Kids

According to a recent study, a medicine called semaglutide, which is licenced for adults who are obese or overweight, can also help teenagers lose weight and have healthier hearts.
In an international phase 3a clinical study, adolescents with obesity who received once-weekly semaglutide compared to placebo experienced a 16.1% drop in BMI, whereas those who took placebo had a 0.6% increase. “Obesity rates are growing, not just in the United States, but all around the world,” said senior author Silva Arslanian, M.D., professor of paediatrics and clinical and translational research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the Richard L. Day Endowed Chair in Pediatrics.

“Typically, we provide lifestyle suggestions such as: eat more veggies; avoid fried foods; and avoid soda. However, because we live in an obesogenic environment, making such adjustments might be difficult. Obesity treatments that are both safe and effective are desperately needed.”
Semaglutide is an obesity medication that mimics the hormone glucagon-like peptide-1 to target parts of the brain that reduce hunger and improve eating control. This medication was authorised in 2021 for chronic weight control in persons who are obese or overweight.
Researchers included 201 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years with obesity or overweight across several sites to see if semaglutide is likewise beneficial in youths.

Throughout the experiment, participants received either once-weekly subcutaneous injections of semaglutide 2.4 mg or placebo, as well as concurrent lifestyle intervention (nutrition and physical activity coaching).
After 68 weeks, 72.5% of semaglutide individuals had lost at least 5% of their body weight, compared to only 17% of placebo participants.
“The results are extraordinary,” said Arslanian, who is also the director of Pitt’s Pediatric Clinical and Translational Research Center and the scientific director of the Center for Pediatric Research in Obesity and Metabolism. “The average drop in BMI amounts to removing roughly 40 pounds for a person who is 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 240 pounds.”

Obesity affects about one in every five children and adolescents globally. This chronic condition is associated with a lower life expectancy and an increased chance of developing major health issues such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, sleep apnea, and some malignancies. Obese teenagers are also more prone to suffer from despair, anxiety, low self-esteem, and other psychological difficulties.
When compared to the placebo group, semaglutide participants improved in cardiovascular risk markers such as waist circumference, a blood sugar metre known as HbA1c, total, low-density and very low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, and liver enzymes. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in blood pressure or high-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

When compared to their placebo counterparts, participants who took semaglutide had superior weight-related quality of life measures, owing mostly to an increase in physical comfort ratings. According to the researchers, this is the first obesity medicine to be related to significant quality-of-life gains in teenagers.

While many parents and guardians are concerned that their teens are spending too much time on mobile phones, video games, and social media, a Michigan State University researcher tells them not to fret.

Keith Hampton, a professor in the Department of Media and Information and the Quello Center’s head of academic research, states that he is more concerned about teenagers who are disconnected due to restricted internet access than he is about screen time.

“Teens who are disconnected from today’s technologies are more isolated from their peers, which can lead to problems,” Hampton said. “Many young people are struggling with their mental health. While adolescents often grapple with self-esteem issues related to body image, peers, family and school, disconnection is a much greater threat than screen time. Social media and video games are deeply integrated into youth culture, and they do more than entertain. They help kids socialise, contribute to identity formation, and provide a channel for social support.”

Hampton and his associates study disconnection. The majority of teenagers have access to the internet often. Only when they decide to restrict their gadget use or when their parents intervene to limit their online time do these teenagers feel disconnected.

A sizable group of teenagers, mostly in rural areas of America, are alienated for a totally different reason. They reside in homes with incredibly shoddy broadband access infrastructure. These teenagers frequently don’t have access to the internet outside of school, have very sluggish access at home, or have sporadic data coverage on smartphones.

“Rural teens are the last remaining natural control group if we want insight into the mental health of adolescents who have no choice but to be disconnected from screens,” Hampton said.

Hampton and his team compared the self-esteem and social activities of teens with no or limited home internet access to teens who are the heaviest screen users as well as teens whose parents strictly monitor or limit their screen use in a peer-reviewed paper based on a survey of 3,258 rural adolescents. This is what they discovered.

Being a girl was the single most significant indicator of having lower self-esteem. This wasn’t shocking because it has long been known how difficult adolescence is on young girls. Poor grades in school were the second most significant factor in determining self-esteem for both males and girls.

