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Not surprisingly, a new study finds that older women who are exposed to physical and verbal abuse have poor mental health.

But an unexpected twist did show up in the results, study author Dr. Charles P. Mouton said, in that verbal abuse alone was more damaging than physical abuse alone.

Why? “The physical abuse may be perceived as minor or something they lived with their whole life,” said Mouton, chair of community and family medicine at Howard University in Washington, D.C. The study is published in the May/June issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.

Mouton and his co-researchers analyzed data on nearly 94,000 women, aged 50 to 79, who had participated in the large Women’s Health Initiative study.

Women who had been abused either physically or verbally over a three-year period had lower scores for mental health, a greater number of depressive symptoms, more social strain and less optimism about life than did women who weren’t abused.

While the effects of abuse on younger women have been studied by many researchers, Mouton said the latest study is one of the first to look at older women.

“When I first set up the study, I anticipated the bigger effect for physical and psychological outcomes would have both been driven by exposure to physical abuse,” he said.

“But we found verbal abuse had a significant impact,” he said. “The group who had verbal abuse-only reported more depressive symptoms than the group that had physical abuse-only. The group who reported the most depressive symptoms had both physical and verbal abuse.”

This suggests that the effects of any kind of abuse are wide-ranging, affecting mental health and happiness. “They are less optimistic about their lives,” he said. “They have poorer overall mental health, and they have an increase in depressive symptoms. Their quality of life declines at a time when we like to think they are enjoying their golden years.”

The study results may surprise people, but the findings reflect what experts have seen clinically for years, said Dr. Juley Fulcher, director of policy programs for Break the Cycle, an organization devoted to addressing dating violence in youth.

The findings do add to what Fulcher said is a scarcity of research in this area. “There’s been limited research specifically on older women,” said Fulcher, an adjunct professor of women’s studies at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

While some women in Mouton’s study reported only physical or only verbal abuse, Fulcher said that’s not the typical scenario. “Most commonly, we are talking about some combination of physical, verbal and sexual abuse,” she said.

In a second study, published in the same issue of the journal, New Zealand researchers found that social contact is as effective as physical activity in lifting the mood of depressed older people. The researchers assigned 193 people, aged 75 and older, who had depressive symptoms to either engage in an individualized physical activity program or to receive social visits.

Both groups improved in measures related to mood and mental health.

SOURCES: Charles Mouton, M.D., professor, community and family medicine, Howard University, Washington, D.C.; Juley Fulcher, Ph.D., J.D., director, policy programs, Break the Cycle, and adjunct professor, women’s studies, Washington, D.C.;

People who are resistant to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, have a gene that gives them a stronger immune system, a new study shows.

A small number of people exposed to HIV — about one in every 200 infected — develop AIDS very slowly or never develop the disease. Previous research found that a large number of these naturally HIV-immune people have a gene called HLA B57.

In this new study, U.S. researchers found that HLA B57 causes the body to produce more powerful killer T cells, which are white blood cells that attack infectious invaders. People with HLA B57 have a larger number of T cells that bind strongly to more pieces of HIV protein than people who don’t have the gene. In people with HLA B57, T cells are more likely to recognize cells that express HIV proteins, including mutated versions that arise during infection.

The findings may help scientists develop vaccines that trigger the same immune response to HIV that occurs naturally in people with HLA B57, according to the researchers from the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard.

Parents may want their girls to grow up to be astronauts and their boys to one day do their fair share of child care and housework duties, but a new study suggests certain stereotypical gender preferences take root even before most kids can crawl.

When presented with seven different toys, boys as young as 9 months old went for the car, digger and soccer ball, while ignoring the teddy bears, doll and cooking set.

And the girls? You guessed it. At the same age, they were most interested in the doll, teddy bear and miniature pot, spoon and plastic vegetables.

“The boys always preferred the toys that go or move, and the girls preferred toys that promote nurturing and facial features,” said study author Sara Amalie O’Toole Thommessen, an undergraduate at City University in London.

So does this mean that boys and girls have an innate preference for certain types of objects? Or does socialization — that is, the influence of parents and the larger culture — impact children’s choice of toys very early in life?

It’s too soon to rule either out, said Walter Gilliam, director of the Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale University.

“One of the things we’ve learned about babies over the many years we’ve been studying them is that they are amazing sponges and learn an awful lot in those nine months,” Gilliam said.

The study was to be presented Friday at the British Psychological Society’s annual conference in Stratford-upon-Avon.

In the 1970s and 1980s, there was lots of interest in the “nature” versus “nurture” debate, and developmental researchers did plenty of research on gender differences in play. However, most studies were inconclusive and interest faded, Thommessen said.

At the same time, roles within the home were becoming more fluid, with fathers taking on more child care and women working more and at a greater variety of jobs outside the home, though the marketing of children’s toys remained very stereotypical.

This latest study included 83 children aged 9 months to 3 years who were observed playing for three minutes. The time they spent touching or playing with each object was noted.

Researchers chose the toys by surveying 300 adults about the first toy that came to mind when they thought of a boy or a girl. About 90 percent said “car” for boy and “doll” for girls, with the remainder mentioning the other toys.

Children were also offered both a pink teddy bear and a blue teddy bear. “We were quite interested to see if boys had a color preference, but boys didn’t show any interest in the teddy bears at all,” Thommessen said.

Gender-specific preferences became even more pronounced as the children got older. By about age 27 months to 36 months, girls spent about 50 percent of their time playing with the doll, and were no longer much interested in the teddy bear, which had interested them when they were younger, or any of the other objects. The boys spent 87 percent of their time with the car and digger, ignoring even the ball.

The finding raises the possibility of a biological basis for toy choices. A study from 2001 found even 1-day-old boys spent longer looking at moving, mechanical options than 1-day-old girls, who spent more time looking at faces.

Yet the impact of socialization should never be underestimated, Gilliam said. Studies have shown parents and others interact differently with female and male babies from almost the instant they’re born, Gilliam said.

Even when they’re infants, fathers tend to encourage more active play with boy babies, by playfully tickling or poking them, while they tend to hold girl babies closer. Parents have also been observed spending more time talking to girls than to boys.

As they get older, studies have shown boys are encouraged to more actively explore their environment, while girls are encouraged to engage in quieter play.

“Even if your boy prefers playing with a truck, make sure you talk to him and teach him about nurturing,” Gilliam said. “Even if a girl is playing with a doll, every once in a while throw her a ball or take her on a run. Expose them to all the different possibilities, and then let them choose.”

And keep in mind just how much you may be dragging your own stereotypical notions into parenting.

In the study, researchers found no association between parents’ reported views on gender-appropriate toys for children, or parental roles at home, and the toys children chose. In other words, dads who did their share of housework and moms who held high-level jobs outside the home were just as likely to have girls who picked dolls and boys who picked cars and trucks.

But Gilliam remembers one family who brought their young son in to see him. There was an assortment of toys scattered on the floor, from which the boy chose a plastic figurine. “The mom said, ‘Oh, he wants to play with dolls.’ And the father replied, ‘He’s not playing with dolls. Those are action figures.’”

SOURCES: Sara Amalie O’Toole Thommessen, student, City University, London; Walter Gilliam, Ph.D., associate professor, child psychiatry and psychology, and director, Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.