Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Sleep-Deprived Teens At-Risk for Obesity

The more studies on teens and sleep that are released, the more we learn about the risks to teens when they are sleep-deprived. The latest study adds the risk of obesity to the already established links of teen sleep-deprivation to depression, high blood pressure, poor grades, poor mental alertness, and automobile accidents. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to reducing risks...more sleep.

Teens who sleep less than eight hours a night are more likely to eat a high-fat diet that puts them at risk for obesity and the many health problems connected with it, new research shows.

The study, published in the Sept. 1 issue of the journal Sleep, found that these sleep-deprived teens consumed 2.2 percent more calories from fat, and ate more snacks than those who slept eight hours or more a night. They also ate more total calories.

"There's been a lot of research over the last five years implicating insufficient sleep with obesity," said study author Dr. Susan Redline, of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. "Some experimental studies on sleep deprivation in controlled laboratory environments show a craving for fatty foods among the participants" who got less sleep, she said.

Redline, a professor of medicine with the school's division of sleep medicine, said sleep-deprived teens may suffer from metabolic disturbances that have been linked to obesity and insulin resistance in other research with shift workers whose sleep was also irregular.

In addition to being a possible cause of metabolic problems, fewer hours of sleep provided teens with "more opportunities to eat," Redline said.

Teens need about nine hours of sleep every night to feel rested and alert the next day, but few teens get that amount, experts said.

Source: Businessweek
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/642649.html

Laziness and Junk Food Are Teen Headaches

Adolescent couch potatoes have significantly more headaches compared with their healthier counterparts, and each unhealthy behavior has an additive effect on headache, according to a study from Norway.

Excess weight, inactivity, and smoking independently increased the risk of recurrent headache. And as the number of unhealthy behaviors increased, so did headache diagnoses and frequency.

investigators interviewed nearly 6,000 junior high and high school students living in the same Norwegian county from 1995 to 1997. The interview included a comprehensive questionnaire that elicited information about headache, smoking, physical activity, and other health and lifestyle issues. The students also underwent a brief clinical examination.

The results showed that roughly a third of the participants had low physical activity, a fifth smoked, and a sixth were overweight. Individually, the factors increased headache prevalence by 20-50 percent compared with the good-lifestyle group.

Source: ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/PainNews/laziness-junk-food-migraines-teens/story?id=11429791

One in Five U.S. Adolescents Has Hearing Loss

Hearing loss among U.S. adolescents has surged, probably because of the use of devices such as earbuds for listening to music, doctors say.

Researchers surveyed a sample of children ages 12 to 19 in 2005 and 2006 and found that 19.5 percent had some hearing loss, compared with 14.9 percent in a study covering the years 1988 to 1994, according to a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Listening to loud sounds through earbuds -- the tiny electronic speakers that fit into ears, for use with personal music players -- is probably the main reason that more adolescents are losing some of their hearing, said William Slattery, director of clinical studies at the House Ear Institute, a Los Angeles medical practice.

“Once you have hearing loss, there’s a greater risk of that hearing loss progressing as you get older,” Slattery, a clinical professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, said in a telephone interview.

Teens and parents need to be told that hearing loss from noise that occurs early in life isn’t reversible, he said.

Hearing loss may affect teenagers’ social development and education, said Gary Curhan, an author of the study, who is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a physician at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston.

“In an educational setting, even kids with slight hearing loss do not perform as well as those with normal hearing,” Curhan said.

Source: Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-17/one-in-five-u-s-adolescents-has-hearing-loss-researchers-find.html

Early Puberty for Girls is Raising Health Concerns

American girls are hitting puberty earlier than ever — a change that puts them at higher risk for behavioral problems as adolescents and breast cancer as adults, a new study shows.

About 15% of 1,239 girls studied showed the beginnings of breast development at age 7, according to an article in today's Pediatrics. One in 10 white girls, twice as many as in a 1997 study, showed breast growth by that age, as did 23% of black girls and 15% of Hispanic girls.

The median age of breast development fell from 10.9 years in 1991 to 9.9 in 2006, according to a Danish study published in Pediatrics last year.

The new study doesn't explain why girls are developing earlier, but it did find heavier girls with a higher body-mass index were more likely than others to begin puberty early, says pediatrician Frank Biro, director of adolescent medicine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

A growing number of researchers also are concerned about hormone-disrupting chemicals in the environment.

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-08-09-1Apuberty09_ST_N.htm

Dorm With Cafeteria May Boost College Weight Gain

College students who live in dormitories with dining halls gain more weight than students who have to walk farther for their meals, a new study has found.

The study included 388 freshmen in seven dorms, including four that had on-site dining halls that served three meals daily. All the students had access to two campus gyms with state-of-the-art exercise equipment.

During the school year, females in dorms with on-site dining halls weighed almost 2 pounds more and exercised 1.43 fewer times per week than those in dorms without dining halls. Males in dorms with on-site dining halls ate about 1.5 more meals and almost three more snacks per week than those in dorms without dining halls, according to the report released online Aug. 3 in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Source: Businessweek
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/641528.html

Addictive Internet Use Tied to Depression in Teens

Teens who spend far too much time on the Internet run the risk of developing depression, a new Australian study suggests.