Although only slightly so, teens with inadequate internet access at home and those whose parents exercised the most control over their media use had significantly lower self-esteem than average girls or students who performed poorly in school.

Teens’ self-esteem was not significantly impacted by the amount of time they spent on screens, whether they were watching videos, playing games, or using social media. Even youths who used screens “excessively” reported having higher self-esteem than those who were unplugged due to limited internet connection or strict parental supervision of their online activities.

Why? Because media is deeply integrated into youth culture.

“Isolation doesn’t come from being online, it comes from being disconnected from those sources of entertainment and socialization that permeate teens’ lives,” Hampton said. “For most teens, that’s social media, video games and sharing the videos they watch online. It is often how teens get their information, communicate and share.”

This does not imply that teenagers do not engage in face-to-face interaction. Teenagers who use social media and watch videos more often spend more time socializing. According to Hampton, there are 21 minutes of socializing with friends for every hour spent on social media. Users of screens “excessively” were spending more time with their loved ones.

“Perpetuating the myth that teens who spend more time on their devices spend less time with friends and family and that ‘excessive’ time online harms most teens’ mental health, does more harm than good,” Hampton said. “When parents exert too much control over the time their teens spend on screens, they cut kids off from peers and the social support that protects mental health. While this survey was done prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, this work points to the terrible toll experienced by rural adolescents who were disconnected during the pandemic and the urgent need to address gaps in rural broadband infrastructure.”

This, according to Hampton, does not suggest that social media sites are helpful. Online bullying and algorithms that draw teenagers to hazardous information pose serious threats to their mental health. Additionally, some teenagers are more prone to damage than others.

However, this study demonstrates that when parents talk to their kids about the dangers of media usage, concentrate on helping them learn critical media literacy, and give kids more control over their media use, kids report increased self-esteem.

“I advise parents to not focus on how long their teens spend on screens, but to take an interest in what your teens are doing online and spend time together,” Hampton said.

Scientists have discovered why eating late at night is associated with weight gain and diabetes. The link between eating time, sleep, and obesity is well-known but poorly understood, with studies indicating that over-nutrition can disturb circadian rhythms and modify fat tissue.

The link between eating time, sleep, and obesity is well-known but poorly understood, with studies indicating that over-nutrition can disturb circadian rhythms and modify fat tissue. For the first time, new Northwestern study suggests that energy release may be the chemical process by which our internal clocks manage energy balance.

From this understanding, the scientists also found that daytime is the ideal time in the light environment of the Earth’s rotation when it is most optimal to dissipate energy as heat. These findings have broad implications from dieting to sleep loss and the way we feed patients who require long-term nutritional assistance.

The paper, “Time-restricted feeding mitigates obesity through adipocyte thermogenesis,” will be published online today, and in print tomorrow (Oct. 21) in the journal Science.

“It is well known, albeit poorly understood, that insults to the body clock are going to be insults to metabolism,” said corresponding study author Dr. Joseph T. Bass, the Charles F. Kettering Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He also is a Northwestern Medicine endocrinologist.

“When animals consume Western style cafeteria diets — high fat, high carb — the clock gets scrambled,” Bass said. “The clock is sensitive to the time people eat, especially in fat tissue, and that sensitivity is thrown off by high-fat diets. We still don’t understand why that is, but what we do know is that as animals become obese, they start to eat more when they should be asleep. This research shows why that matters.”

Bass is also director of the Center for Diabetes and Metabolism and the chief of endocrinology in the department of medicine at Feinberg. Chelsea Hepler, a postdoctoral fellow in the Bass Lab, was the first author and did many of the biochemistry and genetics experiments that grounded the team’s hypothesis. Rana Gupta, now at Duke University, was also a key collaborator.

In the study, mice, who are nocturnal, were fed a high-fat diet either exclusively during their inactive (light) period or during their active (dark) period. Within a week, mice fed during light hours gained more weight compared to those fed in the dark. The team also set the temperature to 30 degrees, where mice expend the least energy, to mitigate the effects of temperature on their findings.

“We thought maybe there’s a component of energy balance where mice are expending more energy eating at specific times,” Hepler said. “That’s why they can eat the same amount of food at different times of the day and be healthier when they eat during active periods versus when they should be sleeping.”

