Little sun in pregnancy may cause learning disabilities

Too little sunlight, specifically ultraviolet B exposure, in pregnancy may lead to a higher risk of learning disabilities in child, according to a study. The study conducted by researchers at University of Glasgow found that there was a statistically significant relationship between lower ultraviolet B (UVB) exposure over the whole of pregnancy and the risk of learning disabilities. The researchers looked at more than 4,22,500 school-age children from across Scotland and found that low UVB exposure during pregnancy was associated with risk of learning disabilities. “Learning disabilities can have profound life-long effects on both the affected child and their family. The importance of our study is that it suggests a possible way to prevent learning disabilities in some children,” said professor Jill Pell, Director of the University of Glasgow’s Institute of Health and Wellbeing and lead author of the study.

Facebook not that bad, can kill depression in adults

If you use a social networking site like Facebook, you are 1.63 times more likely to avoid serious psychological distress such as depression and anxiety, find researchers. Using social media apps like Facebook does have its advantages and one such positive outcome is improving mental health among adults. According to a Michigan State University study, using social media and the Internet regularly could improve mental health among adults and help fend off serious psychological distress, such as depression and anxiety. “Communication technologies and social media platforms make it easier to maintain relationships and access health information, which could explain it,” said Keith Hampton, professor of media and information at the Michigan State University. To reach this conclusion, Hampton set out to study more mature populations, analyzing data from more than 13,000 relationships from adult participants in the “Panel Study of Income Dynamics” — the world’s longest-running household survey. He found social media users are 63 per cent less likely to experience serious psychological distress from one year to the next, including major depression or serious anxiety. The study, published in the Journal of Computer Mediated-Communication, challenges the notion that social media, mobile technologies and Internet contribute to a mental health crisis.

AI could be a boon for Alzheimer’s patients

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can prove essential for healthcare providers to detect and manage Alzheimer’s disease or a related form of dementia, from which 44 million people suffer worldwide. In the study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, the team introduced supervised Machine Learning (ML) as a modern approach and new value-added complementary tool in cognitive brain health assessment and related patient care and management. With the increasingly favourable instrument “MemTrax” — an online memory test using image recognition — the clinical efficacy of this new approach as a memory function screening tool has been sufficiently demonstrated.