Children and teenagers who use stimulants to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity (ADHD) are 20% more likely to visit the emergency room or doctor’s office.

According to the research published in the journal Pediatrics, children and teens using such drugs are more likely to experience heart-related symptoms, such as a racing heartbeat.

In 2006, the US Food and Drug Administration’s Drug Safety Advisory Committee recommended “black box” warnings about cardiovascular risks associated with central nervous system stimulants, which are known to raise blood pressure and heart rate.

Children who have long, frequent or aggressive temper tantrums may be at risk for depression or disruptive disorders, according to research published in the Journal of Pediatrics.

For most parents, tantrums - often the sign of a sick, hungry, or over-stimulated child - are a normal part of development and should be viewed as a teaching opportunity. Healthy children tend to have a shorter and less aggressive tantrums.

But parents of children who hurt themselves or others and who cannot calm themselves without help should seek medical assistance. The research suggests that if the parent is uncomfortable leaving the house out of fear that the child will have a tantrum, that should be a sign to seek help.

Children of mothers who eat plenty of apples or fish during pregnancy are less likely to develop asthma, or eczema research suggests.

The University of Aberdeen project quizzed 2,000 mothers-to-be on their eating habits, then looked at their child’s health over five years.

They found that those who ate four or more apples a week were half as likely to have an asthmatic child compared with those who ate one or fewer.

The study was presented at the American Thoracic Society conference.

This study suggests a simple modification that can be made to a pregnant mother’s diet which may help protect her child from developing asthma Dr Victoria King, Asthma UK

The researchers also found a link between eating more fish in pregnancy, and a lower chance of their child developing the allergic skin condition eczema.

Women who ate one or more portions of any type of fish during pregnancy weekly had almost half the chance of having a child diagnosed with eczema within the first five years.

There are no firm clues as to why apples and fish might be able to produce this benefit - no other foodstuffs were linked to decreases in asthma or eczema.

However, apples are already linked to better lung health when taken by adults, perhaps due to their antioxidant properties, and oily fish in particular contain Omega-3 oils, which, it has been suggested, offer health benefits.
It is, however, notoriously difficult to uncover links between maternal diet and child health, given the numerous other factors which may be involved in the development of diseases such as asthma and eczema.

The Aberdeen team has a group of 2,000 women, who, more than five years ago, monitored their food intake during pregnancy, and then allowed researchers to see what happened to their children.

-BBC

Frequent cell-phone users, defined as those who talk more than 22 hours (1,320 minutes) a month, have a fifty percent higher risk of developing a tumor of the parotid gland (salivary glands near the ear), according to Israeli researchers and the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The risk was higher if users clamped the cell-phone to the same ear, did not use hands-free devices, or were in rural areas where devices typically must send out a stronger signal to reach cell towers that are farther away.

The study included 402 benign and 58 malignant cases of parotid gland tumor diagnosed in Israel. The research was led by a cancer and radiation expert at the Chaim Sheba Medical Centre in Israel and as part of a World Health Organization project.

The Food and Drug Administration recommends minimizing any potential risk by using hands-free devices and keeping cell-phone talk to a minimum.