Mi Choza De Nipa: 2011

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

China faces sperm donor dearth

This seems like an irony, in my opinion... China losing out on reproduction?
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By Kristine Lim
Posted: 15 November 2011

SHANGHAI, China: China faces a shortage of sperm donors, and the quality of sperm adds to the infertility problem as more couples seek out sperm banks.

Only about five to 10 per cent of sperm donations make the mark.

The hectic pace of life, stress at work, as well as a changing environment with more pollution and exposure to elements such as radiation affect fertility.

In Shanghai, about 2,500 couples seek out the sperm bank each year.

They can wait up to three years for a donor.

Shanghai Human Sperm Bank head Li Zheng said: "If you come to the hospital and take a look at the men without sperm or who are infertile, you will see how much stress they have.

"For me, it is really difficult to break the news that he cannot have children at the end of the treatment.

"It is a huge blow to the men. They face a lot of pressure and the only way they can make their wife pregnant and build a family is by seeking out a sperm donation."

But the sperm bank is unable to find enough suitable donations to meet demand.

Because the sperm is frozen at low temperatures in liquid nitrogen, donated sperm has to be of high quality.

Donors with genetic diseases or HIV will also be screened out.

The entire sperm-donation process takes about nine months.

Apart from the initial checkups, donors have to return six months after donation for further HIV tests.

But with an increasingly mobile population in China, many do not turn up for the last step, which means all the previous efforts would go to waste.

The traditional mindset is also stopping many from coming forward as donors.

Awkwardness and shyness are some of the reasons Chinese men cited for not stepping forward.

One man said: "I am going to get married soon; I don't wish to have other children elsewhere in future. What if they come to acknowledge me as their father?"

Another added: "You don't know when you'll see someone looking a lot like you on the streets, then discover he is your child."

However, others are a little more open to the idea.

One man said: "Perhaps I will consider but for now, I don't have much time apart from work to do this form of charity."

"I think it is okay. It's like donating blood," said another.

About 85 per cent of current sperm donors are university students.

But the sperm bank hopes others, such as married men with children, can come forward as donors.

- CNA/wk

Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
China faces sperm donor dearth

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Some birth control shows higher clot risk

Posted: 28 October 2011

WASHINGTON: Some birth control products, including contraceptive pills, rings and patches for women, carry a significantly higher risk of blood clot than low-dose medications, US regulators said Thursday.

The US Food and Drug Administration said in its review of studies that have included more than 800,000 women that the higher risks are posed by products such as the pill Yaz, the transdermal Ortho Evra patch, and the NuvaRing vaginal insert.

All three methods are "associated with an increased risk of VTE (deep venous thrombosis) relative to the standard low-dose" pills, the FDA said.

Featured in the study were pills that contain drospirenone, as opposed to another type of progestin known as levonorgestrel. Some brand names include Yaz, Yasmin, Beyaz, Ocella, Loryna, Gianvi, Safyral, Syeda and Zarah.

Yaz is the second biggest selling product made by the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer, with 1.56 billion in global sales.

NuvaRing is a once-a-month vaginal insert made by Merck pharmaceuticals, and the weekly Ortho Evra patch is made by Janssen Pharmaceuticals.

The finding about clot risk associated with patches and rings are new and need to be replicated, the FDA said. A full discussion on the matter is scheduled for December.

These "continuous exposure" birth control methods "potentially result in higher sustained exposure to estrogen and hence, increased thromboembolic risk," the FDA warned.

The European Medicines Agency concluded on May 27 that such birth control pills carry a higher risk of venous thromboembolism and that warning labels should be updated accordingly.

However it noted the overall risk of blood clot from any birth control method remains small and stopped short of advising women to stop taking pills containing drospirenone.

The pills have been the focus of numerous lawsuits, including one lodged earlier this year on behalf of a teenager who died from a blood clot allegedly linked to the German chemical and pharmaceutical company Bayer's Yaz contraceptive.

