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Teens who have a classmate die of suicide are more likely to consider taking, or attempt to take, their own lives, according to a new study.

The idea that suicide might be “contagious” has been around for centuries, senior author Dr. Ian Colman, who studies mental health at the University of Ottawa, said.

Past studies supported the idea, but none had looked at such a large body of students, he said.

“There were a lot of surprising things about this study, we were surprised that the effect lasted so long and just how strong it was,” Colman said.

Colman and his colleagues used data from a long-running national survey of more than 8,000 Canadian kids aged 12 to 17 years old. Students were asked about suicides of schoolmates, friends and their own thoughts of suicide, and researchers checked in with the kids two years later.

By the age of 17, one in four kids had a schoolmate who had committed suicide, and one in five knew the deceased personally, according to results published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

For the 12- and 13-year-old adolescents exposed to a schoolmate’s suicide, 15 percent reported thinking seriously about killing themselves and seven percent actually made an attempt, compared to 3 percent and 2 percent of unexposed kids, respectively. The effect persisted even if the schoolmate had died more than a year earlier.

Results were similar for 14- and 15-year-olds and 16- and 17-year-olds, but older kids who had not been exposed to suicide were more likely to have thought of or attempted it.

“For 12- and 13-year olds, they were approximately five times more likely to report thinking about suicide,” Colman said. “That’s a huge effect.”

They found no difference between kids who personally knew the deceased and those who didn’t.

In the U.S., about 4,600 people aged 10 to 25 years old commit suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

NEW POLICIES?
Based on the results, school “post-vention” programs should encompass the whole school, not just those closest to the deceased, and should perhaps revisit parts of the intervention months and years down the line, Colman said.

It may make sense that kids who knew the deceased and those who didn’t seemed to have no difference in risk, Frank Zenere, a school psychologist at the Miami-Dade County public school system, said.

“Sometimes the closest friends are not the ones that are most likely to harm themselves because they’re so up close and aware of the painful fallout with the family of the deceased, which can actually be a protective factor,” Zenere said.

The younger kids tend to be most vulnerable and impressionable, he said.

“There’s a lot more drama in middle school grade levels, they tend to have much more of an emotional outpouring, early teens versus late teens,” he said.

Though the current study indicates the effect persists for at least two years, Zenere believes it may go on even longer.

Some school districts may rewrite policies and procedures in light of these results, but those at most, including his own, are probably already designed to take relevant factors into account.

“It’s really important for parents to talk to their kids about mental health and to help them get professional help if needed,” Colman said.

Many parents are not aware that their teenage children abuse “study drugs,” a new poll suggests.

In the poll, just 1 percent of parents said their teenage children had taken drugs such as Adderall or Ritalin without a prescription.

That is much lower than the percentage of teens that surveys suggest are using the drugs. For example, a 2012 study of high schoolers found that about 10 percent of sophomores and 12 percent of seniors said they had used the drugs without a prescription.

The new finding highlights the growing issue of stimulant drug abuse, or when teens take stimulant medication (or “study drugs”) to help them study for a test or stay awake to do homework. Such medications are prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Teens without the condition may fake symptoms in order to get a prescription, or obtain the drugs from friends.

The new findings, from the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health, examined parents’ awareness of the issue, surveying parents of U.S. children ages 13 to 17. About 11 percent of parents said their teens had been prescribed stimulant medication for ADHD.

Among parents of children who were not prescribed ADHD medications, 1 percent said their teens had used these drugs for study purposes. About 4 percent said they didn’t know if their teen had abused these drugs, and 95 percent said their teens had never abused the drugs.

This disconnect between teen drug abuse and parents’ awareness of drug abuse may be in part due to the fact that study drugs have more subtle effects than drugs such as heroin and cocaine, allowing teens to more easily hide their drug use, the researchers said.

About half of parents polled said they were very concerned about teens in their communities abusing study drugs. And more than three-quarters supported school policies aimed at stopping this type of drug abuse, such as rules that would require children with prescription ADHD medications to keep the pills in a secure place like the school nurse’s office.

The findings “underscore the need for greater communication among public health officials, schools, parents, and teens regarding this issue,” the researchers said.

Learn More…

Article source: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/health/~3/SXyY2X9d5no/

Reading, writing, arithmetic – and PE?

