Studies come from North Carolina State University, where researchers noticed that children born just before the kindergarten enrollment cutoff date, who are among the youngest in their class, were more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than their older classmates. The researchers determined this wasn’t a likely coincidence.

"We believe that younger children may be mistakenly diagnosed as having ADHD, when in fact they are simply less mature," lead researcher Dr. Melinda Morrill explained in a university news release cited by MSNBC.

Children diagnosed with ADHD may be more talkative, forgetful, or fidgety, and may have more difficulty playing quietly and taking turns. Frequent daydreaming and disruptive behavior also characterize ADHD.

“We are not downplaying the existence or significance of ADHD in children,” Morrill says. “This indicates that there are children who are diagnosed, or not, because of something other than underlying biological or medical reasons.”

Misdiagnosed ADHD can mask other issues, including learning disorders, hyperthyroidism, Asperger’s syndrome, or other forms autism. According to Mayo Clinic, as many as one in three children diagnosed with ADHD may also have one of these other conditions. The fear is that these conditions may be overlooked and that children may be put on ADHD medication unnecessarily.

Paying close attention to all of your child’s symptoms and making a careful assessment of his or her behavior with your doctor can help avoid misdiagnosis. See the full story from MSNBC.

Shannon suffers from a rare type of leukemia known as acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Early symptoms of the disease—fever, fatigue, paleness, bone and joint pain, and infections—are easy to confuse with more run-of-the-mill illnesses like a cold or the flu. That’s what Shannon’s mother thought.

“I started noticing she was very tired and fatigued, and it wasn’t normal,” Shannon’s mother, Odiney Brown, told ABC News. “The day we found out, we immediately admitted our lives had just changed completely.”

AML can quickly go from bad to worse. In order to recover, Shannon will need a bone marrow transplant, and like so many others with the condition, she now struggles to find a donor. Finding an exact match won’t be easy, either, because Shannon is African American and Hispanic—two highly underrepresented donor groups.

Even in the event that a donor is found, it is likely that Shannon will need additional treatment. “It is generally an aggressive disease that requires chemotherapy,” Shannon’s doctor, Dr. Barbara Asselin of Golisano Children’s Hospital at the University of Rochester Medical Center, told ABC News. “The first hurdle is to see if we can achieve a remission in the bone marrow and don’t see any more leukemia cells.”

Asselin says the chances of recovery are less than other forms of childhood leukemia, but that she remains optimistic about a cure. For now, Shannon is trying to enjoy life as a normal 11-year-old girl, watching movies at home and chatting online with friends between treatments.

Read more from ABC, or find out how to become a donor through the National Marrow Donor Program.

INFANTS

From birth to age 1, children should remain in rear-facing safety seats. Rear-facing seats provide greater protection against back or spinal cord injury in case of a frontal crash. A child who is at least 1 year of age may graduate to a forward-facing seat at 20 pounds, but experts recommend waiting as long as 30 or 35 pounds.

TODDLERS&PRE-SCHOOLERS

When children graduate to the forward-facing seat, usually at age 1-4 or when they weigh 20-40 pounds, the preferred model of safety seat for toddlers is the convertible or the combination seat. These seats protect taller, heavier children who have outgrown their booster seats but are too small for an adult or booster seat.

CHILDREN

The final stage of safety seat before the lone seatbelt is the booster seat. Booster seats are great for children between the ages of 4 and 8, and who weigh between 40 and 80 pounds. Booster seats help seatbelts fit appropriately—straps should cross over the chest, and the lap belt should lay over the upper thighs.

LATCH

In any case, remember to use your car’s LATCH (Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children) feature. This federally mandated safety feature is found in most cars manufactured after September 2002. The system makes proper installation easier with “child-size” safety seat straps and anchor attachments that can help prevent seatbelt strangulation.

When in doubt, refer to the user’s manual or consult a professional to check the safety of your car seat. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will locate the inspector nearest you.

Visit the NHTSA site for safety seat guidelines, and don’t forget about Child Passenger Safety Week in September.

Forty New Haven, Conn.,  four- to six-year olds participated in the study. They tried two samples of three different snack foods—graham crackers, fruit snacks, and carrots. Unbeknownst to the children, products within each group were identical foods in different packaging.

When asked which of each sample tasted better,  more than half of the children chose the snacks in cartoon-endorsed packaging. This number jumped to about 85 percent when asked which snacks they preferred.

Christina Roberto, a post-graduate student at Yale University and lead author of the study, says this is no accident. Companies use cartoons to push kids to choose their products.

Seems innocent enough, right? Wrong. One of the major concerns is when companies use characters to promote junk food rather than health food, which can lead to weight problems and poorer nutrition.

"The food industry spends $1.6 billion on youth-targeted marketing and, of that, 13 percent is dedicated to character licensing and cross-promoting," Roberto told ABC News. "For the most part, these foods are of poor nutritional quality."

