by Lenny Bernstein White House physician Ronny L. Jackson allegedly provided travelers on White House trips with Ambien, a prescription sedative that is widely regarded as a safe drug that poses little risk of addiction. Nearly 30 million Americans take it for it insomnia — the vast majority of them in its generic form, zolpidem — for a single night or for longer periods of sleeplessness. But that doesn't mean a physician can hand out the drug “like candy,” as Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said Jackson did, without inquiring about other medications a patient might be taking, drug history or other medical issues, experts said. “Any physician prescribing a controlled substance should have a doctor-patient relationship, just because of knowing the other health problems and the other medications,” said Cathy Goldstein, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Michigan School of Medicine and a physician at the Michigan Medicine Sleep Disorders Center. Taking Ambien, “you could get hurt. You could be disruptive, especially if you're using it with alcohol.” Ambien and the stimulant Provigil, which Tester said Jackson dispensed to help travelers awaken, are Schedule IV controlled substances in the government's five-category ranking of drugs' risk of abuse. But like any medication, they pose some risk, particularly in certain groups. © 1996-2018 The Washington Post

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 24903 - Posted: 04.26.2018

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR Over-the-counter pain pills are safer and more effective than prescription opioids for controlling the pain following dental procedures, a review of the evidence has found. Researchers analyzed five reviews of studies of medication and medication combinations for pain relief. They included only reviews of high or moderate methodological quality. The data included many randomized trials on the use of oral medication for the most severe kinds of postoperative dental pain — for example, the pain following the extraction of a molar. More than three dozen drugs and drug combinations were tested in various dosages. The study is in The Journal of the American Dental Association. The researchers conclude that the most effective pain relief with the fewest side effects comes from a combination of 400 milligrams of ibuprofen (Advil and other brands) with 1,000 milligrams of acetaminophen (Tylenol). No opioid or opioid-containing medicine or any other combination of drugs was more effective. A co-author, Anita Aminoshariae, an associate professor at Case Western University, said there may be some people who can get relief only with opioids. But for most patients, she said, opioids are not only less effective, they also have unpleasant side effects, including nausea, constipation and dizziness. They also carry a high risk of addiction. “You have to start with an NSAID,” she said, meaning a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. “If that doesn’t work, add Tylenol. No one should go home in pain, but opioids should not be the first choice.” © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 24902 - Posted: 04.26.2018

By Kerry Grens Thermometers in the mouse brain are responsible for a lack of appetite the animals feel after a vigorous workout. Simply firing up heat-sensing receptors on cells in the mouse hypothalamus can reproduce the same appetite-suppressing effects of exercise, researchers report today (April 24) in PLOS Biology. “Our study provides evidence that body temperature can act as a biological signal that regulates feeding behavior, just like hormones and nutrients do,” says coauthor Young-Hwan Jo, a neuroscientist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in a press release. It’s a fairly common observation among people that working out staves off hunger for a short while afterward. And it turns out the same is true in mice. Jo’s group had mice run a treadmill for 40 minutes, and observed that their brains were warmer and they ate less for the next hour. To see what might be responsible for this effect, Jo and his colleagues centered in on the hypothalamus, given its role in regulating eating. They found that in mice, neurons in the hypothalamus—specifically, in the arcuate nucleus (ARC) of the hypothalamus—produce heat-sensitive receptors called TRPV1. Through a variety of methods, including the application of capsaicin, a compound found in hot chili peppers, the investigators revealed that flipping on TRPV1 could tamp down mice’s appetites. On the flip side, disrupting the receptor wiped out the appetite-suppressing effects of exercise. © 1986-2018 The Scientist

Keyword: Obesity; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 24901 - Posted: 04.26.2018

