Dr. John's Health Matters
Welcome to Dr. John's Health Matters blog.
The articles posted here are from various sources who are duly acknowledged. I would appreciate being immediately notified, if any copywritten material needs to be removed. This blog is not intended to replace the qualified advice of a licensed health practitioner. Readers should exercise their own judgment. Enjoy, subscribe, participate and tell others :)
Following:
Navigate
COMING SOON!
Expand all | Collapse all 
Search
Click Tags under Articles
NOTE: SEARCH BY KEYWORD FUNCTIONS BELOW ARE TEMPORARILY MALFUNCTIONING. USE AT OWN RISK.
Or Display Full Article by
Posts tagged "parent"
Tuesday, Sep 1st, 2009 ↓Parents Play Key Role In Whether Teen Tobacco Use Becomes A Daily Habit →
Sept 1, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—Researchers have found new evidence showing that parents play a key role in whether or not their adolescent children who experiment with tobacco progress to become daily smokers before they graduate from high school.
A study published on-line and in the September issue of journal Pediatrics shows that parents can be a positive or negative influence on their children’s future smoking habit.
“If parents really don’t want their children to smoke they need to communicate that by establishing clear guidelines in their families about not smoking and discuss them with their school-age children.” said Min Jung Kim, a research scientist with the University of Washington’s Social Development Research Group and lead author of the study.
At the same time, parents can increase their children’s chances of smoking by their own use of tobacco.
“If parents smoke, teens have more access to cigarettes than teens who have non-smoking parents. A second preventive measure for smoking parents is to quit smoking themselves,” said Kim.
For full article, see link above.
Family Quarrels Can Promote Headaches In Children, Study Finds →
Aug 21, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—Family quarrels and a lack of free time can promote headaches in children. This is what Jennifer Gassmann and her coauthors concluded in their study on risk factors, which appears in the current issue of the Deutsches Ärzteblatt International.
This investigation was a component of a large-scale study entitled “Children, Adolescents, and Headache” (Kinder, Jugendliche und Kopfschmerz—KiJuKo), in which data were collected in four annual “waves” from 2003 to 2006. Out of a multitude of variables tested in the larger study, the authors chose to look at the ones that concerned the children’s family and leisure time. Up to 30% of all children around the world complain of headache symptoms arising at least once per week.
Boys who experienced more than one family quarrel per week had a 1.8 times higher risk of developing headaches. The amount of free time available to them seemed to be even more important: boys who only sometimes had time to themselves had a 2.1 times higher risk of developing headaches.
Parents’ behavior when their child complains of headache also seemed to play a major role. Either positive or negative reinforcement from the parents teaches the child that he or she can gain certain advantages from headache symptoms. The parents’ responses had a particularly strong effect on the frequency of symptoms in girls: reinforcing parental responses raised their risk of recurrent headaches by 25%.
The sexes also differed with respect to the frequency of headache. Twice as many girls as boys had their symptoms at least once a week. The children’s age, however, seemed to have no more than a minor effect on headache manifestations.
Journal reference:
- Jennifer Gaßmann, Nuria Vath, Hester van Gessel, Birgit Kröner-Herwig. Risk Factors for Headache in Children. Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, 2009; 106 (31-32): 509-16
Tags: headache family arguement fighting quarrel risk children child adolescent parent behaviour
Parental Death Has Major Impact on Depression Risk in Youth →
July 23, 2009 (Medscape.com)— A parent’s death more than quadruples the risk for depression for children, adolescents, and young adults, new research shows. Further, depression affects 10% of bereaved youth compared with 2% of nonbereaved youth, and those who continue to be depressed at 9 months are likely to continue to suffer from depression during the second year after the loss.
Led by David Brent, MD, the study is published in the July issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Parental Suicide, Accidental Death Linked To Higher Incidence of Depression
The investigators studied the incidence and prevalence of psychiatric problems at 9 and 21 months after the loss of a parent in 154 bereaved subjects aged 7 to 25 years vs a group of 100 matched controls with 2 living parents. The bereaved subjects had lost a parent due to suicide, accident, or sudden natural death.
Parental suicide was associated with a higher incidence of depression in bereaved youth than losing a parent by sudden natural death but not compared with losing a parent by accidental death. “I was surprised that the rate of different disorders in the youth whose parents died by accident were similar to the youth whose parents died by suicide,” Dr. Brent told Medscape Psychiatry.
Risk for onset of depression plateaued after about 9 months in offspring whose parents died by accident or natural death but continued to rise until about 24 months in those whose parent died by suicide. Dr. Brent said that although this risk has continued to rise in the suicide group, the difference is not yet statistically significant.
“The most common problems kids have are depression, posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD], and intense grief,” Dr. Brent said. “Kids who blame others for the death seem to have a more difficult course, so understanding attributions about the death is important.”
For full medical article see link above.
Tags: parent death loss depression child adolescent bereaved psychiatric problem suicide accident ptsd posttraumatic stress disorder
Young Men Living At Home With Parents Are More Violent, Study Suggests →
July 20, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—Young men who stay at home with their parents are more violent than those who live independently, according to new research at Queen Mary, University of London.
The new study indicates that men still living at home in their early twenties have fewer responsibilities and more disposable income to spend on alcohol.
This group makes up only four percent of the UK’s male population but they are responsible for 16 per cent of all violent injuries in the last five years.
Delaying social independence and remaining in the parental home have become more common over the past 40 years in both the UK and the USA.
Professor Jeremy Coid and Dr Ming Yang surveyed over 8000 men and women. Participants answered questions about violent behaviour over the past 5 years and mental health problems.
Their results showed for the first time that staying in the parental home is a stronger risk factor for young men’s violence than any other factor.
