Children’s Health

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Nov 3 2020 Boston College Assistant Professor of Biology Emrah Altindis has received a three-year, $300,000-grant from the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Foundation for research into childhood celiac disease. Altindis and his team will explore the role of gut microbes and serum metabolites in the autoimmune disease, in which

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Nov 2 2020 Asthma impacts millions of children already at a young age. Children growing up on a farm have a lower risk of developing asthma than children not living on a farm. The mechanisms behind this protective farm effect on childhood asthma are largely unknown. A group of researchers from

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Nov 2 2020 A new study from UBC researchers finds that teens, especially girls, have better mental health when they spend more time taking part in extracurricular activities, like sports and art, and less time in front of screens. The study, published in the journal Preventive Medicine, found that spending less

As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic continues to spread across the globe, more information emerges on how the virus spreads. Household transmission of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been flagged as one of the major sources of the spread of COVID-19. The secondary attack rates among household contacts are estimated to

As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) threatens the globe infecting over 43.8 million people, the development of a vaccine against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is of paramount importance. Apart from the dissemination of the vaccine, its acceptance among the public is also crucial. Obtaining a high uptake of the vaccine will be

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 28 2020 While an infant’s genes distinguish her from other newborns, a new peer-reviewed study reports that specific genes of a particular infant gut bacterium determine its symbiotic function in the infant’s gut. The study provides important guidance for clinicians when selecting a probiotic for use in infants to maximize

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 30 2020 In 2007, UNC researchers published unexpected and surprising results from a study based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of newborn brains. Twenty-six percent of the newborns in the study were found to have asymptomatic subdural hemorrhages, or bleeding in and around the brain. It was an unexpected finding

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 30 2020 Children with multiple islet autoantibodies – biological markers of autoimmunity — are more likely to progress to symptomatic type 1 diabetes (T1D) than those who remain positive for a single autoantibody. Now, new findings from The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) study in the U.S.

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 30 2020 Five research projects with exceptional promise to deliver new life-changing and health-altering therapies have received the inaugural Blavatnik Therapeutics Challenge Awards (BTCA) at Harvard Medical School. The projects, which target a diverse range of conditions–type 1 diabetes, asthma, frontotemporal dementia, deadly cancer-associated blood clots, and a rare congenital

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 29 2020 University Hospitals (UH) and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) announced today that UH Cleveland Medical Center has been selected as a clinical trial site for the Phase 3 global study of an investigational vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, sponsored by AstraZeneca. The trial is funded by the National Institute of

Researchers in the UK have conducted a study showing that families and school staff support the use of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mitigation measures in secondary schools as young people return to face-to-face education. The team’s study of attitudes towards mitigation measures among young people, parents, and school staff found that, although some participants expressed

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 29 2020 Since 2017, University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers Casey Morrow, Ph.D., and Hyunmin Koo, Ph.D., have used powerful genomic tools and supercomputers that analyze massive amounts of genetic data to identify individual strains within single species of the gut microbiome. This microbiome “fingerprint” method has helped show the

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 28 2020 Women with epilepsy who take the antiseizure drug valproic acid while pregnant are at more than double the risk of having children with autism spectrum disorder and nearly double the risk of having children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to a study in the October 28,

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 29 2020 The use of bariatric surgery to treat severe obesity in adolescents, and the racial disparities in access to that treatment, were analyzed in a retrospective study published in Annals of Surgery by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). Nearly 19% of children

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 28 2020 Teen-age boys exposed to pro-cannabis advertising and social media posts are more likely than female peers to associate marijuana use with improving sexual activity, new research from Washington State University suggests. Researchers found that the adolescent males expected cannabis users to be less inhibited and enjoy sex more,

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 28 2020 Handgun sales in California have risen to unprecedented levels during the COVID-19 pandemic, and experts say first-time buyers are driving the trend. The FBI conducted 462,000 background checks related to handgun purchases in California from March through September, an increase of 209,000, or 83%, from the same period

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 28 2020 Genetic factors that reduce the placenta’s capacity to protect the fetus from the zika virus are described by Brazilian researchers in an article published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. According to the authors, the findings help explain why only some babies whose mothers are infected by zika virus

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 27 2020 Arizona-based Critical Path Institute (C-Path) is pleased to announce it has been awarded a multi-year grant by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to advance standards and methodologies designed to generate real-world evidence (RWE) from real-world data (RWD) through a neonatal pilot project through the International Neonatal

Researchers from Emory University and the Georgia Department of Public Health have shown that the transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the state of Georgia earlier this year changed over time and varied by age. Peter Teunis (Emory University) and colleagues found that between February and July, the serial interval (time between successive cases)

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 27 2020 Researchers have revealed the key factors that can improve outcomes in children with ADHD, a disorder that costs Australia US$13 billion a year in social and economic losses. Research, led by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and published in Pediatrics, highlighted the importance of identifying academic, behavioral