The increase in energy expenditure led the team to look into metabolism of fat tissue to see if the same effect occurred within the endocrine organ. They found that it did, and mice with genetically enhanced thermogenesis — or heat release through fat cells — prevented weight gain and improved health.

Hepler also identified futile creatine cycling, in which creatine (a molecule that helps maintain energy) undergoes storage and release of chemical energy, within fat tissues, implying creatine may be the mechanism underlying heat release.

The science is underpinned by research done by Bass and colleagues at Northwestern more than 20 years ago that found a relationship between the internal molecular clock and body weight, obesity and metabolism in animals.

The challenge for Bass’s lab, which focuses on using genetic approaches to study physiology, has been figuring out what it all means, and finding the control mechanisms that produce the relationship. This study brings them a step closer.

The findings could inform chronic care, Bass said, especially in cases where patients have gastric feeding tubes. Patients are commonly fed at night while they sleep, when they’re releasing the least amount of energy. Rates of diabetes and obesity tend to be high for these patients, and Bass thinks this could explain why. He also wonders how the research could impact Type II Diabetes treatment. Should meal times be considered when insulin is given, for example?

Hepler will continue to research creatine metabolism. “We need to figure out how, mechanistically, the circadian clock controls creatine metabolism so that we can figure out how to boost it,” she said. “Clocks are doing a lot to metabolic health at the level of fat tissue, and we don’t know how much yet.”

Also Read: Study: Tough parenting may genetically predispose kids to depression

According to a recent study, eating a handful of almonds every day dramatically enhances the creation of butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid that supports gut health.

A team of King’s College London researchers evaluated the effect of whole and powdered almonds on the composition of intestinal bacteria. The Almond Board of California funded the study, which was published today in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The gut microbiome consists of thousands of micro-organisms living in the gut. These play a vital role in digesting nutrients and can have a positive or negative influence on our health, including our digestive and immune systems. The mechanisms of how the gut microbiomes have an impact on human health is still being investigated, but evidence suggests eating specific types of food can positively influence the types of bacteria in our gut or what they do in our gut.

Researchers at King’s College London recruited 87 healthy adults who were already eating less than the recommended amount of dietary fibre and who snacked on typical unhealthy snacks (e.g. chocolate, crisps). Participants were split into three groups: one group changed their snacks for 56 g of whole almonds a day, another for 56 g of ground almonds a day, and the control group ate energy-matched muffins as a control. The trial lasted four weeks.

Butyrate high among almonds

Researchers found that butyrate was significantly higher among almond eaters compared to those who consumed the muffin. Butyrate is a short-chain fatty acid that is the main source of fuel for the cells lining the colon.

When these cells function effectively, it provides an ideal condition for gut microbes to flourish, for the gut wall to be strong and not leaky or inflamed and for nutrients to be absorbed.

No significant difference was observed in gut transit time — the time it takes for food to move all the way through the gut — however whole-almond eaters had an additional 1.5 bowel movements per week compared to the other groups. These findings suggest eating almonds could also benefit those with constipation.

Testing showed that eating whole and ground almond improved peoples’ diets, having higher intakes of monosaturated fatty acids, fibre, potassium and other important nutrients compared to the control group.

Lead author Professor Kevin Whelan, Head of the Department of Nutritional Sciences at King’s College London, said: “Part of the way in which the gut microbiota impact human health is through the production of short-chain fatty acids, such as butyrate. These molecules act as a fuel source for cells in the colon, they regulate absorption of other nutrients in the gut, and help balance the immune system. We think these findings suggest almond consumption may benefit bacterial metabolism in a way that has the potential to influence human health.”

Also Read: Study: Tough parenting may genetically predispose kids to depression

The way the body sees the children’s DNA may change as a result of tight parenting. Children who experience restrictive parenting may have these changes “hard-wired” into their DNA, increasing their chance of developing depression later in life.

“We observed that perceived harsh parenting, with physical punishment and psychological manipulation, can introduce an additional set of instructions on how a gene is read to become hard-wired into DNA,” stated Dr. Evelien Van Assche when presenting the research at the ECNP Congress in Vienna. Some evidence suggests that these alterations alone may predispose the developing infant to depression.

