College Kids Easily Find Contraband ADHD Drugs, Other Meds

MONDAY, Oct. 19, 2015 (HealthDay News) — It’s easy for U.S. college students to illegally obtain stimulants and other prescription drugs on campus, a new survey finds.

Seventy percent of the more than 3,900 respondents said it was somewhat easy or very easy to get the medications without a prescription. The 2015 College Prescription Drug Study, conducted by Ohio State University, included undergraduate, graduate and professional students at six public and two private colleges and universities in five states.

The survey found that undergraduates were more likely to misuse prescription drugs. Most claimed they used the drugs to help them study or improve their grades.

About 18 percent of undergraduates said they misused prescription stimulants, and 83 percent said they obtained them from friends.

Stimulant use was the most common practice, but students are misusing a number of other types of prescription drugs.

“Overall, one in four undergraduates reported that they used prescription pain medications, sedatives or stimulants for nonmedical reasons in their lifetimes,” study author Anne McDaniel said in a university news release. McDaniel is associate director of research and data management at Ohio State’s Center for the Study of Student Life.

Pain medications were misused by 10 percent of undergraduates, and about one-third of students said it was easy or very easy to obtain them. About 9 percent of undergrads misused sedatives, and 44 percent said it was easy or very easy to get them on campus.

The reasons college students misuse prescription drugs have changed over the years, according to Kenneth Hale, a clinical professor of pharmacy at Ohio State and associate director of its Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Drug Misuse Prevention and Recovery.

“At one time, college students most commonly misused drugs to get high. But today, students also use medications to self-medicate, to manage their lives. They are using drugs to control pain, to go to sleep, to relieve anxiety and to study,” he said in the news release.

Fifty-five percent of students who misused pain medications did so for pain relief, while 46 percent did so to get high. More than half who misused sedatives did so to sleep, while 85 percent did so to help them study or improve their grades, according to the survey.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse has more about prescription drug abuse.

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Very Young Babies Sense Touch Differently

MONDAY, Oct. 19, 2015 (HealthDay News) — When you touch a newborn’s hands or feet, the infant doesn’t identify that sensation the same way older babies, children and adults do, a new study suggests.

This situation lasts for about the first four months of a baby’s life, according to the results published Oct. 19 in the journal Current Biology.

“Our findings are really the first to address what is quite a fundamental question about our sensory experience in early life,” Andrew Bremner of Goldsmiths, University of London, said in a journal news release. “When young babies feel a touch on their hand, can they appreciate where that touch is in the outside world?”

The answer is no, revealed the tickling tests on the feet of 4- and 6-month-old infants.

“We think [this means] that before around 6 months of age, human babies perceive touches just on their bodies, and not in the external world. If one tries to imagine what this must be like — it’s a bit of a dizzying idea,” Bremner said.

The researchers said that young babies perceive touches as just touches on the body. They don’t perceive them as being related to what they see, hear or maybe even smell, Bremner explained.

“[Touches are] not related to objects perceived in vision. To me this sounds like quite an alien sensory world to live in — the tactile world being quite separate from the other sensory worlds,” Bremner said.

The next phase of this research is to learn how and why infants develop a sense of themselves in the world, the investigators said.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about infant and newborn development.

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Poor Patients May Be More Likely to Die After Heart Surgery: Study

MONDAY, Oct. 19, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Poor patients may be at higher risk for death after heart surgery, even in a country with universal health care, a new Swedish study finds.

Researchers examined outcomes for more than 100,000 patients in Sweden who had heart surgery over 14 years. In Sweden, the entire population has access to the same health care plan, and heart surgeries are performed at a small number of medical centers with similar care and performance standards.

The link between low income and increased risk of death remained the same even after the investigators included heart risk factors and other health problems.

The study was published online Oct. 19 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

The connection between low income and higher risk of heart disease is well-established, but most studies are conducted in countries without universal health care, where individual wealth can affect access to health care, the researchers said.

The study authors, led by Dr. Magnus Dalen of Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, said their findings show that the link between low income and increased risk of death after heart surgery cannot be explained by wealth disparities alone, and that further research is needed to find ways to help low-income patients.

There were several limitations to the study. It did not include data on lifestyle habits such as smoking, diet, physical activity, job stress, or on medication use and health care. Only an association and not cause-and-effect link was seen between income and risk of death after surgery.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more about heart surgery.

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Men’s Health Supplements Don’t Benefit Prostate Cancer Patients: Study

By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Oct. 19, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A new study finds no evidence that men’s health supplements help prostate cancer patients.

Although popular, such supplements do not appear to lower the risk for experiencing radiation treatment side effects; the risk that localized cancer will spread; or the risk that prostate cancer patients will die from their disease, researchers found.

The study focused on supplement use among more than 2,200 men newly diagnosed with localized prostate cancer.

