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This Week in Health |
Our weekly round up of the latest news in the world of health. This week we look at new calls for autism screening for all young children, at a new piece of the vitamin D-cancer risk puzzle, and at how exercise could be good for kids' brains. We also learn that many people have brain abnormalities that go undetected. This Issue: Autism Screening Vitamin D and Cancer Exercise and Brain Power Brain Abnormalities Common In the News: Autism Screening The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is calling for autism screening for all children by age 2. At its annual meeting in San Francisco, the group presented a list of symptoms for parents and doctors to look for. These include young babies not smiling at the sound of a parent's voice and children of any age who lose language or social skills. Although there is no cure for autism, early therapy can help; the AAP recommends starting treatment once autism is suspected, even before a formal diagnosis is made. For children with a confirmed diagnosis, the group suggests at least 25 hours per week of intensive behavioral therapy; for very young children this would involve play activities to develop social skills. The AAP also warns that the special diets and other alternative treatments touted for autism have not been proven to work, The Associated Press reports. There's a new wrinkle in the relationship between vitamin D and cancer risk. A study published in the journal of the National Cancer Institute suggests that vitamin D has no effect on a person's risk of dying from most types of cancer. In the study, researchers looked at vitamin D levels and cancer deaths among some 17,000 people participating in a national study over 10 years. Vitamin D levels had no effect on their overall risk of dying from cancer, the researchers found. When they looked at cancer by type, the researchers did find that people with high levels of vitamin D had a lower risk -- 72% less -- of dying from colorectal cancer compared to people with the lowest blood levels of the vitamin. But they said this could be due to other factors such as diet, weight and physical activity, The Associated Press reports. Regular exercise may be good for kids' brains as well as their bodies. A study presented at the Obesity Society's annual meeting found children who play vigorously for 20 to 40 minutes a day may be better at organizing schoolwork, doing class projects and learning math, USA Today reports. The study looked at 163 sedentary, overweight children ages 7 to 11 for three months. The children were divided into three groups -- one did no physical activity after school, one did 20 minutes of vigorous physical activity after school for five days a week, and the third did 40 minutes of vigorous activity five days a week. The children in the two physical activity groups wore heart-rate monitors and were rewarded for maintaining a high average heart rate. All the children took cognitive function tests at the beginning and end of the study in math, reading and "executive function" -- planning and organizing, focusing on tasks, self-monitoring and using strategies to achieve goals. Besides losing body fat, the children who did the most activity had significant improvement in executive function compared to the sedentary group, and improved by about 4 points on a cognitive performance scale. Children who did 20 minutes of activity improved by about 2 points. Both exercise group showed a small increase in math achievement but no change in reading ability. Brain scans on the children showed that those in the exercise group had more neural activity in the frontal areas of their brains, the researchers found. An abnormal brain scan may not be so abnormal. A Dutch study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that undiagnosed benign brain tumors, bulging blood vessels and dead brain tissue may be present in more older adults than previously though. In the study, researchers looked at magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of 2,000 healthy adults, age 63 on average. The researchers found that 7.2% of the participants had some dead brain tissue caused by a lack of blood flow, a condition called a "silent stroke." About 1.6% had brain tumors -- almost all non-cancerous -- and 1.8% had aneurysms -- bulging blood vessels that have the potential to enlarge and burst. Almost none of the conditions detected required medical intervention. The Associated Press quotes other experts who say the study's findings should not encourage healthy, symptom-free people to have MRIs. Used with the permission of the copyright owner. All rights reserved. The above summaries are not intended to provide advice on personal medical matters, nor are they intended to be a substitute for consultation with a physician. |
