NBC News (1/24, Lovelace ) reports the FDA “issued a new warning late Tuesday about supplements that contain the ingredient tianeptine, commonly known as ‘gas station heroin.’” The supplements – “sold under the name Neptune’s Fix and often found at gas stations, convenience stores and online – are linked to serious side effects including seizures, loss of consciousness and death.” The agency, “which first warned about the tianeptine-containing products in November, said it is still receiving reports of people being poisoned by the supplements.”

Related Links:

— “FDA issues new warning about supplements containing tianeptine,” Berkeley Lovelace Jr., NBC News, January 24, 2024

Healthcare IT News (1/24, Fox ) reports the KLAS Arch Collaborative “conducted a [healthcare professional] experience survey focused on clinicians’ use of electronic health records between January 2022 and August 2023” to assess physician and nurse burnout. The organization “says the data in its study, Understanding & Addressing Trends in Physician & Nurse Burnout 2024, indicates that burnout rates are slightly decreasing among doctors and nurses, but are still above pre-pandemic levels.” To address “burnout, doctors and nurses want improved staffing levels, better alignment with leaders and EHR efficiency, while nurses want better compensation.”

Related Links:

— “Fix daily irritants to reduce clinician burnout, KLAS says,” Andrea Fox, Healthcare IT News, January 24, 2024

HealthDay (1/24, Mundell ) reports that research suggests the blood pressure drug propranolol may “help ease anxiety in people with autism.” Investigators “found that people who received propranolol had significantly lower anxiety levels at their three-month checkup.” The study, in which “69 people between the ages of 7 and 24 who had autism were given the drug,” was published in Psychopharmacology.

Related Links:

— “Common Heart Drug Might Lower Anxiety in Kids With Autism,” Ernie Mundell, HealthDay, January 24, 2024

HCP Live (1/24, Brooks) reports, “The clinical impact of treatment interventions for mood may span beyond mental health, according to findings from a recent systematic review and meta-analysis.” The research “showed treatments addressing mood outcomes also demonstrated beneficial effects for general inflammation and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)-specific biomarkers, further detailing the greater impact of psychological interventions for accentuating the effect on biomarkers and objective disease outcomes.” The findings were published in eBiomedicine.

Related Links:

— “Mental Health Interventions Reduce Inflammatory Biomarkers in IBD by 18%,” Abigail Brooks, MA, HCP Live, January 24, 2024

Healio (1/23, Hornick) reports, “Individuals using nicotine e-cigarettes have a higher likelihood of quitting smoking compared with nicotine replacement therapy users, according to” research. The findings were published in Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

Related Links:

— “E-cigarette use vs. nicotine replacement therapy leads to higher quit rates,” Isabella Hornick, Healio, January23 , 2024

HCP Live (1/23, Derman) reports, “Anxiety and depression symptoms increased in trigger states (states where Dobbs triggered a pre-existing ban on abortion) following the Dobbs abortion decision overturning Roe vs. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, according to a new study” published in JAMA Open Network. In the study, researchers “compared changes in symptoms in the 13 trigger states (159, 854 respondents) and the 37 non-trigger states (558,899 respondents).” They found “respondents in trigger states had a mean PHQ-4 of 3.51 which increased to a score of 3.81 post-Dobbs decision. Moreover, the team observed a significantly greater increase in the mean Patient Health Questionnaire-4 in trigger states versus non-trigger.”

Related Links:

— “Anxiety, Depression Symptoms Increase Post-Dobbs Abortion Decision,” Chelsie Derman, , January 23, 2024

ABC News (1/22, Hannon) reports, “Injuries, overtraining and burnout are contributing to a high dropout rate in youth sports, according to a new report from the nation’s leading group of pediatric doctors.” The report from the American Academy of Pediatrics “found that 70% of kids drop out of organized youth sports by age 13.” Additionally, “nearly 1 in 10 youth athletes experience burnout, and as many as 35% experience overtraining, according to the report.”

Related Links:

— “Leading pediatric group warns competitive youth sports are leading to burnout, injuries,” Dr. Erin Hannon, ABC News, January 22, 2024

MedPage Today (1/22, Robertson ) reports, “The risk of congenital malformations appears to be lower with buprenorphine than with methadone when taken during the first trimester of pregnancy for opioid use disorder (OUD), according to an analysis of Medicaid data.” In the study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, “in the buprenorphine group, risk of congenital malformations was 50.9 out of 1,000 pregnancies compared with 60.6 per 1,000 in the methadone group.”

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

CNN (1/22, Howard ) reports, “Testing a person’s blood for a type of protein called phosphorylated tau, or p-tau, could be used to screen for Alzheimer’s disease with ‘high accuracy,’ even before symptoms begin to show, a new study suggests.” The research “involved testing blood for a key biomarker of Alzheimer’s called p-tau217, which increases at the same time as other damaging proteins — beta amyloid and tau — build up in the brains of people with the disease.” The “simple blood test was found to be up to 96% accurate in identifying elevated levels of beta amyloid and up to 97% accurate in identifying tau.” The findings were published in JAMA Neurology.

The Hill (1/22, Sforza ) also covers the story.

Related Links:

— “New blood test that screens for Alzheimer’s may be a step closer to reality, study suggests,” Jacqueline Howard, CNN, January 22, 2024

HCP Live (1/22, Derman) reports, “In a new study, older adults with treatment-resistant schizophrenia reported significantly fewer adverse events of clozapine than young adults.” Investigators “obtained data from a retrospective cohort study in a large psychiatric institute in the Netherlands, including 284 participants diagnosed with treatment-resistant schizophrenia who started taking clozapine between 2011 and 2020,” and “compared the number and type of adverse events, as well as the number of treatment discontinuations and the time until discontinuation due to adverse events, of older adults versus younger adults.” The findings were published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Young Adults at Greater Risk of Adverse Events with Clozapine than Older Adults,” Chelsie Derman, HCP Live, January 22, 2024