Michelle Pfleger, an 18-year-old college student in North Carolina, died of cardiac arrest last September after taking Yaz, also known as Yasmin or Ocella, to treat acne, according to the complaint.

Two studies out this year in the British Medical Journal found that drugs like Yaz and Yasmin increase the risk of serious blood clots three-fold or two-fold compared to earlier-generation oral contraceptives.

The official Yaz website says the drug is associated with "increased risks of several serious side effects, including blood clots, stroke, and heart attack."

According to Glenn Jacobowitz, vice-chair of the division of vascular surgery at New York University, doctors have been aware of the risks of Yaz and similar pills for some time.

"The information on NuvaRing and Ortho Evra would be a new, but similar finding. This is certainly worrisome, particularly for women over age 35 and for smokers," he said.

-AFP/vl

Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Some birth control shows higher clot risk

Monday, November 28, 2011

US doctors discourage videos for babies under two

Now this is really an eye-opener; we've known this for some time, but i think many more don't know this. So how about the iPad? I've heard parents say that it is a 'boost' to their child's learning the alphabets and numbers.

Maybe it is just the videos after all. Think so?
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Posted: 18 October 2011

WASHINGTON: Watching television or videos is discouraged for babies under age two because studies suggest it could harm their development, a US paediatricians' group said on Tuesday.

Instead of allowing infants to watch videos or screens, parents should talk to them and encourage independent play, said the first guidelines issued in more than a decade by the American Academy of Paediatrics.

The advice is the same as that issued in 1999 by United States' largest association of paediatricians, but this time it also warns parents of how their own screen-watching habits may delay their children's ability to talk.

"This updated policy statement provides further evidence that media - both foreground and background - have potentially negative effects and no known positive effects for children younger than two years," it said.

"Thus the AAP reaffirms its recommendation to discourage media use in this age group."

The latest guidelines do not refer to interactive play such as video games on smartphones or other devices, but to media watched passively on any kind of screen, be it phone, computer, television or other.

Paediatrician Ari Brown said the update was needed because of the explosion of baby DVDs targeting the 0-2 age group, and because as many as 90 percent of parents acknowledge that their infants watch some sort of electronic media.

"Clearly, no one is listening to this message," she told AFP. "In this ubiquitous screen world, I think we need to find a way to manage it, and make it a healthy media diet."

The AAP urges paediatricians to discuss media use with new parents, and says adults should be aware of how distracted they become when the television is on.

"I like to call it second-hand TV," said Brown, who is the lead author of the AAP guidelines.

Studies cited in the guidelines say that parents interact less with children when the television is on, and a young child at play will glance at the TV - if it is on, even in the background - three times per minute.

"When the TV is on the parent is talking less," Brown told AFP. "There is some scientific evidence that shows that the less talk time a child has, the poorer their language development is."

Though about 50 studies have been done in the past decade on media viewing by tots, none have followed heavy television watchers into later childhood or adulthood, so any long-term effects are not known. Heavy media use is defined as a household in which the television is on all or most of the time.

Also, the AAP guidelines point out that research to date suggests a "correlation between television viewing and developmental problems, but they cannot show causality."

Even so-called educational videos are not benefiting kids under two because they are too young to be able to understand the images on the screen, said the AAP.

"The educational merit of media for children younger than two years remains unproven despite the fact that three quarters of the top-selling infant videos make explicit or implicit educational claims," it said.

Paediatricians are therefore discouraging any screen viewing for infants, and urging parents to limit media viewing to under two hours per day for children two and over.

"Unstructured playtime is more valuable for the developing brain than any electronic media exposure," the AAP guidelines said.

- AFP/cc

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Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
US doctors discourage videos for babies under two

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Premature babies 5x more likely to be autistic

Posted: 17 October 2011

WASHINGTON: Babies who are born early and small are five times as likely as normal infants to develop autism, according to a two-decade-long US study released Monday.

Premature babies have long been known to risk a host of health problems and cognitive delays, but the study in the journal Pediatrics is the first to establish a link between low birth weight and autism.

