Personality traits and dimensions of mental health

DATA AVAILABILITY : The study materials and data can be accessed at https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/bhps/documentation/volb/wave15.Individuals are different in a relatively constant pattern of thoughts, feeling, and behaviors, which are called personality traits. Mental health is a condition of well-being in which people may reach their full potential and deal effectively with stress, work efficiently, and contribute to their communities. Indeed, the link between personality and mental health as indicated by the 12-item version of the general health questionnaires (GHQ-12) has been well-established according to evidence found by decades of research. However, the GHQ-12 comprises many questions asking about different dimensions of mental health. It is unclear how personality traits relate to these dimensions of mental health. In this paper, we try to address this question. We analyzed data from 12,007 participants from the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and generalized linear models. We replicated the factor structure of GHQ-12 labeled as GHQ-12A (social dysfunction & anhedonia; 6 items), GHQ-12B (depression & anxiety; 4 items), and GHQ-12C (loss of confidence; 2 items). Moreover, Neuroticism was positively related to all dimensions of mental health issues, Extraversion was negatively related to GHQ-12A (social dysfunction & anhedonia) and GHQ-12B (depression & anxiety), Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were negatively related to GHQ-12A (social dysfunction & anhedonia) and GHQ-12C (loss of confidence), and Openness was negatively related to GHQ-12B (depression & anxiety). These results contribute to theories including the predisposition/vulnerability model, complication/scar model, pathoplasty/exacerbation model, and the spectrum model, which propose that personality traits are linked to mental health and explained possible reasons. Psychologists may use results from this study to identify individuals who may be at high risk of developing various non-psychiatric mental health issues and intervene to avoid negative outcomes.https://www.nature.com/srepam2024StatisticsNon

People with Diabetes Have Poorer Self-Rated Health (SRH) and Diabetes Moderates the Association between Age and SRH

Diabetes is a severe chronic condition that is related to decreased physical functioning. Recently, there has been growing interest in understanding how a brief report on health such as self-rated health (SRH) could be used to track changes in health status and service needs in people with diabetes. The current research aims to investigate how SRH is affected by diabetes and how diabetes could moderate the association between age and SRH. By analyzing data from 47,507 participants, with 2869 of them clinically diagnosed with diabetes, the current study found that people with diabetes had significantly poorer SRH than people without diabetes after controlling for demographic covariates (t(2868) = −45.73, p b = 0.01, p b = −0.015, p b = −0.007, p < 0.001, 95% C.I. (−0.010, −0.004)). Health professionals should aim to improve SRH in people with diabetes given that SRH is related to various outcomes

People with diabetes have poorer self-rated health (SRH) and diabetes moderates the association between age and SRH

Diabetes is a severe chronic condition that is related to decreased physical functioning. Recently, there has been growing interest in understanding how a brief report on health such as self-rated health (SRH) could be used to track changes in health status and service needs in people with diabetes. The current research aims to investigate how SRH is affected by diabetes and how diabetes could moderate the association between age and SRH. By analyzing data from 47507 participants with 2869 of them clinically diagnosed with diabetes, the current study found that people with diabetes had significantly poorer SRH than people without diabetes after controlling for demographic covariates (t(2868)=-45.73, p<0.001, 95% C.I. [-0.92, -0.85], Cohen’s d=-0.85). In addition, diabetes was a significant moderator of the relationship between age and SRH (b=0.01, p<0.001, 95% C.I. [0.01, 0.01]). Specifically, age was more strongly related to SRH in people without diabetes (b=-0.015, p<0.001, 95% C.I. [-0.016, -0.015]) than in people with diabetes (b=-0.007, p<0.001, 95% C.I. [-0.010, -0.004]). Health professionals should aim to improve SRH in people with diabetes given that SRH is related to various outcomes

