latest research

May, 2010

Baby Swimmers Have Better Balance, Study Suggests

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Teaching babies to swim turns out to be more than just fun. Baby swimmers have better balance and are also better at grasping at things than non-swimmers. This difference persists even when children are five years old, when babies who have been taught to swim still outperform their peers, research from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) shows.

"Practice makes perfect," say Hermundur Sigmundsson, a professor of psychology at NTNU.

Now Sigmundsson and Brian Hopkins, a professor of psychology from Lancaster University, have shown that baby swimming is good for developing balance and movement in infants and young children.

The study involved comparing 19 baby swimmers against a control group of 19 children who had not participated in baby swimming. The only factor that separated baby swimmers from the control group was swimming. All other factors, such as the parents' education, housing and economic status, were the same.

The baby swimmers had participated in swimming classes for two hours a week from the age of 2-3 months until they were about 7 months old. A typical session might involve helping the baby do a somersault on a floating mat, having the baby dive under water, jump from the pool edge, and balance on the hand of a parent while reaching to pick up floating objects.

At approximately age 5, both baby swimmers and the control group were tested with similar exercises. The exercises included walking on tiptoes, balancing on one foot, skipping rope, rolling a ball into a goal and catching a beanbag. The results were crystal clear, the researchers say.

"We saw very clearly that baby swimmers were the best in exercises that related to balance and the ability to reach for things," says Sigmundsson.

The survey took place in Iceland, which is Sigmundsson's homeland.

"Water is as important to Icelanders as snow is for Norwegians. A typical Icelander swims on average once or twice a week, and there is great deal of interest in baby swimming. I know an instructor who has been teaching baby swimming for 20 years. He had a great deal of information about children who have participated in swimming courses. So it was natural for us to conduct the study in Iceland," Sigmundsson says.

Sigmundsson says he was simply overwhelmed by what the instructor was able to get the babies to do.

"The instructor was able to bring three-month-old babies right up to a balanced position, standing on his palm. The babies locked joints -- it was amazing to watch," Sigmundsson says.

He believes that the survey shows that specific training in young children gives results.

"It's incredibly exciting that specific training for young babies has an effect later in life. Development is a dynamic interplay between maturation, growth, experience and learning. Our study shows that we must never underestimate the learning aspect," Sigmundsson concludes.


March, 2010

Late Baby Teeth May Mean More Orthodontic Visits: Genes Associated With Early Tooth Development Identified
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Several genes affect tooth development in the first year of life, according to the findings of a study conducted at Imperial College London, the University of Bristol in the UK and the University of Oulu in Finland. The research, published February 26 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics, shows that the teeth of babies with certain genetic variants tend to appear later and that these children have a lower number of teeth by age one. Additionally, those children whose teeth develop later are more likely to need orthodontic treatment.

The research, led by Professor Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin of the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, scanned the entire genetic code of 6,000 individuals from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort (NFBC1966) and the Avon Longitudinal Study on Parents and Children (ALSPAC), UK, both of which track participants from mother's early pregnancy until adulthood. The researchers identified five genes associated with both the first tooth eruption and the number of teeth at age one. They also found that one of the identified genes was associated with a 35% increased risk of requiring orthodontic treatment by the age of 30 years.

The authors emphasize that tooth development is not an isolated event. Teeth and several other organs have common growth and developmental pathways in early life. Some of the genes identified have been linked in previous studies with the development of the skull, jaws, ears, fingers, toes, and heart.

Abnormal tooth development may lead to dental problems that demand challenging and costly orthodontic treatment. The discovery of genes influencing tooth growth may lead to innovations in the early treatment and prevention of congenital dental and occlusion problems. Professor Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin said: "The discoveries of genetic and environmental determinants of human development will help us to understand the development of many disorders which appear later in life. We hope also that these discoveries will increase knowledge about why foetal growth seems to be such an important factor in the development of many chronic diseases."



June 25, 2009

Boosting Newborns’ Immune Responses
(Credit to ScienceDaily.com)                                                            

Newborn babies have immature immune systems, making them highly vulnerable to severe infections and unable to mount an effective immune response to most vaccines, thereby frustrating efforts to protect them. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 2 million newborns and infants less than 6 months of age die each year due to infection.

Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston believe they have found a way to enhance the immune system at birth and boost newborns' vaccine responses, making infections like respiratory syncytial virus, pneumococcus and rotavirus much less of a threat.

Ofer Levy, MD, PhD and colleagues in Children's Division of Infectious Diseases have shown that the newborn immune system functions differently than that of adults, but that one portion of the immune response is fully functional and can be harnessed to boost innate immunity in these tiny infants.

For more than a decade it's been known that people's first line of defense against infection is a group of receptors known as Toll-like receptors (TLRs) on the surface of certain white blood cells. Functioning like an early radar system, TLRs detect the presence of invading bacteria and viruses and signal other immune cells to mount a defense. People have 10 different kinds of TLRs, and Levy's team found that when most of them were stimulated, newborns' immune responses are very impaired -- with one important exception.

One TLR, known as TLR8, triggered a robust immune response in antigen-presenting cells, which are crucial for vaccine responses, suggesting that agents that stimulate TLR8 could be used to enhance immune responses in newborns, perhaps as adjuvants given along with vaccines. With the help of a $100,000 pilot grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Levy’s team is now validating their work in human cells and in animal models, and eventually want to test TLR8 stimulators – some of which are already available -- in human babies.

Levy's team is uncovering other differences in the newborn immune system that could lead to additional targets for drugs or vaccines. "As we better understand the molecular pathways that account for newborns' susceptibility to infections, we can leverage them to enhance their immune defenses," Levy says.

The ability to vaccinate newborns -- rather than wait until they reach 2 months of age -- would provide important global health benefits, adds Levy, whose lab is one of the few in the world to specifically focus on vaccination in newborns. "Birth is a point of contact with healthcare systems," he says. "If you could give a vaccine at birth, a much higher percentage of the population can be covered."