Digital training at home to beat lockdown frustration

 Interactive training programs for use at home can make the restrictions during a lockdown more bearable. The live-streaming of sports offerings allows for a significant increase in physical activity, revealed a research team from ten countries headed by the Institute of Sport Science at Goethe University Frankfurt. At the same time well-being improved compared to an inactive control group. One year previously, the team had described the negative impacts of coronavirus restrictions on exercise and well-being.

People were about 40% less active during the first lockdown in the spring of 2020. This has been revealed by an international study headed by Goethe University Frankfurt. Psychological well-being also declined, with the proportion of people at risk of depression increasing threefold. In order to cushion the effects of this negative development, the research team designed an online training program for use at home and studied whether the physical activity that is so important to general health could be maintained during a lockdown. The results of the study were recently published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Of 763 healthy subjects from nine countries on four continents, half trained for four weeks using a live-stream program, the others formed the control group. Those training could select from a number of daily workouts—for example with the focus on strength, endurance, balance or relaxation. Professional trainers actively accompanied them with a camera and microphone. Each week both groups completed standardized questionnaires on physical activity, anxiety, mental well-being, quality of sleep, pain and sport motivation.

The training program was particularly effective in improving movement behavior in the participants: physical activity was initially as much as 65% higher on average in the online group than in the comparison group, and still 20 to 25% higher after four weeks. Thus, the course participants clearly surpassed the WHO recommendations of at least 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of intensive exercise per week, while the control group only just attained these. At the same time the motivation to do sport, psychological well-being and sleep improved, and anxiety levels decreased. "While these improvements are minor, they are nevertheless potentially relevant," stresses study head Dr. Jan Wilke from the Institute of Sport Science at Goethe University Frankfurt. "Our participants were all healthy—the effects with patients could be significantly greater, in particular with people who have chronic disease." In addition, he said, four weeks is a very short period for such efficacy studies. Participants who took part in at least two courses per week stated their fitness was even better and they had a greater feeling of well-being, yet did not note any further improvement with sleep or fears.

Unfortunately, only just under half of the participants completed the study. The research group attributed this in particular to the considerable effort of completing the questionnaires each week. This frequent information retrieval was intended to ensure that the study would allow conclusions to be drawn even if the lockdown regulations were relaxed. The changes in local conditions in the same period could also have lowered the motivation of some participants, for example if local fitness studios had reopened. Moreover, the requirements were very strict: those who did not respond by completing the questionnaire were eliminated from the study.

"Train at home, but not alone"—it is best to train at home with others, this is how the working group summarized its findings on exercise offerings in the pandemic-induced lockdown. Following the main section of the study—the live-streaming—when both groups had access to recorded contents, the differences that had been observed declined in part. According to Wilke, this is due to both the activation of the control group as well as to the change in the form of the physical activity intervention (live vs. recorded).

The study authors expressly underline the importance of exercise in our daily lives: in line with the latest data, physical inactivity causes eight to nine percent of all premature deaths, increases the risk of cardiac disease, metabolic disorders and cancers, as well as proneness to the novel coronavirus. They believe that it is probably all the more important in lockdown to offer online training for people with chronic illnesses—for example diabetics—whose health could possibly suffer additionally under the restrictions imposed by a pandemic.

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App use vital to keeping active during lockdown

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More information: Jan Wilke et al, Train at home, but not alone: a randomised controlled multicentre trial assessing the effects of live-streamed tele-exercise during COVID-19-related lockdowns, British Journal of Sports Medicine (2022). DOI: 10.1136/bjsports-2021-104994

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-digital-home-lockdown-frustration.html

New PPI Data Again Link Medication Use to Alzheimer's

 The study covered in this summary was published in researchsquare.com and has not yet been peer reviewed.

This case–control study provided supportive evidence that previous proton pump inhibitor (PPI) use might increase the risk for Alzheimer's disease, regardless of current or past use or duration of first- or second-generation PPIs.

Key Takeaways

• This nested case–control study of the Korean population showed that the development of Alzheimer's disease in people older than 60 years was more likely with PPI use.

• This increase in the risk for Alzheimer's disease with PPI use was maintained regardless of age, sex, income, region of residence, smoking, alcohol consumption, blood pressure, fasting blood glucose, total cholesterol, or gastroesophageal reflux disease status.

Why This Matters

• The burden of Alzheimer's disease on public health is growing as the population ages. In elderly people, it is important to study the neurologic adverse effects of commonly used medications for dementia prevention.

