More ADHD drugs, fewer antibiotics for US kids

More ADHD drugs, fewer antibiotics for US kids - More drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and fewer antibiotics are being prescribed to US children and teenagers compared to a decade ago, said a US study on Monday.

Also, contraceptive prescriptions soared 93 percent from 2002 to 2010, though the reasons for the rise remain unclear, said the research published in the journal Pediatrics.

Overall, prescriptions for kids ages 0-17 dropped seven percent during that time period, while prescription drugs dispensed to adults rose 22 percent, it said.

More drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and fewer antibiotics are being prescribed to US children and teenagers compared to a decade ago, said a US study. (AFP Photo/ROBERTO SCHMIDT)

"Children are experiencing fewer serious medical problems than perhaps they had in the past," said Victor Fornari, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in New York.

The report tracked the number of prescriptions dispensed for the youths, not the number of patients, and was based on two major US commercial prescription databases.

A key rise was seen in stimulant medications for ADHD, which the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes as one of the most common neurobehavioral conditions of childhood, affecting about five million children.

ADHD diagnoses have been rising in recent years, and Fornari said the 46 percent rise in ADHD prescriptions noted in the Pediatrics study was likely in keeping with the higher number of cases.

"Given the prevalence of these disorders it is likely to reflect a greater awareness and recognition of these conditions and an understanding of the negative impact of failing to treat ADHD," Fornari told AFP.

"That failure to treat results in lower academic achievement, a greater rate of conduct disorders, earlier entry into substance abuse and a higher likelihood of entering the juvenile justice system or the criminal justice system," added Fornari, who was not involved in the study.

"There has been a much greater awareness that you want to treat ADHD early to prevent the bad outcome. I think this increase may reflect that."

Overall, the most frequently dispensed drugs were antibiotics, accounting for about a quarter of all pediatric prescriptions between 2002 and 2010, said the report.

However, the data showed a 14 percent decline in antibiotic dispensing over that period, which Kenneth Bromberg, chairman of Pediatrics at The Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York, described as good news.

"Almost no one is chronically on antibiotics," said Bromberg, who also was not involved with the research.

"It suggests the use of antibiotics for ambulatory type things has gone down, which is very good," he added.

"The more we cut back on unnecessary antibiotic use in humans, the better off we will be in terms of antibiotic resistance."

Other notable findings included a 42 percent drop in prescription medications for coughs and colds, a 14 percent rise in asthma meds, and a 93 percent spike in prescriptions for contraceptives like birth control pills.

The study could not explain the reasons behind the increase, but suggested it could be a result of youths taking pills for longer periods of time -- which was not measured in the research -- or for secondary reasons like acne prevention. ( AFP )

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Is online really the opposite of offline?

Is online really the opposite of offline? The answer seems obvious. If you're on Facebook, you're not talking face-to-face with your friends — unless one is leaning over you while you type. If you're using an iPhone app, you're not out hiking in the woods—unless you're using the app to identify a fallen leaf, or name the mountains that have suddenly come into view over the horizon. And if you're learning to interact with your peers online in a chat room, you're not doing a thing for your ability to intereact in reality—except that maybe you are.

In the Wall Street Journal, columnist Shirley Wang explores several research studies in which social scientists find that "time spent online may be helping people learn to be more empathetic and to make more friends in real life." Students learn to lead and appear less anxious in chat rooms. They show empathy on Facebook and heavier users (even those who reported low self esteem otherwise) report a stronger sense of connection with their live community. In the New York Times, Bruce Feiler reported on his "Plugged-In Summer" of using Facebook to identify birds, entertaining family with vacation-related trivia ("a debate still rages over who was the 'Benedict' in Eggs Benedict") and finding home remedies for gardening problems.

His anecdotal comments supported the work of the social scientists: "I still found an occasional, virtual interaction with a friend or family member to be as pleasant as running into them on the beach."

Of course, Feiler is an adult, with a network of flesh-and-blood connections developed before summer camps needed rules about smartphones. But those studies suggest that Facebook et al.—the so-called shallows of connectivity—may actually deepen the friendships of our kids, without adding to a risk of bullying. In other words, their online experiences may not be that different than ours, and many adults are finding that after a few years of smartphone and laptop connectivity, we've made it work within our lives instead of allowing it to take over.

