Healio (1/8, Weldon) reports, “Residential addiction treatment centers serving adolescents are scarce and expensive in the United States, new study findings suggest, despite increasing overdose rates among young people in recent years.” The findings were published in Health Affairs.
Related Links:
— “Study: Residential addiction treatment for adolescents limited, costly,” Rose Weldon, Healio, January 8, 2024
The New York Times (1/5, Kolata ) said, “People taking the wildly popular drugs Ozempic, to treat diabetes, and Wegovy, to combat obesity, are slightly less likely to have suicidal thoughts than people who are not taking them, researchers reported on Friday.” The findings were published in Nature Medicine.
The AP (1/5, Aleccia ) reported NIH and Case Western Reserve University researchers found that “people taking semaglutide had a 49% to 73% lower risk of first-time or recurring suicidal thoughts than those taking another drug for those conditions during a six-month follow-up period.”
CNN (1/5, Tirrell ) reported, “The findings from the new study come days after the FDA said it was reviewing reports of suicidal ideation among people using semaglutide and similar medicines and evaluating the need for regulatory action.” Similarly, “the European Medicines Agency said in July that it was reviewing 150 reports of possible cases of self-injury and suicidal thoughts among people taking semaglutide and similar medicines.”
Related Links:
— “People taking Wegovy and Ozempic have lower risk of suicidal thoughts vs. older drugs, study finds,” Jones Aleccia, Associated Press, January 5, 2024
MedPage Today (1/5, Robertson) reported, “Problems with the veterinary sedative xylazine – also known as ‘tranq’ – appeared to be concentrated in the eastern U.S. but were spread across the entire country, a cross-sectional study found.” Investigators found that “at least 43 states reported at least one xylazine-related overdose death from 2019 to 2022.” The data also indicated that “in 2019, 16 states had no xylazine forensic reports but by 2022, only two states had no such reports.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.
Related Links:
— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)
Psychiatric News (1/5) reported, “Taking serotonergic antidepressants such as serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) may increase the risk of patients with Parkinson’s disease developing impulse control disorder, a study…has found.” Investigators came to this conclusion after examining “data from 1,045 individuals (mean age, 63 years) who were participating in the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative.” The research was published in The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.
Related Links:
— “Certain Antidepressants May Increase Risk of Impulse Control Disorder in Parkinson’s Patients,” Psychiatric News, January 5, 2024
NBC News (1/5, Bellamy) reported, “According to a study…Black children and teens who experience racial discrimination online may develop symptoms related to post-traumatic stress disorder.” Investigators “found that children and teens who experienced racism online were more likely to report PTSD symptoms, and that those who developed PTSD symptoms were more likely to report suicidal thoughts,” but “they didn’t find that experiencing online racism directly led to an increased likelihood of suicidal thoughts.” The findings were published in JAMA Psychiatry.
Related Links:
— “Online racism is linked to PTSD symptoms in Black youth, study finds,” Claretta Bellamy, NBC News, January 5, 2024
HCP Live (1/4, Derman) reports, “Hearing loss is associated with an increased risk of dementia, but hearing aids are linked with reducing the risk, according to a new study.” The findings were published in JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery.
Related Links:
— “Hearing Loss Linked with Increased Risk of Dementia,” Chelsie Derman, HCP Live, January 4, 2024
Neurology Advisor (1/4) reports, “Excessive television watching is associated with an increased risk for dementia, Parkinson disease, and depression,” although “non-worked-related moderate computer use is tied to a lower risk for dementia,” according to a study. The findings were published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.
Related Links:
— “TV Watching Duration May Impact Risk for Dementia, PD, and Depression,” Jessica Nye, PhD, Neurology Advisor, January 4, 2024
The Washington Post (1/23, Johnson ) reports that for some patients with a variant of Alzheimer’s disease “called posterior cortical atrophy, the disease begins with problems affecting vision rather than memory. The unusual early symptoms mean that thousands of people may go years before receiving the correct diagnosis, experts said.” However, “that may change with the first large-scale international study of the condition, published Monday in the journal Lancet Neurology.”
The researchers “found that, on average, the syndrome begins affecting patients at age 59 – about five to six years earlier than most patients with the more common form of Alzheimer’s.” They “say that the variant may account for as many as 10 percent of all Alzheimer’s cases; that would put the number of Americans with the condition close to 700,000.”
Related Links:
— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)
CNN (1/3, Dillinger) reports the FDA “is evaluating reports of side effects such as hair loss and suicidal thoughts in people taking” weight loss drugs like Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy. The agency “is ‘evaluating the need for regulatory action’ after its FDA Adverse Event Reporting System or FAERS received reports of alopecia, or hair loss; aspiration, or accidentally breathing in things like food or liquid; and suicidal ideation in people using these medications.”
The article notes that “some research has linked GLP-1 agonists to serious digestive problems such as stomach paralysis, pancreatitis and bowel obstructions, although the risks of these events appear to be rare.”
Related Links:
— “FDA looking into reports of hair loss, suicidal thoughts in people using popular drugs for diabetes and weight loss,” Katherine Dillinger, CNN, January 4, 2024
CNN (1/3, McPhillips ) reports, “People who have more interrupted sleep in their 30s and 40s are more than twice as likely to have memory and thinking problems a decade later, according to a…study.” Investigators found that “overall, people experiencing more sleep fragmentation, or with greater share of their sleeping hours spent moving, were more likely to receive poor cognitive scores on all of the tests more than a decade later.”
The study indicated that “of the 175 people with the most disrupted sleep, 44 had poor cognitive performance 10 years later, compared with 10 of the 176 people with the least disrupted sleep.” The findingswere published in Neurology.
Related Links:
— “Sleep disruptions in 30s and 40s linked to cognitive decline a decade later, study finds,” Deidre McPhillips, CNN, January 4, 2024