Author: Carlos Morales

Think your child’s bad mood is just an unavoidable phase? Perhaps give some thought to limiting their screen time.
A new study shows that reducing children’s leisure time on screens to three hours a week can drastically improve their mental health and behavior in as little as two weeks.
Researchers from Denmark and the UK studied 89 families from Southern Denmark with adolescents ages 4 to 17 over a two-week period. Families were randomly assigned to a media reduction group or a control group.
All children and at least one adult from each family in the media reduction group were asked to turn in their smartphones or tablets and reduce their leisure screen time to three hours a week. That included any screen use outside of work or school.
Parents completed an assessment of their children’s mental health at the study’s start and end.
The researchers found that children who cut back on media consumption had fewer behavioral issues and better social interactions.
It’s no secret that excessive screen time can have damaging effects on adolescents’ mental health. But even just a short break can reverse some of the damage and help adolescents build better habits down the road.
Recent surveys indicate that many children and teens spend seven to eight hours a day on screens merely for entertainment, not including schoolwork or homework.
The researchers said there is no need to eliminate screen use entirely. They advocate for a more balanced approach, where families set reasonable limits and engage in alternative activities together.
The bottom line: It’s OK to be the screen police. Your child’s mental health might depend on it.

For the first time in more than 30 years, there is a new option for antipsychotic treatment.
The Food and Drug Administration approved the drug Cobenfy [Co-ben-feye] to treat schizophrenia without the side effect of weight gain. Often, weight gain leads to higher rates of cardiac disease and early death for those who rely on medication.
Schizophrenia is a mental health disorder that affects nearly 24 million people worldwide. Those who develop it can have difficulty navigating work, relationships, and much more.
For years, antipsychotic drugs have worked by blocking a dopamine receptor known to elicit feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, and motivation. The medications reduce hallucinations and paranoia in schizophrenia patients.
The newly approved drug also influences dopamine levels, but it does so indirectly by changing levels of a brain chemical that aids memory, learning and attention. Researchers hope this new method will help address troubling side effects of traditional medications, such as lack of motivation and the inability to feel pleasure.
According to the FDA, Cobenfy’s most common side effects are nausea, indigestion, constipation, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, increased heart rate, and dizziness. In clinical trials, only 6 percent of participants stopped taking it due to side effects.
Three research studies have been published about the drug’s effectiveness, though each only lasted five weeks. That means there is much left to learn about any long-term neurological side effects.
However, for patients who have tried other medications unsuccessfully, the FDA’s approval might present a chance to try another tack.

From “Green Acres” to “Northern Exposure” or even “The Simple Life,” television plots that see their subjects leaving the bustling city for life in the quiet country are kind of a trope.
But it is a dream shared by many. You probably even know someone who’s made such a move.
A new study, however, might give one pause.
University of Southern California researchers have found a chasm in health that might surprise you. Rural residents have shorter lives than their urban counterparts, and they live longer in poor health.
They used a sophisticated computer model called the Future Elderly Model to find that urban men can expect to live about 17½ healthy years after age 60. Their rural brethren get only 15 years and seven months.
The disparity is big for women, too. Urban women at age 60 can expect 19 years and three months of healthy life. Rural women get 18 years and seven months.
The gap was pronounced in the South, less so in the Midwest.
Rural Americans smoke, have obesity and more chronic conditions at age 60, which set the stage for future health woes.
While health-adjusted life expectancy has increased by a full year for urban men since the late ’90s, rural men have made no gains.
Using simulations, the researchers found that addressing smoking and obesity would help. But they said a better payoff for those in rural areas likely would come from correcting health conditions and habits at a younger age.
So, if you’re going to make the jump from city slicker to country mouse, just make sure you’re as fit as a fiddle first.
A simpler life doesn’t have to mean a shorter one.

Wash your hands often, cover your coughs and sneezes, and don’t share drinking cups and other utensils.
Those are several simple tips for your young child as they go to school and enjoy time on the playground with friends. But it is not just the common cold that you should be worried about this flu season.
Whooping cough cases are rising quickly across the country. Hovering around 15,000 cases, infection numbers are already the highest they’ve been in a decade. Numbers fell significantly during the pandemic when social interactions were stunted by COVID-19. Through September, this year’s total is nearly 10,000 more than this same time last year.
Pennsylvania, New York, and California are the top three states with the greatest number of cases.
Whooping cough starts with symptoms that appear much like the everyday cold. We’re talking about a runny nose, sneezing, a low-grade fever, and a cough. A week or two later, the infection moves into a violent full-body cough so severe that patients vomit and sometimes break ribs. Antibiotics can treat the infection if caught early. But once the cough starts, the only treatment is rest and fluids.
Young children typically have received five doses of a vaccine against pertussis by the time they’re 6 years old. Thus, unvaccinated babies and adults are those at highest risk. Some experts attribute the uptick in cases to a dip in vaccination rates during the height of the pandemic.
Bottom line: It’s important to maintain healthy hygiene practices and consider seeing a doctor for antibiotics if you or your little one is experiencing symptoms.

Although obesity remains one of our most pressing global health concerns, new research reveals an interesting twist: The social and health challenges those with obesity face may be less severe in regions where obesity is more prevalent.
A study published in Psychological Science analyzed data from more than 3.4 million people across the United States and the United Kingdom, finding that individuals feel less conspicuous — and consequently experience fewer psychological and medical burdens — when they are surrounded by others with similar challenges.
The researchers examined data from various counties across the U.S. and U.K. districts, focusing on Body Mass Index as a marker of obesity.
They discovered significant regional disparities: Areas like the Midwest and the South have a higher number of people living with obesity, while regions such as New England and parts of the U.K. had less. Those in areas with more obesity reported fewer relationship and health disadvantages compared with their counterparts in low-obesity regions, where weight bias was more overt.
Notably, folks in high-obesity areas had lower unemployment rates and better overall health.
So, although our need for public health initiatives aimed at reducing obesity remains, the study emphasizes the importance of also addressing the social stigma attached to the disease.
After all, if the adverse consequences of obesity are created by people, then people can change them.
Understanding obesity’s context may be key to developing better strategies to support those affected, while encouraging a healthier, more inclusive approach to something that affects people worldwide.