The prestigious Institute of Medicine is recommending that schools provide opportunities for at least 60 minutes of physical activity each day for students and that PE become a core subject.

The report, released Thursday, says only about half of the nation’s youngsters are getting at least an hour of vigorous or moderate-intensity physical activity every day.

Another concern, the report says, is that 44 percent of school administrators report slashing big chunks of time from physical education, arts and recess since the passage of the No Child Left Behind law in 2001 in order to boost classroom time for reading and math.

With childhood obesity on the rise – about 17 percent of children ages 2 through 19 are obese – and kids spending much of the day in the classroom, the chairman of the committee that wrote the report said schools are the best place to help shape up the nation’s children.

“Schools for years have been responsible for various health programs such as nutrition, breakfast and lunch, immunizations, screenings,” Harold W. Kohl III, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas School of Public Health, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“Physical activity should be placed alongside those programs to make it a priority for us as a society,” he said.

The report calls on the Education Department to recommend that PE be adopted as a core subject.

It says physical education in school is the “only sure opportunity” for youngsters to have access to activity that will help keep them healthy.

The majority of states, about 75 percent, mandate PE, according to the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance. But most do not require a specific amount of time for PE in school, and more than half allow exemptions or substitutions, such as marching band, cheerleading and community sports.

Many kids also aren’t going to gym class at school every single day. According to the CDC, only about 30 percent of students nationwide attend PE classes five days a week.

Specifically, the report recommends:

-All elementary school students should spend an average of 30 minutes each day in PE class.

-Middle and high school students should spend an average of 45 minutes each day in PE class.

-State and local officials should find ways get children more physical activity in the school environment.

PE isn’t the sole solution, though.

The report advocates a “whole-of-school” approach where recess and before-and-after-school activities including sports are made accessible to all students to help achieve the 60-minutes-a-day recommendation for physical activity. It could be as simple as having kids walk or bike to school, or finding ways to add a physical component to math and science class lessons.

The report also cautions against taking away recess as a form of punishment, and it urges schools to give students frequent classroom breaks.

Schools can do this if they make it a priority, said Paul Roetert, CEO of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance.

“We have an obligation to keep kids active,” Roetert said in an interview. “We have research to show that physical activity helps kids perform better in school. It helps them focus better in the classroom … and they behave better in school. So there are all kinds of side benefits.”

Kitty Porterfield, spokeswoman for The School Superintendents Association, said nobody is opposed to physical education.

“Everybody would love to see more of it in schools,” said Porterfield. “Given the testing and academic pressures for excellence on schools, often physical education slides to the bottom of the barrel.”

The idea of putting more of an emphasis on physical education in schools has support in Congress.

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Article source: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/health/~3/xN84TyzCrao/

Bunions are likely inherited and not caused by faulty footwear, Counsel and Heal reported.

Bunions are a painful foot condition characterized by bony bumps that form on the joint at the base of the big toe.  Earlier research indicates that 23 percent of people 18 to 65 years of age and 36 percent of people over the age of 65 have bunions.

The new study, published in the journal Arthritis Care and Research, analyzed information from 1,370 people, with an average age of 66 years old, who were enrolled in the Framingham Foot Study.

Each participant received a foot exam between 2002 and 2008 to screen for bunions, toe deformities or plantar soft tissue atrophy, a breakdown of the fatty “cushion” under the ball of the foot, Counsel and Heal reported.

The study found that 31 percent of participants had bunions and 30 percent had toe deformities like “hammer toes,” both of which were highly inheritable, depending on age and sex, especially among people of European descent. Twenty-eight percent had plantar soft tissue atrophy, but this condition was not found to inheritable.
               
“Our study is the largest investigation of the heritability of common foot disorders in older adults, confirming that bunions and lesser toe deformities are highly inheritable in Caucasian men and women of European descent,” Dr. Marian Hannan from Hebrew SeniorLife and Harvard Medical School in Boston said in a news release.

“These new findings highlight the importance of furthering our understanding of what causes greater susceptibility to these foot conditions, as knowing more about the pathway may ultimately lead to early prevention or early treatment,” she concluded.

Click for more from Counsel and Heal.

Britain launched a research program on Monday that should eventually allow all cancer patients to have access to the kind of genetic analysis that led Hollywood star Angelina Jolie to decide to undergo a double mastectomy.

