Young Adults

When roasted at 475 degrees, coffee beans are sometimes described as rich and full-bodied. But for the full-bodied person who is not so rich, unroasted coffee beans - green as the day they were picked - may hold the key to cheap and effective weight loss, new research suggests. In a study presented Tuesday at the American Chemical Society's spring national meeting in San Diego, 16 overweight young adults took, by turns, a low dose of green coffee bean extract, a high dose of the supplement, and a placebo.

Warning: Music may be hazardous to your health. It's not just your hearing that's at risk, according to a study out Monday in the June issue of the journal Pediatrics. Teens and young adults who listen to digital music players with ear buds are almost twice as likely as non-listeners to smoke pot, the study says. And those who attend concerts or frequent dance clubs are nearly six times as likely as homebodies to go on a binge-drinking bender. These findings are based on survey results collected from 944 low-income students at two vocational schools in the Netherlands.

A new study showing an estimated 7% of American teens and adults carry the human papillomavirus in their mouths may help health experts finally understand why rates of mouth and throat cancer have been climbing for nearly 25 years. The evidence makes it clear that oral sex practices play a key role in transmission. The new data, published online Thursday by the Journal of the American Medical Assn., are the first to assess the prevalence of oral HPV infection in the U.S. population.

Earlier this week, long-languishing NBC ordered a fall sitcom with an apt title: "Save Me. " As they get ready to roll out their fall lineups next week in New York, rival networks know the feeling. TV executives are scrambling to counter steep drop-offs among young-adult viewers and some record-low series ratings this spring. Fox's once-dominant singing show"American Idol" has seen ratings tumble by nearly 30% to its lowest totals since summer 2002, according to Nielsen. Of the Top 10 programs this season among total viewers, not a single freshman series makes the cut. And for viewers ages 18 to 49 - the category most advertisers care about - the only first-season shows to attain genuine hit status areCBS' raunchy sitcom"2 Broke Girls" and Fox's over-the-top singing contest"The X Factor" - both barely scraping under the wire at Nos. 9 and 10 respectively.

Warning: Music may be hazardous to your health. It's not just your hearing that's at risk, according to a study out Monday in the June issue of the journal Pediatrics. Teens and young adults who listen to digital music players with ear buds are almost twice as likely as non-listeners to smoke pot, the study says. And those who attend concerts or frequent dance clubs are nearly six times as likely as homebodies to go on a binge-drinking bender. These findings are based on survey results collected from 944 low-income students at two vocational schools in the Netherlands.

The healthcare law signed by President Obama last year has now helped as many as 2.5 million young adults get health insurance over the last year despite the lagging economy, new data released by the federal government indicates. And since the beginning of 2010, when the law was enacted, the percentage of Americans aged 19 to 25 without health insurance dipped from 34% to 29%. The dramatic increase in coverage for a group of Americans that has historically lacked insurance appears to be driven by a single provision in the law that allows young adults to remain on their parents' health plans until they turn 26, according to independent experts such as Paul Fronstin, senior research associate at the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

Several emergency room physicians called Monday for an end to raves at the Los Angeles Coliseum after a massive weekend event sent scores of teenagers and young adults to hospitals, mostly for drug intoxication. At least two people - one of them a minor - were in the intensive care unit for drug intoxication at California Hospital Medical Center. Another minor was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital comatose; the minor had taken another attendee's water bottle and had drunk from it without realizing it had been laced with drugs.

Readers who think of Gary Soto primarily as a poet will be pleasantly surprised to discover that this first volume of young-adult stories offers the same unadorned expression and concrete imagery that have characterized his previous works. Soto, a student of Philip Levine, already has earned a reputation as a leading Chicano writer. His poems have appeared in such journals as The New Yorker, Paris Review, New Republic and Nation.

As of 2010, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, married couples had fallen to barely 51% of U.S. households, with a full 5% drop in new marriages between 2009 and 2010 alone. The data for 2011 aren't in yet, but if that decline continued last year, less than half of American adults are in a legal marriage now. Is marriage going the way of the electric typewriter and the VHS tape? Not exactly. The decline of marriage seems especially dramatic in comparison to the way things were 50 years ago. In 1960, almost half of 18- to 24-year-olds and 82% of 25- to 34-year-olds were married.

Are America's teens and young adults addicted to the Internet? There's no good way to tell, according to a paper published online Monday in the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. That's in part because there's very little consistency among studies on the subject, so it's hard to pinpoint trends in the data accurately. Internet addiction has sometimes been defined as "problematic Internet use that is uncontrollable and damaging. " Studies have drawn possible links between Internet addiction and depression, excessive alcohol use and even injury.