If the kids were raised in a loving environment, this doesn’t happen as much “. The University of Leuven researchers in Belgium selected 21 teens who described their parents as good parents (for example, they were understanding and allowed their children independence) and contrasted them with 23 teenagers who described their parents as tough parents (for example, manipulative behaviour, physical punishment, excessive strictness). All of the teenagers were between the ages of 12 and 16, with 14 serving as the mean age for both groups. The fact that there were 11 adolescents in each group who were boys shows that the two groups were similar in terms of age and the ratio of boys to girls. A large number of parents “>tight parenting exhibited early, subclinical depressive symptoms.

The range of methylation was then assessed across more than 450,000 sites in each subject’s DNA, and the researchers found that it was significantly higher in persons who reported having experienced a challenging upbringing. When a little chemical molecule is introduced to DNA, a common process called methylation occurs that changes how your DNA’s instructions are read. For instance, methylation might make a gene produce more or less of a certain enzyme than it otherwise would. Increased methylation variation has been associated with depression. “We based our method on past work with identical twins,” says Evelien Van Assche.

For the majority of these hundreds of thousands of data points, two independent groups discovered that the twin with significant depression also had a larger range of DNA methylation than the healthy twin “.

Dr. Van Assche continued, who is presently employed by the University of Münster in Germany “The DNA is unchanged, but these extra chemical groups change how the DNA’s instructions are read. We hypothesise that the inclination towards sadness was ingrained in the DNA of those who experienced harsher parenting through greater methylation variance.

We are currently attempting to close the loop by connecting it to a later depression diagnosis and, perhaps, using this higher methylation variance as a marker to identify those who may be more susceptible to developing depression as a result of their upbringing.

Although the influence of strict parenting was the focus of this study, it is likely that any severe stress will cause similar changes in DNA methylation. As a result, childhood stress may increase your risk of developing depression later in life by changing how your DNA is read. However, a bigger sample size is required to confirm these findings.

The Department of Psychiatry at the Amsterdam University Medical Center’s Professor Christiaan Vinkers commented, saying: “This is significant work to understand how unfavourable childhood experiences have life-long repercussions for both mental and physical health. If we can comprehend not only who is at risk but also the various repercussions of rigorous parenting, we will benefit much.

A team of CHILD Cohort Study (CHILD) researchers has developed a simple new symptom-based screening tool for diagnosing asthma risk in children as young as two years old.

The tool’s efficacy—the CHILDhood Asthma Risk Tool, or CHART—is documented in a research published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

“Asthma affects nearly 330 million people worldwide, carries a heavy healthcare cost, and is the leading cause of hospitalization among kids in Canada–especially kids under five,” comments co-senior author Dr. Padmaja Subbarao, who is a respirologist and CRC Tier 1 Chair in Pediatric Asthma and Lung health at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and the Director of CHILD. She also a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Toronto and an Adjunct Professor in Respirology and Medicine at McMaster University.

“Earlier detection of this condition will allow doctors to treat kids sooner, so they will suffer less and avoid going to the hospital, thus also lowering costs to the healthcare system.”

“One reason asthma often goes undetected in young children is because most conventional asthma tests are difficult to perform in children, time consuming and invasive, involving skin pricks and blood-taking, so many patients and doctors choose to avoid them,” notes the study’s co-first author, Myrtha E Reyna-Vargas, who is an M.Sc. and a biostatistician at SickKids. “Other conventional tests can also require appointments with specialists and the use of specialized equipment to test lung function, with associated costs.”

CHART categorizes children’s risk of future asthma and persistent symptoms as ‘High,’ ‘Moderate’ or ‘Low,’ based on information reported before age three. The tool recommends follow-up actions for each group.

“The beauty of CHART, the new tool we have developed, is that it can be used by family doctors or nurses in a low-resource primary care setting. It is non-invasive; it can be done on-the-spot and in-the-moment; it is cost free and it requires no special equipment. Now that we have shown CHART’s benefits in the CHILD study, we are working towards validating its use prospectively in clinical practice.”

In the study, CHART was applied to data from 2,354 children participating in CHILD, a longitudinal research study launched in 2008 that has been following the physical, social and cognitive development of nearly 3,500 Canadian children from before birth.

From information about the children’s wheezing and coughing episodes, use of asthma medications, and related hospital visits at three years of age, CHART was able to predict with 91% accuracy which of these kids would have persistent wheeze–a key indicator of asthma–by age five.

