Children exposed to organophosphate pesticides while in the womb may be more likely to suffer attention disorder later in life, a new study suggests.

Researchers from California based their findings on attention tests given to more than 300 children of Mexican American farm workers in the Salinas Valley of California.

The researchers also took measures of organophosphate metabolites in the mothers' urine and collected behavioral reports from the mothers and from professional observers.

The findings showed that although there was only a small link between attention problems and exposure at the age of three, the association became significantly larger at age 5, especially among boys.

"We saw that the children were making more errors on the test and that it was significantly related to the mother's prenatal metabolite levels for these pesticides," said lead researcher Brenda Eskenazi, who is director of the Center for Children's Environmental Health Research at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health.

It bears noting that these children had much higher exposure levels than the "average" kid, Eskenazi said.

"Children don't have the level of an enzyme needed to metabolize these organophosphates the same as adults until they're much older than we expected," said Eskenazi. "Their metabolism is different, and now we have hard evidence of that."

There's also "suggestive evidence" that some children may harbor genetic variations that make them more susceptible to the neurocognitive effects of pesticides, according to the study appearing in the Aug. 19 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.

The findings conform with previous studies which also found that exposure to high levels of organophosphate pesticides could raise the odds for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

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The dirtier the air, the more likely people are to suffer sudden cardiac arrest, new research from Australia shows.

Particulate matter -- tiny specks of soot, dust, and other pollutants in the air that can be breathed deep into the lungs -- has been "consistently" linked to increases in deaths from heart disease and clogged arteries, Dr. Martine Dennekamp of Monash University in Melbourne and her colleagues note.

But studies looking at whether air pollution specifically ups the risk of heart attack or cardiac arrest have had mixed results.

Airborne particles are harmful to people with existing health problems, the researchers add, but they could also trigger heart attack or even sudden death in people with no apparent symptoms of cardiovascular disease.

To investigate, Dennekamp and her team looked at 8,434 cases of sudden cardiac arrest among people 35 and older that occurred in metropolitan Melbourne between 2003 and 2006.

After a rise in concentration of the tiniest airborne particles (particles less than 2.5 microns across, known as PM2.5), the likelihood of cardiac arrest rose, and stayed higher than average for two days. For every 4.26 micrograms per cubic meter increase in PM2.5 concentrations, the risk of cardiac arrest was 4 percent higher than average for the next 48 hours.

An individual's risk of suffering sudden cardiac arrest is quite low; the American Heart Association estimates that there's about one cardiac arrest per 2,000 people every year in North America. And the study does not prove that pollution causes more cardiac arrests, as the researchers did not find out whether participants in the study also smoked or had other risk factors for heart disease.

Carbon monoxide levels also were associated with increases in cardiac arrest risk, although the effect wasn't as strong as it was for PM2.5. None of several other pollutants the researchers measured, including larger airborne particles, affected risk. The effect was strongest for people 65 to 74 years old, and weakest for those 75 and older.

Australia currently has an "advisory standard" limiting PM2.5 concentrations to 25 micrograms per cubic meter or less, the researchers note.

Given that an increase of less than 5 micrograms per cubic meter was tied to significant health effects, they add, "the present study suggests an increase in the risk of cardiac effects at concentrations below the current air quality standards in Australia."

Eating a Mediterranean-style diet can help heart patients stay healthy, new research from Greece shows.

This eating pattern, which includes lots of fruits and vegetables, nuts, vegetable oils, low-fat dairy products, legumes, whole grains, and fish, has been shown to help shield people from heart disease and may also ward off certain cancers, Dr. Christina Chrysohoou of the University of Athens and her colleagues note in their report.

But less information is available on whether the Mediterranean diet might be helpful for people who already have heart disease.

To investigate, Chrysohoou and her team looked at 1,000 patients who had suffered heart attacks or severe chest pain while at rest or with only light exertion. They rated each patient on a scale of 0 to 55 based on how closely their eating matched the Mediterranean ideal.

Nearly half of the patients experienced a second heart-related event within two years after their original hospital discharge.

But patients with the most Mediterranean-style diets were at 31 percent lower risk of suffering another heart attack or experiencing chest pain during the first month after they were discharged from the hospital.

They were only half as likely as those with the least Mediterranean eating habits to have another heart-related event within a year, and nearly 40 percent less likely to experience repeat heart problems within two years.

For every additional point on the 55-point Mediterranean Diet Score, a person's risk of having another heart-related event over the next two years fell by 12 percent, the researchers found. Patients with the most Mediterranean diets were also the least likely to experience reductions in the ability of the heart's main pumping chamber to work at full capacity, as well as harmful structural changes to the heart known as cardiac remodeling.

When the researchers looked at different components of the Mediterranean diet separately, they found that vegetables and salad and nuts were the only foods that cut risk; people who ate vegetables and salad or nuts daily or weekly were at 20 percent lower risk of repeat heart problems within two years of their initial hospitalization compared to people who ate these foods monthly or less often.

Based on the findings, Chrysohoou and her team conclude, strategies to reduce mortality and illness due to heart disease should include a "diet that contains the favorable characteristics of the Mediterranean diet."

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, most girls who start developing a year or two before their classmates don't face any more long-term problems than their peers, according to a new study.

However, depression may be somewhat more likely among such girls, Duke University researchers report this month in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

"This is a hopeful study," co-author William Copeland told Reuters Health.

Two decades of research suggests early-maturing girls are more likely to engage in numerous high-risk behaviors such as sexual activity, substance abuse, minor criminal activity, and clashes with authority figures. It was thought that this behavior persisted into young adulthood.

The Duke study, however, is the first study to follow a large group of girls until the age of 21.

The Copeland group used data from the Great Smoky Mountain Study, a long-term study of more than a thousand city and rural boys and girls in North Carolina. The girls enrolled in the study were followed from age 9 to 21. Of the 630 girls enrolled, 115, or about one in five, were defined as early-maturers.

Based on regular surveys of the subjects and their parents, while the research reinforced the belief that early-maturing girls have more problems in adolescence, it also found "little evidence of continued problems into young adulthood."

In fact, the discrepancies between the early and on-time maturing girls disappeared for two reasons: early-maturers gradually reduced risky behaviors, while their on-time peers increased theirs.

Depression in young adulthood was the only exception and showed a stubborn persistence in one small group of early-maturers.

Compared to all study participants, early-maturers were 3 times more likely to be depressed as young adults: Fifteen percent of early-maturers suffered depression in young adulthood, compared to five percent of girls who matured on time or late.

The effect was particularly pronounced in a small group of early-maturers. More than 80 percent of the early-maturing girls reporting a history of behavior problems were depressed at 21, compared to nine percent of those without histories of misbehavior.

The finding offers opportunities for helping these girls, Copeland said. "We can identify them early through their behaviors and target them for intervention," he said.

This study, Copeland said, offered "good news all around." Although as a whole, the early-maturers showed a higher rate of depression, "most of these girls are doing just fine."