WEDNESDAY, July 9 (HealthDay News) -- Being born extremely underweight may be a risk factor for a shy, cautious personality as an adult.

A study published in the July issue of Pediatrics finds that young adults who were born at extremely low birth weights were more likely to be shy, cautious and risk-averse than their counterparts who had been born at normal weights.

And that shy personality style may increase the odds of loneliness and decrease the odds of emotional well-being, heightening the risk for emotional problems, said the Canadian study authors.

But the finding between low birth weight and a retiring personality doesn't necessarily imply a cause-and-effect relationship.

"We were showing that there are these differences that seem to exist between these two groups," said Louis A. Schmidt, lead author of the study and a professor of psychology, neuroscience and behavior at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. "That gives us room to say, 'Hey, there are different ways in which to become shy, one of which is early-life events.'"

Schmidt stressed, however, that researchers can't yet point to an actual cause-and-effect relationship.

"They [the study authors] didn't address why the children have low birth weight," said Dr. Jane Ripperger-Suhler, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and a psychiatrist with Scott & White Mental Health Center in Temple, Texas. "They missed an opportunity to be really clear. Just because you were tiny at birth does not mean you are going to be anxious. There is something that ties those together."

Previous research has found that children born with extremely low birth weights have a higher risk of learning disabilities and emotional problems, including neuroticism, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and a tendency toward caution.

Relatively little research, however, has looked at whether these issues persist into adulthood.

The authors of the new study looked at 71 young adults who had been born extremely underweight, as well as 83 young adults who had been normal weight at birth.

Specifically, the researchers assessed four components of personality: temperament (shyness and sociability, neuroticism and extraversion), motivation (behavioral inhibition and behavioral activation), cognitive and affective (self-esteem, loneliness) and socialization.

The adults who had been extremely underweight at birth reported being shyer, having more behavioral inhibition, lower sociability, higher risk-aversion and a greater tendency to follow social convention. The results were the same for both men and women.

There were also differences within the extremely-low-birth-weight group, with lower birth weight linked to more shyness, behavioral inhibition and loneliness, among other traits.

But the study authors did provide one note of caution: The adults who had been born extremely underweight in this group also had similar relationships with peers, partners and family as the normal-birth-weight group.

More information

The March of Dimes   has more on low birth weight.

TUESDAY, July 8 (HealthDay News) -- The current childhood obesity epidemic in the United States may lead to large numbers of young adults developing type 2 diabetes in the future, along with serious diabetes-related health complications, warns a University of Michigan researcher.

"The full impact of the childhood obesity epidemic has yet to be seen, because it can take up to 10 years or longer for obese individuals to develop type 2 diabetes. Children who are obese today are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes as young adults," Dr. Joyce Lee, a pediatric endocrinologist at the university's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, said in a prepared statement.

The longer a person has diabetes, the more likely he or she is to develop serious complications such as kidney failure and blindness, Lee noted. That means that young adults with type 2 diabetes are much more likely to develop such complications during their lifetime than older people with the disease. She added that babies born to young women with type 2 diabetes are at greater risk for obesity and type 2 diabetes.

"Recent studies suggest that there have been dramatic increases in type 2 diabetes among individuals in their 20s and 30s, whereas it used to be that individuals developed type 2 diabetes in their late 50s or 60s. This may be the first indication of a type 2 diabetes epidemic among young adults who were obese during childhood," Lee said.

More needs to be done to fight childhood obesity, she urged in an article in the July issue of the journal Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.

"Our society heavily invests in the treatment and management of chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes for adults. But it spends very little for the prevention and treatment of childhood obesity to stave off the onset of type 2 diabetes," Lee said.

"If there isn't a significant investment in obesity prevention and treatment during childhood within schools, communities, and the health care system, recent trends in childhood obesity will likely lead to increases in type 2 diabetes among young adults, resulting in even greater costs to society and the health care system."

Toward that end, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) on Monday issued new cholesterol screening and treatment recommendations for children, including prescribing cholesterol-reducing drugs known as statins for some 8-year-olds.

The group also urged screening for young patients whose family history is unknown or those who have other heart disease risk factors including obesity, high blood pressure or diabetes. Screening, the AAP said, should take place after age 2, but no later than age 10.