Of those children evaluated by CHART to be at high risk of asthma at age three, 50% were diagnosed by in-study physicians as having asthma by five years of age.

“We believe the tool is actually even more accurate at predicting asthma than this number suggests,” adds Dr. Malcolm Sears, co-senior author of the study, professor emeritus at McMaster University, and CHILD’s Founding Director.

“Because of various ambiguities in the way asthma is clinically defined, it is likely that a number of these young kids have asthma that remains formally undiagnosed. And regardless of an official asthma diagnosis, persistent wheeze symptoms have been linked to lower lung function, chronic lung disease, and the same kind of health care utilization as asthma; persistent wheeze also requires similar monitoring and treatment, so the value of the tool’s predictive capacity is unquestionable.”

modified Asthma Predictive Index

Overall, CHART was found to be more accurate at predicting persistent wheeze, asthma, and related health care usage than other standard diagnostic methods, including physician assessments and the conventional asthma test known as the modified Asthma Predictive Index (mAPI).

The study’s findings using CHILD data were also validated by testing CHART’s performance against data from two additional cohort studies: the Canadian CAPPS Cohort, whose participants are all at high risk of asthma, and the Australian general population Raine Study. Not only did CHART also perform well within these cohorts, but–thanks to data available through the CAPPS Cohort–it was shown to be effective when applied to data from children as young as two years of age.

“We designed CHART to be a pragmatic screening tool for the use of busy primary care givers,” says the study’s co-first author Ruixue (Vera) Dai, an M.Sc. and a biostatistician at SickKids.

“With information that can be easily gathered, CHART could be incorporated into electronic medical records as a routine assessment. These kids can then be evaluated more closely, their conditions treated and managed better, and many hospitalizations can be avoided.”

“To our knowledge, this is the first study to develop a non-invasive tool for early detection of asthma and persistent wheeze in a general population, and that has subsequently been validated in general and high-risk cohorts.”

Also Read: Researchers identify protein partners that might repair cardiac muscle

When transitioning to a new sleep pattern at the start of the school year, teenagers may suffer interrupted sleep, daytime weariness, and changes in mood and attention.

According to the National Sleep Foundation and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, most teenagers receive fewer than eight hours of sleep every night, even though they require eight to ten hours to sustain physical health, mental well-being, and scholastic success. A new study from RUSH published in the journal SLEEP gives light on how teens might obtain more shut-eye.

“There are a lot of changes a teen goes through,” said Stephanie J. Crowley, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and the director of the Pediatric Chronobiology and Sleep Research Program at RUSH. “One specifically is a change to sleep biology that happens during puberty.”

“The brain systems that control sleep change in such a way that it’s easier for an adolescent to stay awake later into the evening. One of these systems — the 24-hour circadian clock — shifts later in time,” Crowley said.

So there are two competing forces: one to go to bed earlier for the school schedule and the other a biological change that happens naturally to a teen’s body.

Because of this complex conflict, RUSH researchers set out to test a two-week intervention that targets the circadian system with different behavioral measures and tries to help the teens figure out a better nighttime routine.

To combat teen sleep deprivation, the researchers used bright light therapy on two weekend mornings for a total of 2.5 hours. The bright light cues the internal clock to wake up a little earlier. This shift should make it easier for the teen to fall asleep at an appropriate time.

Less tired, irritable with increased Sleep

Crowley and her team then helped counteract sleep deprivation by providing time management tools and addressing barriers to an earlier bedtime, like limiting certain after-school activities.

Researchers were able to shift the teens’ bedtime by an hour and a half earlier, and their total sleep time increased by approximately an hour.

“The interesting thing is that teens with late circadian clocks shifted by up to two hours earlier,” Crowley said. “And the teens who had an earlier circadian clock didn’t need to be shifted any earlier. They just needed the behavioral support of trying to manage their time in the evening and increase their sleep duration.”

The youths in the intervention group were also less exhausted, angry, and concerned, and they had improved focus, according to the study. The kids’ morning alertness also improved.

The RUSH researchers are following up with participants in another trial to see if the teens were able to sustain their better sleep habits.

Also Read: Did you know? Practising weight exercise every day lowers your chance of death?

