Investigators from the Child Study Center at New York University’s Langone Medical Center report the results of the 33-year follow-up study online in the journal Pediatrics.

“Few studies have focused on long-term outcomes for patients diagnosed with ADHD in childhood. In this study, we wanted to assess the health outcomes of children diagnosed with ADHD, focusing on obesity rates and body mass index,” said lead author Francisco Xavier Castellanos, M.D.

“Our results found that even when you control for other factors often associated with increased obesity rates such as socioeconomic status, men diagnosed with ADHD were at a significantly higher risk to suffer from high BMI and obesity as adults.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ADHD is one of the most common neurobehavioral disorders, often diagnosed in childhood and lasting into adulthood.

People with ADHD typically have trouble paying attention, controlling impulsive behaviors and tend to be overly active. ADHD has an estimated worldwide prevalence of five percent, with men more likely to be diagnosed than women.

The longitudinal prospective study included 207 white men diagnosed with ADHD at an average age of 8 and a comparison group of 178 men not diagnosed with childhood ADHD. Participants were matched for race, age, residence and social class.

The average age at follow up was 41 years old. The study was designed to compare body mass index (BMI) and obesity rates in grown men with and without childhood ADHD.

Results showed that, on average, men with childhood ADHD had significantly higher BMI (30.1 vs. 27.6) and obesity rates (41.1 percent vs. 21.6 percent) than men without childhood ADHD.

“The results of the study are concerning but not surprising to those who treat patients with ADHD. Lack of impulse control and poor planning skills are symptoms often associated with the condition and can lead to poor food choices and irregular eating habits,” noted Castellanos.

“This study emphasizes that children diagnosed with ADHD need to be monitored for long-term risk of obesity and taught healthy eating habits as they become teenagers and adults.”

Source: NYU Langone Medical Center

Yet a new University of Michigan poll shows only one in 100 parents of teens 13 to 17 years old believes that their teen has used a study drug.

Study drugs often include stimulant medications prescribed for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Common drugs abused for this purpose include Adderall, Concerta, Ritalin, and Vyvanse.

Researchers discovered that among parents of teens who have not been prescribed a stimulant medication for ADHD, only 1 percent believes their teen has used a study drug to help study or improve grades.

The finding stems from the latest University of Michigan Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health.

However, recent national data from the Monitoring the Future survey indicates that 10 percent of high school sophomores and 12 percent of high school seniors say they have used an amphetamine or other stimulant medication not prescribed by their doctor.

Experts say that students without ADHD will take someone else’s medication, to try to stay awake and alert and try to improve their scores on exams or assignments.

However, taking study drugs has not been proven to improve students’ grades, and it can be very dangerous to their health, says Matthew M. Davis, M.D., M.A.P.P., director of the Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health.

“Taking these medications when they are not prescribed for you can lead to acute exhaustion, abnormal heart rhythms and even confusion and psychosis if the teens get addicted and go into withdrawal,” said Davis.

“What we found in this poll is a clear mismatch between what parents believe and what their kids are reporting. But even though parents may not be recognizing these behaviors in their own kids, this poll also showed that one-half of the parents say they are very concerned about this abuse in their communities,” he said.

White parents were most likely to say they are “very concerned” (54 percent), compared with black (38 percent) and Hispanic/Latino (37 percent) parents.

Despite this concern, only 27 percent of parents polled said they have talked to their teens about using study drugs. Black parents were more likely to have discussed this issue with their teens (41 percent), compared with white (27 percent) or Hispanic (17 percent) parents.

“If we are going to make a dent in this problem, and truly reduce the abuse of these drugs, we need parents, educators, health care professionals and all who interact with teens to be more proactive about discussing the issue,” Davis said.

More than three-quarters of parents polled said they support school policies aimed at stopping abuse of study drugs in middle schools and high schools. Overall, 76 percent of parents said they believe schools should be required to discuss the dangers of ADHD medication abuse.

Moreover, 79 percent of parents support a policy to require students with a prescription for ADHD medications to keep their pills in a secure location such as the school nurse’s office.

This requirement could prohibit students from carrying such drugs which could potentially be shared with, or sold to, other students.