US researchers tracked 862 children from birth to young adulthood. Those in the study were born between 1984 and 1987 in three counties in New Jersey.

The children weighed between 500 and 2,000 grams (1.1 to 4.4 pounds) at birth.

Over time, five percent of the low-birth weight babies were diagnosed with autism, compared to the one percent prevalence in the general population.

"As survival of the smallest and most immature babies improves, impaired survivors represent an increasing public health challenge," said lead author Jennifer Pinto-Martin, director of the Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities Research and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

"Cognitive problems in these children may mask underlying autism," she added, urging parents to get their child tested if they suspect autism spectrum disorder.

"Early intervention improves long-term outcome and can help these children both at school and at home."

Autism is the term for an array of conditions ranging from poor social interaction to repetitive behaviors and entrenched silence. The condition is rare, predominantly affecting boys, and its causes are fiercely debated.

- AFP/cc

Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Premature babies 5x more likely to be autistic

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

100,000 HIV infections stopped by safe-sex scheme

English: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I'm not sure if I would be glad with this kind of story... I mean, I find this simply a workaround to the root cause, rather than stopping the issue from the source. Just my 2 cents worth...
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Posted: 11 October 2011

PARIS: A scheme in six Indian states that concentrated safe-sex campaigns on a few niche groups prevented 100,000 HIV infections over five years, according to estimates published in The Lancet on Tuesday.

The so-called Avahan project was launched in 2003 in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, along with the northeastern states of Manipur and Nagaland, using a massive grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

These states, with a total population of 300 million, had the highest prevalences of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in India at the time.

Avahan's goal was to boost prevention among prostitutes and their customers, gays, injecting drug users and truck drivers to stop HIV from leaping from high-risk groups to the wider population.

Tactics included one-on-one safe-sex counselling, free condoms, exchanging used needles for sterilised ones, clinics to treat sexually-transmitted disease and advocacy work within the community.

"Overall, we estimated that 100,178 HIV infections were averted at the population level from 2003 up to 2008 as a result of Avahan," says the study.

Its estimate derives from HIV prevalence in key districts in the six states.

The campaign was most effective in districts that received the most resources but also worked better in the heavily-populated southern states rather than in the remote northeastern ones, say the authors.

Overall, a targeted strategy -- as opposed to a generalised effort spread across the population -- was a big success and a useful lesson for other countries, they say.

Prevention has been in the doldrums in recent years, given the success of antiretroviral drugs that treat HIV but do not cure it.

But experts caution that drugs alone are not enough to roll back the global pandemic. As the infection tally rises higher, so does the drugs bill, as the medication has to be taken daily for the rest of one's life.

Avahan was launched at a time when India was gripped by fears that as many as 25 million of its people could be infected by HIV by 2010.

These projections were eventually cut back sharply. In 2009, India had an estimated 2.4 million people with HIV in 2009.

Avahan gained Gates funding of 258 million dollars for 2003-2008, a sum that sparked criticism in some quarters that this was too lavish and poor value for money.

But the paper disputes this, saying that the cost per HIV infection averted, "is in a similar range" to the government scheme, run by the National AIDS Control Programme of India.

The national programme had funding of 460 million dollars form 1999-2006, which rose to 2.5 billion for 2007-2012, of which two-thirds were allocated for HIV prevention.

The study's authors were funded by the Gates Foundation. However, The Lancet is a peer-reviewed journal, which means that data proposed for publication is vetted by outside experts.

In 2009, the Gates Foundation promised an additional 80 million dollars into Avahan to help it integrate with the government's AIS programme by 2013.

-AFP/vl

How to read a man?

-----
Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
100,000 HIV infections stopped by safe-sex scheme

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Look on bright side, not such a bright idea

Posted: 10 October 2011

PARIS: If you are always seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, be warned -- it could be an oncoming train.

So says a study published Sunday in Nature Neuroscience which concludes that our well-known penchant for donning rose-tinted glasses may be a failure to store risk awareness in a key part of the brain.