• Conclusions about the association between PPI use and dementia have been conflicting. This study was designed specifically to focus on the impact of PPIs on Alzheimer's risk.

• The findings provide supportive evidence regarding previous pharmacoepidemiologic studies, and encourage cautious and strict application of PPI medication (one of the most commonly used medications worldwide) to prevent the development of Alzheimer's disease.

Study Design

• A retrospective cohort study with a nested case–control design was used to determine the effect of PPI on risk for the development of Alzheimer's disease.

• The 17,225 patients with Alzheimer's disease identified in the Korean National Health Insurance Service–Health Screening Cohort (KNHIS-HSC) database were propensity matched, in a 1:4 ratio, with 68,900 control subjects on the basis of age, sex, income, and region of residence.

• PPI prescription duration for the year prior to the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease was retrospectively reviewed. Days of PPI use were defined as prescription days during the year before the index Alzheimer's disease diagnosis.

• Patients were classified as nonusers, current PPI users (prescribed at least once in the previous 30 days), or past PPI users (prescribed at least once in the previous 31 to 365 days). Patients were further categorized by duration of exposure to PPIs as nonusers or users — for fewer than 30 days, for 30 to 90 days, or for more than 90 days — based on prescriptions in the year before the Alzheimer's diagnosis.

• Patients younger than 60 years or any patients with missing records of body mass index (BMI), fasting blood glucose, or cholesterol were excluded from the analysis.

Key Results

• Demographic characteristics (age group, sex, economic level) were matched exactly for the 17,225 Alzheimer's patients and the 68,900 control subjects (standardized difference, 0).

• The odds of developing Alzheimer's disease were significantly higher in current (odds ratio [OR], 1.36; P < .001) and past (OR, 1.11; P < .001) PPI groups than in the control group.

• Participants with PPI prescriptions for fewer than 30 days (OR, 1.13; P < .001), 30 to 90 days (OR, 1.18; P < .001), or more than 90 days (OR, 1.26; P < .001) all had higher odds of developing Alzheimer's disease than those in control group. An increased association between the cumulative duration of PPI exposure and the development of Alzheimer's disease was also observed. The odds of developing Alzheimer's disease were higher for users with more than 30 days of exposure than for those with fewer than 30 days.

• The incidence of Alzheimer's disease was higher for patients exposed to first- or second-generation PPIs, regardless of duration of exposure. Specifically, for patients with exposure for fewer than 30 days, the odds ratios for first- and second-generation PPIs were 1.14 and 1.13, respectively; for patients with exposure for 30 to 90 days, the odds ratios were 1.19 and 1.17, respectively, and for patients with exposure for more than 90 days, the odds ratios were 1.18 and 1.27, respectively.

Limitations

• The length of time for previous PPI prescription — the 1-year period before Alzheimer's diagnosis — was short.

• The actual medication intake by patients could not be monitored.

• Because the study was retrospective, unmeasured confounding effects could not completely be excluded.

• Family history of Alzheimer's disease and genetic information were unavailable in the health insurance data and therefore not taken into consideration.

Disclosures

• The study received no commercial funding.

• None of the authors disclosed relevant financial relationships.

This is a summary of a preprint research study, Associations between proton pump inhibitors and Alzheimer's disease: A nested case-control study using a Korean nationwide health screening cohort , written by researchers at the Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, Hallym University College of Medicine, Chuncheon, Gangwon, Republic of Korea, published on ResearchSquare, and provided to you by Medscape. This study has not yet been peer-reviewed. The full text of the study can be found on researchsquare.com.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/971414

'CMS made the wrong decision on Aduhelm. But there might be a silver lining'

 The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued on Thursday its hotly debated final decision on whether to cover aducanumab (Aduhelm), the first FDA-approved treatment for Alzheimer’s that slows the disease’s biological progression rather than just temporarily easing its symptoms. We believe it made the wrong choice.

The agency, which regulates the public insurance programs that collectively serve about 135 million Americans, decided it will cover the cost of Aduhelm only for the tiny subset of people with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease who choose to enroll in CMS-approved clinical trials of the drug.

In practical terms, the decision means that Aduhelm will be off limits to all but a few thousand people — a fraction of the roughly 1.5 million Americans with early-stage Alzheimer’s who would have otherwise qualified to take the medicine based on the FDA’s approval in June 2021. When the FDA approves a medication, CMS almost invariably covers it, with private insurers routinely following suit.

As physician-scientists who have been researching Alzheimer’s disease and treating people with it for decades, we find the science behind Aduhelm convincing — and CMS’s unprecedented decision highly disappointing.

