Teenagers are often more prone to experiencing signs and symptoms of depression, and the use of anti-depressants in this particular population has been the subject of much debate and study.

And while several drugs on the market are used to treat teens with depression, a study done in the early 00′s led to increased concern that the drugs enhanced the possibility of suicidal ideation or suicidal thoughts. That in turn led to a high-level “black box” warning issued by the Food Drug Administration (FDA) in 2004 when concerns about the link between depression drugs in teens and suicide risk was probed.

However, subsequent clinical research has failed to replicate the study’s results, and more recent controlled studies contrasting certain depression medications with placebos showed no increased suicide risk with the former over the latter. According to rxDaily, Robert Gibbons, PhD, of the University of Chicago Medicine recently headed up a new analysis of 41 studies that encompassed more than 9,000 people and found no increased risk of suicide in young people medicated with common anti-depressants versus placebos. Gibbons explains:

“The key finding here, when we re-analyze all the patient-level longitudinal records in these studies, is that antidepressants neither increase nor decrease suicidal thoughts or behavior in children… Maybe children think about suicide in part because of depression, but also maybe due to other reasons not related to depression that are not affected by antidepressants.”

Gibbons also surmises that the risk of suicide may be due to depression itself more commonly, and not the drugs used to treat the depression:

“Basically, the results say that the mechanism by which the antidepressants affect suicide rates is by decreasing depression. It follows that if a treatment is not working for an individual, the risk for suicidal behavior and perhaps worse remains high.”

Gibbons’ team’s analysis was published in the February 2012 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Depression Drug, Suicide Link Reexamined is a post from: The Inquisitr

If you’ve been following the “sexting” trend through various news network over the last 12 months it likely seems that just about every teen on the face of the planet is engaging in acts of personal phone pornography but a new study says that simply isn’t the case.

According to the study published on Monday in the journal Pediatrics one in 10 children from the ages of 10 to 17 engage in the sending of sexually explicit images (10%) and only 1 in 100 (1%) send images of themselves and others that would be considered in violation of child pornography laws.

Researchers conducting the study interviewed 1,560 children from across the United States and according to author Janis Wolak:

“It only takes one or two cases to make people think this is very prevalent behavior,” and “This has been reported as if it were something that everyone was doing, not just in the teen population, but in the young adult population. It’s really not the case.”

Janis’ work at the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire makes her an authority on the subject and the perfect person to show proof that the prevalence of sexting among underage pre-teen and teens is not as serious as researchers and news outlets in the past have led us to believe.

The research further reveals that 149 kids admitted to sending or receiving pornographic images in the last 12 months while just over 2 percent said the pictures were taken of their own bodies and 7.1 percent said they had received sexual images from someone else.

What may be most troubling about the trend is that 31 percent of those respondents who said they took sexual images said they did so while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

The study does not say that sexting is not of concern, simple that media reports about the issue have been greatly exaggerated. I have to admit we’ve been guilty of rampant reporting on the issue at Inquisitr as can be witnessed here, here and here.

Are you surprised to learn that cases of sexting among younger phone users are not as rampant as originally believed?

[Image via ShutterStock.com]

Underage Kids Engage In Sexting, But Not As Much As Previously Thought [Study] is a post from: The Inquisitr

A new study from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) advises that HIV tests for teens are introduced in most U.S. metropolises.

Back in 2006, more than a million Americans were living with HIV, and 5% of that total – around 55,000 – were aged between 13 and 24. Now, that number is on the rise. The AAP is recommending HIV tests for those teens aged 16 and above who live in an area where more than 0.1% of the population has been diagnosed with the virus.

Co-author of the AAP report Patricia Emmanuel, also a professor of pediatrics at the University of South Florida, says, “Our youth are having sex and our youth are getting HIV.”

The report, published this week in the journal Pediatrics, also advises routine screening at urgent-care clinics and emergency departments in high-prevalence areas. And it argues any teen tested for an STD should authomatically receive a HIV test.

The idea of routine HIV testing is not new. In 2006, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended testing for people aged between 13 and 64, but the U.S. Public Health Service did not endorse it, and many doctors ignored the advice due to cost-effectiveness.

But now the issue is back on the table, doctors are also being urged to talk to their teen patients more about the dangers of unsafe sexual behavior. As Emmanuel states:

“HIV is not just a grown-up disease. The greatest increase is in young gay men, mostly ethnic minorities. Many are 16, 17 and 18. They are not 13, but they are teenagers.”

[Image via Piotr Marcinski / Shutterstock.com]

HIV Tests Advised For Teens is a post from: The Inquisitr

If your teen is a rule-breaking, booze-sneaking, sexually-experimenting pain in your derriere, say researchers, the behavior isn’t entirely driven by a desire to drive you batty.

Research into the sometimes frustrating and often dangerous behavior of teens has revealed that developing adults are somewhat evolutionarily geared towards cracking into six-packs behind the shed before engaging in heated pre-sexual fondling, and scientists have conceded the behavior is somewhat “inevitable” on the part of teens. Not surprisingly, the research revealed that teens are more likely to take the risks they take in groups, and that the behavior evolved as a way for the relatively young of our species to cope with “a harsh environment.”

One of the aspects of the study observed teens alone as well as with their peers- and the teens in groups tended to be bolder and less risk-averse, with the brain’s reward sectors lighting up when the kids engaged in edgy behavior with friends.

