Adolescents represent the majority of people who binge drink. This may come as a surprise to some, but recent surveys indicate that episodes of heavy alcohol drinking within the previous two weeks are reported by 12 percent of 8th graders, 22 percent of 10th graders, 28 percent of 12th grade seniors, and 44 percent of college students. ...

Adolescents with treatment-resistant depression who have a history of abuse — especially physical abuse — are less likely to respond to combination treatment than to medication alone, according to data from the NIMH-funded Treatment of Resistant Depression in Adolescents (TORDIA) study. The new study was published in the March 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychia ...

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is often diagnosed too late in children and adolescents. In the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, Susanne Walitza and her colleagues point out that appropriate early recognition and treatment can positively affect the course of the disease. The publisher made the original journal article available at no cost for unknown length of time; check the the end ...

Young people who start smoking cigarettes at an early age have a much higher risk of starting to use cannabis by the time they turn 17. Risk factors that increase the likelihood of starting to smoke include externalizing problem behaviors, such as impulsiveness. Smoking, in turn, is a significant risk factor for cannabis use. These results have been confirmed in a project researching smoking at an early age ...

Do people overeat because they experience less reward from eating or because they experience more reward from eating? In the March 23, 2011 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience Oregon Research Institute (ORI) senior scientist Eric Stice, Ph.D. and colleagues, including Dana Small, Ph.D. from the J.B. Pierce Laboratory in New Haven Connecticut, provide possible answers to the chicken or egg dilemma of overea ...

America’s prom season is on the horizon and with it comes distress for thousands of teens who will be distraught to see a pimple raise its ugly head on their nose or chin. They often get over it – eventually. But for many teens, acne is a bigger problem than a facial blemish. New research from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center finds that depression and other psychological disorders may be more p ...

Children and adolescents growing up with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are less fit than their peers, says a study by researchers at McMaster University and the McMaster Children’s Hospital. The study, published in the Journal of Pediatrics online, shows children and youth with the most common forms of inflammatory bowel disease have aerobic fitness levels 25 per cent lower than other children their age, ...

Parents who are both present and engaged are the very best way of preventing teenagers from consuming large quantities of alcohol. Adolescents who smoke, stay out with their friends, and have access to alcohol – from their parents, for example – when they are as young as 13 are at greater risk of becoming binge drinkers in their late teens, reveals a new thesis from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. Check th ...

The risk and nature of injury in the sport of boxing has generated a great deal of controversy in the medical community, especially in relation to youth boxing. A new study, conducted by researchers in the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, examined boxing injuries among participants 6 years of age and older from 1990 to 2008. Included in this ...

Tobacco smoking is the leading preventable cause of death and disease in the U.S., with more than 400,000 deaths each year attributable to smoking or its consequences. And yet teens still smoke. Indeed, smoking usually begins in the teen years, and approximately 80 percent of adult smokers became hooked by the time they were 18. Meanwhile, teens who do not take up smoking usually never do. A new study from ...