For Monday, October 20, WGN’s Dina Bair have the latest on new medical information, including:
Researchers concerned children aren’t getting outside enough
Some shocking news about kids activity that has doctors worried.
Parents admit their toddlers and preschoolers engage in screen time every day, but only play outside once a week.
Michigan Medicine polled parents and found one in 10 engage in diverse activities only one day a week.
Pediatricians say the physical and mental health benefits of outdoor play are well documented.
It helps with learning and development, yet kids are missing out on that boost.
Yet every day they watch television or videos or play video games.
Doctors urge parents to get their kids outside to run, jump, climb or imaginative play for physical and emotional well being.
Study shows seizures from epilepsy decrease over time
Some promising news for people with epilepsy, even if medication doesn’t work at first, seizures will decrease.
Resistance to epilepsy medications wanes over time, according to NYU Grossman School of Medicine neurologists.
About 30 percent of those with focal epilepsy, a common form of the disorder, respond poorly to treatment options.
But eventually they see improvement, and sometimes total relief.
Researchers say after three years 70 percent of study participants saw reduction in seizure frequency.
Introducing peanuts to babies at younger age decreases severe allergies
An effort to reduce peanut allergies is working.
National health experts have urged parents to introduce peanut products to babies at four months.
That exposure has reduced the number of children with severe peanut allergies by 60,000 in the last decade.
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia researchers are astounded at the dramatic decrease in allergy sufferers and that translates to lives saved.
For years doctors recommended delaying foods linked to allergies until age three.
But by then the immune system recognized them as harmful releasing chemicals that trigger allergy symptoms.
Only about 29 percent of pediatricians recommend early peanut introduction
So experts urge better education for doctors and parents to follow guidelines that reduce allergies.
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