Health: Latest Findings

  • SLEEP
    Early Starts Can Put Teens Behind
    A 30-min. delay in a high schooler's morning could mean the difference between productive learning and dozing through class.

    Countering concerns that later school start times would lead kids to stay up later the night before, a new study by researchers at Hasbro Children's Hospital found that when ninth-to-12th-graders started school at 8:30 a.m. instead of 8 a.m., they went to bed 18 min. earlier and slept an average of 45 min. more each school night. They also reported less depression and more alertness, and the percentage of kids falling asleep in class dropped twofold. In addition, fewer students were late to their first class.

    Even so, most teens are still sleep-deprived. Only 11% of the students in the study got the recommended nine hours each night.

    ANTICANCER PILLS?
    Fish oil, rich in omega-3 fatty acids, can help protect healthy people from heart disease. Now a large new study finds that taking fish-oil supplements may also reduce breast-cancer risk by 32% in postmenopausal women. Trials involving omega-3s from dietary sources have been inconclusive, however, and the authors caution that more study is needed before the pills can be used for prevention.

    BEHAVIOR
    Girls vs. Boys: The Perils of Competition
    A little bit of competitive drive can be a good thing, but a new study of teenagers shows that attempting to outshine others may come at a higher psychological and social price for girls than for boys.

    Researchers at California State University at Chico and the University of Texas at Dallas looked at two types of competition among high school seniors: competing to win and competing to excel. More boys than girls reported competing to win — to dominate rivals and demonstrate superior skill — with no detriment to their mental health or social relationships. The findings support earlier studies that suggest such motivation is both typical and socially expected of males.

    But female students who said they competed to win reported higher rates of depression and feelings of loneliness, along with fewer friends and social relationships, compared with girls who did not report the same drive to outperform their peers. The authors suggest these effects may be due in part to persistent Western norms that mark self-serving behavior undesirable in girls.

    In contrast, competing to excel — to surpass personal goals or develop skills — was associated with higher self-esteem, more feelings of achievement and less depression in both girls and boys.

    FROM THE LABS
    New Genes for Extreme Old Age
    There is no magic recipe for longevity, but scientists have discovered a few key ingredients. Studying the genes of more than 1,000 centenarians and their matched controls, researchers at Boston University identified 150 genetic variants that predicted with 77% accuracy who would live past 100. The analysis also revealed 19 genetic profiles that were shared by most of the extremely long-lived.

    Dr. Thomas Perls, lead author of the study, believes these genes may provide clues to what keeps certain people healthy into extreme old age — and may someday help the rest of us live more like them.

    Addicted to Love
    Overcoming heartbreak may be similar to kicking an addiction, say researchers studying brain images of the lovelorn. Scientists asked 15 college students who had recently been rejected by their romantic partners to look at pictures of their exes — with whom they were still deeply in love — and found that the most active areas of the students' brains were those involved in motivation, craving, addiction and pain. The findings may help explain why feelings of romantic love and rejection are so hard to control. But the study also confirmed that time does heal a broken heart: the students who had been separated the longest had the weakest reactions to the pictures.

    DATA SET
    165% Increase in risk of STDs — including HIV — in men who take erectile-dysfunction drugs

    767,000 Number of lives saved through improvements in cancer care over the past 20 years

    Sources: American Cancer Society; Annals of Int. Med.; Archives of Ped. & Adolescent Med.; Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention; Pediatrics; Journal of Neurophysiology; Science; Sex Roles