“We suspected that these pills were junk. Our study confirmed our suspicion,” said study lead author Dr. Nicholas Zaorsky, resident physician in radiation oncology at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.

Roughly one in two new cancer patients tries some type of dietary supplementation, often without their doctor’s knowledge, the study authors say.

For this study, the pills in question were marketed as “men’s formula” or “prostate health,” often labeled with “clinically proven” or “recommended by urologists” on the bottle, Zaorsky said.

“We’re talking about pills that are subject to very limited oversight and have never been studied,” Zaorsky said.

The patients in this study were 36 and older, and underwent radiation treatment sometime between 2001 and 2012.

About 10 percent were taking one or more of roughly 50 different men’s health supplements either during treatment or in the ensuing four years, Zaorsky said.

Many products bore the wording “clinically proven,” or suggested they had anti-cancer benefits, without indicating what had been proven. None of the various brand formulations had been studied in a clinical trial, the study authors said.

More than 90 percent of the supplements contained saw palmetto. This plant extract is often promoted — without definitive proof — as a treatment for an enlarged prostate. Some ingredients (sometimes listed as “other” or “trade secret enzyme”) remained unidentifiable, the researchers said.

Supplement use was not associated with any negative side effects. But after accounting for lifestyle factors such as exercise, diet and smoking, overall survival was no better for supplement users. And by every other measure, the research team concluded that men’s health supplements offered no benefit with respect to prostate cancer outcomes.

Duffy MacKay, senior vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs for the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a trade association for the dietary supplement industry, disagreed with the findings.

MacKay said that most of the main ingredients in men’s supplements have demonstrated significant health benefits in clinical trials, though not necessarily prostate cancer trials. Moreover, the study’s assertions are the product of “someone with a conclusion in search of data,” he said.

“I don’t know what research databases they’re looking at,” MacKay said. “But they are not offering scientific evidence to support their position. And none of these products claim to treat disease. They’re not allowed to.”

MacKay added that the council encourages responsible supplement messaging, and recommends that patients talk to their doctors about whatever supplements they’re using.

Dietary supplements are not subject to the same clinical trial review process that governs conventional drugs in the United States. The 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act places the burden of safety solely on the shoulders of supplement makers themselves.

Facilities involved in manufacturing dietary supplements must register with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but manufacturers and distributors are on the honor system when it comes to the truth of labeling claims.

Dr. Stephen Freedland, director of the Center for Integrated Research in Cancer and Lifestyle at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said he does not recommend supplements to his patients.

“There is a growing number of studies that show they have no benefit, and may actually do harm,” he said. Often, “patients don’t understand the nuances of the claims being made.

“Maybe [some of these claims are] not mislabeling,” Freedland added. “But it’s misleading.”

The findings were presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology, in San Antonio. Research presented at meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

More information

There’s more on dietary supplement regulations at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

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Study Challenges Theory That Birth Order Determines Personality

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Oct. 19, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Forget what you’re heard about birth order determining your adult personality, a new study suggests.

Birth order does not influence any of the “big five” personality traits — extroversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness or openness to experience, said lead researcher Julia Rohrer, a graduate student at the University of Leipzig in Germany. She and her colleagues reviewed data on more than 20,000 adults from the United States, Great Britain and Germany to arrive at their conclusions.

Firstborns did score higher in intelligence, but Rohrer said she believes this stems more from social interactions within a family than from birth order.

“A firstborn can ‘tutor’ their younger siblings, explaining how the world works and so on,” Rohrer said. “Teaching other people has high cognitive demands — the children need to recall their own knowledge, structure it and think of a good way to explain it — which could be a boost to intelligence for some firstborns.”

Longstanding psychological theory holds that firstborns are privileged but also burdened with responsibility; middle children are attention-seekers who struggle to find their own identity; and the “baby” becomes spoiled from being showered with affection, Rohrer said.

To test this theory, Rohrer and colleagues reviewed personality and intelligence data on 5,240 Americans, 4,489 Britons, and 10,456 Germans, all gathered by national surveys conducted in each country.

The researchers report they were unable to find any pattern of personality traits based on where a person fell within the family. This finding held whether they lumped all the data together or examined each country separately.

“What is most striking about these findings is that they are in conflict with those of other large studies that have shown that birth order differences in personality definitely exist, even if they are rather modest in magnitude,” said Frank Sulloway, an adjunct professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in birth order and personality.

Prior research may have mistaken the effect that kids’ age has on their personality with some potential effect from the order of their birth, Rohrer said.

For example, Rohrer’s own younger sister “often remarks that I act so grown up while she still considers herself immature,” she said.

But is that because Rohrer is firstborn, or is it because she’s grown out of a similar immaturity she had at that same age?

“We might wrongly confuse age effects with birth order effects,” Rohrer said. “The relevant question for detecting a birth order effect would rather be: ‘Will my younger sister be at my level of conscientiousness when she is as old as I am now?'”

