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Now this is depressing. A new study says that you can affect not only your kids with any stress you may be feeling, but your grandkids, too. Exposing female adolescent rats to stress before they even become pregnant leads to changes in behavior and the hormonal system not only among their children but also among their grandchildren when they reach adulthood; this according to a new study from the University of Haifa.  he researchers also found a gene related to stress which expresses itself differently in the brain of individual offspring from the moment they are born. According to the researchers, this finding suggests that it is not maternal care which influences variations in offspring, regarding stress, according to newswise.com. As in previous studies, the researchers exposed the female rats, when still adolescents, to minor stress involving changes in temperature and routine for a week. Their direct offspring grew up without any stress-inducing intervention,...

A wonderful new family link, and depression, of all things, has been found in a new study , according to newswise.com. Relationships between grandparents and adult grandchildren can prevent depression in both. The study shows that grandparents and grandchildren have real, measurable effects on each other’s psychological well-being long into grandchildren’s adulthood, newswise.com reports. “We found that an emotionally close grandparent-adult grandchild relationship was associated with fewer symptoms of depression for both generations,” newswise.com quotes Sara M. Moorman, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and the Institute on Aging at Boston College.  “The greater emotional support grandparents and adult grandchildren received from one another, the better their psychological health.” Interestingly, the grandparents who received support from their grandkids but were not able to return it were the most depressed.  “There’s a saying, ‘It’s better ...