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Herat risk screening inadequate in high school sports physicals: Study

Following incidents of deaths of high school athletes who collapse suddenly during practice or a game, new guidelines for screening prep athletes for hidden heart problems before the start of a season had been in place since 1996. About one of every 30,000 to 50,000 high school athletes dies each year from cardiac arrest.

14 Nov 2011

Ethiopia reduced child mortality rate by more than half over past 20 years

Ethiopia has reduced its child mortality rates by more than half since 1990, from about 20 percent to 8.8 percent, "through campaigns to increase the number of health workers and clinics throughout the country, government and aid officials said on Friday," Reuters reports.

14 Nov 2011

Mothers' behaviour during pregnancy can predict children at high risk of obesity

Researchers can predict which children are most likely to become obese by examining their mothers' behaviour around their birth, according to a recent University of Montreal study published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

14 Nov 2011

Racial disparities in long-term survival among pediatric heart transplant patients

White heart transplant patients under the age of 18 are more than twice as likely to be alive a decade after surgery as their African-American counterparts, new Johns Hopkins research suggests.

14 Nov 2011

Senior UK Parliamentarians visit Bangladesh to see full impact of pneumonia on children

To mark World Pneumonia Day, a senior UK parliamentary delegation travelled to Dhaka this week to see firsthand the full impact of pneumonia on Bangladeshi children.

14 Nov 2011

Federal health officials recommend cholesterol testing for children

Government health experts recommended Friday that all children be tested for high cholesterol before they reach puberty, in an effort to get an early start in preventing cardiovascular disease. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute said a child's first cholesterol check should occur between ages 9 and 11 and the test should be repeated between ages 17 and 21. The American Academy of Pediatrics endorsed the guideline.

14 Nov 2011

UM to host Summit on Childhood Obesity at Hilton Baltimore

Science and medical reporters are invited to sample a wide diversity of new research and policy initiatives at a Summit on Childhood Obesity on Tues., Nov. 15 and Wed., Nov. 16 at the Hilton Baltimore.

13 Nov 2011

Salt – is it bad for the heart? Debate continues

Salt or high sodium intake in diet has drawn attention of researchers for a while now. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration held a day-long hearing today, discussing strategies to help Americans cut the salt from their diets as a latest attempt to curb sodium in the American diet.

13 Nov 2011

Smoke-reducing chimneys prevent pneumonia among young children

Researchers at the University of Liverpool and the universities of California, Berkley and del Valle, Guatemala, have found that cases of severe pneumonia among young children are reduced by one-third in homes with smoke-reducing chimneys on cooking stoves.

11 Nov 2011

Rapid expansion of global vaccine campaign against pneumonia 'unprecedented'

"A global push to bring a vaccine against the bacterial cause of pneumonia to communities that need it most is ramping up quickly, expanding to nearly 60 countries in the next five years," PBS NewsHour's "The Rundown" reports.

11 Nov 2011

UNICEF distributing hygiene, sanitation items in flood-affected Thailand to help prevent disease spread

"The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is distributing more than 300,000 hygiene and sanitation items to flood-affected families in Thailand, in an effort to prevent the spread of communicable diseases in the Asian country," Bernama reports.

11 Nov 2011

Conn. Gov.'s orders on home and child care workers raise concerns; Calif. lawmakers explore long-term care costs

Gov. Dannel Malloy established a way for home care and child care workers to unionize. Meanwhile, in California, a legislative committee looked at the financial burden of long-term care.

11 Nov 2011

Unfavorable fetal development affects physical functioning at the age of 60 years

Low birth weight and slow growth progressing to greater body mass in pre-adolescence significantly increased the risk of poor physical functioning at the age of 60 years, a new Finnish study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology found.

11 Nov 2011

Vaccination dramatically reduces incidence of Hib disease in young children

Vaccination against Haemophilus influenzae type b, or Hib, once the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in children, has dramatically reduced the incidence of Hib disease in young children over the past 20 years, according to a study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and available online.

11 Nov 2011

Simple outpatient procedure can quickly diagnose and treat ankyloglossia

Mothers struggling to breastfeed are benefiting from a simple outpatient procedure to fix an easily missed 'tongue-tie' condition that could be preventing their newborns from feeding properly.

11 Nov 2011

China considers ban on infant formula ads to encourage breastfeeding

"China may ban sales promotions and advertising for milk formula designed for babies younger than six months in an effort to encourage breastfeeding, the Ministry of Health" said Wednesday in a statement, Bloomberg reports, adding that "the government is canvassing public opinion on a draft plan." UNICEF "said it supported measures to curb the use of infant formula, whose sales in China more than doubled in four years," Bloomberg writes.

11 Nov 2011

Xylitol can prevent inner ear infections in healthy children

There is "fair evidence" to support the use of xylitol, a natural sweetener used in gums and mints, to prevent inner ear infections in healthy children, a new evidence review finds.

11 Nov 2011

Children can have successful surgical repairs for hollow or sunken chest

Hollow or sunken chest, the most common congenital deformity of the chest wall affecting one in 300 to one in 400 children, is rarely life-threatening and virtually all children can have successful surgical repairs.

11 Nov 2011

Johns Hopkins to establish new global center for childhood obesity

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has been awarded a $16 million U54 cooperative agreement from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish a global center of excellence to address the childhood obesity epidemic.

11 Nov 2011

Longer looks: Do extra brain cells offer a clue to autism?; doctors leaving medicine

There's growing evidence that the brains of autistic children are very different from the brains of other youngsters. Now a new study that found an excess of brain cells in children with autism comes closer to pinpointing the origins of the condition: in utero versus in toddlerhood. In research reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), scientists at the University of California, San Diego, found that autistic children have about 67% more nerve cells in a part of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex than children without autism.

11 Nov 2011