Professor Coid said: “Young adult men living at home in Britain are no longer influenced by parents to conform to standards of behaviour expected of previous generations.
“Violence outside of the home, mainly involving strangers, is the most common scenario and just one of a series of hedonistic and negative social behaviours such as hazardous drinking, drug misuse, sexual risk taking, and non-violent antisocial behaviour.
For full article see link above.
Tags: violence men man parent violent independently alcohol drinking responsibility male income injury
Bath Time Falls Injure Thousands Of Children Annually →
July 14, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—A new national study finds kids are being hurt in bathtubs and showers at a surprising rate.* Bathtubs and showers are frequently associated with injuries to children. Although interventions have been initiated to prevent injuries due to submersions and hot water scalds, little attention has been paid to slips, trips and falls, which account for more than 80 percent of bathtub- and shower-related injuries.
Experts at Nationwide Children’s Hospital say slips and falls are far more common, sending more than 43,000 kids a year to the emergency department. That’s an average of 120 kids every day who are hurt in the tub or shower.* In most cases, parents are watching their kids, but it doesn’t matter.
“Unfortunately, adult supervision isn’t enough to prevent these injuries, they happen so quickly that a parent simply can’t react quickly enough to prevent them. Therefore it is important to prevent them from happening by using a slip resistant mat inside and outside the bath and shower,” says Gary Smith, MD, with Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Center for Injury Research and Policy.
For full article see link above.
Like Father, Like Son: Childhood Obesity Link To Parents →
July 13, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—The relationships between children and their parent of the same gender in the earliest years of life could be the key to understanding why some young people become obese and others do not, new research conducted by the EarlyBird Diabetes Study has shown.
A study published July 13 in the International Journal of Obesity indicates that girls whose mothers are classified as clinically obese are significantly more likely to struggle with weight problems in childhood, with a similar relationship existing between obese fathers and their sons.
The findings showed that the same trend does not exist between mothers and their sons and fathers and their daughters – meaning that behavioural, rather than genetic, factors could be the key to unravelling the causes of the current obesity epidemic affecting children in the UK.
The Study’s Director, Professor Terry Wilkin said: “Any genetic link between obese parents and their children would be indiscriminate of gender. The clearly defined gender-assortative pattern which our research has uncovered is an exciting one because it points towards behavioural factors at work in childhood obesity.
For full article see link above.
Parental Presence At Bedtime May Result In Sleep Difficulties →
June 19, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com) —Parental presence at bedtimes appears to have a greater negative impact on infant sleep than actual co-sleeping, according to a research abstract that will be presented on Wednesday, June 10, at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
Results indicate that children who slept in a separate room obtained more sleep, woke less at night, had less difficulty at bedtime, fell asleep faster, and were perceived as having fewer sleep problems. These clinically significant differences were mostly observed in children who lived in primarily Caucasian countries, and not in countries that were predominantly Asian. Of parents from predominantly Caucasian countries, 11.8 percent reported bed sharing and 22 percent reported room sharing, compared with 64.7 percent and 86.5 percent in predominantly Asian Countries.
According to lead author Jodi A. Mindell, PhD, professor of psychology at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pa., past studies have always indicated that bed sharing is associated with increased sleep problems, primarily more night wakings in young children.
“However, it is likely that it is not the bed sharing or room sharing per se that leads to increased sleep issues,” said Mindell. “Rather, most young children who sleep in a separate room fall asleep independently of their parents. These children are able to return to sleep on their own when they naturally awaken during the night, and thus have fewer sleep problems. Children who sleep in the same room as their parents usually have a parent helping them to fall asleep at bedtime, and will need that help again throughout the night.”
For full aarticle see link above.
Parental Eating Habits Don't Rub Off on Kids →
June 5,2009 (HealthDay News) — Parents’ eating habits don’t seem to influence their children’s food choices as much as experts have thought, new research suggests.
“We found that the resemblance in dietary intake between parents and children is weak,” said study senior author Dr. Youfa Wang, an associate professor of international health and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. However, he added, “there is some effect.”
For full article see link above.
Obesity Isn't Genetic, It's Taught: Kids Learn Food Habits From Parents →
Mar 09 09 (NaturalNews) Children as young as two years old notice what foods their parents are bringing into the house and tend to mimic those food choices, according to a study conducted by researchers from Dartmouth Medical School and published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
For full article, see link above.
Kids with Bipolar Parents at Higher Risk for It →
PITTSBURGH, March 209 (Medical News) — Children with bipolar parents are more likely to have early-onset bipolar spectrum disorders and other psychiatric problems, researchers here said.
Those who had one or both parents with bipolar disorder had a nearly 14-fold increased risk of bipolar spectrum disorders, Boris Birmaher, M.D., of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and colleagues reported in the March issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.
For full medical article, see link above.
Perceived Parental and Peer Disapproval Effective Element Toward Teen Substances Use →
From The Journal of Primary Prevention
Posted 01/12/2009
This study investigated the relative influence of perceived parent and peer disapproval for using drugs on youth intentions to use drugs. In a cross-sectional design, sixth and eighth grade students (N= 1,649) completed surveys that included measures of parent disapproval, peer disapproval, and intentions to use drugs in the future. Parent influences were more salient for sixth graders, whereas peer influences were predominant for eighth graders. Peer disapproval was significantly evident in the sixth grade sample, as was parent disapproval in the eighth grade sample. Additionally, girls’ drug use intentions were higher than were boys’. These findings suggest that parents can have a robust protective role over and above peer influences and that girls’ intentions to use substances deserve increased attention. Editors’ Strategic Implications: These findings, if replicated, should help practitioners develop developmentally appropriate strategies and programs for substance use prevention.
For full medical article, see link above.
