May 12, 2008, 9:48 PM CT

When schools ban unhealthy snacks

Children who attend schools that run fruit tuck shops are much more likely to eat more fruit if they and their friends are also banned from bringing unhealthy snacks on to the school premises, as per research published online ahead of print in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Scientists at Cardiff University studied the snacking habits of 9-11 year olds attending 43 primary schools in deprived areas of South Wales and South West England which had a variety of policies on bringing food to school: no restrictions, fruit only or no food at all.

Twenty three of the schools were asked to start fruit tuck shops selling a variety of fruit at a fixed price and not to sell sweets and crisps as alternatives. All the schools continued with their current policies on bringing food to school.

Over the year-long study funded by the Food Standards Agency, the tuck shops sold approximately 70,000 pieces of fruit, equivalent to 0.06 pieces of fruit per student per day.

At the end of the year, the children were surveyed on how much fruit and other snacks they had eaten the prior day. They were also asked how much fruit they and their friends were eating regularly at school.

Fruit tuck shops alone had a limited impact on childrens fruit consumption at school. Eventhough children in schools with fruit tuck shops were more likely to say they and their friends ate fruit regularly, the amount of fruit they reported eating the prior day was not significantly more than children at schools without fruit tuck shops......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 7, 2008, 6:56 PM CT

Mental Fitness and Multi-Lingualism

Children who speak a second or third language may have an unexpected advantage during the later part of life, a new Tel Aviv University study has observed. Knowing and speaking a number of languages may protect the brain against the effects of aging.

Dr. Gitit Kave, a clinical neuro-psychology expert from the Herczeg Institute on Aging at Tel Aviv University, together with her colleagues Nitza Eyal, Aviva Shorek, and Jiska Cohen-Manfield, discovered recently that senior citizens who speak more languages test for better cognitive functioning. The results of her study were reported in the journal Psychology and Aging.

However, Kave says that one should approach these findings with caution. "There is no sure-fire recipe for avoiding the pitfalls of mental aging. But using a second or third language may help prolong the good years," she advises.

Exercising the Brain

A person who speaks more languages is likely to be more clear-minded at an older age, she says, in effect "exercising" his or her brain more than those who are monolingual. Languages may create new links in the brain, contributing to this strengthening effect.

The research was based on a survey taken in 1989 on people between the ages of 75 and 95. Each person was asked how a number of languages he or she knew, what his or her mother tongue was, and which language he or she spoke best. The scientists compared bilingual speakers to tri- and multilingual speakers......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 7, 2008, 6:44 PM CT

Caution on new anti-obesity drug in kids

Anti-obesity drugs that work by blocking brain molecules similar to those in marijuana could also interfere with neural development in young children, as per a new study from MITs Picower Institute for Learning and Memory.

Marijuana is known to be an appetite stimulant, and a new class of anti-obesity drugssuch as rimonabant (trade name Acomplia) developed by Sanofi-Aventis and awaiting approval for use in the United Stateswork by blocking brain receptors that bind to marijuana and other cannabinoids.

Marijuana, derived from the plant Cannabis sativa, contains special active compounds that are referred to collectively as cannabinoids. But other cannabinoids (endocannabinoids) are generated naturally inside the body.

The MIT study, which was done in mice, observed that blocking cannabinoid receptors could also suppress the adaptive rewiring of the brain necessary for neural development in children. The work is published in the May 8 issue of Neuron.

Our finding of a profound disruption of cortical plasticity in juvenile mice suggests caution is advised in the use of such compounds in children, wrote lead author Mark F. Bear, director of the Picower Institute and Picower Professor of Neuroscience.

