Health capsules

Poor sleep may increase chances of depression 

If your teenaged son or daughter is regularly waking up till late in the night, he or she is likely to have poor sleep, which may increase their risk of developing mood disorders, especially depression, researchers have warned. A new study showed that teenagers with sleep deprivation may indulge more in risk-taking behaviour and addictions. This is because chronic sleep deprivation reduces the proper functioning of putamen — an area of the brain that plays a role in goal-based movements and learning from rewards. Lack of proper sleep also leads to less activity in the brain's reward system. For the research, presented in the 56th Annual Meeting of American college of Neuropsychopharmacology in California, the team studied the sleeping behaviour of participants aged between 11 to 15 years. The team divided the total participants in two groups and allowed one group to sleep for four hours while the rest completed 10 hours of sleep.  While noting the MRI scans of the participants each time the team repeated the same sleeping patterns and interchanged it in between the groups. The participants were also made to answer questions while playing a game that involved receiving monetary rewards of $10 and $1, which measured their emotional functioning and depression symptoms. The results showed that when the participants were sleep-deprived and played the reward game for longer hours, the putamen was less responsive. While in the rest condition, the brain region did not show any difference between high and low-reward conditions. After a night of restricted sleep, the participants who experienced less activation in the putamen also reported more symptoms of depression.

Exposure to smoke ups asthma threat in infants 

Exposure to cigarette smoke during pregnancy and in home at three and 15 months of age is linked to increased risks of wheeze and asthma in babies, warms a study. The team conducted a study on 376 newborns and obtained detailed information from parents about smoking exposure during pregnancy and in the home at three and 15 months of age. Data for demographics, wheezing, and asthma were obtained from yearly questionnaires up to age six. Experts said hair nicotine increased with number of smokers, daily cigarettes smoked at home and was also strongly associated with smoking in pregnancy. Although overall the hair nicotine levels in the participants were relatively low, higher levels of hair nicotine were associated with increased risk of wheeze and, though not significant, of asthma at 15 months of age. However, at older ages the associations were non-significant. The research appears in journal of Pediatric Pulmonology. 

Breast milk, probiotics cut cancer risk in babies 

A new study at University of California has found that breastfeeding babies who receive probiotic supplements for three weeks improve have better gut health, which protects the baby from diabetes and some cancers. The study is the first to show that a combination of breast milk and a probiotic organism can lead to lasting changes in the gut microbiome, said an expert."Even though we stopped giving the probiotic on day 28 of life, the particular organisms we gave stayed in their fecal community out to 60 days and even longer," he added. The researchers explained B. infantis would pair well with the sugars in breastmilk to shape the gut microbiota. Disruption of the microbiota, particularly early in life, may increase risk for many diseases both inside and outside the gut, including diabetes, allergies and asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, and some cancers, says the expert. 

Hearing loss in old-age raises odds of dementia 

You may need to take care of your ageing parents as a study has recently warned that age-related hearing loss may be a risk factor for cognitive decline, impairment and dementia. Age-related hearing loss is common. Researchers wanted to find the link between age-related hearing loss, cognitive decline and dementia. Understanding any possible association between hearing loss and cognitive decline could help with strategies to prevent cognitive decline and dementia with use of hearing assist devices. The team from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland conducted the study on 20,264 participants in 36 studies. The results indicated that there was a small association between age-related hearing loss and increased risk for cognitive decline (such as in executive function, episodic memory and processing speed), cognitive impairment and dementia.

Nuts, oily fish may cut kids' risk of asthma, rhinitis

Including nuts, oily fish like salmon, flax seeds, and soybean oil — rich in essential polyunsaturated fatty acids — in your children's diet may prevent their risk of developing allergic diseases, especially asthma and rhinitis by teenage, a study has suggested. Both asthma and rhinitis affects the kids since their childhood, either due to hereditary or environmental factors. The results show that the presence of an increased amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids such as Omega-3 and an omega-6 fatty acid called arachidonic acid in the blood is associated with a reduced risk of allergic diseases among children.

The study was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.  — Agencies