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Screening for areas of damage from a possible mini-stroke could help predict memory loss in the elderly, say U.S. researchers.

Their finding comes from a study involving 679 people, aged 65 and older, who were tested for mild cognitive impairment, the stage between normal brain aging and dementia. The researchers used brain scans to check for white matter hyperintensities, which are small areas of damage caused by mini-stroke, and for areas of dead brain tissue caused by stroke.

People with mini-stroke damage were nearly twice as likely to have mild cognitive impairment that included memory loss, whereas those with stroke damage were more likely to have mild cognitive impairment that did not include memory loss, according to the report in the Aug. 11 issue of Neurology.

“The most interesting finding in this study was that white matter hyperintensities, or mini-strokes, predicted memory problems, while strokes predicted non-memory problems,” study author Dr. Jose Luchsinger, of Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, said in a news release from the American Academy of Neurology.

“Traditionally, mini-strokes and strokes are thought to have a common origin and to more strongly predict non-memory cognitive problems,” Luchsinger said. “There are an increasing number of studies challenging the idea that all white matter hyperintensities are similar to strokes.”

The finding, he said, “could challenge traditional views that white matter hyperintensities are milder versions of stroke that are produced only by conditions such as high blood pressure.”

Learning more about mini-strokes and being able to identify which are related to stroke and which are related to other conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease, could help find ways to prevent memory loss and other types of cognitive impairment, Luchsinger said.

Screening children as early as second grade for symptoms of depression may help better identify those at risk later in life, a University of Washington study shows.

Even though about 80 percent of second graders in the study never developed more than a few symptoms of depression, the researchers identified five patterns of development of the mental disorder by following nearly 1,000 children through their elementary and middle-school years.

“We want to reassure parents that everyone, including children, may feel sad or depressed once in a while, but that doesn’t mean they will go on to develop depression. We are trying to understand how depression starts and evolves in childhood so that we can develop interventions to help children,” lead study author James Mazza, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, said in a university news release.

The study results, published online recently in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, are based on reports from teachers and parents and self-evaluations done by the children, primarily white residents of the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

“Some children are reporting that they don’t have as many friends, feel lonelier and are more anxious than their peers,” Mazza said. “They are telling us that they feel different from the typical happy-go-lucky second grader.”

About 20 percent of the children were found to have a notable number of depressive symptoms in second grade, and about 9 percent of these had their symptoms continue or grow by eighth grade. The other 11 percent saw their number of symptoms rise until middle school, when they decreased.

About 54 percent of the second graders had no or few symptoms, but developed some or more by eighth grade. The remaining 26 percent started with no or few depressive symptoms and held at this level until middle school, the researchers found.

The study authors noted that behavior and attention problems tended to predict what pattern of depression a boy would develop, while anxiety at an early age was a risk factor for girls. The team also confirmed previous findings that girls tended to have more depressive symptoms than boys by middle-school age.

Nearly one in three children and adolescents with “insulin-dependent” type 1 diabetes have a positive skin test for tuberculosis (TB) and are at risk of developing active TB and spreading the infection to others, according to the results of a study conducted in a TB-endemic area.

It is unclear whether poor blood sugar control predisposes diabetics to developing TB disease following infection, or whether the poor blood sugar control is a consequence of TB disease, the study team notes in the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases.

TB is a highly contagious and potentially deadly infectious airborne disease spread by coughing, sneezing, talking or spitting. Billions of people around the world are infected with TB. Most have latent or “dormant” infection, meaning they are not infectious, they do not feel sick, and cannot transmit TB to others. However, it’s estimated that about 10% of people with latent TB will go on to develop active TB, which is infectious.

For their study, Dr. E. A. Webb, from the Desmond Tutu Tuberculosis Center, Cape Town, South Africa, and colleagues evaluated the prevalence of TB among 258 patients with type1 diabetes who were younger than 21 years old in TB-endemic areas.

The prevalence of TB infection was 29.8%, Webb and colleagues report. Active TB was confirmed in 9 (3.48%) patients, while 16 (6.2%) were previously treated for TB, they observed.

The prevalence of tuberculosis increased from 7.8% at 5 years to 12.5% at 10 years after the diabetes diagnosis, Webb’s team reports.

The observed prevalence of tuberculosis among type 1 diabetes was over 6.8 times greater than the population prevalence, the researchers note.

Poor control of diabetes and contact with a tuberculosis source were associated with a 1.39 and 2.78 times higher risk of tuberculosis, Webb’s team found.

“Routine TB screening of children with type 1 diabetes may be indicated in settings highly endemic for TB,” the researchers conclude.