There might be a way to relieve pain without money and medication, and it might just blow your mind.
A new study suggests mindfulness meditation is more effective at relieving pain than placebo treatments.
Researchers from the University of California – San Diego and Dartmouth College studied 115 healthy volunteers and assigned them to four groups. One group practiced mindfulness meditation, one group practiced a placebo-type meditation, one group used a placebo cream, and the last group acted as the control.
In the placebo meditation, participants meditated, but without mindfulness instruction.
Participants received four 20-minute training sessions for the technique they were assigned to, then underwent pain testing. During this testing, researchers applied heat to their legs while scanning their brains using an MRI.
The mindfulness meditation group were told to focus on their breath and observe and acknowledge the feeling of pain without judgment. The placebo- meditation group performed similar exercises but did not receive mindfulness instruction. The placebo group used a cream on their leg that they were told would relieve pain, and the control group rested.
Results showed that participants in the mindfulness meditation group rated their pain lower than those in the placebo meditation and placebo groups.
And, after using advanced analysis on the brain, the researchers found mindfulness meditation was the only pain-relieving technique that decreased brain activity in the regions linked to pain sensation and pain’s emotional impact.
In short: Need to alleviate some pain? All you may need is your brain.

It’s tragedy enough when the winds and storm surge of cyclones like Hurricane Helene or Hurricane Milton kill people and upend communities along their meandering paths. Unfortunately, research shows their health impact can extend years after skies clear and waters recede.
Stanford University researchers note in a recent study that any one hurricane indirectly causes up to 11,000 excess deaths in the 15 years after landfall. Scientists analyzed data from 500 tropical cyclones that hit the Atlantic or Gulf coasts of the U.S. between 1930 and 2015, along with mortality data in affected regions.
The toll has been staggering, with estimated deaths as high as 5.2 million since 1930. The burden has been highest in Black communities.
Investigators are now trying to unravel why we see these excess deaths. Hurricanes can disrupt local economies, with citizens losing homes and nest eggs. Community resources are reduced.
Few people realize these hazards trigger negative health consequences. People experience accumulated stress when their lives are sidetracked and their finances drained. Diets are affected. Health resources might become more challenging to access.
The displacement of households and broken social networks carry additional risks to health, including depression and cardiovascular disease.
Scientists say government policy can be adapted, and financial resources allocated, to plan for and lessen such terrible consequences. These hurricane casualties have been uncounted and unrecognized, lost to history.
So, although some escape a storm with their lives, they might have have carried its hazards into the future.

Researchers are teaming up to study osteoarthritic pain in horses — and better understand how pain manifests in both humans and animals.
Osteoarthritis is a debilitating condition traditionally defined by the breakdown of cartilage — though nowadays, science recognizes it as a disease that can affect the joint in its entirety.
But when it comes to studying arthritis-related pain, some roadblocks appear: Namely, the extent of joint degeneration does not always correspond with the level of pain patients experience. This mismatch complicates the development of effective solutions for pain.
But similar to people, horses with osteoarthritis experience a progression of the disease over several years — and also mirror the variety of ways pain associated with the condition can manifest in human patients.
By studying pain in horses, a team of University of Florida researchers hope to revolutionize the understanding and treatment of osteoarthritis pain by leveraging equine patients to model pain reports.
In short, the project aims to create well-validated ways to measure pain that will help researchers develop non-opioid painkilling therapies, addressing a critical technological gap in pain assessment and management.
A National Institutes of Health grant supporting the study relies on the multifaceted expertise of its researchers, who come from veterinary science, engineering, dentistry and agricultural sciences.
At the end of the day, humans have relied on horses for hundreds of years — maybe it’s only natural we’d both be experiencing knee pain. Perhaps it’s also fitting that animals’ creaky knees might help us learn how to live with our own.

Here’s a nutritional treat you don’t have to go to the supermarket to buy. Just stroll through your yard.
It’s got six legs, hops, and it’s more challenging to catch than a hamburger.
We are talking, of course, about grasshoppers.
A study recently published in the journal Food Science of Animal Products suggests that the common insect could improve sleep quality, hair health, and even lead to an improved love life.
This isn’t avant-garde scientific experimentation. With an ever-increasing world population, food shortages are a significant concern for the future. Grasshoppers are already a food source in some regions, including Africa and South America. At times, the price of grasshoppers has exceeded beef. Some consider the insect a delicacy.
In countries like Uganda and Kenya, grasshopper farming is a lucrative business.
The scientists in this study put rats on a grasshopper diet and compared them to control groups who were not fed the insects. The insect-munching rats saw improvement in several measures of health.
Their sleep patterns changed, with the rats getting an extra 12 hours a week of shut-eye. They maintained a healthier body weight. Researchers also recorded an astonishing improvement in hair quality. Nearly 95% of the rats had excellent hair health.
Just 5% of rats on a fishmeal diet and less than 1% on a no-protein diet boasted identical outstanding bobs.
And the hopper rats had sex more often.
What makes insect food attractive is its small environmental footprint. It’s a sustainable food in a world threatened by climate change and crop loss.
And many people love their flavor, especially with a chili powder dip.