News by Subject Medicine & Health

Tobacco conglomerates that used colors, flavors and marketing techniques to entice children as future smokers transferred these same strategies to sweetened beverages when they bought food and drink companies starting in 1963, according to a study by researchers at UC San Francisco.

A global study of the health and well being of the world's 1.8 billion adolescents reveals a growing inequality -- and greater health challenges than those faced 25 years ago. Of adolescents aged 10-24, 250 million more worldwide are living in countries where they face a triple burden of infectious disease, non-communicable diseases and injuries compared with 1990. The study provides the first comprehensive snapshot of young people who are one-third of the world's population.

This observational study looked at whether the temperament of infants born to mothers with gestational diabetes was associated with future risk of childhood obesity at ages 2 to 5 years. Children whose mothers develop diabetes during pregnancy are more likely to become obese but how infant temperament might influence the development of obesity in this population isn't clear. In healthy populations, the evidence for the influence of infant temperament on child weight status has been mixed.

In addition to the other health conditions affected by estrogen, it has also been shown to affect pain sensitivity. This finding was the basis of a study of more than 200,000 records from the Veterans Health Administration that demonstrated a link between menopause symptoms and chronic pain. Study results are published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).

An intervention combining behavioral weight loss treatment and problem-solving therapy with as-needed antidepressant medication for participants with co-occurring obesity and depression improved weight loss and depressive symptoms compared with routine physician care, according to an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researcher Mariska Bot from Amsterdam UMC reported: 'Daily intake of nutritional supplements over a year does not effectively prevent onset of a major depressive episode in this sample. Nutritional supplements were not better than placebo. Therapeutic sessions aimed at making changes towards a healthy dietary behavior didn't convincingly prevent depression.' Dr. Bot is first author of a paper showing these results in today's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.