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Fish oil rescues retinas
Patients with retinal disease may be able to stave off blindness if results of a Children's study in mice hold true for humans. Researchers Lois Smith, MD, PhD, and Kip Conner, PhD, found that omega-3 fatty acids, found in coldwater oily fish like sardines, helped mice keep half the blood vessels normally lost as a result of retinal disease—and retain some vision. Next, they'll test omega-3 supplementation in premature babies at risk for vision loss.

One secret to longer life?
People who diet and exercise live longer because of the effects of insulin on our brains, according to Children's Hospital Boston researcher Morris White, PhD. He found that mice whose brains were partially shielded from the effects of insulin lived 18 percent longer than normal.

He chalks this up to the fact that, as we age, obesity and sedentary lifestyles tune down our sensitivity to insulin, forcing the body to make more. Diet and exercise tune this sensitivity back up, allowing the body to run on less insulin—and protecting our brains from the effects of too much exposure.

Dyslexia as a sound problem?
The reading disorder dyslexia seems like a visual problem, but it may actually be a sound processing problem, says Children's researcher Nadine Gaab, PhD. Dyslexic third-graders with normal IQs showed faulty brain patterns when trying to take in very short sounds. Intense sound therapy—involving listening games, but no written words—corrected their brain patterns and improved reading. Gaab hopes to use this information to diagnose and treat dyslexia in young pre-readers, with the goal of intervening early enough to help these children avoid reading problems.

A first clue about height
We know height is inherited, but scientists haven't pinpointed the genes involved. Now, Children's researcher Joel Hirschhorn, MD, PhD, and collaborators are running the world's largest effort to find the genes that control height, and have found one gene, HMGA2, that codes for tallness. Finding the other genes involved could help us learn about growth and distinguish normal, inherited short stature from that caused by disease. Here's what's not on the agenda: making people taller. "We're not engineering the next NBA player," Hirschhorn says.

High blood pressure may be missed in kids
A study of more than 14,000 Ohio children has found, alarmingly, that nearly three-quarters of children with three or more elevated blood-pressure readings had never been diagnosed with hypertension. Nationwide, that amounts to more than a million children whose increased risk for heart disease, stroke and kidney disease is going unrecognized. Younger kids of normal weight and height were most likely to be missed. Children's researcher David Kaelber, MD, PhD, hopes the findings of his study will be a wake-up call for clinicians.