Dairy-free diets and other unconventional food regimes may put boys with autism-related disorders at higher risk of bone-thinning, says research by the US National Institutes of Health. The study, in the Journal Of Autism And Other Developmental Disorders (Feb), suggests that children with autism-related conditions are at risk of poor bone development anyway, for reasons such as lack of exercise and a reluctance to eat a varied diet.
Frequent snoring appears to be linked to the development of chronic bronchitis, say Korean researchers at University Ansan Hospital. Health records of 4,270 people show that those who snore six to seven times a week are 68 per cent more likely to develop the lung condition than nonsnorers, reports the research in the Archives of Internal Medicine (Jan 28).
Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are nearly four times more likely than other children to be bullies, says a study by Uppsala University in Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology (Feb). The year-long study of 577 teenagers also found that children with ADHD are ten times more likely to become the victims of bullying.
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People with chronic hepatitis C infection (HCV) should not smoke cannabis every day, say University of California, San Francisco, investigators in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology (Feb). The study of 204 patients found that HCV patients who used cannabis every day have a sevenfold increased risk of developing moderate to severe liver fibrosis, or tissue scarring. Adding moderate to heavy alcohol use made the risk even greater.
The higher a person’s level of education, the lower their risk of stunting their offspring through malnutrition. Experts at Purdue University and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine report in The Lancet (Jan 28) how the records of almost a million families found that maternal education in particular had an impact on reducing stunted child development, which is an indicator of other outcomes such as poor intellectual and emotional development.