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Why On Earth An IUD Insertion Is So Painful

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Your body burns calories all day long to keep your organs humming, your blood pumping, and your lungs breathing—not to mention maintaining hundreds of other body processes. But a new study published in Current Biology reveals that there are times during the day when your metabolism really hums—and times when it slumps.

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston placed seven volunteers in a windowless room for three weeks, turning down the lights and waking them at different times while measuring their calorie use around the clock. The study revealed that we burn about 129 more calories—at rest—between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. on average, compared to the early hours of the morning (2 a.m. and 8 a.m.). Even more intriguing is that the body seems to favor carbohydrates as an energy source early in the day and becomes more efficient at burning fat later in the afternoon.

Experts previously thought the body’s resting metabolism ran at a fairly steady rate around the clock; these findings indicate that calorie burn ebbs and flows with the body’s natural rhythms, reports lead study author, neuroscientist Jeanne Duffy, PhD, in a press release. One take-home message of the study seems to be yet another reason to avoid late-night snacking: The body’s energy demands are so low that those extra calories are likely to be converted to fat. 

There may be implications for the best times to eat certain types of food—such as carbs in the a.m., more protein and healthy fats in the afternoon—but more research is necessary before anyone can make firm recommendations. Perhaps the most important lesson is that people should keep a regular eating schedule, according to Duffy. An irregular meal pattern can throw off the body’s rhythm, depress metabolism, and lead to weight gain, she says. 

Related video: Why Slow Eaters May Burn More Calories [T+L]

Click to expand

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© Provided by Trusted Media Brands, Inc. Here

Your body burns calories all day long to keep your organs humming, your blood pumping, and your lungs breathing—not to mention maintaining hundreds of other body processes. But a new study published in Current Biology reveals that there are times during the day when your metabolism really hums—and times when it slumps.

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston placed seven volunteers in a windowless room for three weeks, turning down the lights and waking them at different times while measuring their calorie use around the clock. The study revealed that we burn about 129 more calories—at rest—between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. on average, compared to the early hours of the morning (2 a.m. and 8 a.m.). Even more intriguing is that the body seems to favor carbohydrates as an energy source early in the day and becomes more efficient at burning fat later in the afternoon.

Experts previously thought the body’s resting metabolism ran at a fairly steady rate around the clock; these findings indicate that calorie burn ebbs and flows with the body’s natural rhythms, reports lead study author, neuroscientist Jeanne Duffy, PhD, in a press release. One take-home message of the study seems to be yet another reason to avoid late-night snacking: The body’s energy demands are so low that those extra calories are likely to be converted to fat. 

There may be implications for the best times to eat certain types of food—such as carbs in the a.m., more protein and healthy fats in the afternoon—but more research is necessary before anyone can make firm recommendations. Perhaps the most important lesson is that people should keep a regular eating schedule, according to Duffy. An irregular meal pattern can throw off the body’s rhythm, depress metabolism, and lead to weight gain, she says. 

Related video: Why Slow Eaters May Burn More Calories [T+L]

Click to expand

UP NEXT

© Provided by Trusted Media Brands, Inc. Here

Your body burns calories all day long to keep your organs humming, your blood pumping, and your lungs breathing—not to mention maintaining hundreds of other body processes. But a new study published in Current Biology reveals that there are times during the day when your metabolism really hums—and times when it slumps.

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston placed seven volunteers in a windowless room for three weeks, turning down the lights and waking them at different times while measuring their calorie use around the clock. The study revealed that we burn about 129 more calories—at rest—between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. on average, compared to the early hours of the morning (2 a.m. and 8 a.m.). Even more intriguing is that the body seems to favor carbohydrates as an energy source early in the day and becomes more efficient at burning fat later in the afternoon.

Experts previously thought the body’s resting metabolism ran at a fairly steady rate around the clock; these findings indicate that calorie burn ebbs and flows with the body’s natural rhythms, reports lead study author, neuroscientist Jeanne Duffy, PhD, in a press release. One take-home message of the study seems to be yet another reason to avoid late-night snacking: The body’s energy demands are so low that those extra calories are likely to be converted to fat. 

There may be implications for the best times to eat certain types of food—such as carbs in the a.m., more protein and healthy fats in the afternoon—but more research is necessary before anyone can make firm recommendations. Perhaps the most important lesson is that people should keep a regular eating schedule, according to Duffy. An irregular meal pattern can throw off the body’s rhythm, depress metabolism, and lead to weight gain, she says. 

