STAT (3/7, Lee, Subscription Publication) reports, “Girls across the globe are hitting puberty earlier than ever before,” and “researchers aren’t sure why.” According to STAT, “Girls who undergo precocious puberty are also more likely to be victims of bullying during childhood, and they have a higher risk of depression, social anxiety, eating disorders, and substance misuse.” Additionally, “recent research has also demonstrated that precocious puberty has mental health effects that persist into adulthood, with young adults who went through early puberty more likely to experience depressive symptoms than those who matured at an average age.”

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— “Girls are starting puberty earlier than ever. For some, that comes with major mental health risks,” Alexa Lee, STAT, March 7, 2024

The New York Times (3/7, Richtel ) reports, “Increasingly, doctor visits by adolescents and young adults involve mental health diagnoses, along with the prescription of psychiatric medications.” A new study published in JAMA Network Open “found that in 2019, 17 percent of outpatient doctor visits for patients ages 13 to 24 in the United States involved a behavioral or mental health condition, including anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm or other issues.” That result was up “sharply from 2006, when just 9 percent of doctor’s visits involved psychiatric illnesses.” Additionally, “in 2019, 22.4 percent of outpatient visits by the 13-24 age group involved the prescription of at least one psychiatric drug, up from 13 percent in 2006.”

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— “The New York Times (requires login and subscription)

NBC News (3/6, Silva , Bendix ) reports, “Desperate patients around the country have been forced to choose between paying out of pocket for essential medications or forgoing them entirely as the aftermath of a cyberattack on a major health care company stretches into its third week.” Since Change Healthcare “detected the attack on” February 21, “pharmacies, doctors offices and patients say their lives and work have been upended due to widespread outages in systems commonly used for medical billing and insurance claims.” American Medical Association President Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, said, “Anything that requires interaction between health plans, a pharmacy, a facility, an office has been disrupted. … That has far-reaching implications, whether you’re on routine, standard medications, whether you rely on a rebate program from a pharmaceutical company, whether you’re just trying to get clearance to have routine elective surgery.”

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— “Patients struggle to get lifesaving medication after cyberattack on a major health care company,”Daniella Silva and Aria Bendix, NBC News, March 6, 2024

MedPage Today (3/6, Kneisel) reports, “Pediatric atopic dermatitis was associated with increased risks of learning and memory difficulties, especially in kids with comorbid neurodevelopmental disorders, a cross-sectional study suggested.” According to “a weighted sample of over 69 million children, those with atopic dermatitis were more likely to experience learning difficulties compared with kids without the condition (10.8% vs 5.9%, P<0.001), along with memory difficulties (11.1% vs 5.8%, P<0.001), reported” researchers in JAMA Dermatology. Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (3/6, George ) reports, “Dementia was more common in people with essential tremor than in the general population, a prospective cohort study found.” Investigators found that “over 5 years, the cumulative prevalence of dementia was 18.5% and the average annual conversion rate of mild cognitive impairment to dementia was 12.2%.” Those “rates were three times higher than those in the general population and approximately one-half the magnitude of those reported in Parkinson’s disease.” The findings are scheduled to be presented at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)