Tali Sharot, a professor at University College London, was intrigued as to why so many people -- even when facing long odds or bleak prospects -- remain stubbornly, even pathologically, optimistic.

To learn more, 19 volunteers were asked to take part in an experiment.

Sharot and colleagues monitored subjects in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner as they were confronted with life situations ranging from unpleasant to catastrophic.

Having their car stolen, getting fired from their job, developing Parkinson's disease or cancer were among 80 scenarios evoked.

After each hypothetical disaster, the volunteers were asked to estimate the odds of the misfortune happening to them. While still in the scanner, they were then informed of the true average probability of the risk.

Sometime later, the volunteers once again quantified the odds for personally experiencing each scenario.

The researchers found that the volunteers updated their initial estimates -- but only when the true figures were less gloomy.

If, for example, they had predicted a 40 percent chance of contracting cancer but the average likelihood turned out to be 30 percent, they were far more likely to adjust their estimate sharply downward.

But if the odds were worse than originally thought, the volunteers simply ignored the true statistics.

"Our study suggests that we pick and choose the information that we listen too," said Sharot.

"The more optimistic we are, the less likely we are to be influenced by negative information about the future," said Sharot.

Why so?

In the brain scans, all participants showed increased activity in their frontal lobes -- which is strongly associated with emotional control -- whenever the real numbers were better than expected.

The activity indicated that the new information was being processed and stored.

But when the news was more dire than the first guesstimate, respondents who had rated highest for "optimism" in a personality test, taken beforehand, showed the least activity in their frontal lobe.

Sharot said the work showed that unbridled optimism had unperceived risks.

"Seeing the glass as half full rather than half empty can be a positive thing -- it can lower stress and anxiety, and be good for our health and well-being," she said.

"But it can also mean that we are less likely to take precautionary action, such as practising safe sex or saving up for retirement," she said.

Many experts, she pointed out, believe that the financial crisis that began in the fall of 2008 was in large part caused by wishful thinking about rising property values and the ability to play down or dismiss levels of debt.

-AFP/vl

Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Look on bright side, not such a bright idea

Monday, November 14, 2011

Female hormonal contraception linked to higher HIV risk

Posted: 04 October 2011

PARIS: Women who use hormonal birth control are roughly twice as likely to become infected with HIV or pass on the AIDS virus to their partner, according to a study published on Tuesday.

The research was carried out among 3,790 heterosexual couples in Africa where one partner had the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while the other was uninfected.

The findings, if confirmed, could have huge repercussions for policies on contraception and HIV prevention.

The authors say it strengthens the need for safe-sex messages, in which the condom is promoted as a shield against the AIDS pathogen.

The couples were monitored for an average of 18 months during which 167 individuals became infected, 73 of them women, according to the paper appearing in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Transcribed into a benchmark of prevalence, HIV transmissions were 6.61 per 100 person-years in couples where women used hormonal contraception, compared to 3.78 per 100 person-years among those who did not.

Rates of infection from women to men were 2.61 per 100 person-years among women who used hormonal contraception, but 1.51 per 100 person-years among those who did not.

Most of the women who took hormone contraceptives used an injectable, long-lasting form such as the Depo-Provera shot. Only a small number used the Pill; in this group, there was an increase in HIV risk but not big enough to be conclusive.

Over the last two decades, scientists have launched several investigations into whether hormonal contraceptive use affects HIV risk, but the probes have returned conflicting results.

This is the first large-scale study, using an ambitious design, to return clear proof of the risk. It is also the first to highlight an apparent risk to men.

The investigators noted that women who took injectable contraceptives had "raised concentrations" of HIV genetic material in their cervical secretions.

If this is a mechanism for handing on the virus to men, further work is urgently needed to test the theory, they said.

In practical terms, doctors should advise women of the potentially increased risk and warn them of "dual protection" with condoms, says the probe, led by Renee Heffron of the University of Washington in Seattle.