Understanding Cognitive Deficits in People with Arthritis

Cognitive deficits are commonly seen in people with arthritis. However, previous studies focused primarily on small-sized clinical samples. There is a need for cohort-based studies, which are characterized by high generalizability. In addition, these studies mainly focused on attention, memory, and executive function. However, cognition is not a single concept, but includes other cognitive domains, such as verbal fluency and arithmetic abilities. Thus, we aim to explore how arthritis can affect cognitive abilities, including episodic memory, semantic verbal fluency, fluid reasoning, and numerical ability by using a large cohort from the United Kingdom. The main findings were that people with arthritis have significantly lower immediate word recall (t(2257) = −6.40, p p p p p < 0.001, Cohen’s d = −0.07, 95% C.I. = [−0.10, −0.03]) compared to what they would expect given their demographics. Interventions are needed to improve cognitive abilities in people with arthritis

Understanding the Role of Cancer Diagnosis in the Associations between Personality and Life Satisfaction

Life satisfaction refers to the degree a person enjoys their life. An integrated account of life satisfaction is discussed in the literature, which proposes that life satisfaction is made up of personality traits and areas of life satisfaction (e.g., satisfaction with health, job, and social life). In addition, disruptions in one domain (e.g., health) may disrupt the association between personality traits and life satisfaction. The current research was interested in if clinically diagnosed cancer could influence the association between the Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction. The current study analyzed data from 1214 people with a diagnosis of cancer (38.55% males) with an average age of 59.70 (S.D. = 15.53) years and 13,319 people without a cancer diagnosis (38.13% males) with an average age of 59.97 (S.D. = 11.10) years who participated in Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS). For the first time, our study revealed that cancer markedly influences the relationship between Agreeableness and life satisfaction, after accounting for demographic variables. Neuroticism was negatively associated with life satisfaction in people with and without clinically diagnosed cancer, whereas Agreeableness and Extraversion were positively associated with life satisfaction in people with and without clinically diagnosed cancer. Openness and Conscientiousness were positively related to life satisfaction in people without cancer but were not significant predictors in people with cancer. Health professionals should develop strategies and interventions by fostering personality traits, including Agreeableness, Openness, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion, while reducing Neuroticism

Asthma Moderates the Association between the Big Five Personality Traits and Life Satisfaction

The current study aimed to examine whether asthma moderates the association between the Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction. By analyzing data from 3934 people with asthma (40.09% males) with a mean age of 49.2 (S.D. = 16.94) years old and 22,914 people without asthma (42.9% males) with a mean age of 45.62 (S.D. = 17.25) years old using a hierarchical regression and multiple regressions, the current study found that asthma significantly moderates the link between Neuroticism and life satisfaction and Openness and life satisfaction after controlling for other covariates. Specifically, Neuroticism was negatively related to life satisfaction whereas Agreeableness, Openness, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion were positively associated with life satisfaction in people with and without asthma. However, the negative association between Neuroticism and life satisfaction and the positive association between Openness and life satisfaction were stronger in people with asthma compared to people without asthma

Personality traits and dimensions of mental health

Abstract Individuals are different in a relatively constant pattern of thoughts, feeling, and behaviors, which are called personality traits. Mental health is a condition of well-being in which people may reach their full potential and deal effectively with stress, work efficiently, and contribute to their communities. Indeed, the link between personality and mental health as indicated by the 12-item version of the general health questionnaires (GHQ-12) has been well-established according to evidence found by decades of research. However, the GHQ-12 comprises many questions asking about different dimensions of mental health. It is unclear how personality traits relate to these dimensions of mental health. In this paper, we try to address this question. We analyzed data from 12,007 participants from the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and generalized linear models. We replicated the factor structure of GHQ-12 labeled as GHQ-12A (social dysfunction & anhedonia; 6 items), GHQ-12B (depression & anxiety; 4 items), and GHQ-12C (loss of confidence; 2 items). Moreover, Neuroticism was positively related to all dimensions of mental health issues, Extraversion was negatively related to GHQ-12A (social dysfunction & anhedonia) and GHQ-12B (depression & anxiety), Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were negatively related to GHQ-12A (social dysfunction & anhedonia) and GHQ-12C (loss of confidence), and Openness was negatively related to GHQ-12B (depression & anxiety). These results contribute to theories including the predisposition/vulnerability model, complication/scar model, pathoplasty/exacerbation model, and the spectrum model, which propose that personality traits are linked to mental health and explained possible reasons. Psychologists may use results from this study to identify individuals who may be at high risk of developing various non-psychiatric mental health issues and intervene to avoid negative outcomes

Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) in the Pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s Disease: Implications for Diagnosis and Treatment

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) represents the most frequent type of dementia in elderly people. There are two major forms of the disease: sporadic (SAD)—whose causes are not completely understood—and familial (FAD)—with clear autosomal dominant inheritance. The two main hallmarks of AD are extracellular deposits of amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptide and intracellular deposits of the hyperphosphorylated form of the tau protein (P-tau). An ever-growing body of research supports the infectious hypothesis of sporadic forms of AD. Indeed, it has been documented that some pathogens, such as herpesviruses and certain bacterial species, are commonly present in AD patients, prompting recent clinical research to focus on the characterization of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) in this pathology. The literature also demonstrates that Aβ can be considered itself as an AMP; thus, representing a type of innate immune defense peptide that protects the host against a variety of pathogens. Beyond Aβ, other proteins with antimicrobial activity, such as lactoferrin, defensins, cystatins, thymosin β4, LL37, histatin 1, and statherin have been shown to be involved in AD. Here, we summarized and discussed these findings and explored the diagnostic and therapeutic potential of AMPs in AD

Expression and Signaling Pathways of Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) and Pro-NGF in Breast Cancer: A Systematic Review

Breast cancer represents the most common type of cancer and is the leading cause of death due to cancer among women. Thus, the prevention and early diagnosis of breast cancer is of primary urgency, as well as the development of new treatments able to improve its prognosis. Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) is a neurotrophic factor involved in the regulation of neuronal functions through the binding of the Tropomyosin receptor kinase A (TrkA) and the Nerve Growth Factor receptor or Pan-Neurotrophin Receptor 75 (NGFR/p75NTR). In addition, its precursor (pro-NGF) can extert biological activity by forming a trimeric complex with NGFR/p75NTR and sortilin, or by binding to TrkA receptors with low affinity. Several examples of in vitro and in vivo evidence show that NGF is both synthesized and released by breast cancer cells, and has mitogen, antiapoptotic and angiogenic effects on these cells through the activation of different signaling cascades that involve TrkA and NGFR/p75NTR receptors. Conversely, pro-NGF signaling has been related to breast cancer invasion and metastasis. Other studies suggested that NGF and its receptors could represent a good diagnostic and prognostic tool, as well as promising therapeutic targets for breast cancer. In this paper, we comprehensively summarize and systematically review the current experimental evidence on this topic. INPLASY ID: INPLASY2022100017

An ELOVL2-Based Epigenetic Clock for Forensic Age Prediction: A Systematic Review

The prediction of chronological age from methylation-based biomarkers represents one of the most promising applications in the field of forensic sciences. Age-prediction models developed so far are not easily applicable for forensic caseworkers. Among the several attempts to pursue this objective, the formulation of single-locus models might represent a good strategy. The present work aimed to develop an accurate single-locus model for age prediction exploiting ELOVL2, a gene for which epigenetic alterations are most highly correlated with age. We carried out a systematic review of different published pyrosequencing datasets in which methylation of the ELOVL2 promoter was analysed to formulate age prediction models. Nine of these, with available datasets involving 2298 participants, were selected. We found that irrespective of which model was adopted, a very strong relationship between ELOVL2 methylation levels and age exists. In particular, the model giving the best age-prediction accuracy was the gradient boosting regressor with a prediction error of about 5.5 years. The findings reported here strongly support the use of ELOVL2 for the formulation of a single-locus epigenetic model, but the inclusion of additional, non-redundant markers is a fundamental requirement to apply a molecular model to forensic applications with more robust results