Social networking sites safety tips for teens

Dear parents,

I’M ABSOLUTELY SURE THAT YOUR TEENAGERS ARE AWARE OF THESE SAFETY ASPECTS. NEVERTHELESS, REMIND THEM ONE MORE TIME.

From Federal Trade Commission (FTP) website:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/tech/tec14.shtm

Your Safety’s at Stake

The FTC suggests these tips for socializing safely online:

• Think about how different sites work before deciding to join a site. Some sites will allow only a defined community of users to access posted content; others allow anyone and everyone to view postings.
• Think about keeping some control over the information you post. Consider restricting access to your page to a select group of people, for example, your friends from school, your club, your team, your community groups, or your family.
• Keep your information to yourself. Don’t post your full name, Social Security number, address, phone number, or bank and credit card account numbers — and don’t post other people’s information, either. Be cautious about posting information that could be used to identify you or locate you offline. This could include the name of your school, sports team, clubs, and where you work or hang out.
• Make sure your screen name doesn’t say too much about you. Don’t use your name, your age, or your hometown. Even if you think your screen name makes you anonymous, it doesn’t take a genius to combine clues to figure out who you are and where you can be found.
• Post only information that you are comfortable with others seeing — and knowing — about you. Many people can see your page, including your parents, your teachers, the police, the college you might want to apply to next year, or the job you might want to apply for in five years.
• Remember that once you post information online, you can’t take it back. Even if you delete the information from a site, older versions exist on other people’s computers.
• Consider not posting your photo. It can be altered and broadcast in ways you may not be happy about. If you do post one, ask yourself whether it’s one your mom would display in the living room.
• Flirting with strangers online could have serious consequences. Because some people lie about who they really are, you never really know who you’re dealing with.
• Be wary if a new online friend wants to meet you in person. Before you decide to meet someone, do your research: Ask whether any of your friends know the person, and see what background you can dig up through online search engines. If you decide to meet them, be smart about it: Meet in a public place, during the day, with friends you trust. Tell an adult or a responsible sibling where you’re going, and when you expect to be back.
• Trust your gut if you have suspicions. If you feel threatened by someone or uncomfortable because of something online, tell an adult you trust and report it to the police and the social networking site. You could end up preventing someone else from becoming a victim.

Energy Drinks Pose Serious Health Risks for Young People

For those who consume Energy drinks, who’s kids do or might do it in future.I am very glad that we started looking at it seriously.     MY

News Author: Emma Hitt, PhD

February 16, 2011 — A lack of research and regulation associated with energy drinks, combined with reports of toxicity and high consumption, may result in potentially dangerous health consequences in children, adolescents, and young adults, according to a review of scientific literature and Internet sources.

Sara M. Seifert, BS, and colleagues from the Department of Pediatrics and the Pediatric Integrative Medicine Program at the University of Miami, Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine in Florida, reported their findings in a report published online February 14 and in the March print issue of Pediatrics.

According to the review, self-report surveys indicate that energy drinks are regularly consumed by 30% to 50% of children, adolescents, and young adults. The current trial questions the use of energy drinks in these young populations, as they provide no therapeutic benefit and are associated with risks for serious adverse health effects.

The authors note that because energy drinks are categorized as nutritional supplements, they avoid the limit of 71 mg caffeine per 12 fluid ounces that the US Food and Drug Administration has set for soda, as well as the safety testing and labeling that is required of pharmaceuticals. As a consequence, energy drinks can contain as much as 75 to 400 mg caffeine per container, with additional caffeine not included in the listed total often coming from additives such as guarana, kola nut, yerba mate, and cocoa.

“Of the 5448 US caffeine overdoses reported in 2007, 46% occurred in those younger than 19 years,” the authors note.

The recommended maximum caffeine intake of 2.5 mg/kg per day for children and 100 mg/day for adolescents, although safe levels of consumption of other energy drink ingredients have not been established.

Although US poison centers have only recently begun tracking toxicity of energy drinks, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand have reported numerous adverse outcomes associated with energy drink consumption. These include liver damage, kidney failure, respiratory disorders, agitation, confusion, seizures, psychotic conditions, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, rhabdomyolysis, tachycardia, cardiac dysrhythmias, hypertension, myocardial infarction, heart failure, and death.

