Adolescent Health

weightlifter

Being in good physical shape at 18 years of age can be linked with a reduced risk of attempted suicide later in life. So says a study of over one million Swedish men conducted by researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

A new, extensive report from the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare on child and adolescent health shows that teenagers and young adults in Sweden have worse mental health than their age cohorts in other western countries.

Another report that is part of a new social welfare study shows that the number of serious suicide attempts among 19-23 year olds with activity compensation has increased from 115 per year to 460 per year in Sweden between 1995-2010.

At the same time, the number of suicides in the 10 to 45 age group increased. Even the percentage of young people with no activity compensation who attempted to take their life increased.

In order to break this trend, research has now focused on the factors that can prevent mental illness and the risk of suicidal behavior.

Researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, have been able to use a study of 1,136,527 Swedish men to show that there is a link between exercising as a young person and a reduced risk of suicidal behavior later in life.

“Being in poor physical shape at 18 years of age, measured as the test results on an exercise bike during their medical exam for compulsory military service, can be linked to a risk of suicidal behavior as an adult that is 1.8 times greater,” says Margda Waern, researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg.

The study shows that the increased risk was evident even 42 years after the exam for military service.

It has previously been shown that physical exercise has a highly positive effect on brain function, e.g. more nerve cells are developed with physical exercise.

“The teenage years are a critical period in terms of brain development since this is when social and emotional faculties are established. Therefore, it was important to do a larger study on the importance of physical fitness in terms of suicidal behavior in this age group,” says Maria Åberg, researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy who led the study together with Professor Margda Waern.

In the study, which covers all Swedish men born between 1950 and 1987 who completed the previously mandatory exam, researchers compared the results from physical tests during the exam with the national registers of disease and death.

By carefully examining the roughly 340,000 brothers who took part in the study, researchers were able to study how hereditary factors and the home environment affect this relationship.

In a much discussed study published in 2012, the researcher group showed that good physical fitness as a teenager can also be linked to decreased risk of severe depression later in life.

“But even when we exclude individuals who suffer from severe depression in connection with suicide or attempted suicide, the link between poor physical shape and an increased risk of suicidal behavior remains,” says Margda Waern.

While depression is a particularly strong predictor of suicidal behavior in later life, the picture among younger people is complex and many factors are involved.

“One theory is that the brain becomes more resistant to different types of stress if you are physically active,” says Maria Åberg.

Researchers think that physical exercise should be considered in suicide prevention projects aimed at young people.

The new findings are supported by earlier cross-sectional studies where teenagers are interviewed about their physical fitness connected with the risk for suicidal thoughts.

University of Gothenburg via Alpha Galileo Title: Cardiovascular fitness in early adulthood and future suicidal behavior in men followed up to 42 years
Journal: Psychological Medicine
2013 Jun 6:1-10.

Sleep poster

A campus media campaign at the University of Arizona–Tucson was effective in raising sleep as a health issue and in getting students to sleep better and longer.Credit: University of Arizona

According to researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania increasing the number of hours of sleep adolescents get each night may reduce the prevalence of adolescent obesity. Results of the study show that fewer hours of sleep is associated with greater increases in adolescent body mass index (BMI) for participants between 14 and 18-years-old. The findings suggest that increasing sleep duration to 10 hours per day, especially for those in the upper half of the BMI distribution, could help to reduce the prevalence of adolescent obesity. Full results of the study are available online in the latest issue of Pediatrics.

The roots of the problem include poor teen sleep habits that do not allow for enough hours of quality sleep; hectic schedules with after-school activities and jobs, homework hours and family obligations; and a clash between societal demands, such as early school start times, and biological changes that put most teens on a later sleep-wake clock.

Previous studies have shown that a correlation exists between short sleep and obesity, but until now few have been able to rule out other variables such as time spent watching television and being physically active. The new study observed over 1,000 Philadelphia-area high school students from their freshmen through senior high school years. At six month intervals, study participants were asked to report their sleep patterns. At the same intervals heights and weights were reported and BMIs were calculated. Study authors suggest the results could have far-reaching implications and aid in reducing the high levels of adolescent obesity in the United States.

“The psychosocial and physical consequences of adolescent obesity are well documented, yet the rate has more than tripled over the last four decades,” says lead author Jonathan A. Mitchell, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Penn Medicine. “What we found in following these adolescents is that each additional hour of sleep was associated with a reduced BMI for all participants, but the reduction was greater for those with higher BMIs. The study is further evidence to support that getting more sleep each night has substantial health benefits during this crucial developmental period.”