By Catherine Matacic Four years after Frank Seifart started documenting endangered dialects in Colombia, the guerillas came. In 2004, soldiers from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia swept past the Amazonian village where he did most of his fieldwork. The linguist reluctantly left for another village, south of the Peruvian border. When he got there, the chief was away. In the central roundhouse, an old man beat out a rhythm on two enormous drums: “A stranger has arrived. Come home.” And the chief did. It was the first time Seifart, now at the University of Cologne and the French National Center for Scientific Research in Lyon, had heard the traditional drums not just making music, but sending a message. Now, he and his colleagues have published the first in-depth study of how the drummers do it: Tiny variations in the time between beats match how words in the spoken language are vocalized. The finding, reported today in the Royal Society Open Science, reveals how the group known as the Bora can create complex drummed messages. It may also help explain how the rest of us “get” what others are saying at loud cocktail parties, by detecting those tiny variations in time even when other sounds are drowned out. “It is quite innovative,” says descriptive linguist Katarzyna Wojtylak, a postdoctoral research fellow at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, who has studied the language and drumming systems of the Witoto, a related group. “Nobody has ever done such an extensive and detailed analysis of rhythm in a drummed language.” © 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 24900 - Posted: 04.25.2018

Alison Abbott Neuroscientist Michael Heneka knows that radical ideas require convincing data. In 2010, very few colleagues shared his belief that the brain’s immune system has a crucial role in dementia. So in May of that year, when a batch of new results provided the strongest evidence he had yet seen for his theory, he wanted to be excited, but instead felt nervous. He and his team had eliminated a key inflammation gene from a strain of mouse that usually develops symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. The modified mice seemed perfectly healthy. They sailed through memory tests and showed barely a sign of the sticky protein plaques that are a hallmark of the disease. Yet Heneka knew that his colleagues would consider the results too good to be true. Even he was surprised how well the mice fared; he had expected that removal of the gene, known as Nlpr3, would protect their brains a little, but not that it would come close to preventing dementia symptoms. “I thought something must have gone wrong with the experiments,” says Heneka, from the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Bonn. He reanalysed the results again and again. It was past midnight when he finally conceded that they might actually be true. Over the next couple of years, he confirmed that nothing had gone wrong with the experiments. Together with his colleagues, he replicated and elaborated on the results1. © 2018 Macmillan Publishers Limited

Keyword: Alzheimers; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 24899 - Posted: 04.25.2018

Amina Zafar · CBC News Exercise helps protect against depression regardless of age or location in the world, a large new analysis suggests. Researchers pooled data from 49 studies to create a sample of more than 266,000 people on four continents to examine the role of physical activity in preventing depression. "The key message is that really when it comes to exercise and our mental health that something is better than nothing," said study author Simon Rosenbaum, senior research fellow in the School of Psychiatry at the University of New South Wales in Australia. "And if you're doing something, try to add a little bit more." The findings were published in Tuesday's issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. Rosenbaum said the meta-analysis builds on a growing body of evidence on how exercise can also be an important part of treatment for people living with mental illness. Those who followed weekly guidelines to get 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity, such as cycling or brisk walking, were less likely to develop depression over nearly eight years of followup compared with those who didn't meet the guideline. Rosenbaum, an exercise physiologist, said the challenge is to support people to take the first step to get active by offering enough social support, access and the right environment. Rosenbaum, who enjoys kayaking and rock climbing, suggested that people should do physical activity that they enjoy and are able to fit into their routine. That way, they're more likely to keep it up in the long term. ©2018 CBC/Radio-Canada.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 24898 - Posted: 04.25.2018

By PAM BELLUCK PORTLAND, Ore. — By the time her mother received the doctor’s email, Yuna Lee was already 2 years old, a child with a frightening medical mystery. Plagued with body-rattling seizures and inconsolable crying, she could not speak, walk or stand. “Why is she suffering so much?” her mother, Soo-Kyung Lee, anguished. Brain scans, genetic tests and neurological exams yielded no answers. But when an email popped up suggesting that Yuna might have a mutation on a gene called FOXG1, Soo-Kyung froze. “I knew,” she said, “what that gene was.” Almost no one else in the world would have had any idea. But Soo-Kyung is a specialist in the genetics of the brain—“a star,” said Robert Riddle, a program director in neurogenetics at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. For years, Soo-Kyung, a developmental biologist at Oregon Health and Science University, had worked with the FOX family of genes. “I knew how critical FOXG1 is for brain development,” she said. She also knew harmful FOXG1 mutations are exceedingly rare and usually not inherited — the gene mutates spontaneously during pregnancy. Only about 300 people worldwide are known to have FOXG1 syndrome, a condition designated a separate disorder relatively recently. The odds her own daughter would have it were infinitesimal. “It is an astounding story,” Dr. Riddle said. “A basic researcher working on something that might help humanity, and it turns out it directly affects her child.” Suddenly, Soo-Kyung, 42, and her husband Jae Lee, 57, another genetics specialist at O.H.S.U., had to transform from dispassionate scientists into parents of a patient, desperate for answers. © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 24897 - Posted: 04.24.2018

