Poor iodine levels in women pose risks to fetal intellectual development in pregnancy

April 22, 2021

Science Daily/University of South Australia

An increasing number of young women are at increased risk of having children born with impaired neurological conditions, due to poor iodine intake.

Dietary changes, including a growing trend towards the avoidance of bread and iodised salt, as well as a reduced intake of animal products containing iodine can contribute to low iodine levels.

A small pilot study undertaken by the University of South Australia (UniSA) comparing iodine levels between 31 vegan/plant-based participants and 26 omnivores has flagged the potential health risk.

Urine samples showed iodine readings of 44 ug/L in the plant-based group, compared to the meat eaters' 64 ug/L level. Neither group came close to the World Health Organization's recommended 100 grams per litre.

Participants from both groups who chose pink or Himalayan salt instead of iodised salt had severely deficient iodine levels, averaging 23 ug/L.

The findings have been published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

While the study was undertaken in South Australia, it builds evidence on a 2017 US study that found nearly two billion people worldwide were iodine deficient, resulting in 50 million experiencing clinical side effects.

UniSA research dietitian Jane Whitbread says adequate iodine is essential for fetal intellectual development.

"Mild to moderate iodine deficiency has been shown to affect language development, memory and mental processing speeds," Ms Whitbread says.

"During pregnancy, the need for iodine is increased and a 150mcg supplement is recommended prior to conception and throughout pregnancy. Unfortunately, most women do not take iodine supplements before conceiving. It is important to consume adequate iodine, especially during the reproductive years."

Dietary sources of iodine include fortified bread, iodized salt, seafoods including seaweeds, eggs, and dairy foods.

Concerns about the link between poor iodine status and impaired neurological conditions in newborns prompted the mandatory fortification of non-organic bread with iodised salt in 2009 in Australia.

It has since been reported that women who consume 100g of iodine-fortified bread every day (approximately three pieces) have five times greater chance of meeting their iodine intake compared to women who don't consume that much. The average amount of bread consumed by women in this study was one piece of bread.

The growing preference of Himalayan salt over iodized table salt may also be problematic, Ms Whitbread says. A quarter of women in the study reported using the pink salt which contains an insignificant level of iodine.

Another issue is that plant-based milks have low levels of iodine and are not currently fortified with this nutrient.

Neither group met the estimated average requirement (EAR) for calcium.

The vegan/plant-based group also did not reach the recommended levels for selenium and B12 without supplementation, but their dietary intake of iron, magnesium, vitamin C, folate and fibre was higher than the meat eaters. This reflects the inclusion of iron-rich soy products, wholemeal foods, legumes, and green leafy vegetables in their diet.

The researchers recommended that both new salts and plant milks be fortified with iodine as well as a campaign to raise awareness about the importance of iodine in the diet, especially for women in their reproductive years.

They also called for a larger study sample to determine iodine status of Australian women.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210422093858.htm

School children who nap are happier, excel academically, and have fewer behavioral problems

May 31, 2019

Science Daily/University of Pennsylvania

Children who nap 30 to 60 minutes midday at least three times a week are happier, have more self-control and grit, and showcase fewer behavioral problems, according to new research. These children also have higher IQs and excel academically.

Ask just about any parent whether napping has benefits and you'll likely hear a resounding "yes," particularly for the child's mood, energy levels, and school performance. New research from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Irvine, published in the journal SLEEP backs up that parental insight.

A study of nearly 3,000 fourth, fifth, and sixth graders ages 10-12 revealed a connection between midday napping and greater happiness, self-control, and grit; fewer behavioral problems; and higher IQ, the latter particularly for the sixth graders. The most robust findings were associated with academic achievement, says Penn neurocriminologist Adrian Raine, a co-author on the paper.

"Children who napped three or more times per week benefit from a 7.6% increase in academic performance in Grade 6," he says. "How many kids at school would not want their scores to go up by 7.6 points out of 100?"

Sleep deficiency and daytime drowsiness are surprisingly widespread, with drowsiness affecting up to 20% of all children, says lead author on the study Jianghong Liu, a Penn associate professor of nursing and public health. What's more, the negative cognitive, emotional, and physical effects of poor sleep habits are well-established, and yet most previous research has focused on preschool age and younger.

That's partially because in places like the United States, napping stops altogether as children get older. In China, however, the practice is embedded into daily life, continuing through elementary and middle school, even into adulthood. So, Liu and Raine, with Penn biostatistician Rui Feng, UC Irvine sleep researcher Sara Mednick and others, turned to the China Jintan Cohort Study, established in 2004 to follow participants from toddlerhood through adolescence.

From each of 2,928 children, the researchers collected data about napping frequency and duration once the children hit Grades 4 through 6, as well as outcome data when they reached Grade 6, including psychological measures like grit and happiness and physical measures such as body mass index and glucose levels. They also asked teachers to provide behavioral and academic information about each student. They then analyzed associations between each outcome and napping, adjusting for sex, grade, school location, parental education, and nightly time in bed.

It was the first comprehensive study of its kind, Mednick says. "Many lab studies across all ages have demonstrated that naps can show the same magnitude of improvement as a full night of sleep on discrete cognitive tasks. Here, we had the chance to ask real-world, adolescent schoolchildren questions across a wide range of behavioral, academic, social, and physiological measures."

Predictably, she adds, "the more students sleep during the day, the greater the benefit of naps on many of these measures."

Though the findings are correlational, the researchers say they may offer an alternative to the outcry from pediatricians and public health officials for later school start times. "The midday nap is easily implemented, and it costs nothing," says Liu, particularly if accompanied by a slightly later end to the day, to avoid cutting into educational time. "Not only will this help the kids, but it also takes away time for screen use, which is related to a lot of mixed outcomes."

Future directions could look at why, for example, children with better-educated parents nap more than children with less educated parents, or whether, by investigating the influence of culture and personality, nap interventions could be advanced on a global scale. Ideally, a randomized control trial would get at causation questions like whether napping leads to better academic achievement or whether they're linked in some other way. However, none of this is yet in the works.

For now, the researchers say they hope the results of this current study can inform future interventional work that targets adolescent sleepiness.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190531135828.htm

Childhood adversity linked to early puberty, premature brain development and mental illness

Penn study details effects of poverty and trauma on youth brain and behavior

May 31, 2019

Science Daily/University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Growing up in poverty and experiencing traumatic events like a bad accident or sexual assault can impact brain development and behavior in children and young adults. Low socioeconomic status (L-SES) and the experience of traumatic stressful events (TSEs) were linked to accelerated puberty and brain maturation, abnormal brain development, and greater mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and psychosis, according to a new study published this week in JAMA Psychiatry. The research was conducted by a team from Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) through the Lifespan Brain Institute (LiBI).

"The findings underscore the need to pay attention to the environment in which the child grows. Poverty and trauma have strong associations with behavior and brain development, and the effects are much more pervasive than previously believed," said the study's lead author Raquel E. Gur, MD, PhD, a professor of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Radiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and director of the Lifespan Brain Institute.

Parents and educators are split into opposing camps with regard to the question of how childhood adversity affects development into mature, healthy adulthood. Views differ from "spare the rod and spoil the child" to concerns that any stressful condition such as bullying will have a harmful and lasting effects. Psychologists and social scientists have documented lasting effects of growing up in poverty on cognitive functioning, and clinicians observed effects of childhood trauma on several disorders, though mostly in the context of post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD). There are also anecdotal observations, supported by some research, that adversity accelerates maturation -- children become young adults faster, physically and mentally. Neuroscientists, who are aware of the complexity of changes that the brain must undergo as it transitions from childhood to young adulthood, suspected, and more recently documented that childhood adversity affects important measures of brain structure and function. But this study was the first to compare the effects of poverty (L-SES) to those who experienced TSEs in the same sample set.

The researchers analyzed data from the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort, which included 9,498 participants aged 8 to 21 years for the study. The racially and economically diverse cohort includes data on SES, TSEs, neurocognitive performance, and in a subsample, multimodal neuroimaging taken via MRI.

The researchers found specific associations of SES and TSE with psychiatric symptoms, cognitive performance, and several brain structure abnormalities.

