 
Improper Backpack Use May Cause
Back Pain
An increasing amount of
evidence suggests that carrying heavy backpacks may lead to low back pain
in children and adolescents. The exact reason for this remains unclear,
but some scientists have theorized that a backpack laden with books,
supplies and other implements places an undue amount of stress on a
child’s spine, resulting in occasional, sometimes intense pain. Few
studies, however, have examined the way children wear backpacks and what
specific effect that can have on the spine.
In a recent study,
investigators in
Greece examined over 1,200 children
(ages 12 to 18) who used backpacks at school. Researchers asked each child
if they experienced back pain while carrying their backpack to and from
school and during holiday periods, along with other questions about their
participation in sports, how they traveled to and from school, and the
amount of time it took to travel from home to school and back. In
particular, children were asked about whether they carried their backpack
with one strap over one shoulder or with straps over both
shoulders.
Among the study's
results:
- Carrying a backpack over only one shoulder
caused the student to raise his or her backpack-bearing shoulder and
shift the upper body in the other direction.
- As a result, students who carried backpacks
slung over one shoulder were more than four times as likely to
experience high-intensity pain than students who carried backpacks with
weight distributed evenly across the upper back.
- While there was no association between time
spent carrying backpacks and back pain during the school period, there
was "a significant correlation" between time spent at school and back
pain during holiday periods. The authors of the study believe this is
due to a possible "delayed response" to the stresses applied to the
spine during the school periods.
Republished with permission
from www.ChiroWeb.com
Korevessis P, Koureas G,
Zacharatos S, et al. Backpacks, back pain, sagittal spinal curves and
trunk alignment in adolescents. Spine
2005;30(2):247-255.
Study Links Bedroom TV's to Low
Test Scores
A new
US study finds that children with televisions
in their bedrooms have lower scores on standardized tests.
Researchers from
Stanford
University and Johns Hopkins surveyed 350 third-graders
from six
Northern
California public
schools in 2000. They found that children with access to home computers
did better than others on tests.
"This study provides even more evidence
that parents should either take the television out of their child's room,
or not put it there in the first place," said Dr. Thomas Robinson,
director of the Center for Healthy Weight at Lucile Packard Children's
Hospital at Stanford.
Surprisingly, children with bedroom
televisions reported spending more time on homework on the average,
possibly because they have more trouble with schoolwork. The researchers
suggested that their test scores might be related to getting less sleep.
The study was published in the July issue
of the Annals of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.
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City
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Smoke-Free Bar
Workers Found Healthier
The health of
Lexington,
Ky., restaurant and bar
workers has improved dramatically since the enactment last year of the
city's Smoke-Free Law.
The study released by the University of
Kentucky College of Nursing examined hair nicotine of 106 employees at
nearly 50 randomly selected
Lexington bars and restaurants. Hair
samples were analyzed 4 months before the law took effect and then 3
months after the enactment of the smoking ban.
The study found
lower nicotine levels in the hair samples even among workers who smoked.
The study also found workers were less likely to report colds and sinus
infections after the law went into effect -- 84 percent before the ban, 49
percent three months after and 50 percent six months after.
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Moderation in Cell Phone
Use Urged
A Canadian public health official is
urging people to moderate their use of cell phones until uncertainties
about long-term health effects are resolved.
Canadian Chief Public Health Officer Dr.
David Butler-Jones made the remark Monday at a three-day World Health
Organization conference in
Toronto.
Butler-Jones told more than 100
academics, public health officials and scientists from around the world
that constantly changing technology has created a moving target, leaving
scientists playing a game of catch-up, the Toronto Star reported.
"Our technology has passed our ability to
understand what biological effects are positive or negative," said
Butler-Jones, who heads the new Public Health Agency of Canada.
"What would be the message? The message
would be that moderation is a good thing," he said during an interview
with the newspaper after his presentation. "Talking for two hours every
night on cell phones, would I advise that? No."
Butler-Jones said use of cell phones
during one's childhood might also have an impact on obesity and the way
children interact socially with family and friends.