Fortunately, CMS backed off one of the worst elements of its original draft decision. In January, it had initially proposed a Medicare coverage policy that would have severely restricted access not just to Aduhelm but also to any future drugs in the same therapeutic class: monoclonal antibodies targeting harmful protein deposits in the brain known as amyloid plaques. In essence, the agency was planning to prejudge an entire category of medicines before data about them are in.

But after considerable pushback from patient groups, scientists, physicians, and others, CMS revised its original plan. In its final decision, the agency telegraphed that it is open to covering future amyloid antibody therapies that deliver significant clinical benefits and receive conventional FDA approval.

That’s good news for people with Alzheimer’s and their loved ones, because these monoclonal antibodies — three of which are in the third and final phase of clinical trials — show substantial promise based on earlier trial data.

The controversy around Aduhelm and related antibodies stems from a debate about whether clearing amyloid plaques slows the progression of Alzheimer’s. In the past two decades, several approaches targeting amyloid in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients failed in clinical trials. Some scientists concluded that such approaches were doomed to be ineffective. None of those earlier agents, however, was shown to decrease amyloid plaques!

That changed in the last three years. Aduhelm and three other amyloid antibodies have been shown to robustly lower amyloid levels in the brain, and most showed evidence of slower cognitive decline. Also important to note is that the clearing of amyloid was followed by reductions in excess tau protein, another major brain change seen in people with in Alzheimer’s. Aduhelm was the first therapeutic agent that lowered both of these hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease.

Critics have questioned the FDA’s approval of Aduhelm because only one of its two final trials was successful without acknowledging that the two trials were not identical. The successful trial had more participants who received a higher total dose of Aduhelm over time. Yet participants’ in the “failed” trial who received high total doses — like those in the successful trial — also experienced a slowing of mental decline. When combined with the significant lowering of brain amyloid in both trials, these compelling findings led the FDA to grant the drug accelerated approval.

CMS officials disagree with the FDA’s reasoning, and are likely worried about the cost of covering a medication for hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries who might seek the treatment if it was broadly covered by Medicare. While CMS’s concern for taxpayers is understandable, it’s the FDA — not CMS — that has the statutory authority and deep medical expertise to assess a drug for approval. And Aduhelm passed the FDA’s assessment.

CMS arguably overstepped the bounds of its authority. Its decision is a huge blow to millions of Americans living with Alzheimer’s and their families. They are the losers in CMS’s decision, not only from the severe restriction on access to Aduhelm but also from its chilling effect on the development of other disease-modifying agents for people with Alzheimer’s. If CMS won’t pay for a treatment after the FDA legally approves it, why should a company bother pursuing this pathway?

CMS’s decision will affect the exploration for new treatments for Alzheimer’s for years, just at the time when new drugs appear to be making progress against this terrible disease.

Dennis J. Selkoe is a neurologist, co-director of the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and a professor of neurologic diseases at Harvard Medical School. Jeffrey Cummings is a neurologist, professor of brain sciences, and director of the Chambers-Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

https://www.statnews.com/2022/04/09/cms-made-the-wrong-decision-on-aduhelm/

Walgreens starts RATIONING baby formula as supply chain crunch hits

 A national shortage of baby formula brought on by pandemic-related supply-chain issues has forced US retailers such as Walgreens to ration the all-important product.

The company - the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the United States behind CVS - said Friday that amid the supply-chain crunch, it is limiting customers to three infant and toddler formula product purchases at a time, at its 9,021 US locations. 

A company spokesperson told DailyMail.com that the restrictions, already in effect, stem from an 'increased demand and various supplier issues,' as it was revealed that 29 percent of all top-selling formulas are out of stock at stores across the nation.

The shortage of the product, which roughly three-quarters of infants in the US receive at some point within their first six months, has parents panicked.

'I would normally buy four to six cans at times to get us through the month and I would have to limit that to two,' Samantha Modely, of Memphis, told local outlet WREG-TV Thursday.

A national shortage of baby formula brought on by pandemic-related supply-chain issues has forced US retailers such as Walgreens to ration the all-important product. Pictured is a barren formula shelf at a big box store in January. The shortage has since worsened to crisis levels

The shortage of the product, which roughly three-quarters of infants in the US receive at some point within their first six months, has parents across the country panicked

'My friend is about to have a baby in August, and I can’t imagine being worried about whether you’d be able to go to the local grocery store and grab what you needed it,' the mom said. 