The findings revealed that poverty was associated with small elevation in severity of psychiatric symptoms, including mood/anxiety, phobias, externalizing behavior (oppositional-defiant, conduct disorder, ADHD), and psychosis, as compared to individuals who did not experience poverty. The magnitude of the effects of TSEs on psychiatric symptom severity was unexpectedly large. TSEs were mostly associated with PTSD, but here the authors found that even a single TSE was associated with a moderate increase in severity for all psychiatric symptoms analyzed, and two or more TSEs showed large effect sizes, especially in mood/anxiety and in psychosis. Additionally, these effects were larger in females than in males.

With neurocognitive functioning, the case was reversed; poverty was found to be associated with moderate to large cognitive deficits, especially in executive functioning -- abstraction and mental flexibility, attention, working memory -- and in complex reasoning. TSEs were found to have very subtle effects, with individuals who experienced two or more TSEs showing a mild deficit in complex cognition, but demonstrating slightly better memory performance.

Both poverty and TSEs were associated with abnormalities across measures of brain anatomy, physiology, and connectivity. Poverty associations were widespread, whereas TSEs were associated with more focused differences in the limbic and fronto-parietal regions of the brain, which processes emotions, memory, executive functions and complex reasoning.

The researchers also found evidence that adversity is associated with earlier onset of puberty. Both poverty and experiencing TSEs are associated with the child physically maturing at an earlier age. The researchers also found the same effects on the brain, with findings revealing that a higher proportion of children who experienced adversity had characteristics of adult brains. This affects development, as the careful layering of the structural and functional connectivity in the brain requires time, and early maturity could prevent the necessary honing of skills.

"Altogether our study shows no evidence to support the 'spare the rod' approach, to the contrary we have seen unexpectedly strong effects of TSEs on psychiatric symptoms and of poverty on neurocognitive functioning, and both are associated with brain abnormalities," Gur said. "The study suggests that it makes sense for parents and anyone involved in raising a child to try and shield or protect the child from exposure to adversity. And for those dealing with children who were already exposed to adversity -- as is sadly the case today with refugees around the world -- expect an increase in symptoms and consider cognitive remediation, a type of rehabilitation treatment which aims to improve attention, memory, and other cognitive functions."

"Traumas that happen to young children can have lifelong consequences," said the study's senior author Ruben C. Gur, PhD, a professor of Psychiatry, Radiology, and Neurology, and director of the Brain Behavior Laboratory. "Obviously it would be best if we could ameliorate poverty and prevent traumatic events from occurring. Short of that, the study calls for paying more attention to a child's socioeconomic background and to effects of trauma exposure. Parents and educators should become more aware of the special needs of children who are exposed to either adversity. Additionally, mental health professionals should be particularly on notice that traumatic events are associated not only with PTSD, but with elevations across domains including mood, anxiety, and psychosis."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190531085404.htm

Being teased about weight linked to more weight gain among children

May 30, 2019

Science Daily/NIH/Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Youth who said they were teased or ridiculed about their weight increased their body mass by 33 percent more each year, compared to a similar group who had not been teased, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The findings appear to contradict the belief that such teasing might motivate youth to change their behavior and attempt to lose weight. The study was conducted by Natasha A. Schvey, Ph.D., of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD, and colleagues at NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. It appears in Pediatric Obesity.

The study involved 110 youth who were an average of 11.8 years of age when they enrolled. The participants were either overweight (defined as a body mass index above the 85th percentile) when they began the study or had two parents who were overweight or obese. At enrollment, they completed a six-item questionnaire on whether they had been teased about their weight. They then participated in annual followup visits for the next 15 years.

The researchers found that youth experiencing high levels of teasing gained an average of .20 kg (.44 lbs) per year more than those who did not. The authors theorize that weight-associated stigma may have made youths more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors, such as binge eating and avoiding exercise. Another possible explanation is that the stress of being teased could stimulate the release of the hormone cortisol, which may lead to weight gain.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190530101213.htm

Cold-parenting linked to premature aging, increased disease risk in offspring

Unsupportive parenting may have several negative health implications for children

May 30, 2019

Science Daily/Loma Linda University Adventist Health Sciences Center

New research suggests that unsupportive parenting styles may have several negative health implications for children, even into their adult years. The study found that the telomeres -- protective caps on the ends of the strands of DNA -- of subjects who considered their mothers' parenting style as 'cold' were on average 25% smaller compared to those who reported having a mother whose parenting style they considered 'warm.'

The study found that the telomeres -- protective caps on the ends of the strands of DNA -- of subjects who considered their mothers' parenting style as "cold" were on average 25% smaller compared to those who reported having a mother whose parenting style they considered "warm."

Research has found that early-life stress is associated with shorter telomeres, a measurable biomarker of accelerated cellular aging and increased disease risk later in life.

"Telomeres have been called a genetic clock, but we now know that as early life stress increases, telomeres shorten and the risk of a host of diseases increases, as well as premature death," said Raymond Knutsen, MD, MPH, lead author of the study and associate professor at Loma Linda University School of Public Health. "We know that each time a cell divides, the telomeres shorten, which shortens its lifespan."

Interestingly, mutations in genes maintaining telomeres cause a group of rare diseases resembling premature aging. "However, we know that some cells in the body produce an enzyme called telomerase, which can rebuild these telomeres," Knutsen said.

Released earlier this month, the study, "Cold parenting is associated with cellular aging in offspring: A retrospective study," uses data from 200 subjects who participated in two prospective cohort studies of Seventh-day Adventist men and women: the Adventist Health Study-1 (AHS-1) with 34,000 Californians in 1976 and AHS-2 with 96,000 subjects from the United States and Canada in 2002-2007.

The research takes a closer look at the impact parenting style has on telomere succession. "The way someone is raised seems to tell a story that is intertwined with their genetics," Knutsen said.

The study also examined the impact education and body mass index (BMI) may have on the association between cold parenting and telomere length.

"The association with parenting style was greatest among those with less education, and those who stayed overweight/obese or put on weight during follow-up, suggesting both higher education and normal BMI may provide some resilience against cold parenting and cellular aging," the study stated.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190530101148.htm

Reading with toddlers linked to reduced harsh parenting, enhanced child behavior

May 23, 2019

Science Daily/Rutgers University

People who regularly read with their toddlers are less likely to engage in harsh parenting and the children are less likely to be hyperactive or disruptive, a Rutgers-led study finds.

Previous studies have shown that frequent shared reading prepares children for school by building language, literacy and emotional skills, but the study by Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School researchers may be the first to focus on how shared reading affects parenting.

The study, published in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, suggests additional benefits from shared reading -- a stronger parent-child bond and less hyperactivity and attention problems in children.

"For parents, the simple routine of reading with your child on a daily basis provides not just academic but emotional benefits that can help bolster the child's success in school and beyond," said lead researcher Manuel Jimenez, an assistant professor at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School's department of pediatrics, and an attending developmental behavioral pediatrician at Children's Specialized Hospital. "Our findings can be applied to programs that help parents and caregivers in underserved areas to develop positive parenting skills."

The study reviewed data on 2,165 mother-child pairs from 20 large U.S. cities in which the women were asked how often they read to their children at ages 1 and or 3. The mothers were re-interviewed two years later, about how often they engaged in physically and/or psychologically aggressive discipline and about their children's behavior. The study controlled for factors such as parental depression and financial hardship that can contribute to harsh parenting and children's disruptive behavior.

The results showed that frequent shared reading at age 1 was associated with less harsh parenting at age 3, and frequent shared reading at age 3 was associated with less harsh parenting at age 5. Mothers who read frequently with their children also reported fewer disruptive behaviors from their children, which may partially explain the reduction in harsh parenting behaviors.

The findings can strengthen programs that promote the academic, emotional and socioeconomic wellbeing of children, the authors said.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190523111403.htm

Unlike men, women's cognitive performance may improve at higher room temperature

May 22, 2019

Science Daily/PLOS

Women's performance on math and verbal tests is best at higher temperatures, while men perform best on the same tests at lower temperatures, according to a study published May 22, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Tom Chang and Agne Kajackaite from the USC Marshall School of Business, Los Angeles, USA, and the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Berlin, Germany.

