Healio (4/20, Gramigna) reports, “Omega-3 supplementation may slow accelerated aging by altering the body’s response during and after a stressful event,” researchers concluded after evaluating “the effects of omega-3 supplementation on biomarkers related to cellular aging following a laboratory speech stressor among 138 middle-aged participants who were sedentary and overweight.” The findings were published online April 20 in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Omega-3 supplementation may slow stress-related accelerated aging ”
Joe Gramigna, Healio, April 20, 2021

HealthDay (4/20, Thompson) reports research indicates that “high-profile police killings of Black people may take a big mental health toll on psyches across the” US. After gauging “Americans’ mental health ratings with data from a federal health survey that interviews more than 400,000 U.S. adults each year,” investigators “found that, on average, Black Americans reported an increase in ‘poor mental health days’ during weeks where more than one deadly racial incident was in the news.” The study revealed “no change in white Americans’ mental health ratings during those weeks,” however. The findings were published online April 19 ahead of print in PNAS.

Related Links:

— “High-Profile Police Brutality Cases Harm Black Americans’ Mental Health: Study “Amy Norton, HealthDay, April 20, 2021

Healio (4/19) reports, “Long-acting injectable [LAI] antipsychotics provided significant benefit in prevention of hospitalization or relapse for schizophrenia compared with oral antipsychotics,” researchers concluded after analyzing data from “137 studies, of which 32 were randomized controlled trials, 65 were cohort studies and 40 were pre-post studies.” The findings of the systematic review and comparable meta-analysis were published online April 13 in The Lancet Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “LAIs more beneficial for certain schizophrenia outcomes than oral antipsychotics “Joe Gramigna, Healio, April 19, 2021

HealthDay (4/19, Collins) reports researchers at McMaster University found that stress and anxiety can stop people from exercising, so “some people may need mental health support to exercise during the pandemic.” The researchers conducted a survey and concluded that stress and anxiety related to the pandemic was tied to a decrease in how much people exercise. The findings were published in PLOS ONE.

Related Links:

— “Pandemic Stress Keeps Many From Exercising ” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, April 19, 2021

Medscape (4/19, Koenig, Subscription Publication) reports researchers used functional MRIs to map brain changes in children and found “spanking may cause changes in the same areas of a child’s brain affected by more severe physical and sexual abuse.” The findings were published in Child Development.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

The New York Times (4/19, Ndugga, Frakt) reports, “American deaths from misuse of substances, including alcohol, have increased over the past two decades, but not uniformly across various demographic groups.” For example, “overall rates of alcohol abuse and related deaths have consistently and significantly increased for white non-Hispanic Americans, while Black Americans have experienced a much slower and less significant incline, and some other groups have had declines.”

Related Links:

— “What’s Behind the Growth in Alcohol Consumption? ” Nambi Ndugga and Austin Frakt, The New York Times, April 19, 2021

Modern Healthcare (4/16, Tepper, Subscription Publication) reported, “As members of Congress decide how to expand access to telehealth after the pandemic, one of the biggest questions has centered around how much Medicare” healthcare professionals “should be paid for virtual care.” And “while the rates Medicare pays for telehealth and in-person services are currently the same, that arrangement – along with several other CMS telehealth waivers – expires at the end of the public health emergency absent Congressional action,” so healthcare professionals are now “pressuring Congress and CMS to keep payment parity – or something close to it – after the pandemic ends.”

Related Links:

— “Modern Healthcare (requires login and subscription)

Healio (4/16, Weller) reported, “Even with health insurance, people with opioid use disorder [OUD] receive lower quality preventive and chronic care as well as lower quality care coordination,” investigators concluded after conducting “a cross-sectional study using deidentified data from 125,973 people (55.1% women; 62.1% white; mean age, 59 years).” The study “evaluated quality of care by matching the outpatient data of 79,372 adults with OUD who had commercial or Medicare Advantage insurance with 46,601 comparators across preventive care, chronic illness care and care coordination.” The findings were published online April 8 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “ “Madison Weller, Healio, April 16, 2021

According to the Washington Post (4/16, Chesler), across the US, poison control centers are reporting “a spike in the number of children who have ingested THC after eating their parents’ edibles, rising from just 19 cases in 2010, before recreational pot was legalized in any state, to 554 cases last year.” Some officials at the centers “attribute the rise in large part to a growing number of states having legalized marijuana.” Now, there are “36 that allow marijuana for medical use – and 18 of them now allow adult recreational use or have recently approved laws to do so – with a number of others moving in that direction.”

Related Links:

— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)

HealthDay (4/15, Preidt) reports researchers at the University of Minnesota found that “Americans’ eating habits have changed for the worse during the COVID-19 pandemic, including an increase in eating disorders.” The findings were published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

Related Links:

— “Bingeing, Stress Snacking: How the Pandemic Is Changing Eating Habits ” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, April 15, 2021