“We know teens may be sharing drugs or spreading the word that these medications can give their grades a boost,” Davis said.

“But the bottom line is that these prescription medications are drugs, and teens who use them without a prescription are taking a serious risk with their health.”

Sourc: University of Michigan

Teenager holding pills in his hand photo by shutterstock.

Specifically, breastfeeding may protect against the development of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) later in childhood.

ADHD is a common neurobehavioral disorders usually first diagnosed in childhood. Children with ADHD may have trouble paying attention, controlling impulsive behaviors (may act without thinking about what the result will be), or be overly active.

Although the origins of ADHD are not yet known, experts believe genetics and perinatal factors are major factors toward development of the condition.

In the research, a team of Israeli researchers compared breastfeeding history and other factors in a group of children 6-12 year of age diagnosed with ADHD to control groups of children who did not have ADHD.

The results demonstrated that overall, the children with ADHD were less likely to have been breastfed at 3 and 6 months of age than the children without ADHD.

This association between ADHD and lack of breastfeeding was statistically significant.

The study, led by Aviva Mimouni-Bloch, M.D., is reported in Breastfeeding Medicine, the Official Journal of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine.

“Breastfeeding has been shown to have a positive impact on child development, good health, and protection against illness. Now, another possible benefit of breastfeeding for three months and especially six months or longer has been identified,” said Ruth Lawrence, M.D., editor-in-chief of Breastfeeding Medicine and professor of pediatrics, University of Rochester School of Medicine.

“This study opens another avenue of investigation in the prevention of ADHD.”

Source: Mary Ann Liebert

For example, some doctors started preschoolers on medication too soon before trying any non-drug treatment, such as counseling parents on how to deal with their child’s behavior.

The results are concerning because doctors should recommend behavioral treatments first, the researchers said.

“At a time when there are public and professional concerns about overmedication of young children with ADHD, it seems that many medical specialists are recommending medication as part of their initial treatment plan for these children,” said study researcher Dr. Jaeah Chung, of Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New York.

For the study, researchers surveyed 560 doctors who specialize in diagnosing and managing children ages 4 to 6 with ADHD.

The findings revealed that only 8 percent of doctors followed all guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The rest prescribed medications too soon, prescribed medications without first checking to see if behaviora; therapy was working, or did not use the drug methylphenidate as the first drug treatment.

One in five doctors said they often prescribe medications to preschoolers with ADHD as their first line of treatment. The AAP said in 2011 that doctors should attempt to treat ADHD in preschoolers with behavioral therapies before prescribing medications.

Furthermore, about 40 percent of doctors said that when they did prescribe drugs, they initially used a medication other than the ADHD drug methylphenidate (Ritalin).

According to the AAP, methylphenidate should be used first in preschoolers because it has been more rigorously studied in young children than other medications such as amphetamines.

Approximately 20 percent of doctors said they expected the number of children they treated with medications would increase in the future.

Study researcher Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Cohen Children’s, noted that the AAP guidelines are written for general pediatricians, and it’s possible that specialists see children with more severe ADHD (who are more likely to need medications).

However, “Doctors collectively should recommend their patients pursue behavior therapies first,” Adesman said.

Adesman noted that there may be obstacles to behavioral therapy: The treatment is not always covered by insurance, and families may live in an area without a behavior therapy specialist.  In this case, the AAP recommends that doctors weigh the risks of starting drugs at an early age against the risks of delaying treatment.

Source: North Shore-Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Health System

Doctor holding out pills in his hand photo by shutterstock.

Twitter allows experts and policymakers the opportunity to track the use of Adderall, in much the same way an outbreak of influenza can be followed as it works its way across the nation.

In the new study, BYU health science and computer science researchers report the findings of their six-month investigation in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Researchers say the study produced two major revelations about Adderall:

• It is mentioned most heavily among students in the northeast and south regions of the U.S.;
• Tweets about Adderall peak sharply during final exam periods.

“Adderall is the most commonly abused prescription stimulant among college students,” said lead researcher Carl Hanson, Ph.D., a professor of health science at BYU.

“Our concern is that the more it becomes a social norm in online conversation, the higher risk there is of more people abusing it.”

