The Fox News (7/30, Kwan) website reports that according to a study published online July 29 in the journal Cerebral Cortex, “the brains of children with autism are relatively inflexible at switching from rest to task and this inflexibility is correlated with behaviors characteristic of the disorder.” The study involved 17 youngsters with autism and 17 kids who were developing normally. Both sets of children underwent “social face recognition” testing and functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning.

Related Links:

— “For children with autism, brain inflexibility may explain behavior,” Nicole Kwan, Fox News, July 30, 2014.

HealthDay (7/30, Doheny) reports that according to a study scheduled for presentation at the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior’s annual meeting, “dieting at a young age might set the stage for harmful health habits, including eating disorders.” From 1982 to 2012, researchers surveyed thousands of women of college age. The survey results also revealed an association “between early dieting and later obesity and alcohol abuse.”

Related Links:

— “Dieting at Young Age Often Backfires, Study Says,” Kathleen Doheny, HealthDay, July 29, 2014.

In a USA Today (7/29) op-ed, former congressman Patrick Kennedy warns against the recent trends of legalizing marijuana, saying that the commercialization of the drug “threatens healthy brain development and the mental health of our children.” He applauds President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder for their efforts in reforming the drug laws, to promote drug treatment and other diversion programs for nonviolent drug crimes, but says we should not replace one tragedy, “incarceration,” with another, “a public health crisis.”

Related Links:

— “Patrick Kennedy: Legalizing pot endangers children,” Patrick Kennedy, USA Today, July 28, 2014.

USA Today (7/26, Appleby) carried a Kaiser Health News report on the “limited networks of” physicians “and hospitals” that some people find under their ACA plans. According to the article, across the country, “regulators and insurance agents are inundated with complaints, while lawmakers are considering rules to ensure consumers’ access to” physicians. To address this issue, “for plans being submitted for sale next year, the federal Department of Health and Human Services said it will more closely scrutinize whether networks are adequate.”

Related Links:

— “New health plans’ limitations anger enrollees,” Julie Appleby, USA Today, July 27, 2014.

Medscape (7/26, Jeffrey) reported that investigators “have for the first time described a pathologic role for a third protein in the Alzheimer’s disease process, in addition to the well-described β-amyloid and tau proteins.” Researchers found, “in a postmortem study of 340 brains from participants identified after death as having AD,” that “a protein called TDP-43 correlated strongly with cognitive impairment during life, as well as hippocampal and cortical atrophy, independent of amyloid deposition and at lower Braak stages of AD pathology progression.” The findings were presented at a press conference at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference 2014.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)