Parents should limit children's screentime to prevent obesity, suggests study

Washington D.C, Feb 10: Children's vulnerability towards depression, anxiety, impulsive behaviour, and poor cognitive performance could be determined by considering the hours of sleep they manage to get.

Sleep states are active processes that support the reorganisation of brain circuitry. This makes sleep especially important for children, whose brains are developing and reorganising rapidly.

In a study by researchers from the University of Warwick -- recently published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry -- cases of 11,000 children aged between 9 and 11 years from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development dataset were analyzed to find out the relationship between sleep duration and brain structure.

The study was carried out by researchers Professor Jianfeng Feng, Professor Edmund Rolls, Dr. Wei Cheng and colleagues from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science and Fudan University.

Measures of depression, anxiety, impulsive behaviour and poor cognitive performance in the children were associated with shorter sleep duration. Moreover, the depressive problems were associated with short sleep duration one year later.

The reduced brain volume of areas such as orbitofrontal cortex, prefrontal, and temporal cortex, precuneus, and supramarginal gyrus was found to be associated with the shorter sleep duration.

Professor Jianfeng Feng, from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science, comments: "The recommended amount of sleep for children 6 to 12 years of age is 9-12 hours. However, sleep disturbances are common among children and adolescents around the world due to the increasing demand on their time from school, increased screen time use, and sports and social activities."

A previous study showed that about 60 per cent of adolescents in the United States receive less than eight hours of sleep on school nights.

Professor Jianfeng Feng further added: "Our findings showed that the total score for behavior problems in children with less than 7 hours sleep was 53 per cent higher on average and the cognitive total score was 7.8 per cent lower on average than for children with 9-11 hours of sleep. It highlights the importance of enough sleep in both cognition and mental health in children."

Professor Edmund Rolls from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science also commented: "These are important associations that have been identified between sleep duration in children, brain structure, and cognitive and mental health measures, but further research is needed to discover the underlying reasons for these relationships."

Drinking coffee may help reduce the risk of certain digestive disorders, including gallstone disease and pancreatitis, a new study has suggested.

The study from the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee (ISIC) also highlighted other beneficial effects that coffee consumption may have on the process of digestion, including supporting gut microflora and promoting gut motility.

"Data indicates benefits against common digestive complaints such as constipation, as well as a potential reduction in the risk of more serious conditions like chronic liver diseases," said study author Carlo La Vecchia from the University of Milan in Italy.

Gallstone disease is a common digestive disorder, caused by the accumulation of gallstones in the gallbladder or bile duct, which affects approximately 10-15 per cent of the adult population.

While the mechanism by which coffee may protect against gallstone disease is not yet known, it has been observed that the risk for the condition declines with increasing daily consumption of coffee, the researchers said.

Caffeine is thought to play a role in these associations, as the same effect is not observed with decaffeinated coffee.

A common question among consumers and focus area for research is whether coffee is associated with heartburn or gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD).

While a small number of studies have suggested an association between coffee drinking and GORD, the majority of studies reviewed suggest that coffee is not a major trigger of these conditions.

The report also reviewed a growing area of health and nutrition research, namely: the effect of coffee on the gut microflora (microorganism populations).

Recent studies suggest that populations of the beneficial gut bacteria Bifidobacterium spp, increase after drinking coffee.

The findings showed the dietary fibre and polyphenols found in coffee, support the healthy growth of microflora populations.

Additional research findings highlighted that coffee consumption is thought to stimulate digestion by encouraging the release of gastric acid, bile and pancreatic secretions.

Coffee is one of the most widely researched components of the diet, and its effect on digestion remains a growing area of research, the researchers noted.

Washington D.C., May 5: Working from home has become the new normal ever since the outbreak of coronavirus and in today's time the work duties can be easily dealt with by means of mobile devices at home.

However, this easy use of technology, mobile devices for that matter, has the potential to blur the fine line between work and the other daily life routines.

But, contrary to the belief, a study at the University of Jyvaskyla reveals that the mixing of work and other daily life routines may have more benefits than previously assumed, and points to the importance of boundary-spanning communication.

A smartphone enables phone calls, email, and file transfers from the comfort of home. The study shows that there may be more effective ways to maximise the benefits of smartphone use, without diminishing employees' flexibility and the use of these technologies.

"People often forget to talk about positive effects, such as autonomy and freedom the employees gain when they have the flexibility to schedule their work," said Postdoctoral Researcher Ward van Zoonen from JYU, who with his colleagues examined the use of smartphones for work matters outside working hours.

The study paid special attention to the benefits of talking about domestic matters with the immediate supervisor outside the working hours given to an employee.

"This reduces the conflict between work and other life," van Zoonen said.

"If people in an organisation strive for more dialogue between employees' different life domains, it is possible to create a functional environment where people can talk about different matters."

The research findings show that when employees communicate across boundaries and talk at work about their life in other respects, they can receive new kinds of support and understanding from their immediate supervisor.

"This kind of communication creates a low threshold for contacting one's supervisor, which helps employees build a balance between the different domains of their lives and strengthens their organisational identification," said Professor Anu Sivunen describing the findings.

This means that tight working time restrictions to protect employees might not be beneficial after all, if they hinder reaching the positive results indicated in this research.

For the study, a survey was taken of 367 employees who were asked questions such as -- how much they talk about their work with their family, and how much they talk about their family with their immediate supervisor.

"Both supervisors and their employees answered the surveys, and the study actually focused on their mutual communication," Sivunen said.

"Usually people at workplaces are interested in how communication within the work community is succeeding. It is often forgotten how an immediate supervisor can take an employer's other life into account and thereby help the employee gain work-related benefits."

"Communication with one's immediate supervisor during flexible working hours, also on matters other than work, could ease the daily lives of many employees if they could share the possible challenges of their family life or free time with their supervisor in these settings," Sivunen added.

According to the study, such a practice could make the supervisor aware of the employee's situation as he/she works from home and the related impacts on their work performances.