Dr van Tilburg

Teens are sleeping less than ever and screens aren't primarily to blame Nearly a quarter of teens sleep 5 hours or less per night and the majority sleep less than 8 hours. The problem is pervasive and technology doesn't seem to be the main culprit, according to a new repo...

Nearly 1 in 4 teens sleeps 5 hrs or less per night — and it’s getting worse.

A new JAMA study of 121K high schoolers found 75% don’t get enough sleep. The surprising culprit? NOT screens.

📖 npr.org/2026/03/08/nx-s1-5737426/time-change-teens-sleep-screens

Ultraprocessed Food Consumption and Behavioral Outcomes in Canadian Children This cohort study examines the associations between intake of ultraprocessed foods at age 3 years and behavioral outcomes at age 5 years among children in Canada.

New study: Kids 🧒 eating more ultra-processed foods 🌭🍕at age 3 showed higher rates of behavioral & emotional problems by age 5.

The good news — replacing just 10% of UPFs with whole foods 🍒🥑was associated with better outcomes.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

💯

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

That’s amazing. I’m sure the kids liked it!

Also important!

You may be right.

Good teachers have always known this - I suspect.

Saline nasal drops reduce the duration of the common cold in young children by two days For the first time, researchers have shown it is possible to repair damaged lung tissue inpatients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) using the patients’ own lung cells.

👶❄️ Kid (0–6 years) with a common cold?
A randomized controlled trial found that saline nasal drops can:
✅ Shorten symptoms by about 2 days
✅ Reduce the chance of others in the household getting sick

Simple, safe, and effective!

www.ersnet.org/news-and-fea...

I’m doing well. Glad you made the website switch!

Do kids really need to sit still to learn? 🤔
In 2 studies with middle schoolers, students generated more novel ideas when allowed to move (wiggle stools) vs. sitting still. No effect on memory.

Maybe it’s time to rethink “still = engaged.” 🪑✨

psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

Why are we suckers for Astrology, the Myers-Briggs, and other pseudoscientific personality tests? Astrology signs and MBTI do not predict people's lives (but the Big 5 does). We explain why people love them nevertheless.

Tired of hearing me talk about the untrustworthiness of Meyers Briggs personality test?

I won’t stop soon! Not until you stop using it to decide who to marry, who to hire, or what College to attend.

You have been sold a lie by ‘big business’.
www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/why-are-we...

That’s why we’ve been saying these “policies” will set us back decades. It takes much longer to build than to break down.

Empirical evidence of Large Language Model's influence on human spoken communication From the invention of writing and the printing press, to television and social media, human history is punctuated by major innovations in communication technology, which fundamentally altered how idea...

New evidence shows chatbots are not only changing the way we write✍️, but the way we talk 🎙️too!

arxiv.org/abs/2409.01754

Socio-demographic gaps in pain management guided by large language models - Nature Health In scenarios involving 1,000 acute-pain clinical vignettes, varied across 34 socio-demographic features, a panel of ten large language models is found to provide inconsistent recommendations, which al...

New study asked 10 LLMs to manage pain for 1,000 ER patients. The result? Bias at scale.

Black, unhoused, and low-income patients were flagged as high-risk for addiction but prescribed the most opioids.

Low-income patients got less treatment despite similar needs.

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Happy New Year Henri - you’re capabilities clearly outweigh mine. More to learn for me in the New Year!

Same to you Christine! May it be a year filled with love and laughter - and some good science.

Defective Hoxb8 microglia are causative for both chronic anxiety and pathological overgrooming in mice - PubMed Disruption of the Hoxb8 gene results in chronic anxiety and pathological overgrooming in mice. Using bilateral intracerebral cell transplantation, we demonstrate that mutant Hoxb8 microglia are causative for both behaviors. Mice contain two microglia lineages, Hoxb8 and non-Hoxb8 microglia. We propo …

Happy New Year!

Starting the year off with more science. Chronic anxiety may be caused by dysfunction of the microglia (the brains primary immune cells), new study in mice suggests.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40897864/ts

Our interdependence with the gut #microbiota is remarkable.

New research suggests gut microbes 🦠 may help train the maternal immune system to tolerate the fetus—reducing the risk of pregnancy loss🤰.

news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2025/12...

Good point!

Effectiveness and Impact of Maternal RSV Immunization and Nirsevimab in US Children This study estimates maternal respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine and nirsevimab effectiveness against acute respiratory illness and estimates the impact of these products on RSV-associated hosp...

Getting the #RSV #vaccine during pregnancy helped protect babies under 6 months:
• Cut doctor visits for RSV by about two-thirds
• Reduced RSV hospitalizations by about 70%

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges* Abstract. We use anonymized admissions data from several colleges linked to income tax records and SAT and ACT test scores to study the determinants and ca

Attending an Ivy-Plus #college (vs. an average flagship public) increases the chance of:

💰Top 1% of earners
🎓Attending elite graduate school
🏢Working at a prestigious firm
💵Average salaries, however, are not meaningfully different

academic.oup.com/qje/advance-...

Maternal history of maltreatment interacts with DNA methylation patterns to predict infant temperament - PubMed These findings highlight the complexity of the relations among maternal CM, epigenetic modifications to the stress response, and infant temperament. Infants of mothers who experienced more CM, particularly abuse, exhibited more difficult temperament, a relation that was moderated by heightened methy …

Infants of mothers with childhood abuse, showed more difficult temperament.

DNA methylation of HPA-axis-related genes moderated this association, suggesting that epigenetic changes may amplify the effects of maternal childhood abuse
on infant stress responses.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40974784/

This is a very sobering graph for the US. Hospitals that treat kids (level 1-2-3 in figure) are disappearing.

This is problematic for all.

publications.aap.org/pediatrics/a...

Absolutely staggering figures; USA an outlier among its developed countries peers wrt intimate partner violence, and India the outlier for sexual violence against children.

More kids dying of the flu now that vaccine rates are dropping. Misinformation have consequences. Please protect yourself and others.

#VaccinesSaveLives

Disease burden attributable to intimate partner violence against females and sexual violence against children in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2023: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden o... IPV and SVAC are substantial contributors to global health burden, and their health consequences span a variety of individual health outcomes. Importantly, mental health disorders account for the grea...

Violence against woman and kids major contributor to ill health.

Not just in ‘developing countries’ here too,

When will we stop the patriarchy, allow ‘boys will be boys’, and build social structures that help women and girls?

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Study among Chinese college students shows negative affect of app usage:
😴Less sleep
⏰More often late for class
✏️Lower grades
👔Lower salary in first job

Even more scary: Roommate use had huge impact as app use is infectious.

www.nber.org/system/files...

The impact of PhD studies on mental health—a longitudinal population study Recent self-reported and cross-sectional survey evidence documents high levels of mental health problems among PhD students. We study the relationship…

Pursuing a PhD isn’t just academically demanding — it can strain mental health. Study shows PhD students increase use of psychiatric meds each year compared to master’s students.

Exception: medical & health sciences, where use stayed steady.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Associations Between Overparenting and Offspring's Mental Health: A Meta-Analysis of Multiple Moderators - PubMed Despite overparenting being considered a critical factor associated with offspring's mental health, the existing research on this topic has yielded inconsistent results. The current study aimed to examine the relationship between overparenting and various mental health outcomes, such as anxiety, dep …

🚸 Overparenting hurts mental health.
A meta-analysis of 44 studies (21k+ people) found small but significant links between overparenting and anxiety, depression, and lower life satisfaction.
Effects varied by culture, parent gender, and age.
#Parenting #MentalHealth pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41009265/