Dr. Cindy Haines of HealthDay TV, recently shared the outcome of a study on preschoolers napping in school.

A nap does a preschooler’s body, and mind good. That’s the headline from a brand new study that looked at the value of a classroom nap. Researchers in Massachusetts recruited a group of 40 preschoolers to measure their visual-spatial memory.

All of the preschoolers were asked to play a common game where you look at a grid of pictures and then you have to remember where different pictures are located.

During one testing session, the preschoolers napped for an average of 77 minutes in-between viewing the grid and taking the memory quiz. In another, they were kept awake for the same amount of time.

The preschoolers did a much better job retaining the location of the pictures after they had taken a nap.

The researchers say their findings suggest naps are critical for early learning and they are encouraging educators to develop napping guidelines for young children.

A study, recently released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service, found that healthy foods like beans, carrots, milk, and yogurt are actually less expensive than ice cream sandwiches, cinnamon buns, and soda.

The USDA researchers looked at calorie content but also compared the prices of more than 4,000 healthy foods and moderation foods based on price by weight and portion size.

Using dietary recommendations from the federal government’s choosemyplate.gov website, researchers identified healthy foods as those that contain at least one of the major food groups (vegetables, fruits, grains, dairy, and protein) and contain only moderate amounts of saturated fats, added sugars, and sodium.

Researchers found that by portion size, the cheapest healthy food to eat is grains, followed by dairy, vegetables, fruit, protein, and moderation foods.

When broken down by how much it costs per day to fulfill dietary guidelines, grains and dairy are the cheapest recommendations to meet while vegetable and protein are the most expensive to meet, the researchers wrote. Fruit falls somewhere in the middle.

It costs more money to meet the fruit and vegetable guidelines for a healthy diet because nutrition guidelines call for consuming such a large amount of fruit and vegetables, not because they are more expensive than other foods.

Earlier studies have found that people with limited incomes don’t spend more on fruits and vegetables as their incomes rise, suggesting that tastes and cultural food preferences play a significant role in food choices.

If you have Celiac disease you need to know if there is gluten in your facial products and body lotions. According to a recent study by George Washington University researchers those with Celiac disease may not be aware that they are being exposed to gluten in lip, face and body products.

The study was prompted in part by the case of a 28-year-old woman with Celiac disease who experienced a worsening of disease symptoms, including gastrointestinal complications and a skin rash, after using a body lotion marketed as “natural.”

Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye and barley. For most of us, gluten isn’t a problem, but for those with Celiac disease, gluten damages their intestines.

Researchers examined products from 10 of the leading cosmetic companies in the U.S., only finding two of the 10 companies offering detailed ingredient information. None of the companies offered gluten-free products.

“The findings are alarming because gluten-containing cosmetics can be inadvertently obtained by the consumer and use of these products can result in an exacerbation of Celiac disease,” researcher Dr. Pia Prakash said in a college news release. “This study revealed that information about the ingredients, including the potential gluten content in cosmetics, is not readily available.

Some smaller cosmetic companies specifically advertise gluten-free alternatives. Larger companies should inform consumers as to whether or not their products can be safely used by individuals with gluten sensitivity,” Dr. Prakash concluded.

(SOURCE: American College of Gastroenterology news release, Oct. 28, 2011)

ChildUp, an Internet site for parents, ran an article by a staff member about the impact of playing in outdoor green space on the symptoms of children with ADHD.

The article is based on a study that appears in the journal Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being.

A study of more than 400 children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder has found a link between the children’s routine play settings and the severity of their symptoms, researchers report. Those who regularly play in outdoor settings with lots of green (grass and trees, for example) have milder ADHD symptoms than those who play indoors or in built outdoor environments, the researchers found. The association holds even when the researchers controlled for income and other variables.

Previous research has shown that brief exposure to green outdoor spaces – and in one study, to photos of green settings – can improve concentration and impulse control in children and adults in the general population – individuals without ADHD.

These findings led researchers Andrea Taylor and Frances Kuo, University of Illinois to examine whether children diagnosed with ADHD, which is characterized by difficulties in concentration and impulse control, might also benefit from “green time.” In a study published in 2004, they analyzed data from a national Internet-based survey of parents of children formally diagnosed with ADHD and found that activities conducted in greener outdoor settings did correlate with milder symptoms immediately afterward, compared to activities in other settings.

The new study explores other data from the same survey to determine whether the effect also is true for green play settings that are routinely experienced – the park, playground or backyard that a child visits daily or several times a week.

“Before the current study, we were confident that acute exposures to nature – sort of one-time doses – have short-term impacts on ADHD symptoms,” Kuo said. “The question is, if you’re getting chronic exposure, but it’s the same old stuff because it’s in your backyard or it’s the playground at your school, then does that help?”

To address this question, the researchers examined parents’ descriptions of their child’s daily play setting and overall symptom severity. They also looked at the children’s age, sex, formal diagnosis (ADD or ADHD) and total household income.

The analyses revealed an association between routine play in green, outdoor settings and milder ADHD symptoms. “On the whole, the green settings were related to milder overall symptoms than either the ‘built outdoors’ or ‘indoors’ settings,” Taylor said.

The researchers also found that children who were high in hyperactivity (diagnosed with ADHD rather than ADD) tended to have milder symptoms if they regularly played in a green and open environment (such as a soccer field or expansive lawn) rather than in a green space with lots of trees or an indoor or built outdoor setting.

The researchers found no significant differences between boys and girls or income groups in terms of the relationship between the greenness of play settings and overall symptom severity.

Kuo noted that the findings don’t by themselves prove that routine playtime in green space reduces symptom severity in children with ADHD. But in light of all the previous studies showing a cause-and-effect relationship between exposure to nature and improved concentration and impulse control, she said, “it is reasonably safe to guess that that’s true here as well.”

Source : John_ChildUp