Tag Archive for 'teens'

Study finds that teen use of pot and alcohol is increasing

Published on March 2, 2010 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

3917056433_2940ff8494After ten years of declining, a new study has found that alcohol and marijuana use is on the rise. Sean Clarkin, director of strategy at The Partnership for a Drug-Free America, said that we have learned from the past that you usually see an increase in recreational drugs first and the harder stuff usually follows.

The  survey, which is done yearly, discovered that the amount of teens in grades 9 through 12 who said they drank alcohol in the past month rose 11 percent in the past year; with 39 percent reporting alcohol use, which is about 6.5 million teens.

Pot use among teens is up 19 percent. About 25 percent of teens said they smoked marijuana in the last month.

Until recently, these numbers for pot and alcohol use had been on a steady decline since 1998. At this time, use lingered around 50 percent for teens using alcohol and 27 percent for teens using pot.

In addition, the new study unfortunately discovered that teens using the party drug Ecstasy is on the rise. Six percent of teens interviewed admitted that they used Ecstasy in the last month, compared with 4 percent in 2008.

Clarkin said that if parents do suspect their teen might be using, they need to act swiftly. Try to watch them closely, talk to them about the danger of drugs, set rules and if necessary, and get outside help such as a counselor, doctor, clergy or other resource.

During the study researchers asked the teens how they felt about doing drugs or about the friends who did them. It was found that a higher percentage of teens than the last year said that they like being high and more friends said they had friends who often got high at parties. Also, less teens admitted that they would not hang out with kids who smoked pot.

MetLife Foundation sponsored the partnership’s “attitude tracking” study. Researchers in the study surveyed 3,287 teens in grades 9 through 12. Data was drawn from surveys that the teens completed from March to June 2009. The study has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.

The New York-based partnership is a nonprofit group that works to decrease illicit drug use.

Diabetes reversed in teens with obesity surgery

Published on December 31, 2008 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

About a third of America’s youth are either overweight or obese. More and more obese children are being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, which is the most common form of the disease and the one that is linked with obesity. In the past, it was rarely seen in kids.

On the positive side, a small study has shown that obesity surgery can reverse  diabetes in teens like it does in adults. There were 11 patients in the study who were aged 14 to 21 and all were severely obese, ranging from 250 to 403 pounds. They were taking diabetes pills and one was on insulin. They had gastric bypass surgery or stomach stapling at five different medical centers. At Cincinnati Children’s Hospital,they were compared to 67 teens who were mostly obese and had diabetes. Their blood sugar was being controlled with diet and medication.

After a year, those who had surgery had lost between 72 and 218 pounds, but none had reduced to a normal weight. Diabetes disappeared within a year for all but one of the 11 severely obese teens in the study, after under going weight- loss surgery, according to the researchers. The 11th patient still had diabetes, but was able to stop taking diabetes pills and needed much less insulin.

All of the teens who did not have surgery still had diabetes after a year and there was no change in their weight or their medication usage, but their blood sugar levels showed improvement.

The researchers said the reason wasn’t clear why diabetes wasn’t reversed in one patient who had been through the surgery, but they mentioned that his mother and a sibling had Type 2 diabetes. The teen still needed to take insulin but was no longer overweight three years after the surgery. Another reason could be that his diabetes was more advanced than the other teens in the study. Previous adult studies have found that the chances of reversing diabetes are better when the surgery is done soon after a being diagnosed. The others were most likely successful because their surgery was done while the patients were in the early stages of the disease.