For the study, researchers monitored all public-facing Twitter mentions of “Adderall” between November 2011 and May 2012, but removed tweets from users whose screen-names indicated they were promoting Adderall.

The results showed 213,633 tweets from 132,099 unique users mentioned the drug during the study, with an average of 930 per day.

Though the analysis didn’t sort out “legal” vs. “illegal,” use, Adderall tweets spiked sharply during traditional finals periods, with peaks on Dec. 13 (2,813) and April 30 (2,207).

Researchers also found that Adderall tweets peaked during the middle of the week and declined by the weekend. Both findings are consistent with previous research that shows college students who abuse ADHD stimulants do so primarily during times of academic stress.

“It’s not like they’re using it as a party drug on the weekend,” Hanson said. “This data suggests that they’re using it as a study aid. Many of the tweets even made a study reference.”

Researchers found that the rate of Adderall tweets was highest among college and university clusters in the northeast and south regions of the United States.

A possible link to the high activity could be a well-established Greek system of fraternities and sororities, especially in the northeast.

Vermont had the highest per capita Adderall tweet rate, followed by Massachusetts and Alabama, while Southeast Texas had the lowest, followed by Central Illinois and Northern California.

The Northern Utah college cluster was one of the lowest Adderall-tweeting areas, as were a number of western areas such as Phoenix, Los Angeles and Reno.

The Twitter analysis also revealed that 9 percent of Adderall tweets mentioned another substance, with the most common two being alcohol (4.8 percent) and stimulants like coffee or Red Bull (4.7 percent). Other substances included cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines and anti-anxiety medications such as Xanax.

“Tweets hinting at co-ingestion are particularly troubling because morbidity and mortality risk increases when substances are combined,” said study co-author Michael Barnes, Ph.D.

Researchers hope the study renews interest in promoting the safe and legal use of Adderall and other substances on college campuses. Study authors also hope that as the general public learns about the dangerous use of substances to improve academic performance, improved promotion of student well-being and study habits will surface.

Researchers say additional resources are needed to better to help students better manage the academic demands and pressures of college.

Source: Brigham Young University

Disabilities include problems with math (dyscalculia), reading (dyslexia) and autism, translating to two or three pupils in every classroom.

Brian Butterworth, Ph.D., believes the study gives insight into the underlying causes of specific learning disabilities and how to tailor individual teaching and learning for individuals and education professionals.

Researchers found children are frequently affected by more than one learning disability and that specific learning disabilities co-occur more often than expected. For example, in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), 33 to 45 percent also suffer from dyslexia and 11 percent from dyscalculia, a learning disability in mathematics.

Butterworth said the results showed there were many neurological development disorders that result in learning disabilities, even in children of normal or even high intelligence.

Specific learning disabilities arise from atypical brain development with complicated genetic and environmental factors, causing such conditions as dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD, autism spectrum disorder and specific language impairment.

In the study, researchers reviewed the neural and genetic basis for specific learning disabilities (SLD). They then clarified how these disabilities develop and how school psychologists, clinicians and teachers can improve teaching for individual learners.

The study suggests causes of SLDs are due to difficulties processing speech, language and numbers at a cognitive level.

From a neurological basis, evidence suggests each SLD is associated with an abnormality in a distinct neural network. A single neurophysiological cause may affect distinct regions in the brain, affecting an individual’s learning ability.

“We are also finally beginning to find effective ways to help learners with one or more SLDs, and although the majority of learners can usually adapt to the one-size-fits-all approach of whole class teaching, those with SLDs will need specialized support tailored to their unique combination of disabilities,” Butterworth said.

Source: University of Melbourne

Young student struggling with math photo by shutterstock.

Using data from The Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (PATS), researchers found, for instance, that one in eight teens (13 percent) now report they have taken the stimulants Ritalin or Adderall when it was not prescribed for them, at least once in their lifetime.

“These data make it very clear: the problem is real, the threat immediate and the situation is not poised to get better,” said Steve Pasierb, president and CEO of The Partnership at Drugfree.org.

“Parents fear drugs like cocaine or heroin and want to protect their kids. But the truth is that when misused and abused, medicines — especially stimulants and opioids — can be every bit as dangerous and harmful as illicit street drugs.”