Alexey Ponomarenko & Tatiana Korotkova The body’s basic needs include a timely supply of nutrients and the avoidance of tissue damage, which are signalled in the brain by hunger and pain, respectively. But these needs cannot be fulfilled simultaneously, because their resolution involves mutually exclusive behaviours. How does the brain prioritize the more urgent need? Writing in Cell, Alhadeff et al.1 report that the brain’s priorities are set depending on the type of pain involved. Hunger-mediating neurons suppress long-term inflammatory pain, but acute pain, which signals an immediate threat, dampens the activity of these neurons and thus deprioritizes feeding. Alhadeff and colleagues deprived mice of food for 24 hours, and analysed how the hungry animals responded to pain. The researchers found that responses to long-term inflammatory pain — of the type associated with chronic disease and recovery from injury — were reduced in the food-deprived animals compared with controls. By contrast, short-term responses to acute pain that was induced by chemicals, heat or force remained intact in hungry mice. The brain’s hypothalamus contains several structures involved in regulating food intake. One of these, the arcuate nucleus, harbours a population of neurons that express agouti-related protein (AgRP), and help to signal nutritional needs — activation of these neurons evokes voracious feeding2, whereas their ablation leads to starvation3,4. Alhadeff et al. found that stimulation of the AgRP-expressing neurons mimicked the pain-inhibiting effect of hunger in mice. By contrast, silencing of these cells blocked the reduction of inflammatory pain. © 2018 Macmillan Publishers Limited,

Keyword: Obesity; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 24896 - Posted: 04.24.2018

Why do you look so angry? This article hasn’t even begun and already you disapprove. Why can’t I ever win with you? I see it in your face. If this sounds unfamiliar, good for you. You don’t need this. For the rest of us, it may be helpful to know that some people seem to have outsized difficulty with reading neutral faces as neutral, even if they are exceptionally accurate at interpreting other facial expressions. Over the past decade psychologists have been piecing together why this occurs.. .. A study published in March in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships suggests that some people who grew up with parents who fought a lot never learned to properly read those in-between faces, perhaps because they spent so much time watching out for signs of conflict. “Angry interactions could be a cue for them to retreat to their room,” said Alice Schermerhorn, a developmental psychologist at the University of Vermont and the author of the study. “By comparison, neutral interactions might not offer much information, so children may not value them and therefore may not learn to recognize them.” These findings build on previous research indicating that depression, anxiety and irritability can affect how a person perceives other people’s faces. It has also been shown that adults who were exposed to violence, neglect or physical abuse in childhood are more likely to see hostility where there is none. This can create a self-reinforcing cycle. © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions; Aggression
Link ID: 24895 - Posted: 04.24.2018

An epilepsy drug that can damage unborn babies must no longer be prescribed to girls and women of childbearing age in the UK unless they sign a form to say that they understand the risks. Drug regulator the MHRA says the new measures it's introducing will keep future generations of children safe. Those already on valproate medication should see their GP to have their treatment reviewed. No woman or girl should stop taking it without medical advice though. It is thought about 20,000 children in the UK have been left with disabilities caused by valproate since the drug was introduced in the 1970s. Affected families have called for a public inquiry and compensation. Epilepsy charities say one in five women on sodium valproate are unaware that taking it during pregnancy can harm the development and physical health of an unborn baby. Image caption This warning has been on the outside of valproate pill packets since 2016 in Britain And more than one in four have not been given information about risks for their unborn child. The MHRA has changed the licence for valproate, which means any doctor prescribing it will have to ensure female patients are put on a Pregnancy Prevention Programme, © 2018 BBC

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Epilepsy
Link ID: 24894 - Posted: 04.24.2018