More information

The Nemours Foundation has more about overweight and obese children  .

MONDAY, June 30 (HealthDay News) -- A topical spray reduces the pain of placing intravenous (IV) lines in children, Canadian researchers report.

The spray, called Pain Ease, reduced pain by 34 percent in children getting IV lines when compared with a placebo group and improved the success rate of inserting the lines, said lead researcher Dr. William Splinter, a staff anesthesiologist and medical director of palliative care at Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa.

"This feature is especially important when time is limited, such as in a busy office practice or emergency department, where topical methods of pain relief have not traditionally been available," Splinter said.

These results are significant as previous studies of similar vapocoolant sprays did not show a reduction in pain during IV line insertion in children, Splinter added.

The report is published in the July 1 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

In the study, Splinter's team randomly assigned 80 children, aged 6 to 12, undergoing urgent intravenous procedures, to the spray or placebo. The effectiveness of the spray was based on the children's own report of pain and an assessment by their parents and the nurses of how easily the procedure went.

In addition to reducing pain, inserting the needle or tube was more successful among patients treated with the spray, the researchers found.

"Effective pain relief combined with improved success on first cannulation [insertion] attempt results in fewer repeat attempts, decreased procedure times, and improved satisfaction among children, parents and health-care providers," Splinter said.

The spray is nontoxic, less expensive than alternatives, works immediately, and does not require a needle, Splinter noted.

Dr. Mark Greenberg, director of pediatric anesthesia at the University of California, San Diego, said the study leaves many questions unanswered.

"Although there was some decrease in pain from the spray, there were some patients who had minimal pain with the placebo spray, suggesting just spraying anything on there might decrease pain," Greenberg said.

More important, the average age of the patients was probably a big factor in the findings, Greenberg said.

"If there were younger patients, I doubt the results would be the same. Nine-year-olds are probably the easiest patients' veins to cannulate. They are also fairly cooperative. If you had a mean age more like 3 to 4 years, with a significant amount of younger patients, you would probably see very little difference between the actual spray and placebo," Greenberg said.

In addition, the discomfort with the application of the coolant is not reported and would likely be a significant negative issue in younger children, Greenberg said.

"I think analgesia for IV starts in both children and adults is long overdue. I just don't think this study conclusively showed that using vapocoolants accomplishes this," Greenberg said.

More information

For more on hospital treatments and children, visit the American Academy of Pediatrics  .

FRIDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) -- Many parents leave their tweens home alone for an extended period of time, even though they are not confident these 11- to 13-year-olds have the knowledge or skills to stay safe, a new poll finds.

The University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health reports that parents it polled fretted over whether their children could safely use the kitchen appliances, know where to go during a severe storm or give out personal information online or over the phone. Still, one in five of these parents admitted they've let their tweens stay home alone for an entire day.

"There is no magic age at which a child can be left home alone. It typically depends on a parent's judgment about how mature that child is, and how ready they are to take on the responsibility of being home alone," Dr. Matthew M. Davis, director of the National Poll on Children's Health, said in a prepared statement. "Regardless, when parents decide to leave their children home alone, there are several common at-home safety concerns they need to consider and address with kids ahead of time."

The National Poll on Children's Health finds:

• Almost two out of three parents let tweens stay home by themselves for one hour or two.
• 20 percent of parents have left tweens home alone for an entire day.
• Parents have more confidence that their tweens will follow guidelines for gun and fire safety than for Internet or storm safety.
• More than 25 percent of parents polled said they had not talked much with their tweens about neighborhood, Internet or home safety before leaving them on their own.
• The more confident a parent was in their children's safety skills, the more likely they were to leave them at home for more than an hour.
• More than 28 percent of parents whose tweens stay home alone lacked confidence that their children would not give out personal information via the Internet or over the phone.

"We were surprised to find the proportion of parents who are not very confident their children will follow safety guidelines, even though they are having their tweens stay home alone," said Davis, an associate professor of general pediatrics and internal medicine at the U-M Medical School. "This suggests that more parents need to have conversations with their kids about safety before they leave them home alone."

More information

The Home Safety Council has more about children and safety  .