Both genetics and parents who comfort their infants with food are the focus of a study funded for $1 million by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestion and Kidney Disease investigating risk factors for childhood obesity. The grant is part of the National Institutes of Health American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding.
"When the infant cries, parents typically have a set of soothing techniques they'll use to comfort their child -- if one doesn't work, they move to the next -- and somewhere on that list is feeding," said Cynthia Stifter, professor of human development and family studies and principal investigator on the project. "It may be, with some children, that using food as a means of soothing distress promotes the association of food with emotional comfort, a characteristic of emotional eaters that is associated with adult obesity."
One goal of Stifter's study is to provide a detailed description of how and when parents use feeding to soothe infants and its relation to weight gain in infancy. Rapid weight gain in infancy has been linked to childhood obesity.
"There has been much speculation about the role of food in parent soothing of infant distress, but there is no research," said Stifter. "What is known is that food, especially that containing sugar, has an immediate effect on infant distress and that many middle-income and lower-income mothers endorse using food to soothe an infant's distress."
To see how parents respond to their infants' distress, researchers will go with families to routine doctor appointments where infants receive vaccinations. These immunizations commonly cause distress. The researchers will also keep track of children's rate of weight gain and parents will complete a "daily diary," at five minute intervals for three days, recording whether their child fussed, cried, slept, was content or was fed. Parents will also participate in a number of laboratory visits to assess the infants' emotional reactivity and regulation, and a variety of interviews including one conducted by Penn State's Diet Assessment Center, which will examine the food environment -- meal location, the context in which food is eaten -- whether the child was crying or fell asleep after eating and child feeding practices -- whether food was offered to soothe the child.
Stifter will also look at the brain's natural reward system, which releases dopamine into the brain, producing a feeling of pleasure.
"Dopamine basically makes you want more of something," says Stifter.
Dopamine in the brain is associated with nicotine, alcohol and other addictions. Stifter and her colleagues will consider food as the object of an addiction for certain individuals. They will draw upon previous research pinpointing a set of genes that determine a person's dopamine system activity. Certain individuals may be genetically predisposed to be more sensitive to their brain's reward system.
"We are hypothesizing that the parenting practice of feeding to soothe, or the use of food to soothe infant distress not related to hunger, may interfere with the development of the ability to read internal cues of hunger and fullness, which, in certain children with sensitive dopamine systems, may lead to increased energy intake, rapid weight gain in infancy, and subsequent childhood obesity," said Stifter.
No previous studies have examined parent feeding style in infancy and genetics as precursors to childhood obesity.

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Posted: 09 Feb 2010 11:03 PM PST

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How To Get Good Grades Study Program Is Adding Limited Bonuses For Customers (OfficialWire)

Posted: 10 Feb 2010 06:11 AM PST

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How To Get Good Grades just released an announcement that the bonuses given to existing how to study customers additional materials to help with the exams. The additional bonuses include 2 'exam preparation' reports, 3 powerful audio programs, and a goal setting book.

"These additional bonuses are given away to help students to study better. We hope to give more value to our students and help them to achieve good grades. Due to popular demand, we have also lowered the price of our program as currently it is the best time for students to use the strategies to study better," said George, founder of the secretsofstudying.com. "The bonuses will only be given away to the first 30 customers in the year of 2010".

Getting good grades in school is more than just study over and over again. It involved study techniques, accelerated learning skills and careful planning to score better. In an article over at how to study effectively website, one of the reasons why students are not doing well in exams is because students miss out planning their study timetable.

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Measles vaccine does not increase risk of autism in children, reveals Polish study (News-Medical-Net)

Posted: 10 Feb 2010 12:11 AM PST

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As a pivotal paper linking childhood vaccinations to autism is discredited, a new study finds no evidence that the measles vaccine—given alone or as part of a combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine—increases the risk of autism in children. The study appears in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal (www.pidj.com), published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading provider of information and business intelligence for students, professionals, and institutions in medicine, nursing, allied health, and pharmacy.

The early online publication appears in the wake of the recent announcement that the editors of The Lancet had retracted a controversial 1998 article suggesting that vaccines contributed to autism risk. That paper—which alarmed parents worldwide and led to sharp drops in measles and MMR vaccination rates in some places—has since been debunked amidst allegations of ethical and scientific misconduct.

Autism Risk Isn't Higher after Measles Vaccination, Polish Data Show
In the new study, a team led by Dorota Mrożek-Budzyn, Ph.D., of Jagiellonian University Collegium Medicum, in Krakow, Poland, compared 96 Polish children with autism to a carefully matched set of 192 children without autism. Statistical techniques were used to look for any relationship between measles vaccination and the development of autism.

The results showed no evidence that children receiving measles vaccine—alone or as part of the MMR vaccine—were more likely to develop autism. This was so after adjustment for known risk factors for autism, including the mother's age and education, length of gestation, medications during pregnancy, and the child's condition after birth.

Vaccinated children were actually less likely to develop autism—especially those receiving the MMR vaccine. The researchers suspect this may reflect some other unmeasured factor affecting the children's health status. "For example," they write, "healthcare workers or parents may have noticed signs of developmental delay or disease before the actual autism diagnosis and for this reason have avoided vaccination."

Further Evidence for Vaccine Safety, as Flawed Research is Withdrawn
The new Polish study will appear in print in the May issue of The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal but was posted online early at www.pidj.com after the Lancet retraction was announced. The retracted study, led by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, purported to show evidence of "developmental regression" in children shortly after they received the MMR vaccine. Subsequent studies have provided little or no support for the hypothesis that MMR vaccine increases autism risk. The retraction follows allegations of ethical and scientific misconduct by Dr. Wakefield.

In Poland, the MMR vaccine has replaced the measles-only vaccine gradually over the past decade, providing a unique opportunity to compare their effects. Vaccination rates in Poland have remained high, in contrast to other countries—including the United States and Britain—where a decline in the number of children vaccinated has been followed by measles outbreaks. Based on the new results, "both vaccines are characterized by a similar level of safety with respect to the risk of autism in children," Dr. Mrożek-Budzyn and colleagues conclude.

SOURCE The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

“Soothing infants with food focus of childhood obesity study (EurekAlert!)” plus 3 more

“Soothing infants with food focus of childhood obesity study (EurekAlert!)” plus 3 more

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