Kids

According to studies, a baby’s birth technique effects how his or her immune system reacts to two key childhood immunizations. After getting vaccines that protect against microorganisms that cause lung infections and meningitis, babies born spontaneously had greater antibody levels than those delivered by Caesarian section. A team from the University of Edinburgh, Spaarne Hospital and University Medical Centre in Utrecht, and the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and the Environment conducted the study.

The findings, according to experts, might assist to influence talks regarding C-sections between pregnant women and their doctors, as well as impact the creation of more personalised immunisation programmes. In a study of 120 kids inoculated against lung infections and meningitis at 8 and 12 weeks, researchers looked at the association between gut microorganisms and antibody levels following vaccination.

The researchers tested saliva samples at 12 and 18 months to follow the development of the child’s gut microbiome – the population of microorganisms that dwells in our bodies – and their immunological response to the immunizations.
The researchers discovered twice the antibody levels in kids born spontaneously compared to those delivered by C-section in the 101 babies evaluated for antibodies as a result of the vaccination that protects against lung infections.

Breastfeeding was associated with 3.5 times greater antibody levels than formula-fed children who were born naturally.
The levels of antibodies produced by the meningitis vaccination were measured in 66 newborns. Experts discovered that antibodies were 1.7 times greater in normally delivered newborns, independent of breastfeeding, than in C-section babies.
The gut microbiota is planted at birth and quickly develops throughout the first several months of life, impacted mostly by delivery method, nursing, and antibiotic usage.

The researchers discovered a definite link between bacteria in the newborns’ guts and antibody levels.
For example, among a variety of bacteria in the gut, high levels of two in particular – Bifidobacterium and E. Coli – were linked to a strong antibody response to a lung infection vaccination. High E. Coli levels have also been associated to a strong antibody response to the meningitis vaccination.

The Bifidobacterium and E.coli bacteria are acquired by the newborn after normal delivery, and human milk is required to give the carbohydrates for these bacteria to flourish on. The researchers believe that the early microbiome of newborns influences the immune system’s response to immunizations and the extent of protection against specific illnesses in childhood.

Vaccination regimens might be altered in the future based on manner of birth or an investigation of the baby’s microbiota, according to experts. The findings were reported in Nature Communications. It was supported by the Chief Scientist Office of Scotland and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

“We anticipated to detect a correlation between the gut microbiota and the newborns’ vaccination reactions,” said Dr Emma de Koff, first author and microbiology trainee at Amsterdam University Medical Center. “However, we never expected to see the largest impacts in the early weeks of life.”

According to Professor Debby Bogaert, the study’s director and Chair of Paediatric Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, “It’s particularly intriguing to me that we found multiple beneficial microorganisms as the relationship between manner of administration and vaccination responses. We may be able to supply those bacteria to infants delivered by C-section shortly after delivery in the future, for example, through mother-to-baby ‘faecal transplants’ or the use of carefully engineered probiotics.”

Cambridge University researchers have called attention to the link between juvenile and adolescent mental health during COVID-19 lockdowns and computer use.
The study discovered that the end of 2020 was the most challenging period for young people, and that the mental health of those young people who did not have access to a computer tended to decline more than that of their friends who did. The study’s findings were reported in Scientific Reports.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial impact on the mental health of young people, with indications of increased anxiety, sadness, and psychological distress.

People are more prone throughout adolescence to acquiring mental health illnesses, which can have long-term effects into adulthood. In the United Kingdom, children and adolescents’ mental health was already declining before to the pandemic, but the proportion of persons in this age group likely to have a mental health issue climbed from 11% in 2017 to 16% in July 2020. The epidemic resulted in school closures and a rise in online education, the effects of which were not felt equitably.

Adolescents without computer access had the most disruption: in one research, 30% of middle-class students reported participating in live or recorded school lectures everyday, but just 16% of working-class kids reported doing so.
In addition to school cancellations, lockdown frequently meant that young people were unable to see their pals in person. Online and digital forms of connection with peers, such as video games and social media, are likely to have helped mitigate the impact of these social disturbances during these times.

Tom Metherell, an undergraduate student at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge at the time of the study, stated: “With access to computers, many young people could still ‘attend’ school electronically, continue their education, and keep up with friends. However, anyone without access to a computer would have been significantly disadvantaged, potentially heightening their sense of isolation.” Metherell and colleagues analysed data from 1,387 10-15-year-olds obtained as part of Understanding Society, a major UK-wide longitudinal study, to evaluate in depth the impact of digital isolation on young people’s mental health.

