Dieting associated with risky behaviours in teenage girls

Waterloo: Teenage girls who diet are more likely to engage in other health-compromising behaviours, including smoking, binge drinking, and skipping breakfast, a University of Waterloo study recently found. The study found that, compared to girls who were not dieting at the time of initial data collection, those who were dieting were more likely to engage in one or more clusters of other risky behaviours three years later.

Carrying backpacks doesn’t cause back pain in children and teenagers

The Conversation: Children and adolescents who carry backpacks aren’t at higher risk of developing back pain, according to a study published today in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM). Researchers found no evidence to suggest a link between carrying a heavy backpack and back pain in these age groups. This calls into question popular opinion, as well as guidelines published by numerous organisations recommending limits on backpack weights for children. Globally, there’s been little agreement on what a limit should be. Guidelines vary, with the limit being anywhere between 5% and 20% of body weight.

Study Debunks Claim that Medical Marijuana Laws Have Increased Recreational Use of Marijuana Among U.S. Teens

Columbia: Legalizing medical marijuana has not increased recreational use of the substance among U.S. adolescents, according to a new study conducted at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. The findings are published online in the journal Addiction. “For now, there appears to be no basis for the argument that legalizing medical marijuana has increased teens’ use of the drug,” says Deborah Hasin, PhD, professor of Epidemiology at Columbia’s Mailman School and senior author of the study. “However, we may find that the situation changes as commercialized markets for medical marijuana develop and expand, and as states legalize recreational marijuana use.”

Brainy teens may be less likely to smoke, but more likely to drink and use cannabis

BMJ: Brainy teens may be less likely to smoke, but more likely to drink alcohol and use cannabis, than their less academically gifted peers, suggests research published in the online journal BMJ Open. These patterns persist into adulthood, and would seem to refute the notion that academic prowess is associated with a greater tendency to ‘experiment’ for a brief period, suggest the researchers. Smoking, drinking, and cannabis use are fairly common among teenagers. And the evidence suggests that these behaviours boost the risk of immediate and longer term health problems. But the data on potential links between cleverness and substance use are somewhat mixed, and no study has tracked patterns with use of all three substances from early adolescence into early adulthood.

A house full of smoke leads to teens who mope

Scimex: If the physical effects on your children were not good enough reasons to stop smoking in your house, Canadian researchers have found a modest, yet reliable long-term link between exposure to household tobacco smoke and antisocial behaviour in early adolescence. The team recorded 1035 children that were exposed to household smokers at seven follow-up interviews, between 1.5 and 7.5 years old, and at the age of 12, children self-reported on five different aspects of antisocial behaviours, with researchers finding that higher exposure to smoky homes was linked to childrens' behavioural problems, aggression, lack of discipline at school and increased risk of dropping out. The authors suggest that a child's neuro-social development is being influenced by the neurotoxic substances in second-hand smoke, which can lead their newly forming brain pathways towards these deviant behaviours.

Schoolies risking health with alcohol and energy drink mix

TheConversation: Young people are fuelling big nights out by drinking alcohol mixed with energy drinks to help them party through the night, according to a new Victorian government report. The VicHealth report found that people who mix their alcohol with energy drinks are also more likely to be problem gamblers, show other risk-taking behaviour such as heavy alcohol use or illicit drug use, and report more mental health problems. Executive Manager Dr Bruce Bolam from VicHealth, which funded the studies, said while overall levels of consumption of these products was relatively low compared to beer or wine in the wider population, in young people the level of consumption was very high.

Global Declines in Teen Birth Rates Linked to Income, Education

Columbia: Researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health found that an important explanation for declining rates of global adolescent fertility is rising national wealth and expenditures on education. Income inequalities were associated with higher adolescent birth rates, and slower rates of decline in adolescent birth rates. Results will be published online in the Journal of Adolescent Health. “Declines in global adolescent birth rates were profoundly and independently shaped by national income, income inequalities, and expenditures on education,” said John Santelli, MD, MPH, professor and Chair of the Heilbrunn Department of  Population and Family Health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.  Co-authors included Xiaoyu Song and Samantha Garbers from Columbia, Vinit Sharma of the United Nations Population Fund, and Russell Viner of University College London.