The project, involving the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London, the U.S. gene sequencing firm Illumina, geneticists and cancer doctors, aims to find a way to allow more cancer genes be tested in more people.

Researchers announcing the 2.7 million pound ($4 million) project, funded by the Wellcome Trust medical charity, stressed this was not a response to reports last week of Jolie’s decision to undergo surgery to reduce her breast cancer risk.

“What we’re trying to do here is develop processes that will allow comprehensive and systematic use of genetic information in cancer medicine so that (more people) will be able to benefit from the types of information and situations we were hearing about last week (with the Jolie story),” said Nazneen Rahman, head of genetics at the ICR and a leader on the new project.

Mutations in some genes, known as cancer predisposition genes, greatly increase the risk that a person will get cancer.

Jolie tested positive for a high risk gene mutation that made her about five times more likely to develop breast cancer than women who do not carry this mutation, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

There are nearly 100 other known cancer predisposition genes, but in Britain – where most healthcare is part of the taxpayer-funded National Health Service – testing for them is currently very restricted.

Yet recent advances in reading the genetic code, known as gene sequencing, mean that looking for gene mutations is now faster and cheaper than ever – paving the way for gene testing eventually to become routine for all cancer patients.

“It is very important to know if a mutation in a person’s genetic blueprint has caused their cancer,” Rahman told reporters at a briefing in London.

“It allows more personalized treatment, so for example such people are often at risk of getting another cancer and may choose to have more comprehensive surgery, or may need different medicines, or extra monitoring.”

The program, called Mainstreaming Cancer Genetics, will use a new Illumina test called TruSight that can analyze 97 cancer predisposition genes within a few weeks for a few hundred pounds, Rahman said.

The new model will be piloted initially in women with breast or ovarian cancer at London’s Royal Marsden hospital, but the team hopes it will in future be used across the country and in many more types of cancer.

When Wes Schlauch, of Breinigsville, PA, was 16 years old, he suffered a stroke that paralyzed the entire right side of his body. Miraculously, three years later, Wes is not only walking and talking – he’s even sending text messages, attending college and going on fishing trips with friends.

Wes’ positive attitude, devotion to rehabilitation and strong support system has had much to do with his success. But Wes has also benefitted tremendously from a cutting-edge technology that is revolutionizing therapies for patients suffering from brain injuries and neurodegenerative diseases: a new treatment known as functional electrical stimulation (FES).

FES has been pioneered by companies like Bioness Inc., based in Valencia, CA., which created the devices that Wes uses. The devices – which Wes wears on both his right hand and leg – use electricity to stimulate the damaged portions of his brain and the neural connections between the brain and muscles.

“The idea is that by using the electrical stimulation to make the muscle fire, his brain will retrain and relearn, and his muscles will fire more automatically without it in the long term,” Jolene Hammer, a physical therapist at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Bethlehem, PA., who works with Wes, told FoxNews.com.

FOUR IN 100,000
Strokes are incredibly rare among children and teenagers like Wes.

“From after the newborn period through age 18, the incidence (of stroke) that we estimate is about four in 100,000 children per year,” Dr. Rebecca Ichord, director of the pediatric stroke program at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who treated Wes, told FoxNews.com.

According to Ichord, Wes’ stroke was likely triggered after he experienced whiplash while playing hockey. Doctors believe that one of the arteries in Wes’ neck twisted and dissected, causing the walls of the artery to separate. This caused a blockage in Wes’ blood flow that led to the formation of a clot – resulting in a stroke.

Wes’ stroke was particularly devastating because it occurred in his baseline artery, which facilitates blood flow to critical parts of the brain.

“(His) was one of the most severe types of strokes; when you block the baseline artery, you block critical parts of brain systems that control all elements of function,” Ichord said. “The mortality is relatively higher than in other types of stroke and long term handicap can be devastating.”

Luckily, Wes was able to receive a clot-dissolving therapy within eight hours of his stroke, which restored blood flow to the injured part of his brain. However, Wes still had a long journey ahead of him. The right side of Wes’ body was paralyzed – a condition called hemiparesis.

“I remember lying in the hospital bed and looking up at the ceiling, because that’s all I could do,” Wes told FoxNews.com. “My respiratory therapist told me to visualize myself getting better so I just visualized myself getting out of that situation.”