'We've noticed it being difficult to find maybe a couple months ago — two, three months ago — and then just recently we can't find it,' San Francisco resident Irene Anhoeck told CBS News of the shortage, which has affected stores across the country.

'We've tried all the local Targets. We checked Costco, Costco online, Walgreens, Long's,' Anhoeck said. 'Can't find it anywhere.'

The shortage is being blamed on pandemic-related supply chain issues - which has spawned a backlog of billions of dollars of toys, clothing, electronics, vehicles, and furniture over the past year - as well as delivery disruptions caused by severe weather seen in the Deep South the past month.

A recent recall also compounded the issue in February, when Abbott, one of the four major American formula manufacturers, recalled a number of its products - including the popular Similac. Pictured is a currently out-of-stock Similac listing on Amazon

A recent recall also compounded the issue in February, when Abbott, one of the four major American formula manufacturers, recalled a number of its products - including its preeminent Similac formulas.

The recall - which focused on products that had been manufactured at its factory in Sturgis, Michigan - was spurred a possible contamination of Cronobacter sakazakii, a bacteria that could prove deadly to infants, the company said at the time.  

Now, nearly two months later, the product is increasingly out of stock at retailers - both small and large - across the country. 

An analysis by Datasembly, a company that chronicles billions of grocery and retail pricing records for stores in all 50 states, tracked baby formula stock at more than 11,000 stores, and found that 29 percent of top-selling baby formula products were out of stock as of the week of March 13.

 A recent study that tracked baby formula stock at more than 11,000 stores found that 29 percent of top-selling baby formula products, including Enfamil (pictured), were out of stock as of the week of March 13

The marked increase is up 11 percent from November, when the supply chain crunch was at its height, due to a historically high demand for consumer goods during the pandemic, when an influx of Americans elected to stay home instead of spending money on travel and entertainment.

Other issues contributing to the bottleneck on America's overseas supply line including a lack of manpower at US ports and restrictions that came with the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 and 2021. These constraints, which included social distancing and mandatory quarantines, severely limited the number and ability of port workers, and thus hampered the flow of products, including formula, into The States.  

Other supply-chain related issues spurring the formula shortage include an increased difficulty procuring key ingredients, along with packaging delays and labor shortages.

An out-of-stock Enfamil formula listing on Amazon on April 8. The shortage is being blamed on pandemic-related supply chain issues

An out-of-stock Gerber formula listing on Amazon on April 8

'This is a shocking number that you don't see for other categories,' Ben Reich, CEO of Datasembly, told CBS of the study's results, which he said are likely to worsen.

'We've been tracking it over time and it's going up dramatically. We see this category is being affected by economic conditions more dramatically than others,' Reich said.

The probe by the retail tracker further found that in 24 US states, 30 percent of all formula was out of stock as of mid-March, while other states were seeing even worse shortages. 

In Minnesota, for instance, a whopping 54 percent of baby formula products were out of stock.

Several states also saw shortages of more than 40 percent, the study revealed, including Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, North and South Dakota, Rhode Island, and Texas. 

For reference, during the first seven months of 2021, only 2 to 8 percent of baby formula products were out of stock. 

The American Deep and Mid-South have also been hit hard by the formula scarcity - compounded by a slew of storm systems that have ravaged states like Georgia, Mississippi, and North and South Carolina in recent weeks - with shelves once lined with the product now barren.  

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10701087/Walgreens-starts-RATIONING-baby-formula-supply-chain-crunch-hits-new-parents.html

China Insiders Steal Billions From US Investors

 Op-Ed by Anders Corr via The Epoch Times,

China’s corporate insiders are cheating small American investors of billions of dollars through advance information that enables lucrative trades just before the stock price falls.

The total losses that insiders of Chinese companies listed on American exchanges have avoided by selling prior to price drops are at least $10 billion between 2016 and the middle of 2021, according to a new study of their security filings.

Chinese company shares fell an average of 21 percent a year after the Chinese company insiders sold large quantities of stock, compared to a 2 percent rise after insiders from American companies sold. Given inflation, that American number zeros out.

The Alibaba Case

The Wall Street Journal covered the study and used Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. as an example. In October 2020, “Alibaba’s payments affiliate, Ant Group Co., was preparing for its initial public offering, a move that would have likely increased the value of Alibaba’s one-third stake,” according to the Journal.

But Alibaba’s founder and CEO, Jack Ma, publicly criticized China’s financial regulators, who canceled the listing. Instead of rising, which the market predicted, Alibaba shares fell 8 percent on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

One day prior to Ma’s announcement, Sky Scraper Enterprises Ltd. sold approximately $150 million worth of Alibaba stock. An Alibaba insider controls Sky Scraper, but nobody knows his or her identity.