E-cigs could lead to real-cigs

Scimex: In a study appearing in the November 8 issue of JAMA, Adam M. Leventhal, Ph.D., of the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, and colleagues examined associations of e-cigarette vaping with subsequent smoking frequency and heavy smoking among adolescents. E-cigarette vaping is reported by 37 percent of U.S. 10th-grade adolescents and is associated with subsequent initiation of combustible cigarette smoking. Whether individuals who vape and transition to combustible cigarettes are experimenting or progress to more frequent and heavy smoking is unknown. In addition, because some adolescents use e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation aid, adolescent smokers who vape could be more likely to reduce their smoking levels over time.

Flavored E-Cigarette Use May Increase Teens' Taste for Smoking

American Academy of Pediatrics: New research shows the use of electronic cigarettes with flavors such as gummy bear and bubble gum among U.S. middle- and high-school students may serve as a gateway for future smoking. The study in the December 2016 Pediatrics, "Flavored Electronic Cigarette Use and Smoking Among Youth" (published online Nov. 7), suggests use of these products increases a young people's intentions to begin smoking and decreases their perception of tobacco's danger. Researchers analyzing 2014 National Youth Tobacco Survey data found that among respondents who had never smoked, for example, 58 percent of those who used flavored e-cigarettes said they intended to start smoking.

School-based interventions for preventing HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and pregnancy in adolescents

Cochrane researchers conducted a review of the effects of school-based interventions for reducing HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and pregnancy in adolescents. After searching for relevant trials up to 7 April 2016, they included eight trials that had enrolled 55,157 adolescents. Sexually active adolescents, particularly young women, are at high risk in many countries of contracting HIV and other STIs. Early unintended pregnancy can also have a detrimental impact on young people's lives.
The school environment plays an important role in the development of children and young people, and curriculum-based sexuality education programmes have become popular in many regions of the world. While there is some evidence that these programmes improve knowledge and reduce self-reported risk taking, this review evaluated whether they have any impact on the number of young people that contracted STIs or on the number of adolescent pregnancies.

Teens’ misconceptions about marijuana

Stanford: There’s a good news/bad news story playing out around teen smoking: After years of public health education about the dangers of cigarette use, teenagers’ cigarette smoking is declining. But their marijuana use hasn’t changed, with around 20 percent of 12^th graders reporting that they recently smoked marijuana. To find out why, Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD, professor of adolescent medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and her team recently conducted a survey of 786 students from 10 large high schools across California. They asked the teens about their beliefs regarding marijuana and their patterns of use. Science writer Erin Digitale asked Halpern-Felsher to describe the highlights of the study, which was recently published online in Preventive Medicine.

Creative Minds: Do Celebrity Endorsements Influence Teens’ Health?

NIH: Marie Bragg is a first-generation American, raised by a mother who immigrated to Florida from Trinidad. She watched her uncle in Florida cope effectively with type 2 diabetes, taking prescription drugs and following doctor-recommended dietary changes. But several of her Trinidadian relatives also had type 2 diabetes, and often sought to manage their diabetes by alternative means—through home remedies and spiritual practices.

Long-acting reversible contraceptives for adolescents advocated

Otago: In an article just published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Drs Neil Pickering and Lynley Anderson from the University’s Bioethics Centre and Dr Helen Paterson from its Department of Women’s and Children’s Health say teen pregnancy places significant costs on the individual and society, and is associated with higher perinatal mortality. “We also know the children of teen pregnancies do poorly in statistics related to poverty, imprisonment and teen pregnancy.”