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), heart disease accounts for 17.7 million deaths in India. These figures include include children with congenital heart defects (CHDs). Experts discussed the symptoms of CHD in newborn newborns. “Congenital heart disease refers to a structural abnormality in the heart that exists from birth (CHD). It is the most frequent congenital defect among newborns. These diseases present in a variety of ways: some appear immediately after birth, others in the first week after your newborn is discharged from the hospital, and still others later in life “Dr. Naveen Prakash Gupta, Senior Consultant Neonatology at Madhukar Rainbow Children’s Hospital, confirmed this.\

Swelling in the legs, belly, or around the eyes, excessive exhaustion, lethargy, or a blue tint to the skin or lips (cyanosis) are some of the signs to watch for, according to Dr. Dhiren Gupta, Senior Consultant, Gangaram hospital (New Delhi). He feels that all newborn newborns should have their pulse oximeters checked.

Dr Naveen emphasised that “if your kid is having difficulties feeding or quick breathing especially after feeding or heavy perspiration after feeding or he/she appears blue, you should assume cardiac issues.” Sometimes only the hands and feet are blue while the rest of the body is pink, which might be due to the chilly environment.

In order to detect cardiac problems, the lips or tongue should be blue.”

“Many structural cardiac abnormalities can be detected during a standard prenatal ultrasound. An prenatal scan performed at 20-22 weeks of gestation typically detects significant structural issues in the heart “He continued.

Heart problems in newborn newborns are divided into two categories: those in which the baby is blue (referred to as cyanotic heart disease) and those in which the baby is pink but has other concerns such as feeding difficulty, excessive sweating, decreased urination, and failure to gain weight. Acyanotic heart disease is the medical term for this ailment.

Many issues arise later in life (after newborn kids have been discharged), and parents are unaware of them.

“A simple test called pulse oximetry screening may assist to discover cardiac abnormalities in your new born,” says Dr. Naveen. A pulse oximeter is a device that detects blood oxygen saturation.”

“All neonates born in the hospital should have pulse oximetry screening,” he argues. All neonates should have their oxygen saturations tested on the right hand and either foot at 24 hours of age. If the saturation level at each location is more than or equal to 95%, it is referred to as a negative screen (indicating that the infant does not have a cardiac issue).

A positive screen is one in which the saturation level at either location is less than 90%. (meaning there is a probability that the baby may have a heart problem). If the screen comes up positive, we should do a definitive test echocardiography (heart ultrasound) before release to confirm or rule out structural heart disease.”

“If the saturation level is 90-94 percent, the procedure should be done again at one-hour intervals. It is a negative screen if the saturation is more than or equal to 95% on any of the repeat readings. It is a positive screen if the saturation is less than 90% on any of the repeat readings.

If saturation levels remain between 90 and 94% on subsequent measures, consider it a negative screen and schedule an echocardiography. Also, if the saturation difference between the upper and lower extremities is greater than or equivalent to 4% on two to three successive tests separated by one hour, consider it a positive screen,” he stated.

Experts advise parents to visit a paediatric cardiologist. He will do echocardiogram on you and explain the situation. Not all cardiac disorders necessitate medical intervention. A paediatric cardiologist, on the other hand, will describe the technique and provide a timetable for when the echocardiogram may be repeated.

A cardiologist may be of tremendous assistance if your infant or child has a cardiac disease that requires treatment; he can admit the baby and execute the appropriate intervention.

Also Read: Study discovers what connects human senses and thinking

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Identification and prompt remedial procedures remain a source of worry in Indian households, where over 6.5 crore individuals suffer from partial or total hearing loss.

In India, the organised hearing aid sector sells 5 to 6 lakh units every year, which indicates that more than 99 percent of the population suffering from hearing loss is exposed to larger problems like as dementia, depression, and balance.

Mr Dave Fabry, Chief Innovation Officer, Starkey Hearing Technologies, says, “It takes anything between 4 to 6 years for a person suffering from hearing loss to go for professional help. Identification of the problem remains a problem worldwide. Untreated hearing loss triggers problems including cognitive disorders, dementia and depression besides others.”

“We are working with stakeholders including central and state governments, medical professionals and others to increase awareness towards the problem,” added Mr Akhil Chauhan, Managing Director, Starkey Hearing Technologies.