The scientists investigated plasticitythe brains ability to change in response to experienceby temporarily depriving newborn mice of vision in one eye soon after birth. This well-known experiment induces a long-lasting loss of synapses that causes blindness in the covered eye, while synapses shift to the uncovered eye. How and where this synaptic shift occurs in the primary visual cortex has remained controversial......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

May 5, 2008, 9:05 PM CT

Flip flops, mulch and no coat

At a time when over half of US children (aged 3-6) are in child care centers, and growing concern over childhood obesity has led physicians to focus on whether children are getting enough physical activity, a new study of outdoor physical activity at child care centers, conducted by scientists at Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center, has identified some surprising reasons why the kids may be staying inside. The study, will be presented May 5 at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Its things we never expected, from flip flops, mulch near the playground, children who come to child care without a coat on chilly days, to teachers talking or texting on cell phones while they were supposed to be supervising the children, as per Kristen Copeland, M.D., lead author of the study which was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. She noted that because there are so a number of benefits of physical activity for children from prevention of obesity, to better concentration and development of gross motor skills its important to know what barriers to physical activity may exist at child-care centers.

With so a number of American preschool-aged children in child care centers, and prior reports that the amount of physical activity children get varies widely across different centers, we wanted to explore what some of the barriers to physical activity at these centers might be, said Dr. Copeland, a doctor scientist and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of General and Community Pediatrics at Cincinnati Childrens. As per the most recent statistics 74% of US children aged 3-6 years are in some form of non-parental child care. 56% percent of 3-6 year old children spend time in centers, including child care centers and preschools. Her team began by exploring child-care center staff members perceptions of barriers to childrens physical activity. They conducted focus groups with 49 staff members from 34 child-care centers in the Cincinnati area (including Montessori, Head Start and centers in the inner city and suburban areas) as the first of several studies on this subject......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

May 5, 2008, 8:28 PM CT

Breastfeeding may improve children's intelligence scores

Long-term, exclusive breastfeeding appears to improve childrens cognitive development, as per a report in the recent issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Prior studies have reported that children and adults who were breastfed as infants have higher scores on IQ tests and other measures of cognitive (thinking, learning and memory) development than those who were fed formula, as per background information in the article. However, the evidence has been based on findings based on observation, in which children whose mothers chose to breastfeed were compared with those whose mothers chose not to breastfeed. The results of these studies may be complicated by subtle differences in the way breastfeeding mothers interact with their infants, the authors note.

Michael S. Kramer, M.D., of McGill University and the Montreal Childrens Hospital, Montreal, Quebec, and his colleagues conducted a randomized trial of a breastfeeding promotion program involving patients at 31 maternity hospitals and affiliated clinics in Belarus. Between June 1996 and December 1997, clinics were randomly assigned either to adopt a program supporting and promoting breastfeeding or to continue their current practices and policies. A total of 7,108 infants and mothers who visited facilities promoting breastfeeding and 6,781 infants and mothers who visited control facilities received follow-up interviews and examinations between 2002 and 2005, when the children were an average of 6.5 years old......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

May 5, 2008, 6:10 PM CT

Preference for alcohol may lead to heavy drinking

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have shown a correlation between early drinking patterns and a tendency to be a heavy drinker in adulthood, in a study of adolescent rats.

Drinking patterns in adolescents may be set after only a few exposures to alcohol, said Nicole L. Schramm-Sapyta, research associate in the Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at Duke University School of Medicine. Rats that demonstrated a taste for alcohol after only three nights of drinking were very likely to be the biggest drinkers after longer-term exposure.

During the first three nights of the study, the rats were given only alcohol to consume. After that, for 10 days, they had a choice of water or alcohol. Their drinking was measured right after they had traveled through an elevated maze, a way to raise anxiety levels and measure stress-related hormone levels. They also were tested for drinking after researchers observed their preference for new objects and for exploring a new place.