However, the researchers did find that there are more sibling relationships in which the firstborn is smartest, rather than later-born children.

Rohrer said it’s possible that later kids are affected by a lessening of the parent’s focus.

“A first-born will enjoy full parental resources, including attention, the second-born will have to share with the firstborn from the start, and it gets even worse for the third-born,” she said.

Sulloway believes that the study’s reliance on survey data may have diluted the birth order effects that might otherwise have been observed.

The study also did not consider how birth order differences in personality might change with age, he added.

“The nature of these effects in 10-year olds is different from the nature of these effects among people in their 20, 30s, and 40s,” Sulloway said. “Thus, laterborns, who are expected to be more peer-oriented than firstborns, may be less conscientious than firstborns when they are relatively young, but as they become older and as they relate to people in peer relationships, they may actually be more conscientious than laterborns.”

But Toni Falbo, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, said the new study is “extremely well done.” He added that “the results are consistent with those found by many, many other researchers.”

Will psychologists and others give up the idea that birth order matters, in view of these results? “I don’t think so,” Falbo said. “Birth order theories make intuitive sense, and since most of us on planet Earth today grew up with siblings, some psychologists and the general public will continue to think that birth order really matters.”

The study was published Oct. 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

More information

For more on child development, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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A 10-Minute Cycling Workout to Help You Hate Running Less

Photo: Getty Images

Gearing up for your next big race? Or maybe you just want to run without hating every step? Well, there’s one cardio machine that might help, and nope, it’s not the treadmill.

Cross-training with a short high-intensity training workout on the stationary bike can do wonders for your running performance, according to a recent study from the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. In fact, the researchers were able to pinpoint an exact workout that gets results.

Here’s what they did: First, researchers asked 32 experienced runners to do a 3K treadmill test to establish their running stats. Then, they divided the runners into four groups. One group maintained their normal fitness routines, while the other three also cross-trained six times over the course of two weeks with short sprinting intervals on the bike that incorporated rest periods of 30 seconds, 80 seconds, or two minutes.

After two weeks, all runners re-did the treadmill test. The only group to see significant running performance gains was the cycling group whose circuit had the smallest rest period of 30 seconds. On average, people in this group shaved roughly 25 seconds off their times!

But you don’t need to be a race-hound to benefit from this approach. “If you are looking to improve your running, but you don’t really like running, this would work for you,” says study co-author John Babraj, PhD, a lecturer in exercise physiology at Abertay University in Scotland. “Utilizing high-intensity training allows you to reduce your weekly mileage, while still [improving] your running fitness.”

RELATED: This No-Gym, HIIT Workout Gets the Job Done in 10 Minutes

Meet the 6-10-30 workout

Ready to try it?

On a stationary bike, warm up for three minutes by pedaling at a very low resistance at about 70 rpm. Pedal at an all-out sprint for 10 seconds at a resistance of around 15 to 17 on a typical gym bike, then rest for 30 seconds. Repeat six times.

During the active recovery periods, maintain a speed of about 50 rpm against very light or no resistance. When you’re through the six rounds, cool down the same way you warmed up, by pedaling at a very low resistance and about 70 rpm.

The entire circuit can be completed in just 10 minutes.

Pin it!

 

If you’re currently training for a race, three times a week is the way to go to achieve that PR. But if you’re just trying to improve your endurance, you can still see benefits by adding this work out to your routine twice a week, Barbaraj says.

RELATED: 3 High-Intensity Interval Moves to Burn Fat Faster

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Jen Jewell's strawberry protein pancakes

 

Fitness model Jen's Jewell shares her protein pancake recipe.

I start my day with a solid meal of protein and healthy carbs, which provides me with energy for the day right from the start and helps to provide fuel for my workout.

Generally with breakfast I’ll drink both water and have one coffee with light, unsweetened almond milk in place of coffee creamer. Using the almond milk adds flavour without the addition of fats or sugars that many coffee creamers have.

Ingredients 

1/3 cup oats

4 egg whites

½–1 scoop of whey protein powder

1 tbsp almond milk

2–3 strawberries or berries of your choice, chopped

What You’ll Do

Mix all ingredients up and cook on stove as you would regular pancakes

Top with fruit and sugar-free syrup

NEXT: View Jen Jewell's sample diet plan>>

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7 Gym Tanks That Will Motivate You to Work Out

Working out with a busy schedule can be hard—but having something cute to wear can help. Even better is having something cute and motivational to wear. That’s why we rounded up our favorite tanks branded with phrases that will inspire you to sweat.

Seize the day

Under Armour’s Women’s Carpe Diem Tunic ($35; amazon.com)

We’ll let you fill in the blank. Made with soft, moisture-wicking material, this badass tank looks extra cute with your lucky pair of exercise tights thanks to the drop-waist.