Although many surveys have shown that women tend to prefer higher indoor temperatures than men, no experimental research examining temperature's effect on cognitive performance has taken possible gender differences into account. To address this gap, between September-December 2017, 24 groups of 23-25 students (542 participants total) took logic, math, and verbal tests in a room cooled or heated to one of a range of temperatures between 16.19 C/61.14 F and 32.57 C/90.63 F, receiving cash rewards based on the number of questions correctly answered. 41% of the participating students identified as female.

The authors found that female students generally performed better on math and verbal tests when the room temperature was at the warmer end of the distribution, submitting more correct responses as well as more responses overall. Conversely, male students generally performed better on these tests at lower temperatures -- at the warmer end of the temperature distribution, they submitted fewer responses, as well as fewer correct responses. The improved performance of women in response to higher temperature was larger and more precisely estimated than the corresponding decrease in male performance. Temperature did not appear to impact performance on the logic test for either gender.

The study participants were a relatively homogenous group of German university students, so the effects of temperature might vary for other demographic groups. Nonetheless, the authors suggest that ambient temperature might impact more than just comfort, noting that it's possible that "ordinary variations in room temperature can affect cognitive performance significantly and differently for men and women."

Kajackaite and Chang summarize: "In a large laboratory experiment, over 500 individuals performed a set of cognitive tasks at randomly manipulated indoor temperatures. Consistent with their preferences for temperature, for both math and verbal tasks, women perform better at higher temperatures while men perform better at lower temperatures."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190522141829.htm

Exercise may help teens sleep longer, more efficiently

May 22, 2019

Science Daily/Penn State

Getting more exercise than normal -- or being more sedentary than usual -- for one day is enough to affect sleep later that night. Researchers found that when teenagers got more physical activity than they usually did, they got to sleep earlier, slept longer and slept better that night.

In a one-week micro-longitudinal study, the researchers found that when teenagers got more physical activity than they usually did, they got to sleep earlier, slept longer and slept better that night.

Specifically, the team found that for every extra hour of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, the teens fell asleep 18 minutes earlier, slept 10 minutes longer and had about one percent greater sleep maintenance efficiency that night.

"Adolescence is a critical period to obtain adequate sleep, as sleep can affect cognitive and classroom performance, stress, and eating behaviors," said Lindsay Master, data scientist at Penn State. "Our research suggests that encouraging adolescents to spend more time exercising during the day may help their sleep health later that night."

In contrast, the researchers also found that being sedentary more during the day was associated with worse sleep health. When participants were sedentary for more minutes during the day, they fell asleep and woke up later but slept for a shorter amount of time overall.

Orfeu Buxton, professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State, said the findings -- published today (May 22) in Scientific Reports -- help illuminate the complex relationship between physical activity and sleep.

"You can think of these relationships between physical activity and sleep almost like a teeter totter," Buxton said. "When you're getting more steps, essentially, your sleep begins earlier, expands in duration, and is more efficient. Whereas if you're spending more time sedentary, it's like sitting on your sleep health: sleep length and quality goes down."

While previous research suggests that adolescents need eight to ten hours of sleep a night, recent estimates suggest that as many as 73 percent of adolescents are getting less than eight.

Previous research has also found that people who are generally more physically active tend to sleep longer and have better sleep quality. But the researchers said less has been known about whether day-to-day changes in physical activity and sedentary behavior affected sleep length and quality.

For this study, the researchers used data from 417 participants in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, a national cohort from 20 United States cities. When the participants were 15 years old, they wore accelerometers on their wrists and hips to measure sleep and physical activity for one week.

"One of the strengths of this study was using the devices to get precise measurements about sleep and activity instead of asking participants about their own behavior, which can sometimes be skewed," Master said. "The hip device measured activity during the day, and the wrist device measured what time the participants fell asleep and woke up, and also how efficiently they slept, which means how often they were sleeping versus tossing and turning."

In addition to finding links between how physical activity affects sleep later that night, the researchers also found connections between sleep and activity the following day. They found that when participants slept longer and woke up later, they engaged in less moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and sedentary behavior the next day.

"This finding might be related to a lack of time and opportunity the following day," Master said. "We can't know for sure, but it's possible that if you're sleeping later into the day, you won't have as much time to spend exercising or even being sedentary."

Buxton said improving health is something that can, and should, take place over time.

"Becoming our best selves means being more like our best selves more often," Buxton said. "We were able to show that the beneficial effects of exercise and sleep go together, and that health risk behaviors like sedentary time affect sleep that same night. So if we can encourage people to engage in more physical activity and better sleep health behaviors on a more regular basis, it could improve their health over time."

In the future, the researchers will continue to follow up with the participants to see how health and health risk behaviors continue to interact, and how sleep health influences thriving in early adulthood.

Russell T. Nye, graduate student at Penn State; Nicole G. Nahmod, Penn State; Soomi Lee, assistant professor at the University of South Florida; Sara Mariani, Harvard Medical School; and Lauren Hale, professor at Stony Brook University, also participated in this work.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190522081513.htm

Positive aspects of masculinity helps improve boys' attitudes toward relationship violence

Study evaluates a pilot violence prevention program for middle school boys

May 22, 2019

Science Daily/Rutgers University

A program aimed at reducing violence against women and girls by focusing on positive expressions of masculinity changed the attitudes of middle school boys who may have been prone to harassment and dating violence as they got older, according to a Rutgers University-New Brunswick and University of New Hampshire led study that was done in partnership with prevention practitioners in New England.

The findings, published in Children and Youth Services Review, suggest the pilot program, "Reducing Sexism and Violence Program -- Middle School Program (RSVP-MSP)," improved attitudes related to the use of coercion and violence in relationships. It also found that the program, geared towards middle school boys, changed beliefs that violence, including harassment and sexual and dating violence was acceptable.

"Most research on sexual and dating violence has focused on high school and college students -- but research shows these forms of violence are also prevalent among middle school students," said Victoria Banyard, lead author and professor at Rutgers University-New Brunswick's School of Social Work.

Despite nationwide concerns about the rate of violence among middle school youth, there have been few rigorously evaluated sexual and dating violence prevention initiatives for boys in this age range, particularly initiatives that emphasize the promotion of healthy masculinity, Banyard said.

The program, developed by the nonprofit Maine Boys to Men, taught 292 sixth through eighth-grade boys across four schools in weekly classroom-based workshops over four months. Banyard suggested that future research combine classroom workshops on masculinity with broader school-level violence prevention strategies.

It includes four, one-hour sessions that explore the normalization, pervasiveness, and harmful nature of gender role assumptions. The boys involved in the program learn about empathy, healthy relationships, gender-based violence and receive bystander intervention training through physical activity, peer-to-peer dialogue, storytelling, role play, multimedia and group discussions.

"By focusing on positive expressions of masculinity, such as the ability to be respectful in relationships, this program helps boys find positive ways to prevent violence and to cope with violence to which they may already have been exposed," Banyard said.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190522141820.htm

Contact with nature during childhood could lead to better mental health in adulthood

May 21, 2019

Science Daily/Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal)

Almost 3,600 people participated in a European study on the impact of green and blue spaces on mental health and vitality.

Adults who had close contact with natural spaces during their childhood could have a better mental health than those who had less contact, according to a new study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), an institution supported by "la Caixa," involving four European cities.

Exposure to natural outdoor environments has been associated with several health benefits, including a better cognitive development and better mental and physical health. However, few studies have explored the impact of childhood exposure to natural environments on mental health and vitality in adulthood. Furthermore, studies have more frequently considered green spaces (gardens, forests, urban parks) than blue spaces (canals, ponds, creeks, rivers, lakes, beaches, etc.).

This study, published in the International Journal of Environment Research and Public Health, was performed within the framework of the PHENOTYPE project with data from almost 3,600 adults from Barcelona (Spain), Doetinchem (Netherlands), Kaunas (Lithuania) and Stoke-on-Trent (United Kingdom).