Overall, researchers noted the strength of the association between sleep and BMI was weaker at the lower tail of the BMI distribution, compared to the upper tail. For example, each additional hour of sleep was associated with only a slight reduction in BMI (0.07 kg/m2) at the 10th BMI percentile. In comparison, at the 50th percentile a higher reduction in BMI was observed (0.17 kg/m2), and at the 90th percentile an even greater reduction in BMI was observed (0.28 kg/m2). Importantly, the relationship between sleep duration and BMI remained after adjusting for time spent in front of computer and television screens and being physically activity, leading to the conclusion that more sleep could contribute to the prevention of adolescent obesity, even if national screen time and physical activity guidelines are met.

Based on the results, the authors suggest that increasing sleep from 8 to 10 hours per day at age 18 could result in a 4 percent reduction in the number of adolescents with a BMI above 25 kg/m2. At the current population level, a 4 percent reduction would translate to roughly 500,000 fewer overweight adolescents.

“Educating adolescents on the benefits of sleep, and informing them of sleep hygiene practices have shown to have little impact on adolescent sleep duration,” said Mitchell. “One possible solution could be for high schools to delay the start to the school day. Previous research has shown that delaying the start of the school day even by 30 minutes results in a 45-minute per day increase in sleep. Since our study shows increasing sleep by an hour or more could lead to a lower BMI, delaying the start of the school day could help to reduce obesity in adolescents.”

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

young people drinking alcohol

istockphoto

Teen-age college students are significantly more likely to abstain from drinking or to drink only minimally when their parents talk to them before they start college, using suggestions in a parent handbook developed by Robert Turrisi, professor of biobehavioral health, Penn State.

“Over 90 percent of teens try alcohol outside the home before they graduate from high school,” said Turrisi. “It is well known that fewer problems develop for every year that heavy drinking is delayed. Our research over the past decade shows that parents can play a powerful role in minimizing their teens’ drinking during college when they talk to their teens about alcohol before they enter college.”

The researchers recruited 1,900 study participants by randomly selecting incoming freshmen to a large, public northeastern university. Each of the individuals was identified as belonging to one of four groups: nondrinkers, weekend light drinkers, weekend heavy drinkers and heavy drinkers.

The team mailed Turrisi’s handbook to the parents of the student participants. The 22-page handbook contained information that included an overview of college student drinking, strategies and techniques for communicating effectively, ways to help teens develop assertiveness and resist peer pressure and in-depth information on how alcohol affects the body.

The parents were asked to read the handbook and then talk to their teens about the content of the handbook at one of three times to which they were randomly assigned: (1) during the summer before college, (2) during the summer before college and again during the fall semester of the first year of college and (3) during the fall semester of the first year of college.

“We were trying to determine the best timing and dosage for delivering the parent intervention,” Turrisi said. “For timing, we compared pre-college matriculation to after-college matriculation. For dosage, we compared one conversation about alcohol to two conversations about alcohol.”

The results appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

“We know that without an intervention there is movement from each drinking level into higher drinking levels,” Turrisi said. “For example, non-drinkers tend to become light drinkers, light drinkers will become medium drinkers and medium drinkers will become heavy drinkers. Our results show that if parents follow the recommendations suggested in the handbook and talk to their teens before they enter college, their teens are more likely to remain in the non-drinking or light-drinking groups or to transition out of a heavy-drinking group if they were already heavy drinkers.”

According to Turrisi, talking to teens in the fall of the first year of college may not work as well; for many families it had no effect on students’ drinking behaviors. Likewise, adding extra parent materials in the fall seemed to have no additional benefit.

Penn State University

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA)

 
A new report shows that the percentage of girls who experience a major depressive episode in the past year triples between the ages of 12 and 15 (from 5.1 percent to 15.2 percent respectively). The report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) also shows that an annual average of 1.4 million adolescent girls age 12 to 17 experienced a major depressive episode in the past year. In addition, the report reveals that adolescent girls aged 12 to 17 are three times more likely to have experienced a major depressive episode in the past year than their male counterparts (12 percent versus 4.5 percent).

A major depressive episode is defined using criteria set forth in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) developed by the American Psychiatric Association. Under this definition, a major depressive episode is when a person experiences a period of depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure for two weeks or longer and also experiences at least four other symptoms that reflect a change in functioning, such as problems with sleep, eating, energy, concentration and self-image.
“It is crucial that we provide adolescent girls the coping skills and social supports they need to avoid the onset of depression, and to offer behavioral health services that foster resilience and recovery if they experience it,” said SAMHSA Administrator Pamela S. Hyde. “These efforts are a sound investment in girls’ health and well-being and in our nation’s future.” [continue reading…]