Whoever controls Sky Scraper, according to the Journal, which cited the Financial Times, “was one of the company’s best-paid executives in recent years and had been granted huge swaths of stock as compensation.”

This unknown Alibaba executive avoided losses totaling hundreds of millions of dollars through what appears to be insider trading. American and other investors who got caught on their back feet—because they couldn’t know the inside information no matter how much research they did—apparently got cheated.

The SEC, Big Banks, and China Collude Against Small Investors

The researchers—Robert Jackson, Bradford Lynch, and Daniel Taylor—point out that U.S. securities law actually advantages and enables China’s insiders relative to those in the United States.

“Executives and other major shareholders at American companies have to disclose their trades within two days in a filing that is posted on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website and freely available to investors,” according to the Journal.

That deters bad behavior because American insiders do not want to appear to have acted on inside information. They don’t want to signal other market participants to sell the stock and, thus, decrease its value.

Signage is seen at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) headquarters in Washington on May 12, 2021. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

China’s insiders don’t have the same problem because U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulators treat them with kid gloves. To encourage China’s companies to list on NYSE and other U.S. exchanges in the early 1990s, regulators gave China’s companies several key preferences relative to U.S. companies.

For example, unlike American insiders, China’s insiders don’t have to report their trades in a timely and highly public manner electronically but instead can mail paper disclosures. The paper reporting may, by law, be thrown out after three months.

That preference gives China’s insiders weeks before their trades are discovered and a window of just three months for investors with a lot of time on their hands to visit the SEC offices and discover the trades. Traders typically don’t have that time, so China’s insider trades are rarely discovered and seldom signal the market in the timely manner required to shield American investors from unfair losses.

As Western institutional investors increasingly invested in China stocks since the 1990s, however, they acquired an interest in lobbying U.S. regulators to continue providing China’s companies with regulatory advantages, which kept up their Chinese stock prices.

That sordid party is ending, but addicted institutional investors are scheming an afterparty and trying to smuggle out their drugs, which are the tanking Chinese assets.

SEC Loopholes for Chinese Firms Should Be Closed Immediately

The three researchers want the insider trading loophole closed, but, as usual, the SEC is dragging its feet and continues to give China’s companies a major advantage that likely bilks small American investors of billions of dollars.

There are other SEC loopholes for China’s publicly-listed companies as well. The SEC does not require the same auditing standards of Chinese companies listed on U.S. exchanges that are required of U.S. companies.

Some of these auditing loopholes are being closed through legislation rather than quick executive action, which should be the rule. The executive branch is more beholden to big bank lobbying on China than is Congress.

But even this legislation is taking years to effect. Audits are only extracted from China’s companies through the too-gradual threat of delisting, with a three-year warning. And new loopholes are being negotiated with China by the Biden administration at this very moment.

Due to the threat of delisting, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) is proposing that it jointly investigate with U.S. and other authorities, which would give it influence on decisions and a patina of respectability that it does not deserve as a democratically unaccountable authority. It would also provide plenty of opportunities for Beijing officials to attempt to corrupt American SEC officials who are supposed to be laser-focused on integrity.

A sign of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) is seen at its headquarters in Beijing, China, on Nov. 16, 2020. (VCG via Getty Images)

There is a more significant political reason for the proposal as well. “China doesn’t want to be seen as making concessions just to the U.S.,” a China financial analyst told the Wall Street Journal. Thus, China’s regulators are negotiating face-saving measures for Beijing and advantages for Chinese companies that they don’t deserve, given their lack of transparency.

The CSRC should be told in no uncertain terms to pound sand. U.S. authorities should investigate China’s companies listed on U.S. exchanges.

Yet the Biden administration is showing weakness. China’s companies could hire Western auditors that subcontract key work to Chinese auditors without checking the work closely. This auditing chain that relies on auditors in China—who are beholden to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and unreachable by American and other democratic authorities—will be unreliable and should be forbidden by the SEC.

As usual, the devil is in the details.

All of these loopholes and bargaining by the Biden administration give as much time and space as possible to U.S. banks to unravel their positions, even as their research departments publicly claim that China assets are underpriced. Small American investors, who do not have the time to do the research, have paid the price.

Last month, according to Institute of International Finance (IIF) data, $11.2 billion flowed out of China bonds, and $6.3 billion flowed out of China stocks. It is an “unprecedented dynamic that suggests a market rotation” away from China, according to the IIF.