RELATED: Sorry Tim Gunn, Wearing Activewear in Public Is Not ‘Vulgar’

Rise and grind

Knock out your workout first thing with this Nike Women’s Eat Sleep Run Repeat Running Tank Top ($26; dickssportinggoods.com) This loose fit tank with Dri-FIT fabric is just what you need to get through marathon training.

Work hard, play hard

With it’s lightweight and loose fit, The North Face Women’s Graphic Play Hard Tank ($25; thenorthface.com) takes your favorite racer back up a notch with a reminder that nothing stands in your way.

Crazed cardio

The slogan: “Train insane or remain the same.” Take the motivation from your favorite Youtuber to the gym with this Train Insane Braided Tank ($22; ogorgeous.com) from Blogilates star Cassey Ho. The longer front offers full coverage while the braid in the back adds a feminine touch.

RELATED: 4 Calorie-Torching Leg and Butt Exercises

The Lioness

You’ll have no worries getting your reps in with this Hakuna Masquata Racerback Tank Top ($20; etsy.com). The best part: this made-to-order tank comes in 14 shades for you to pick from.

Locked up lifting

Show off your strength (and guns) on arm day with this Behind Bars Workout Tank Top ($23; etsy.com). This customizable tank will keep you powering through your reps even on the hardest of days.

No question

Okay, we’ll admit that sometimes Champagne is the answer. But this Lorna Jane Answers Excel Tank ($63; lornajane.com) will remind you that most times a good sweat sesh with your favorite instructor is all you really need.

RELATED: Best Fall Running and Fitness Gear

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Making Headway Toward Causes of Eczema

MONDAY, Oct. 19, 2015 (HealthDay News) — New gene variants associated with the skin condition eczema have been identified by an international team of researchers.

Eczema, characterized by itchy, red rashes, is known to run in families. The new findings add to the number of genetic variants known to increase risk for the condition, making the total 31.

The researchers did this by analyzing the genomes (genetic makeup) of 377,000 people worldwide.

“Though the genetic variants identified in this current study represent only a small proportion of the risk for developing eczema … they do give new insights into important disease mechanisms,” said study leader Lavinia Paternoster, an epidemiologist at the University of Bristol in England.

“Through ongoing research in this area, these findings could be turned into treatments of the future,” she said in a university news release.

All of the newly identified genetic changes play a role in immune system regulation and offer potential targets for scientists exploring new treatments for eczema, the study authors said.

The team of investigators also found evidence of some genetic overlap between eczema and other conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease. This suggests that studying these diseases together could improve understanding of the disorders and possibly lead to new treatments, the researchers said.

The study was published Oct. 19 in the journal Nature Genetics.

Study co-author Dr. Sara Brown, an academic dermatologist at the University of Dundee in Scotland, said, “The very large numbers of participants in this research has allowed us to ‘fine-tune’ our understanding of eczema genetic risk, providing more detail on how the skin immune system can go wrong in eczema.”

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has more about eczema.

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Newborns Vulnerable to Common Staph Infections: Study

MONDAY, Oct. 19, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Bloodstream infections in newborns are rare, but when they occur, normal staph infections are just as dangerous as antibiotic-resistant ones, a new study finds.

“Just because a bug responds well to antibiotics doesn’t mean it’s any less deadly,” senior investigator Dr. Aaron Milstone, an infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore, said in a Hopkins news release.

“If not detected and treated early, invasive bloodstream infections with garden-variety staph can wreak just as much damage on a newborn’s body as antibiotic-resistant forms,” he warned.

Public health experts tend to focus on drug-resistant infections. But the researchers behind the new study found that non-resistant staph infections occur more than twice as often in newborns as resistant strains, and they have nearly as high a death rate.

For the study, the investigators examined the medical records of more than 3,800 infants with invasive staph infections treated at neonatal intensive care units across the United States between 1997 and 2012.

There were 926 cases of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection and 2,474 cases of methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA). The death rates were 10 percent among infants with MSSA and 12 percent among those with MRSA, the findings showed.

The study was published Oct. 19 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

In adults, drug-resistant infections have much higher death rates than non-resistant infections. The contrast between infants and adults may be due to differences in their immune systems, as well as other factors, the study authors suggested.

The new findings highlight the need for hospitals to change their infection-prevention protocols to screen for non-resistant strains of bacteria, the researchers said.

Each year, an estimated 5,000 newborns in the United States develop invasive staph infections. However, the researchers emphasized that invasive infections with either MRSA or MSSA are still extremely rare.

“We have made strides toward detecting drug-resistant organisms and reducing their spread. These findings reinforce the continued need to do everything to prevent all types of infections in the nursery,” study co-author Dr. P. Brian Smith, a neonatologist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., said in the news release.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about staph infections.

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