Wellnews by Scott LaFee

Loneliness is like a bad cold, say researchers at the University of California San Diego, Harvard and the University of Chicago. Lonely people tend to share their loneliness with others, gradually creating a larger group of lonely, disconnected people who drift and reside on the fringes of social networks.

"We detected an extraordinary pattern of contagion that leads people to be moved to the edge of the social network when they become lonely," said Chicago psychologist John Cacioppo, who conducted the study with James Fowler, an associate professor of political science at UCSD, and Nicholas Christakis, a professor of medicine at Harvard. "On the periphery, people have fewer friends, yet their loneliness leads them to losing the few ties they have left."

Loneliness is often associated with a variety of mental and physical diseases that can diminish quality of life and even shorten it, researchers noted. Being able to better recognize when lonely people are at risk can help doctors and therapists intervene more successfully, helping lonely people reconnect with their social group.

The study used records of the Framingham Heart Study, which has studied the people of Framingham, Mass., since 1948. The original group of 5,209 participants has expanded to more than 12,000.

GET ME THAT. STAT!

The first study in 20 years to look at how much television children watch in home-based child care settings reports that it's double earlier estimates. The study, by researchers at Seattle Children's Research Institute, found that preschool-aged children in care facilities based out of homes watch an average of 2.4 hours of TV per day, compared to 0.4 hours at center-based settings. The amount of television watched declined with the number of staff possessing college degrees.

STORIES FOR THE WAITING ROOM

Being tall and overweight as a kid — or maybe just being tall — could be a marker for increased risk of obesity in later years.

A new study, reported in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, monitored 2,800 children, measuring them for height and weight in the third and 12th grades.

Seventy-nine percent of children who were overweight or obese in the third grade were still overweight as high-school seniors.

More surprisingly was the discovery that overweight children who were in the top 25th percentile for height in the third grade had an 85 percent probability of being overweight as 12th-graders, compared with a 67 percent probability for overweight children who were shorter.

Even tall, normal-weight children had a higher risk — 25 percent — of becoming overweight as seniors compared to 17 percent for shorter, normal-weight kids.

MEDTRONICA

ExRx

exrx.net

This site is for the thinking fitness buff, providing an exhaustive library and collection of links to reference articles, exercise calculators and other resources on getting in shape smartly. Fortunately, there's also a beginner's page that gets you started without being overwhelming.

PHOBIA OF THE WEEK

Hematophobia — fear of blood

NUMBER CRUNCHER

A large Butterfinger Blast from Sonic (557 grams) contains 980 calories, 405 from fat. It has 45 grams of total fat or 69 percent of the recommended total fat intake for a 2,000-calorie daily diet.

It also contains 85 milligrams of cholesterol (28 percent); 360 mg of sodium (15 percent); 131 g of total carbohydrates (44 percent); 1 g of dietary fiber (4 percent); 112 g of sugar and 13 g of protein.

EPITAPHS

Open wide ye heavenly gates

That lead to the heavenly shore;

Our father suffered in passing through

And mother weighs much more.

— Cemetery marker in Lee, Mass.

To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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