A Michigan study found that cash rewards can be great incentives for improved employee health habits. However, researchers add that the recipe for success includes one important ingredient: competition from workers' peers.
According to the University of Michigan Health System, the list of employers offering cash incentives for workers to stay healthy is expanding. HealthCare.gov says that the Affordable Care Act allows companies to continue supporting wellness programs. However, employers will be able to offer bigger financial incentives to promote healthier lifestyle choices by workers. Losing weight and tossing tobacco are just two examples.
Researchers from the Ann Arbor VA Healthcare System and the University of Michigan Health System teamed to conduct the study with funding from the National Institute of Aging and support from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars program. Their findings appeared in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Statistics regarding body weight in the United States paint a grim picture. According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, a whopping 68.8 percent of U.S. adults are obese or at least overweight.
The Michigan researchers considered two kinds of incentives for obese workers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. One set of subjects received an offer of $100 for every month each either met or surpassed a weight-loss objective.
Members of another group were divided into subgroups of five subjects each, with a $500 award to be divided among those who met or exceeded monthly goals. To increase competition, if some didn't succeed, the others were able to collect more than $100 each.
After a monthly weigh-in, a subject checked an automated message with information on that month's earnings. Those who didn't meet the goal heard what they would have earned if they had met it.
The results from the second group showed that group-based incentives yielded three times the weight loss than that achieved with individual rewards. Researchers anticipate that the number of employers willing to offer similar incentives will rise, in the hope of controlling healthcare costs in addition to boosting workers' health.
Employers will have a number of other acceptable ways to reward employees once the provisions of the Affordable Care Act are in effect in 2014. Among them are premium discounts or rebates and lower cost-sharing requirements for those who meet health status objectives after taking part in wellness programs.
I grew up in a family of overweight and obese individuals. I've struggled to control my weight my entire life. Based on my own weight-loss efforts and experience with rewards for success, I'd have to agree that the element of group competition can be a powerful motivator, whether connected to cash or not. It's therefore not a surprise that employees prefer competition with cash rewards for weight loss.
Vonda J. Sines has published thousands of print and online health and medical articles. She specializes in diseases and other conditions that affect the quality of life.
How the worm turnsPublic release date: 2-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jim Fessenden james.fessenden@umassmed.edu 508-856-2000 University of Massachusetts Medical School
Scientists show how a monoamine neurotransmitter acts to coordinate a compound movement through two different receptors in C. elegans
WORCESTER, MA - New research by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School shows at the single cell level how an external stimulus sets off a molecular chain reaction in the transparent roundworm C. elegans, a process in which a single neurotransmitter coordinates and times two separate actions. These findings shed new light on how neurons translate sensory input into actions and may one day pave the way to understanding how misfiring neurons contribute to motor symptoms in neurological diseases such as Parkinson's disease. Details of the study were published online by PLOS Biology.
"We've known the broad outline of how a behavior circuit works-a stimulus starts a neuronal cascade, which ultimately activates a muscle cell-for decades," said Mark Alkema, PhD, assistant professor of neurobiology. "The details about how this process works, however, such as which neurotransmitters act through which receptors in which neurons have remained a mystery for even the simplest of behaviors.
"This research provides an answer to the simple question of how the worm turns around and the broader question of how a behavioral sequence is produced on a sub-cellular level. In time, understanding voluntary movement in humans will require answering the same questions about the timing and location of neurons and neurotransmitters-only in the infinitely more complex variety of circuits in the human nervous system," said Dr. Alkema.
Roundworms move by alternately relaxing and contracting ventral and dorsal muscles along both sides of its body. As the animal moves forward, it uses its head to probe for possible threats. A gentle touch to the head of the worm initiates an escape response resulting in the animal ceasing head movements and quickly moving backwards. This initial reaction is closely followed by a deep ventral turn allowing it to move away in the opposite direction.
Earlier studies have shown that tyramine, a monoamine neurotransmitter akin to noradrenaline in humans, is involved in the C. elegans escape response. Specifically, C. elegans have a pair of tyraminergic motor neurons that are essential for coordinating the initial suppression of head movement and the backing response. These neurons release tyramine, which works through a fast-acting ion channel called LGC-55 to inhibit forward movement and relax the neck muscles. How the animal coordinates this movement with the subsequent deep turn that allows it to complete the change in direction and move away from the threat, however, was unknown. In this study, the authors provide evidence that links this initial phase of the escape response to the later stages in which the worm makes a sharp turn and navigates away from the danger.