Roberto suggests restricting what foods can use cartoon endorsements, but other experts, like registered dietitian Keith Thomas Ayoob of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, say parents need to take more responsibility.

"It has been shown to be successful that kids would eat a bag of carrots if their favorite character is on it. It's a tool. I have a hard time thinking these characters should be restricted,"he told ABC News. “I think parents have a whole lot more influence."

Kids share everything, including germs. When there’s something going around at daycare, the temptation to kids home can be too much. Daycare providers often choose to send mildly ill children home so they don’t spread it to others, but their extra efforts may be useless.

“By the time (children) start showing symptoms, the cat’s already out of the bag,” study author Dr. Andrew Hashikawa of the Medical College of Wisconsin told Health Day. By then, chances are the bug has already spread.

The survey included responses of 305 directors of metro daycare facilities in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Surveyors from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Public Health Association (APHA) briefly described five different illnesses—a cold, conjunctivitis (pink eye), stomachache, fever, and a scalp infection—to directors of childcare facilities to test their knowledge of excluding sick children from daycare.

Based on AAP/APHA guidelines, none of these situations should result in exclusion from daycare, but directors would send as many as 4 out of 5 children home. Although the state has promoted exclusion guidelines to childcare facilities since the nineties, only 38 percent of these directors were aware of the AAP/APHA’s exclusion guidelines.

“If the directors of child care facilities and centers are well-educated and understand the recommended guidelines, then it’s fairly clear which children should stay and which should go home,” Hashikawa said. “This study highlights the need for ongoing training.”

Read the original story on Health Day, or check out AAP/APHA’s book of guidelines on managing ill children in a daycare or school setting.

Most people who are allergic to peanuts are also allergic to tree nuts. Someone with a less sensitive allergy may be able to tolerate certain co-products, such as peanut oil, but most aren’t so lucky. Even trace amounts of peanut products can set off a reaction.

"At the start of the study, these participants couldn't tolerate one-sixth of a peanut," Dr. Wesley Burks, chief of Duke’s Pediatric Allergy and Immunology division, said in a press release following the first trial. "Six months into it, they were ingesting 13 to 15 peanuts before they had a reaction."

Co-author Dr. Tamara Perry, of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, explained to Health Day that this research is not meant to help people eat peanuts, but to help prevent the severe reactions that come with accidental ingestion.

A peanut allergy can cause skin reactions (such as hives or swelling), diarrhea, and nausea/vomiting. It can also cause lightheadedness, a stuffy nose, or itchy, watery eyes. In more extreme reactions, blood pressure may drop to dangerous levels and cause difficulty breathing, sometimes resulting in loss of consciousness.

Researchers from Duke University ran several tests investigating the effectiveness of immunotherapy treatment. Fifteen children ate small amounts of food with peanut ingredients in slowly increasing amounts every day.

Although there were several reactions over the course of the study, children could safely consume 5,000 milligrams (about 15 peanuts) by the experiment’s finish. Eight of these children were re-tested after four weeks away from the program, and all were able to eat peanuts safely.

"Of course the ultimate goal would be to promote tolerance that would allow these patients—children and adults—to eat peanuts,” Perry told Health Day. “The immunotherapy work being carried out now shows a lot potential promise in that direction."

The success of Duke’s peanut immunotherapy treatment is hopeful, but more testing is needed to determine whether some of the effects were a result of children growing out of the allergy. Research is still in the early stages and should not be tried at home.

Read more about Duke’s research in the Duke University article.

Seventeen children ages 5 to 18 in a hospital setting participated in the research project, each spending 33 nights using the artificial pancreas (closed-loop infusion) and 21 nights using traditional treatment (continuous infusion).

Researchers from Cambridge University have been developing the system for years, and they couldn’t be happier with the results. The system proved more effective than traditional insulin pumps at regulating glucose.

"These devices could transform the management of type 1 diabetes, but it is likely to be a gradual process," research leader Roman Hovorka of Cambridge said in a telephone interview with Reuters.

Rather than taking injections at every meal, the system checks glucose levels every 15 minutes and delivers insulin accordingly. It was especially effective in regulating nighttime hypoglycemia, maintaining normal levels 60 percent of the time, compared to 40 percent with the pump alone.

Nighttime hypoglycemia occurs when blood glucose falls below normal levels. It is often the result of changes in insulin metabolism (i.e., due to exercise), and can be difficult to balance for people with type 1diabetes.

Hovorka says these studies will help people maintain good control and improve quality of life for people with type 1 diabetes by reducing the risk of hypoglycemia.

"These results suggest that closed-loop devices may be able to significantly lower the patient's risk of developing complications later in life by reducing or even overcoming the burden of hypoglycemia," Hovorka said in a news release from The Lancet.

Test your knowledge on dining out with diabetes or read the study’s abstract in The Lancet.

