Some good and bad news for teens...

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in these two recent articles.


CHICAGO ? A stunning one in five teens has lost a little bit of hearing, and the problem has increased substantially in recent years, a new national study has found.

Some experts are urging teenagers to turn down the volume on their digital music players, suggesting loud music through earbuds may be to blame ? although hard evidence is lacking. They warn that slight hearing loss can cause problems in school and set the stage for hearing aids in later life.

"Our hope is we can encourage people to be careful," said the study's senior author, Dr. Gary Curhan of Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

The researchers analyzed data on 12- to 19-year-olds from a nationwide health survey. They compared hearing loss in nearly 3,000 kids tested from 1988-94 to nearly 1,800 kids tested over 2005-06.

The prevalence of hearing loss increased from about 15 percent to 19.5 percent.

Most of the hearing loss was "slight," defined as inability to hear at 16 to 24 decibels ? or sounds such as a whisper or rustling leaves. A teenager with slight hearing loss might not be able to hear water dripping or his mother whispering "good night."

Extrapolating to the nation's teens, that would mean about 6.5 million with at least slight hearing loss.

Those with slight hearing loss "will hear all of the vowel sounds clearly, but might miss some of the consonant sounds" such as t, k and s, Curhan said.

"Although speech will be detectable, it might not be fully intelligible," he said.

While the researchers didn't single out iPods or any other device for blame, they found a significant increase in high-frequency hearing loss, which they said may indicate that noise caused the problems. And they cited a 2010 Australian study that linked use of personal listening devices with a 70 percent increased risk of hearing loss in children.

"I think the evidence is out there that prolonged exposure to loud noise is likely to be harmful to hearing, but that doesn't mean kids can't listen to MP3 players," Curhan said.

The study is based on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted by a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The findings appear in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Loud music isn't new, of course. Each new generation of teenagers has found a new technology to blast music ? from the bulky headphones of the 1960s to the handheld Sony Walkmans of the 1980s.

Today's young people are listening longer, more than twice as long as previous generations, said Brian Fligor, an audiologist at Children's Hospital Boston. The older technologies had limited battery life and limited music storage, he said.

Apple iPod users can set their own volume limits. Parents can use the feature to set a maximum volume on their child's iPod and lock it with a code.

One of Fligor's patients, 17-year-old Matthew Brady of Foxborough, Mass., recently was diagnosed with mild hearing loss. He has trouble hearing his friends in the school cafeteria. He ends up faking comprehension.

"I laugh when they laugh," he said.

Fligor believes Brady's muffled hearing was caused by listening to an iPod turned up too loud and for too long. After his mother had a heart attack, Brady's pediatrician had advised him to exercise for his own health. So he cranked up the volume on his favorites ? John Mellencamp, Daughtry, Bon Jovi and U2 ? while walking on a treadmill at least four days a week for 30-minute stretches.

One day last summer, he got off the treadmill and found he couldn't hear anything with his left ear. His hearing gradually returned, but was never the same.

Some young people turn their digital players up to levels that would exceed federal workplace exposure limits, said Fligor. In Fligor's own study of about 200 New York college students, more than half listened to music at 85 decibels or louder. That's about as loud as a hair dryer or a vacuum cleaner.

Habitual listening at those levels can turn microscopic hair cells in the inner ear into scar tissue, Fligor said. Some people may be more predisposed to damage than others; Fligor believes Brady is one of them.

These days, Brady still listens to his digital player, but at lower volumes.

"Do not blare your iPod," he said. "It's only going to hurt your hearing. I learned this the hard way."

Study: 1 in 5 US teenagers has slight hearing loss - Yahoo! News

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LOS ANGELES ? There's good news for parents who worry that their teenagers' sex lives are affecting their school performance: A provocative new study has found that teens in committed relationships do no better or worse in school than those don't have sex.

The same isn't true for teens who "hook up." Researchers found that those who have casual flings get lower grades and have more school-related problems compared with those who abstain.

The findings, presented Sunday at a meeting of the American Sociological Association in Atlanta, challenge to some extent assumptions that sexually active teens tend to do poorer in school.

Puberty hitting girls as young as 7

It's not so much whether a teen has sex that determines academic success, the researchers say, but the type of sexual relationship they're engaged in. Teens in serious relationships may find social and emotional support in their sex partners, reducing their anxiety and stress levels in life and in school.

"This should give some comfort to parents who may be concerned that their teenage son or daughter is dating," said sociologist Peggy Giordano of Bowling Green State University, who had no role in the research. Teen sex is "not going to derail their educational trajectories," she said.

Last year, nearly half of high school students reported having sexual intercourse, and 14 percent have had four or more partners, according to a federal survey released this summer.

For the study, University of California, Davis sociologist Bill McCarthy and University of Minnesota sociologist Eric Grodsky analyzed surveys and school transcripts from the largest national follow-up study of teens that began during the 1994-95 academic year. The researchers said not much has changed in terms of when teens first have sex or attitudes toward teen sex in the past decade.

The duo examined how teens' sexual behaviors affected their learning and controlled for factors that might influence their results.

Among the findings:

* Teens in serious relationships did not differ from their abstinent counterparts in terms of their grade-point average, how attached they are to school or college expectations. They were also not more likely to have problems in school, be suspended or absent.
* Compared with virgins, teens who have casual sex had lower GPAs, cared less about school and experienced more problems in school. For example, female teens who have flings had GPAs that were 0.16 points lower than abstinent teens. Male teens who have casual sex had GPAs that were 0.30 points lower than those who do not have sex. Teens who hook up also were at greater risk of being suspended or expelled and had lower odds of expecting to go to college.
* Teens who have sex ? whether it's a serious or casual relationship ? were at higher risk of being truant and dropping out compared with teens who don't have sex. The researchers said the dropout results should be interpreted with caution because the numbers were small.

"Having sex outside of a romantic relationship may exacerbate the stress youths experience, contributing to problems in school," Grodsky said.

In a statement, the Family Research Council said the study confirms what the group has long advocated about the negative consequences of casual sex.

But the council said it "would not interpret less severe educational impacts on students involved in 'committed' sexual relationships as a green light for comprehensive" sex education.

University of Southern California sociologist Julie Albright disagreed. She said it might be time to revamp sex education to "emphasize the importance of relationships and spell out the consequences of casual sex."
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The study dispels the notion that all teen sex is bad, said Marie Harvey, professor of public health at Oregon State University.

"The type of relationship really matters. When it comes to sexual behavior, it takes two to tango," said Harvey, adding that safe sex should be practiced to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Teen sex doesn't cause bad grades - Health - Kids and parenting - msnbc.com