Discovered: Another health benefit for Botox, teens are still sexting, coffee continues being awesome, and parents are less likely to catch a cold.
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- Botox has another (maybe) health benefit. Real Househumans, take note: wonder-youthenizer Botox may (may!) help multiple sclerosis tremors. This adds to a small list of health benefits the wrinkle smoother has, including helping with chronic migraines, excessive sweating and other MS symptoms, like an overactive bladder. Though, before you Botoxers go around using this as the deviated septum of wrinkle-reduction excuses, note science hasn't quite confirmed anything. "This study is fairly preliminary, and it had a small number of patients," explains researcher Nicholas G. LaRocca. "There are several questions that need to be answered by doing larger and longer-term studies," added researcher Dr. Anneke van der Walt. [Reuters]
- Teens are still sexting. Continuing the trope that more than 1 percent of kids send explicit texts, science has another study finding that one in four teens have sent each other nudie photos using digital devices. In a survey of almost 1,000 10th and 11th graders from seven different Houston-area schools, 28 percent said they had sent a sext and 57 percent said they'd been asked to send over an little digi-porn. "Most teens, especially girls, said they had been at least 'a little bit' bothered by a request to send a naked picture," writes Reuters's Genevra Pittman. Oh, also not at all surprisingly, the kids who sexted most also sexed most. 77 percent of female sexters and 82 percent of male offenders had done the deed, compared with 42 percent of girls and 45 percent of boys who hadn't sent these messages. "If we extrapolated this 28 percent to nationwide, that's millions of kids that are prosecutable for child pornography," said researcher Jeff Temple. [Reuters]
- Coffee gets awesomer. Following last week's coffee prevents heart failure finding, science gives us another gem, finding that coffee might prevent skin cancer. "I would not recommend increasing your coffee intake based on these data alone," said researcher Jiali Han, with what we read as a big-ole wink. "However," she continued, “Our results add basal cell carcinoma to a list of conditions for which risk is decreased with increasing coffee consumption. This list includes conditions with serious negative health consequences such as type 2 diabetes and Parkinson's disease." Drink on, addicts. [CNN]
- Parents have a lower risk of developing a cold. As you drag your kids to some kid-friendly July 4 lameness, take this piece of research to remind yourself why having children was a good idea. Science has found the risk of getting a cold is halved in parents compared to non-parents. "We found parenthood predicted a decreased probability of colds among healthy individuals exposed to a cold virus," explains researcher Rodlescia S. Sneed. The researchers even say it might mean there are other physical benefits to parenthood, guys. "Our results, while provocative, have left room for future studies to pursue how various aspects of parenthood (e.g., frequency of contact with children, quality of parent/child relationships) might be related to physical health, and how parenthood could 'get under the skin' to influence physical health," he continues. [Wolters Kluwer Health]
Image via Shutterstock by Robert Kneschke