Scientists have found evidence of brain damage in adolescents and young adults who binge drink, according to a new study.

University of Cincinnati researchers conducted high-resolution brain scans on a sample of 29 people, aged 18 to 25, who reported binge drinking on the weekends.

They found that binge drinking – consuming four or more drinks for females and five or more drinks for males – was linked to cortical thinning of the pre-frontal cortex.

The pre-frontal cortex is the area of the brain related to executive functioning such as paying attention, planning and making decisions, processing emotions and controlling impulses that may otherwise lead to irrational behavior.

The greater the number of drinks a person drank in one sitting, the more likely a person was to have some cortical thinning in the brain, the researchers said.

“Alcohol might be neurotoxic to the neuron cells, or, since the brain is developing in one’s 20s, it could be interacting with developmental factors and possibly altering the ways in which the brain is still growing,” explained lead researcher Tim McQueeny, a doctoral student in the UC Department of Psychology.

Conversely, the researchers found that abstinence of drinking, or even less drinking, could lead to some recovery of brain matter.

The findings affect a significant population, the researchers said. Statistics from the National Institute on Drug Abuse indicate that 42 percent of young American adults between 18 and 25 have engaged in binge drinking.

McQueeny will present the findings this week at the 34^th annual meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism in Atlanta.

How does teen dating affect teen drinking? Not in the way you might expect.

A study of nearly 500 students shows it’s not necessarily a significant other’s drinking habits that influence a teenager, but rather the drinking habits of the significant other’s friends that do.

The drinking habits of a romantic partner’s friends are even more likely to affect a teenager’s drinking patterns than the teenager’s own friends do.

“Dating someone whose friends are big drinkers is more likely to cause an adolescent to engage in dangerous drinking behaviors than are the drinking habits of the adolescent’s own friends or romantic partner,” said Derek Kreager, study author. “This applies to both binge drinking and drinking frequency.”

However, the researchers added, the effect doesn’t always skew towards heavier drinking. It can actually go either way.

“If an adolescent is a drinker and he or she starts going out with someone whose friends predominately don’t drink, you would find the same effect but in the opposite direction,” Kreager said.

The researchers speculate that teenagers adopt habits of their partner’s friends in order to strengthen their relationship with their partner.

There was a slight gender difference apparent in the study. Girls were significantly less likely than their male partners to binge drink.

“Our research suggests that, if anything, males are more susceptible to a significant other’s influence than are girls,” Kreager said.

The study was published in the journal American Sociological Review.

Stroke rates are rising among adolescents and young adults, according to a new study, which blames the increased prevalence of hypertension, diabetes and obesity for the higher rates.

Ischemic stroke hospitalizations increased 37 percent between 1995 and 2008 among adolescents and young adults aged 15 to 44.

Of the patients hospitalized for ischemic stroke, researchers found that one third of patients aged 15 to 34 years and over half aged 35 to 44 years were also diagnosed with hypertension. One-fourth of patients aged 35 to 44 years also had diabetes.

Additionally, a quarter of females and a third of males aged 15 to 44 were regular tobacco users.

“We identified significant increasing trends in ischemic stroke hospitalizations among adolescents and young adults,” said Mary George, M.D., a medical officer with CDC’s Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention. “Our results from national surveillance data accentuate the need for public health initiatives to reduce the prevalence of risk factors for stroke among adolescents and young adults.”

Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States and is one of the top 10 causes of childhood death.

Nearly 90 percent of all cases are attributed to ischemic stroke, which occurs when blood flow to the brain is blocked by blood clots or a build up of plaque inside blood vessels.

The researchers recommended that adolescents and their guardians minimize stroke risk factors by eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and foods low in sodium and saturated fat, maintaining a healthy weight, engaging in regular physical activity and not smoking.

The study was published in the journal Annals of Neurology.

Happy adolescents are less likely to commit crimes or engage in drug use, according to a new study.

UC Davis researchers examined data collected from nearly 15,000 adolescents and found that crime and drug-use was negatively correlated with with the adolescent’s self-reported emotional well-being.

The study data indicated that approximately 29 percent of the youth who participated reported having committed at least one criminal offense, and 18 percent said that they had used at least one illegal drug.

The happier adolescents, however, were less likely to report involvement in crime or drug use while adolescents with minor, or nonclinical, depression had significantly higher odds of engaging in such activities.

“Our results suggest that the emphasis placed on happiness and well-being by positive psychologists and others is warranted,” said Bill McCarthy, UC Davis professor and study researcher. “In addition to their other benefits, programs and policies that increase childhood and adolescent happiness may have a notable effect on deterring nonviolent crime and drug use.”

The study also found that changes in emotion over time can affect criminal activity. Adolescents who experienced a decrease in happiness or increase in depression over a one year period had higher odds of being involved in a crime or using drugs.

The researchers say their study is the first to investigate the association between happiness and juvenile crime. Prior studies have focused on discouraging negative emotions, such as anger or rage, in order to deter crime.

The study results will be presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting in Las Vegas.

A new study has found an association between vitamin D deficiency and early menstruation in young girls. Early menstruation can be a risk factor for a number of health problems for teen girls as well as women later in life.

University of Michigan researchers found that girls low on vitamin D were twice as likely to start menstruation early compared to those with sufficient vitamin D.

Worldwide, researchers said they have observed a decline in age of first menstruation, a change likely brought on by environmental factors because the genetic factors have not changed.

Premature menarche is a risk factor for a number of behavioral and psychosocial problems in teens. It also may be associated with an increased of cardiometabolic diseases and cancer in adult women.

Previous research has indicated that menarche begins later in girls who live close to the equator compared to girls who live in northern countries, presumably because girls in northern countries may suffer higher rates of vitamin D deficiency.

In the study, girls who were low in vitamin D were 11 years old, on average, when they had their first period. Girls with sufficient vitamin D were, on average, 12 years old.

Though the age gap is only a year, the researchers said the difference is in fact substantial because at those ages a lot is happening rapidly in a young girls’ body.

People who use tanning beds exhibit brain changes and behavior similar to addicts, according to a new study.

UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers say that frequent tanning bed users may actually be spurred on by an addictive reward-and-reinforcement trigger in the brain. This trigger is similar to that seen in people addicted to drugs and alcohol.

The researchers believe their findings may explain why some people continue to use tanning beds despite the increased risk of developing melanoma, the most lethal form of skin cancer.

“Using tanning beds has rewarding effects in the brain so people may feel compelled to persist in the behavior even though it’s bad for them,” said Dr. Bryon Adinoff, senior author of the study. “The implication is, ‘If it’s rewarding, then could it also be addictive?’ It’s an important question in the field.”

In the study, participants used tanning beds at different times. One time, they were exposed to ultraviolet radiation, and the other, special filters were used to block exposure to UV radiation. Participants were not told which session they were exposed to real or filtered radiation.

After each session, the participants were asked to rate how much they felt like tanning and were also administered a compound that allowed researchers to monitor brain blood flow during tanning.

Approximately 120,000 new cases of melanoma are diagnosed in the United States each year, according to estimates from the Skin Cancer foundation. People younger than 30 who use a tanning bed 10 times a year have eight times the risk of developing cancerous melanoma.

Though this is regarded as common knowledge, the use of tanning beds has continued to rise over the years.
Researchers say the next step is to create technology to study further brain changes resulting from tanning bed use.

The study was published in the journal Addiction Biology.