Since the 1990s, uncontrolled or unreasonable Internet use has been identified as a problem with signs similar to other addictions, researchers say. Pathological Internet use has been linked with relationship problems, health problems, aggressive behavior and other psychiatric symptoms, they added.

"Parents should be vigilant about their children's online behavior," said lead researcher Lawrence T. Lam, from the School of Medicine, Sydney, and the University of Notre Dame Australia. "Should there be any concern about young people involving problematic Internet-use behavior, professional help should be sought immediately."

This sort of behavior may be a manifestation of some underlying problems that are more insidious, Lam said.

"Given the results obtained from the study, even mentally healthy young people may succumb to depression after a long exposure of problematic use of the Internet. The mental health consequences of problematic Internet use for those who have already had a history of psychological or psychiatric problems would be more damaging," he said.

The report is published in the Aug. 2 online edition of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, in advance of publication in the October print issue.

Source: Businessweek
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/641735.html

ADHD Teens More Likely to Drop Out

Having attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder may make teens less likely to finish high school, says a new University of California, Davis study.

The study found almost a third of students with ADHD, don't graduate with their peers. That's high compared with the national high school drop out rate of 15 percent, says  lead study author Dr. Joshua Breslau.

When looking at the different types of ADHD, the study found all of the types of ADHD are associated with a high dropout rate.

The study also found students who use alcohol, smoke cigarettes and use other drugs are more at risk to drop out.

Researchers say parents need to make sure they are working together with their schools so that the pediatrician and the child's teacher are communicating about the child's medical health and performance in school.    "We need to better integrate school health with what's schools do, education," says Breslau.

Source: CNN
http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/28/adhd-teens-more-likely-to-drop-out/

Energy Drinks Pose Serious Health Risk to Kids

A critical editorial published by Canada’s leading medical journal is the latest move a mounting effort to convince the Canadian government to crack down on the sale of caffeinated energy drinks to minors.

Energy drinks that contain high amounts of caffeine – some more than five times the amount in a can of cola, or nearly double the amount in a cup of brewed coffee – can pose serious health risks to children and adolescents and require stronger warning labels, according to the Canadian Medical Association Journal’s editorial.

Chris Turner, Health Canada’s director-general of the marketed health products directorate, said the department has received several dozen reports of adverse reactions linked to energy drinks, and that 15 of them were cardiac events.

Unlike cola drinks or similar carbonated beverages, energy drinks usually contain much higher levels of caffeine. For instance, a 250-ml (approx. 8 oz.) bottle of Coca-Cola contains 26 milligrams of caffeine, according to the company’s web site. But a 75-ml (approx. 2.5 oz.) bottle of Rockstar “energy shot” contains 200 mg of caffeine. A 355-ml (approx. 12 oz.) can of Red Bull contains 113.6 mg of caffeine.

Excessive caffeine consumption can lead to irritability, loss of sleep or nervousness. But there is also concern that its stimulating effects can cause rapid heat rate, an abnormal rhythm or other problems that could have serious health consequences.

Source: The Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/energy-drinks-pose-serious-health-risk-to-kids-canadian-medical-journal/article1652080/

In Adolescence, Happier Often Means Healthier

Teens with sunnier outlooks also tend to be healthier, a new study finds.

University of South Florida researchers found that teens' positive emotions and moods, as well as their satisfaction with life, may be more important than either anxiety or depression levels for predicting physical health.

Overall, there appeared to be a strong link between good physical health and life satisfaction and recently feeling excited, strong and proud. Poorer health was associated with feeling lonelier, feeling more guilty, anxious and depressed, and being more likely to display negative behaviors.

The findings, recently published online in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life, show the importance of emotional well-being on adolescents' physical health, the study authors said.

Source: U.S. News & World Report
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/brain-and-behavior/articles/2010/07/23/in-adolescence-happier-often-means-healthier.html

Later School Start Times May Foster Better Students

A new study mirrors previous research results in finding that starting school later in the morning allows high school students to get more sleep and increases alertness in class...

High school students at a private school in Rhode Island who started school a half-hour later in the morning were in better moods, more alert, less depressed and more likely to actually attend class than before the time change, a new study shows.

In fact, the experiment was so successful that the school has now permanently shifted its start time from 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.

"At the end of the experimental period, there was not a single faculty member, student or administrator who wanted to go back to the old start time," said Dr. Judith Owens, lead author of a paper appearing in the July issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

The study bolsters the evidence that teens have special sleep needs.

"Sleep medicine specialists have long known that delaying high school start times helps teenagers sleep better," said Dr. Heidi V. Connolly, chief of the division of pediatric sleep medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York. "Teenagers are biologically programmed to prefer a later bedtime and a later wake-up time so it is not surprising that they struggle with early school start times."

After the time change, students went to bed an average of 18 minutes later at night and slept an average of 45 minutes longer. The proportion of students getting at least eight hours of sleep a night jumped from 16.4 percent to 54.7 percent, while those getting less than seven hours a night decreased by almost 80 percent.

Source: BusinessWeek
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/640822.html