What’s The Buzz
Sleepiness at the wheel and poor sleep quality significantly increase the risk of motor vehicle accidents in adolescents, says a new study.
Gran’s care can make kids obese
Children who are looked after by their grandparents are likely to be obese, a new study has suggested. The extensive University College London study, which included 12,000 three-year olds, found that the risk was 34 per cent higher if grandparents cared for them full time.
However, kids who went to nursery or had a childminder had no increased risk of weight problems. Study leader Catherine Law said the study did not look at why grandparent care was associated with being overweight but that indulgence of children and lack of physical exercise were two possible explanations.
“One of the ways forward would be to talk to small groups of grandparents to see the challenges they face.” “Some of the things that might help would be educating the population in general about healthy lifestyles but also things like avoiding food as a reward and suggestions for building activities into daily life,” she said.
Sleep problems raise risk of motor vehicle accidents
Sleepiness at the wheel and poor sleep quality significantly increase the risk of motor vehicle accidents in adolescents, says a new study. The study has been published in the Feb 15 issue of the ‘Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine’.
Results indicate that adolescent drivers were twice as likely to have had a crash if they experienced sleepiness while driving (adjusted odds ratio = 2.1) or reported having bad sleep (OR = 1.9). Eighty of the 339 students had already crashed at least once, and 15 per cent of them considered sleepiness to have been the main cause of the crash.
Fifty-six per cent of students who had at least one previous crash reported driving while sleepy, compared with 35 per cent of subjects who had not been in a crash. Lead author Fabio Cirignotta, professor of neurology at the University of Bologna in Italy, said that the only effective countermeasure to drowsiness is to stop driving immediately, pull over to a safe place and nap for 10 to15 minutes.
“Commonly used countermeasures to fatigue, such as opening the window, listening to the radio, or drinking a coffee, are known to be short-lasting and, essentially, useless,” said Cirignotta.
TV medical shows do not depict proper first aid
A new study has found that most TV medical shows do not depict proper first aid for seizures. Scientists screened the most popular medical dramas and discovered that doctors and nurses on the shows responded inappropriately to seizures almost half the time.
Study author Andrew Moeller of Dalhousie University, Halifax, in Nova Scotia, Canada, said: “Television dramas are a potentially powerful method of educating the public about first aid and seizures”.
“Our results, showing that television shows inaccurately showed seizure management half the time, are a call to action. People with epilepsy should lobby the television industry to adhere to guidelines for first aid management of seizures.”
