MONDAY, Sept. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Teens who "sext" sexually explicit texts or images are probably taking other sexual risks as well, with new research indicating these adolescents are seven times more likely to be sexually active and significantly more apt to be having unprotected sex.

Analyzing self-reported behaviors of more than 1,800 Los Angeles students aged 12 to 18 (most were between 14 and 17), researchers found that 15 percent with cell phones acknowledged sexting and 54 percent knew someone who had sent a sext. Rarely was sexting the only sexually risky behavior involved.

"It's surprising in some ways that sexting isn't an alternative to risky sexual behaviors, it's part of the [same] landscape," said study author Eric Rice, an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Southern California. "I don't want to be alarmist, but I do think that parents who suspect their kids are sexting should be aware of the probability their kids are involved in other sexual behavior as well. They probably should worry insofar as it's likely their teens are sexually active and not using birth control."

The study is published online Sept. 17 and in the October print issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Previous studies on sexting indicated similar rates of participation among teenagers, but the new research is purportedly the first to examine any association between sexting and sexual activity.

Participants were mostly Latino/Hispanic, 87 percent identified as straight and nearly three-quarters reported owning a cell phone and using it every day.

Youths whose friends sexted were 17 times more likely to sext themselves -- viewing it as a "normal" behavior -- and non-heterosexual students were more than twice as likely to report sexting than their heterosexual peers.

"The students we talk to said texting has been associated with an existing romantic relationship or interest, so I think it makes sense that these kinds of behaviors are happening, for the most part, within an existing relationship and not something out of the blue," said Justin Patchin, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He was not involved in the study.

Patchin and Rice agreed the findings are an opportunity for parents to broach the subject with children and discuss the consequences. If they find out their own kids are sexting, they may want to measure the individual circumstances before deciding how to react, said Patchin, also an associate professor of criminal justice.

"It's one thing if it's your 17-year-old who's been in a committed relationship with a person for a long time . . . vs. a 13-year-old sending inappropriate pictures to a person they're interested and who they've never had a relationship with," he said.

"I certainly don't want to condone sexting among any teenager, but we need to understand the continuum of relationships and behaviors," Patchin added. "The main thing is that parents need to educate kids and talk about consequences -- [such as] that they can never be sure someone else won't see those images or texts."

Shari Kessel Schneider, a senior research associate at the Education Development Center in Newton, Mass., said the findings also highlight a need for physicians and educators to "be aware that youth who are sexting may need additional education and guidance related to adolescent sexuality and safe and responsible Internet use."

"While some have suggested that sexting may be a safe alternative to sexual behavior, it is not surprising that these online behaviors are entangled in teens' face-to-face interactions," said Schneider, who led a study on sexting and depression among Boston-area youth. "If a parent finds out their child is sexting, it's an important opportunity to engage their son or daughter in a discussion of what constitutes a healthy relationship and how youth can stay safe both emotionally and physically."

The study revealed an association between teen sexting and other sexual behaviors. It did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

More information

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has information about sexting.

FRIDAY, Aug. 31 (HealthDay News) -- Baby Boomers are in the mood for shacking up, and not just for a little while: The percentage of older Americans who are living together has skyrocketed in recent years, and new research finds that those who cohabit are most likely to stay that way instead of splitting or getting married.

"Cohabitation is really taking hold across the generations. It is now a viable alternative to marriage, even to older adults," said Susan Brown, the study's lead author and co-director of the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

Although the overall number of older people who are living together is still small compared to those who are single or married, it more than doubled in 10 years: About 2.75 million people over the age of 50 were cohabiting in the United States in 2010 compared to 1.2 million a decade earlier, according to the research. Among those aged 50 to 64, 12 percent of single people were living together in 2010, up from just 7 percent a decade earlier.

Brown and her colleagues sought to understand cohabitation in older adults, who as a group are avoiding marriage more than in the past. About a third of Baby Boomers -- born from 1946 to 1964 -- are unmarried today, compared to just 20 percent of people who were their age in 1980.

"There's been this rapid acceleration of being single, and more single people means more people at risk of cohabiting," Brown said. "We were just interested in figuring out the patterns of these unions."

The new study, which appears in the August issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family, used data from the 1998 to 2006 Health and Retirement Study and the 2000 and 2010 Current Population Surveys to track more than 3,700 older unmarried people and nearly 400 people who cohabited. The people were aged 51 to 75; a small number of same-sex relationships weren't included.

The findings suggest that people who live together have remarkably stable relationships, Brown said.

"They seem to be a long-term alternative to marriage," she said. "That's not at all what we see for younger people, for whom cohabitation is a stepping stone to marriage, a way to test out the relationship."

The study found that death is more likely to break up an older cohabiting couple than a relationship split or marriage. And among those who are single, their likelihood of cohabiting is equal to their likelihood of getting married.

Living together can have financial benefits for older people, Brown said. Widows or widowers don't have to give up their spouses' Social Security benefits if they don't get married, and unmarried people can avoid taking on the medical debts of their partners, she said.

Also, she said, "many women aren't interested in getting remarried later in life. They say, 'I took care of one man, and I'm not interested in taking care of another.'"

The study results reflect the findings of Stephanie Coontz, a professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and author of "Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage."

"For young people, social factors such as economic and educational status are very big predictors of who marries and who cohabits," she said. In contrast, older people may lack an incentive to get married.

"They no longer are at the stage of life when they feel like they want or have to have a big wedding -- to please family, to announce their commitment to the world, to protect future children or to accumulate wedding gifts," Coontz said. "Second, there are some real disincentives for some: complicated finances, prior experience with the hassles of dissolving a marriage if something were to go wrong."

What about that old stigma of "living in sin"?

"The stigma has largely disappeared for most Americans, except for small pockets of people," Coontz said. "Older Americans may be more likely to disapprove of cohabitation in the abstract, but they also have fewer relatives alive to shock and offend. Possibly those two tendencies balance each other out."

More information

For background on divorce, try the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

TUESDAY, Aug. 28 (HealthDay News) -- Stribild (elvitegravir, cobicistat, emtricitabine, tenofovir disoproxil fumarate) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat adults with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The combination drug, which only has to be taken once a day, interferes with enzymes that are needed for the virus to multiply, the FDA said in a news release.

The safety and effectiveness of Stribild were evaluated in clinical studies involving 1,408 adults. Of those treated with the new drug, between 88 percent and 90 percent had undetectable levels of HIV in their blood, compared with roughly 84 percent who had undetectable levels among those treated with other anti-HIV drugs, the agency said.

As with similar HIV medications, Stribild's label will include a boxed warning of the potential for a lethal buildup of lactic acid in the blood or severe liver problems, the FDA said.

The most common side effects reported during clinical testing included nausea and diarrhea. More serious but less common adverse reactions included new or worsening kidney problems, a drop in bone mineral density and immune system changes.

Foster City, Calif.-based drug maker Gilead Sciences will have to conduct additional studies of the drug's safety in women and children, how the drug may become resistant to the AIDS virus, and possible interactions with other drugs, the agency said.

More information

The FDA has more about this approval.