The adult participants answered a questionnaire on frequency of use of natural spaces during childhood, including purposeful ¬-e.g. hiking in natural parks- and non-purposeful -e.g. playing in the backyard- visits. They were also asked about their current amount, use and satisfaction with residential natural spaces, as well as the importance they give to such spaces. The mental health of the participants in terms of nervousness and feelings of depression in the past four weeks, as well as their vitality -energy and fatigue levels- were assessed through a psychological test. The residential surrounding greenness during adulthood was determined through satellite images.

The results show that adults who were less exposed to natural spaces during their childhood had lower scores in mental health tests, compared to those with higher exposure. Myriam Preuss, first author of the study, explains that "in general, participants with lower childhood exposure to nature gave a lower importance to natural environments." No association was found between childhood exposure and vitality, or the use of or satisfaction with these spaces in adulthood.

Wilma Zijlema, ISGlobal researcher and study coordinator, underlines that the conclusions "show the importance of childhood exposure to natural spaces for the development of a nature-appreciating attitude and a healthy psychological state in adulthood." Currently, 73% of Europe's population lives in urban areas with often limited access to green space and this number is expected to increase to over 80% by 2050. "Therefore, it is important to recognize the implications of growing in up in environments with limited opportunities for exposure to nature," she adds.

"Many children in Europe lead an indoors lifestyle, so it would be desirable to make natural outdoor environments available, attractive and safe for them to play in," explains Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, director of ISGlobal's Urban Planning, Environment and Health Initiative. In most countries, activities in nature are not a regular part of the school's curriculum. "We make a call on policymakers to improve availability of natural spaces for children and green school yards," he adds.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190521193735.htm

Air pollution linked to childhood anxiety

Researchers investigate traffic-related air pollution and symptoms of childhood anxiety, through neuroimaging

May 21, 2019

Science Daily/University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center

A new study looks at the correlation between exposure to traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) and childhood anxiety, by looking at the altered neurochemistry in pre-adolescents.

Exposure to air pollution is a well-established global health problem associated with complications for people with asthma and respiratory disease, as well as heart conditions and an increased risk of stroke, and according to the World Health Organization, is responsible for millions of deaths annually. Emerging evidence now suggests that air pollution may also impact the metabolic and neurological development of children.

A new study from researchers at the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center looks at the correlation between exposure to traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) and childhood anxiety, by looking at the altered neurochemistry in pre-adolescents.

"Recent evidence suggests the central nervous system is particularly vulnerable to air pollution, suggesting a role in the etiology of mental disorders, like anxiety or depression," says Kelly Brunst, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Health at the College of Medicine, and lead author on the study.

"This is the first study to use neuroimaging to evaluate TRAP exposure, metabolite dysregulation in the brain and generalized anxiety symptoms among otherwise healthy children," says Brunst.

The study was published by the journal Environmental Research.

The researchers evaluated imaging of 145 children at an average age of 12 years, looking specifically at the levels of myo-inositol found in the brain through a specialized MRI technique, magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Myo-inositol is a naturally-occurring metabolite mainly found in specialized brain cells known as glial cells, that assists with maintaining cell volume and fluid balance in the brain, and serves as a regulator for hormones and insulin in the body. Increases in myo-inositol levels correlate with an increased population of glial cells, which often occurs in states of inflammation.

They found that, among those exposed to higher levels of recent TRAP, there were significant increases of myo-inositol in the brain, compared to those with lower TRAP exposure. They also observed increases in myo-inositol to be associated with more generalized anxiety symptoms. "In the higher, recent exposure group, we saw a 12% increase in anxiety symptoms," says Brunst.

Brunst noted however, that the observed increase in reported generalized anxiety symptoms in this cohort of typically developing children was relatively small and are not likely to result in a clinical diagnosis of an anxiety disorder. "However, I think it can speak to a bigger impact on population health ... that increased exposure to air pollution can trigger the brain's inflammatory response, as evident by the increases we saw in myo-inositol," says Brunst. "This may indicate that certain populations are at an increased risk for poorer anxiety outcomes."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190521162421.htm

Exercise may help teens sleep longer, more efficiently

May 22, 2019

Science Daily/Penn State

Getting more exercise than normal -- or being more sedentary than usual -- for one day is enough to affect sleep later that night. Researchers found that when teenagers got more physical activity than they usually did, they got to sleep earlier, slept longer and slept better that night.

In a one-week micro-longitudinal study, the researchers found that when teenagers got more physical activity than they usually did, they got to sleep earlier, slept longer and slept better that night.

Specifically, the team found that for every extra hour of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, the teens fell asleep 18 minutes earlier, slept 10 minutes longer and had about one percent greater sleep maintenance efficiency that night.

"Adolescence is a critical period to obtain adequate sleep, as sleep can affect cognitive and classroom performance, stress, and eating behaviors," said Lindsay Master, data scientist at Penn State. "Our research suggests that encouraging adolescents to spend more time exercising during the day may help their sleep health later that night."

In contrast, the researchers also found that being sedentary more during the day was associated with worse sleep health. When participants were sedentary for more minutes during the day, they fell asleep and woke up later but slept for a shorter amount of time overall.

Orfeu Buxton, professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State, said the findings -- published today (May 22) in Scientific Reports -- help illuminate the complex relationship between physical activity and sleep.

"You can think of these relationships between physical activity and sleep almost like a teeter totter," Buxton said. "When you're getting more steps, essentially, your sleep begins earlier, expands in duration, and is more efficient. Whereas if you're spending more time sedentary, it's like sitting on your sleep health: sleep length and quality goes down."

While previous research suggests that adolescents need eight to ten hours of sleep a night, recent estimates suggest that as many as 73 percent of adolescents are getting less than eight.

Previous research has also found that people who are generally more physically active tend to sleep longer and have better sleep quality. But the researchers said less has been known about whether day-to-day changes in physical activity and sedentary behavior affected sleep length and quality.

For this study, the researchers used data from 417 participants in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, a national cohort from 20 United States cities. When the participants were 15 years old, they wore accelerometers on their wrists and hips to measure sleep and physical activity for one week.

"One of the strengths of this study was using the devices to get precise measurements about sleep and activity instead of asking participants about their own behavior, which can sometimes be skewed," Master said. "The hip device measured activity during the day, and the wrist device measured what time the participants fell asleep and woke up, and also how efficiently they slept, which means how often they were sleeping versus tossing and turning."

In addition to finding links between how physical activity affects sleep later that night, the researchers also found connections between sleep and activity the following day. They found that when participants slept longer and woke up later, they engaged in less moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and sedentary behavior the next day.

"This finding might be related to a lack of time and opportunity the following day," Master said. "We can't know for sure, but it's possible that if you're sleeping later into the day, you won't have as much time to spend exercising or even being sedentary."

Buxton said improving health is something that can, and should, take place over time.

"Becoming our best selves means being more like our best selves more often," Buxton said. "We were able to show that the beneficial effects of exercise and sleep go together, and that health risk behaviors like sedentary time affect sleep that same night. So if we can encourage people to engage in more physical activity and better sleep health behaviors on a more regular basis, it could improve their health over time."

In the future, the researchers will continue to follow up with the participants to see how health and health risk behaviors continue to interact, and how sleep health influences thriving in early adulthood.

Russell T. Nye, graduate student at Penn State; Nicole G. Nahmod, Penn State; Soomi Lee, assistant professor at the University of South Florida; Sara Mariani, Harvard Medical School; and Lauren Hale, professor at Stony Brook University, also participated in this work.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190522081513.htm

Preschoolers who watch TV sleep less

May 14, 2019

Science Daily/University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Preschoolers who watch TV sleep significantly less than those who don't, according to new research by University of Massachusetts Amherst neuroscientist Rebecca Spencer and developmental science graduate student Abigail Helm.

More surprising to Spencer, known for her groundbreaking research into the role of naps in children's memory and learning, 36 percent of 3- to 5-year-olds had TVs in their bedroom, and a third of those kids fell asleep with the TV on, often watching stimulating or violent adult programming.