When C. elegans are placed on a surface containing a high concentration of tyramine they become immobilized. Alkema and colleagues found that this paralysis could be overcome by mutating the C. elegans gene responsible for encoding the G-protein coupled receptor SER-2. Additionally, they found that the SER-2 receptor was active in a set of 13 neurons residing along the ventral nerve cord. The synapses of these neurons were connected to corresponding ventral muscles cells along one side of the worm's body.
Further experiments revealed that the same monoamine neurotransmitter-tyramine-responsible for the initial phase of the escape response was also responsible for activating the slow-acting G-protein coupled receptor SER-2. Activation of this receptor inhibited release of the neurotransmitter GABA and facilitated contraction of the ventral muscles, allowing the animal to complete its turn and resume movement in the opposite direction.
"This study shows how tyramine works through separate receptors to produce a complex behavior requiring the temporal coordination of independent motor programs," said Alkema. "Acting through the fast-acting ionotropic receptor LGC-55, the animal completes the initial movement by ceasing head movement and backing away. At the same time, the slow-acting SER-2 receptor is also being activated by tyramine to complete the turn and facilitate movement in the opposite direction.
"It is the different receptors that allow for the coordination of these actions by the same neurotransmitter," said Alkema. "This indicates that tyramine, much like adrenergic signaling in mammals, coordinates different aspects of the flight response. It's possible that temporally coordinated activation of ionotropic and metabotropic receptors may be a common signaling motif employed across organisms to orchestrate behavioral responses and is something we will be pursing further."
###
About the University of Massachusetts Medical School
The University of Massachusetts Medical School, one of the fastest growing academic health centers in the country, has built a reputation as a world-class research institution, consistently producing noteworthy advances in clinical and basic research. The Medical School attracts more than $250 million in research funding annually, 80 percent of which comes from federal funding sources. The mission of the Medical School is to advance the health and well-being of the people of the commonwealth and the world through pioneering education, research, public service and health care delivery with its clinical partner, UMass Memorial Health Care. For more information, visit http://www.umassmed.edu.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
How the worm turnsPublic release date: 2-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jim Fessenden james.fessenden@umassmed.edu 508-856-2000 University of Massachusetts Medical School
Scientists show how a monoamine neurotransmitter acts to coordinate a compound movement through two different receptors in C. elegans
WORCESTER, MA - New research by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School shows at the single cell level how an external stimulus sets off a molecular chain reaction in the transparent roundworm C. elegans, a process in which a single neurotransmitter coordinates and times two separate actions. These findings shed new light on how neurons translate sensory input into actions and may one day pave the way to understanding how misfiring neurons contribute to motor symptoms in neurological diseases such as Parkinson's disease. Details of the study were published online by PLOS Biology.
"We've known the broad outline of how a behavior circuit works-a stimulus starts a neuronal cascade, which ultimately activates a muscle cell-for decades," said Mark Alkema, PhD, assistant professor of neurobiology. "The details about how this process works, however, such as which neurotransmitters act through which receptors in which neurons have remained a mystery for even the simplest of behaviors.
"This research provides an answer to the simple question of how the worm turns around and the broader question of how a behavioral sequence is produced on a sub-cellular level. In time, understanding voluntary movement in humans will require answering the same questions about the timing and location of neurons and neurotransmitters-only in the infinitely more complex variety of circuits in the human nervous system," said Dr. Alkema.
Roundworms move by alternately relaxing and contracting ventral and dorsal muscles along both sides of its body. As the animal moves forward, it uses its head to probe for possible threats. A gentle touch to the head of the worm initiates an escape response resulting in the animal ceasing head movements and quickly moving backwards. This initial reaction is closely followed by a deep ventral turn allowing it to move away in the opposite direction.
