Is your teenager skipping breakfast? Why is that happening and what can you do? As per the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which surveyed adolescent health and well-being found that 1 in 4 students in high school ate breakfast, which means 3 in 4 high school students are not eating their breakfast. This data is as per the 2023 survey.

What Did The Study Intend?

The report describes a 10-year long trend and also recent changes among the two years. The study delved deeper into adolescents' dietary, physical activity and sleep behaviors. The study is also based on a national youth risk behavior survey of a representative sample of students from grade nine to 12.

What Did The Study Find?

The study found that while high school students drank slightly less soda and sports drinks and consumed more water, other healthy eating habits declined. In 2023, only 27% of students ate breakfast every day in the past week. The numbers were even lower for female students, with just 22% eating breakfast daily, compared to 32% of male students. Boys were also more likely to eat fruits and vegetables daily and drink water at least three times a day. Poor mental health and lack of physical activity have also been linked to skipping breakfast.

The other findings included a survey across 10-year period, where a decrease in the percentage of students eating fruits from 65% to 55%, eating vegetables, from 61% to 58%, and having breakfast daily from 38% to 27% was noted.

However, there was a positive trend among this, which was in children drinking plain water at least three times a day, which increased from 49% to 54% from when the survey began in 2015.. There were fewer students who also said that they drank soda in 2023 than in 2013. On an average, in 2013, around 22% students avoided soda, whereas in 2023, 31% students avoided it.

The report also emphasized that a healthy diet, along with daily physical activity and sufficient sleep further contributes to a healthy lifestyle. “The 10-year trends from 2013 to 2023 also show a decline in healthy dietary, physical activity, and sleep behaviors,” the survey reported.

Why Do High School Students Skip Breakfast?

While there is no one straightforward answer to it, psychologists and those who study children, believe that for many high school going kids, it is the easiest time to skip a meal. This is because they are caught between rushing to school, or not just that hungry in the morning. So for them, to sit down to have a breakfast may seem hassle and something they would have to take time out from their busy schedule. They at this age also prioritize their extra-curricular activities.

There has also been a shift in their circadian rhythm, and most teens cannot fall asleep before 11 pm, or even at midnight. Which means they wake up tired and struggle to do things right in the morning, which is why they choose to skip breakfast or give extra minutes to any other activities.

There is of course another, more popular reason, to lose weight. While experts and studies, like the one published in the Journal of Nutrition that found skipping breakfast leads to higher levels of hunger hormones, the students still feel the need to do this. However, it could lead to a slow metabolism, prompt the body to conserve energy and burn fewer calories, weight gain and deprive yo off the essential nutrients like calcium, iron, and vitamin D.

Without a morning breakfast, your blood sugar might drop too, which can increase irritability and stress, along with including the risk of depression in teenage.

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has become the deadliest one in the country’s history, with the death toll reaching 2,325, according to the latest reports.

The number has now surpassed the 2,299 deaths recorded during the 2018–2020 Ebola outbreak, which had previously been the country’s worst. The current outbreak has also become the largest in the DRC by number of confirmed cases, with 4,945 infections recorded so far.

The latest figures indicate that the outbreak has reached another grim milestone just three months after it was officially declared on May 15.

Ebola Is Spreading Rapidly

The DRC’s National Public Health Institute reported 101 new confirmed cases in the 24 hours leading up to its latest update, highlighting how quickly transmission is continuing.

The outbreak was first detected in Ituri province, but the virus has since spread to six provinces, including North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uele, Tshopo and Bas-Uele. More than 3,400 cases have been reported in Ituri alone.

The United Nations has described the outbreak as the fastest-growing Ebola epidemic on record.

“Ebola is winning in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We cannot let the virus outrun our response,” UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said, calling for “speed, scale, and solidarity” before the outbreak gets even further ahead of containment efforts.

Also read: Ebola Outbreak Is Claiming 1 Life Every 30 Minutes In DR Congo: UN Humanitarian Official

The Most Deadly Outbreak

One of the biggest reasons behind rapid transmission is that people are still being diagnosed too late. Thomas Parisch, a public health specialist with Médecins Sans Frontières, said that normally the proportion of people dying should fall as outbreaks progress because contact tracing improves and patients receive treatment earlier.

“Instead, we're still seeing many cases detected very late,” he said, with some infections only being identified after patients have died in their communities.

The case-fatality ratio has climbed from around 20% in early June to approximately 46%, according to Reuters.

That does not mean the virus itself has become more lethal. Rather, the increase is a warning that many patients are reaching healthcare facilities too late for treatment to be effective.

Also read: Ebola 2026 Outbreak Spreading Faster Than Any Before, On Track To Become Deadliest: WHO Chief

No Approved Vaccine

The current outbreak is being caused by the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, a relatively rare strain.

Unlike the Zaire species responsible for several previous major Ebola outbreaks, Bundibugyo currently has no approved vaccine or specific treatment. WHO says experimental vaccines and treatments are being investigated, but they remain under evaluation.

This makes early diagnosis, isolation, contact tracing and supportive medical care particularly important.

The outbreak is also unfolding in an extremely difficult environment. Conflict, population movement, weak healthcare infrastructure, misinformation and shortages of resources are making it harder for health teams to identify and isolate infections quickly. Health workers have also demonstrated strikes due to unpaid wages.

Also read: Amid Rapidly Expanding Ebola Outbreak, DR Congo Is Seeing An Alarming Increase In Maternal Deaths; Here's Why

Efforts Towards Containing The Outbreak

Despite the challenges, WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said significant progress has been made towards containing and eradicating the virus. It includes:

• More than 21,000 community health workers have been trained.
• Treatment centres, safe burial teams, laboratories and community engagement teams are operating across the affected provinces, reaching hundreds of thousands of people.
• A total of 886 patients have recovered, even without specific therapeutics and vaccines, which are progressing through trials.
• For the first time, two vaccines specifically designed against Bundibugyo virus have entered Phase 1 safety trials in humans.
• Two new animal studies of a vaccine against Zaire ebolavirus — the more common species — have shown promising evidence of cross-protection in animals, Tedros said.

