An unsettling new study has found that children two years old and under who took asthma medication had stunted growth.

The study, which involved 12,000 children of two years of age and under who take asthma medicine, found that they are likely to be shorter in adulthood than they would be otherwise, according to a Mirror report.

The study centers around what are known as inhaled corticosteroids, which are drugs used in inhalers that are meant to treat breathing conditions. Often, they are prescribed to very young children who suffer from the condition.

However, the study is bad news for those children, as the data showed they were short for their age and those problems would probably continue into adulthood. Essentially, the research shows that there is a link between long-term treatment of ICS and stunted growth in children who would have otherwise been healthy, said lead researcher Dr. Antti Saari according to the report. The study was conducted by the University of Eastern Finland and Kuopia University Hospital.

Corticosteroids have helped many asthma sufferers live relatively normal lives. They are administered via inhalers, which are often carried on the person in case of asthma attacks. However, no one had conducted a large study on how they affect children until now, and the news is obviously not good.

However, doctors cautioned that the results of the study shouldn’t stop them from giving their children the medicine, as it may save their life, whereas the interference on bone growth is relatively minor and certainly not life-threatening, unlike an asthma attack.

If you’re overweight, it may not be bad diet and exercise habits that are to blame.

It may be because you go to bed at the wrong time.

A new study from the University of California, Berkeley, has found that there is a strong correlation between a person’s body mass index (BMI) and what time they go to bed, according to a Business Standard report.

The study found that teenagers and adults who go to bed late on weeknights were more likely to weigh more than those who follow Benjamin Franklin’s advice: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

To make their findings, the researchers looked at data from 3,300 young people and adults in the United States. Their conclusions were surprising: for each hour of sleep lost, there was a gain of 2.1 points on the BMI index, which happened over a period of five years.

And this was unaffected by exercise or from television watching, or even the number of hours they slept. Even if you’re working out, live a relatively active lifestyle, and get the recommended amount of sleep per night, if you’re not hitting the hay until 3 in the morning, your body will suffer, states the study, which was published in the journal Sleep.

It gives the medical community a new lead in combating obesity. Now, doctors may recommend to their patients that they should change their bedtime if they’re frustrated in the weight department.

The data they used came from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which has been tracking the behavior of teenagers for the last 20 years. Using this data, researchers were able to track the bedtimes of teenagers between 1994 and 2009, and then compared it to their BMI, which is estimated by height and weight. If the study results are true, it means you can’t be staying up late and hope to keep a trim figure — or, at least, it’ll be a lot harder to do so.

BMI, which stands for Body Mass Index, is an important metric that is used to measure whether someone is at a healthy weight. It generally doesn’t work to simply tell how healthy someone is from their weight, as some people will be heavier than others simply because they are taller. That’s why BMI was developed — to determine based on one’s height and gender what their weight should be to be in the healthy range.

BMI is specifically defined as body mass divided by the square of the body height, and therefore it is expressed in units of kg/m2 if it is measured using the metric system. BMI attempts to quantify the amount of tissue mass in an individual and then determine if that person is overweight, underweight, or at a normal weight.

Still, the BMI isn’t without its detractors. Some argue that BMI should be used to judge entire populations, but it doesn’t really work on an individual level. Also, BMI doesn’t take into account body fat. Since muscle is heavier than fat, a person with a lot of muscle mass who is quite healthy may register an unhealthy BMI, even though the person’s body fat level is quite low and the person is definitely not obese.

Still, BMI is usually a pretty reliable indicator for people, those exceptions aside, so that findings by researchers that the BMI was higher was most likely due to more body fat, and not greater muscle mass, and therefore the findings are an important lead in finding new avenues to combat obesity in America, which has become a huge problem.

Obesity in the United States is one of the most significant health crises facing the country, if not the biggest health problem. Many industrialized countries struggle with the issue, but the United States has some of the highest rates of obesity in the world.

Amazingly, two out of every three Americans are considered overweight or even obese. The medical community estimates that about 120,000 people have died each year in the United States due to obesity-related factors. There’s also a big financial burden, with obese people likely to incur $1,429 more in medical expenses each year, with about $147 billion spent on medical expenses annually in the United States. Because it’s a preventable condition, it is considered one of the most important areas of focus in the medical community.

A 2008 study found that obesity in adult Americans was at 32.2 percent for men and 35.5 percent for women — findings that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention largely confirmed in 2009 to 2010.

Problems with obesity have out-paced the financial and health burden to society of other ills like smoking or excessive drinking, and it is believed to account for up to 12 percent of all national health care expenditures in the United States.

With statistics like those, it’s not difficult to see why so much effort has been expended on studying ever facet of the issue to help get a handle on a growing epidemic.