The researchers also note that the caffeine in energy drinks may interfere with bone mineralization during a critical period of skeletal development.

“The marketing of energy beverages is targeting towards males in the preadolescent, adolescent, and young adult ages,” Dr. Higgins told Medscape Medical News. “The fact that a child can walk into a grocery store or supermarket and buy these and consume [them] is frightening.”

Clinical Context

Caffeine has wide and far-reaching effects on human physiology. It causes coronary and cerebral vessel vasoconstriction, reduces insulin sensitivity, and stimulates skeletal muscle. It is also a ventilatory stimulant with bronchoprotective effects. Regular consumption of low to moderate amounts of caffeine among adults can improve exercise tolerance and cognition as well as reduce the risks for Parkinson’s disease and age-related cognitive decline.

However, caffeine can also have many unhealthy effects, particularly at high doses. Children are at greater risk for harm related to caffeine, yet the popularity of energy drinks that combine caffeine with other activating substances is soaring. The current review examines the use of energy drinks and the health consequences of this trend among children and adolescents.

Study Highlights

• Energy drinks are consumed by 30% to 50% of adolescents and young adults. A study of college students found that more than half of them mixed energy drinks with alcohol, a practice that might promote risky behaviors such as drinking and driving.
• Energy drinks contain 70 to 80 mg of caffeine per 8-ounce serving, which is approximately 3 times the amount of caffeine as cola drinks. The caffeine content of “energy shots” may be up to 5 times that encountered in 8 ounces of cola drinks.
• Energy drinks combine caffeine with substances such as guarana, which itself contains 40 to 80 mg of caffeine per gram. Moreover, guarana may have a longer half-life than caffeine.
• Caffeine consumption should not exceed 100 mg/day or 2.5 mg/kg/day among children and adolescents. In a study, consumption of 1 retail unit of energy drinks was associated with caffeine exposure that was considered excessive among 70% of children and 40% of teenagers.
• Consumption of 4 to 12 mg/kg of caffeine can promote anxiety and jitteriness. Headache and fatigue are common withdrawal symptoms after short-term, high-dose use of caffeine.
• Some countries have tracked cases of caffeine intoxication, but most reports are sporadic, and the prevalence of caffeine overdose is poorly understood. Caffeine intoxication is characterized by tremor, tachycardia, and insomnia. Other symptoms may include vomiting, abdominal pain, hypokalemia, hallucinations, seizures, arrhythmias, and death.
• Children and adolescents who may be at particularly high risk for complications related to the use of caffeine include those receiving stimulants for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, children with known heart defects and arrhythmias, and those with eating disorders. Energy drinks can also add to total caloric intake and may reduce peak bone mineral density.
• The authors of the current recommendations conclude that energy drinks have no therapeutic benefit but may promote serious adverse events. They call for greater regulation of these drinks, which have thus far escaped existing regulations for soft drinks because producers have labeled them as “natural dietary supplements.”

Toxicity surveillance of energy drinks should be improved. Clinicians should screen for the use of energy drinks, particularly among athletes, and advise their young patients and parents regarding the potential negative health consequences associated with energy drinks.

Clinical Implications

• Caffeine causes coronary and cerebral vessel vasoconstriction, reduces insulin sensitivity, and stimulates skeletal muscle. It is also a ventilatory stimulant with bronchoprotective effects.
• Caffeine consumption should not exceed 100 mg/day or 2.5 mg/kg/day among children and adolescents, meaning that consumption of 2 energy drinks per day is inappropriate.

Social Media Confuses, Concerns Parents

As many of you know I spend a lot of time discussing the issues of TV, computer, cell phone use by our children. Below is short version of article published in “Pediatric news”. Different opinions are reviewed. Decide for yourself…

Click here for full article

Time and again, parents come to Dr. Michael Rich overwhelmed by the role that texting, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media are playing in the lives of their children and adolescents.