Researchers believe the sustained trend in teen medicine abuse is associated with inappropriate parental and caregiver oversight. Investigators say that nearly one-third of parents say they believe Rx stimulants like Ritalin or Adderall, normally prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), can improve a teen’s academic performance – even if the teen does not have ADHD.

Further, according to some, parents are often not communicating the dangers of Rx medicine misuse and abuse to their kids, nor are they safeguarding their medications at home and disposing of unused medications properly.

“Medicine cabinets are the number one access point for teens who want to misuse and abuse prescription drugs. That’s why we are making a concerted effort to let parents and caregivers know how important it is to safely dispose of their unused, unwanted or expired medicines. Doing so can literally save a life,” said Marcia Lee Taylor of The Partnership at Drugfree.org.

Trends in teen prescription drug abuse according to the new PATS data (2008-2012):

• One in four teens (24 percent) reports having misused or abused a prescription drug at least once in their lifetime (up from 18 percent in 2008 to 24 percent in 2012), which translates to about 5 million teens;
• Of those kids who said they abused Rx medications, one in five (20 percent) has done so before the age of 14;
• More than a quarter of teens (27 percent) mistakenly believe that “misusing and abusing prescription drugs to get high is safer than using street drugs,” and one-third of teens (33 percent) say they believe “it’s okay to use prescription drugs that were not prescribed to them to deal with an injury, illness or physical pain.”

Experts say that medicine abuse is one of the most significant and preventable adolescent health problems that families face today. Rx stimulants a key area of concern, with misuse and abuse of Ritalin and Adderall in particular driving the noted increases in teen medicine abuse.

Stimulants are a class of drugs that enhance brain activity and are commonly prescribed to treat health conditions including ADHD and obesity. The 2012 data found:

• One in eight teens (about 2.7 million) now reports having misused or abused the Rx stimulants Ritalin or Adderall at least once in their lifetime;
• 9 percent of teens (about 1.9 million) report having misused or abused the Rx stimulants Ritalin or Adderall in the past year (up from 6 percent in 2008) and 6 percent of teens (1.3 million) report abuse of Ritalin or Adderall in the past month (up from 4 percent in 2008);
• One in four teens (26 percent) believes that prescription drugs can be used as a study aid.

Although abuse of prescription pain medicine remains at unacceptably high levels among teens, the new PATS data shows that use may be flattening.

Teen abuse of prescription pain relievers like Vicodin and OxyContin has remained stable since 2011 with one in six teens (16 percent) reporting abuse or misuse of an Rx pain reliever at least once in their lifetime. One in 10 teens (10 percent) admits to abusing or misusing an Rx painkiller in the past year.

Nevertheless, the availability of prescription drugs (in the family medicine cabinet, in the homes of friends and family) makes them that much easier to abuse.

The new survey findings stress that teens are more likely to abuse Rx medicines if they think their parents “don’t care as much if they get caught using prescription drugs, without a doctor’s prescription, than they do if they get caught using illegal drugs.”

Some parents (one in six or 16 percent) believe that using prescription drugs to get high is safer than using street drugs.

Parents often fail to talk with teens about substance abuse (16 percent of parents); in comparison, a majority of teens (81 percent) say they have discussed the risks of marijuana use with their parents, 80 percent have discussed alcohol and nearly one-third of teens (30 percent) have discussed crack/cocaine.

Source: The Partnership at Drugfree.org/MetLife Foundation

Teenager holding a pill photo by shutterstock.

ADHD is a condition characterized by high levels of distraction, impulsiveness, an inability to remain still, and a tendency to be abnormally talkative.

For the study, researcher Yoon Hwan Byun of the Department of Medicine at Dankook University College of Medicine in Korea set out to discover whether radio-frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) affect developing brains with prolonged exposure. Past research has suggested a link between prenatal cell phone exposure and the risk of conduct and behavior problems in children.

Cell phone exposure is nearly impossible to avoid, and it is important to know if the RFs of cell phones can cause or influence ADHD. Another variable in the equation are levels of lead in the blood, which seem to be higher in children with RF exposure.

