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Watching TV for 3 hours daily may up diabetes risk in kids

Agencies
July 31, 2017

London, Jul 31: Parents, take note! Being glued to television or video games for more than three hours a day may put your children at increased risk of developing diabetes, a study warns.

Researchers found that both adiposity, which describes total body fat, and insulin resistance, which occurs when cells fail to respond to insulin, were affected by longer hours of watching television and using computers.

"Our findings suggest that reducing screen time may be beneficial in reducing type 2 diabetes risk factors, in both boys and girls, from an early age," said Claire Nightingale, research fellow at St George's, University of London in the UK.

Researchers based their findings on a sample of nearly 4,500 nine to 10-year-old pupils from 200 primary schools in London, Birmingham and Leicester.

The children were assessed for a series of metabolic and cardiovascular risk factors, including blood fats, insulin resistance, fasting blood glucose levels, blood pressure and body fat.

They were asked about their daily screen time to include TV, computers, and games consoles.

Complete information was obtained for 4,495 (2,337 girls and 2,158 boys) out of the 5,887 who took part in the study between 2004 and 2007; additional data on physical activity was also available for 2,031 of them.

Around a third of the children spent less than an hour of screen time a day, but 28 per cent of the children said they clocked up one to two hours; 13 per cent said their tally was two to three hours; and 18 per cent said they spent more than three hours looking at screens every day.

Trends emerged between screen time and ponderal index—an indicator of weight in relation to height, and skinfolds thickness and fat mass index—indicators of total body fat.

Researchers found that these levels were all higher in children reporting more than three hours of daily screen time than in those who said they spent an hour or less on it.

The team also noted that there was a strong trend between levels of screen time and higher levels of leptin, the hormone that controls appetite, and insulin resistance. The trends remained significant even after taking account of potentially influential factors, including physical activity levels, researchers said.

Previous studies in adults had indicated that spending a lot of time in front of a screen is linked to a heightened risk of weight gain and type 2 diabetes, but until now it has not been clear that children might also be at risk.

"It would be very difficult to carry out this research today as smartphones and tablets are so universal. Children today therefore spend even more time looking at a screen than when the original dataset was taken," Nightingale said. The study was published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.

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Agencies
June 22,2020

A team of scientists has produced first open source all-atom models of full-length COVID-19 Spike protein that facilitates viral entry into host cells – a discovery that can facilitate a faster vaccine and antiviral drug development.

The group from Seoul National University in South Korea, University of Cambridge in the UK and Lehigh University in the US produced the first open-source all-atom models of a full-length S protein.

The researchers say this is of particular importance because the S protein plays a central role in viral entry into cells, making it a main target for vaccine and antiviral drug development.

"Our models are the first full-length SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein models that are available to other scientists," said Wonpil Im, a professor in Lehigh University.

"Our team spent days and nights to build these models very carefully from the known cryo-EM structure portions. Modeling was very challenging because there were many regions where simple modeling failed to provide high-quality models," he wrote in a paper published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry B.

Scientists can use the models to conduct innovative and novel simulation research for the prevention and treatment of Covid-19.

Though the coronavirus uses many different proteins to replicate and invade cells, the Spike protein is the major surface protein that it uses to bind to a receptor.

The total number of global COVID-19 cases was nearing 9 million, while the deaths have increased to over 467,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

With 2,279,306 cases and 119,967 deaths, the US continues with the world's highest number of COVID-19 infections and fatalities, according to the CSSE.

Brazil comes in the second place with 1,083,341 infections and 50,591 deaths.

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Agencies
August 2,2020

Washington, Aug 2: Children under the age of five have between 10 to 100 times greater levels of genetic material of the coronavirus in their noses compared to older children and adults, a study in JAMA Pediatrics said Thursday.

Its authors wrote this meant that young children might be important drivers of Covid-19 transmission within communities -- a suggestion at odds with the current prevailing narrative.

The paper comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump is pushing hard for schools and daycare to reopen in order to kickstart the economy.

Between March 23 and April 27, researchers carried out nasal swab tests on 145 Chicago patients with mild to moderate illness within one week of symptom onset.

The patients were divided into three groups: 46 children younger than five-years-old, 51 children aged five to 17 years, and 48 adults aged 18 to 65 years.

The team, led by Dr Taylor Heald-Sargent of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital, observed, "a 10-fold to 100-fold greater amount of SARS-CoV-2 in the upper respiratory tract of young children."

15 countries with the highest number of cases, deaths due to the Covid-19 pandemic

The authors added that a recent lab study had demonstrated that the more viral genetic material was present, the more infectious virus could be grown.

It has also previously been shown that children with high viral loads of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are more likely to spread the disease.

"Thus, young children can potentially be important drivers of SARS-CoV-2 spread in the general population," the authors wrote.

"Behavioral habits of young children and close quarters in school and daycare settings raise concern for SARS-CoV-2 amplification in this population as public health restrictions are eased," they concluded.

The new findings are at odds with the current view among health authorities that young children -- who, it has been well established, are far less likely to fall seriously ill from the virus -- don't spread it much to others either.

However, there has been fairly little research on the topic so far.

One recent study in South Korea found children aged 10 to 19 transmitted Covid-19 within households as much as adults, but children under nine transmitted the virus at lower rates.

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Agencies
February 26,2020

Feb 26: While too much stress can be toxic to your health, a new study suggests that despite its negative side effects, it may also lead to a surprising social benefit.

The research, published in the journal Stress & Health, found that experiencing stress made people both more likely to give and receive emotional support from another person.

This was true on the day they experienced the stressor as well as the following day.

"Our findings suggest that just because we have a bad day, that doesn't mean it has to be completely unhealthy," said study researcher David Almeida from Penn State University in the US.

"If stress can actually connect us with other people, which I think is absolutely vital to the human experience, I think that's a benefit. Stress could potentially help people deal with negative situations by driving them to be with other people," Almeida added.

For the study, the researchers interviewed 1,622 participants every night for eight nights. They asked the participants about their stressors and whether they gave or received emotional support on that day.

Stressors included arguments, stressful events at work or school, and stressful events at home.

The researchers found that on average, participants were more than twice as likely to either give or receive emotional support on days they experienced a stressor.

Additionally, they were 26 per cent more likely to give or receive support the following day.

The researchers said that while this effect, on average, was found across the participants, it differed slightly between men and women.

"Women tended to engage in more giving and receiving emotional support than men," said study researcher Hye Won Chai.

"In our study, men were also more likely to engage in emotional support on days they were stressed, but to a lesser extent than women," Chai added.

The researchers said they were surprised that stress was linked to people not just receiving emotional support, but giving it, as well.

"We saw that someone experiencing a stressor today actually predicted them giving emotional support the next day," Almeida said.

"This made me think that it's actually possible that stress helps to drive you to other people and allows it to be ok to talk about problems -- your problems, my problems," Almeida added.

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