Related video: Why Slow Eaters May Burn More Calories [T+L]

Click to expand

UP NEXT

© Provided by Trusted Media Brands, Inc. Here

Your body burns calories all day long to keep your organs humming, your blood pumping, and your lungs breathing—not to mention maintaining hundreds of other body processes. But a new study published in Current Biology reveals that there are times during the day when your metabolism really hums—and times when it slumps.

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston placed seven volunteers in a windowless room for three weeks, turning down the lights and waking them at different times while measuring their calorie use around the clock. The study revealed that we burn about 129 more calories—at rest—between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. on average, compared to the early hours of the morning (2 a.m. and 8 a.m.). Even more intriguing is that the body seems to favor carbohydrates as an energy source early in the day and becomes more efficient at burning fat later in the afternoon.

Experts previously thought the body’s resting metabolism ran at a fairly steady rate around the clock; these findings indicate that calorie burn ebbs and flows with the body’s natural rhythms, reports lead study author, neuroscientist Jeanne Duffy, PhD, in a press release. One take-home message of the study seems to be yet another reason to avoid late-night snacking: The body’s energy demands are so low that those extra calories are likely to be converted to fat. 

There may be implications for the best times to eat certain types of food—such as carbs in the a.m., more protein and healthy fats in the afternoon—but more research is necessary before anyone can make firm recommendations. Perhaps the most important lesson is that people should keep a regular eating schedule, according to Duffy. An irregular meal pattern can throw off the body’s rhythm, depress metabolism, and lead to weight gain, she says. 

Related video: Why Slow Eaters May Burn More Calories [T+L]

Click to expand

UP NEXT

Len Canter
HealthDay Reporter

Last Updated: Jan 3, 2019

Copyright © 2019 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

PodMed Double T is a weekly podcast from Texas Tech. In it, Elizabeth Tracey, director of electronic media for Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Rick Lange, MD, president of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, look at the top medical stories of the week. A transcript of the podcast is below the summary.

This week's topics include preventing fractures in those with osteopenia, the obesity trajectory from childhood, risk factors for hypertension in blacks, and water and recurrent bladder infection.

Program notes:

0:45 Water consumption and recurrent bladder infection

1:41 Fifty percent reduction in recurrence

2:51 Factors related to hypertension in blacks

3:50 Fried foods, sugar-sweetened beverages

4:50 Modifiable risk factors

5:43 Obesity in childhood and risk

6:44 Age five obesity predicts adolescent obesity

7:43 Women with osteopenia and zoledronate

8:43 Both vertebral and non-vertebral fractures lower

9:47 Did recommend vitamin D

10:43 End

Transcript:

Elizabeth Tracey: Can we help older women avoid osteoporosis?

Rick Lange, MD: Does drinking more water prevent recurrent bladder infections?

Elizabeth: What are the factors that are related to high blood pressure in African Americans?

Rick: And determining risk for childhood obesity.

Elizabeth: That's what we're talking about this week on PodMed TT, your weekly look at the medical headlines from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso. I'm Elizabeth Tracey, a medical journalist at Johns Hopkins, and this will be posted on October 5th, 2018.

Rick: And I'm Rick Lange, President of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, where I'm also Dean of the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine.

Elizabeth: Rick, I think since you changed up on us with some of the studies we were talking about covering this week, we should turn right to JAMA Internal Medicine, a look at whether drinking more water can help women avoid recurrent bladder infections or cystitis.

Rick: Thanks for the definition, because most people won't know what cystitis means. About 50% of women are going to have cystitis or bladder infections some time during their life, and the interesting thing is if you had a bladder infection, the chance of it recurring in the next year is about 25% to 30%. Now there's this old -- I don't want to call it a wives' tale -- but it's this historical story that if you drink more water it can actually prevent bladder infections, so that's what this study attempted to examine.

They took 140 premenopausal women that had bladder infection previously, not actively, and then they randomized them to just their routine diet, their routine drinking habits, or supplementing it with 1.5 extra liters of water per day. Essentially, that's a bottle of water three times a day.