For the study, Byun evaluated more than 2,400 elementary school children for ADHD symptoms and cell phone exposure through the use of parental reports.

Two years later, Byun interviewed the participants again and found that children who used cell phones for voice calls were more likely to develop symptoms of ADHD than those who didn’t.  However, this was only statistically significant in children who were also exposed to high levels of lead.

The study found that all children who played games on phones were also at increased risk for ADHD symptoms with low-lead blood level children showing particular vulnerability.

Furthermore, the children who stopped using cell phones during the study period had a much sharper decline in symptoms than those who continued using cell phones.

“Therefore, preventing the use of mobile phones in children may be one measure to keep children from developing ADHD symptoms regardless of the possible roles of mobile phone use in ADHD symptoms,” said Byun.

Byun added that although these results reveal a potential impact of RF-EMF on developing brains, there may be a reverse causality. In other words, children who spend a large amount of time playing video games may do so because of more severe ADHD symptoms, such as inattention and hyper-focusing.

The findings offer further evidence that lead exposure and RF exposure seem to increase dramatically with cell phone use. The full effect of these exposures on ADHD and other cognitive and behavioral outcomes has yet to be confirmed and further research may reveal the answers.

Source:  PLoS ONE

Child with cell phone photo available from Shutterstock

Researchers at University College London and Goldsmiths University of London also found that children are frequently affected by more than one learning disability.

According to the researchers, specific learning disabilities (SLD) arise from “atypical brain development with complicated genetic and environmental causes,” causing conditions such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, and language impairment.

While each of these conditions provide a challenge for educators, those challenges are magnified because learning disabilities often “co-occur far more often than would be expected,” the researchers said.

For example, between 33 percent and 45 percent of children with ADHD also suffer from dyslexia, while 11 percent suffer from dyscalculia, which is akin to dyslexia, but with math instead of reading.

“We now know that there are many disorders of neurological development that can give rise to learning disabilities, even in children of normal or even high intelligence, and that crucially these disabilities can also co-occur far more often than you’d expect based on their prevalence,” said Professor Brian Butterworth of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience.

“We are also finally beginning to find effective ways to help learners with one or more SLDs,” he continued. “Although the majority of learners can usually adapt to the one-size-fits-all approach of whole class teaching, those with SLDs will need specialized support tailored to their unique combination of disabilities.”

Butterworth noted that each child has a unique cognitive and genetic profile.

“The educational system should be able to monitor and adapt to the learner’s current repertoire of skills and knowledge,” he said. “A promising approach involves the development of technology-enhanced learning applications, such as games, that are capable of adapting to individual needs for each of the basic disciplines.”

The study was published in Science.

Source: University College London

Boy in school photo available from Shutterstock

Researchers posit brain training exercises that increase the number of items an individual can remember over a short period of time may boost performance in other problem-solving tasks by enhancing communication between different brain areas.

“Working memory is believed to be a core cognitive function on which many types of high-level cognition rely, including language comprehension and production, problem solving, and decision making,” said Brad Postle, Ph.D., of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Work by various neuroscientists to document the brain’s “plasticity” — changes brought about by experience — along with technical advances in using electromagnetic techniques to stimulate the brain and measure changes, have enabled researchers to explore the potential for working-memory training like never before, he said.

The cornerstone brain-training exercise in this field has been the “n-back” task, a challenging working memory task that requires an individual to mentally juggle several items simultaneously.

Participants must remember both the recent stimuli and an increasing number of stimuli before it (e.g., the stimulus “1-back,” “2-back,” etc). These tasks can be adapted to also include an audio component or to remember more than one trait about the stimuli over time — for example, both the color and location of a shape.

Through a number of experiments over the past decade, Susanne Jaeggi, Ph.D., of the University of Maryland, College Park, and others have found that participants who train with n-back tasks over the course of approximately a month for about 20 minutes per day not only get better at the n-back task itself, but also experienced a small amount of “transfer” to other cognitive tasks on which they did not train.

However, a still unresolved (and controversial) opinion relates to which factors determine whether working-memory training will generalize to other domains, as well as how the brain changes in response to the training.

To answer these question, Postle’s group used a new technique of applying electromagnetic stimulation on the brains of people undergoing working-memory training.

