid beta oligomers now are widely believed to be the culprit in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and subsequent memory loss.

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