They focused on computer access rather than smartphone access since education is mostly done on a computer and most social contacts happen in person at school at this age.
The Understanding Society team scored participants on five areas: hyperactivity/inattention, prosocial behaviour, emotional, conduct, and peer interaction issues. They calculated a ‘Total Difficulties’ score for each participant based on this.

The researchers observed slight changes in the group’s general mental health during the length of the pandemic, with average Total Difficulties scores increasing from pre-pandemic values of 10.7 (out of a maximum of 40), peaking at 11.4 at the end of 2020, and then falling to 11.1 by March 2021. Those young people who did not have access to a computer had the greatest rise in Total Difficulties scores. While both groups of young people had identical scores at the outset of the epidemic, when adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics, those without computer access had their average scores rise to 17.8, compared to 11.2 for their counterparts. Almost one-quarter (24%) of young people without computer access had Total Difficulties scores classified as ‘high’ or’very high,’ compared to one-seventh (14%) of those with computer access.

Metherell, now a PhD student at UCL, added: “Young people’s mental health tended to suffer most during the strictest periods of lockdown, when they were less likely to be able go to school or see friends. But those without access to a computer were the worst hit – their mental health suffered much more than their peers and the change was more dramatic.”
Dr Amy Orben from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Cognition and Brain Sciences at the University of Cambridge, the study’s senior author, added: “Rather than always focusing on the downsides of digital technology on young people’s mental health, we need to recognise that it can have important benefits and may act as a buffer for their mental health during times of acute social isolation, such as the lockdown.

“We don’t know if and when a future lockdown will occur, but our research shows that we need to start thinking urgently how we can tackle digital inequalities and help protect the mental health of our young people in times when their regular in-person social networks are disrupted.”

According to the study, politicians and public health professionals must recognise the hazards of “digital exclusion” to young people’s mental health and prioritise equal digital access.

According to a national poll, youths who correctly answered more COVID-19 exam questions reported less stress, anxiety, and unhappiness, as well as less loneliness and FOMO.

Washington State University researchers polled 215 youths aged 14-17 throughout the United States in July 2020, during the early months of the epidemic, for the study, which was published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies.

“Knowledge was a good thing. The teens who did better on our quiz tended to report lower depression, anxiety and stress — just across the board,” said corresponding author Chris Barry, a WSU psychology professor. “This is a one-time snapshot, so we don’t really know cause and effect, but one presumption is that having accurate information was connected to feeling a little bit more ease during that time.”

Participants were initially asked to answer true or false questions on COVID-19, such as how the virus spreads and the health dangers it poses, by Barry and co-authors Zeinab Mousavi and Brianna Halter. While there were some low results on the exam, the majority of participants performed well, with an average score of 15 out of 18 accurate, and 21.9% correctly answered all of the questions. The participants were then asked a series of questions on their well-being as well as their usage of social media.

While virtually all of the kids, 98.1%, utilised social media in some form or another, those with strong COVID-19 understanding who checked social media less frequently reported the lowest levels of worry.

“There are so many factors with social media,” she said. “For instance, it’s good that you are staying connected with your friends and getting some information, but maybe at a certain point it is making some things worse, giving you more anxiety, rather than helping you cope with the situation.”

The researchers also surveyed the teens’ parents to assess the level of lockdown measures the adolescents were under. They found that the more restrictive quarantine measures were associated with negative well-being for the teens, but that teens’ perceptions of the lockdown were particularly important for well-being. This indicates that perhaps the more that adolescents understood the reason for such measures, or perceived there to be some benefits, the more positive they felt in general, said Barry.

The findings underscore the need for parents and educators to give teens information especially in times of crisis, he added.
“In thinking about adolescent development in general, one of the things that we recommend from a developmental psychology perspective is open communication, so for the pandemic, that means honest, accurate information,” Barry said.

He further urged that parents not only recognise the stress and feelings of isolation that may accompany quarantine, but also assist teenagers in making the best of the situation. For example, if their children miss out on cancelled events, parents might assist them in finding alternative methods to connect with friends or participate in recreational activities. They should also aim to highlight any possible benefits of the experience.