Earlier studies have shown that tyramine, a monoamine neurotransmitter akin to noradrenaline in humans, is involved in the C. elegans escape response. Specifically, C. elegans have a pair of tyraminergic motor neurons that are essential for coordinating the initial suppression of head movement and the backing response. These neurons release tyramine, which works through a fast-acting ion channel called LGC-55 to inhibit forward movement and relax the neck muscles. How the animal coordinates this movement with the subsequent deep turn that allows it to complete the change in direction and move away from the threat, however, was unknown. In this study, the authors provide evidence that links this initial phase of the escape response to the later stages in which the worm makes a sharp turn and navigates away from the danger.
When C. elegans are placed on a surface containing a high concentration of tyramine they become immobilized. Alkema and colleagues found that this paralysis could be overcome by mutating the C. elegans gene responsible for encoding the G-protein coupled receptor SER-2. Additionally, they found that the SER-2 receptor was active in a set of 13 neurons residing along the ventral nerve cord. The synapses of these neurons were connected to corresponding ventral muscles cells along one side of the worm's body.
Further experiments revealed that the same monoamine neurotransmitter-tyramine-responsible for the initial phase of the escape response was also responsible for activating the slow-acting G-protein coupled receptor SER-2. Activation of this receptor inhibited release of the neurotransmitter GABA and facilitated contraction of the ventral muscles, allowing the animal to complete its turn and resume movement in the opposite direction.
"This study shows how tyramine works through separate receptors to produce a complex behavior requiring the temporal coordination of independent motor programs," said Alkema. "Acting through the fast-acting ionotropic receptor LGC-55, the animal completes the initial movement by ceasing head movement and backing away. At the same time, the slow-acting SER-2 receptor is also being activated by tyramine to complete the turn and facilitate movement in the opposite direction.
"It is the different receptors that allow for the coordination of these actions by the same neurotransmitter," said Alkema. "This indicates that tyramine, much like adrenergic signaling in mammals, coordinates different aspects of the flight response. It's possible that temporally coordinated activation of ionotropic and metabotropic receptors may be a common signaling motif employed across organisms to orchestrate behavioral responses and is something we will be pursing further."
###
About the University of Massachusetts Medical School
The University of Massachusetts Medical School, one of the fastest growing academic health centers in the country, has built a reputation as a world-class research institution, consistently producing noteworthy advances in clinical and basic research. The Medical School attracts more than $250 million in research funding annually, 80 percent of which comes from federal funding sources. The mission of the Medical School is to advance the health and well-being of the people of the commonwealth and the world through pioneering education, research, public service and health care delivery with its clinical partner, UMass Memorial Health Care. For more information, visit http://www.umassmed.edu.
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!
Several things have happened over the past month or so that kind of tickled the need for this particular post.? I was working in a district with some professionals who really have not had much experience with children with disabilities, but who very much want to learn.? Specifically, we were talking about deafness, and the conversation turned to understanding more about the impacts on families and about some of the social issues and concerns that come into play for the kids as they get older.? The conversation progressed, and eventually arrived at a time when I had to leave and move on to my next stop on that trip.? I told them that I was going to give them ?homework?.? Basically 2 movies that I think, while not being perfect, give a good picture of a number of these topics.
About 2 weeks ago, my son asked me if we could request a movie on Netflix that he wanted to see.? It was a movie I had never heard of before, but told him that it was not a problem, to go ahead and add it and move it to the top of the queue, which he did.
The more I?ve been thinking about it, the more I think most folks who work with kids with disabilities or their families (not just deafness or blindness, but kids with any disability) should take the time to watch the 3 movies that I?m going to mention.
The first movie is ?Children of a Lesser God?.? It is a good look at some of the conflicts between ideologies that can and often exist between the deaf and hearing worlds? perspectives.??
The second movie is one that I have a really hard time watching.? I?ve seen all of it, but never in one sitting.? I have to walk away from the movie, and then come back later to see a little more, and repeat the process until it is done.? It is ?Mr. Holland?s Opus?.? Most of the articles you read about it deal with Richard Dreyfuss and his life as a music teacher.? For me (and for many parents) it is about his role as a father of a child who is deaf, trying to come to grips with everything that means, and find a way to deal with it.? So many fathers and families go through these same issues.? If you have spent any time in the disability world and not picked up on this, then we really need to have a conversation.? Again, this movie is very hard for me to watch.? It is one that gets into a place inside me that I keep locked and barricaded and this movie tries to force it open.? Truth be told, I think that all of us who are dads of kids with special needs have this place inside of us, and often our ability to function depends on keeping this vault closed.? What we put into it, and how large it is, varies from father to father, but it is there.? For me, this movie tries to dynamite that vault open.?