They followed the women over the course of the year. The women that drank the extra water had a 50% reduction in recurrent bladder infection. Furthermore, they were less likely to require antibiotic treatments, and then when they did develop bladder infection, they developed it much later, almost twice as long as the women that didn't drink extra water. So the story you've heard -- drinking more water can prevent recurring bladder infections -- it appears there's a lot of truth to that.

Elizabeth: This, of course, is something that's very, very troubling for many women, this UTI, urinary tract infection. And you already segued kind of into this idea of treatment. Some of the antibiotics that are used for this are problematic.

Rick: In fact, it's estimated that 15% of all antibiotic prescriptions are for bladder infections, and we've talked before about how the persistent or continued use of antibiotics results in antibiotic resistance. The World Health Organization is looking for non-antibiotic ways to treat or prevent bladder infections, and it looks like water is.

Elizabeth: For all of us, then, who disparage those who walk around with those water bottles that they refill all over the place, we should probably be applauding them for a multitude of reasons. I think we're going to stay in that American Medical Association group and we're going to turn to the Journal of the American Medical Association.

For such a long time, we've noticed, of course, that there's a much higher rate of high blood pressure, or hypertension, among U.S. blacks than among other ethnic groups. And this study, I thought, was really interesting. It's a longitudinal cohort study of over 30,000 participants who did not have high blood pressure at baseline, and they were recruited between 2003 and 2007, and they participated in a follow-up visit about just short of 10 years later.

They looked at 12 clinical and social factors, including something that they called "Southern diet" to take a look at, "Wow! OK, where are you in this?" And of this number, just shy of 7,000 participants were included in this particular analysis. This thing that was identified as the Southern diet and that included a lot of fried foods, organ meats, sugar-sweetened beverages, bread. That was the absolute Number One factor that was significantly associated with higher hypertension in men and in women and is absolutely something that's modifiable.

So ... I think this is a really good news study because this is very troubling, this rate of high blood pressure among blacks. It leads to lots of things down the road, kidney failure, all kinds of stuff, and this is a modifiable risk factor.

Rick: I'm glad the way you teed it up because this was a study that looked at why blacks have an excess risk of hypertension compared to whites. You didn't put a number to it, but this study estimated that 52% of that reason was due to the Southern diet. The second most common contributing factor was a diet that was high in sodium compared to potassium. Again, that's modifiable as well. And then in women, excess weight or waist circumference also increased the risk. Again, these are all modifiable risk factors, so if we want to decrease the risk of hypertension and the consequent stroke and heart disease and kidney disease, these are things that we can do without prescribing medications.

Elizabeth: And all of these, of course, are linked -- the consumption of that diet, which is high in sodium and leads to a greater BMI [body mass index] for most people. I, at least, am really thankful for this study and this identification of this factor because we've talked about this so many times. Is there some genetic basis where we see this particular increased risk for hypertension and all the constellation of things that follow that? This study seems to suggest that no, there really isn't.

Rick: It clearly tells us that a lot of this is actually within our control. I agree with you -- rather than throwing up our hands and saying, "The risk of hypertension is higher in black individuals. We just need to accept it" -- no, no, no, these are modifiable risk factors and we need to address them.

Elizabeth: Your next one, then, sir, taking a look... we were just talking about obesity. In this case, in the New England Journal of Medicine, childhood obesity and what that means over the long haul.

Rick: On the basis of a large population, a longitudinal study of over 51,000 adolescents, they were able to do both a prospective and retrospective study looking back to say, "OK, did these adolescents who were obese, were they obese in childhood? If so, was that at a certain age period and can we use that to predict who will be obese as an adolescent?"

Here's what they determined. The overwhelming majority of normal-weight adolescents had a normal BMI at 1 and 2 years of age. That remained that way throughout childhood. However, approximately half of obese adolescents had actually become overweight obese by 5 years of age. In fact, when you look at that period between 2 and about 5 and 6 years of age, those that had an increase in their BMI, they call that a rebound adiposity. I'll mention why that is. They were much more likely to be obese. In fact, if you were obese at age 5 or 6, 90% of them were obese in adolescence.

This rebound adiposity, what happens is when an infant is born, it has about 10% or 14%, 15% fat by body weight. Then, as you know, up to about 6 or 12 months of age, they gain more fat. They become plump, but then it begins to trail off. Infants that have a rebound adiposity, that is they gain more weight between ages 2 and 6, those are the ones that are more likely to develop obesity as an adolescent.