In an early trial, scientists are testing the possibility if a vaccine could intercept pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancers in the US, at an early stage and prevent it from becoming invasive.

The trial involves people who were considered at high risk of pancreatic cancer and already had small abnormalities, like cysts, in their pancreas.

The experimental vaccine, called mKRAS-VAX, is designed to train the immune system to recognise mutated KRAS proteins, which are found in most pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas, the most common type of pancreatic cancer.

The findings, published in Cancer Discovery, offer an intriguing new approach in which instead of waiting for pancreatic cancer to appear and then treating it, researchers are attempting to intercept the disease at its earliest stages.

How Does The Vaccine Work?

Also read: UK Set To Implement Stricter Protocol For Prostate Cancer Testing; Who Is Eligible To Get Tested?

Pancreatic cancer often develops gradually from precursor lesions. Some of these lesions can contain mutations in the KRAS gene, which can drive the development of the disease.

The mKRAS-VAX vaccine contains synthetic peptides targeting six common KRAS mutations. The goal is to teach T cells to recognise cells carrying these abnormal proteins and destroy them before they progress into cancer.

Unlike traditional vaccines against infections, this is a therapeutic cancer vaccine, meaning it is designed to stimulate the patient's immune system against targets related to cancer.

Findings From The Early Trial

Also read: Following A Western Diet? Changes In Your Gut Bacteria Could Increase Colon Cancer Risk

The Phase 1 study involved 20 people who had either a family history or genetic predisposition to pancreatic cancer and had a pancreatic abnormality detected on imaging.

The vaccine produced mutant-KRAS-specific T-cell responses in 18 of the 20 participants, or 90%. These immune responses persisted for as long as two years. Researchers also saw an intriguing change in pancreatic cysts.

At a median follow-up of 16.5 months, 37.5% of participants experienced cyst reduction or complete resolution. Among a comparable group of unvaccinated people, the figure was 6.8%.

None of the vaccinated participants had developed pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma during the study follow-up. However, this does not prove that the vaccine prevents pancreatic cancer.

The study was small, early-stage and primarily designed to examine safety and whether the vaccine could generate an immune response.

“We are very excited about these results,” pancreatic cancer vaccine researcher Elizabeth Jaffee said.

More About Pancreatic Cysts

The researchers are interested in whether vaccination could intervene during this window, before malignant cells are formed.

That is particularly significant because pancreatic cancer is notoriously difficult to detect early and remains one of the deadliest cancers.

The long-term ambition is to develop a vaccine to prevent pancreatic cancer but researchers are not there yet.

Jaffee described the field as “nascent” and said she is “cautiously optimistic,” while emphasising that these small Phase 1 studies are not designed to establish whether the vaccines improve survival or prevent cancer.

Larger Phase 2 studies will be needed to determine whether the early immune responses translate into meaningful clinical benefits.

Endometriosis is usually characterised by painful periods, chronic pelvic pain and fertility issues. But a new study suggests the condition may also be linked to a significantly higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Researchers found that women with endometriosis had a 46% higher risk of type 2 diabetes compared with women without the condition.

The findings come from one of the largest studies to examine the relationship between the two conditions, adding a new dimension to the adverse effects of endometriosis.

What Did The Study Find?

Also read: 'My Periods Are Painful' Is Not Always Normal: When Could It Be A Sign of Endometriosis?

Researchers studied health records from nearly 3 million women in the Utah Population Database, covering the period from 1996 to 2021. Almost 100,000 women were diagnosed with endometriosis.

After accounting for factors including age, race and body mass index, women with endometriosis were found to have a 46% greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes than women without the condition. The researchers also found that the association differed depending on the type of endometriosis.

Additionally, the risk of type 2 diabetes was higher across several subtypes, including superficial peritoneal, ovarian and deep infiltrating endometriosis.

The strongest association was seen in women with endometriosis outside the usual pelvic sites, where the risk was about twice as high. Adenomyosis was also associated with an increased risk.

Why Could The Two Disorders Be Connected?

Also read: Maternal Anemia: Why It’s A Major Pregnancy Risk For Indian Women And How to Prevent It

Chronic inflammation could be the reason why the two disorders could be connected. Endometriosis is an inflammatory disease in which tissue resembling the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus.

Persistent inflammation can affect several systems in the body, while inflammation and poor insulin sensitivity could lead to type 2 diabetes.

“Previous studies largely evaluated endometriosis as a single condition and generally reported little or no overall association with type 2 diabetes,” said Fuzak Nunziato, lead author of the study. “Our findings add to a growing understanding that endometriosis may affect more than reproductive health alone.”

Despite the strong observation, it is to be noted that study found an association, meaning women with endometriosis were more likely to develop type 2 diabetes. It does not prove that endometriosis directly causes type 2 diabetes.

The study was also retrospective, meaning researchers looked back at archival health records rather than assigning participants to groups and studying them prospectively.

A large prospective research published in 2021 found no overall significant increase in type 2 diabetes among women with laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis, although it did find modestly higher risks among certain groups, including women who were not obese.

The association was particularly notable among premenopausal women and women without obesity - groups that are not normally not considered to be at the highest risk for type 2 diabetes.

If further research solidifies the the link, researchers say women with endometriosis could potentially benefit from greater awareness of metabolic health and earlier identification of diabetes risk.