A new study suggests the children of women who are depressed during pregnancy succumb to depression more likely during their teenage.

Researchers at Bristol University have suggested that stress hormone cortisol, which is higher in depressed mothers, may affect the developing brain of the foetus in the womb as they are able to cross the placenta.

The research has been carried out by Rebecca Pearson, research epidemiologist at Bristol University's school of social community medicine.

Depression during pregnancy may affect a baby through stress hormones that move across the placenta, Rebecca Pearson and her colleagues said.

This goes against the suggestion of some researchers that depression is only important if it continues past the end of pregnancy and impacts parenting.

"It should be treated during pregnancy, irrespective of if it continues during birth. It's as important during pregnancy," Pearson said.

Further, the study also showed that postnatal depression in the mother was a risk factor for children's depression in late adolescence, but only in mothers with low educational attainment.

Pearson also said women should do what they can to put their own mental health first during pregnancy, and know that by doing this they are also looking after their baby.

The study is published in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) Psychiatry.

Shweta Mathur has 700 'friends' on a popular social networking site. Yet, when she sat in a psychologist's office after her parents' suspected suicidal tendencies, she said she didn't have a "real friend". In an increasingly connected world, the boundary between the real and the virtual is blurring. Mental health experts say this is a key reason for rising cases of depression among youngsters, driving some to suicide.

According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, 135,445 people committed suicide in India in 2012 - an average of about 15 suicides an hour. A large number of the suicides were in the 15-29 age group.

"Adolescent suicides have quadrupled in the last two decades. In 90 percent of the cases, the person was suffering from an undetected and unidentified psychiatric disorder," Samir Parikh, director of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences at Fortis Hospital, told IANS.

He added that in most cases, the underlying depression takes root for months before an event, like a failed love affair or bad academic result, becomes the final breaking point.

Changes in the social structure and lack of interpersonal touch are some of the main factors that contribute to increasing vulnerability of the young.

"We have moved away from joint family to nuclear family, and now to the micro-nuclear structure where young people stay alone. This means that the support system when a child is growing, of having someone to share his feelings with even if both parents are not there, is now missing," said Sayar Ansari, psychologist at the Columbia Asia Hospital.

"Field sports which was given a lot of emphasis earlier and encouraged interpersonal contact is also increasingly being replaced by virtual gaming. All of this leaves a void."

Mental health expert Sameer Malhotra of Max Hospital goes on to say that while social networking is not a villain, and that it's "good to be connected", it's important to recognise that there are flip sides to it as well.

"Social networking can be exploited because it's a public platform which one can misuse and use foul language to display emotions. There have been cases of vulnerable people being victims of group bullying.

"Plus, too much of anything is bad. Staying up late to 'connect' with friends virtually and losing on your sleep can cause neurochemical changes, and this along with lack of interpersonal contact with family, no clear goals and high competition levels can all lead to emotional turmoil," Malhotra added.

Added Deepak Raheja, psychiatrist and psychotherapist at Paras Hospital: "Kids, especially in the urban set up, are raised with all the luxuries and hardly face any difficulties. So when they grow up and face failure, sometimes they cannot cope with it and withdraw. Then again, unlike earlier times when choices were limited, now there is plenty of choice (careerwise) but youngsters don't pursue one goal for too long and give up, sinking into gloom."

There is no simple solution to such problems, experts say, but a beginning must be at home, with good parenting.

"Parents need to spend ample time with their children, talk to them and encourage interpersonal communication with others. They also need to tell them that success is important but failure is not the end of everything," Ansari said.

"It's also important to tell adolescents to always look at the big picture and think beyond material acquisition," Raheja added. "The ability to detach and maintain a good work-life balance is very important."

Researchers have claimed that a drink, known as Sprite in Britain could help you cure your hangover from yesterday.

After boozing, the human body undergoes 2-stage-metabolic-process to break down the ethanol.

In the beginning the liver metabolises ethanol into acetaldehyde through an enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), before breaking it into acetate by aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH).

Researchers from Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou observed the way a number of drinks affected the way in which the body metabolised alcohol.

They analysed 57 different drinks, which includes herbal infusions, teas, and carbonated beverages, and measured their effects on ADH and ALDH and found that each brew had a different effect.

They also found that while some herbal teas slowed the process, thus prolonging a hangover, Sprite was found to actually speed the enzyme's work up, which meant that the beverage could ease a hangover as it shortened the body's exposure to acetaldehyde, the Independent reported.

The study's findings have been published in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Food and Function.

A group of researcher have tried to explain how alcohol slows healing on the cellular and molecular levels.

Now a study by Loyola University Medical Center researchers could lead to treatments to improve bone healing in alcohol abusers, and possibly non-drinkers as well.

Senior author John Callaci, PhD, and Roman Natoli, MD, PhD, studied the effects that alcohol consumption had on bone healing in mice. One group of mice was exposed to alcohol levels roughly equivalent to three times the legal limit for driving. A control group was exposed to equal amounts of saline (salt water).

The study found three ways in which alcohol impaired bone healing after a fracture:

There were differences between the control group and the alcohol-exposed group in the callus, the hard bony tissue that forms around the ends of fractured bones. In the alcohol-exposed group, the callus was less mineralized, meaning not as much bone was forming. Moreover, the bone that did form was not as strong.

Mice exposed to alcohol showed signs of oxidative stress, a process that impairs normal cellular functions.

The alcohol-exposed mice had significantly higher levels of malondialdehyde, a molecule that serves as a marker for oxidative stress.

During the healing process, the body sends immature stem cells to a fracture site. After arriving at the site, the stem cells mature into bone cells. Two proteins, known as SDF-1 and OPN, are involved in recruiting stem cells to the injury site. In the alcohol-exposed group, OPN levels were significantly lower.

The study has been funded by the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation.

Clinical research would enable India to find newer and better medicines to treat its population and reduce mortality rates for various diseases, according to an apex association of clinical research professionals.

"We strongly believe in the need to create a sound clinical research ecosystem that encourages local research and innovation," Indian Society for Clinical Research (ISCR) President Suneela Thatte told PTI.

There is a need to encourage such innovation and not deter the scientific and medical community from continuing in the quest to find safer and more effective treatment for the country's disease burden, she added.

Earlier, a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice R M Lodha had said that a system must be put in place to protect the lives of people and asked the Centre not to allow clinical trials for untested medicines.

Emphasising that clinical trials need to be encouraged in India, she said: "At present less then 2 per cent of global clinical trials are happening in India which has around 16 per cent of the world's population and has 20 per cent of the disease burden."

On being asked about the need for robust regulation of clinical trials in India Thatte said: "ISCR is fully supportive of the need for a more robust and regulated environment for the conduct of clinical trials in India which ensures the practise of the highest standards of ethics and quality and where patient rights and safety are protected."

However, it is also important to ensure the continuity of clinical trials for thousands of patients for whom clinical trials are the last option, she added.

In September this year, the Centre had informed the Supreme Court that an apex committee, headed by the Health and Family Welfare Secretary, has been formed to supervise the regulation of clinical trials based on the recommendation of the Technical Committee constituted under the chairmanship of the Director General Health Services.

It had also said that a new Bill containing penal provisions for violation on conduct of trials for untested medicines has already been introduced in Parliament.