“In an unusual situation like lockdowns, mindset matters,” he said.

A recent study discovered that semaglutide, a medicine used to treat adults who are fat or overweight, also helps teenage weight reduction and heart health.
In a worldwide phase 3a clinical study, obese adolescents who received once-weekly semaglutide saw a 16.1% drop in body mass index (BMI) compared to placebo, while those who received the latter reported a 0.6% increase in BMI. “Obesity rates are growing, not just in the United States, but all around the world,” said senior author Silva Arslanian, M.D., professor of paediatrics and clinical and translational research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the Richard L. Day Endowed Chair in Pediatrics.

“Typically, we provide lifestyle recommendations: eat more veggies; avoid fried foods; and avoid soda. But, regrettably, we live in an obesogenic environment, making those adjustments difficult. There is a great need for safe and effective drugs to treat obesity.”
Semaglutide is an anti-obesity medicine that works on brain areas that regulate appetite and fullness by mimicking the actions of the hormone glucagon-like peptide-1. In 2021, this medicine was approved for the treatment of chronic obesity in those who are obese or overweight.
Semaglutide was given to 201 obese or overweight teens between the ages of 12 and 18 in various centres to see if it was likewise useful to them.

Throughout the investigation, all individuals received concurrent lifestyle intervention, including advice on a balanced diet and frequent exercise. Participants were given either semaglutide 2.4 mg subcutaneous injections or a placebo once a week.
After 68 weeks, 72.5% of semaglutide individuals had lost at least 5% of their body weight, compared to only 17% of placebo participants.
“The results are extraordinary,” said Arslanian, who is also the director of Pitt’s Pediatric Clinical and Translational Research Center and the scientific director of the Center for Pediatric Research in Obesity and Metabolism. “The average drop in BMI amounts to removing roughly 40 pounds for a person who is 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 240 pounds.”

Obesity affects about one in every five children and adolescents worldwide. This chronic condition is connected with a reduced life expectancy and an increased risk of serious health problems such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, sleep apnea, and various cancers. Obese teenagers are also more prone to develop depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and other psychological issues.
The study found improvements in the cardiovascular risk factors of waist circumference, HbA1c, total, low-density, and very low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, and liver enzymes when comparing the semaglutide group to the placebo group. However, there was no statistically significant difference in blood pressure or high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels between the two groups.

When compared to their placebo counterparts, participants who took semaglutide had superior weight-related quality of life measures, owing mostly to an increase in physical comfort ratings. According to the researchers, this is the first obesity medicine to be related to significant quality-of-life gains in teenagers.

According to a recent study, a medicine called semaglutide, which is licenced for adults who are obese or overweight, can also help teenagers lose weight and have healthier hearts.
In an international phase 3a clinical study, adolescents with obesity who received once-weekly semaglutide compared to placebo experienced a 16.1% drop in BMI, whereas those who took placebo had a 0.6% increase. “Obesity rates are growing, not just in the United States, but all around the world,” said senior author Silva Arslanian, M.D., professor of paediatrics and clinical and translational research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the Richard L. Day Endowed Chair in Pediatrics.

“Typically, we provide lifestyle suggestions such as: eat more veggies; avoid fried foods; and avoid soda. However, because we live in an obesogenic environment, making such adjustments might be difficult. Obesity treatments that are both safe and effective are desperately needed.”
Semaglutide is an obesity medication that mimics the hormone glucagon-like peptide-1 to target parts of the brain that reduce hunger and improve eating control. This medication was authorised in 2021 for chronic weight control in persons who are obese or overweight.
Researchers included 201 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years with obesity or overweight across several sites to see if semaglutide is likewise beneficial in youths.

Throughout the experiment, participants received either once-weekly subcutaneous injections of semaglutide 2.4 mg or placebo, as well as concurrent lifestyle intervention (nutrition and physical activity coaching).
After 68 weeks, 72.5% of semaglutide individuals had lost at least 5% of their body weight, compared to only 17% of placebo participants.
“The results are extraordinary,” said Arslanian, who is also the director of Pitt’s Pediatric Clinical and Translational Research Center and the scientific director of the Center for Pediatric Research in Obesity and Metabolism. “The average drop in BMI amounts to removing roughly 40 pounds for a person who is 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 240 pounds.”