By RUTH MARGALIT Harvey Karp, the pediatrician, parenting expert and inventor-slash-entrepreneur, cuts an unimposing figure. Lean and agile, with wispy dark hair, blue-rimmed glasses and a bounce in his step, Karp hugs like the Angeleno he has become and deadpans like the New Yorker he once was. Gray has infiltrated his beard and his eyes are a little hooded, but he still makes for a young 66. He used to dress only in blue button-up shirts with matching sweater vests and bulbous ties in a seemingly self-conscious take on the Nutty Professor, but he has graduated to a darker navy, with slim-fitting jeans, an occasional blazer and a pair of Converse or laceless Vans: his transformation into a hip West Coast chief executive — Prius included — complete. Karp is the author of “The Happiest Baby on the Block,” the 2002 book on newborn sleeping and soothing techniques that has sold more than a million copies and remains on Amazon’s 10 best-selling parenting books — a “category killer,” in the words of its publisher. An accompanying DVD, released the following year, is the most watched child-rearing DVD ever. These days, Karp, who no longer practices medicine, is hoping to capitalize on the trust he has won from parents and sell them on his new product: a $1,160 robotic bassinet called SNOO that he invented with his wife, Nina Montée, and for which they have raised $30 million in two rounds of funding. One Saturday afternoon last summer, Karp found himself riding an empty elevator to the 10th story of a boxy high-rise on Manhattan’s East Side, on a speaking tour to promote the four-figure bed that he is convinced could prevent postpartum depression by improving babies’ — and parents’ — sleep. © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 24893 - Posted: 04.24.2018

Allison Aubrey As more states legalize marijuana, there's growing interest in a cannabis extract — cannabidiol, also known as CBD. It's marketed as a compound that can help relieve anxiety — and, perhaps, help ease aches and pains, too. Part of the appeal, at least for people who don't want to get high, is that CBD doesn't have the same mind-altering effects as marijuana, since it does not contain THC, the psychoactive component of the plant. "My customers are buying CBD [for] stress relief," says Richard Ferry, the retail manager of Home Grown Apothecary in Portland, Ore., where recreational marijuana use is legal under state law, with some restrictions. Another rationale Ferry's heard from clients about their CBD use: "Their mother-in-law is in town, and they just want to chill out!" "CBD has gotten a lot of buzz," Ferry says, as he displays an array of CBD products, including capsules and bottles of liquid CBD oil that users dispense under the tongue with a dropper. By one estimate, the CBD industry has doubled in size over the last two years, and is now worth $200 million. But with this popularity the hype may have gotten ahead of the science. © 2018 npr

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Stress
Link ID: 24892 - Posted: 04.24.2018

By Jeremy Rehm Whales can sing, buzz, and even whisper to one another, but one thing has remained unknown about these gregarious giants: how they hear. Given the size of some whales and their ocean home, studying even the basics of these mammals has proved challenging. But two researchers have now developed a way to determine how baleen whales such as humpbacks hear their low-frequency (10- to 200-hertz) chatter, and they found some bone-rattling results. Baleen whales have a maze of ear bones that fuse to their skull, leading scientists to suppose the skull helps whales hear. Under this premise, the researchers used a computerized tomography scanner meant for rockets to scan the preserved bodies of a minke whale calf (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) and a fin whale calf (B. physalus), both of which had stranded themselves along U.S. coasts years before and died during rescue operations. Their preserved bodies were kept as scientific specimens. The researchers used these body scans (an example of which is displayed above) to produce 3D computer models to study how the skull responded to different sound frequencies. The skull acts like an antenna, the scientists reported today in San Diego, California, at the 2018 Experimental Biology conference, vibrating as sound waves impact it and then transmitting those vibrations to the whale’s ears. For ease of viewing, the scientists amplified the vibrations 20,000 times. Whale skulls were especially sensitive to the low-frequency sounds they speak with, the researchers found, but large shipping vessels also produce these frequencies. This new information could now help large-scale shipping industries and policymakers establish regulations to minimize the effects of humanmade noise on these ocean giants. © 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 24891 - Posted: 04.24.2018