The study, published in Sleep Health, the journal of the National Sleep Foundation, suggests that TV use by young children affects the quality and duration of sleep, measured for the first time by an actigraphic device kids wore like a watch on their wrist. Moreover, while daytime napping was found to increase among the kids who watched the most TV, it did not fully compensate for the lost sleep at night.

"The good news is, this is addressable," says Spencer, referring to the opportunity to educate parents about the new, myth-shattering evidence that TV does not help young children fall asleep. "Parents assumed that TV was helping their kids wind down. But it didn't work. Those kids weren't getting good sleep, and it wasn't helping them fall asleep better. It's good to have this data."

The findings of Spencer and Helm come on the heels of new guidelines from the World Health Organization (WHO), which say children between age 2 and 4 years should have no more than one hour of "sedentary screen time" daily -- and less or no screen time is even better. Similarly, the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that daily screen time for 2- to 5-year-olds be limited to one hour of "high-quality programs," and that parents should watch the programs with their children. The WHO also emphasized the importance of young children getting "better quality" sleep for their long-term health.

Some 54 percent of kids in the UMass Amherst study are not meeting the WHO's TV-viewing guidelines on weekdays, and the figure jumps to 87 percent on weekends, Spencer says.

In addition to a dearth of data on TV viewing and sleep among this age group, previous research that does exist has relied on parent-reported measures of sleep, and "parents tend to overestimate sleep duration," according to the study. "One of the biggest advantages we have in our approach is the use of these actigraphs," which have been found to provide a reliable measure of sleep, Spencer says.

The new research piggybacked on Spencer's larger study about young children's sleep and cognition, supported by a National Institutes of Health grant. "Given that we already have some data about why sleep and naps are important for young kids, we decided to look into what are the factors that determine when they sleep, how they sleep and why they sleep," Spencer says.

A "very diverse" group of 470 preschoolers from Western Massachusetts participated in the study, wearing actigraphs for up to 16 days. Their parents and caregivers answered questionnaires about demographics and the children's health and behavior, including detailed questions on TV use. Among the findings:

·     Preschoolers who watch less than one hour of TV per day get 22 more minutes of sleep at night -- or nearly 2.5 hours per week -- than those who watch more than an hour of TV daily.

·     On average, young children without TVs in their bedrooms slept 30 minutes more at night than those with a TV in their bedroom.

·     Although kids with TVs in their bedroom slept on average 12 minutes longer during naps, they still slept 17 minutes less during a 24-hour period than kids without TVs in their bedroom.

Spencer says she plans to expand future child sleep studies to examine the impact of hand-held digital devices, such as iPads and smartphones. She also points out that TV use by kids as reported by their parents is likely to be underestimated.

"I think TV is its own beast to understand," she says.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190514110316.htm

Can recreational sports really make you a better student?

May 10, 2019

Science Daily/Michigan State University

A new Michigan State University study adds to growing evidence that participating in recreational sports not only can help improve grades while attending college, but it also can help students return for another year.

Among nearly 1,800 recent freshmen at MSU, students who played intramural sports averaged a 3.25 grade point average at the end of their first year compared to a 3.07 GPA for those who didn't play.

But it's more than just better grades. Those who participated in recreational sports were less likely to drop or fail any classes their first year and were 40% more likely to move onto sophomore status. They also were 2.5 times more likely to come back to the university.

The findings are published in the Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice.

It takes 120 credit hours to graduate with a bachelor's degree, and to graduate in four years, you need a total of 30 completed credit hours each school year.

"At the end of the year, students who played sports dropped or failed a total average of six credits compared to 7.7 credits among non-playing students," said Kerri Vasold, lead author and a recent graduate of MSU's kinesiology Ph.D. program.

Vasold said that the almost two credit difference each year can have a big effect overall on the time it takes to graduate, and even more importantly, how much damage the pocketbook takes.

The research takes an apples-to-apples approach and brings the most solid evidence to date that intramural sports play an important role in a student's success. Previous research has relied mostly on survey results, but Vasold dug deeper and was able to pull hard numbers from MSU's registrar office.

Students were matched based on factors including high school GPA, gender, race, socioeconomic status, if they lived on campus, and if they were a first-generation student. Then they were compared to whether they participated in intramural sports.

"The only thing that was different between these students was whether they played or not," said Jim Pivarnik, a professor of kinesiology and co-author of the study. "Everything else was matched."

Pivarnik said the strength of the study was how tightly controlled it was.

"You can't just say one person was smarter in high school than the other or his or her socioeconomic status was better," he said. "We addressed all that, with all things being equal."

So how many extracurricular sports should you do?

According to the researchers, the sweet spot seems to be anywhere between four to seven different activities throughout the year, which is new data discovered in another soon-to-be-published study led by Vasold and Pivarnik.

"Don't go crazy. Don't join 20 teams," Pivarnik said. "Grab some friends, find a moderate number of activities and get involved in something different. The four-to-seven range seems to be effective and is linked to a higher GPA."

Activities can range from playing an intramural sport like ultimate frisbee a few times a month to taking an aerobics class at a fitness center each week.

Currently, about 10,000, or 20%, of MSU students participate in intramural sports, which is slightly higher than the national average of 17%, according to the American College Health Association.

"There are so many different ways to participate," Vasold said. "And the best part is you don't have to be an all-star basketball player or have played ultimate frisbee before. You can still join a team. It's an inclusive environment and helps students do better and creates a new home."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190510124417.htm

For teens, online bullying worsens sleep and depression

Nearly 15 percent of high school students report being bullied online

May 9, 2019

Science Daily/University at Buffalo

Teens who experience cyberbullying are more likely to suffer from poor sleep, which in turn raises levels of depression, found a University at Buffalo study.

Although research has examined the relationship between online bullying and depression, the UB study is one of few to explore the connection between cyber victimization and sleep quality.

The study surveyed more than 800 adolescents for sleep quality, cyber aggression and depression.

The research will be presented by Misol Kwon, first author and doctoral student in the UB School of Nursing, at SLEEP 2019, the 33rd annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in San Antonio, Texas from June 8-12.

"Cyber victimization on the internet and social media is a unique form of peer victimization and an emerging mental health concern among teens who are digital natives," said Kwon. "Understanding these associations supports the need to provide sleep hygiene education and risk prevention and interventions to mistreated kids who show signs and symptoms of depression."

Nearly one third of teens have experienced symptoms of depression, which, in addition to changes in sleep pattern, include persistent irritability, anger and social withdrawal, according to the U.S. Office of Adolescent Health.

And nearly 15 percent of U.S. high school students report being bullied electronically, says Kwon. At severe levels, depression may lead to disrupted school performance, harmed relationships or suicide.

The risks of allowing depression to worsen highlight the need for researchers and clinicians to understand and target sleep quality and other risk factors that have the potential to exacerbate the disorder.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190509142707.htm

Scientists find link between digital media use and depression in Chinese adolescents

May 9, 2019

Science Daily/Elsevier

Adolescents in China who either spend more time on screen activities, such as watching TV or surfing the Web, or less time on non-screen activities, including physical activity, are at risk and significantly more likely to experience depression, according to a new study in the journal Heliyon, published by Elsevier. A greater association with depression in girls over boys was also found as the use of new digital media grows across the country.

In the United States, the Internet has become an integral part of life with social media representing a sizable portion of that usage. More than two billion people globally used digital media in 2016, and this is predicted to rise to nearly three billion by 2020. The number of digital media users in China has also been increasing rapidly. Earlier studies have reported that conduct problems, depressive symptoms, and suicide in nearly all developed countries have escalated since the Second World War.

"Digital media, as compared to more traditional media such as television, have profoundly changed the modern life of the average Chinese citizen," explained lead investigator Jie Zhang, PhD, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China, and State University of New York Buffalo State, Buffalo, NY, USA. "They can now shop, navigate to travel, browse information, consume various entertainment media, and communicate with one another in an unprecedented manner, and adolescents also spend more and more time using digital media.

"However, access to these digital media may have detrimental outcomes, such as distraction from work or school, the spread of false information about individuals, online bullying, and reduced face-to-face social interactions, all of which can lead to anxiety, depression, and suicidality."

