Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Second Concussions Can Be Devastating

A new case study published in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics finds that a rare "second-impact syndrome" (or SIS) can occur when an athlete suffers a jolt to the head too soon after an earlier concussion - even if a CT scan taken after the first concussion comes back clean.

Experts say that if the brain doesn’t have enough time to recover from the initial concussion, a second one can have a devastating, often fatal, effect  -- even when the second jolt is no more than a light bump.

The second hit causes the brain to swell catastrophically, but it’s the first injury, experts say, that makes the player a walking time bomb.

“The thing that pushed us to publish this case report was the imaging we had,” says Dr. Michael Turner a neurosurgeon at Goodman Campbell Brain and Spine, a center at the Indiana School of Medicine.

“The most important thing here is that a normal CT scan does not clear you for contact," added Turner, who worked on the study. He hopes the paper will draw the public’s attention once again to the dangers of returning to play too soon.

Experts estimate that more than a million and a half boys play football in U.S. secondary schools and three million play in organized youth leagues each year. Many players get concussions, but nobody knows the true number because players often dismiss head injuries as "dings" and "bell-ringers."

Second-impact syndrome appears to be relatively rare. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention documented 17 deaths from the condition between 1992 and 1995 in a report that cautioned that those figures could be an underestimate. 

Although SIS is rare, it is always devastating. Victims who don’t die are left with life-altering brain injuries.

Source: NBC News
http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/01/16270550-second-concussion-can-be-devastating-even-after-clear-ct-scan-study-finds?lite

Teen Who Play on Multiple Sport Teams Less Likely to Become Obese

Teens who play on more than one sports team during the year are far less likely to become overweight or obese, a new study suggests.

In fact, Dartmouth College researchers concluded that the obesity rate among high schoolers could be cut by more than 26 percent if all teens signed up for multiple team sports, according to the study, published today in the journal Pediatrics.

The researchers also found that kids who bike or walk to school are less likely to become obese. If every kid in the country biked or walked to school at least four days a week, then obesity could be cut by 22 percent, they reported.

“I know that coordinating schedules can be difficult in terms of getting kids to practices and games,” said study co-author Keith Drake, a post doctoral research fellow at the Hood Center for Children and Families at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. “But it does look to us like getting kids involved in sports may be the best chance we have to get them physically active and to help them maintain a healthy body weight.”

Playing on a single team didn’t appear to have a strong effect. Still, Drake said: “Playing on one team is probably better than playing on none.”

Almost three-quarters of the teens who were studied reported playing on sports teams: 17 percent played on one team, 19 percent on two teams and 33 percent on three or more teams.

When the researchers accounted for factors such as weight at the beginning of the study, diet, gender and race, they found that the kids were much less likely to become overweight or obese if they played on two or more teams during the year.

Source: NBCNews.com
http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/16/12729070-one-sport-is-not-enough-to-cut-teen-obesity-rates-researchers-find?lite

Doctors' Groups Say Teens Shouldn't Box

Teens and boxing are a bad combination, doctors say.

The risk of brain and other injuries during boxing makes the sport too risky, according to a new policy statement by U.S. and Canadian pediatrician groups.

The statement urges doctors to ''vigorously oppose boxing for any child or adolescent.''

"Children and adolescents should not be participating in boxing because of the risk of head and facial injuries," says statement co-author Laura Purcell, MD. Purcell is a pediatric sports medicine doctor for the Canadian Paediatric Society.

Children's brains are more vulnerable to concussion, the doctors say. Recovery takes longer in kids. There may also be long-term consequences. "We don't know what the long-term effects are, particularly with amateur boxing," Purcell tells WebMD.

The statement from the Canadian Paediatric Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics is published in Pediatrics. It updates a statement from 1997 issued by the U.S. doctors. This is the first time the Canadian group has addressed boxing, Purcell says.

Source: WebMD
http://teens.webmd.com/news/20110826/doctors-groups-say-teens-shouldnt-box

Teen Athletes at Greater Risk for Osteoarthritis

Children and teens with abnormal development of the long bone between the pelvis and knee from playing high-intensity sports, such as soccer and basketball, are at greater risk for osteoarthritis of the hip, according to a new study.

Swiss researchers explained that deformities of the top of that bone -- known as the femur -- leads to reduced rotation and pain during movement among young competitive athletes. This may explain why athletes are more likely to develop osteoarthritis than more sedentary individuals, according to Dr. Klaus Siebenrock, from the University of Bern in Switzerland.

The study showed that men and teens that had played in an elite basketball club since the age of 8 were more likely to have osteoarthritis of the hip than in those who did not take part in regular sports. The athletes, the researchers found, had femur deformities causing their thighbone to have abnormal contact with their hip socket.