By Jim Daley Male fruit flies enjoy ejaculating, according to research published yesterday (April 20) in Current Biology. The study also found that when fruit flies are denied sex, they consume more alcohol than usual. It is the first study to demonstrate that insects find sex pleasurable. “We wanted to know which part of the mating process entails the rewarding value for flies,” says Galit Shohat-Ophir, a neurobiologist at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, in a statement. “The actions that males perform during courtship? A female’s pheromones? The last step of mating which is sperm and seminal fluid release?” To test if the latter is pleasurable, Shohat-Ophi and her colleagues used genetically engineered male fruit flies whose neurons controlling ejaculation can be activated by red light. These flies spent more time near the red light, presumably because they found ejaculation pleasurable, the authors say in the statement. David Anderson, a neurobiologist at Caltech who was not part of the study, tells National Geographic that it’s possible the pleasure the flies experienced wasn’t from ejaculation, but other reward systems in the brain that the stimulated neurons act upon. Next, the researchers plied the flies with alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks and observed their response. The flies that had ejaculated preferred nonalcoholic drinks, while those that had not been exposed to the red light chose the alcoholic ones. “Male flies that are sexually deprived have increased motivation to consume alcohol as an alternative reward,” says Shohat-Ophi in the statement. © 1986-2018 The Scientist

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 24890 - Posted: 04.21.2018

By SHEILA KAPLAN WASHINGTON — A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel on Thursday unanimously recommended approval of an epilepsy medication made with an ingredient found in marijuana. If the agency follows the recommendation, as is expected, the drug would be the first cannabis-derived prescription medicine available in the United States. The drug, called Epidiolex, is made by GW Pharmaceuticals, a British company. Its active ingredient, cannabidiol, also called CBD, is one of the chemical compounds found in the cannabis plant, but it does not contain the properties that make people high. That makes it different from the “medical marijuana” allowed by a growing number of states. In those cases, certain patients are legally authorized to smoke or ingest marijuana to treat severe pain, nausea and other ailments. There are already several drugs on the market that are derived from synthetic versions of THC and other chemicals of the cannabis plant, generally used to ease nausea in cancer patients, and to help AIDS patients avoid weight loss. Advocates for development of marijuana-based treatments, and those pushing for better treatments of epilepsy, were pleased with the panel’s recommendation. “This is a very good development, and it basically underscores that there are medicinal properties to some of the cannabinoids,” said Dr. Igor Grant, director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at the University of California San Diego. “I think there could well be other cannabinoids that are of therapeutic use, but there is just not enough research on them to say.” © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Epilepsy; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 24889 - Posted: 04.21.2018

BREANNE SEARING, Evergreen reporter As more states have legalized recreational cannabis, it has grown more popular among pregnant women. A WSU undergraduate researcher thinks the scientific community needs to take a closer look at the behavior of adults who were exposed to cannabis while in the womb. Neuroscience senior Collin Warrick has conducted research on the effects of prenatal cannabis vapor on the cognitive flexibility of rats. Warrick said cannabis is the most common illicit drug among pregnant women. Despite this, little to no research has been done on its effects on offspring cognition as they mature. Warrick said the lack of medical warnings on legal cannabis products comes from this lack of research. “I have not come across anything that has been black labeled,” Warrick said, “there is no Surgeon General’s warning against cannabis, I think primarily because there hasn’t been enough studies looking at the negative effects.” Ryan McLaughlin, an assistant professor of integrative physiology and neuroscience who worked with Warrick, said long-term ramifications of cannabis vapor on developing offspring are unknown. “Now that cannabis is legal for the next generation of mothers,” McLaughlin said, “they may see less of a stigma and less of a perceived harm associated with smoking a joint during pregnancy, as they would maybe from having a drink of wine or smoking cigarettes.” © 2018

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 24888 - Posted: 04.21.2018

by Amy Ellis Nutt In a study published this week in the American Journal of Psychiatry, researchers report that an esketamine trial resulted in a “rapid improvement in depressive symptoms” in people with severe, treatment-resistant depression. Forty-nine patients completed the four-week trial. Doses were administered twice weekly, and the esketamine quickly showed an effect. Just four hours after the initial dose, people receiving the drug experienced a significant reduction in depressive symptoms. Carla Canuso, who was one of the lead researchers in the study and works with Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals, called the results “robustly significant.” But a rare editorial signed by the majority of the board of the American Journal of Psychiatry that appeared in the same issue as the study expressed deep concerns about the danger of a drug with a history of abuse. “We felt it was a problem that really needed particular attention [because] it at least has the potential for causing similar problems to the opioids,” said Robert Freedman, editor of the journal. “That was our single overriding concern.” Ketamine was approved as a rapid-onset anesthetic decades ago and was an important battlefield tool for medics during the Vietnam War. During the 1970s and '80s, it became better known as Special-K for its psychedelic properties and later, more notoriously, made headlines as a date-rape drug. © 1996-2018 The Washington Post