Eventually, Wes stabilized and was moved to a rehabilitation facility where he had to relearn basic daily tasks, like dressing himself and eating – all the while confined to a wheelchair.

THE RECOVERY PROCESS
Fortunately, Wes didn’t stay in his wheelchair for long.  He soon progressed to a walker and then to a cane. As Wes regained his strength, he was able to begin FES treatments, with the help of his rehabilitation team.  

To regain the use of his right hand, Wes eventually began using the Bioness NESS H200® Hand Rehabilitation System – an external device that Wes wears on his hand and arm.

“That’s helped me be able to be more dexterous with my movements and has overall helped my hand big time,” Wes said. “It used to be that my hand was in a fist, and I wasn’t able to use it at all. I got the H200 device and I was able to use my hand nicely.”

“I’ve even been known to text with my right hand,” Wes added.

Later, Wes progressed to the NESS L300™ Foot Drop System, which allowed his foot to move more freely.

“As he’s been using it, I see that he’s now able to start to actively move those muscles without it that he wasn’t before…Now, he can lift his foot and be aware of it and pull it up on his own,” Hammer said. “He has gotten to be able to lift his toe up and to be able to activate his hamstring. 

Just last week, Wes took home a new device – the L300 Plus – which he will wear on his thigh to stimulate his hamstring. Wes will use this in conjunction with the L300 in order to gain further control over his leg, bolstering his ability to walk and even maneuver stairs.

Though Wes gets fatigued easily (especially when using the devices), he is building up his tolerance and strength, and he eventually hopes to be able to wear both the L300 and L300 Plus for full days.

“It’s helped my walking a ton and being able to walk around the community is a lot better for me as opposed to just being in a wheelchair like I was before. Now I’m on a cane. It’s helped me a lot,” Wes said.

Wes’ doctors hope that technology like the Bioness devices will eventually help repair the damaged parts of Wes’ brain to some extent.

“I think it’s a cutting edge way to start to work on retraining the muscle and hopefully to play into neuroplasticity, to activate the brain to make new connections and to activate these muscles,” Hammer said.

‘AN EXTRAORDINARY YOUNG MAN’
Wes continues to make extraordinary advances in his treatment and personal life – even making the dean’s list at college.

“His speech is also a little affected, but he can still communicate,” Ichord said. “And his cognitive learning abilities, personality and sense of humor (were) all preserved; the thinking part is doing well and was never directly affected.”

Wes credits his experience as a hockey player for giving him his strong work ethic.  

“I work hard, I always did – back from when I was 16 on. I worked as hard as I could and…I really want to get back on the ice. That’s my main motivating factor,” Wes said.

Wes continues to impress his physical therapists and doctors every day, and Hammer said she has high hopes for Wes’ future progress.  

“I’ve been a therapist for a long time and he’s an extraordinary young man – one of the most motivated people I’ve met. If every patient worked as hard as him, I’d be out of a job,” Hammer said.

Scientists have long known that Crohn’s patients – even when they are in remission – suffer from fatigue and low quality of life.

So when Tara Raftery, a research dietitian at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, who works specifically on Crohn’s disease, saw emerging evidence suggesting a lack of vitamin D may alter muscle function and strength she decided to set up a study investigating the possible effects of vitamin D on fatigue and quality of life in Crohn’s patients.

Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory condition  with no known cure and often causes diarrhea, abdominal pain, mouth sores and joint pain. Patients often feel extremely fatigued – either from the extensive medicines they have to take or from the disease itself.

“Some research has suggested that vitamin D supplementation might influence muscle strength and quality of life,” Raftery told FoxNews.com. “But this was yet to be shown in Crohn’s disease.”

Raftery said she and her doctorate supervisor, Maria O’Sullivan, performed a three-month study, where half of the participants – all Crohn’s patients who were in remission –  were given vitamin D supplements and the other half were given a placebo.

“So at the start of the study, we measured their baseline vitamin D levels,” Raftery said. “We also measured fatigue and quality of life by using validated questionnaires, and we measured hand-grip strength – this gave us a proxy measure of their muscle strength.”

At the end of three months, the researchers repeated those measures.

