The researchers say it is too soon to offer parents any surefire method, however, to detect whether babies may be at risk of sudden death. Recorded infants' cries were at the heart of additional research led by Lester at the Brown School of Medicine. Eighteen months later, infants with the strongest wails whose mothers had correctly identified their urgency scored highest on a language-development test. The study also indicated that menopause is also a time of increased risk for expression of affective disorders for such women. Research by Dr. Charles Eaton, associate professor of community health and family medicine, reveals that men who engaged in any degree of leisure physical activity had a 21 percent lower risk of death from heart problems than sedentary men.
Bier speculates that the finding apply to full-term infants as well.
Mental attitude apparently has a tremendous impact on how a person ages. One Brown study involved 1,400 people ages 70 and older who were experiencing health problems that were serious but not life threatening. The people in the study who blamed their aches and pains on aging were 78 percent more likely to die in the near future than those who blamed their maladies on external factors. In the study, Lapane and colleagues tracked the rates of heart disease in two New England communities over a decade. Study participants who reported using tricyclics, one class of antidepressant, were almost six times more likely to have a heart attack than non-users.