Keyword: Depression; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 24887 - Posted: 04.21.2018

By Matt Warren There is no one gene that, when mutated, causes autism. But over the past decade, researchers have identified hundreds of gene variations that seem to affect brain development in ways that increase the risk of autism. However, these scientists mainly searched for variants in the DNA that directly encodes the building blocks of proteins. Now, a new study probing so-called noncoding DNA has found that alterations in regions that regulate gene activity may also contribute to autism. And surprisingly, these variations tended to be inherited from fathers who aren’t autistic. “This is a really good article—it’s somewhat provocative and it makes us think about [autism genetics in a] different way,” says Lucia Peixoto, a neuroscientist and computational biologist at Washington State University in Spokane, who was not involved in the research. “I think it’s a great contribution to the field.” Research into the genetic risk for autism has mainly focused on how mutations that arise spontaneously in an individual’s genome—rather than being inherited from a parent—disrupt protein-coding regions and lead to the condition. That’s because these sporadic mutations have relatively large effects and studies have shown that such mutations, although individually rare, together contribute to about 25% to 30% of cases, says Jonathan Sebat, a geneticist at the University of California, San Diego. But only about 2% of the genome consists of protein-coding areas. Sebat says the large noncoding portion of our DNA—often previously referred to as “junk DNA”—has so far been ignored in autism research. © 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Autism; Epigenetics
Link ID: 24886 - Posted: 04.21.2018

By CEYLAN YEGINSU A new study has shed more light on the revelations that Hans Asperger, the Austrian pediatrician for whom a form of autism is named, had collaborated with the Nazis and actively assisted in the killing of disabled children. Published on Wednesday in the journal Molecular Autism by the medical historian Herwig Czech, the report relies on eight years of research that included the examination of previously unseen Nazi-era documents. The study concludes that though Dr. Asperger was not a member of the Nazi Party, he had participated in the Third Reich’s child-euthanasia program, which aimed to establish a “pure” society by eliminating those deemed a “burden.” Dr. Asperger referred disabled children to the notorious Am Spiegelgrund clinic in Vienna, where hundreds were either drugged or gassed to death from 1940 to 1945. “The picture that emerges is that of a man who managed to further his career under the Nazi regime, despite his apparent political and ideological distance from it,” Mr. Czech, of the University of Vienna, wrote in his study. Asperger syndrome is a lifelong developmental disability associated with autism that affects perception and social interaction. About one in 68 children in the United States have been identified with Autism Spectrum Disorder. © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 24885 - Posted: 04.21.2018

Jaclyn was diagnosed with myopia, or nearsightedness, at the age of age four. "I was surprised to learn that she needed glasses," recalled her mother, Ellen Rosenberg, in Toronto. Jaclyn wears glasses all the time at school, where they help her to read and write, she said. Her vision isn't so poor that she trips on things when she takes them off to play sports, Rosenberg said. But in a recent study, more than 30 per cent of young Canadian children walked around with fuzzy vision because of myopia that, unlike Jaclyn's, went undiagnosed. Now experts are exploring a simple way to turn the tide on the worsening problem. Myopia is "increasing globally at an alarming rate," according to the World Health Organization. It affects an estimated 1.89 billion people worldwide, and if rates don't change, that could rise to 2.56 billion by 2020 — a third of the population. Research suggests spending time outdoors protects against myopia. (Pond5) In what they call the first study of its kind in Canada, optometrists in Waterloo, Ont., found the rate of myopia was six per cent in children aged 6 to 8. That soared to 28.9 per cent in children aged 11 to 13. In myopia or nearsightedness, the eyeball doesn't get enough light and elongates. The condition isn't innocuous, said study author Debbie Jones, a clinical professor of optometry at the University of Waterloo and a scientist at the Centre for Ocular Research & Education. ©2018 CBC/Radio-Canada.

Keyword: Vision; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 24884 - Posted: 04.21.2018