The study was conducted between 2004 and 2010 in Botswana, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia as part of a trial of a therapy against the herpes simplex virus, which is common among people with HIV.

In a commentary also carried by the journal, clinical scientist Charles Morrison spoke of a "tragic" dilemma.

Promoting hormonal birth control in Africa could be contributing to the HIV epidemic; yet limiting this highly effective form of contraception would also boost rates of maternal death and sickness, underweight babies and orphans.

"The time to provide a more definitive answer to this critical public health question is now," through a randomised trial of volunteers, he wrote.

In 2009, more than 33 million people were living with HIV and 2.6 million people became newly infected, according to figures released last year by UNAIDS.

- AFP/de

Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Female hormonal contraception linked to higher HIV risk

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Laughter really is the best medicine

Posted: 14 September 2011

PARIS: A rattling good laugh with friends will help you deal with pain thanks to opiate-like chemicals that flood the brain, according to a British study released on Wednesday.

Researchers carried out lab experiments in which volunteers watched either comedy clips from "Mr Bean" or "Friends," or non-humorous items such as golf or wildlife programmes, while their resistance to mild pain was monitored.

Another test was conducted at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where the volunteers watched either a stand-up comedy show or a theatrical drama.

In lab conditions, the pain came from a deep-frozen wine-cooler sleeve which was slipped onto the arm or from a blood-pressure cuff that was pumped to the threshold of tolerance.

For the Fringe Festival, the volunteers were asked to do a tough exercise - leaning against the wall with their legs at right angles, as if sitting on a straight-backed chair - before and immediately after the performance, to see if laughter had helped with the pain.

Just 15 minutes of laughter increased the level of pain tolerance by around 10 percent, the study found.

In the lab experiments, the neutral, non-funny programming had no pain-alleviating effect at all. Nor did watching drama at the Fringe Festival.

However, the study notes two important distinctions.

The only laughter that worked was relaxed, unforced laughter that creases the eyes, as opposed to a polite titter.

And this kind of belly laugh is far likelier to happen when you are with others, rather than being alone.

"Very little research has been done into why we laugh and what role it plays in society," said Robin Dunbar, head of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oxford.

"Using microphones, we were able to record each of the participants and found that in a comedy show, they laughed for about a third of the time, and their pain tolerance rose as a consequence."

The protection apparently comes from endorphins, a complex chemical that helps to transmit messages between neurons but also dulls signals of physical pain and psychological stress.

Endorphins are the famous product of physical exercise - they help create the "buzz" that comes from running, swimming, rowing, yoga and so on.

In laughter, the release comes from an involuntary, repeated muscular exertion that comes from exhaling without drawing a breath, the scientists believe. The exertion leaves us exhausted and thereby triggers the endorphins.

Great apes are also believed to be able to laugh but, unlike humans, they breathe in as well as out when they do so.

The investigators believe the experiments help to understand the physiological and social mechanism of how laughter is generated.

The group seems vital in unleashing the right kind of endorphin-making laughter, they contend.

Previous studies have focussed more on why humans laugh, as opposed to how they do it.

One theory is that laughter helps transmit mating signals or cements bonding between individuals.

Another idea is that, in a group setting, laughter promotes social cooperation and collective identity. It is thus an evolutionary tool to help survival.

The paper appears in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a journal published by Britain's de-facto academy of sciences.

- AFP/de

Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Laughter really is the best medicine

Parents who lose a baby can die of a broken heart

This is just sad...
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Posted: 08 September 2011

PARIS: Parents who lose a new baby run a high risk themselves of dying prematurely, according to a British study published on Thursday.

Investigators delved into a random sample of national death registrations for the years 1971 to 2006.

They compared deaths among parents who had been bereaved in the first year of a child's life or whose child had been stillborn, against deaths among parents whose baby had survived beyond the first year.

Bereaved parents were between two and four times likelier to die or become widowed in the first 10 years of the child's death compared with non-bereaved counterparts.

Mothers in particular were at threat.

