by the University of Michigan

A University of Michigan study has identified a likely reason – feeling emotionally close to a friend increases levels of the hormone progesterone, helping to boost well-being and reduce anxiety and stress.

“This study establishes progesterone as a likely part of the neuroendocrine basis of social bonding in humans,” said U-M researcher Stephanie Brown, lead author of an article reporting the study findings, published in the current (June 2009) issue of the peer-reviewed journal Hormones and Behavior.

A sex hormone that fluctuates with the menstrual cycle, progesterone is also present in low levels in post-menopausal women and in men. Earlier research has shown that higher levels of progesterone increase the desire to bond with others, but the current study is the first to show that bonding with others increases levels of progesterone. The study also links these increases to a greater willingness to help other people, even at our own expense.

“It’s important to find the links between biological mechanisms and human social behavior,” said Brown, who is a faculty associate at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR) and an assistant professor of internal medicine at the U-M Medical School. She is also affiliated with the Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs Hospital. “These links may help us understand why people in close relationships are happier, healthier, and live longer than those who are socially isolated.”

Progesterone is much easier to measure than oxytocin, a hormone linked to trust, pair-bonding and millonesmaternal responsiveness in humans and other mammals. Oxytocin can only be measured through an invasive spinal tap or through expensive and complex brain imaging methods, such as positron emission tomography scans. Progesterone can be measured through simple saliva samples and may be related to oxytocin.

In the current study, Brown and colleagues examined the link between interpersonal closeness and salivary progesterone in 160 female college students.

At the start of the study, the researchers measured the levels of progesterone and of the stress hormone cortisol in the women’s saliva, and obtained information about their menstrual cycles and whether they were using hormonal contraceptives or other hormonally active medications.

To control for daily variations in hormone levels, all the sessions were held between noon and 7 p.m.

The women were randomly assigned to partners and asked to perform either a task designed to elicit feelings of emotional closeness or a task that was emotionally neutral.

The task designed to elicit feelings of closeness consisted of answering questions like these: “Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?” and “What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?”

In the emotionally neutral task, the women proofread a botany manuscript together.

After completing the 20-minute tasks, the women played a computerized cooperative card game with their partners, and then had their progesterone and cortisol sampled again.

The progesterone levels of women who had engaged in the emotionally neutral tasks tended to decline, while the progesterone levels of women who engaged in the task designed to elicit closeness either remained the same or increased. The participants’ cortisol levels did not change in a similar way. Participants returned a week later, and played the computerized card game with their original partners again. Then researchers measured their progesterone and cortisol. Researchers also examined links between progesterone levels and how likely participants said they would be to risk their life for their partner.

“During the first phase of the study, we found no evidence of a relationship between progesterone and willingness to sacrifice,” said Brown. “But a week later, increased progesterone predicted an increased willingness to say you would risk your life to help your partner,” said Brown. According to Brown, the findings are consistent with a new evolutionary theory of altruism which argues that the hormonal basis of social bonds enables people to suppress self-interest when necessary in order to promote the well-being of another person, as when taking care of children or helping ailing family members or friends.

The results also help explain why social contact has well-documented health benefits – a relationship first identified nearly 20 years ago by U-M sociologist James House.

­“Many of the hormones involved in bonding and helping behavior lead to reductions in stress and anxiety in both humans and other animals. Now we see that higher levels of progesterone may be part of the underlying physiological basis for these effects.”

by the El Reportero staff and news services

Supervisor David Campos talks to fraud victims. (photo by Marvin Ramirez)

Several people who where victimized in real estate cases by their supposedly savior when they were about to lose their house in foreclosure, met with San Francisco’s Mission District 9 Supervisor David Campos.

In a press conference held on June 6, Campos promised he would lead an more ­thoroughly investigation in the fraud case where the alleged perpetrator pocketed more than $1 million.

The investigation has since rounded up 27 families who claim they were bilked by Edwin Parada, 30, for more than $2 million. And Supervisor Campos, says there are 15 more families that may have been affected but have not yet come forward.

“This is a very smooth,besophisticated operator,” Campos said before an event at his office to celebrate the pending trial with some of the alleged victim families Friday afternoon. “He’s preying on the undocumented and Spanish-speaking population, who may not know the rules and protections that exist here. There’s probably more families that have been affected but haven’t come forward because of shame. You feel like you’ve been duped.”

According to news reports, Campos originally met four families complaining about Parada at a meeting on foreclosures sponsored by the non-profit Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA) while he was serving as a police commissioner.

Campos said he called Police Chief Heather Fong to assign an investigator to the case, and, together with MEDA, did outreach to find more victims. The DA added 16 more criminal counts, and the victims are pushing for a speedy trial, he says.

Carmen Ruíz, a 57-year-old grandmother was at the June 6 meeting. She fell behind on her house payments after being diagnosed with a brain tumor. Ruíz says she handed over the title to her home to Parada and made payments to the man who was a pastor in a local church. Police estimated Parada may have taken $165,000 from Ruiz.

­Parada, who first stood in court in July 2008 to face felony charges, was first exposed in a Breaking News article, “He’s No Angel” by Karina Ioffee.

by the El Reportero’s news services

Daniel Ortega

Venezuela has promised to give Nicaragua $50 million to replace money that the United States said this week it would withhold from the Central American country, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra said Saturday.

Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega expressed disappointment in U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez promised the aid after Ortega learned that the United States was canceling $62 million of aid that was to have come from the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S.-government-funded anti-poverty fund set up by former President George W. Bush.

