IMPACT ON HEALTH

Sleeping on Weekends Hurts Kids' Grades

It creates a 'jet lag-like' scenario for Monday morning, experts say

Many teens love sleeping in on weekends but their report cards may suffer, new research suggests. Saturday morning snoozers were more likely to do poorly in school than teens who kept more regular sleep habits, concludes a U.S. study just presented at the Associated Professional Sleep Societies annual meeting in Minneapolis. "When teenagers stay up late and sleep in over the weekend, this behavior resets their (internal) daily clock to a later time," study author Stephanie J. Crowley, of Brown University in East Providence, R.I., explained in a prepared statement. "This resetting can push back the brain's cue to be awake on Monday morning for school. As a result, teens may feel worse and have poor performance in school at the beginning of the week. Essentially, teenagers may be giving themselves jet lag over the weekend even without getting on a plane."

Problem Drinking Kills Almost Half of Russia's Young Adult Men

Study puts death toll at 43% of males aged 25 to 54

Alcohol abuse now causes nearly half of all deaths of Russia's younger men, a new study finds. In total, 43 percent of deaths among men ages 25 to 54 are linked to problem drinking, according to a study in this week's issue of The Lancet medical journal. The authors of the study defined hazardous alcohol drinking as excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages such as beer, wine and spirits, and consumption of non-beverage alcohol such as cleaning agents, colognes and medical tinctures.

Don't Let Osteoarthritis Keep You Down

Stiff hands, swollen knees, aching back? Would anyone with these types of joint problems want to exercise? Why make the joints hurt more? These are just a few symptoms that a person with osteoarthritis (OA) may experience. Millions of dollars each year are spent on dietary supplements and other devices, such as magnets, to relieve pain. Some treatments are promising, including the dietary supplements glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate for reducing pain, but exercise is a tried and true remedy, aiding in pain control, enhancing mobility, and slowing disease progression.

Men and depression

In treatments, attention must be paid to sexual and other issues.

Depression is sometimes called the common cold of mental health, but it's unlike the common cold in at least two important respects: It doesn't go away in a week without treatment, and it doesn't affect men and women equally or in the same ways. Although attention is rightly paid mainly to the causes and consequences of women's high rate of depression, the disorder also presents special problems for men. At every age, men have worse health than women and a higher death rate. They also have a higher - often much higher - risk of many psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, alcoholism, drug addiction, and autism. So it is remarkable that the rate of diagnosed depression is much lower in men almost everywhere in the world. In the United States, about half as many men as women become seriously depressed at some time in their lives. Men suffer less major depression, less dysthymia (chronic mild to moderate depression), and probably less bipolar depression (although the rate of bipolar disorder is the same in both sexes).