MedPage Today (8/17, George) reports research indicates that patients with Parkinson’s disease “using pimavanserin (Nuplazid), a novel antipsychotic used to help manage Parkinson’s hallucinations and delusions, had an increased risk of 30-day hospitalization and higher mortality for up to a year.” The study compared “2,186 people who were prescribed pimavanserin and 18,212 who were not.” The findings were published online in the journal Neurology.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

HealthDay (8/16) reports, “Almost half of pediatric opioid prescriptions are considered high-risk by one or more metric, and high-volume prescribers write more than half of the prescriptions, according to” researchers who analyzed 4,027,701 prescriptions and “found that 3.5 percent of U.S. children and young adults had one or more dispensed opioid prescription. Overall, 41.8 of the prescriptions for opioid-naive patients exceeded a three-day supply and 3.8 percent exceeded a seven-day supply. For young children, 8.4 percent of prescriptions were for tramadol and 7.7 percent were for codeine.” The data were published in Pediatrics.

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— “Almost Half of Pediatric Opioid Prescriptions Considered High-Risk
“Physician’s Briefing Staff, HealthDay, August 16, 2021

HealthDay (8/16, Mann) reports research indicates that “screen time should be replaced by ‘green time’ for optimizing the well-being of” children, investigators concluded after examining responses “from surveys of more than 577,000 11-, 13- and 15-year-olds in 42 European and North American countries.” The findingswere published online in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health.

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— “More ‘Green Time,’ Less Screen Time Boosts Kids’ Mental Health “Denise Mann , HealthDay, August 16, 2021

MedPage Today (8/16, Monaco) reports, “Use of antipsychotics during pregnancy did not seem to have a significant developmental impact on babies,” researchers concluded “in an analysis of more than 300,000 mother-child pairs.” The study revealed that children of mothers “who were taking an antipsychotic during pregnancy showed no increased risk for developing” attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), “or of being born small for gestational age.” The findings were published online Aug. 16 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Psychiatric News (8/16) reports that even though “there was a small increased risk of preterm birth of children exposed to prenatal antipsychotics, additional analysis suggested this may be due to maternal psychiatric illness and not the medication.”

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Healio (8/13, Gramigna) reported, “College students had significantly higher alcohol and cannabis use, depressive symptoms and anger during the COVID-19 lockdown compared with before it,” researchers concluded in a 4,749-participant survey study, the findings of which were published online ahead of print in the October issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research.

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— “Alcohol, cannabis use higher among college students after COVID-19 lockdowns “Joe Gramigna, Healio, August 13, 2021

HealthDay (8/13, Preidt) reported, “Young Americans from low-income homes are more likely than those whose families are better off to be unhappy with the way they look and to have an eating disorder,” investigators concluded after examining “2010-18 data from Project EAT, a long-running study tracking the general health and well-being of teens as they move into adulthood.” The study revealed that “high body dissatisfaction and unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals were more common among low-income girls.” The findings were published in the August issue of the journal Eating Behaviors.

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— “Odds for an Eating Disorder May Vary by Income ” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, August 13, 2021

Psychiatric News (8/12) reports, “Older adults who were physically active reported significantly slower cognitive decline compared with sedentary adults,” investigators concluded after examining “data from 1,159 participants (63% women and 60% African American) in the Chicago Health and Aging Project, a population-based cohort study that followed adults over 65 years of age from four Chicago communities between 1993 and 2012.” The study also revealed that “the association between physical activity and cognitive function was most dramatic among adults who had elevated levels of the Alzheimer’s-associated tau protein in their blood.” The findings were published online Aug. 11 in JAMA Network Open.

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— “Physical Activity Linked to Slower Cognitive Decline in Adults With Elevated Tau Levels, Psychiatric News, August 12, 2021

HealthDay (8/12, Preidt) reports research indicates that “death, injuries, abuse and mental health disorders are among the many harms faced by children whose parents are heavy drinkers.” Investigators arrived at this conclusion after reviewing “91 studies of hospital and other centralized records to provide a more accurate assessment of how a family member’s drinking can affect children.” The scoping review “identified several consequences among kids whose parents drank heavily – including death during infancy or childhood, mental health disorders and criminal convictions later in life.” In addition, these youngsters “more likely to do poorly in school, to suffer abuse and/or neglect, to wind up in foster care and be hospitalized for physical illness and injury.” The findings were published online in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

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— “Kids of Heavy Drinkers Face Multiple Threats to Health “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, August 12, 2021

Healio (8/12, Gramigna) reports research indicates that “suicidal behaviors were common among U.S. veterans, especially among young veterans,” and that “nearly two-thirds of veterans who had current suicidal ideation were not receiving mental health treatment.” Investigators arrived at both conclusions after analyzing “data of 4,069 U.S. veterans who participated in the National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study, a representative survey conducted between 2019 and 2020.” In their “analyses, the researchers estimated the prevalence of current suicidal ideation, lifetime suicide plans and lifetime suicide attempts; pinpointed related sociodemographic, military, DSM-5 psychiatric and other risk correlates; and assessed mental health treatment utilization among veterans with suicidal ideation, suicide plans or suicide attempts.” The findings were published online Aug. 10 in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

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— “Suicidal behaviors common in U.S. veterans, yet most receive no mental health care “Joe Gramigna, Healio, August 12, 2021

Healio (8/11, Downey) reports, “Preterm and early term birth were associated with a significantly increased risk for autism spectrum disorder [ASD] in both boys and girls in a study that included more than four million children born over a 40-year period in Sweden.” The study revealed that ASD prevalence “was 2.1% for all preterm births, 1.6% for early term births and in 1.4% for term births.” The findings were published online in Pediatrics.

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— “ “Ken Downey Jr., Healio, August 11, 2021