Speaking about the latest artificial technology ‘Evolv AI’, Chauhan says, “It will lay the groundwork for an entirely new hearing ecosystem that not only emphasizes the impact of hearing on overall health and wellness but also creates an effortless user experience.”

The new AI technology reduces noise by about 40 per cent, thereby significantly improving comfort and clarity.

“If hearing aid is used at an early stage in kids, it helps them achieve their full potential. Not using hearing aid in kids, people who actually need it – triggers problems including cognitive disorders, dementia, depression and issues related to low confidence,” says Fabry.

He added that hearing aids today can monitor physical activity and social engagement, automatically detect falls, and serve as an intelligent virtual assistant, in addition to improving speech intelligibility in quiet and noisy listening environments.

According to WHO, the major reason behind hearing loss and ear diseases is ear wax and non-infectious causes such as ageing and presbycusis. “The major causes of hearing loss and ear diseases in India have been listed by the WHO survey. Ear wax (15.9 per cent) was the most common cause of reversible hearing loss. Non-infectious causes such as aging and presbycusis are the next most common causes of auditory impairment in India (10.3 per cent).”

Also Read: Study reveals link between diabetes, urinary tract infections

According to one study, if a pregnant woman contracts COVID-19, the infection, no matter how little, impacts the placenta’s immune response to future infections.

The findings were reported in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. “This is the largest study of placentas from women who received COVID-19 during their pregnancies to date,” stated senior author Dr Kristina Adams Waldorf of the University of Washington School of Medicine. “We were startled to see that pregnant women who have COVID-19 had placentas with a reduced immune response to new infection.”

This discovery, according to Adams Waldorf, “was the tip of the iceberg” in terms of how COVID-19 can alter foetal or placental development.

Because there were so few kids born with COVID-19 infection early in the pandemic, many people believed that COVID-19 did not appear to harm the developing baby.

“But what we’re discovering today is that the placenta is sensitive to COVID-19, and infection alters the way the placenta operates, which is likely to impair foetal development,” Adams Waldorf said.

“Studies on how COVID-19 could effect foetal or child development have been quite restricted to far since the children are still very young,” said co-author Dr Helen Feltovich, professor and associate medical director for maternal-fetal medicine imaging at Intermountain Healthcare in Utah.

“Our findings imply that kids delivered to COVID-19-infected women at any time during their pregnancy should be closely observed as they grow,” she added.

Until delivery, the placenta supplies sustenance, oxygen, and immunological protection to the foetus. According to research done by Adams Waldorf, women who contract COVID-19 have a considerably greater death rate than women who do not get COVID-19. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, several research have revealed that pregnant women are more likely to be hospitalised or have a premature delivery.

Adams Waldorf and Feltovich concur that it is unknown how various COVID-19 variations may influence the mother or foetus.

“”Studying each variety in real-time is quite difficult,” Adams Waldorf said, “because they just keep coming so rapidly that we can’t keep up.” We do know that the COVID-19 Delta variation was harmful to pregnant women since there was an increase in stillbirths, maternal deaths, and hospitalizations during that time period.”

Regardless of the variety, Adams Waldorf emphasised the importance of women not contracting COVID-19.

Women who are pregnant should first be vaccinated and boosted, and then continue to mask and stay inside a strict bubble of vaccinated and boosted persons. She recognises that this may imply isolation for the remainder of the pregnancy.

“The condition might be slight or severe, but we’re still detecting aberrant effects on the placenta,” she explained. “It appears that when a pregnant woman contracts COVID-19, the placenta is fatigued by the infection and cannot regain its immunological function.”

A total of 164 pregnant women were evaluated in this study, with 24 uninfected healthy patients serving as a control group and 140 women infected with COVID-19. Both groups gave birth at the same time, between 37 and 38 weeks. When patients with COVID-19 were compared to those without, preterm delivery occurred at nearly three times the rate. According to the research, over 75% of COVID-19 patients were either asymptomatic or had moderate symptoms.

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Placental tissues were collected with patient consent from the Intermountain Healthcare Research Institutional Review Board in Salt Lake City, Utah, or the University of Washington Human Subjects Division in Seattle, Washington. Medical personnel gathered placental tissues at the time of birth.

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