Scientists have long understood that there is a definite relationship between weight issues and sleep. But it’s not just about bad bedtimes: a lot of us are getting too little sleep, and that can be just as harmful for our waistlines. And it’s a self-perpetuating problem: the fatter we get, the more likely we are to develop sleep apnea, which is an obstruction of the airways during sleep that is often accompanied by snoring and greatly reduces the quality of sleep, causing us to feel less rested during the day. And when one wakes up not feeling refreshed, they are less likely to feel like exercising or going on a diet. Daytime sleepiness is a big factor in causing people to skip an exercise routine.

If you have tried to lose weight and failed, but have seen your parents slim down more easily, your eating habits alone may not be to blame. A new study has found some surprising influences on our tendency to gain weight that have nothing to do with diet or exercise.

In their recent paper published in the journal Obesity Research & Clinical Practice, New York University researchers found that adults in 2006 with similar diets and lifestyles than adults of the same age in 1988 were more likely to be overweight. Those born later were five percent heavier, according to a Washington Post story.

The researchers suggested that several factors in modern life could be contributing to younger people’s weight control challenges. For example, most American today get less sleep and suffer more daily stress. The advent of new prescription drugs that have been linked to weight gain, including antidepressants, allergy drugs, steroids and pain pills, also may play a role. Americans today also eat many foods with new ingredients that may affect our microbiome, the bacterial colonies that help digestion and other functions. Impacts on the microbiome have proven to affect our bodies’ capacity to use energy.

Perhaps most intriguing is the potential affect that toxic chemicals in the environment may have on weight gain. Many studies have found that plastic chemicals, pesticides, and other environmentally persistent chemicals can impact our metabolism and hormones, potentially affecting the bodies’ food processing and fat storage.

Many women fear they may have a genetic mutation linked to breast cancer. But a new study shows that most women who get testing for the breast cancer genes called BRCA1 and BRCA2 don’t get genetic counseling, despite standard recommendations that they should.

The study, from the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine in Tampa, found that often doctors who send patients for genetic screening fail to recommend follow-up counseling so women can understand the findings and limitations of the test.

The National Cancer Institute says that the BRCA genes are linked to just 5 to 10 percent of breast cancer cases and about 15 percent of ovarian cancers, according to a Reuters story.

The research, reported in the journal JAMA Oncology, surveyed more than 3,600 women who received genetic testing. Only 37 percent of the patients said they had received genetic counseling, with most saying their doctor had not recommended counseling.

While the cost of genetic screening previously limited the number of women screened, testing costs are rapidly dropping, with typical BRCA testing today costing just $200 to $300. With many more women undergoing testing, experts believe that the recommendation for professional counseling for every women may no longer be practical.

Sharing your problems with a trained professional in a clinical setting has long been a standard treatment for depression. But a new study suggests that talk therapy for depression may be less beneficial than previous studies suggested.

The new review of previously published science on treatments for depression was published this week in the journal PLoS One, according to the New York Times. The review notes that “publication bias,” the tendency for researchers to go public with findings that match their hypotheses while downplaying opposing data, is common in studies on talk therapy as well as studies used in testing anti-depressant drugs.

The new review found about a 10 percent over-estimate in the percentage of people who have an added chance of having their depression ameliorated by engaging in well-tested types of talk therapy. In other words, talk therapy can work, but not for as many people as previous studies have suggested.

The PLos One paper found that data from unpublished studies on treatments for depression, had they been included in published accounts, would lower the success rates of talk therapies.

The researchers suggested that depression patients should understand that some talk therapies are effective, as are some drug treatments, and that combinations of the two approaches appear to be the most successful.

It was once considered remarkable to live to the ripe old age of 100. But now scientists are investigating the genetics of supercentenarians, people who live to be 110 or older.

Most people have the genetics to make for a lifespan of 80 or more, and scientists say that beneficial behavioral changes like diet and exercise can add about five years, according to a Washington Post story. But recent studies looking at the genes of people who live to 110 or older suggest that these supercentenarians may have genetic advantages that confer longer living.

A 2012 study in the journal PLoS1, for example, suggested that patterns in a complex of 280 genes could be associated with living to supercentenarian status. But a Stanford University project that sequenced the genomes of 17 living supercentenarians found no obvious genetic commonalities.

The New England Centenarian Study includes more than 2,000 participants, including 150 supercentenarians and 500 children of centenarians who may have inherited genes favorable to longer living. Since many centenarians and supercentenarians are not only living longer but are living healthier than previous generations, the researchers hope to learn how certain healthy behaviors may combine with genetics to foster long lives.