Health Problems in Adolescence Can Result in Poor Educational and Employment Outcomes

American Academy of Pediatrics: Adolescence is a critical period of development, and both physical and mental health problems can disrupt teens’ acquisition of skills and transition into the workforce. In the July 2015 review article, “Adolescent Health and Adult Education and Employment: A Systematic Review,” (published online June 22), authors reviewed 27 studies examining the education and employment outcomes of adolescents experiencing poor mental and physical health. Across all studies, the majority of findings (61 out of 70) identified poorer education and employment in adolescents with health problems compared to healthy teens. Many studies looked at mental health conditions, but comparatively few investigated the long-term outcomes of physical health conditions. Mental and physical health in adolescence contributes to school completion and continuing education, and employment. The results suggest that maintaining and improving health among students should be part of the core business of schools as good health makes a substantial contribution to academic achievement and subsequent successful employment.

Breaking teens free from substance abuse

Montreal: Almost half of grade eight students in Québec have consumed alcohol—an alarming statistic considering that alcohol and drug abuse at a young age can affect the brain, push teenagers to drop out of school, trigger mental illness and lead to long-term addiction. But science has a solution: cognitive and behavioural therapy workshops for at-risk teenagers.

How teens' brains make them impulsive

Scimex: A small study suggests adolescents find it harder than young adults to delay gratification, and tend to opt for smaller immediate rewards over larger rewards later. The German and US scientists also found differences between the two groups in the connectivity of two areas of the brain, suggesting teenage impulsiveness may be a side effect of brain development. In a study of 50 participants, researchers report that adolescents were more likely than young adults to choose small, early rewards over large, late rewards, and that the preference correlated with the strength of neural connections between the striatum and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex brain regions, suggesting potential brain correlates of impatience in adolescents and providing insight into how brain development affects behavior.

Don’t believe the hype, teens are drinking less than they used to

TheConversation: Ask your friends and colleagues about young Australians and alcohol and I bet they’ll say something about a generation out of control or a binge-drinking epidemic. The media regularly brings the worst outcomes of young people’s drinking to our attention and points to a problematic drinking culture supposedly unique to young Australians. Little wonder people believe things have never been so bad. The reality is startlingly different. Data recently released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows alcohol consumption in Australia has reached its lowest point since the early 1960s, having declined steadily since the mid-2000s. Survey data suggests this decline has been driven almost entirely by reductions in youth drinking.

Mixing Energy Drinks, Alcohol Tied to Abusive Drinking in Teens

Dartmouth: Expanding what we know about college students mixing alcohol with energy drinks, investigators from Dartmouth’s Norris Cotton Cancer Center found teens aged 15-17 years old who had ever mixed alcohol with energy drinks were four times more likely to meet the criteria for alcohol use disorder than a teen who has tried alcohol but never mixed it with an energy drink. The Dartmouth team, led by James D. Sargent, MD with first author Jennifer A. Emond, MSc, PhD published “Energy drink consumption and the risk of alcohol use disorder among a national sample of adolescents and young adults,” in Journal of Pediatrics.

The new face of teenagers

INSERM: A large survey, describes the current situation regarding issues and challenges in adolescence. These data, collected by means of self-administered questionnaires, reflect the perceptions of 15,235 young people attending school, aged 13-18 years, regarding their own adolescence. The study addresses subjects as varied as their physical and mental health, consumption patterns, recreational activities and even sexuality. The results reaffirm the complex nature of these future adults, with marked differences between boys and girls, and an age-related gradient. They should help to improve our knowledge of adolescent behaviours, and help identify new indicators of problems that can be used in the introduction of preventive measures.

 

Key figures:

• Nearly 50% of adolescents are confident about the future;
• For 56% of young people surveyed, adolescence is not always an easy time;
• A very large majority (5% of girls and 57.6% of boys), favour isolation when they are unhappy;

Stressed teens risk heart disease, even with exercise

Scimex: British and Swedish scientists have found that the more poorly a person deals with stress when they are a teen, the more likely they will develop coronary heart disease later in life. The researchers looked at over 230,000 men and found the association remained even after they adjusted the results to take into account physical fitness and other established heart disease risk factors.