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Link to Happiness and
Intelligence
High levels of intelligence does not
correlate with happiness in childhood or old age, Scottish researchers
found.
Edinburgh University researchers found more intelligent
people get better life opportunities but also had higher expectations,
according to the study published in the British Medical Journal.
The researchers examined 550 Scottish
volunteers born in 1921, who had their IQs tested when they were age 11
and again at 80 years old, the BBC reported Friday.
"If you are 80 and healthy, then your
satisfaction with how your life has turned out bears no relation to how
you scored on an IQ test recently or 70 years ago," said Ian Deary of the
University of Edinburgh.
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Women Feel Pain More
Often than Men
Women feel pain more than men -- the
opposite of widely held beliefs that men are more susceptible to pain,
British researchers at the
University of
Bath say.
Researchers examined 98 males
and females whose arms were put in cold water. They said women feel pain
more often in more areas and for longer periods than men.
"Until
fairly recently it was controversial to suggest that there were any
differences between males and females in the perception and experience of
pain, but that is no longer the case," said lead researcher Ed Keogh.
While most research has focused on genetic or hormonal differences
between men and women, Keogh said social and psychological factors also
play a role.
Most women tend to focus on the emotional aspects of
pain while men focus on the sensory aspects, which may help men increase
their tolerance of pain, he said.
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Low-Fat Diet Deprives Children of
Vitamins
US parents who feed their young children
the same low-fat diet they consume for better health may inadvertently
deprive their children of vitamin E.
A study of preschool-age children living
in Lincoln, Neb., found two-thirds deficient in vitamin E, while one-third
of the children weren't getting enough vitamin C either, indicating a lack
of produce.
Nutrition scientist Judy Driskell and her
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln tested 2-to-5-year-olds at four Lincoln day-care centers.
They drew blood samples from 22
ethnically diverse boys and girls to determine their vitamin E and C
levels. Their parents also were interviewed to obtain dietary intakes for
their children on two non-consecutive days.
"Parents are eating a lot of low-fat and
non-fat products, and we're finding they also give their children such
things as skim milk," Driskell said. "It's likely the parents' vitamin E
consumption also is inadequate."
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Most People
Want Health Information
More than 60% of
U.S. consumers have searched
for information to help them make healthcare treatment decisions during
the last 12 months.
One-third said the
information they found affected their treatment choices or their choice of
a healthcare facility, according to a RAND Corp. report released Tuesday
by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.
The national survey
of more than 4,300 consumers also found 52 percent said they wanted to
make the final treatment decision for themselves or a family member, while
38 percent said they wanted to make the decision together with their
physicians.
"This report
demonstrates that consumers -- as patients -- are actively seeking
information about appropriate medical care options for themselves and
their families," said Maureen Sullivan, the association's senior vice
president of strategic services.
The survey also found 50 percent
of those surveyed believe it is beyond the control of most individuals to
affect the quality of the healthcare they receive and 45 percent think
there is a lot individuals can do to make sure they receive quality care.
Copyright 2005 – UPI
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rights reserved
How to Handle Report
Cards
Psychologically healthy ways to handle report cards include
communicating with the child, asking about any concerns before opening the
envelope. Lisa Huffman, assistant professor of educational psychology at
Ball
State
University, also advises parents
to:
1.
Take report
cards seriously; while not telling the whole story they reflect a child's
progress.
2.
Praise a
good report card.
3.
Post good
work on a refrigerator.
4.
Talk about
a bad report card, working out a plan for
improvement.
5.
Set
realistic goals, not expecting a quick jump from a C to an
A.
6.
Realize A’s
may not reflect the child's best efforts.
7.
Ask whether
the child feels challenged enough; look at the child's work regularly,
noting grades and teachers' comments.
8.
Encourage
good work habits and effort.
9.
Be involved
in the child's school.
10.
Use
incentives not bribes, for example, instead of promising money for good
grades, offer a gift or privilege after the report comes
home.
