Coming out of childhood, stepping into adolescence, is a period containing a lot of mysteries for a young child. He is unaware of many a things, and is anxious for trying them out resulting in a number of diseases and mishaps. These diseases range from car accidents, pregnancy complications, sexually transmitted diseases, to cancer and other various health problems linked to smoking, alcohol and other kinds of addictions e.t.c.

The knowledge about different queries that arise in the mind of an adolescent is a must to be given. A doctor can be the best guide to provide the knowledge about his future health concerns. Dr. Frank Biro, participant of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital’s adolescent medicine program, said, “They are quite literally our future. If we don’t take good care of them, there’s a strong likelihood when they are running the ship they’re not going to have a good time running the ship.”

But sadly enough, there are not enough doctors trained for adolescent care. From 1996 to 2005, only a few doctors took such training.

According to a report, 10 to 20 percent of the teenagers become mentally ill each year, confronting depression and anxiety, go without seeking treatment. An air of trust between a doctor and a patient is must, and a teenager specially, as it will encourage him to go for counseling and preventing himself from the upcoming health threats.

Proper medication is, undoubtedly, a great help, but there are some other ways that can be very handy to keep your blood pressure under control that include:

1. Smoking is injurious to your overall health and blood pressure is no exception, so avoid doing that.

   

2. Make your diet rich with vegetables and fruits

   

3. Caffeine and alcohol (if used excessively) can cause high blood pressure, so reduce their intake.

   

4. Your diet should contain least amount of sodium and fats.

   

5. Regular exercise can help you a lot to keep blood pressure under control

   

6. Don’t allow excessive weight to rule on your body

   

7. And don’t allow stress to rule on your life. Some relaxation techniques can do a lot in this connection.

Researchers, from Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago, showed in their previous study that large amounts of alcohol to rats caused considerable decrease in their bone density and strength.

In the new study, the researchers injected rats with such large amount of alcohol as equivalent to excessive drinking for three days or chronic alcohol abuse for four weeks in humans. The researchers looked at the genes responsible for bone health and they found that alcohol affected the amounts of RNA related to these bones.

Alcohol became the cause to increase the amount of RNA linked with some genes and decrease the amount of RNA linked with other genes.

The study has been published in the recent issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research and it may help in the development of new drugs to reduce bone loss in alcohol abusers. These drugs may also prove helpful for people at risk for osteoporosis.

Study co-author John Callaci, who is a bone biologist and assistant professor in the department of orthopedic surgery and rehabilitation, says in a Loyola news release: “Not to drink or moderately is, indeed, the best way to prevent alcohol-induced bone loss. However, some other strategies are required to limit the damage when prevention doesn’t seem to work.”

“The take-home message is that, if you drink a lot, you’re going to hurt your brain. This is something we knew, but this is a huge study that quantifies that.” said Rajesh Miranda, an associate professor of Health Science Center College of Medicine.

Brain degenerates naturally with aging, at a rate of about 1.9 percent per decade. Simultaneously, the brain gains white matter lesions. Both of these changes are accompanist of dementia and cognitive decline.

For the study, researchers conducted MRI and health examination on 1,839 adults, aged up to 60. None of the participants had evidence of clinical dementia or had suffered a stroke.

The men and women were asked, how much alcohol they drank in a weak, then were categorized in low (1 to 7 drinks per week), moderate (8 to 14 drinks per week) or heavy drinkers (14 or more drinks a week).

Most participants fell into the “low-consumption” class. Men were more likely than women to report being moderate or heavy drinkers.

Alcohol had no protective affect on the normal, age-related shrinkage in brain volume, the researchers found.

Instead, the more a person drank, the more their brain volume reduced. This factor was more prominent in women than men, though women tended to be lighter drinkers.

“The gender difference could be explained by biological factors, namely that alcohol is absorbed faster in women and they tend to feel the effects of alcohol more than men.” researchers said.