Joblessness affects health

Long-term joblessness is challenging adults of all ages—but it appears to be having an especially large effect on young people.

According to polling organization Gallup, those ages 18 to 29 who’ve been out of work for at least six months are more likely than older unemployed people to fall ill. In a survey conducted between April and July, Gallup found that young long-term jobless people were sick for 6.3 of the past 30 days, on average. Those between 30 and 49 who had been out of work for six months or more fell ill for five days, while jobless workers between 50 and 65 were sick for just 4.4.

Longer-term joblessness also increased the chances that 18-to-29-year-olds would feel physical pain. Seventeen percent of young people who’d been out of work for less than six months experienced pain— but 35 percent of those with more than half a year of unemployment reported it.

It’s been well-documented—by Yale researcher Lisa Kahn and others—that young adults who graduate into a recession suffer lower earnings over the course of their careers. For young people, Gallup’s research shows, unemployment also appears to have health consequences.

Keeping close friendships might help you live longer than you would otherwise, according to a new review of research on relationships. Researchers looked at data from more than 300,000 adults collected over an average of 7.5 years. Those with many close relationships had a 50 percent lower risk of dying than people with fewer relationships, HealthDay reports.

Why the link? Bonding can reduce stress and improve the immune system, happiness researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky told HealthDay. The review, published in PLoS medicine, suggests that relationships have about the same impact on health as quitting smoking. Still, there is one potential confounder: People who are more social may be healthier to begin with, according to Lyubomirsky, who is also a psychology professor at the University of California at Riverside, HealthDay reports.

Contact lenses are the biggest cause of medical device injuries in kids and sent nearly 34,000 children to the emergency room between 2004 and 2005, according to new research from the U. S. Food and Drug Administration.

Contact-induced eye damage accounted for 23 percent of the 144,799 medical device-related emergency room visits during that period, agency researchers estimated by tallying injuries recorded in a national database. Infection was a common complication, which may mean kids are leaving their lenses in much longer than is recommended, the Associated Press reports.

Among the other problematic medical devices for kids were needles, catheters, heart devices and gynecological devices, such as those used in vaginal exams. The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, did not look at kids who were already in the hospital.

An advisory panel to the U. S. Food and Drug Administration has voted against approving Qnexa, a weight-loss drug, for safety reasons. Studies suggest that Qnexa may increase the risk of depression, kidney stones and certain heart problems among other possible side effects, the New York Times reports. But evidence also suggests that the drug can help people lose weight and may work better than approved weight-loss drugs.

A study found that those taking high doses of Qnexa for about a year lost nearly 11 percent of their body weight vs. slightly less than 2 percent for those taking a placebo (almost 30 pounds versus less than 5 pounds for someone initially weighing 250 pounds). The FDA could still go against the panel’s recommendation, but the agency has not approved an obesity drug in at least a decade, according to the Times.

Compiled from News wire sources