Your age, on your page

A study of young men undergoing compulsory physical examination for military service found that men whose mothers underwent fertility treatments to conceive appear to have impaired reproductive health. Researchers at Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, found that compared with the other men, those conceived with fertility treatment had a 46 per cent lower sperm concentration, 45 per cent lower total sperm count, smaller testes, fewer motile sperm and fewer normal sperm, the researchers reported in American Journal of Epidemiology.

ZERO to 10

8226; Genes plus parenting may promote shyness

Researchers from the University of Maryland, College Park, found that children carrying one or two short versions of a gene involved in transport of serotonin were more likely to be extremely shy if their mothers reported little social support. If their mothers had plenty of social support, kids carrying the so-called 8220;shy gene8221; were at no greater risk of shyness. But children with two long versions of the serotonin transporter gene were normally outgoing no matter how little social support their mothers received, the researchers reported in Current Directions in Psychological Science.

10 to 20

8226; Low birth weight ups teen girls8217; depression risk

During adolescence, girls but not boys may be more likely to develop depression if they were born weighing less than about 5.5 pounds, suggests a new research in Archives of General Psychiatry. Researchers from Duke University Medical School, Durham, North Carolina, examined the relationship between low birth weight and depression and found though only about 5.7 per cent of girls are born weighing less than 5.5 pounds, but about 38 per cent of them suffer episodes of depression between ages 13 and 16 years.

20 to 40

8226; Exercise cuts young adults8217; hypertension risk

Physically active young adults are less likely than their more sedentary peers to develop high blood pressure, also known as hypertension. Researchers from University of Minnesota in Minneapolis found that the most physically active individuals were 17 per cent less likely to develop hypertension than the least active ones. The effect was the same for both men and women, the team noted in the American Journal of Public Health.

40 to 60

8226; Heavy men may be less apt to commit suicide

As body weight increases in men, the risk of death from suicide falls markedly. Given that previous studies have linked obesity with depression, obesity might be expected to raise the risk of suicide, but the few studies that addressed this topic have largely found just the opposite, reported researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The suicide risk was lowered by 11 per cent for each 1.0 unit increase in BMI.

60 and above

8226; Vision correction may raise fall risk in elderly

Helping frail older people to see more clearly may put them at increased risk of falls, according to a new study from Australia.

This could be because getting used to a new eyeglass may throw people off balance, noted researchers from Concord Hospital in New South Wales.