Elizabeth: Clearly, however, children are interacting with the health care system during those ages, especially right before they get to school. So again, as we've talked about, it suggests to me that this is an opportunity where pediatricians can say, "Hmm, looks like we're on a trajectory that we really need to get our arms around."

Rick: It needs to start in preschool. Nutritional counseling needs to begin for the parent as soon as we've identified obese parents, because we know that increases the risk of childhood obesity as well.

Elizabeth: Well, that can be done even in pregnancy, usually.

Rick: Absolutely.

Elizabeth: OK. Finally, let's turn to our last one, the other end of the age spectrum. This is taking a look at women who have osteopenia, so not frank osteoporosis, but osteopenia. Wow! They've got less mineral deposits in their bones, and therefore at risk for developing frank osteoporosis and increase their fracture risk. Can the drug that's called zoledronate help in these people in preventing frank osteoporosis?

So they took a look at 2,000 women who had osteopenia and were 65 years of age or older, followed them for 6 years. They were randomly assigned to receive either four infusions of zoledronate at a dose of 5 milligrams, or normal saline, at 18-month intervals. So I kind of like this because they just have to take an infusion. They don't have to continue to take a daily medication. They also advised them to take a dietary calcium intake of 1 gram per day, but they did not provide calcium supplements and basically found that the risk of both non-vertebral and vertebral fragility fractures was significantly lower in those women who had received the bisphosphonate, which is what zoledronate falls into, than women who only got the placebo.

Rick: So Elizabeth, if I ask you the women who have fragility fractures, are they more likely to have osteoporosis or osteopenia? Most people would say, "Osteoporosis," because that's what we hear about. Actually, the number of women with osteopenia is much larger than the number of women with osteoporosis, so that's the group that's more likely to have fractures. So this study is a terrific study in that it says that we can take those individuals, and by giving them an infusion once every 18 months, reduce the risk of those fractures by between 30% and 40%. That's a significant benefit.

Elizabeth: I thought the other aspects of the study that were kind of interesting were the fact that they recommended calcium supplements, but did not provide them. Of course, we're seeing lots of plus-minus information about supplementation with calcium now, especially with regard to heart disease risk, and then also the vitamin D supplementation.

Rick: They didn't recommend calcium. They said, "Just make sure you have a good diet." But they did recommend vitamin D for women that weren't taking it. We've talked before about the fact that calcium really doesn't prevent bony fractures or osteoporosis. It's the vitamin D that does in older individuals.

Elizabeth: We're also spending an awful lot of time talking about vitamin D and vitamin D supplementation.

Rick: Vitamin D can be helpful, particularly in those that have vitamin D levels are low in both men and women. If women with osteopenia want to prevent fractures, this is the agent they should use, not a different agent.

Elizabeth: My caveat would also be to get vitamin D levels tested before taking a supplement.

Rick: I think that's not bad advice.

Elizabeth: On that note, I'm going to talk about the dietary factors and hypertension this week on the blog. That's a look at this week's medical headlines from Texas Tech. I'm Elizabeth Tracey.

Rick: And I'm Rick Lange. Y'all listen up and make healthy choices.

2018-10-06T14:00:00-0400

Less than a week after a jury found Monsanto liable in a $289 million-dollar-cancer verdict, independent lab tests commissioned by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) report large doses of glyphosate in cereal for kids, oat bars and other oat-based products.

Previously, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calculations suggest that 1- to 2-year-old children likely experience the highest exposure to glyphosate, the potential cancer-causing chemical used in Monsanto’s Roundup. And according to the agency’s risk assessment, the exposure level is 230 times greater than EWG’s health benchmark.

What does this mean for our children? Without some serious changes made to the food industry and EPA standards, they’ll continue to ingest potentially toxic levels of glyphosate for breakfast. Maybe this will be the last straw for consumers?

Glyphosate in Cereal: EWG Study Details

EWG turned to Eurofins, a nationally recognized lab with extensive experience testing for chemicals. This testing involved measuring the amount of glyphosate found in popular products containing oats. What is this a big deal? I’m glad you ask …

Previous research suggests that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, is linked to the development of non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The bad news? The latest testing detected it in all but two of 45 non-organic product samples. The list of products tested includes Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Nature Valley granola bars and Quaker oats.