Bornali Kundu, who works in Postle’s laboratory, used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with electroencephalography (EEG) to measure activity in specific brain circuits before and after training with an n-back task.

“Our main finding was that training on the n-back task increased the number of items an individual could remember over a short period of time,” said Kundu.

Researchers also discovered this increase in short-term memory performance was associated with enhanced communication between distant brain areas, in particular between the parietal and frontal brain areas.

“The overall picture seems to be that the extent of transfer of training to untrained tasks depends on the overlap of neural circuits recruited by the two,” Kundu says.

Many cognitive neuroscientists believe that working-memory training can specifically help clinical populations, such as patients with ADHD.

“If we can learn the ‘rules’ that govern how, why, and when cognitive training can produce improvements that generalize to untrained tasks, it may be that therapies can be developed for patients suffering from neurological or psychiatric disease,” Postle said.

Indeed, researchers have had success with such training for children with ADHD, decreasing the symptoms of inattention.

“Here, the reason working-memory training may transfer to tests of fluid intelligence, as well as to a reduction in ADHD-associated hyperactivity symptoms, may be because both of those complex behaviors use some of the same brain circuits also used in performing the working-memory training tasks,” Kundu said.

“Individual differences in working memory performance have been related to individual differences in numerous real world skills such as reading comprehension, performance on standardized tests, and much more,” she said.

“I would not expect the same sorts of transfer effects that have been seen with working-memory training to happen if an individual practiced a task that used a minimally overlapping network, such as, for example, shooting three-pointers — which presumably uses different brain areas like primary and secondary motor cortex and the cerebellum.”

Jaeggi said it is important to understand that cognitive abilities are not as unchangeable as some might think.

“Even though there is certainly a hereditary component to mental abilities, that does not mean that there are not also components that are malleable and respond to experience and practice,” she said.

“Whereas we try to strengthen participants’ working memory skills in our research, there are other routes that are possible as well, such as, for example, physical or musical training, meditation, nutrition, or even sleep.”

Despite all the promising research, Jaeggi said, researchers still need to understand many aspects of this work, such as “individual differences that influence training and transfer effects, the question of how long the effects last, and whether and how the effects translate into more real-world settings and ultimately, academic achievement.”

Source: Cognitive Neuroscience Society

Monitoring population mental illness trends has been an historic challenge for scientists and clinicians alike. Telephone surveys have been the primary method to determine the prevalence of mental issues, but this approach is limited because respondents may be reluctant to honestly discuss their mental health.

This approach also has high material costs and a low return rate. As a result, investigators have not had the data they need.

In the study to be published in the May issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers now believe the Internet, and specifically Google, can provide an accurate barometer of mental health trends.

“The Internet is a game changer,” said lead investigator John W. Ayers, Ph.D. “By passively monitoring how individuals search online we can figuratively look inside the heads of searchers to understand population mental health patterns.”

Using Google’s public database of queries, the study team identified and monitored mental health queries in the United States and Australia for 2006 through 2010.

All queries relating to mental health were captured and then grouped by type of mental illness, including ADHD (attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder), anxiety, bipolar, depression, eating disorders (including anorexia or bulimia), OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), schizophrenia, and suicide.

Using advanced mathematical methods to identify trends, the authors found all mental health queries in both countries were consistently higher in winter than summer.

The research showed eating disorder searches were down 37 percent in summers versus winters in the U.S., and 42 percent in summers in Australia. Schizophrenia searches decreased 37 percent during U.S. summers and by 36 percent in Australia.

Bipolar searches were down 16 percent during U.S. summers and 17 percent during Australian summers; ADHD searches decreased by 28 percent in the U.S. and 31 percent in Australia during summertime. OCD searches were down 18 percent and 15 percent, and bipolar searches decreased by 18 percent and 16 percent, in the U.S. and Australia respectively.

Searches for suicide declined 24 and 29 percent during U.S. and Australian summers and anxiety searches had the smallest seasonal change – down 7 percent during U.S. summers and 15 percent during Australian summers.

Researchers said they were startled by the discovery of apparent seasonal trends for mental illness.

