HealthDay (9/12, Dallas) reports a new study suggests brain chemistry may make “obese people…more vulnerable to environmental food cues than thin people.” The brain imaging study, published in the online edition of Molecular Psychiatry, included 43 men and women, and “found those who were obese had increased activity in the habit-forming part of their brain and reduced activity in the area that controls reward.”

Dr. Griffin Rodgers, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, said in an institute news release, “These findings point to the complexity of obesity and contribute to our understanding of how people with varying amounts of body fat process information about food.”

Related Links:

— “Obese People May Be More Vulnerable to Food Cues,” Mary Elizabeth Dallas, HealthDay, September 11, 2014.

The AP (9/11) reports on New Yorkers who are increasingly seeking treatment for the long-term psychological problems that arose after 9/11, most of whom rely on the New York City hospital system’s World Trade Center Environmental Health Center. The article details the delayed psychological effects of many 9/11 survivors, as well as the increase in enrollment in the program in the past five years.

“Even though it’s 13 years later, we’re really appreciating that there’s a long wake and legacy of the World Trade Center disaster,” said the program’s mental health director, Dr. Nomi Levy-Carrick. The AP also notes that the program’s Federal funding through the James L. Zadroga 9/11 Compensation Act is set to expire next year, although “New York legislators said this week” that they would propose extension legislation.

Related Links:

— “Seeking Help After Years of 9/11 Survivor Guilt,” Michael R. Sisak, Associated Press, September 11, 2014.

On its website, NPR (9/10) reports in its “Health” blog that middle-aged men are the group “emerging” as the group most likely to commit suicide, surpassing older men. According to the article, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that of 39,518 suicides in 2011, people aged 45-64 years had the highest rate, and with men more likely to commit suicide than women, the CDC “points to the need for more suicide prevention efforts aimed at men.”

Related Links:

— “Suicides Rise In Middle-Aged Men, And Older Men Remain At Risk,” Alison Bruzek, National Public Radio, September 10, 2014.

TIME (9/11, Luscombe) reports that research published online in Human Reproduction “suggests that not having children only makes infertile women unhappy if they are unable to let go of the idea of having kids.” The study included approximately 7,000 who had undergone fertility treatments. The women “were sent questionnaires about how they were doing and what caused the infertility and whether they had” children. The majority “of them were doing fine, except for about 6% who still wanted children even a decade or more after their last infertility treatment.”

HealthDay (9/11, Dallas) reports that the researchers found that the “prolonged longing for children was linked to worse mental health regardless of the health issues the women faced or the type of treatment they received.”

Related Links:

— “,” Belinda Luscombe, Time, September 10, 2014.

TIME (9/11, Oaklander) reports that research published in JAMA Psychiatry “found a positive association between the number of suicides on a particular day and the hours of sunshine—meaning sunny days saw more suicides.” Investigators “compared 69,462 suicides that occurred in Austria between 1970 and 2010 to hours of sunshine during that day.”

Newsweek (9/11, Bekiempis) reports that the researchers also found that “the effects of sunlight were not limited to the day of suicide along; a string of sunny days often ended in tragedy, according to the data in Austria.”

Related Links:

— “The Link Between Sunny Days and Suicide,” Mandy Oaklander, Time, September 10, 2014.

The Los Angeles Times (9/10, Healy) reports that according to a study published online Sept. 9 in the BMJ, “older people who have relied on a class of drugs called benzodiazepines to reduce anxiety or induce sleep are at higher risk of going on to develop Alzheimer’s disease…with those whose use of the medications is most intensive almost twice as likely to develop the mind-robbing disorder.”

For the study, researchers “compared the pattern of benzodiazepine use in 1,796 people elderly people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s with that of 7,184 similar people who had no such diagnosis.” The medications “specifically considered by the researchers were the short-acting anti-anxiety medications alprazolam (Xanax), lorazepam (Ativan), oxazepam (Seresta) and diazepam (Valium), and the longer-acting anti-seizure and ‘hypnotic’ drugs frequently used to treat insomnia: clonazepam (Klonopin), flurazepam (Dalmane), midazolam (Versed), nitrazepam (Mogadon), temazepam (Restoril) and triazolam (Halcion).”

Related Links:

— “Drugs used for anxiety, sleep are linked to Alzheimer’s disease in older people,” Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, September 8, 2014.

The Los Angeles Times (9/10, Healy) “Science Now” blog reported that a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found “more than half of nursing home patients” suffering from severe dementia, who are likely to die within a year or two, are being “administered medications that offer little or no benefit” by physicians and families, causing “pointless discomfort,” health risks and “inflating the cost of care.” Two kinds of medicines the study discussed are for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and lipid-lowering medications.

The New York Times (9/9, Span) “The New Old Age” blog reported that the study findings were deeply troubling, focusing on the potential harm from such medications and the patients often being unable to communicate their discomfort from the treatments. According to study’s lead author, Dr. Jennifer Tija, the drugs with “questionable benefits” have their proponents and therefore “discontinuing them remained controversial.” Dr. Tija adds that due to set “cultures and practice patterns,” these medications are continued to be prescribed even after the little value and purpose they provide.

Related Links:

— “Dementia patients continue to get medications with little, no benefit,” Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, September 9, 2014.

MLive (9/8, Allen) reports, “Daily marijuana use among college students is the highest it’s been in more than three decades, and 51 percent of all full-time college students have admitted to smoking pot at some point in their lives.” The Monitoring the Future (MTF) study found that “illicit drug use has been rising gradually among American college students since 2006, when 34 percent indicated that they used some illicit drug in the prior year.” The “long-term MTF study…also tracks substance use among the nation’s secondary students and older adults under research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.”

Related Links:

— “Regular marijuana use among college students at a three-decade high, survey says,” Jeremy Allen, MLive, September 8, 2014.

HealthDay (9/9, Dotinga) reports that according to a study published online Sept. 8 in the journal Pediatrics, children “who were bullied by siblings were more than twice as likely to report depression or self-harm at age 18 as those who weren’t bullied by siblings.” Additionally, these youngsters were “nearly twice as likely to report anxiety as they entered adulthood.”

Researchers arrived at these conclusions after having “examined the results of studies of just over 2,000 people in the United Kingdom who were surveyed via questionnaire in 2003 and 2004 at an average age of 12, and then answered a survey again at the age of 18.” BBC News (9/8) also covered the study.

Related Links:

— “Sibling Bullies May Leave Lasting Effects,” Randy Dotinga, HealthDay, September 8, 2014.

USA Today (9/9, Weintraub) reports that according to a study published online in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, “signs of autism symptoms can be erased if babies begin therapy even before they can toddle.” The study, conducted “by the University of California Davis’ MIND Institute, provided directed therapy to babies ages 6-9 months old who were identified as having early signs of autism, such as an inability to make eye contact, lack of babbling and fixations.”

Notably, “by the time the seven babies reached their third birthday – a time when autism can reliably be diagnosed – five didn’t show any autism symptoms and a sixth had only mild symptoms.”

Related Links:

— “Study: Autism signs in babies can be erased,” Karen Weintraub, USA Today, September 9, 2014.