Medical Bulletin 07/ February/ 2025 - Video

Here are the top medical news for the day:

Study Links Adverse Childhood Experiences in Firstborns to Mental Health Issues in Siblings

Children are nearly three-quarters (71%) more likely to develop mental health problems between the ages of 5 and 18, if the firstborn child in their family experienced adversity during their first 1,000 days, finds a new study led by UCL researchers.

The study published in The Lancet Public Health found that mothers whose firstborns had experienced adverse childhood experiences had a 71% increased risk of having children with mental health problems, compared to mothers whose firstborn did not experience adversity.

As part of the study, researchers analysed linked GP and hospital health records from 333,048 first-time mothers and their 534,904 children (firstborns and siblings) born in England between 2002 and 2018. They focused on six different forms of adverse childhood experiences in the firstborn child recorded during their first 1,000 days of life (from conception up until the age of two).

These included: child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, maternal substance misuse, maternal mental health problems, adverse family environments (e.g. homelessness), and high-risk presentations of child maltreatment (e.g. unexplained child injuries).

Over a third (37.1%) of firstborn children had at least one recorded adverse childhood experience. The most common adverse childhood experiences were living with maternal mental health problems (21.6%), followed by adverse family environments (14.5%) such as parental criminality and housing instability.

Approximately one in five (19.8%) mothers had at least one child with a recorded mental health problem between the ages of 5 and 18. Mothers whose firstborns experienced adverse childhood experiences had significantly more children with mental health problems (average of 30 per 100 mothers) compared to mothers whose firstborns did not (average of 17 per 100 mothers).

The risk of mental health problems was consistent across all siblings, regardless of birth order (firstborn vs thirdborn), in families where the firstborn experienced adverse childhood experiences. Children in families where the firstborn experienced adversity also had 50% more emergency hospital admissions for any reason and double the amount of mental health-related healthcare contacts.

Reference: Syed. S., et al. (2025) Adverse childhood experiences in firstborns and mental health risk and health-care use in siblings: a population-based birth cohort study of half a million children in England. The Lancet Public Health. doi.org/10.1016/s2468-2667(24)00301-3.

Can Traffic Delays Increase Unhealthier Eating Choices?

New research shows that traffic delays significantly increase visits to fast food restaurants, leading to unhealthier eating for millions each year.

Researchers had access to daily highway traffic patterns over more than two years in Los Angeles, along with data showing how many cell phone users entered fast-food restaurants in the same time period.

With these data, the team created a computational model showing a causal link between unexpected traffic slow-downs and fast food visits.

This pattern held at various time scales, including 24-hour cycles and by the hour throughout a given day.

When analyzed by the day, traffic delays of just 30 seconds per mile were enough to spike fast-food visits by 1%.

When the researchers broke the day into hour-long segments, they found a significantly greater number of fast food visits when traffic delays hit during the evening rush hour.

At the same time, grocery store visits declined slightly.

"Our results contribute to the literature suggesting time constraints are really important to the food choices people make. Any policies aimed at loosening time constraints -- and traffic is essentially lost time -- could help battle unhealthy eating," said study author Becca Taylor, assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at Illinois. "That could mean improvements in infrastructure to mitigate traffic congestion, expanding public transport availability, and potentially increasing work from home opportunities."

Reference: https://aces.illinois.edu/news/slow-traffic-fast-food-study-links-road-delays-unhealthy-eating

Why some people are more susceptible to developing drinking problems? Study Finds

Rutgers Health researchers have discovered that brain immune cells from people with a high genetic risk for alcohol use disorder (AUD) behave differently than cells from low-risk people when exposed to alcohol. Their study in Science Advances could help explain why some people are more susceptible to developing drinking problems and potentially lead to more personalized treatments.

The research team took blood samples from two groups of people: those with both high genetic risk for alcohol use disorder and diagnosed alcohol problems and those with low genetic risk and no alcohol problems. They transformed these blood cells into stem cells and made them develop into a type of brain-based immune cell called microglia.

They then exposed these two groups of cells, one from the people with a high genetic risk for alcohol use disorder and one from the people with a low risk of alcohol use disorder, to alcohol levels that mimicked those seen in the blood following alcohol use.

"The microglia with the high genetic risk scores were far more active than the microglia with the low genetic risk scores after the alcohol exposure," said Xindi Li, lead author of the study, a postdoctoral fellow at the Child Health Institute of New Jersey.

The highly active cells engaged in more "synaptic pruning" -- removing connections between neurons in the brain. This increased pruning activity could have significant implications, the researchers said.

"After many years of drinking, people with these genetics may have a greater risk of dementia because the microglia pruned so many more connections," Li said.

"Their overactivity could make neurons less functional."

This work could eventually lead to better treatments for alcohol use disorder. The results suggest that if different genetic variations lead to different cell behavior in the brain, people with different genetic signatures may need different treatments.

Reference: https://www.rutgers.edu/news/scientists-discover-how-genetic-risk-alcoholism-changes-brain-cell-behavior

Link Between Maternal Vitamin D During 1st Trimester and Pregnancy Outcomes: Study Finds

Low vitamin D levels in the first trimester of pregnancy are associated with higher rates of preterm birth and decreased fetal length, according to a new study led by researchers in the Penn State Department of Nutritional Sciences. This research provides evidence that early pregnancy or even preconception may represent critical time points for intervening with women who have low vitamin D status, to optimize pregnancy outcomes. The findings are published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The researchers tested blood samples from 351 women recruited pregnant women across the United States between 2010 and 2013.

Vitamin D was measured in terms of nanomoles per liter (nmol/L) of blood. When the researchers compared outcomes for women with vitamin D insufficiency (less than 50 nmol/L) to women with sufficient vitamin D (more than or equal to 50 nmol/L), they found no statistical differences in pregnancy outcomes. However, when the researchers compared pregnancy outcomes across a wider range of vitamin D concentrations, they found that pregnant women with first trimester vitamin D concentrations lower than 40 nanomoles per liter were four times more likely to experience a preterm birth compared to women with vitamin D concentrations more than or equal to 80 nanomoles per liter.

Women with higher levels of vitamin D experienced a small but statistically significant increase in fetal length.

When the researchers examined maternal vitamin D levels during the second trimester of pregnancy, they saw no difference in fetal growth patterns or pregnancy outcomes in women with lower versus higher vitamin D status. They said more women in the study had healthy levels of vitamin D during the second trimester, so that may have diminished their abilities to detect results. Still, they said this result required more research to fully understand.

Results pointed to the potential value of taking a supplement containing vitamin D for women who are planning a pregnancy, the researchers said.

Reference: https://www.psu.edu/news/health-and-human-development/story/vitamin-d-matters-during-first-trimester-researchers-find