Obesity affects about one in every five children and adolescents globally. This chronic condition is associated with a lower life expectancy and an increased chance of developing major health issues such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, sleep apnea, and some malignancies. Obese teenagers are also more prone to suffer from despair, anxiety, low self-esteem, and other psychological difficulties.
When compared to the placebo group, semaglutide participants improved in cardiovascular risk markers such as waist circumference, a blood sugar metre known as HbA1c, total, low-density and very low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, and liver enzymes. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in blood pressure or high-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

When compared to their placebo counterparts, participants who took semaglutide had superior weight-related quality of life measures, owing mostly to an increase in physical comfort ratings. According to the researchers, this is the first obesity medicine to be related to significant quality-of-life gains in teenagers.

While many parents and guardians are concerned that their teens are spending too much time on mobile phones, video games, and social media, a Michigan State University researcher tells them not to fret.

Keith Hampton, a professor in the Department of Media and Information and the Quello Center’s head of academic research, states that he is more concerned about teenagers who are disconnected due to restricted internet access than he is about screen time.

“Teens who are disconnected from today’s technologies are more isolated from their peers, which can lead to problems,” Hampton said. “Many young people are struggling with their mental health. While adolescents often grapple with self-esteem issues related to body image, peers, family and school, disconnection is a much greater threat than screen time. Social media and video games are deeply integrated into youth culture, and they do more than entertain. They help kids socialise, contribute to identity formation, and provide a channel for social support.”

Hampton and his associates study disconnection. The majority of teenagers have access to the internet often. Only when they decide to restrict their gadget use or when their parents intervene to limit their online time do these teenagers feel disconnected.

A sizable group of teenagers, mostly in rural areas of America, are alienated for a totally different reason. They reside in homes with incredibly shoddy broadband access infrastructure. These teenagers frequently don’t have access to the internet outside of school, have very sluggish access at home, or have sporadic data coverage on smartphones.

“Rural teens are the last remaining natural control group if we want insight into the mental health of adolescents who have no choice but to be disconnected from screens,” Hampton said.

Hampton and his team compared the self-esteem and social activities of teens with no or limited home internet access to teens who are the heaviest screen users as well as teens whose parents strictly monitor or limit their screen use in a peer-reviewed paper based on a survey of 3,258 rural adolescents. This is what they discovered.

Being a girl was the single most significant indicator of having lower self-esteem. This wasn’t shocking because it has long been known how difficult adolescence is on young girls. Poor grades in school were the second most significant factor in determining self-esteem for both males and girls.

Although only slightly so, teens with inadequate internet access at home and those whose parents exercised the most control over their media use had significantly lower self-esteem than average girls or students who performed poorly in school.

Teens’ self-esteem was not significantly impacted by the amount of time they spent on screens, whether they were watching videos, playing games, or using social media. Even youths who used screens “excessively” reported having higher self-esteem than those who were unplugged due to limited internet connection or strict parental supervision of their online activities.

Why? Because media is deeply integrated into youth culture.

“Isolation doesn’t come from being online, it comes from being disconnected from those sources of entertainment and socialization that permeate teens’ lives,” Hampton said. “For most teens, that’s social media, video games and sharing the videos they watch online. It is often how teens get their information, communicate and share.”

This does not imply that teenagers do not engage in face-to-face interaction. Teenagers who use social media and watch videos more often spend more time socializing. According to Hampton, there are 21 minutes of socializing with friends for every hour spent on social media. Users of screens “excessively” were spending more time with their loved ones.

“Perpetuating the myth that teens who spend more time on their devices spend less time with friends and family and that ‘excessive’ time online harms most teens’ mental health, does more harm than good,” Hampton said. “When parents exert too much control over the time their teens spend on screens, they cut kids off from peers and the social support that protects mental health. While this survey was done prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, this work points to the terrible toll experienced by rural adolescents who were disconnected during the pandemic and the urgent need to address gaps in rural broadband infrastructure.”

This, according to Hampton, does not suggest that social media sites are helpful. Online bullying and algorithms that draw teenagers to hazardous information pose serious threats to their mental health. Additionally, some teenagers are more prone to damage than others.

However, this study demonstrates that when parents talk to their kids about the dangers of media usage, concentrate on helping them learn critical media literacy, and give kids more control over their media use, kids report increased self-esteem.