In China, adolescents are facing serious psychological difficulties. Recent evidence shows that the prevalence of depressive symptoms among Chinese students ranges from 11.7 percent to 22.9 percent, representing a significant public health concern, given the established link between depression and suicide in China.

Investigators designed a cross-sectional study to evaluate the association between new digital media and depressive symptoms in a representative Chinese adolescent sample. They surveyed more than 16,000 Chinese adolescents 12-to-18-years of age using data from the 2013-2014 China Education Panel Survey (CEPS). The first goal was to investigate factors that might impact depression, specifically comparing traditional screen time (watching TV); digital media screen time (online); non-screen time (sports, exercise, reading, and cultural activities); and experiencing depressive symptoms among adolescents. The study also examined the potential influence of gender, grade level in school, hometown, number of children in the family, and socioeconomic status on depressive symptoms. The second goal was to compare associations across different economic groups.

The researchers found that greater media consumption screen time is related to depression among Chinese adolescents, although online screen time is a stronger predictor. The present study also showed that digital media had a greater impact on depression among girls, which is consistent with evidence of greater depression and suicide among women compared to men in China.

The less economically developed western area of China showed the strongest link between digital media and depression, although this association was still significant in all economic regions. The influence of traditional screen time was more inconsistent within the group studied, with TV time predicting depression only in the eastern area and lax parental TV control buffering depression only in the eastern and western areas. Further, the present study highlights that non-screen time can decrease depression, although the exact nature and strength of this relationship varies across economic regions.

"The new digital media, if not appropriately managed, creates public health hazards in adolescents," commented Dr. Zhang. "There are numerous and significant differences in economy, culture, and education between China and western countries, as well as clear differences in adolescent depression and suicide behavior. Therefore, it may not be appropriate to make inferences about how digital media impacts negative outcomes among Chinese adolescents from findings that utilize samples from western countries.

"However, our study can be used to warn Chinese adolescents to reduce the time they devote to digital media and advise them to spend more time on non-screen activities, such as outdoor activities and face to face communication. We hope these results will help reduce depressive symptoms among Chinese adolescents."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190509092726.htm

'Good enough' parenting is good enough

May 8, 2019

Science Daily/Lehigh University

What really matters in caring for babies may be different than commonly thought, says Lehigh University researcher Susan S. Woodhouse, an expert on infant attachment. In new research, she finds that caregivers need only "get it right" 50 percent of the time when responding to babies' need for attachment to have a positive impact on a baby. Securely attached infants are more likely to have better outcomes in childhood and adulthood, and based on Woodhouse's potentially paradigm-shifting work, there is more than one way to get there, particularly for low socioeconomic-status families.

Woodhouse, an associate professor of counseling psychology, studied 83 low socioeconomic-status mothers and infants at ages 4.5 months, 7 months, 9 months and 12 months to observe and assess attachment. Infants and mothers in the study were racially and ethnically diverse, and infants were selected for high levels of temperamental irritability.

Her findings are detailed in "Secure Base Provision: A New Approach to Examining Links Between Maternal Caregiving and Infant Attachment," which appears in the journal Child Development, co-authored with Julie R. Scott of Pennsylvania State University, Allison D. Hepsworth of the University of the Maryland School of Social Work, and Jude Cassidy of the University of Maryland.

The study scored mother-baby pairs based on a mother's responses to the infant while the baby was crying and not crying to assess the qualities of "secure base provision." This framework focuses on aspects of caregiving that tell an infant about the caregiver's availability to serve as a secure base, such as soothing to cessation of crying and providing a present and safe base from which to explore.

Researchers found that this framework significantly predicted infant attachment, and that babies learned their mothers were providing a secure base when mothers responded properly at least 50 percent of the time.

"The findings provide evidence for the validity of a new way of conceptualizing the maternal caregiving quality that actually works for low-income families," Woodhouse said.

What is Infant Attachment and Secure Base Provision?

Infant attachment is the bond infants form with their primary caregiver. A secure attachment allows babies to feel safe, which gives them both comfort in times of distress and the ability to explore, knowing they can return to their secure base when needed. Attachment is an infant's first bond with important caregivers and a critical phase in development, with a major impact on emotional and social development.

Numerous studies have shown the importance of secure infant attachment to developmental outcomes. But, for the past 30 years, the actual building blocks leading to attachment have been unresolved. Caregiver "sensitivity" -- the ability to accurately interpret infant needs and to respond promptly and appropriately -- was shown to be a key predictor of attachment. But studies showed sensitivity accounts for a surprisingly low percentage of variation in attachment, and has an even lower impact among families with low socioeconomic status.

"That's a real problem, because low-income babies face the most amount of risk, toxic stress and other factors that go along with being low income," Woodhouse said. Data suggest secure attachment may serve a protective function in children's socio-emotional development when in a context of high risk. Secure attachment is associated with better mental health outcomes in both childhood and adulthood -- including less incidence of externalizing behaviors such as acting out and internalizing behaviors such as depression and anxiety -- as well as greater school readiness.

"If we want to give advice to parents about what they can do to give their baby the best start in life, it would be really good to know what helps a baby to be secure," Woodhouse said.

Woodhouse's study seeks to address this critical gap in understanding what leads to secure attachment, through examining whether a new conceptualization of caregiving behavior, "secure base provision" -- the degree to which a caregiver is able to meet an infant's needs on both sides of the attachment-exploration continuum -- predicts attachment security in infants. It is the first time this conceptualization has been tested separately from sensitivity and as a predictor of infant attachment. The new way of conceptualizing caregiving focuses on the aspects of caregiving that theoretically should be most important to building infant attachment because of what an infant can learn from them about a caregiver's availability to serve as a secure base for the infant -- both when the infant needs comforting and when the infant is focused on exploring.

Differences Between Secure Base Provision and Sensitivity

As frameworks, both sensitivity and secure base provision look at how caregivers perceive, interpret and appropriately respond to infant signals; and, in both, important infant signals occur at each end of the attachment-exploration continuum. But secure base provision looks only at certain key infant signals and more specific caregiver responses. It also focuses much less on prompt response and more on crying resolution (the ratio of infant crying episodes that end in chest-to-chest soothing until the infant is fully calmed, regardless of promptness).

Secure base provision also does not consider attunement to a baby's state and mood in a moment-by-moment manner, as the sensitivity framework does. "Attunement is not key because the focus is on what the infant learns about his or her ability to, in the end, recruit the caregiver when needed -- even in the context of a fair degree of insensitive behavior," such as not picking up the baby right away, or saying, "Come on, don't cry," to the baby, the researchers said. "It is this infant learning about the availability of the caregiver to be recruited to provide a secure base (more often than not) that is central to the construct."

Specifically, secure base provision looks at the degree to which a parent, on average, soothes a crying infant to a fully calm and regulated state while in chest-to-chest contact. "It is at the end of each crying episode that the infant learns about whether, on average, the caregiver can be counted on to be available as the infant achieves a calm state or whether the infant typically must stop crying alone," the researchers said.

During infant exploration and other times when the infant is not distressed, the secure base provision approach focuses on whether the caregiver allows exploration to occur without terminating or interrupting it -- for example, by making the baby cry through play that is too sudden or rough -- and on "calm connectedness," which communicates the mother's ongoing availability if needed for regulation or protection: "I am here if you need me, and you can count on me."

In addition, there are behaviors that caregivers must not do, either when the baby needs comfort or during exploration, in order for secure base provision to occur. Specifically, caregivers must not frighten the baby or fail to protect the baby when real hazards are present, such as another child who is too rough.

Secure Base Provision 8 Times More Effective at Predicting Attachment

The study scored mother-baby pairs based on maternal responses to the infant during episodes of infant crying and maternal responses outside of infant crying episodes. A separate group in another lab also scored for the commonly used sensitivity framework.

The researchers found the new maternal caregiving concept of secure base provision correlated significantly with infant attachment security: mothers who had higher scores on secure base provision were more likely to have more securely attached infants, with an effect eight times larger than that of sensitivity, based on a meta-analysis of findings for low socioeconomic-status families. This was true, even after controlling for maternal sensitivity. They also found that "maternal sensitivity" did not significantly predict infant attachment security.

