Записи рубрики: Здоровье

It’s bad enough that they have to avoid milk and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. A new study reveals that kids with allergies also get picked on at lunch.

About 8 percent of children in the United States have food allergies—to peanuts, shellfish, eggs, etc.-and a study from researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai found that about a third of those children are bullied. Their study appeared online December 24 in the journal Pediatrics.

The researchers surveyed 251 pairs of parents and children on visits to allergy clinics and had them fill out a questionnaire about inciden...

New data suggest that we may have turned an important corner in the childhood obesity epidemic.

While rates of obesity and extreme obesity in preschoolers rose from 1998 to 2003, they began to plateau soon thereafter. And childhood obesity rates decreased slightly in 2010.

«We are very encouraged by this data,» says study researcher Heidi M. Blanck, PhD, of the CDC in Atlanta. «It’s pretty exciting and a nice turning of the tide. But we have to stay vigilant or it will go in the other direction.»

Researchers looked at data on 27.5 million children aged 2 to 4 from 1998 to 2010...

Almost all babies get a cold before their first birthday. Does your baby have a cold? Many parents are hesitant to give their children decongestants, antihistamines, or other drugs. Here’s a look at natural ways to treat your baby’s sniffles and sneezes.

At least two common gene variants are linked to «clinically meaningful» differences in pain scores in children after major surgery, reports a study in the January issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS).

«[O]ur study is highly suggestive of a genetic component in pain response among children,» concludes the study by Dr Chantal Mamie and colleagues of Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland...

The number of low-income preschoolers who qualify as obese or «extremely obese» has dropped over the last decade, new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.

Although the decline was only «modest» and may not apply to all children, researchers said it was still encouraging.

«It’s extremely important to make sure we’re monitoring obesity in this low-income group,» said the CDC’s Heidi Blanck, who worked on the study.

Those kids are known to be at higher risk of obesity than their well-off peers, in part because access to healthy food is often limited in poorer neighborhoo...

For the umpteenth time on a recent afternoon, Ethan Todd sprang to his feet and reached for a toy truck. And for the umpteenth time, the 5-year-old boy’s thin legs buckled and collapsed.

The San Mateo boy then allowed Karen Price to sit behind him in the Palo Alto studio and knead his calves and thighs. «Look how high your feet can go!» she said, lifting his right leg into the air.

To the casual eye, what Price did may have looked like a massage...

Overweight and obese children and teens are more likely to have low vitamin D levels than kids with healthy weights, a new study suggests.

The study is published in Pediatrics.

Vitamin D is essential for bone health. Bone growth is high during childhood and adolescence. So it may be especially important to identify and treat vitamin D deficiency during that time, the researchers write.

Vitamin D deficiency is also linked to a variety of chronic conditions, such as:

• High blood pressure
• Type 1 diabetes
• Multiple sclerosis

Previous research suggests that obesity may put you at risk for v...

Children suspected of having appendicitis are more likely to receive CT scans, which involve radiation, if they are evaluated at a general hospital, a new study by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has shown.

Similar patients who went to St. Louis Children’s Hospital were more often evaluated with an ultrasound scan, a safer option that uses sound waves instead of radiation to confirm or rule out the need for surgery to remove the appendix.
Use of either scanning technique can potentially reduce the occurrence of unnecessary surgeries and expedite the diagnosis of appendici...

Some simple tips on how to care for your cat’s abscess or wounds, if you are unable to visit a veterinarian.

CAT OWNERS:

Regardless of whether your cat has an obvious wound or is simply behaving more lethargic or more frail than usual, it is always important to bring him or her to a professional veterinarian where health and proper treatment can be ensured. This is particularly the case if your cat appears to be in any stress or pain, if he or she has lost an appetite or completely stopped eating, and/or if your cat is vomiting (as they can dehydrate rather quickly)...

An international team, led by researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, has discovered that «random» mutations in the genome are not quite so random after all. Their study, to be published in the journal Cell on December 21, shows that the DNA sequence in some regions of the human genome is quite volatile and can mutate ten times more frequently than the rest of the genome. Genes that are linked to autism and a variety of other disorders have a particularly strong tendency to mutate.

Clusters of mutations or «hotspots» are not unique to the autism genome bu...