“Most parents are coming with no idea or fairly misinformed ideas about what these media are,” said Dr. Rich, director of the center on media and child health at Children’s Hospital Boston.

Some report that their daughter is losing sleep and failing in school because she stays up until 2 or 3 a.m. texting her friends.

Others tell him that their son has becoming increasingly violent and disrespectful since playing war games online with friends and perfect strangers.

Still others inform him that their child has been cyberbullied by a classmate and refuses to attend school.

According to a 2009 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, young people aged 8–18 years spend an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes each day with TV, video games, or computers, an increase of 1 hour and 17 minutes over the average in 2004. In addition, 66% of these youngsters own a cell phone (on which they text or talk for another 2 hours each day), 76% of them have an iPod or other media player, and 74% of kids in grades 7–12 say they have a profile on a social networking site such as Facebook.

What about the long-term effects of social media on the development and behavior of today’s children and adolescents? Experts interviewed for this story say there is no way to tell for sure what kind of impact routine use of social media will have on current children and adolescents as they become adults.

But one thing’s for sure, said Dr. Susan Greenfield, a neuroscientist who directs the Institute for the Future of the Mind at the Oxford Martin School, Oxford (England) University: “It’s a given that it will affect the brain, because the human brain adapts to whatever environment it’s placed in.

Some experts suggest that social media are having a certain benefit on the smarts of youngsters. In his 2005 book “Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Making Us Smarter” (New York: Riverhead Books, 2005), author Steven Johnson notes that IQ scores have improved in several different countries around the world in recent years, likely because youngsters are rehearsing the kind of skills required for IQ tests when they play computer games.

However, Dr. Shifrin pointed out that other research has shown that frequent exposure to videos and other screen-based media slows down language acquisition in toddlers.

For some families  social media eat into quality time together, said Dr. O’Keeffe.”

Dr. Greenfield is concerned that children and adolescents who spend too much time on social media may be compromising the proper development of certain cognitive skills. “We know that people are getting good at processing information very quickly and efficiently – the kind of skills you have when you’re driving,” she said. “What we’re talking about is turning yourself into kind of a computer in a way: making efficient and fast responses as appropriate. This is very different from reading a book, which is very linear and slow. That’s what the brain needs to understand something usually; you don’t want to have it diluted and distracted, because the brain only has so much power. If it’s being employed in attending to lots of different things, it’s not going to be able to pursue a linear train of thought.”

The result, Dr. Greenfield offered, “could be an infantilizing of the brain, that we are going to create a generation of Peter Pans who live in a world that is a literal one, dominated by sensory content over cognitive significance, a world where what you see is what you get.”

Much of the onus is on parents, Dr. Rich said, to learn how social media work and to help their kids become good citizens of the digital world. “You can’t afford to check out because you don’t know the digital world.  We have a responsibility to parent in the digital domain, because our kids are spending most of their time there.” Dr. Michael Rich said, “Social media fundamentally alter how we interact with other people. When you see two kids who are sitting at a table together texting each other, it’s a very different dynamic than if they were actually talking to each other.”

TV cont’d

Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it. 

                                                                                           Alfred Hitchcock

Have you ever heard of “second-hand TV viewing”? You probably haven’t because I made it up.

We have all heard about the “second hand smoking”. We all know its harmful applications: it affects the lungs, causes asthma, etc. Now I will tell you about ”second hand TV watching”.

I’ve been in pediatrics for a lo-o-ong time. I’ve seen lots of kids (including my own) biting their nails. We all know that this is a sign of nervousness and anxiety. There is little we can do with it as parent. All we can do is to reduce stress for our kids or change their attitude to the stressful situations. One thing that I have never seen before is 1.5 year old child biting his nails. 

Who even needs these physicals?

 “The trouble with being a parent is that by the time you are experienced, you are unemployed.“

                                                                                Unknown

It was many years ago. I didn’t have my own practice yet and worked for another doctor.   One day I entered the room to see a teenage boy who came for his regular check up. I have never seen this family before. The boy was sitting on a high stool, the mom on a regular chair. Nothing unusual. I started asking the mom about her concerns while looking through the boy’s chart. All she mentioned was his height.