Overall, the researchers found, athletes were 10 times more likely to have impaired hip function than those who did not play high-intensity sports.

Source: Doctors Lounge
http://www.doctorslounge.com/index.php/news/hd/21846

Participation in Sports Benefits Physical and Mental Health of Middle-Schoolers

Taking part in sports is good all round for young teens: physically, socially, and mentally, according to a new study by Dr. Keith Zullig and Rebecca White from West Virginia University in the US. Their research shows that middle-school teenagers who are physically active and play on sports teams are more satisfied with their life and feel healthier. Zullig and White's paper is published online in Springer's journal Applied Research in Quality of Life.

Although the benefits of physical activity are well documented among teenagers, middle school children are an understudied population in adolescent physical activity research. The authors explored the relationship between physical activity (including sports participation), life satisfaction and self-rated health concurrently, for the first time, among 245 middle school students in grades 7 and 8. The 12- to 14-year-old boys and girls were asked to fill in questionnaires assessing their physical activity levels, their overall satisfaction with life and asking them to describe their own health.

In boys, participation in vigorous activity had no effect on either life satisfaction or self-rated health. In girls, those who had taken part in vigorous activity in the last week were significantly more satisfied with their life compared to girls who had not, but participation in vigorous activity had no effect on their self-rated health.

Playing on a sports team was linked to higher life satisfaction in both boys and girls. In addition, boys were five times more likely, and girls 30 times more likely, to describe their health as fair/poor when they were not playing on a sports team.

Source: The Medical News
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20100922/Study-shows-physical-and-mental-health-benefits-of-sports-participation-in-adolescents.aspx

Teen Boys Drink, Fight More, Girls Less, When Playing Sports

When young people are involved in team sports there are certainly many benefits. Skills are taught and honed, physical fitness is improved, social skills are exercised, teamwork, leadership and discipline are learned. And, the list goes on.

There are injury risks involved with playing sports, but that's about as far as I've gone when thinking about any negative aspects of sport involvement.

Until now.

An interesting new study has revealed that when boys are involved in team sports, they are more likely to engage in at-risk behaviors. The study was gender specific, and girls in fact are less likely to engage in at-risk behaviors when they are involved in sports.

I certainly won't make the leap that because of one study like this, parents should pull their male kids from involvement in sports. But, it is worthwhile to note the findings of the study and give a bit more thought these potential negative outcomes.

Playing team sports increases teenage boys’ likelihood to binge drink and fight, while reducing unhealthy behavior in girls, a new study by the Injury Prevention Center at University Hospitals’ Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland found.

Teen girls who played team sports said they fought less, were depressed less often and didn’t smoke as much. Male athletes who played team sports also reported some benefits, such as less depression and smoking, the organization said in a news release.

The study surveyed 13,000 U.S. high school students to evaluate links between team sports and risky behavior.

The boys playing team sports reported binge-drinking rates 40 percent higher and fighting 30 percent more often than nonathletes. The athlete boys also showed 30 percent lower rates of depression and 20 percent less smoking.

The girls showed no link to drinking in the study, the research reported. The athletic girls showed 10 percent lower rates of fighting, 30 percent less depression, 50 percent less smoking and 10 percent less unhealthy weight loss habits compared with nonathlete girls, the study found.

Source: Bloomberg.com
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601079&sid=aP4ya7B6YYt0

Teens Interest in Olympics? Yawn...

A recent study conducted by the Harris Interactive Youth Center of Excellence shows that just 46% of 13 -18 year olds in the U.S. express an interest in the summer Olympics, including only 27% who say they are extremely or very interested. Teen boys ages 16-18 show the greatest interest and represent the only age group where over half of youth are interested in the sporting event. Teens overall are a larger audience for the Olympics than tweens (ages 8-12) who report only a 28% interest.

Source: Center for Media Research
http://www.mediapost.com/blogs/research_brief/?p=1768

Bicycling, Football Top Sports With Most Childhood Injuries

More than 65,000 children younger than 15 received treatment in an emergency room for skateboarding-related injuries in 2006, according to estimates recently presented by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. In an effort to promote safety, the agency released data on sports-related injuries incurred by kids younger than 15.

The authors, extrapolating from a sample of 100 hospitals across the nation, estimate nearly 240,000 kids 14 and younger were treated for bike-related accidents, the highest number for any sport.

Football resulted in about 221,000 injuries for that age group, baseball almost 85,000 and operating unpowered scooters just over 37,500.

"Injury is arguably the most compelling public health problem facing youth in this country because it is the leading cause of death and acquired disability from ages 1 through 44 years," said Gary Smith, director of the center for injury research and policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. "For the age group they presented, sports and recreation is a very important piece of the injury picture."

Experts estimate that more than 30 million children participate in sports each year in the U.S.

Source: Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_9417095