Compare that to emerging markets ex-China, which saw $10.8 billion flow into debt and an outflow of less than $400 million from stocks, according to the IIF data. Emerging markets ex-China means emerging markets except for China.

Stronger US Government Action Needed

U.S. loopholes that give China’s companies and insiders advantages are an obvious mistake of current and past administrations since the early 1990s—none of which fixed the problem, despite years of China’s economic and military growth into an existential threat to both the United States and democracy more generally.

The political influence of the big banks, all of which are deeply invested in China, is mainly to blame. So the researchers are right—inside trading loopholes for China’s companies should be closed immediately.

But much more is needed.

Even if the SEC closes all loopholes and preferences that favor China, China’s insiders could continue to trade on inside information and escape legal consequences if they are far from American law enforcement. That China’s insiders are beyond American law—and the law of other democracies—needs to be corrected.

Anyone caught insider trading anywhere in the world, if outside the reach of law enforcement in democracies, should at minimum be subject to individualized economic and visa sanctions by democratic governments. This is absolutely necessary for democratic accountability, the rule of law, fair treatment of small investors, and the smooth functioning of international markets.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/china-insiders-steal-billions-us-investors

Effects of America's Narcissism Epidemic

 There's a strong case to be made that since the end of World War II, Americans have grown increasingly narcissistic on average – more entitled, with an inflated sense of self-importance.

Psychologists Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell are most responsible for collecting data and creating a narrative to support this claim. According to the duo, the rise began with the Baby Boomers, who grew up in an era of relative ease and plenty after their grandparents endured a Great Depression and their parents soldiered and sacrificed through World War II. By the time they were college-aged, Boomers eschewed the collectivist mindset of their elders in favor of individualism.

The trend continued with Boomers' kids. As Dennis Shen wrote for the London School of Economics’ Phelan United States Centre, "One study comparing teenagers found that while only 12% of those aged 14-16 in the early 1950s agreed with the statement “I am an important person”, 77% of boys and more than 80% of girls of the same cohort by 1989 agreed with it."

And, of course, the rise in narcissism has persisted since. In 2008, Twenge published a study comparing college students' scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory scale to scores from students in 1979, finding that levels of narcissism had risen roughly 30 percent.

Additional research has evinced this increase. "59% of American college freshmen rated themselves above average in intellectual self-confidence in 2014, compared with 39% in 1966," Shen wrote.

Owing to the elevated prevalence of social media services over the past decade, it's highly likely that the rise in narcissism has only accelerated of late. We see it on Twitter, where users flock to share their 'brilliant' opinions. We see it on Instagram and TikTok, where people carefully curate their online personas. We also see it in traditional media sources, where elite-educated journalists often make themselves the story and focus on tending their Twitter profiles. Narcissism also reigns on television news. Gone are the days of humble correspondents and “just the facts” anchors, replaced by talking heads and opinionated hosts more interested in their ratings than the truth.

Of course, while narcissism has risen, that doesn't mean we are all narcissists. It exists both as a trait, which is on a spectrum, and a personality disorder, which is much more extreme and debilitating. Narcissistic personality disorder has actually remained fairly stable in the U.S. over the past decades. This means that the average American is more self-centered than they used to be, but decidedly not stuck in their own head.

What are the wider effects of this psychological transition? As Shen speculated, partisanship has exploded as people have grown more enamored with their own beliefs and less open to others'. Debt-financed conspicuous consumption "to elevate one’s status in front of others, rather than out of necessity" has risen. And an increasing disdain for government could partly be attributed to a focus on somewhat arrogant self-sufficiency.

There is also another way to look at the rise in narcissism – as a defense mechanism. Narcissism is often driven by low self-esteem and insecurity. Since the 1950s, wealth inequality has risen, cost of living has exploded, especially for housing, and puchasing power has stagnated. Combine these economic pressures with the competitive, pressure-filled media environment since the turn of the century and you have a recipe for a rise in narcissism. And sadly, narcissism is linked to elevated hostility and aggression towards others. One hopes that Americans can find a way to cool their collective narcissism before it boils over.

Steven "Ross" Pomeroy is Chief Editor of RealClearScience. A zoologist and conservation biologist by training, Ross has nurtured a passion for journalism and writing his entire life. Ross weaves his insatiable curiosity and passion for science into regular posts and articles on RealClearScience's Newton Blog. Additionally, his work has appeared in Science Now and Scientific American.

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2022/04/09/americas_narcissism_epidemic.html