Lurie Children’s partners with ISBE on online platform to support student mental health
The Center for Childhood Resilience at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago said Thursday they have rolled out a new statewide online platform to provide schools with tools to strengthen student mental health.
How home food availability affects young children’s nutrient intake
Early childhood is an important time for learning about nutrition and establishing healthy eating behaviors. Young children rely on parents to provide food options, and the availability of food in the home affects their dietary choices. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign looks at changes in home food availability and nutrient intake […]
Can Childhood Trauma Prime Brain Dynamics for Nicotine Dependence?
Childhood trauma-related emotion dysregulation may partly explain why some long-term smokers are unable to give up nicotine, a cross-sectional study suggested. Using 16-minute resting-state functional MRI to show the dynamic patterns of functional coordination among brain systems, researchers found that nicotine smokers spent approximately 25.63 more seconds in the frontoinsular default mode network (FI-DMN) state […]
Light exercise could be the key to reversing childhood obesity linked to sedentariness
Increased sedentary time as a child through adolescence is directly linked to childhood obesity, but new research has found light physical activity may completely reverse the adverse process. The study — conducted in collaboration with between University of Exeter, University of Eastern Finland, University of Bristol, and University of Colorado and published in Nature Communications […]
High cholesterol caused by childhood sedentariness could be reversed with light physical activity
Increased sedentary time in childhood can raise cholesterol levels by two thirds as an adult, leading to heart problems and even premature death — but a new study has found light physical activity may completely reverse the risks and is far more effective than moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. The study was conducted in collaboration between the […]
Earlier Detection of Cardiac Dysfunction Possible for Young Adult Cancer Survivors
Subclinical diastolic dysfunction may be detected among adult survivors of childhood cancer before left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) becomes abnormally low, according to longitudinal echocardiographic data. Among participants in the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort Study (SJLIFE) diagnosed with cancer at a median age of 8 years, the proportion of diastolic dysfunction was approximately 15% when […]
Childhood Cancer Survivors Have Increased Rates of Late, Major Surgeries
Childhood cancer survivors have increased rates of undergoing late, major surgical procedures 5 or more years after diagnosis, according to data from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study. Among more than 25,000 survivors diagnosed with cancer from 1970 to 1999 when they were under age 21, the likelihood of having subsequent major surgery was 80% higher […]
Leading Causes of Death Hit Childhood Cancer Survivors Earlier
Survivors of childhood cancer had a fourfold higher risk of mortality decades after their diagnosis, typically from the same leading causes of death afflicting the general U.S. population, a report from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (CCSS) showed. The 40-year all-cause mortality rate was 23.3% among the more than 34,000 pediatric cancer patients who had […]
Early LRTIs Tied to Risk of Premature Adult Death From Respiratory Diseases
A lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) in early childhood nearly doubles the risk of premature death from respiratory diseases in adulthood, according to a prospective cohort study that spanned eight decades. The study of over 3,500 individuals born in the U.K. found that participants diagnosed with an LRTI by age 2 years were 93% more […]
Reclaiming the Health Misinformation Spiral on Social Media
As medical students and future pediatricians, we recognize that childhood vaccines are one of the single greatest public health achievements of the 20th and 21st centuries. Yet, for one of us, a pregnant cousin announced over the Thanksgiving dinner table that she wasn’t going to vaccinate her unborn child. No matter the facts, research, or […]