Bereaved mothers in England and Wales were four times likelier to die prematurely, and bereaved mothers in Scotland six times likelier, than women whose child had survived beyond the first year of life.

The risk for mothers lessened slightly over time, but was still significant -- 50 percent higher -- after 25 years. After 35 years, it was 20 percent higher.

The reasons for the mortality are unclear because the data do not give the details.

The authors speculate there could be a link with alcohol abuse among bereaved parents, and suicide, too, may be a factor.

Alternatively, stillbirth and infant deaths could be more common among parents who themselves are in poor health.

The research, headed by Mairi Harper of the University of York in northern England, appears in the specialist journal BMJ Supportive and Palliative Care.

- AFP/cc

Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Parents who lose a baby can die of a broken heart

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Half of teens shy, but for a few it's more serious

Image via WikipediaOctober 17, 2011

(AP) WASHINGTON — Does your teen show normal nerves about the weekend party, or always stay home?

Nearly half of teenagers say they're shy, perhaps a bit surprising in our say-anything society. But a government study finds a small fraction of those teens show signs of a troubling anxiety disorder that can be mistaken for extreme shyness.

The report challenges criticism that the terms "social phobia" or "social anxiety disorder" medicalize normal shyness.

"Shyness is a normal human temperament," says lead researcher Dr. Kathleen Merikangas of the National Institute of Mental Health, whose teachers always noted her own childhood shyness on her report cards.

But just as it can be hard to tell when feeling sad turns into depression, "there is a blurred boundary between people who describe themselves as shy and clinically significant impairment," Merikangas adds.

The difference: The shy can be drawn out and adapt, while teens or adults with full-fledged social anxiety become so paralyzed during social situations that it interferes with everyday functioning.

"I didn't go out on dates or do any of the things that other kids did," recalls Cynthia Kipp of Tehachapi, Calif., who shared her story of years struggling with social phobia with the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. Now 48, she thinks her first anxiety symptoms began in fourth grade, when she can remember hiding under her coat in class, but worsened in high school when she tried drugs and alcohol for relief. Eventually she found treatment that worked.

The report also opens a window into the broader field of temperament research. Even garden-variety shyness worries parents, particularly fathers of boys, says Dr. Nancy Snidman of Children's Hospital Boston.

In school-age boys especially, "shyness isn't very well tolerated in the United States," says Snidman who wasn't involved with the new research.

Snidman and colleagues at Harvard Medical School have tracked infants to their college years, and know that babies who react very negatively to new people and objects tend to grow into shy children. That's not a bad thing — caution is considered an important evolutionary adaptation.

Usually, the clinging tot does just fine as he or she grows older and finds a niche, Snidman says. Girls may think the shy teen boy is nice because he's not macho, for example, or the shy kids wind up on the school newspaper so they can write instead of do public speaking. Many outgrow their shyness.

Yet a very shy child is considered more at risk than others of later developing some type of anxiety disorder — just as the opposite extreme, a very outgoing child, can be at greater risk for attention or conduct disorders, she says.

The new study, published by the journal Pediatrics, is based on in-person surveys of more than 10,000 U.S. teens about a variety of mental health issues. More than 6,000 of their parents were surveyed, too.

About 47 percent of the teens identified themselves as shy around peers they don't know well. More than 62 percent of parents thought their teens were shy, perhaps a reflection of parental worry.

Then Merikangas' team analyzed how many teens appeared to meet the American Psychiatric Association's criteria for social anxiety disorder or social phobia. Roughly 1 in 10 of the self-described shy kids did.

Social phobia tends to appear during adolescence when kids take their first real steps toward independence, but there's little information about how often. The National Institutes of Health estimates it affects about 15 million adults.

The surveyed teens weren't formally diagnosed; Boston's Snidman cautions that what a specialist observes can be quite different from what a teen recalls.

Still, those identified as potentially socially phobic were more likely to have another mental health problem, such as depression or substance abuse. But they were no more likely than the other teens to be taking psychiatric medications.