“What about his height?”, I asked. Automatically, I opened his growth chart. Then, the boy stepped down from his high stool…

Do you really believe in Vitamins?

Some of you have heard about my unfortunate vacation last year. While entering the hotel, I slipped on the wet floor and broke my arm. “Why me?!” is the first question a person asks when something unpleasant happens to him or her. I was not an exception, but the reason for this question was different. I exercise regularly; I take my vitamins (including Vitamin D, minerals and calcium). It was just a fall, and I have never broken any bones before. Why did this happen?

I started studying multivitamin composition, absorption in the body, recommendations, and daily requirements. The more I learned, the more confused I was getting:

• Some of the recommended dosages have not been renewed in more than 10 years;
• What brand of vitamins to buy?
• How can I be sure that the pharmaceutical company that makes them is reliable?
• Do they contain any preservatives or additives that could be harmful long term?

I spent a long time in different drug stores, including what they call “natural” ones, looking at the labels, trying to figure out who made them, whether they were made in U.S. and looking for any evidence of certifications, etc. Unfortunately, I was not lucky enough to find supplements for myself and my family that would satisfy me. To be specific, I could not find the vitamins manufactured (not distributed!) in the U.S.A. and certified by the independent non-profit organizations.

I found out that VITAMINS AND OTHER DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS DO NOT GO THROUGH THE FDA APPROVAL!!! So, anybody can sell them!

We can’t always eat a perfect diet, and each of us has unique health needs. Vitamins and other dietary supplements are something we use on a daily basis. You do not see the immediate effect of vitamins. So, we really need to know what we introduce into our bodies every single day.

As it was such an eye-opening experience for me, being in the medical field for a long time, I felt obligated to share this information with you. Now when shopping for supplements for your family, you will have a better idea of what to look at.

At the same time, many of us are concerned about whether more costly brands, such as those offered at doctors’ offices or on-line, are worth the extra money?

At some point we realized that the best way to maintain our high standards would be for us to develop our own line of vitamins and supplements. We have learned a great deal about supplement purity and quality. We found, in fact, that one way we can ensure delivery of quality is by working exclusively with labs that are externally validated by the NSF International, a non-profit, non-governmental organization that develops manufacturing standards that meet or exceed the FDA’s GMP guidelines

We view the NSF’s GMP program as an essentially in quality assurance. This makes sense for three simple reasons:

• We want to be true to what we say.
• If you are going to pay for it, you need to know that you are getting your money’s worth.
• If a supplement contains the right ingredients, you can be assured that what you are using it for is going to work.

What originally led us to choose NSF GMP Certified lab as our manufacturing partner was our own need to be sure that every one of our bottles contains what we want it to – nothing more and nothing less. The bottom line is, you can be confident of its authenticity, potency, quality and purity. We feel, that you’re worth it.

Our vitamins:

• Doctor-formulated, based on the latest nutritional and medical science for you, and your child’s health.
• Contain essential nutrients, including patented compounds to ensure maximum bioavailability, in conservative dosages.
• Manufactured in a facility validated by the NSF (The Public Health and Safety Company), to meet or exceed all governmental requirements for good manufacturing practices (the FDA’s GMP’s).
• Made from the most natural ingredients available. All ingredients are food based and contain no preservatives, sugar, artificial flavoring, filler, dyes or coloring of any kind.

At this point in time we have the following products available:

Chewable Kids’ Multivitamins

Adult Food-Based Multivitamins

Multi Mineral Comprehensive Formula

What is real fun?

A three-year-old child is a being who gets almost as much fun out of a fifty-six dollar set of swings as it does out of finding a small green worm.

- Bill Vaughan

Last week I met with a new family in my office. It was a couple that adopted an eighteen month-old boy from a Russian orphanage, where the boy had spent most of his life.

I always admire and greatly appreciate people who have the courage and big heart to adopt children. It must be so difficult: sudden transition of becoming a parent, lack of knowledge of the health history of the child in most cases, cultural background and conditions the child used to live in that affect him physically and emotionally

I salute these families, but my thoughts today concern the boy.