Detroit public school children living with asthma may have fewer absences and improve their grades with the help of a new comprehensive asthma program.In a study
Canadian province Alberta wants to be able to remove children from the homes of parents who recklessly abuse drugs or are involved in selling them.According to Premier Ralph Klein the new legislation, being developed by Children's Services Mini
The Government of Canada today announced the release of A Canada Fit for Children , its official response to the commitments made on May 10, 2002, at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Ch
In a recently published study, Mayo Clinic researchers determined Math Learning Disorder (LD) is common among school-age children. Results show that boys are more likely to have Math LD tha
Children with sickle cell disease, an inherited red blood-cell disorder, are living longer, dying less often from their disease and contracting fewer fatal infections than ever before, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas report.
The theory that whether a child born by cesarean section or in the normal way, via the birth canal, could affect his or her chances of developing asthma later in life, has been laid to rest.According to new research the mode of delivery at birt
According to a poll of doctors in the U.S., most would be prepared to give 11- and 12-year-old patients a vaccine to prevent infection with a sexually transmitted virus. The survey by University
Young children who live in households with one or more unrelated adults are nearly 50 times as likely to die from an inflicted injury, usually being shaken or struck, as children living with two biologic parents, report researchers from the
The first national study to look at the connection between smoking in movies and smoking initiation among adolescents shows that exposure to smoking in popular films is a primary risk factor in determining whether young people will start smoking.
A heart charity in the UK has launched a campaign to shock children away from junk food.The British Heart Foundation,
The researchers benchmarked the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency, anemia, iodine-deficiency disorders and underweight children as measures of malnutrition in developing regions.
"Finding ways to meet the basic nutritional requirements of humans for optimal growth and development is essential to global health and economic success," says lead author John Mason, professor of international health and development. "Malnutrition has serious economic consequences. People who lack some or all of these important micronutrients have significantly lower IQs, reduced work productivity, compromised immune systems. and delayed mental development."
Mason says that seemingly simple solutions, such as promoting the use of iodized table salt to prevent iodine deficiency, can be challenging in remote or extremely impoverished regions. Yet, he says, the societal benefit of continuing to promote such interventions is clear.
"Without iodized salt there would be about twice as many iodine deficiencies," says Mason. "The increased use of iodized salt over the past decades has saved close to 800 million people from iodine deficiency. At the beginning of the 1990s nearly one in five people in developing regions had an iodine deficiency. Now the rate is between six and eight percent."
According to the report, Vitamin A deficiency persists in about one percent of the population, but is slated for elimination.
Anemia, a deficiency in iron, exists in 50 to 60 percent in women in Asia and is not showing signs of improvement, Mason says. Thailand and Vietnam are exceptions. According to Mason, identifying and implementing suitable interventions to increase iron consumption in Asia is proving difficult because rice, a staple food, can not be fortified with iron. Anemia also persists as an extensive deficiency in young children in the developing world.
The 100-plus page report titled "Recent trends in Developing Regions: vitamin A deficiency, anemia, iodine deficiency and child underweight" was written based on detailed geographic analyses conducted by Tulane researchers, in collaboration with UNICEF and supported by Micronutrient Initiative. The report is published worldwide and is available through the Academic Press.
"We stressed that here is a need to continue the emphasis on salt iodization," Mason says. "The difficult part is yet to come. We need better methods of addressing iron deficiency, particularly for people whose staple food is rice, which can not easily be fortified with iron. Vitamin A deficiency needs more effective supplementation programs and extended fortification. These results show where there is progress but emphasize need for renewed efforts, and will provide a basis for the world community to measure progress towards our goals."
http://www.tulane.edu/