health briefs

In just the first month of the 2020 pandemic, the use of antianxiety medications increased by 34 percent among Americans, according to pharmaceutical surveys. Because select serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) in particular Storyblocks.com tend to lose their effectiveness over time, some sufferers may take heart in a new study in Current Clinical Pharmacology. Iranian researchers gave one gram of ashwagandha root extract (Withania somnifera) each day for six weeks to 22 patients with generalized anxiety disorder and a placebo to a second group of 18. People in both groups were also put on SSRIs. Anxiety scores for the ashwagandha group improved by week two and kept improving during the study, significantly outperforming the scores of the control group. The extract was considered safe and free of side effects.

Schisandra chinensis, an ornamental, woody vine with pink leaves and bright red berries, has long been used as an adaptogen in China and Russia to lower stress, improve immunity and enhance energy. Korean researchers in a new study in Phytochemical Reviews report it may also be a boon for aging muscles. They tested 45 post-menopausal women that were given 1,000 milligrams of Schisandra chinensis or a placebo for 12 weeks. Compared to the control group, the Schisandra group had significantly increased quadriceps muscle strength and lower lactate levels, indicating greater endurance.

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For people suffering from the miseries of allergic rhinitis, better known as hay fever, ginger extract can be just as effective as the popular pharmaceutical product loratadine (Claritin), concludes a study from Thailand’s Thammasat University. Eighty hay fever patients were given either 500 milliStoryblocks.com grams of ginger extract or loratadine. After three and six weeks, the ginger group’s improvements in nasal symptoms and quality of life matched those of the loratadine group, but those taking ginger had fewer side effects such as drowsiness, fatigue, dizziness and constipation. Vitamin D Important for Reducing Risk of Pre-eclampsia Something as simple as a mother’s vitamin D level can have a future impact on her children, a study from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shows. Researchers examined 20 years of health data from 754 Boston-area mothers and their children and found that preeclampsia—abnormally high blood pressure during pregnancy—was linked to a higher systolic blood pressure in the children during their early and teen years. However, the effect was minimized or even eliminated among children exposed to higher levels of vitamin D in the womb, as measured by blood levels in the umbilical cord.