The longitudinal mental health benefits of a yoga intervention in women experiencing chronic stress: A clinical trial

© 2016 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.Background and Objectives: Chronic stress contributes to psychopathology and the practise of yoga is suggested to decrease stress and improve well-being. However, the literature often reports methodological problems (cross-sectional designs, sample sizes ≤ 20, and limited exploration of community populations). The aim of this study was to address these limitations and evaluate the potential psychological benefits of yoga to a non-clinical population. Methods: Women (N = 116) reporting chronic stress participated in this longitudinal study. Participants were allocated to a twice-weekly, hour-long yoga class for a period of two months, or a waitlist-control. Indicators of psychological well-being were measured at baseline, post-test and one-month follow-up. Results: Psychological distress decreased over time in both groups, however the control group experienced decreases in positive effect compared with the yoga group. Curvilinear trends were observed, indicating that trajectories of improvement seen at post-test were not robustly seen at follow-up. Conclusion: The study indicates that short-term yoga practise may yield some benefits to stressed individuals, but that evaluation over a longer term of practise may be required to determine the optimal dose for improvements and maintenance. Differential treatment effects may be difficult to detect in studies with populations that may already be motivated to improve their health

Preliminary indications of the effect of a brief yoga intervention on markers of inflammation and DNA methylation in chronically stressed women

© The Author(s) 2016. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if thematerial is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material.Yoga is associated with reduced stress and increased well-being, although the molecular basis for these benefits is not clear. Mounting evidence implicates the immune response, with current studies focused on protein immune markers (such as cytokines) in clinical populations. To explore the molecular impact, this pilot study uses a subsample (n = 28) from a randomised waitlist control trial Investigating the impact of an 8-week yoga intervention in a community population of women reporting psychological distress (N = 116). We measured interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumour necrosis factor (TNF) and C-reactive protein (CRP) protein levels, and the DNA methylation of these genes and the global indicator, LINE-1. Correlations between these and psychological variables were explored, identifying moderate correlations with CRP protein levels, and methylation of IL-6, CRP and LINE-1. Many cytokine samples were below detection, however a Mann–Whitney U demonstrated a trend of moderate between-group effect for elevated IL-6 in the yoga group. Methylation analyses applied cross-sectional and non-controlled longitudinal analyses. Waist-to-height ratio and age were covaried. We demonstrated reduced methylation of the TNF region in the yoga group relative to the waitlist control group. No other genes demonstrated a significant difference. Longitudinal analysis further supported these results. This study is one of the first to explore yoga and immunological markers in a non-clinical population, and is the first study to explore DNA methylation. These findings indicate that further research into molecular impact of yoga on markers of immune function is warranted, with larger studies required

Conference Workshop Proceedings: Developing a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Portfolio in Applied Horticulture

Preparing faculty to conduct quality teaching is critical to maximize student learning and the educational experience. As increased attention to faculty effectiveness and effect of their teaching program is observed, the more important it becomes for faculty to engage in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). The workshop “Developing a scholarship of teaching and learning portfolio in applied horticulture” was conducted at the 2022 American Society for Horticultural Science conference in Chicago, IL, USA, and featured a panel of teaching scholars who provided insight and guidance for developing, enhancing, evaluating, and promoting SoTL for both traditional classroom teachers and extension educators

One thousand plant transcriptomes and the phylogenomics of green plants

Abstract: Green plants (Viridiplantae) include around 450,000–500,000 species1, 2 of great diversity and have important roles in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Here, as part of the One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative, we sequenced the vegetative transcriptomes of 1,124 species that span the diversity of plants in a broad sense (Archaeplastida), including green plants (Viridiplantae), glaucophytes (Glaucophyta) and red algae (Rhodophyta). Our analysis provides a robust phylogenomic framework for examining the evolution of green plants. Most inferred species relationships are well supported across multiple species tree and supermatrix analyses, but discordance among plastid and nuclear gene trees at a few important nodes highlights the complexity of plant genome evolution, including polyploidy, periods of rapid speciation, and extinction. Incomplete sorting of ancestral variation, polyploidization and massive expansions of gene families punctuate the evolutionary history of green plants. Notably, we find that large expansions of gene families preceded the origins of green plants, land plants and vascular plants, whereas whole-genome duplications are inferred to have occurred repeatedly throughout the evolution of flowering plants and ferns. The increasing availability of high-quality plant genome sequences and advances in functional genomics are enabling research on genome evolution across the green tree of life

Evolution of sex-biased gene expression in a dioecious plant

International audienc

The longitudinal mental health benefits of a yoga intervention in women experiencing chronic stress: A clinical trial The longitudinal mental health benefits of a yoga intervention in women experiencing chronic stress: A clinical trial ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Abstract: Background and Objectives: Chronic stress contributes to psychopathology and the practise of yoga is suggested to decrease stress and improve well-being. However, the literature often reports methodological problems (cross-sectional designs, sample sizes ≤ 20, and limited exploration of community populations). The aim of this study was to address these limitations and evaluate the potential psychological benefits of yoga to a non-clinical population. Methods: Women (N = 116) reporting chronic stress participated in this longitudinal study. Participants were allocated to a twice-weekly, hour-long yoga class for a period of two months, or a waitlist-control. Indicators of psychological well-being were measured at baseline, post-test and one-month follow-up. Results: Psychological distress decreased over time in both groups, however the control group experienced decreases in positive effect compared with the yoga group. Curvilinear trends were observed, indicating that trajectories of improvement seen at post-test were not robustly seen at follow-up. Conclusion: The study indicates that short-term yoga practise may yield some benefits to stressed individuals, but that evaluation over a longer term of practise may be required to determine the optimal dose for improvements and maintenance. Differential treatment effects may be difficult to detect in studies with populations that may already be motivated to improve their health

Gendered Meat? Cognitive Dissonance and Individual Differences in Meat Eaters

Complex cognitions are involved in professing to love animals whilst eating them – the “meat paradox.” Meat-related cognitive dissonance varies depending upon the self-identified gender of the individual, with women more likely to report more negative affect and more likely to express a desire to reduce meat consumption than men. In this study, we investigated possible reasons for why gender effects are observed. We hypothesized that there may be an effect across different species – do we feel bad about eating lambs but not chickens? Is it the case that dissonance is most strongly elicited when the meat-animal connection involves animals thought to have less intelligence? What role does identification with particular gender roles play in the justifications that drive the meat paradox? Does the idea that qualities of food are related to the way an animal is killed play a role – this being the concept of magical thinking, which has been demonstrated to be more common in women? In two experiments involving 466 participants, we aimed to better understand the meat paradox in the context of cognitive dissonance, gender, magical thinking, empathy, and gender-role orientation. We found that exposure to information about the intelligence of animals (lamb and chicken) and the slaughter process induced negative affect in comparison with the control condition (apples). We replicated the finding that women who identify with more traditional gender roles experience greater meat-related cognitive dissonance. Further, there was a significant correlation between increased negative affect and higher scores on magical thinking. Finally, experiencing meatrelated cognitive dissonance led to an increase in rates of intention to decrease meat consumption. Whilst we replicated several previous findings reported in the literature, we did not show unequivocal relationships between gender, gender roles, and magical thinking and the meat paradox. The ways in which people manage meat-related cognitive dissonance remains an area for further interrogation to better understand these contradictions of thinking and behavior. Understanding the meat paradox has implications for animal welfare and human and planetary health.Carolyn Semmler, Nikki van der Velde, Stefanie Di Stasio, Kaitlin Harkess, Anna Chur-Hanse