“I advise parents to not focus on how long their teens spend on screens, but to take an interest in what your teens are doing online and spend time together,” Hampton said.

Scientists have discovered why eating late at night is associated with weight gain and diabetes. The link between eating time, sleep, and obesity is well-known but poorly understood, with studies indicating that over-nutrition can disturb circadian rhythms and modify fat tissue.

The link between eating time, sleep, and obesity is well-known but poorly understood, with studies indicating that over-nutrition can disturb circadian rhythms and modify fat tissue. For the first time, new Northwestern study suggests that energy release may be the chemical process by which our internal clocks manage energy balance.

From this understanding, the scientists also found that daytime is the ideal time in the light environment of the Earth’s rotation when it is most optimal to dissipate energy as heat. These findings have broad implications from dieting to sleep loss and the way we feed patients who require long-term nutritional assistance.

The paper, “Time-restricted feeding mitigates obesity through adipocyte thermogenesis,” will be published online today, and in print tomorrow (Oct. 21) in the journal Science.

“It is well known, albeit poorly understood, that insults to the body clock are going to be insults to metabolism,” said corresponding study author Dr. Joseph T. Bass, the Charles F. Kettering Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He also is a Northwestern Medicine endocrinologist.

“When animals consume Western style cafeteria diets — high fat, high carb — the clock gets scrambled,” Bass said. “The clock is sensitive to the time people eat, especially in fat tissue, and that sensitivity is thrown off by high-fat diets. We still don’t understand why that is, but what we do know is that as animals become obese, they start to eat more when they should be asleep. This research shows why that matters.”

Bass is also director of the Center for Diabetes and Metabolism and the chief of endocrinology in the department of medicine at Feinberg. Chelsea Hepler, a postdoctoral fellow in the Bass Lab, was the first author and did many of the biochemistry and genetics experiments that grounded the team’s hypothesis. Rana Gupta, now at Duke University, was also a key collaborator.

In the study, mice, who are nocturnal, were fed a high-fat diet either exclusively during their inactive (light) period or during their active (dark) period. Within a week, mice fed during light hours gained more weight compared to those fed in the dark. The team also set the temperature to 30 degrees, where mice expend the least energy, to mitigate the effects of temperature on their findings.

“We thought maybe there’s a component of energy balance where mice are expending more energy eating at specific times,” Hepler said. “That’s why they can eat the same amount of food at different times of the day and be healthier when they eat during active periods versus when they should be sleeping.”

The increase in energy expenditure led the team to look into metabolism of fat tissue to see if the same effect occurred within the endocrine organ. They found that it did, and mice with genetically enhanced thermogenesis — or heat release through fat cells — prevented weight gain and improved health.

Hepler also identified futile creatine cycling, in which creatine (a molecule that helps maintain energy) undergoes storage and release of chemical energy, within fat tissues, implying creatine may be the mechanism underlying heat release.

The science is underpinned by research done by Bass and colleagues at Northwestern more than 20 years ago that found a relationship between the internal molecular clock and body weight, obesity and metabolism in animals.

The challenge for Bass’s lab, which focuses on using genetic approaches to study physiology, has been figuring out what it all means, and finding the control mechanisms that produce the relationship. This study brings them a step closer.

The findings could inform chronic care, Bass said, especially in cases where patients have gastric feeding tubes. Patients are commonly fed at night while they sleep, when they’re releasing the least amount of energy. Rates of diabetes and obesity tend to be high for these patients, and Bass thinks this could explain why. He also wonders how the research could impact Type II Diabetes treatment. Should meal times be considered when insulin is given, for example?

Hepler will continue to research creatine metabolism. “We need to figure out how, mechanistically, the circadian clock controls creatine metabolism so that we can figure out how to boost it,” she said. “Clocks are doing a lot to metabolic health at the level of fat tissue, and we don’t know how much yet.”

Also Read: Study: Tough parenting may genetically predispose kids to depression

According to a recent study, eating a handful of almonds every day dramatically enhances the creation of butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid that supports gut health.

A team of King’s College London researchers evaluated the effect of whole and powdered almonds on the composition of intestinal bacteria. The Almond Board of California funded the study, which was published today in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The gut microbiome consists of thousands of micro-organisms living in the gut. These play a vital role in digesting nutrients and can have a positive or negative influence on our health, including our digestive and immune systems. The mechanisms of how the gut microbiomes have an impact on human health is still being investigated, but evidence suggests eating specific types of food can positively influence the types of bacteria in our gut or what they do in our gut.

