27 May, 2019

Reading with kids can make you a better parent

People who regularly read with their kids are less likely to engage in harsh parenting and their children are less likely to be hyperactive and have attention problems, say researchers.

The study, published in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, suggests additional benefits from shared reading, a stronger parent-child bond.

“For parents, the simple routine of reading with your child on a daily basis provides not just academic but emotional benefits that can help bolster the child’s success in school and beyond,” said study lead researcher Manuel Jimenez, Assistant Professor at Rutgers University in the US.

“Our findings can be applied to programmes that help parents and care givers in underserved areas to develop positive parenting skills,” Jimenez said.

For the study, the research team reviewed data on over 2,000 mother-child pairs from 20 large US cities in which the women were asked how often they read to their children at ages 1 and or 3.

The mothers were re-interviewed two years later, about how often they engaged in physically and/or psychologically aggressive discipline and about their children’s behaviour.

The results showed that frequent shared reading at age 1 was associated with less harsh parenting at age 3, and frequent shared reading at age 3 was associated with less harsh parenting at age 5.

Mothers who read frequently with their children also reported fewer disruptive behaviours from their children, which may partially explain the reduction in harsh parenting behaviours, said the study.

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

27.05.2019

Don't focus on regrets; find your inspiration in what you can do now

Catherine Pulsifer 

20, May 2019

Electric field-based dressing fights bacterial infections

Amid growing antibiotic resistance, Indian-origin researchers have developed a way to charge up the fight against bacterial infections using electricity. The electric field-based dressing can not only disrupt biofilm infection, it can also prevent such infections from forming in the future, said the study published in the journal Annals of Surgery. Bacterial biofilms are thin, slimy films of bacteria that form on some wounds, including burns or post-surgical infections, as well as after a medical device is placed in the body.

These bacteria generate their own electricity, using their own electric fields to communicate and form the biofilm, which makes them more hostile and difficult to treat. The dressing electrochemically self-generates 1 volt of electricity upon contact with body fluids such as wound fluid or blood, which is not enough to hurt or electrocute the patient, said the study. Work conducted at the Indiana University School of Medicine by Chandan Sen and and Sashwati Roy led to the development of the dressing, Indiana University said in a statement on Friday.

They discovered the dressing is not only successful in fighting the bacteria on its own, but when combined with other medications can make them even more effective. The researchers believe that the discovery has the potential to create significant changes in the way physicians treat patients with bacterial infections which are resistant to antibiotics. “This shows for the first time that bacterial biofilm can be disrupted by using an electroceutical dressing,” said Chandan Sen, Director of the Indiana Center for Regenerative Medicine and Engineering.

“This has implications across surgery as biofilm presence can lead to many complications in successful surgical outcomes,” Sen added.

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

20.05.2019

                          

The best insurance policy for tomorrow is to make the most productive use of today

13 May, 2019

Six or more cups of coffee in a day could be dangerous: Study

Drinking six or more cups of coffee a day can be harmful and increase the risk of heart ailment by up to 22 per cent, a recent study revealed. The study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In Australia, one in six people is affected by cardiovascular disease. It is a major cause of death with one person dying from the disease every 12 minutes.

According to the World Health Organization, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death, yet one of the most preventable. Investigating the association of long-term coffee consumption and cardiovascular disease, researchers Dr Ang Zhou and Elina Hypponen of the Australian Centre for Precision Health said that their research confirms the point at which excess caffeine can cause high blood pressure, a precursor to heart disease.

This is the first time an upper limit has been placed on safe coffee consumption and cardiovascular health.”Coffee is the most commonly consumed stimulant in the world – it wakes us up, boosts our energy and helps us focus – but people are always asking `How much caffeine is too much?`,” Hypponen said.”Most people would agree that if you drink a lot of coffee, you might feel jittery, irritable or perhaps even nauseous – that’s because the caffeine helps your body work faster and harder, but it is also likely to suggest that you may have reached your limit for the time being,” Hypponen added.

“We also know that risk of cardiovascular disease increases with high blood pressure, a known consequence of excess caffeine consumption,” Hypponen said.”In order to maintain a healthy heart and a healthy blood pressure, people must limit their coffees to fewer than six cups a day – based on our data six was the tipping point where caffeine started to negatively affect cardiovascular risk,”

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

13.05.2019

Expression of the face could be seen by everyone but depression of heart could be understood by the best one

8 May, 2019

Social media use adversely affects girls more

While social media use has limited role in lowering life satisfaction of teenagers, the effects are more among girls than boys, says a study of 12,000 British teenagers. Lower life satisfaction led to increased social media use and vice versa, but the effects were more consistent for females than for males, said the study, adding that these were modest trends.

“Given the rapid pace of technological advancement in recent years, the question of how our increasing use of technology to interact with each other affects our well-being has become increasingly important,” said Andrew Przybylski, Professor at University of Oxford in Britain. The study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that social media effects are not a one-way street — they are nuanced, reciprocal, possibly contingent on gender.

To understand how long teenagers spent using social media on a normal school day and their corresponding life satisfaction ratings, the researchers used an eight-year survey of UK households. The researchers aimed to study not only whether adolescents who report more social media use have lower life satisfaction but also whether the reverse is true. The researchers selected the “UK Household Panel Study” for their analysis because it provided the highest quality longitudinal data available.

“While our study is a very promising step towards robust science in this area, it is only the first step. To ultimately understand how the diverse uses of social media affect teenagers we need industry data,” said Amy Orben of University of Oxford.

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

08.05.2019

The pain you feel today is the strength you'll feel tomorrow