MedPage Today (5/31, Short) reports, “People who quit smoking for at least 15 weeks may see improvements in their mental health,” investigators concluded in the findings of an 8,411-patient, “secondary analysis of the EAGLES trial.” Research revealed that “in adults with and without a psychiatric history, those who quit smoking for that duration saw reductions in Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale…scores at six months compared with active smokers.” The findings were published online May 31 in JAMA Network Open.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Healio (5/30, Herpen) reports, “Adults with binge-eating disorder who were given acute naltrexone/bupropion performed better with similar maintenance treatment compared with placebo,” investigators concluded in a 66-adult study that in which participants were “randomized 1:1 to receive either naltrexone/bupropion (n = 32) or placebo (n = 34) for 16 weeks.” The findings were presented at the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology annual meeting.

Related Links:

— “Naltrexone/bupropion maintenance therapy for binge-eating disorder superior to placebo “Robert Herpen, Healio, May 30, 2023

The New York Times (5/26, A1, Weiland) reported, “Hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans have lost Medicaid coverage in recent weeks as part of a sprawling unwinding of a pandemic-era policy that prohibited states from removing people from the program.” Early data indicate “many people lost coverage for procedural reasons, such as when Medicaid recipients did not return paperwork to verify their eligibility or could not be located. The large number of terminations on procedural grounds suggests that many people may be losing their coverage even though they are still qualified for it.” In addition, “many of those who have been dropped have been children.”

Related Links:

— “Hundreds of Thousands Have Lost Medicaid Coverage Since Pandemic Protections Expired “Noah Weiland, The New York Times, May 26, 2023

According to the New York Times (5/26, Caron), research “suggests that, for some patients, the anesthetic ketamine is a promising alternative to electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, currently one of the quickest and most effective therapies for patients with difficult-to-treat depression.” In the “largest head-to-head comparison of the two treatments,” investigators “found that ketamine, when administered intravenously, was at least as effective as ECT in patients with treatment-resistant depression who do not have psychosis.” The findings were published online May 24 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Psychiatric News (5/26) reported, “The participants receiving ECT reported greater problems with memory at the end of treatment compared with those who received ketamine, though by the one-month follow-up, there was little difference between the two groups,” the study revealed. Additionally, “ECT participants reported more musculoskeletal adverse effects, whereas ketamine participants reported more dissociation symptoms.”

HCPlive (5/27, Kunzmann) also covered the study.

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— “Ketamine Shows Promise for Hard-to-Treat Depression in New Study “Christina Caron, The New York Times, May 26, 2023

Healio (5/26, Weldon) reported, “High school-aged teens experiencing depression or suicidal ideation have increased perceived access to firearms compared with their peers,” which “is especially concerning, the researchers said, because easy firearm access increases the risk for suicide, which is the second leading cause of death among adolescents.” After examining data “from a web survey of 1,914 parent-teen duos between June 24, 2020, and July 22, 2020, to generate a nationally representative sample of U.S. teens,” investigators found that “teens with depression or suicidality were 56% more likely…to believe they had easy and quick access to a firearm either on their property or off it.” The findings were published online May 22 in the journal Pediatrics.

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— “Teens with depression, suicidality have increased perceived access to firearms “Rose Weldon, Healio, May 26, 2023

According to NBC News (5/26, Syal), “evidence is growing of marijuana’s association with psychiatric disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, especially in young men.” A studypublished online May 4 in the journal Psychological Medicine has found “evidence of an association between cannabis use disorder and schizophrenia,” a finding “most striking in young men ages 21-30, but was also seen in women of the same age.” The study examined “data from almost seven million men and women in Denmark over the course of a few decades to look for a link between schizophrenia and cannabis use disorder.”

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— “Marijuana linked to mental health risks in young adults, growing evidence shows ” Akshay Syal, NBC News, May 26, 2023

According to HCPlive (5/30, Walter), “patients with mental health disorders and patients who are taking psychotropic” medications “are at an increased risk of sleep disorders, including sleep apnea and insomnia,” researchers concluded in a study that “identified medical claim data from the Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators…for mental disorders, psychotropic” medication “use, and demographic data for individuals aged 18-64 years between 2016-2020.” The findings were published online May 27 in the Annals of General Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Mental Disorders Associated With Sleep Apnea, Insomnia “Kenny Walter, HCPlive, May 30, 2023

mHealth Intelligence (5/25, Vaidya) reports, “Medicaid coverage of telehealth services between 2013 and 2019 was associated with significant increases in telehealth use and healthcare access, but private insurer coverage of telehealth during the same period was not similarly linked to increases in use and access, a recent study shows.” The findings were published online in Health Services Research.

Related Links:

— “Medicaid Coverage Linked to Rise in Telehealth Use, Healthcare Access “Anuja Vaidya, mHealth Intelligence, May 25, 2023

MedPage Today (5/25, Monaco) reports, “Withdrawing from antidepressants likely won’t affect how well psilocybin works for treatment-resistant depression, according to a phase IIb randomized controlled trial.” The findings of an “analysis of 233 participants treated with a single dose of the investigational psilocybin treatment COMP360” were presented at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

The Washington Post (5/24, Cimons) reports, “A daily multivitamin – an inexpensive, over-the-counter nutritional supplement – may help slow memory loss in people age 60 and older,” according to the findings from “a large nationwide clinical trial” published online ahead of print in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The study revealed that people “taking multivitamins showed an estimated 3.1 fewer years of memory loss compared with a control group who took a placebo.” In other words, “the multivitamin group was an estimated 3.1 years ‘younger’ in terms of their memory function than the placebo group.”

According to the AP (5/24, Aleccia), the study “tracked more than 3,500 people over age 60 for three years.” Participants were randomized “to take a daily multivitamin or a dummy pill,” then were “evaluated annually for three years with internet-based exams that measure memory function.” Investigators also found that memory “improvement was maintained for at least the remaining two years of the study and was more pronounced in people with heart disease.”

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— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)