In 1999, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded new mind-body research centers to examine how beliefs, attitudes and stress affect heart disease and immune system failure. As part of a second round of funding in 2004, the University of Rochester Department of Psychiatry received a $1.42 million grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of NIH, to create RCMBR. The new center is focused on mind-body interactions and aging because people may be less likely as they age to respond to blanket treatments meant to protect against the diseases of aging. Tailored treatments are urgently needed, and mind-body approaches may be part of the solution.

"Our mission is to better understand age-related diseases on the way to improving the health of older Americans," said Jan Moynihan, Ph.D., director of the RCMBR. "Our new program of human research, beginning with these pilot projects, has the potential to help steer the course of mind-body research for the next two decades."

The first RCMBR pilot study, led by Jeffrey Lyness, M.D., associate professor of Psychiatry at URMC, will seek to explain why patients who suffer from depression following heart failure are more likely to die. The body's immune response to high cholesterol, inflammation, is gaining credence as a predictor of heart failure. Do high blood levels of inflammatory signaling chemicals like interleukins contribute to both depression and heart disease? Does depression predict heart failure? Fifty patients from the Strong Memorial Hospital Cardiology Clinic and the Highland Hospital Family Medicine Clinic will be tested for personalit
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Contact: Greg Williams
greg_williams@urmc.rochester.edu
585-273-1757
University of Rochester Medical Center
18-May-2005