"What this paper tells us is that we need to change not only how we measure sensitivity, but how we are thinking about the caregiving behaviors that really matter," Woodhouse said. "What we found was that what really matters is not really so much that moment-to-moment matching between what the baby's cue is and how the parent responds. What really matters is in the end, does the parent get the job done -- both when a baby needs to connect, and when a baby needs to explore?"

Research suggests that infants demonstrate statistical learning to identify complex underlying patterns in stimuli, the researchers said. "Thus, we expected that infants whom caregivers soothed from crying to calm in a chest-to-chest position for at least half of the observed episodes of infant crying would learn that, on average, they could trust their caregivers to provide a secure base," they said, which they found to be true.

Woodhouse calls the findings "paradigm shifting."

"It really is a different way of looking at the quality of parenting," she said. "It's looking at this idea of does the job get done in the end, and it allows us to see strengths in low-income parents that our previous ideas about sensitivity don't let us see."

Additional Dos and Don'ts

Researchers also noted a number of problematic behaviors by mothers while their babies were crying that disrupted the process of comforting the infant. Such as: turning the baby away from their chests before crying ends; rough handling; harsh verbal tones; verbal instructions not to cry; and verbally attributing negative characteristics to the baby. They also documented presence or absence of frightening behavior, such as sudden looming into the baby's face or toward the baby, during crying episodes.

"If the mother did frightening things when the baby cried, like hard yelling or growling at the baby, or suddenly looming toward the baby's face while the baby was upset, even if it only happened one time, the baby would be insecure," Woodhouse said. "Similarly, if the mother did anything really frightening even when the baby wasn't in distress, like saying 'bye-bye' and pretending to leave, throwing the baby in the air to the point they would cry, failure to protect the baby, like walking away from the changing table or not protecting them from an aggressive sibling, or even what we call 'relentless play' -- insisting on play and getting the baby worked up when it is too much -- that also leads to insecurity."

Interestingly, overprotective-type behaviors, such as moms who don't let the baby explore more than an arm's length away, or interrupting or redirecting play (except for safety) also contributed to insecure baby attachment. "Some moms really had trouble allowing the baby to explore and were very insistent on the baby doing certain things or turning the baby's head to look at the mom," Woodhouse said. "In really intrusive parenting, if we saw that, the baby was insecure."

Applications for Parents and Practitioners, Across Cultures

One application of the findings is improving effectiveness of intervention programs that aim to increase secure infant attachment. The results indicate that low socioeconomic-status mothers who do a better job of providing a secure base increase their infants' chances of developing a secure attachment from about 30% to 71%; while low-SES mothers who fail to provide a secure base decrease their infants' chances of developing a secure relationship from about 71% to 30%.

Knowing this can help those leading interventions to view caregiving behavior in a new way. For example, this framework allows them to shift focus from urging mothers to respond as promptly as possible to working with mothers to focus on relenting and ultimately picking up and soothing a crying infant in a chest-to-chest position until calm.

"Because low socioeconomic-status parents juggle multiple challenges associated with low socioeconomic status, it may be helpful for them to know that holding a crying infant until fully soothed, even 50% of the time, promotes security," the researchers said. "Such a message could help parents increase positive caregiving without raising anxiety regarding 'perfect parenting' or setting the bar so high as to make change unattainable in families that face multiple stressors."

Methods of engaging an infant in calm, regulating connectedness, such as being available for eye contact without actively making eye contact and carrying an infant on the hip during daily tasks, also promote secure attachment in the baby, they said.

Focusing on the secure base also avoids emphasizing the importance of parenting practices that are often associated with white, middle-class populations, such as moment-to-moment attunement, prompt responses, sweet tone of voice and affectionate verbal comments. The new approach "captures strengths that can be present in parents who may be under economic strain or who ascribe to 'no-nonsense parenting,''' the researchers said. This also makes the secure base provision approach potentially more culturally sensitive and likely to be accepted across diverse low socioeconomic-status families.

"Across cultures, social class and race, parents want the best for their kids," Woodhouse said, "so parents are excited to know about this when I talk with them." Clinicians such as psychologists, counselors, social workers, home visitors, Head Start programs, early child care providers and pediatricians will also find it as a valuable lens, she said. "It has the potential to change intervention for agencies and practitioners, and I think that is really valuable," Woodhouse said.

The research isn't meant to contradict sensitivity as a framework, which remains useful, Woodhouse argues. The findings also aren't a challenge to attachment theory, which assumes that infants universally form attachments with familiar caregivers based on evolutionary pressures. "Attachment theory is a really important theory that has guided lots of research," she said. "(These findings) are about enriching, deepening and adding to the theory in ways that support applicability in diverse contexts."

Woodhouse clarifies that this is different from commonly understood tenets of "attachment parenting" in popular culture, such as co-sleeping, baby-wearing, breastfeeding or organic foods. "None of these things is inherently good or bad for attachment or a guarantee of having secure children -- it's about how they are done," she said. "Moms get secure children in different ways. It is more of an attachment-informed perspective, that biologically babies do have certain needs -- for safety, comfort and connection, exploration of their world -- and how do we meet these needs? There is more than one way to get there."

For Woodhouse, the takeaway is two-fold:

"The first message gets at the core of getting the job done -- supporting the baby in exploration and not interrupting it and welcoming babies in when they need us for comfort or protection," Woodhouse said. "The other part is that you don't have to do it 100 percent -- you have to get it right about half of the time, and babies are very forgiving and it's never too late. Keep trying. You don't have to be perfect, you just have to be good enough."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190508134511.htm

Teen girls more vulnerable to bullying than boys

May 7, 2019

Science Daily/Rutgers University

Girls are more often bullied than boys and are more likely to consider, plan, or attempt suicide, according to research led by a Rutgers University-Camden nursing scholar.

"Bullying is significantly associated with depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, suicide planning, and suicide attempts," says Nancy Pontes, an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Nursing-Camden. "We wanted to look at this link between bullying victimization, depressive symptoms, and suicidality by gender."

In an examination of data from the Centers for Disease Control's nationally representative Youth Risk Behavior Survey from 2011-2015, Pontes and her fellow researchers conducted analyses of the data and found that more females are negatively affected by bullying.

Pontes says that, in general, girls are more often bullied than boys, and girls are also more likely to consider, plan, or attempt suicide compared with boys, regardless of being bullied or not -- although boys are more likely to die by suicide. In this study, Pontes and her fellow researchers looked at significant associations and not direct causal links.

Using two methods of statistical analysis, the researchers showed the probability of a link between bullying and depressive symptoms and suicide risk, and then compared the results of the two methodologies.

Through the more commonly used multiplicative interactions method, their findings matched the findings that some other researchers have used in previous studies, which showed no difference between males and females being bullied at school and having depressive symptoms or suicide risk behaviors.

However, when using the International Journal of Epidemiology-recommended methodology of additive interactions, Pontes and her team found the effects of bullying are significantly higher in females than males on every measure of psychological distress or suicidal thoughts and actions.

The study, "Additive Interactions between Gender and Bullying Victimization on Depressive Symptoms and Suicidality: Youth Risk Behavior Survey 2011-2015" by Pontes and her colleagues, is published in the journal Nursing Research.

"To our knowledge, our paper is the first in nursing to compare these two methodologies, and to challenge the status quo of analysis in our field," says Pontes.

The researchers acknowledge limitations with the study, such as the nature of its retrospective design and the inability to change or alter the design of the CDC study.

Pontes hopes the results of her team's examination will help draw attention to how researchers conduct analyses of data and how crucial it is to carefully consider which methods are the best fit, or to use both methods and compare them.

Bullying among boys is often physical. Pontes says while many schools are cracking down on physical bullying which people can see, those actions probably are preventing and stopping bullying that's more common among males.

Among females, Pontes says, the bullying is often the kind that's not visible. It's often relational bullying, such as excluding someone from activities and social circles, or spreading rumors about them. The actions are not overt, Pontes explains, so they could go on for a long time without anyone else knowing.