Professor and neuroscientist B.J. Casey of Weill Cornell graduate school of medical sciences in New York studied brain imaging, and said that the behavior actually enhances teens’ development:

“We’re so used to seeing adolescence as a problem. But the more we learn, the more adolescence starts to seem like a highly functional, even adaptive period. It’s exactly what you’d need, to do the things you have to do.”

Researcher Laurence Steinberg of Temple University in Philadelphia also commented on the risk-taking tendencies of teens:

“Heightened risk-taking during adolescence is likely to be normal, biologically-driven, and, to some extent, inevitable. There is probably very little we can or ought to do.

“This is a development shift that likely has evolutionary origins… More than 90 per cent of all high school students [in the U.S.] have had sex, drug and driver education in their schools, yet large proportions of them still have unsafe sex, binge drink, smoke and drive recklessly.”

Steinberg recommends easily accessible contraception, higher cigarette prices and increased alcohol prohibition as ways to limit the damage teens can inflict upon themselves during this period of growth.

Teens Predisposed to Casual Sex, Binge Drinking, Study Says is a post from: The Inquisitr

As a parent, what topics are difficult to discuss with your teens? Perhaps the traditionally touchy subjects like drugs, alcohol, smoking and sex?

A research conducted by a partnership between WebMD and Sanford Health revealed that being overweight is a more difficult topic for parents to discuss with their teens. One in 20 parents of teens said that they are struggling with the subject of drugs, alcohol, smoking while about 10 are uncomfortable talking with their teens about sex. Nearly a quarter of parents are hesitant to talk to their teens about overweight. The study even suggested that many parents of kids ages 8 to 17 are avoiding the subject of weight.

More than one in five parents admit they have never brought up the subject of maintaining a healthy weight to their kids despite knowing that being overweight poses an immediate health risk to their kids.

It should be noted that according to the American Heart Association, about one in three American kids and teens are overweight or obese.

About 90 percent of healthcare professionals said that maintaining a healthy weight is the most important health topic that parents should discuss with their children, over safe sex, cigarette smoking, drug use, and alcohol consumption.

Still, one in five parents are said that the doctor should be responsible in discussing the dangers of being overweight.

Why are parents having such difficulty discussing this issue with their teens? Susan Bartell, Psy.D., an obesity expert, reasons out:

“Weight has become such an emotionally charged and pervasive subject, especially in a culture that is highly image-driven. Broaching this subject can be extremely intimidating for parents, especially given that parents themselves may be struggling with weight.”

With parents and doctors pointing fingers at each other on whose responsibility it is, teens are left behind not knowing what healthy habits to pursue and what information to digest about the issue of weight.

As a parent, are you prepared to discuss weight with your teens?

Weight is Harder to Discuss Between Parents and Teens Than Drugs and Sex is a post from: The Inquisitr

A new study published in the medical journal Pediatrics examines the psychological effects of Facebook on teens prone to depression, and the mixed findings report slight dangers for certain kids.

Researchers admit that the kids who seem to be negatively affected by using the social network are already prone to the types of feelings examined in the study- so it’s not like Facebook inspires depression in children who might not otherwise experience the condition. But kids with depressive tendencies can suffer from a skewed perception of themselves when confronted with what appears to be a long list of achievements on the part of their peers:

The NYDN quoted one kid about Facebook-related inferiority complexes:

“If you really didn’t have that many friends and weren’t really doing much with your life, and saw other peoples’ status updates and pictures and what they were doing with friends, I could see how that would make them upset,” Abolt told The Associated Press. “It’s like a big popularity contest – who can get the most friend requests or get the most pictures tagged.”

If the study’s findings hold true, perhaps the kids should spend more time looking at their own Facebook profiles.

Experts: Facebook good, also bad, can foster “Facebook depression” is a post from: The Inquisitr

In news that may be shocking to two or three parents nationwide, teenagers are not actually falling asleep straight after “going to bed.”

Studies indicate these teenagers may actually be retiring to their rooms to engage in some late-night textual healing, engaging in text messaging sessions that have gone on for as long as four hours. Attending physician at the JFK Medical Center sleep lab in Edison, New Jersey Dr. Peter Polos says that in the 40 students they sample-studied, kids sent an average of 33.5 texts or emails each night after bedtime, in time frames ranging from 10 minutes to the four hour figure.

Dr. Polos says it’s not the kids per se, but the devices that are enabling the sleep deficits:

”It reaffirms my suspicion that the availability of these media to children can or will have a significant impact on their quality and quantity of sleep,” Polos tells WebMD.

He also commented on the frequency and volume of media consumed and transmissions sent by kids these days:

The average number of texts sent per month including weekend nights after bedtime was 3,404 per person, Polos found. “That number reflects a portion of children who were excessively using the media.”

The older the student, the more time he or she was likely to spend texting and emailing after bedtime.

“Most of the 40 students reported either learning, behavioral, or cognitive issues,” Polos tells WebMD.

“This [emailing and texting] is more stimulatory than television, I think,” says Polos.

The study found that boys are more likely to stay awake surfing the internet or playing a game, whereas girls tend to engage in more social sleep distractions.

[WebMD]

Breaking: Teens texting all night, are tired in school is a post from: The Inquisitr