Yikes! The way parents use their phones around their kids may influence how much inappropriate content kids consume. Researchers reported Feb. 4 in the journal BMC Pediatrics that the odds of kids watching R-rated movies or playing mature-rated video games rose with higher parental screen use and inconsistent family media rules. The study analyzed data from more than 10,000 12- and 13-year-olds who were part of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. “We wanted to explore parent rules and adolescents’ exposure to mature content because there’s a lack of research to guide parents of young adolescents on media use,” lead author Dr. Jason Nagata told CNN in an email.  “While the American Academy of Pediatrics provides general recommendations for ages 5 to 18, young adolescents are at a unique developmental stage — they’re not little kids anymore, but they’re also not fully independent teens,” Nagata, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, added. Parents in the study answered a 14-item questionnaire, rating their agreement with statements such as, “I try to limit how much I use a screen-based device when I am with my child” on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). Meanwhile, kids self-reported how often they watched R-rated movies and played mature-rated video games, using a 0-to-3 scale (never to…  read on >  read on >

Many Americans don’t see anything wrong with taking daily low-dose aspirin, even though experts have concluded its risks outweigh its benefits, a new survey has found. Nearly half (48%) of people incorrectly think that the benefits of taking low-dose aspirin daily to reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke outweigh the risks, according to the survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. “Habits backed by conventional wisdom and the past advice of health care providers are hard to break,” Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the center’s director, said in a news release. “Knowing whether taking a low-dose aspirin daily is advisable or not for you is vital health information,” she added. For years, healthy seniors were advised to take low-dose aspirin to reduce heart attack and stroke risk. The rationale was that aspirin acts as a blood thinner, reducing the risk that a blood clot could cause a heart attack or stroke by clogging an artery. But in 2019, the leading heart groups — the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association — reversed that recommendation in a set of new guidelines. The groups concluded that daily aspirin for healthy seniors 70 and older wasn’t worth the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding.  “If you’re over 70, taking aspirin to prevent a first heart attack or stroke could do more harm…  read on >  read on >

Daily low-dose aspirin can help prevent cancers from returning in about a third of colon cancer patients, a new study says. Taking 160 milligrams of aspirin a day cuts the risk of cancer recurrence in half among colon cancer patients with a mutation in their PI3K genes, researchers reported at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in San Francisco. These PI3K mutations are found in about 30% of all colon cancers, researchers said in background notes. They can make cancers more aggressive and harder to treat. The results of this study could immediately change treatment for those colon cancer patients, researchers said. “Aspirin has been shown to effectively reduce recurrence rates and improve disease-free survival in more than one-third of these patients,” lead researcher Dr. Anna Martling, a professor of surgery at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said in a news release. For the study, researchers recruited more than 600 patients in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway who had moderate to advanced colon cancer or rectal cancer. The patients were randomly assigned to take either daily aspirin or a placebo for three years. Patients taking daily aspirin had a 51% lower risk of cancer recurrence if they had a mutation in their PIK3CA mutation, compared to placebo, researchers found. Recurrence was 7.7% for people taking aspirin versus 14.1% for those on…  read on >  read on >

Many major maladies have been linked to disturbed slumber caused by sleep apnea, high blood pressure, heart problems and diabetes. Add car wrecks to that list, a study published Jan. 21 in the journal Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, says. People with untreated sleep apnea are more likely to wind up in a vehicle crash, researchers reported. “Our findings underscore the profound impact that inadequately managed obstructive sleep apnea can have on individual health and public safety,” lead researcher Elliott Sina, a student at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, said in a news release. Sleep apnea occurs when a person’s breathing repeatedly stops and starts during the night, causing them to wake again and again. It’s most commonly caused by throat muscles relaxing during sleep and blocking the flow of air into the lungs. This form of sleep apnea can be treated using a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine, which maintains enough air pressure to keep upper airway passages open. Surgery to remove or shrink the tissue that’s sagging into the airways, or to reposition the jaw, can also effectively treat sleep apnea. Another surgical method involves inserting an implant to stimulate the hypoglossal nerve, which controls tongue movement. For the new study, researchers analyzed data on more than 2.8 million people with sleep apnea, including more than 700,000…  read on >  read on >

Watch out for tall, fast-moving cars. The height of a vehicle, not only its speed, determines its potential danger to a pedestrian, new research shows. “Multiple factors — in this case speed and vehicle height—converge to create negative outcomes on the road,” said David Harkey, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Measurements of the vehicles involved were used to examine the moderating effect of hood height.  “Our fondness for tall SUVs and pickups has intensified [the consequences of speeding],” Harkey noted in an IIHS news release. The report involved an analysis of 202 crashes involving people ages 16 and older in cities across the United States. The accidents occurred between 2015 and 2022. In general, higher vehicle front ends increased the likelihood of both moderate and serious pedestrian injuries, data showed. At 27 mph, the average speed of the crashes, a median-height car had a 60% chance of causing moderate injuries to a pedestrian and a 30% chance of causing serious injuries. Risks rose along with hood height, however: A median-height pickup — with a front end 13 inches higher than that of a median car — had an 83% chance of causing moderate injuries and a 62% chance of causing serious injuries. This tracks with earlier IIHS research that found that vehicles with taller front ends are more likely to kill…  read on >  read on >