But some note that unhealthy behaviors don’t always point to earlier death: the world’s longest living person, 122-year-old Jeanne Calment, is said to have frequently enjoyed wine and cigarettes.

When you reach for the sauté pan, you might start with a dab of butter. But if you are like many Americans, more often you’ll be sautéing in olive oil.

This is a major shift over the past twenty-five years, according to a Washington Post story. In the late 1980’s, the typical American used just half a pound of olive oil per year. Today that figure has quadrupled, and much of the uptake of olive oil has been in place of butter.

A combination of industry marketing and dietary fads, such as the popular Mediterranean Diet, that have favored olive oil has helped propel sales, with Americans now using about 600 million pounds of olive oil annually. Butter sales have also increased, but not as dramatically.

While studies do back the healthfulness of olive oil, recent research suggest that butter’s reputation, as a heart-clogging saturated fat, may be overstated. A study last year found no convincing evidence that butter was linked with an increased risk of heart disease. Your overall diet, nutritionists say, is more important than simply your choice of fats.

Nutritionists suggest that some butter intake can be healthy, noting that people in Mediterranean countries tens to eat both butter and olive oil in moderation.

You wake up in the morning and have breakfast, and maybe just before bedtime you have a midnight snack. Like many people, you may be eating over the course of fifteen hours a day or more.

Now a new study published in the journal Cell Metabolism by researchers at the Salk Institute near San Diego has found that by consolidating your food intake during the day, leaving more time for overnight fasting, may help you lose weight.

The study followed more than 150 people who were not dieting, tracking their daily eating patterns, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times. The researchers found that most people would eat fewer than 25 percent of their daily calories before noon, while taking in more than a third after 6 pm. Rather than the typical three meals a day, most participants consumed food throughout the day, with fewer than 10 percent who went more than twelve hours overnight without eating.

Looking at animal studies, the Salk researchers hypothesized that a longer overnight fast would enable human subjects to lose weight more easily. In studies with mice, such fasting helped reset the animal’s internal clock and increase the bodies’ ability to burn calories.

The researchers recruited a small group of eight subjects who were overweight and who typically took in food over the course of fourteen hours or more per day. The participants were asked to stay on a stricter eating regime, consolidating their caloric intake over no more than twelve hours a day, thus increasing their overnight fast to twelve hours or longer.

Over sixteen weeks, the participants averaged weight loss of more than seven pounds. The study found that in addition to resetting their internal clocks, by consolidating their eating the participants took in 20 percent fewer calories per day.

Read the label on any packaged food from your local supermarket and you’re likely to find ingredients that your grandmother never would have used. Food additives are ubiquitous, but most of us have no idea how to interpret food labels to avoid the worst ones, and stop worrying about those that are harmless.

Now a new book called “Ingredients,” by Steve Ettlinger with photographs by Dwight Eschliman, uncovers the hidden science behind 75 of the most common food additives, according to a National Public Radio story.

The book categorizes additives as “neutral,” “positive” or “negative,” depending on their potential to cause health problems. The authors say they specifically looked for examples from each category, to insure that some healthful additives like beta carotene, a vitamin A precursor, were included.

But “Ingredients” does not shy away from explaining unhealthy additives. Sodium benzoate, for example, was once used widely in colas, but when the Food and Drug Administration warned that it could combine in soda with ascorbic acid to form the cancer-causing chemical benzene, Coke and Pepsi eliminated the additive from their products.

“Ingredients” also clears up some misconceptions about certain food additives. While many people have reported problems from monosodium glutamate, often used in Chinese foods, the author’s research found no definitive science on health risks from the seasoning.

Alcohol consumption during pregnancy has long been known to be linked to the potential for health problems in newborns. So federal researchers were surprised to find that a significant minority of pregnant women say they drink now and then – with some acknowledging occasional bouts of binge drinking.

In a survey by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control of 8,000 pregnant women, reported by NBC News, ten percent stated they had taken a drink in the past thirty days, with a third of those saying they had four or more drinks in a sitting, which is considered binge drinking. Older pregnant women between the ages of 35 to 33 were even more likely to be drinking, with 19% saying they had been drinking in the past thirty days. The survey found that pregnant women who acknowledged binge drinking also had more episodes per month of binge drinking than non-pregnant women who admitted binge drinking.

Alcohol intake during pregnancy can lead to fetal alcohol spectrum disorders and other health problems in newborns, with the potential for later physical, behavioral and learning problems.

The federal researchers also noted that many women may not realize they are pregnant during the first weeks of a pregnancy, and that some women could be reluctant to report truthfully about their drinking, suggesting that the survey likely undercounts the extent of the problem.