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More Young People Report
Hearing Loss
Parents giving children cell phones or a
portable digital music device may not realize those devices are putting
old ears on many young bodies.
Purdue University Audiologist Robert
Novak says health professionals are starting to see an increasing number
of cases involving hearing loss in young adults -- a level previously
expected among middle-aged adults. "This loss is often self-induced and
may be related to young people's exposure to amplified sound and use of
personal listening systems, such as cell phones and portable music
devices," said Novak, director of clinical education in audiology and
associate department head.
"The damage can be temporary or
permanent," he said.
In addition to hearing loss, too much noise
exposure can result in hearing constant ringing, called tinnitus.
"People, especially young adults on a college campus, have
something in their ears almost all the time," Novak said. "Their ears have
very little quiet time to recover from noise exposure."
Copyright 2005 – UPI
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At
Any Age, It's Wise to Exercise
The benefits of exercise have
been well-documented over the years. Among other benefits, numerous
studies have shown that exercise can help reduce the incidence of disease,
promote weight loss, and improve mental health.
A recent long-term study set
out to examine if exercising during the senior years benefits people who
were previously sedentary.
Canadian researchers
investigated two groups of previously sedentary healthy adults, ages 55-75
years at baseline, for 10 years. One group remained sedentary during the
study period, while the other group engaged in regular exercise.
consisting of 30- to 45-minute aerobic sessions, three times a week, for a
minimum of 46 weeks a year.
At the conclusion of the
study, researchers examined data for 161 participants in the active group
and 136 participants in the sedentary group. Among their findings: "The
active group showed a significantly lower prevalence (11%) of metabolic
syndrome than the sedentary group (28%) at 10 years." (Metabolic syndrome
is a group of risk factors that can lead to type-2 diabetes and coronary
heart disease, among other health problems.)
The sedentary group also had
a 13% decrease in fitness over the 10-year study period, while the
exercise group showed a small increase in fitness levels. In the exercise
group, HDL, or "good" cholesterol, increased by 9%, whereas the sedentary
group showed an 18% decrease in HDL. The active group also had "fewer
comorbid conditions, and fewer signs and symptoms of cardiovascular
disease" than their sedentary counterparts.
Republished with permission
from www.ChiroWeb.com
Reference: Petrella RJ, Lattanzio CN,
Demeray A, et al. Can adoption of regular exercise later in life prevent
metabolic risk for cardiovascular disease? Diabetes Care
2005;28:694-701.
Bed-Sharing Raises Risk Level
for SIDS
Sharing a bed with parents
increases the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, whether the parents
are smokers or not, a new study says.
SIDS is listed as the leading cause of
death for infants one month to one year old and earlier studies showed
sleeping with parents who smoke increases the risk.
But, a study in the July issue of
The Journal of Pediatrics found a relationship between SIDS and
bed-sharing among infants less than 11 weeks old, even if parents are
non-smokers. Dr. David Tappin and colleagues from the
University of
Glasgow evaluated 123 cases of SIDS in
Scotland between 1996 and 2000.
The researchers found that 90 percent of
the babies died while sleeping at night. Only 11 percent of the infants
were reported to routinely sleep in their parents' bed. But, 52 percent of
the babies had shared a bed, cot, couch or other surface at some point
during the day or night that they died.
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Hypertension Trims Five Years
Off Life
People in their 50's with normal blood
pressure can live five years longer than those with hypertension, an
international study published.
The Massachusetts-based Framingham Heart
Study tracked 3,128 people who celebrated their 50th birthday, and found
people with high blood pressure on average developed cardiovascular
disease or died 7.2 years later. The study also found that people with
normal blood pressure developed cardiovascular disease later in life than
people with high blood pressure. Research team member Dr. Anna Peeters,
from the Monash University Department of Epidemiology and Preventive
Medicine in Belgium, said the study provided clear evidence that
preventing high blood pressure could prolong life.
"What is really surprising is the
unexpectedly large number of years difference in life expectancy between
those with hypertension and those without," she said. The study was
published in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association.
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