While some conditions, such as seasonal affective disorder, are known to be associated with seasonal weather patterns, the connections between seasons and a number of major disorders were surprising.

“We didn’t expect to find similar winter peaks and summer troughs for queries involving every specific mental illness or problem we studied,” said co-author James Niels Rosenquist, M.D., Ph.D. “However, the results consistently showed seasonal effects across all conditions – even after adjusting for media trends.”

“It is very exciting to ponder the potential for a universal mental health emollient, like Vitamin D (a metabolite of sun exposure). But it will be years before our findings are linked to serious mental illness and then linked to mechanisms that may be included in treatment and prevention programs,” said Ayers.

“Is it biologic, environmental, or social mechanisms explaining universal patterns in mental health information seeking? We don’t know.”

“Our findings can help researchers across the field of mental health generate additional new hypotheses while exploring other trends inexpensively in real-time,” said Benjamin Althouse, a doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and researcher on the study.

“For instance, moving forward, we can explore daily patterns in mental health information seeking … maybe even finding a ‘Monday effect.’ The potential is limitless.”

Source: Elsevier

Abstract of person and light photo by shutterstock.

Moving is a fairly common experience for Americans, according to researchers at Cornell University and the National Employment Law Project.

They note that in 2002, 6.5 percent of all children had been living in their current home for less than six months. Among low-income children, that number rose to 10 percent.

While 13 percent of families above the poverty line moved once, 24 percent of families below the poverty line moved.

Using data on 2,810 children from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a study of children born in 20 large U.S. cities between 1998 and 2000, researchers sought to determine how frequent moves relate to children’s readiness for school. Parents were interviewed shortly after the birth of their children, then again by phone when the children were 1, 3, and 5 years old. In-home assessments were done when the children were 3 and 5.

The study found that 23 percent of the children had never moved, 48 percent had moved once or twice, and 29 percent had moved three or more times. Among the children who moved three or more times before age 5, nearly half — 44 percent — were poor, according to the researchers.

The children who moved three or more times had more attention problems, anxiousness or depression, and aggressiveness or hyperactivity at age 5, compared to those who had never moved or those who had moved once or twice.

The study also found that the increases in behavior problems occurred only among poor children, suggesting that frequent moves early in life are most disruptive for the most disadvantaged children.

“The United States is still recovering from the great recession, which has taken a major toll on the housing market,” said Kathleen Ziol-Guest, Ph.D., postdoctoral associate at Cornell University, who led the study.

“As housing markets have collapsed across communities, highly mobile low-income families have moved in search of work and less expensive housing. The findings in this study suggest that the housing crisis and its accompanying increase in mobility likely will have negative effects on young children, especially poor children.”

The study is published in the journal Child Development.

Source: Society for Research in Child Development

 
Youg boy on moving day photo by shutterstock.

ADHD is a condition characterized by high levels of distraction, impulsiveness, an inability to remain still and a tendency to be abnormally talkative.

This is the first study showing a statistically significant link between sunshine — measured as “solar intensity” — and the disorder, said L. Eugene Arnold, M.D., an ADHD expert and professor emeritus of psychiatry at Ohio State University.

The study ruled out several other possible explanations for the geographic variability including low birth weight, infant mortality levels, socioeconomic differences and latitude.

However, the researchers noted that other unknown factors could contribute to lower cases of ADHD in sunny spots.

For example, some sunny states in the southeast — including Florida — don’t have low rates of ADHD.

And not-so-sunny Illinois had an ADHD rate that was 6.2 percent, identical to California’s.  Ohio’s rate, according to that same survey, was more than 13 percent.

Study leader Martijn Arns of Utrecht University in the Netherlands speculated that our biological clocks may help explain the apparent connection with sun exposure. As people around the world spend more time in front of computers and hand-held devices in the hours leading up to bedtime, they’re getting less quality sleep.

“The blue light (from the devices) prevents the onset of melatonin, which naturally tells us to go to sleep,” Arnold said.

In theory, plenty of sunlight in some places could help make up for that, he said.

Arns said that vitamin D levels are an unlikely explanation for the results, since another recent large study showed no relationship between the vitamin and behavioral problems in children.

