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Image via Wikipedia October 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...

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 o...

Image via Wikipedia (BOSTON) -- Each year, more than 20,000 children go to U.S. emergency rooms with gun injuries, a new study estimates. That number is 30 percent higher than what researchers had previously found.   Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston analyzed reports from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey of U.S. emergency department visits from 1999 to 2007. In those eight years, they counted nearly 186,000 children, from newborns to 19-year-olds, who had been treated for firearm injuries. About 8,300 of those injuries proved fatal.   The study found that non-Caucasian boys age 12 and older were most likely to be injured by a gun. Forty-seven percent of the injuries they counted were in the South, but the Midwestern states had the highest proportion of firearm injuries relative to the population size.   Dr. Saranya Srinivasan, one of the study's authors, said the pediatric emergency physicians have kept track of the numbers of children injur...

This is a sobering truth - the start of one life is the threat to another... ----- Posted: 31 August 2011 PARIS: Pregnant women with heart disease face a 100-fold increased risk of death, with the danger for offspring multiplied by 10, according to figures released on Tuesday at a medical congress in Paris . Analysing data on 1,300 women gathered since 2008 from 28 countries across Europe, researchers reported 13 maternal deaths - one percent of the cohort - among expectant women with pre-existing heart conditions. In healthy women, the average rate of maternal mortality in Europe is about one in 10,000.   Of the 1,300 women, 869 had congenital heart disease, 333 were vascular heart patients, 79 had cardiomyopathy and 24 suffered from ischaemic heart disease . Cardiomyopathy causes the heart muscle to become thicker and more rigid than normal, while ischaemic heart disease is characterised by reduced blood supply to the heart. There were 59 cases of foetal deaths...

Intracytoplasmic sperm injection can be used to provide fertility for men with cystic fibrosis (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Posted: 26 August 2011 HONG KONG: Hong Kong scientists said on Friday they have discovered a molecule that binds human sperm to an egg, i n a breakthrough which offers new hope for infertile couples. The study by researchers at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) found a key molecule on the coating of the human egg, called sialyl-LewisX (SLeX), which acts as a binding agent to help the sperm and egg stick together. "This research provides an enlightening answer to a basic important question and human fertilisation -- how does a sperm bind to an egg?" William Yeung , one of the researchers, told AFP . "But this is only a first step that will lead to more discoveries," said Yeung, who is also a professor at HKU's department of obstetrics and gynaecology. The identification of SLeX will help to pinpoint patients whose infertili...