Tess May 21st, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) — Can you get smarter than a fifth-grader? Of course, but new research suggests some of the brain’s basic building blocks for learning are nearing adult levels by age 11 or 12.
It is the first finding from a study of how children’s brains grow. The most interesting results are yet to come.
About 500 super-healthy newborns to teenagers, recruited from super-healthy families, are having periodic MRI scans of their brains as they grow up. They also get a battery of age-appropriate tests of such abilities as IQ, language skills and memory.
Read the rest of this post here (620 words, estimated 2:29 mins reading time)
Tess March 26th, 2007
HULL, Massachusetts (AP) — In the final months of Rebecca Riley’s life, a school nurse said the little girl was so weak she was like a “floppy doll.”
The preschool principal had to help Rebecca off the bus because the 4-year-old was shaking so badly.
And a pharmacist complained that Rebecca’s mother kept coming up with excuses for why her daughter needed more and more medication.
None of their concerns was enough to save Rebecca.
Read the rest of this post here (1802 words, estimated 7:12 mins reading time)
Tess February 26th, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) — The more time that children spent in child care, the more likely their sixth-grade teachers were to report problem behavior.
Also, children who got good quality child care before entering kindergarten had better vocabulary scores in the fifth grade than did youngsters who received lower quality care.
The findings come from the largest study of child care and development conducted in the United States. The 1,364 children in the analysis had been tracked since birth as part of a study by the National Institutes of Health.
Read the rest of this post here (363 words, estimated 1:27 mins reading time)
Tess February 22nd, 2007
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Manufacturers of attention deficit drugs should alert patients to possible cardiovascular and psychiatric risks from the medicines, health officials said Wednesday.
The Food and Drug Administration said it told the drugmakers to develop patient-friendly guides that explain the risks and hand them out with the medicines.
“Medicines approved for the treatment of ADHD have real benefits for many patients but they may have serious risks as well,” Dr. Steven Galson, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a statement.
Read the rest of this post here (198 words, estimated 48 secs reading time)
Tess February 2nd, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a child’s buffet of food commercials, more than 40 percent of the dishes are candy, snacks and fast food. Nowhere to be found: fresh fruit, vegetables, poultry or seafood.
For years, health officials have warned that kids were being inundated with commercials about not-so-healthy foods. Now, researchers have put numbers to those warnings in the largest-ever study of commercials aimed at children.
Read the rest of this post here (320 words, estimated 1:17 mins reading time)
Tess January 22nd, 2007
NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists have identified a common genetic marker that signals a 60 percent heightened risk of prostate cancer in men who carry it, and it may help explain why black men are unusually prone to the disease, a new study says.
The DNA variant may play a role in about 8 percent of prostate cancers in men of European extraction and 16 percent of the cancers in blacks, researchers said.
Read the rest of this post here (345 words, estimated 1:23 mins reading time)
Tess December 12th, 2006
NEW YORK (Reuters) — Overweight children who are victims of bullying are less likely to engage in physical activity, new research suggests. Dr. Eric A. Storch, who led the study said: “The health implications of this are clear in that these youth will receive less activity,” making it more difficult for them to shed pounds.
Most children are bullied at some time in their childhood, but overweight children are particularly vulnerable to playground taunts.
Read the rest of this post here (282 words, estimated 1:08 mins reading time)
Tess August 23rd, 2006
WASHINGTON - Several drugs to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder must include new warning information about the risk of heart problems and psychotic behavior, U.S. health officials said on Monday.
The drugs, which include GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s Dexedrine and Novartis AG’s Ritalin, must include a warning about the possible risk of sudden death and serious heart problems, Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman Susan Bro told Reuters.
The drugs, stimulants that can raise blood pressure, must also include warnings about the risk of behavioral problems such as aggression and mania, she said.
Read the rest of this post here (270 words, estimated 1:05 mins reading time)
Tess June 26th, 2006
LONDON, England (Reuters) — Children who are overweight or obese by the age of 11 are likely to carry their excess weight into adulthood and to suffer from related health problems, researchers said on Friday.
A study by scientists at University College London who tracked nearly 6,000 children in Britain over five years showed about a quarter had a weight problem when they entered secondary school.
Read the rest of this post here (430 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)
Tess June 22nd, 2006
By Miranda Hitti
WebMD Medical News
Doctors from the CDC estimate that more than 3,000 people visited hospital emergency departments in 2004 due to side effects from drugs to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
The estimate — made by the CDC’s Adam Cohen, MD, MPH, and colleagues — appears in a letter in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Cohen and colleagues reviewed database records from 64 U.S. hospitals. They counted emergency department visits linked to stimulant drugs widely prescribed for ADHD.
Read the rest of this post here (832 words, estimated 3:20 mins reading time)