We decided to examine stress and novelty seeking because these are two characteristics we see among people who develop problem drinking, said Schramm-Sapyta, first author of the study reported in the recent issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. The study was funded by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 3, 2008, 7:51 PM CT

Uninsured kids in middle class

Nationwide, uninsured children in families earning between $38,000 and $77,000 a year are just as likely to go without any health care as uninsured children in poorer families. More than 40 percent of children in those income brackets who are uninsured all year see no physicians and have no prescriptions all year, as per new research from the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Theres an assumption that children in families with higher income levels dont need insurance, that they are uninsured but are somehow still receiving health care anyway, said Laura Shone, Dr.P.H., M.S.W., an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center and author of the study being presented today at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii. This study shows that in reality, a large percentage of these children dont receive any care at all which pediatricians say is unacceptable, and parents know is unrealistic. Even healthy, older children need to see their physicians at least once over the course of a year.

Overall, almost 3 million uninsured children had no medical care and no prescription use for a full year, as per an analysis of nationally representative data from the 2004 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Of those, about 1.6 million children may qualify for public coverage but are not enrolled, and about 1 million more could be covered through expansions that were proposed yet vetoed at the national level in late 2007. The percentage of uninsured children who forego all health care for a full year is:........ Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

May 3, 2008, 7:45 PM CT

1 in 10 children using cough, cold medications

Scientists from Boston Universitys Slone Epidemiology Center have observed that approximately one in ten U.S. children uses one or more cough and cold medications during a given week. These findings will be presented today at the 2008 Pediatric Academic Societies & Asian Society for Pediatric Research Joint Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Pediatric cough and cold medications are widely marketed in the U.S. but surprisingly little is known about just how often they are used in children. This information is particularly important in light of recent revelations that cough and cold medications are responsible for serious adverse events and even deaths among children.

To define the frequency and patterns of use, the scientists analyzed data between 1999 and 2006 from the Slone Survey, a national telephone survey of medicine use in a representative sample of the U.S. population. The authors considered all oral medicines that are approved by the FDA to treat childrens coughs and colds.

The scientists observed that in a given week, at least one cough and cold medicine was used by 10.1 percent of U.S. children. In terms of active ingredients contained in these medications, exposure was highest to decongestants and antihistamines (6.3 percent each), followed by anti-cough ingredients (4.1 percent) and expectorants (1.5 percent)......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 28, 2008, 8:48 PM CT

Language skills develop at 6

Psychology experts at the University of Liverpool have discovered that children as young as six are as adept at recognising possible verbs and their past tenses as adults.

In a study conducted by the Universitys Child Language Study Centre, children aged between six and nine were given sentences containing made-up verbs such as the duck likes to spling and were asked to judge the acceptability of possible past tense forms. The study focused on the process the children used to come to their conclusions rather than whether their answers were right or wrong.

They observed that the childrens judgements followed a virtually identical pattern to those of linguistics students who took part in a similar study at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the US.

University of Liverpool psychology expert, Ben Ambridge, said: Prior studies have concentrated on getting children to produce past tense forms for made-up words. This study is unique in that the children were asked to judge the acceptability of different forms that we gave them.

One of the main questions raised when looking at childrens ability to pick up their native language is whether abstract symbolic rules or the use of memory and comparison affect how a child attributes past tenses to words......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 24, 2008, 5:08 AM CT

Every fifth adolescent smokes

As a number of as 20% of adolescents from 11 to 17 years of age smoke. This was the result of the nationwide German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS), performed by the Robert Koch Institute and presented by the sociologist Thomas Lampert in the current edition of Deutsches rzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2008; 105[15]: 265-71).

The analysis of tobacco consumption by children and adolescents covered almost 7,000 girls and boys aged 11 to 17. Data on the current smoking status and on exposure to passive smoking were collected for the years 2003 to 2006. Possible factors influencing the findings were examined, including the social status of the family, the type of school attended by the adolescents, and the smoking status of parents and friends.

Thomas Lampert's study shows that friends and the type of school have greater influence on smoking behavior than the parents do. The probability that an adolescent starts smoking is markedly greater when his or her friends smoke. The risk is hardly increased if the parents smoke. Conversely, students at general secondary schools (Hauptschule), intermediate schools (Realschule) or comprehensive schools (Gesamtschule) smoke much more frequently than do pupils at high school (Gymnasium)......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source