Alexis Temkin, PhD, an EWG toxicologist and the author of the report, expressed her concerns about these findings. “Parents shouldn’t worry about whether feeding their children healthy oat foods will also expose them to a chemical linked to cancer. The government must take steps to protect our vulnerable populations,” she said.

For this study, EWG set a more stringent health benchmark for daily exposure to glyphosate in foods than the EPA. Considering EWG’s standard of 160 parts per billion (ppb), the following products exceeded that limit in one or both samples tested, with the starred products exceeding 400 ppb: (1)

• Granola
  • Back to Nature Classic Granola*
  • Quaker Simply Granola Oats, Honey, Raisins & Almonds*
  • Nature Valley Granola Protein Oats ‘n Honey
• Instant Oats
  • Giant Instant Oatmeal, Original Flavor*
  • Quaker Dinosaur Eggs, Brown Sugar, Instant Oatmeal*
  • Umpqua Oats, Maple Pecan
  • Market Pantry Instant Oatmeal, Strawberries & Cream
• Oat Breakfast Cereals
  • Cheerios Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal*
  • Lucky Charms*
  • Barbara’s Muligrain Spoonfuls, Original Cereal
  • Kellogg’s Cracklin’ Oat Bran Oat Cereal
• Snack Bars
  • Nature Valley Crunchy Granola Bars, Oats ‘n Honey
• Whole Oats
  • Quaker Steel Cut Oats*
  • Quaker Old Fashioned Oats
  • Bob’s Red Mill Steel Cut Oats

Why Is Glyphosate in Our Food? 

Why is there glyphosate in our food? According to the U.S. Geological Survey, 250 million pounds of glyphosate are sprayed on American crops each year. Glyphosate is primarily used on Roundup Ready corn and soybeans that are genetically modified to withstand the herbicide.

Glyphosate is a systemic herbicide, meaning it’s taken up inside of the plant, including the parts livestock and humans wind up eating.

And on top of that, glyphosate is sprayed on other non-GMO crops, like wheat, oats, barley and beans, right before harvest. Farmers sometimes call this “burning down” the crops and do this to kill the food plants and dry them out so that they can be harvested sooner.

How Much Glyphosate Is Too Much? 

Why do we have to pay attention to glyphosate levels in our food? The simple answer is that glyphosate is linked to an elevated risk of cancer. In fact, the World Health Organization categorizes the weed-killing chemical as “probably carcinogenic in humans.”

So, really, any amount of glyphosate in our food is concerning, especially when it’s found in our children’s food. (And especially since children consume it during critical stages of development.)

So how did EWG come up with the limit for child glyphosate exposure? Using a cancer risk assessment developed by California state scientists, EWG calculated that glyphosate levels above 160 parts per billion (ppb) are considered too high for children. To break that down into simpler terms — a child should not ingest more than 0.01 milligrams of glyphosate per day.

How did tEWG come up with this health benchmark? Under California’s Proposition 65 registry of chemicals known to cause cancer, the “No Significant Risk Level” for glyphosate for the average adult weighing about 154 pounds is 1.1 milligrams per day. This safety level is more than 60 times lower than the standards set by the EPA.

To calculate the recommendation for children, EWG took California’s increased lifetime risk of cancer of one in 1 million (which is the number used for many cancer-causing drinking water contaminants), and added a 10-fold margin of safety, which is recommended by the federal Food Quality Protection Act to support children and developing fetuses that have an increased susceptibility to carcinogens. This is how EWG reached the safety limit of 0.01 milligrams of glyphosate per day for children.

EWG’s health benchmark concerning the amount of glyphosate that poses a threat in our food is much more stringent than what the EPA allows. Although this amount of glyphosate present in oat products doesn’t seem like much in one portion, imagine consuming that amount every day over a lifetime. Exposure to this toxic herbicide will certainly accumulate over time, which is worrisome, to say the least.

“The concern about glyphosate is for long-term exposure. As most health agencies would say, a single portion would not cause deleterious effects,” explains Olga Naidenko, PhD, EWG’s senior science advisor for children’s health. “But think about eating popular foods such as oatmeal every day, or almost every day — that’s when, according to scientific assessments, such amounts of glyphosate might pose health harm.”