Researchers at King’s College London recruited 87 healthy adults who were already eating less than the recommended amount of dietary fibre and who snacked on typical unhealthy snacks (e.g. chocolate, crisps). Participants were split into three groups: one group changed their snacks for 56 g of whole almonds a day, another for 56 g of ground almonds a day, and the control group ate energy-matched muffins as a control. The trial lasted four weeks.

Butyrate high among almonds

Researchers found that butyrate was significantly higher among almond eaters compared to those who consumed the muffin. Butyrate is a short-chain fatty acid that is the main source of fuel for the cells lining the colon.

When these cells function effectively, it provides an ideal condition for gut microbes to flourish, for the gut wall to be strong and not leaky or inflamed and for nutrients to be absorbed.

No significant difference was observed in gut transit time — the time it takes for food to move all the way through the gut — however whole-almond eaters had an additional 1.5 bowel movements per week compared to the other groups. These findings suggest eating almonds could also benefit those with constipation.

Testing showed that eating whole and ground almond improved peoples’ diets, having higher intakes of monosaturated fatty acids, fibre, potassium and other important nutrients compared to the control group.

Lead author Professor Kevin Whelan, Head of the Department of Nutritional Sciences at King’s College London, said: “Part of the way in which the gut microbiota impact human health is through the production of short-chain fatty acids, such as butyrate. These molecules act as a fuel source for cells in the colon, they regulate absorption of other nutrients in the gut, and help balance the immune system. We think these findings suggest almond consumption may benefit bacterial metabolism in a way that has the potential to influence human health.”

Also Read: Study: Tough parenting may genetically predispose kids to depression

The way the body sees the children’s DNA may change as a result of tight parenting. Children who experience restrictive parenting may have these changes “hard-wired” into their DNA, increasing their chance of developing depression later in life.

“We observed that perceived harsh parenting, with physical punishment and psychological manipulation, can introduce an additional set of instructions on how a gene is read to become hard-wired into DNA,” stated Dr. Evelien Van Assche when presenting the research at the ECNP Congress in Vienna. Some evidence suggests that these alterations alone may predispose the developing infant to depression.

If the kids were raised in a loving environment, this doesn’t happen as much “. The University of Leuven researchers in Belgium selected 21 teens who described their parents as good parents (for example, they were understanding and allowed their children independence) and contrasted them with 23 teenagers who described their parents as tough parents (for example, manipulative behaviour, physical punishment, excessive strictness). All of the teenagers were between the ages of 12 and 16, with 14 serving as the mean age for both groups. The fact that there were 11 adolescents in each group who were boys shows that the two groups were similar in terms of age and the ratio of boys to girls. A large number of parents “>tight parenting exhibited early, subclinical depressive symptoms.

The range of methylation was then assessed across more than 450,000 sites in each subject’s DNA, and the researchers found that it was significantly higher in persons who reported having experienced a challenging upbringing. When a little chemical molecule is introduced to DNA, a common process called methylation occurs that changes how your DNA’s instructions are read. For instance, methylation might make a gene produce more or less of a certain enzyme than it otherwise would. Increased methylation variation has been associated with depression. “We based our method on past work with identical twins,” says Evelien Van Assche.

For the majority of these hundreds of thousands of data points, two independent groups discovered that the twin with significant depression also had a larger range of DNA methylation than the healthy twin “.

Dr. Van Assche continued, who is presently employed by the University of Münster in Germany “The DNA is unchanged, but these extra chemical groups change how the DNA’s instructions are read. We hypothesise that the inclination towards sadness was ingrained in the DNA of those who experienced harsher parenting through greater methylation variance.

We are currently attempting to close the loop by connecting it to a later depression diagnosis and, perhaps, using this higher methylation variance as a marker to identify those who may be more susceptible to developing depression as a result of their upbringing.

Although the influence of strict parenting was the focus of this study, it is likely that any severe stress will cause similar changes in DNA methylation. As a result, childhood stress may increase your risk of developing depression later in life by changing how your DNA is read. However, a bigger sample size is required to confirm these findings.