“Spoon dosing has been identified as 1 of the 3 major causes of dosing errors and pediatric poisonings,” authors of the study wrote. “Most persons still use spoons when pouring medicine for themselves and their families.”

Nearly 200 university students were asked to measure what they perceived to be equal amounts of cold medicine into three different spoons—a standard teaspoon, a medium-sized spoon, and a larger spoon.

“We first gave them a full bottle of cold medicine and a teaspoon and asked them to pour exactly 1 teaspoon (5 mL),” authors of the study explain. “Next, we asked participants to pour the same 5-mL dose into each of the remaining 2 spoons in a randomized order.”

Standard dosage for most cold medicines is usually between 2 teaspoons and 2 tablespoons. Although most participants were confident that they’d measured accurately, they measured 8.4 percent (.42 mL) too little when using the medium-sized spoon, and 11.6 percent (.58 mL) too much when using the large spoon.

Although that may not seem like much for per dose, a little change in medicine can make a lot of difference. According to study leader Dr. Brian Wansink of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, this can add up to the point of ineffectiveness or even danger.

They also point out that this could reach farther than the kitchen at home. Even the most practiced nurse or Dr. Mom could be measuring incorrectly when using spoons because the size of the spoon makes the same amount appear differently.

“Simply put, we cannot always trust our ability to estimate amounts," co–author, Dr. Koert van Ittersum, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Georgia Tech, said in a press release. "In some cases it may not be important, but when it comes to the health of you or your child, it is vital to make an accurate measurement."

PANDAS, Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcus, is a rare new syndrome causing controversy in the medical world.

“In this condition, what typically happens is, following a strep infection like strep pharyngitis, the child will develop a sudden onset of either tics or OCD-type behavior,” pediatric neurologist Dr. Rosario Trifiletti said in an interview with MSNBC. “In many patients, they have a tendency towards tics, and the strep infection can make it a lot worse.”

PANDAS usually develops sometime between age three and puberty. Symptoms include OCD or tic disorders, episodic severity, hyperactivity/adventitious movements, and association with streptococcal infections. Episodes are associated with separation anxiety, mood changes, bed-wetting and disturbed sleep.

If a child has a strep infection with episodes on three different occasions, this may be a sign he or she has the disorder. There are currently no lab tests that can confirm the disorder, and there is currently no know cure for PANDAS.

Still, Lauren’s mother, Lynn, has found some relief in knowing why her daughter can’t seem to stop sneezing:

“It’s bittersweet,” she says. “We have a direction to go towards, but there’s not a lot of answers. There needs to be more research done, more funding for research, more answers so we can treat her effectively.”

Lauren is being treated with antibiotics and steroids for the disorder. Luckily, Lauren says she’s getting used to the sneezing.

Sixteen volunteers, ages 20 to 24, took a fitness test to determine a baseline rating of perceived exertion (RPE).  Participants were instructed on proper usage of the game and played various Wii games while researchers monitored oxygen intake, heart rate and RPE.

The study, led by John Porcari, Ph. D., and Alexa Carroll, M.S., focused on six different activities—Free Run, Island Run, Free and Advanced Steps, Super Hula Hoop, and Rhythm Boxing.

Volunteers participated in each of the six activities randomly for 6 minutes. The Free and Island Run exercises required more energy, but neither used enough to meet the American College of Sports Medicine’s standard to affect cardio endurance.  The other activities fell below these health guidelines as well.

All of the activities did, however, burn calories. In 30 minutes, each activity burned the following number of calories:

• Free Step, 99 calories
  
• Advanced Step, 108 calories
• Super Hula Hoop, 111 calories
• Boxing, 114 calories
• Free Run, 165 calories
• Island Run, 165 calories

Although these exertion levels are significantly lower than doing similar exercise without the game, Wii Fit still used twice the calories of other video games. This is enough exertion to be considered a very mild workout.

“I guess anything is better than nothing,” Porcari says, “ but we were a little bit underwhelmed by the intensity of some of the exercises.”

An earlier study showed that certain Wii Sports activities burned more calories.

“You’re better off doing Wii Sports than Wii Fit,” Porcari explains. “In Wii Sports there’s more jumping around, and you’re not constrained by having to stand on the balance pad. I think there’s much more freedom of movement and you get a better workout.”

Thirty minutes each of Wii Sports activities burned the following number of calories:

• Wii Baseball, 84 calories
• Wii Golf, 93 calories
• Bowling, 117 calories
• Tennis, 159 calories
• Boxing, 306 calories

These findings could cut pounds for gamers in the long run, Carroll says, but it’s best not to rely on Wii alone. “Since using the Wii Fit alone may not produce results that meet recommended physical activity guidelines it is important that individuals participate in additional exercises to effectively reach these guidelines,” she says.

Read more about the Wii Fit and Wii Sports studies.