“What we found, was in the participants who received the vitamin D supplements (of 2,000 International Units per day), their hand-grip strength was significantly stronger than those who took the placebo,” Raftery said. “We measured both the dominant and non-dominant hand grip strength at baseline. After three months, those who had received the vitamin D supplement had significantly stronger hand grip, in both hands, compared to those who were randomized to the placebo pill.”

Raftery said they also found the patients who had vitamin D levels of above 30 ng/ml had a significantly higher quality of life compared to those patients who had less than that and those patients taking the placebo.

“In terms of fatigue, what we found was that when the levels were 30ng/ml  or more, the patients reported significantly less physical fatigue, as well as mental and general fatigue,” Raftery said.

Raftery said these findings are the first to suggest the potential benefits of vitamin D supplementation in Crohn’s patients to improve muscle function, fatigue and quality of life.

While more studies need to be done, researchers are hopeful. Raftery is currently conducting a larger study – containing more participants studied over a one-year period – to confirm her initial findings.

“What I would recommend, is that patients with Crohn’s disease discuss supplementation with their doctor and also have their levels rechecked about three months after supplementation begins,” Raftery said. “Vitamin D supplementation is safe for most people, but not everyone . . . mega-doses should be avoided and many countries have set upper limits of 2,000-4,000 International Units a day for adults.”

Raftery will present her findings at Digestive Disease Week in Orlando during the week of May 20.

Women’s health care has a big problem, and we women are the cause of it.  That sounds like a broad statement, but I believe for the majority of women it is the truth.  

When it comes to women’s health care, we have a pretty easy time talking about the big picture. We discuss statistics and trends and how women don’t receive the same levels of service as men when it comes to research studies and early diagnosis in the United States.

But that kind of talk doesn’t get down to the nitty-gritty problem that each one of us faces when it comes to our health.  I’m not saying there is one universal condition or illness, as we each have unique issues to confront.  But as a gender, we women just don’t put the same effort into caring for ourselves as we put into caring for our families. As a women’s health advocate, that raises a giant red flag for me – and it for all of us.

One of the first symptoms of this problem is that we don’t take ownership of our own health. We put it into the hands of others and hope for the best.  When we actually get around to going to the doctor, we don’t tell him or her the complete truth.  Sometimes it’s an accident, as we just don’t remember to talk about certain things or we don’t realize something might be significant.

Other times – and these are the worst – we choose not to talk about things because we are embarrassed or afraid of what the doctor will say.   We see this kind of thing on EmpowHer.com all the time.  Women come to us and post anonymous questions about being gassy or bloated or incontinent.  They know they might have a problem, but for whatever reason, they don’t want to talk to the doctor about it.

Don’t get me wrong: Anonymous questions are always welcome. In fact, we encourage our visitors to choose screen names that don’t give away who they really are.  But the fact that women are ashamed or afraid to have a one-on-one conversation with their doctors about these issues is a symptom of how we collectively don’t do everything we can to safeguard our own health.  

Stress is another issue for us as women.  We know that stress taxes every aspect of our bodies – from our hormones to our cells.  But instead of doing things for ourselves to relieve stress, we try to be wonder-women and take on the weight of the world.  And in the process, we put our own health at risk and potentially damage our ability to take care of our families.

Of course, some types of stress can’t be avoided.  I’m thinking in particular of financial concerns.  When money is tight, we women often cut our own “indulgences” so we can keep funding the things our families enjoy doing.

Ladies, listen up when I tell you that going to the doctor is not an indulgence.  Getting your annual exam is not something extra that you should put off until it’s convenient or until you have some extra money lying around.  Don’t let the economy dictate your health.  

It’s a simple fact that no matter how much disposable income you have, you cannot buy your way out of being sick.  There isn’t enough money in the world to buy your way out of a hard diagnosis like cancer.  And there isn’t enough money in the world to turn back the clock to get an earlier diagnosis or restore treatment options if you waited too long to get tested.

It’s time for women in this country to stand up for themselves, and if you won’t do it for yourself, do it for your mother or your sister, your best friend or your daughter.  Be the brave one, or the smart one.  Be the one who sets the example of taking care of your family by taking care of yourself.  

And don’t stop with yourself.  Share this with other women you care about and encourage them to take better care of themselves.  Your family and everyone who loves you will be glad you did.