The third movie is the one I had never heard of until Ian asked if we could get it.? That movie stars Daniel Day-Lewis.? It is called ?My Left Foot?.? It is actually a true story, and is based on the autobiography of a man named Christy Brown, who was born in 1932 in Dublin, Ireland.? Brown was born with cerebral palsy and initially his family was told that he had limited mental capacities at best and probably should be committed.? Instead the family raised him at home.? The title comes from the fact that the only limb he had real control over was his left leg.? Without going into all the details that make the movie worth watching, suffice it to say he became a successful artist, writer, and poet.? He published a number of books and three collections of poetry during his life. ??It is a movie worth watching simply because everyone, professionals and parents alike, need to be reminded of the potential of the individual, and the need to look beyond a diagnosis and see the individual.
Investing Idea; Invest in What You Drive: Electric Car Stock Tesla Motors (TSLA)
Tesla gains 22% on news that Tesla Model S Sales Exceed Target
Ideas get bigger when you share them...
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Point Roberts, WA - April 1, 2013 (Investorideas.com renewable energy newswire) Investorideas.com staff: Investorideas.com, an investor research portal specializing in investing ideas in leading sectors reports on green car stocks. For investors seeking to invest in issues, products and services they are concerned about, todays snapshot gives insight into news and trading for green car stocks. Investors betting on electric car stocks got rewarded in this mornings trading, with Tesla making big gains.
Tesla Motors, Inc. (NasdaqGS: TSLA) is trading at $46.24, gaining $8.35 or 22.04% as of 11:28AM EDT on just under 7 Million shares. The stock moved on news today that sales of its Model S vehicle exceeded the target provided in the mid February shareholder letter. As customers who note their Model S serial number this weekend will realize, vehicle deliveries (sales) exceeded 4,750 units vs. the 4,500 unit prior outlook. As a result, Tesla is amending its Q1 guidance to full profitability, both GAAP and non-GAAP.
I am incredibly proud of the Tesla team for their outstanding work. There have been many car startups over the past several decades, but profitability is what makes a company real. Tesla is here to stay and keep fighting for the electric car revolution," said Elon Musk, Tesla Motors co-founder and CEO. "I would also like to thank our customers for their passionate support of the company and the car. Without them, we would not be here."
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While Arctic ice shrinks to record lows, Antarctic ice has been increasing in winter. New study suggests summer melt in Antarctic is creating a surface layer of freshwater that freezes more readily in winter.?
By Alister Doyle,?Reuters Environment Correspondent / April 1, 2013
An inflatable boat carries tourists past an iceberg along the Antarctic Peninsula in 2009. In recent years Antarctic ice has been increasing in the winter, which nevertheless may be caused by an increasing summer melt induced by global warming.
Andrew Halsall/Aurora ExpeditionsAP/File
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Global warming is expanding the extent of sea ice around Antarctica in winter in a paradoxical shift caused by cold plumes of summer melt water that re-freeze fast when temperatures drop, a study showed on Sunday.
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An increasing summer thaw of ice on the edges of Antarctica, twinned with less than expected snowfall on the frozen continent, is also adding slightly to sea level rise in a threat to low-lying areas around the world, it said.
Climate scientists have been struggling to explain why sea ice around Antarctica has been growing, reaching a record extent in the winter of 2010, when ice on the Arctic Ocean at the other end of the planet shrank to a record low in 2012.
"Sea ice around Antarctica is increasing despite the warming global climate," said Richard Bintanja, lead author of the study at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.
"This is caused by melting of the ice sheets from below," he told Reuters of the findings in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Ice is made of fresh water and, when ice shelves on the fringes of Antarctica thaw in summer because of upwellings of warming sea water, the meltwater forms a cool layer that floats on the denser, warmer salty sea water below, the study said.
In winter, the melt water readily turns to ice because it freezes at zero degrees Celsius, above sea water at -2C (28.4F).
