Big Girls Don’t Cry

A study to be published in the June 2012 issue of Journal of Adolescent Health looking at the relationships between body satisfaction and healthy psychological functioning in overweight adolescents has found that young women who are happy with the size and shape of their bodies report higher levels of self-esteem. They may also be protected against the negative behavioral and psychological factors sometimes associated with being overweight. A group of 103 overweight adolescents were surveyed between 2004 and 2006, assessing body satisfaction, weight-control behavior, importance placed on thinness, self-esteem and symptoms of anxiety and depression, among other factors. "We found that girls with high body satisfaction had a lower likelihood...

Read more »

Cocaine and the Teen Brain: New Insights Into Addiction

When first exposed to cocaine, the adolescent brain launches a strong defensive reaction designed to minimize the drug's effects, Yale and other scientists have found. Now two new studies by a Yale team identify key genes that regulate this response and show that interfering with this reaction dramatically increases a mouse's sensitivity to cocaine.  The findings may help explain why risk of drug abuse and addiction increase so dramatically when cocaine use begins during teenage years.  The results were published in the Feb. 14 and Feb. 21 issues of the Journal of Neuroscience.  Researchers including those at Yale have shown that vulnerability to cocaine is much higher in adolescence, when the brain is shifting from an...

Read more »

Stressed kids more likely to become obese

The more ongoing stress children are exposed to, the greater the odds they will become obese by adolescence, reports Cornell environmental psychologist Gary Evans in the journal Pediatrics (129:1).  Nine-year-old children who were chronically exposed to such stressors as poverty, crowded housing and family turmoil gain more weight and were significantly heavier by age 13 than they would have been otherwise, the study found. The reason, Evans and his co-authors suggest, is that ongoing stress makes it tougher for children to control their behavior and emotions -- or self-regulate. That, in turn, can lead to obesity by their teen years.  "These children are heavier, and they gain weight faster as they grow up. A very good predictor...

Read more »

Today's teens will die younger of heart disease

A new study that takes a complete snapshot of adolescent cardiovascular health in the United States reveals a dismal picture of teens who are likely to die of heart disease at a younger age than adults do today, reports Northwestern Medicine research.  "We are all born with ideal cardiovascular health, but right now we are looking at the loss of that health in youth," said Donald Lloyd-Jones, M.D., chair and associate professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a physician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. "Their future is bleak."  Lloyd-Jones is the senior investigator of the study presented Nov. 16 at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Orlando.  The...

Read more »

Adolescent sex linked to adult body, mood troubles... in hampsters

A new study suggests that sex during adolescence can have lasting negative effects on the body and mood well into adulthood, most likely because the activity occurs when the nervous system is still developing.  While the research used laboratory animals, the findings provide information that may be applicable to understanding human sexual development.  Researchers paired adult female hamsters with male hamsters when the males were 40 days old, the equivalent of a human's mid-adolescence. They found that these male animals with an early-life sexual experience later showed more signs of depressive-like behaviors as well as lower body mass, smaller reproductive tissues and changes to cells in the brain than did hamsters that were...

Read more »

Research reveals when and why students smoke

Discovering when and why students smoke might lead to the development of better intervention methods, according to researchers at the University of Missouri. In an article published in the journal Substance Use & Misuse, the researchers showed that partying, drinking and work prompted college students to recall their smoking experience, and that smoking occurred most often at the start of the semester and on weekends.  "Students are using social events and work as cues to remind them about smoking," said Nikole Cronk, PhD, assistant professor of family and community medicine at MU and lead author of the article. "This research is important for those working with college students to recognize when smoking is happening at its highest...

Read more »

Study examines racial and ethnic variations in substance-related disorders among adolescents

Substance use is widespread among adolescents in the United States, particularly among those of Native American, white, Hispanic and multiple race/ethnicity, and these groups are also disproportionally affected by substance-related disorders, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.  "Adolescence marks the period of life with the highest risk for initiating substance use; thus, adolescents constitute a high-risk group requiring research to guide prevention efforts and health policy making," the authors write as background information in the article. "While eliminating racial/ethnic disparities in health problems and their treatment is a mission of the National...

Read more »

Adolescent amphetamine use linked to permanent changes in brain function and behavior

Amphetamine use in adolescence can cause neurobiological imbalances and increase risk-taking behaviour, and these effects can persist into adulthood, even when subjects are drug free. These are the conclusions of a new study using animal models conducted by McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) researcher Dr. Gabriella Gobbi and her colleagues. The study, published today in The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, is one of the first to shed light on how long-term amphetamine use in adolescence affects brain chemistry and behaviour.  "We looked at the effects of long-term amphetamine use on important neurotransmitters and on risk-taking behaviour in adolescent rats," says Dr. Gobbi, a researcher in Mental Illness and...

Read more »

Research examines college students’ knowledge about eating disorders

They’re the prime demographic for developing eating disorders, yet new research out of the University of Cincinnati suggests that it could be difficult for college students to notice the warning signs.  On Oct. 31, Ashlee Hoffman, a UC doctoral student in health promotion and education, will present her research, titled, “University Students’ Knowledge of An Ability to Identify Disordered Eating, Warning Signs and Risk Factors,” at the American Public Health Association’s 139th annual meeting and exposition in Washington, DC.  Disordered eating, Hoffman explains, involves unhealthy habits over time that can lead up to, but may not yet fit the medical diagnoses of an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia.  Hoffman’s...

Read more »

The 'Freshman 15' is just a myth

Contrary to popular belief, most college students don’t gain anywhere near 15 pounds during their freshman year, according to a new nationwide study.  Rather than adding “the freshman 15,” as it is commonly called, the average student gains between about 2.5 and 3.5 pounds during the first year of college.  And college has little to do with the weight gain, the study revealed.  The typical freshman only gains about a half-pound more than a same-age person who didn’t go to college.  “The ‘freshman 15’ is a media myth,” said Jay Zagorsky, co-author of the study and research scientist at Ohio State University’s Center for Human Resource Research.  “Most students don’t gain large amounts of weight.  And it...

Read more »

Not your mother's birth control, same troubles

Today's hormonal forms of birth control are vastly different from those used by earlier generations of women, both with lower levels of hormones and with different means of delivery (not just a pill), but many of the same problems related to women's pleasure remain.  An Indiana University study that examined how newer forms of hormonal contraception affect things such as arousal, lubrication and orgasm, found that they could still hamper important aspects of sexuality despite the family planning benefits and convenience.  "Contraception in general is a wonderful way for women to plan their families," said lead researcher Nicole Smith, project coordinator at IU's Center for Sexual Health Promotion. "It's something women are...

Read more »