The Department of Psychiatry at the Amsterdam University Medical Center’s Professor Christiaan Vinkers commented, saying: “This is significant work to understand how unfavourable childhood experiences have life-long repercussions for both mental and physical health. If we can comprehend not only who is at risk but also the various repercussions of rigorous parenting, we will benefit much.

A team of CHILD Cohort Study (CHILD) researchers has developed a simple new symptom-based screening tool for diagnosing asthma risk in children as young as two years old.

The tool’s efficacy—the CHILDhood Asthma Risk Tool, or CHART—is documented in a research published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

“Asthma affects nearly 330 million people worldwide, carries a heavy healthcare cost, and is the leading cause of hospitalization among kids in Canada–especially kids under five,” comments co-senior author Dr. Padmaja Subbarao, who is a respirologist and CRC Tier 1 Chair in Pediatric Asthma and Lung health at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and the Director of CHILD. She also a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Toronto and an Adjunct Professor in Respirology and Medicine at McMaster University.

“Earlier detection of this condition will allow doctors to treat kids sooner, so they will suffer less and avoid going to the hospital, thus also lowering costs to the healthcare system.”

“One reason asthma often goes undetected in young children is because most conventional asthma tests are difficult to perform in children, time consuming and invasive, involving skin pricks and blood-taking, so many patients and doctors choose to avoid them,” notes the study’s co-first author, Myrtha E Reyna-Vargas, who is an M.Sc. and a biostatistician at SickKids. “Other conventional tests can also require appointments with specialists and the use of specialized equipment to test lung function, with associated costs.”

CHART categorizes children’s risk of future asthma and persistent symptoms as ‘High,’ ‘Moderate’ or ‘Low,’ based on information reported before age three. The tool recommends follow-up actions for each group.

“The beauty of CHART, the new tool we have developed, is that it can be used by family doctors or nurses in a low-resource primary care setting. It is non-invasive; it can be done on-the-spot and in-the-moment; it is cost free and it requires no special equipment. Now that we have shown CHART’s benefits in the CHILD study, we are working towards validating its use prospectively in clinical practice.”

In the study, CHART was applied to data from 2,354 children participating in CHILD, a longitudinal research study launched in 2008 that has been following the physical, social and cognitive development of nearly 3,500 Canadian children from before birth.

From information about the children’s wheezing and coughing episodes, use of asthma medications, and related hospital visits at three years of age, CHART was able to predict with 91% accuracy which of these kids would have persistent wheeze–a key indicator of asthma–by age five.

Of those children evaluated by CHART to be at high risk of asthma at age three, 50% were diagnosed by in-study physicians as having asthma by five years of age.

“We believe the tool is actually even more accurate at predicting asthma than this number suggests,” adds Dr. Malcolm Sears, co-senior author of the study, professor emeritus at McMaster University, and CHILD’s Founding Director.

“Because of various ambiguities in the way asthma is clinically defined, it is likely that a number of these young kids have asthma that remains formally undiagnosed. And regardless of an official asthma diagnosis, persistent wheeze symptoms have been linked to lower lung function, chronic lung disease, and the same kind of health care utilization as asthma; persistent wheeze also requires similar monitoring and treatment, so the value of the tool’s predictive capacity is unquestionable.”

modified Asthma Predictive Index

Overall, CHART was found to be more accurate at predicting persistent wheeze, asthma, and related health care usage than other standard diagnostic methods, including physician assessments and the conventional asthma test known as the modified Asthma Predictive Index (mAPI).

The study’s findings using CHILD data were also validated by testing CHART’s performance against data from two additional cohort studies: the Canadian CAPPS Cohort, whose participants are all at high risk of asthma, and the Australian general population Raine Study. Not only did CHART also perform well within these cohorts, but–thanks to data available through the CAPPS Cohort–it was shown to be effective when applied to data from children as young as two years of age.

“We designed CHART to be a pragmatic screening tool for the use of busy primary care givers,” says the study’s co-first author Ruixue (Vera) Dai, an M.Sc. and a biostatistician at SickKids.

“With information that can be easily gathered, CHART could be incorporated into electronic medical records as a routine assessment. These kids can then be evaluated more closely, their conditions treated and managed better, and many hospitalizations can be avoided.”

“To our knowledge, this is the first study to develop a non-invasive tool for early detection of asthma and persistent wheeze in a general population, and that has subsequently been validated in general and high-risk cohorts.”

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