There are anxiety-treating medications but the main treatment is behavioral therapy, exposing people very gradually to fear-inducing situations and teaching them coping techniques

What's a worried parent to watch for? This isn't standard stage fright, where you get sweaty palms before a speech but each one you do becomes easier. People with social anxiety disorder experience a more out-of-proportion fear that can make them shake, their hearts pound, or even cause a panic attack during a range of social situations. They start avoiding those scenarios.

The question is whether an anxious or shy teen is doing things typical of that age — participating in class, getting together with friends, going to group activities, says Dr. Chris Mauro, a Duke University psychologist. Try to get them into a group, whether it's sports or music or Scouts, because belonging is protective, he says.

The NIH's Merikangas recommends keeping an eye on social media, too. Sure it encourages electronic communication, but it may further isolate those already on that path, she says.

Teachers may notice a problem first, and shouldn't single out kids who won't participate in class but encourage them through group activities, she advises.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press.

Online:

NIH info: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/social-phobia-social-anxiety-disorder/index.shtml

Anxiety Disorders Association of America: http://www.adaa.org

Taken from CBSNews.com: HealthWatch; source article is below:
Half of teens shy, but for a few it's more serious

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Rare Condition Drives Girl to Eat Light Bulb

Image via Wikipedia(TERRA HAUTE, Ind.) -- Natalie Hayhurst looks like your average adorable 3-year-old. She plays with makeup, loves Justin Bieber, and loves playing with her big brother on their farm outside Terre Haute, Ind. But when it comes to food, she's anything but average. Most kids her age are a little picky. Natalie likes everything -- literally.

"Well, I first noticed it was a problem...[when] she had actually eaten my vinyl blinds that hang out to cover your sliding door. She took two bites out of them," said Natalie's mother, Colleen Hayhurst.

Natalie suffers from a rare condition called Pica that creates a compulsion to eat things that aren't food.

"She prefers the wood, paper products, cardboard, sticks," said Colleen. "She'll eat rocks, dirt; she's had a bite out of a Diet Coke can; she's eaten the little magnet out of the shower curtain, plastic bottles, toys."

"You can't take your eye off of her, 'cause if you do she knows it, and she'll try to eat something when she knows you're not looking," said Colleen.

In February Natalie was rushed to the emergency room after eating a light bulb.

"She had moved her entertainment center and pulled the light bulb out of the night light while I was doing dishes," Colleen said. "She was in bed; I assumed she was asleep. She had eaten all the glass. I was pretty much hysterical."

Doctors performed surgery to help remove the glass.

When Colleen took Natalie to the pediatrician for a checkup and explained what was going on, the doctor, Dr. Lily Dela Cruz, knew this was something that went beyond typical toddler behavior. She referred them to a developmental behavioral specialist.

Although Pica is more common in young children -- more than 10 percent of kids aged 1 to 6 are believed to have some form of the disorder -- adults are not immune.

Pica is the Latin word for magpie, a bird that will eat anything. Doctors say these unusual cravings can be triggered by a lack of certain nutrients like iron or zinc. Some with Pica crave the texture of some materials in their mouths.

In the case of Natalie, who has a healthy appetite for regular food, Pica is thought to be psychological. Pica is a symptom of autism, but Natalie has not been tested for the condition. She does suffer from insomnia and ADHD. As she gets older, she understands more what she is doing is wrong, but she can't seem to help herself.

In addition to working with a therapist to curb her cravings, at home Colleen sprays Natalie's tongue with a sour spray that helps satisfy her constant need to put things in her mouth. Natalie also chews on biting sticks. And she has what her family calls her Pica Box full of textured toys that stimulate her senses.

Colleen is reaching out to help other mothers and their children in this predicament.

"There are nights I have cried myself to sleep, because you feel helpless," Colleen said. "My kids are my world...and I care about helping other people who are in the same boat as me."

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Taken from WTMA.com; source article is below:
Rare Condition Drives Girl to Eat Light Bulb

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