Adults fear that the behind-your-back nature of online communication allows kids to say things about one another that they wouldn't say in person, but research shows most bullies are still old-school, with most bullying taking place in person. And, most heartening: Two-thirds of kids who are bullied online say they "don't find it upsetting." In this new, optimistically interconnected off-and-online view of the world, it's probably because they're too busy connecting with their other, more empathetic friends to care. ( slate.com )

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Fish oil pills don't improve kids' braininess

Fish oil pills don't improve kids' braininess - Despite some evidence that taking fish oil pills during pregnancy can help children's brain development, a new study suggests that the supplements make no difference in measures of intellect when the kids are six years old.

The findings support the results of an earlier Norwegian study that also found no differences in IQ among seven-year-olds whose mothers did or did not take fish oil supplements while pregnant and breastfeeding.

Fatty acids, such as docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), that are found in fish and other foods are considered to be important for the developing fetus.

The question, however, has been whether adding more of these fats to mothers' diets through supplements will further benefit the baby.

In the current experiment, researchers asked expectant mothers during the second half of their pregnancies to take fish oil, fish oil plus a folate supplement, folate alone or a pill that did not contain any supplements.

Nearly seven years later, the team, led by Dr. Cristina Campoy at the University of Granada in Spain, gave intelligence tests to 154 children from this group.

The kids performed similarly on the tests, regardless of what type of pill their mothers had taken during pregnancy.

The results, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, do not mean that fatty acids like DHA are not important.

In fact, the researchers found that the children of women who had high levels of DHA in their red blood cells around the time they gave birth scored above average on the intelligence tests at age six.

These mothers, however, were not necessarily given fish oil supplements. Rather, the result could reflect mothers' intake of DHA from various sources over a longer period of time, and might mean that long term fatty acid intake "is more beneficial than receiving supplementation alone during pregnancy," the authors wrote in their study.

A recent study in Australia also found that DHA supplements did not help the visual development of babies (see Reuters Health story of May 26, 2011).

The current study did not measure the diets of the children, something that could have influenced the results, said Dr. Ingrid Helland at Oslo University Hospital, who led the earlier Norwegian research.

"It might be that subtle beneficial effects of (prenatal fish oil) supplementation are being overshadowed by other factors (genetics, social stimulation, nutrition etc)," Helland wrote in an email to Reuters Health.

She is not totally giving up on the idea that taking fish oil might be beneficial.

"If a friend would ask me if she should take supplements or not, I would recommend supplementation, but emphasize that we still do not have any scientific proof that it benefits the child," said Helland. ( Reuters Health )

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A commentary on kids' caffeine consumption

Kids Are Getting Amped on Caffeine, Even at Age 5 - A commentary on kids' caffeine consumption

Most school-age children drink caffeinated drinks, and many of them are imbibing enough caffeine to give adults the jitters. And their sleep is suffering. That's the news from the Journal of Pediatrics, which surveyed parents on their children's caffeine habits.
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It turns out that 5- to 7-year-olds on average drink 52 milligrams of caffeine daily, or the caffeine equivalent of one Coke. That may not sound too bad, but the 228 parents in the new study admitted their 8- to 12-year-olds drink the caffeine equivalent of almost three Cokes daily. And the more caffeine the kids took in, the less they slept.

It's hard to imagine parents thinking double lattes are a good choice for kids, but the fact is that 75 percent of the 228 parents surveyed by the researchers, at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, said their kids down caffeinated drinks daily. Soft drinks are the biggest culprit; they're also a bad choice for kids because they're high in sugar, with zero nutritional value. Schools don't always help on this. A recent study found that 14 percent of public elementary school students and 38 percent of private elementary school students can buy sugar-sweetened beverages at school. And kids often don't realize that Gatorade and other sports drinks are just soft drinks in disguise.

Here are three ways that parents can cut back on children's caffeine consumption, and increase their odds of a good night's sleep:

• Take soft drinks off the menu, at home and in restaurants. They're bad nutritional choices, and many contain caffeine.

• Beware of hidden caffeine. Many orange sodas have caffeine, but you'd never guess it from the taste. Indeed, not all caffeinated drinks are brown. One can of Mountain Dew has 55 mg of caffeine, which beats the amount in a can of Coke or Pepsi.

• Explain that energy drinks aren't the right kind of energy for kids. A 16-ounce Arizona Green Tea Energy has 200 mg of caffeine; that's four Cokes! Clearly this green tea is not a healthy choice.

The fact that so many high-caffeine drinks are also sugary makes them more attractive to children; think of it as training wheels for a caffeine addiction. That's not a lesson that grade-schoolers need to learn. ( usnews.com )

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