And there is some controversy over whether or not we can trust government regulators to make sure the food we eat is safe. This past April, internal emails obtained by the nonprofit US Right to Know revealed that the FDA has been testing food for glyphosate for two years and found “a fair amount.” But these findings haven’t been released to the public. According to The Guardian, the news outlet that obtained these internal documents, an FDA chemist wrote: “I have brought wheat crackers, granola cereal and corn meal from home and there’s a fair amount in all of them.” (2)

According to Naidenko, “It is essential for companies to take action and choose oats grown without herbicides. This can be done, and EWG urges government agencies such as the EPA, and companies to restrict the use of herbicides that end up in food.”

Glyphosate in Cereal: Organic vs. Non-Organic Products

What about organic cereals and oats? EWG findings suggest that organic products contain significantly less glyphosate that non-organic products. To be exact, 31 out of 45 conventional product samples contained glyphosate levels at or higher than 160 ppb, while 5 out of 16 organic brand products registered low levels of glyphosate (10 to 30 ppb). Of all the organic products tested, none of them contained a level of glyphosate anywhere near the EWG benchmark of 160 ppb.

Glyphosate can get into organic foods by drifting from nearby fields that grow conventional crops. Organic products may also be cross-contaminated during processing at a facility that also handles conventional crops.

While glyphosate was detected in some organic oat products, the levels were much, much lower than conventional products, or non-existent. So it looks like the rule still stands — to avoid increased exposure to cancer-causing chemicals like glyphosate, choose organic.

Final Thoughts on Glyphosate in Cereal

• EWG commissioned independent laboratory tests to measure the levels of glyphosate present in popular oat-based products. Scientists found that almost three-fourths of the conventionally grown products contained glyphosate levels that are higher than what EWG considers safe for children.
• Feeding your family clean, healthy meals may already feel like a daily challenge. We shouldn’t have to worry about whether or not our seemingly healthy choices contain toxic herbicides.
• To join EWG to get glyphosate out of our food, take action here.

Read Next: How Hormone Disruptors Impact Your Body

© Photo: Getty Images/Jamie McCarthy 60th Annual GRAMMY Awards - Arrivals

For some, decompressing might look like whipping up a gourmet dinner, slapping on a face mask, or making time for a matcha date with your gal pals. Lady Gaga's self-care tastes are decidedly more Halloween-appropriate though: In a recent video with Vogue, the mega-pop star revealed that queueing up a spine-chilling horror movie is her definition of unwinding. And, because this preference is decidedly relatable to oh-so-many folks leading up to the spookiest holiday of the year, I decided to ask a couple experts why one might seek comfort in the horrifying.

According to Nancy Irwin, PsyD, a member of the Los Angeles County Psychological Association, this movie genre may soothe the viewer for a variety of reasons. One possibility: Seeing bad things play out on screen assures us that we're not alone. "Otherwise, we feel others' lives are perfect and bad stuff only happens to us," says the expert. Second, "deep down, we may feel we are 'exercising' this muscle to prepare for if and when the bad stuff does happen to us," Dr. Irwin explains. She adds that simulating a fight or flight response may be satisfying on some subconscious level, especially for those who have suffered from past traumas.

Lastly, the preference might just come down to your genetic makeup. According to Dr. Irwin, being born with the "thrill seeker gene" biologically predisposes individuals to thrive on the adrenaline. And thus, when the protagonist in the movie inanely follows the murderer into the basement, you just *cannot* look away. Michael Breus, PhD, a clinical psychologist, adds that another gene might be a factor as well. "There are people who have a personality trait called ‘Sensation Seeking.’ These are the people who seem to really both enjoy and get some weird form of relaxation from watching scary movies," he says.

"Horror movies are not in and of themselves 'bad.' They serve a purpose for some people, and should be avoided by others, and everything in between." — Nancy Irwin, PsyD

While we can't possibly know which psychological factors pertain to Lady Gaga, in particular, consider puzzling over your own mental processes next time you tuck in for a viewing of The Conjuring, The Silence of the Lambs, or your frightening blockbuster of choice. If you're more into rom-coms than gore, though, Dr. Irwin recommends following your instincts and keeping in mind that they may change over time. For instance, after becoming a parent, you might no longer be able to stomach scene after scene of violence. "Horror movies are not in and of themselves 'bad.' They serve a purpose for some people and should be avoided by others, and everything in between," she concludes. Consider that next time you peer pressure your bestie into a Saw marathon.