At a winter maximum in September, ice on the sea around Antarctica covers about 19 million sq kms (7.3 million sq miles), bigger than Antarctica's land area. It then melts away into the ocean as summer approaches.
WINDS
Among other scientists, Paul Holland of the British Antarctic Survey stuck to his findings last year that a shift in winds linked to climate change was blowing a layer of melt water further out to sea and adding to winter ice.
"The possibility remains that the real increase is the sum of wind-driven and melt water-driven effects, of course. That would be my best guess, with the melt water effect being the smaller of the two," he said.
Bintanja's study also said the cool melt water layer may limit the amount of water sucked from the oceans that falls as snow on Antarctica. Cold air can hold less moisture than warm.
"Cool sea surface temperatures around Antarctica could offset projected snowfall increases in Antarctica, with implications for estimates of future sea-level rise," it said.
The U.N. panel of climate scientists has estimated that sea levels will rise by between 18 and 59 cm (7-24 inches) this century, more if thaws of Antarctica and Greenland accelerate.
The panel's main scenarios assume that Antarctica alone will make sea levels fall by between 2 and 14 cms this century because more snowfall will extract water from the sea.
But Sunday's study said that Antarctica was losing about 250 billion tonnes of ice a year - equivalent to 0.07 millimetre (0.003 inch) of sea level rise a year, Bintanja said. "Antarctic mass loss seems to be accelerating," it said.
Another study in Nature Geoscience said Antarctica's snowfall had been over-estimated by between 11 and 36.5 billion tonnes a year because of fierce winds blasting many regions.
Strong winds created conditions to "sublimate" snow, or make it pass from a frozen state to a gas without first becoming liquid, a U.S.-led team wrote.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - NATO hopes a U.S. change to global missile defenses will dispel Russian concern and foster cooperation on an issue that has long strained relations, alliance Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow said in an interview.
Russia has said U.S. missile shield plans could erode its nuclear deterrent. It has softened criticism since Washington announced on March 16 that it would station 14 missile interceptors in Alaska in response to North Korean nuclear threats and at the same time forgo a new type of interceptor that would have been deployed in Europe.
However, Moscow has said it wants a series of consultations on the new shield set-up and U.S. and Russian defense officials are expected to hold talks on that in the coming weeks.
Moscow has long been at odds with the West over anti-missile defenses it has begun to establish in Europe, which both the United States and NATO say are aimed at preventing any attack from Iran and pose no threat to old Cold War foe Russia.
"The change in the U.S. plans ... just simply makes the situation much less ambiguous," Vershbow told Reuters. "There is now no reason for concern that the system going into Europe will have any effect whatever on Russia's strategic deterrent.
"We think there is a real window of opportunity and we hope that the Russians seize it," said Vershbow, who has held talks with senior officials from the Russian foreign and defense ministries as well as President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin.
The skipped interceptors were meant to be able to target long-range missiles, sparking concern in Moscow that they could be used against its intercontinental ballistic missiles.
"On both the NATO-Russia and U.S.-Russia tracks, we hope the dialogue will pick up speed so that we can get at least closer to some kind of a deal on missile defense cooperation," said Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia.
"To the extent we are able to make some progress on missile defense, it might also facilitate renewed dialogue on nuclear arms reductions both at the strategic level and the non-strategic level." He said broader NATO-Russia ties would get "a shot in the arm" if progress was made on missile shields.
Moscow has frequently said it is unlikely to go for further cuts in its nuclear arsenal unless Washington satisfactorily addresses its concerns about the defense system Washington has started to deploy in Europe in cooperation with NATO partners.
Russia is also pushing to host a meeting of defense ministers of NATO and Russia in Moscow in May and some in Russia have expressed hope for progress by then.
But Moscow is sticking to its demand for legally binding guarantees that the shield will not be aimed at Russia, a request rejected by NATO and the United States.
Any significant progress may be difficult because of Russian concern that developing NATO infrastructure in central and eastern Europe is tipping the post-Cold War balance of power.
"There are broader political questions that still could remain difficult to resolve," Vershbow said.
"NATO has been very clear that legal guarantees will not be possible but I'm sure we could develop some kind of political framework that would give the Russians the predictability that they are seeking through legally binding guarantees."
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Public release date: 2-Apr-2013
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