Ortega expressed disappointment in President Barack Obama for the decision. “He expresses good will, but in practice, he has the same policies as President Reagan,” Ortega told a crowd of supporters in Managua’s Plaza of the Revolution.

In 1982, then-President Reagan supported funding the contras, the forces opposed to Ortega and his socialist Sandinista Party, which had come to power after overthrowing the U.S.- backed Anastasio Somoza in 1979.

Ortega called this week’s decision not to follow through on the payment “disrespectful.”

“The United States had given its word to the people of Nicaragua and in particular to the people of the cities involved in the program,” he said.

And he warned his U.S. counterpart that the world has changed since the United States funded the contras.

“He (Obama) is the first to know that the United States of today is not the United States of 20, 30, 40 years ago,” Ortega said. “Today, the United States cannot do whatever it wants in the world. It doesn’t have the moral force, even though it may have the material force to do it. They have even lost the support of the U.S. people.”

García’s development plans trigger bloody clashes in Peru’s Amazon

President Alan García is reeling from the worst outbreak of violence in Peru since he came to power in 2006. At least 33 people were killed on June 5, 24 of them police officers.

The death toll might suggest a violent clash between the police and Sendero Luminoso guerrillas, but in fact it was between police and indigenous protesters in the northern department of Amazonas. The government misjudged the strength of feeling against ten decrees opening up the area to private investment, which motivated the Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (Aidesep) to begin protest action two months ago.

Congress suspended the most controversial decree on June 10 in a bid to bring Aidesep to the negotiating table.

Jobim says Brazil must think big

Authorities prepared on July 11, to hand over wreckage from the crashed Air France fl ight 477 to French investigators in the north-­eastern city of Recife Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said that the rescue operation had provided useful lessons for the country, among which he cited the need for additional modernization of the Brazilian Air Force and a second large naval base in the north of the country. Jobim is a prominent supporter of President Lula da Silva’s aspirations to turn Brazil into a major actor on the world stage, not only economically and politically, but also in terms of acquiring “major power” status.

A key component of the government’s new defense strategy is to resurrect Brazil’s national defense industry, gain important technology transfers from partners like France and ultimately achieve autonomy in the supply of defense equipment. (CNN and Latin News contributed to this report.)

by Janet Murgula

The nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court was an historic and proud moment for 50 million Latinos spread across the United States and for the country as a whole. But as proud as our community is over her nomination, we have been stunned and disheartened by the visceral reaction it has generated among many in the Republican Party. Clearly, her ethnicity has proven to be too much of a temptation for those who give voice to hate and extremism.

Instead of looking at her judicial record, they have launched a vocal rampage that has reached new heights of absurdity.

Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies—the “think tank” of white supremacist John Tanton’s anti-immigrant groups—and his pals at the National Review online are just beside themselves that Judge Sotomayor had the temerity to pronounce her own name correctly. They basically said that if she were a real American, she would pronounce it differently.

In an article that appeared in The Hill newspaper, Republican insiders are quoted as being “concerned” that Sotomayor’s avowed love of arroz con gandules and other Puerto Rican delicacies will cloud her judicial decision-making. Conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel celled her “Judge J-Lo” and suggested that she was about as qualified to be on the Supreme Court as the well-known singer.

This one, however, took the cake: Former congressmen, failed presidential candidate, and anti-immigrant extremist Tom Tancredo, unable to provide a shred of evidence for his assertion that Judge Sotomayor is a “racist,” went off the deep end on CNN, saying Sotomayor belongs to “the Latino KKK.”

Tancredo was referring to my organization, the National Council of La Raza—a 40-year-old national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization that works with community organizations all over the country to help Latino families achieve the American Dream. Such a characterization is offe:nsive, shameful and a slap in the face to my predecessor who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to secure civil rights for all U.S. residents.

NCLR has been recognized as one of the ten best nonprofits in the country end leuded by members of Congress of both perties. Since our founding, we heve worked hand in hand with other national civil rights organizations in a bipartisan way to improve the lives of everyone.

Raising questions and concerns about Judge Sotomayor’s 17-year record on the bench is legitimate. Resorting to outdated stereotypes, defamation of character and outright falsehoods is not. It is reprehensible not only to Hispanics and communities of color.

The Hispanic community has always been diverse in its views and its politics. We have never hewed to one party over another. While we applaud Senator John Cornyn’s call for civility, the gross mischaracterizations of Judge Sotomayor and the deafening silence of Republican leadership are leaving many within our community with a disturbing picture of the Republican Party. Much hangs in the balance, including our votes.

As an organization that has hosted presidential candidates of both parties and has recognized the achievements of House and Senate members from both sides of the aisle, we appeal to Republican National Committee ­Chairmen Michael Steele, House Minority Leader John Boehner, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to denounce these statements and restore the nomination process for Judge Sotomayor to a more appropriate and civil discourse.

We all know Supreme Court nominations get political, even with nominees as qualified as Judge Sotomayor. That does not mean, however, that politicians get a free pass to attack nominees solely on the basis of race or ethnicity. Stand up to the bullies. Stand up for your party. Stand up for what is best for the nation. We are better than this. The Republican Party is better than this. Hispanic Link.

(Janet Murguía, president of the National Council of La Raza, writes a monthly commentary for /4ispanic Link News Service. Email her at opi@nc/r.org).