"Our school interventions should understand the differences in bullying and how we might better address females who are bullied," says Pontes.

The Rutgers-Camden nursing researcher believes that preventing bullying should begin at a young age. She says parents should start teaching preschool children that bullying is unacceptable.

"There are parents who see it as a rite of passage," says Pontes. "They say, 'Everyone gets bullied. You have to buck up. Stand up for yourself.'"

She says pediatricians and nurse practitioners should talk about the harmful effects of bullying with parents so that they can intervene early and reduce the victimization that causes adolescents to consider suicide, so they will be able to live happier and healthier lives.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190507110457.htm

Suicide attempts by self-poisoning have more than doubled in teens, young adults

May 2, 2019

Science Daily/Nationwide Children's Hospital

A new study from Nationwide Children's Hospital and the Central Ohio Poison Center found rates of suicide attempts by self-poisoning among adolescents have more than doubled in the last decade in the U.S., and more than tripled for girls and young women.

The study, published online today in the Journal of Pediatrics, evaluated the incidence and outcomes from intentional suspected-suicide self-poisoning in children and young adults ages 10 to 24 years old from 2000-18. In the 19-year time period of the study, there were more than 1.6 million intentional suspected-suicide self-poisoning cases in youth and young adults reported to U.S. poison centers. More than 71% (1.1 million) of those were female.

"The severity of outcomes in adolescents has also increased, especially in 10- to 15-year-olds," said Henry Spiller, MS, D.ABAT, director of the Central Ohio Poison Center at Nationwide Children's Hospital, and co-author of the study. "In youth overall, from 2010-2018 there was a 141% increase in attempts by self-poisoning reported to U.S. poison centers, which is concerning."

Previous research has shown that suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people aged 10 to 24 years, and that while males die by suicide more frequently than females, females attempt suicide more than males. Self-poisoning is the most common way that someone attempts suicide and third most common method of suicide in adolescents, with higher rates in females.

"Suicide in children under 12 years of age is still rare, but suicidal thoughts and attempts in this younger age group do occur, as these data show," said John Ackerman, PhD, clinical psychologist and suicide prevention coordinator for the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research at Nationwide Children's Hospital, and co-author of the study. "While certainly unsettling, it's important that parents and individuals who care for youth don't panic at these findings, but rather equip themselves with the tools to start important conversations and engage in prevention strategies, such as safe storage of medications and reducing access to lethal means. There are many resources and crisis supports available around the clock to aid in the prevention of suicide, and suicide prevention needs to start early."

According to the Big Lots Behavioral Health experts at Nationwide Children's, parents should check in regularly with their children, ask them directly how they are doing and if they have ever had thoughts about ending their life. These direct questions are even more critical if warning signs of suicide are observed.

"There is no need to wait until there is a major crisis to talk about a plan to manage emotional distress. Actually, a good time to talk directly about suicide or mental health is when things are going well," said Ackerman, whose suicide prevention team provides comprehensive programming to more than 120 central and southeast Ohio schools and delivers suicide prevention training to community organizations that serve youth. "A helpful starting point for any parent to increase the dialogue is OnOurSleeves.org, which has resources about beginning this important conversation as a family. The American Association of Suicidology and American Foundation for Suicide Prevention also have many resources."

Data for this study were collected by the National Poison Data System (NPDS) from January 2000 to November 2018.

If you or your child need immediate help due to having suicidal thoughts, go to your local emergency room immediately, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or you can reach the Crisis Text Line by texting "START" to 741-741. If you believe an overdose has occurred, call the national Poison Help hotline 1-800-222-1222.

About On Our Sleeves

Because kids don't wear their thoughts on their sleeves, we don't know what they might be going through. That's why Nationwide Children's Hospital launched On Our Sleeves to build a community of support for children living with mental illness through advocacy, education and fundraising for much-needed research. For more information about children's mental health and to help break the silence and stigma around mental illness, visit OnOurSleeves.org.

About The Central Ohio Poison Center

The Central Ohio Poison Center provides state-of-the-art poison prevention, assessment and treatment to residents in 64 of Ohio's 88 counties. The center services are available to the public, medical professionals, industry, and human service agencies. The Poison Center handles more than 42,000 poison exposure calls annually, and confidential, free emergency poisoning treatment advice is available 24/7. To learn more about the Poison Center, visit http://www.bepoisonsmart.org.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190502075817.htm

Adverse events during first years of life may have greatest effect on future mental health

May 1, 2019

Science Daily/Massachusetts General Hospital

A Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) study has found evidence that children under 3 years old are most the vulnerable to the effects of adversity -- experiences including poverty, family and financial instability, and abuse -- on their epigenetic profiles, chemical tags that alter gene expression and may have consequences for future mental health. Their report appearing in the May 15 issue of Biological Psychiatry, which has been published online, finds that the timing of adverse experiences has more powerful effects than the number of such experiences or whether they took place recently.

"One of the major unanswered questions in child psychiatry has been 'How do the stressors children experience in the world make them more vulnerable to mental health problems in the future?'," says Erin Dunn, ScD, MPH, of the Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit in the MGH Center for Genomic Medicine, corresponding author of the report. "These findings suggest that the first three years of life may be an especially important period for shaping biological processes that ultimately give rise to mental health conditions. If these results are replicated, they imply that prioritizing policies and interventions to children who experienced adversity during those years may help reduce the long-term risk for problems like depression."

Studies conducted in both animals and humans have found that adverse experiences early in life can have lasting effects on epigenetics, the process by which chemical tags added to a DNA sequence control whether or not a gene is expressed. These studies reported differences in DNA methylation, which can either silence or enhance gene expression, between individuals who were and were not exposed to early-life stressors.

The current study was designed to test the hypothesis that there are sensitive periods during which adversity is associated with even greater changes in DNA methylation. The investigators also compared that model to an accumulation hypothesis, in which the effects of adversity increase with the number of events, and a recency hypothesis, that the effects of adversity are stronger when events happened more recently.

They gathered data from participants in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a U.K.-based study that has been following a group of families since the early 1990s. Participating parents report regularly on many aspects of the health and life experiences of their children, who were enrolled in the study before they were born. The current investigation analyzed data from a subgroup of more than 1,000 randomly selected mother/child pairs from which DNA methylation profiles had been run for the children at birth and at age 7.

The children's exposure to adversity before the age of 7 was based on whether parents reported their child's repeated experience of seven stressors:

·     abuse by a parent or other caregiver,

·     abuse by anyone,

·     a mother's mental illness,

·     living in a single-adult household,

·     family instability,

·     family financial stress,

·     neighborhood disadvantage or poverty.

The investigators recorded the number of exposures to each adversity, whether or not they were experienced at specific developmental stages and how close they occurred to the age at which blood samples were taken for the second methylation profile.

The analysis identified 38 DNA methylation sites at which adverse experiences were associated with changes in methylation, most of which were associated with when the stressful experience had taken place. Adversity before the age of 3 had a significantly greater impact on methylation than did adversity at ages 3 to 5 or 5 to 7. Exposure to adversity was typically associated with increased methylation, which would reduce the expression of specific genes; and neighborhood disadvantage appeared to have the greatest impact, followed by family financial stress, sexual or physical abuse, and single-adult households.

Although early-childhood experiences had the greatest effects, adversity at older ages was not without an impact. And while the results provide the strongest evidence for the sensitive or "vulnerable" period model, they do not totally rule out any effect related to the accumulation or recency hypotheses. In fact, two of the sites at which methylation appeared to be changed by adversity were associated with either the number of adverse experiences or how recent they had been.

"These additive effects may work together with the timing of exposure, so it would be interesting to examine more complex mechanisms in future studies with larger groups of participants," says Dunn, an assistant professor of Psychology in the Harvard Medical School Department of Psychiatry. "Our results need to be replicated by other investigators, and we also need to determine whether these changes in DNA methylation patterns are associated with subsequent mental health problems. Only then will we be able to really understand the links between childhood adversity, DNA methylation and the risk of mental health problems; and that understanding could guide us to better ways of preventing those problems from developing."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190501131347.htm