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Teen vaping in Canada: New study

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A new study published in the journal Children by researchers at Brescia University College and Western University, found about a quarter of high school students in Canada reportedly vaped within the last month, some of which include vapes with nicotine.

“Vapes were initially marketed as a potential solution to tobacco smoking with claims that they could be a less harmful alternative,” said Jamie Seabrook, chair of the School of Food and Nutritional Sciences at Brescia University College in a press release. “While we are still trying to fully grasp the long-term effects of vaping on physical and mental health, our study shows vapes are exposing youth to nicotine and putting them at risk of nicotine addiction.”

Findings came from the 2019 Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey (CSTADS) of 38,299 Canadian high school students in grades 9 to 12, which reported on the prevalence of different kinds of vaping while taking into account health and social differences among students.

Researchers found 26 per cent of high school students have vaped in the past month, and 12 per cent of them reported having exclusively smoked vapes containing nicotine.

“Youth who vape nicotine-free products tend to have a worse understanding of the risks of e-cigarette chemicals, which can translate to uninformed use and they may conclude that dangers of cigarette smoking are also exaggerated,” said Seabrook.

They also found 11.3 per cent of students are using both nicotine and nicotine-free vapes, while 2.5 per cent are using nicotine-free vapes only.

In 2021, data from Statistics Canada showed 13 per cent of Canadian youth aged 15 to 19 had vaped in the last month.

According to the researchers, this new study is unique in that it looks at the correlation between gender, age, and other substance abuse, and vaping. In fact, it revealed male students were more likely to have vaped in the past month than females.

Additionally, students who used other substances such as alcohol, tobacco, or cannabis, were linked to students who vaped with or without nicotine.

In terms of age as a factor, students in grades 10 and 11 showed a higher rate of nicotine vaping compared to those in Grade 9. However, students in Grade 9 were more likely to vape with both nicotine and nicotine-free vapes than students in grades 11 and 12.

These findings are important, according to one of the researchers, as understanding the differences amongst the categorized groups of teens who vape can aid policy-makers to implement more targeted interventions based on factors such as age or gender.

 

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Whooping cough is at a decade-high level in US

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MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.

There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.

The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.

Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.

Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.

Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.

“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.

But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.

That includes his own teenage daughter.

“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.

It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.

“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”

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AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Scientists show how sperm and egg come together like a key in a lock

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How a sperm and egg fuse together has long been a mystery.

New research by scientists in Austria provides tantalizing clues, showing fertilization works like a lock and key across the animal kingdom, from fish to people.

“We discovered this mechanism that’s really fundamental across all vertebrates as far as we can tell,” said co-author Andrea Pauli at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.

The team found that three proteins on the sperm join to form a sort of key that unlocks the egg, allowing the sperm to attach. Their findings, drawn from studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, show how this process has persisted over millions of years of evolution. Results were published Thursday in the journal Cell.

Scientists had previously known about two proteins, one on the surface of the sperm and another on the egg’s membrane. Working with international collaborators, Pauli’s lab used Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence tool AlphaFold — whose developers were awarded a Nobel Prize earlier this month — to help them identify a new protein that allows the first molecular connection between sperm and egg. They also demonstrated how it functions in living things.

It wasn’t previously known how the proteins “worked together as a team in order to allow sperm and egg to recognize each other,” Pauli said.

Scientists still don’t know how the sperm actually gets inside the egg after it attaches and hope to delve into that next.

Eventually, Pauli said, such work could help other scientists understand infertility better or develop new birth control methods.

The work provides targets for the development of male contraceptives in particular, said David Greenstein, a genetics and cell biology expert at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study.

The latest study “also underscores the importance of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry,” he said in an email.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Turn Your Wife Into Your Personal Sex Kitten

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