Prior research has found genetic predispositions that lead to ADHD, but researchers continue to investigate other factors that might contribute to the disorder.

“Nobody has thought to look at this before. I think it’s a very important paper,” said Russell Barkley, M.D., an ADHD expert and clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina, who was not involved in the sunlight research.

Problems with sleeping are known to interfere with attentiveness, so the idea behind the study makes sense, Barkley said.

He said the results could prove significant for children and clinicians if more research in a controlled setting shows a solid connection between light exposure and ADHD symptoms.

Source:  Biological Psychiatry

Young girl picking sunflowers in the sun photo by shutterstock.

Obstructive sleep apnea, a common form of sleep-disordered breathing (SDB), occurs in about 2 percent of children who are otherwise healthy, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

The new study shows that “there are considerable behavioral risks associated with continued SDB,” said Michelle Perfect, Ph.D., lead author and assistant professor at the University of Arizona. “[We] should also consider the possibility that SDB contributes to difficulties with hyperactivity, learning and behavioral and emotional dysregulation in the classroom.”

The five-year study, published in the journal SLEEP, used data from the Tucson Children’s Assessment of Sleep Apnea Study (TuCASA). That study examined Hispanic and Caucasian children between the ages of 6 and 11 to determine the prevalence of SDB and its effects on neurobehavioral functioning.

The new study involved 263 children who completed an overnight sleep study and a neurobehavioral battery of assessments, which included reports from both parents and the children.

The researchers found that 23 children had sleep apnea that developed during the study period, while 21 children had persistent sleep apnea throughout the study.

Another 41 children who initially had sleep apnea no longer had breathing problems during sleep at the five-year follow-up, researchers report.

Researchers found that the odds of having behavioral problems were four to five times higher in children who developed sleep apnea during the study period, and six times higher in children who had persistent sleep apnea.

Parents of children with sleep apnea were more likely to report problems in the areas of hyperactivity, attention, disruptive behaviors, communication, social competency and self-care, the researchers report.

Children with persistent sleep apnea were seven times more likely to have parent-reported learning problems and three times more likely to earn grades of C or lower, the researchers note.

“Even though SDB appears to decline into adolescence, taking a wait-and-see approach is risky, and families and clinicians alike should identify potential treatments,” concluded Perfect.

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, children with sleep apnea generally have larger tonsils and adenoids than other children. Effective treatment options include the surgical removal of the tonsils and adenoids or the use of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy.

Source: American Academy of Sleep Medicine

Sleeping child photo by shutterstock.

“Doctors caring for children and teens have a professional obligation to always protect the best interests of the child, to protect vulnerable populations, and prevent the misuse of medication,” said author William Graf, M.D., of Yale University in New Haven, Conn., and a member of the American Academy of Neurology.

“The practice of prescribing these drugs, called neuroenhancements, for healthy students is not justifiable.”

This rising trend of teens using “study drugs” before tests has made recent headlines in the United States.  Even parents are going so far as requesting ADHD drugs for kids who don’t meet the criteria for the disorder. The AAN has spent the last several years evaluating all of the available research and ethical standards to develop this official position paper.

In the report, the researchers refer to dozens of ethical, legal, social and developmental reasons why prescribing mind-enhancing drugs — such as those for ADHD — for healthy people is viewed differently in children and adolescents compared to functional, independent adults with full decision-making abilities. The AAN has written a separate position statement that addresses the issue of neuroenhancements in adults.

The paper lists many factors against the practice of prescribing neuroenhancements for healthy children and teens.  These include the following: the child’s best interest; the long-term health and safety of neuroenhancements, which has not been studied in children; kids and teens may lack complete decision-making capacities while their cognitive skills, emotional abilities and mature judgments are still developing; maintaining doctor-patient trust; and the risks of over-medication and dependency.

“The physician should talk to the child about the request, as it may reflect other medical, social or psychological motivations such as anxiety, depression or insomnia. There are alternatives to neuroenhancements available, including maintaining good sleep, nutrition, study habits and exercise regimens,” said Graf.

The statement is published in the online issue of Neurology.

Source: American Academy of Neurology

 
Abstract of mind working photo by shutterstock.