For the young, regret over poor choices or missed opportunities can be a powerful carrot: It sparks reappraisal, accelerates learning and motivates change. In the old, regret appears to be no better than a stick -- a stern reminder of poor choices, lost powers and our short time remaining on earth. So what's the key to happy old age? Don't lunge after the carrot and you won't get hit by the stick. A new study finds that how we deal with foregone options and lost opportunities makes a huge difference in whether we will grow into happy seniors or succumb to late-life depression.

As "American Idol" winds down its 11th season, it's time to ask: Is Fox's smash singing contest losing the kids? For years, "Idol" was TV's unrivaled ratings champ, and a big part of its success lay in its appeal to young people, who made it their No. 1 TV choice for years. But this year, critics are attacking the show as increasingly stodgy while viewership has plunged more than 30% among teens and 20-somethings. And many of those viewers have gone to NBC's "The Voice," a hipper and sexier upstart that has much younger judges and often edgier songs.

Reading habits may be fundamentally changing, but a new survey shows that the printed word remains fundamental. Although many Californians who own Kindles, Nooks and other e-readers love their gadgets, they still prefer books the old-fashioned way - on paper - according to a poll by USC Dornsife and the Los Angeles Times. Even with sales of e-readers surging, only 10% of respondents who have one said they had abandoned traditional books. More than half said most or all of the books they read are in printed form.

The back-to-back blockbuster successes of "Harry Potter," "Twilight" and now "The Hunger Games" have turned the hunt for fresh young-adult fiction white-hot in Hollywood, as studios try to turn what used to be a phenomenon into what might be a formula. Frenzied auctions are underway for books that haven't even been published. Studios are paying as much as $1 million for the rights to adapt titles that are relatively modest sellers, particularly those featuring science-fiction, fantasy and dystopian themes.

When roasted at 475 degrees, coffee beans are sometimes described as rich and full-bodied. But for the full-bodied person who is not so rich, unroasted coffee beans - green as the day they were picked - may hold the key to cheap and effective weight loss, new research suggests. In a study presented Tuesday at the American Chemical Society's spring national meeting in San Diego, 16 overweight young adults took, by turns, a low dose of green coffee bean extract, a high dose of the supplement, and a placebo.

Archery had long been relegated to the realm of men in tights, apples atop heads and junior high summer camp. Then came "The Hunger Games. " The hit young-adult trilogy debuted in 2008, starring a heroine in a post-apocalyptic future who wields a bow and arrow to survive in gladiator-style contests. Key to the plots are several of Katniss Everdeen's dramatic shots and the increasingly advanced designs of her bows and arrows (including explosive shafts), as well as the rebellious symbolism of her archery skills.

About one in five young adults may have high blood pressure, a new study suggests, but many of them appear unaware of it. Such are the results of the latest attempt to clarify just how many far-from-elderly Americans are putting their long-term health at risk via hypertension.  Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill analyzed blood pressure data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, called Add Health,...

Young adults can't be expected to worry about having a heart attack or stroke. But they should consider that their lifestyle choices now may influence their health later, researchers said Monday. The scientists conducted a survey of 1,248 Americans age 18 to 44 on their attitudes about health and behaviors. The majority of people age 25 to 44 said they felt they were living a healthy lifestyle. Younger participants -- age 18 to 24 -- don't appear to thinking clearly about their health, however.

If you once found the thought of living with your parents into your late 20s or even your 30s a little embarrassing, you no longer have reason to blush. A new report by the Pew Research Center finds that 29% of those between the ages of 25 and 34 have lived at home at some point during the tough economy of recent years — and most say they are satisfied with that arrangement and optimistic about their financial futures. For many of today's 20- and 30-somethings, moving back to or remaining in their parents' homes has been a matter of economic necessity, not a choice, said Kim Parker, associate director of Pew's Social and Demographic Trends Project and the author of the report released Thursday.

The Adventures of Tintin Paramount, $29.99; Blu-ray, $44.99/$54.99 Steven Spielberg's long-awaited adaptation of Hergé's classic adventure comics comes up a little short, in part because the motion-capture animation gives "The Adventures of Tintin" a weightiness that runs counter to Hergé's lightness, and in part because the cartoony characters of a precocious boy reporter and a drunken sea captain come off a little overbearing when they...