Healio (3/2, Schaffer ) reported, “Epidemiological data show women with schizophrenia are 63% more likely to develop cardiovascular disease (CVD) during 3.5 years of follow-up compared with those without the condition, with a greater risk observed for women with obesity.” Investigators came to this conclusion after analyzing “data from 4,124,508 adults without baseline CVD or renal replacement therapy.” The findings were published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Related Links:

— “Data show ‘robust’ relationship between schizophrenia, heart disease in women,”Regina Schaffer, Healio, March 2, 2024

Psychiatric News (3/1) reported, “A large majority of U.S. adults who have pets feel that their pets have a positive impact on their mental health, according to the latest findings from APA’s Healthy Minds Poll.” In a news release, APA President Petros Levounis, M.D., M.A., said, “It’s easy to overlook the role of pets when we’re talking about mental health.” Dr. Levounis added, “But for people who do enjoy the company of animals, they can be a source of companionship, comfort, love, and friendship. I routinely encourage adoption of a pet to my patients who struggle with addiction to alcohol, drugs, or technology. We’re also starting to see more and more research around the role that animals can play in recovery from depression and other psychiatric disorders.”

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— “Pet Ownership Has a Positive Impact on Mental Health, APA Poll Finds, Psychiatric News, March 1, 2024

The Washington Post (2/29, Pannett ) reports, “A review of research involving almost 10 million people has found a direct association between eating too many ultra-processed foods…and more than 30 health conditions, including heart disease, anxiety and early death.” For the research published in the BMJ, investigators examined “45 ‘pooled meta-analyses’ from 14 review articles involving nearly 10 million people” and “found ‘convincing evidence’ that higher ultra-processed food intake was associated with about a 50 percent increased risk of cardiovascular disease-related death, a 48 to 53 percent higher risk of anxiety and common mental disorders, and a 12 percent greater risk of Type 2 diabetes.” Also, “highly suggestive evidence…indicated that diets high in ultra-processed foods were associated with a 21 percent greater risk of death from any cause.”

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— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)

(2/29, Garzella) reports, “A USA TODAY analysis of Medicaid data for the 60 most used psychiatric drugs showed a growing number of people sought mental health treatment and medication during the pandemic as it pushed people into isolation and dismantled support systems.” Additionally, “the analysis also revealed a lingering effect of the pandemic: Mental health-related prescriptions rose further in 2022, up 12% from 2019, outpacing the less than 1% growth in overall prescriptions.” Dr. Smita Das, chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s addiction council, said, “This is just coming to a point where for many people, it’s been unmanageable.” But “one silver lining of the pandemic…said” Dr. Das, is, “We all started to talk about mental health more and bring it to the forefront.”

Related Links:

— “Mental health crisis fuels the post-pandemic rise in medication use,”Cecilia Garzella, USA Today , February 29, 2024

The New York Times (2/29, Jewett , Hoffman ) reports, “Alcohol-related deaths surged in the United States by nearly 30 percent in recent years…according to a new studypublished by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

CNN (2/29, Christensen ) reports, “In 2020-21, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, there were an average of about 488 deaths per day from excessive alcohol drinking, according to” the report. The data indicated that “the average number of deaths related to excessive alcohol use increased more than 29% from 2016-17 to 2020-21.” The report found that “during 2016-2017 there were 137,927 alcohol-related deaths, but for 2020-2021, there were 178,307.” This “increase in deaths related to excessive alcohol seemed to hit all ages.”

HealthDay (2/29, Mundell ) reports that the study found that “men continue to lose their lives to alcohol in greater numbers than women,” but “the rate at which women are dying from excessive drinking is rising faster than that of men.”

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— “The New York Times (requires login and subscription)

HealthDay (2/28, Mundell ) reports Kundalini yoga “appears to have bolstered the brain health of older women who had risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease,” researchers concluded in a study of “more than 60 women” who practiced either Kundalini yoga or “memory enhancement training.” The benefits of yoga “included significant improvement in subjective memory complaints, prevention in brain matter declines, increased connectivity in the hippocampus which manages stress-related memories, and improvement in the peripheral cytokines and gene expression of anti-inflammatory and anti-aging molecules,” researchers said. The study was published in Translational Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Yoga Brings Brain Benefits to Women at Risk for Alzheimer’s,”Ernie Mundell, HealthDay, February 28, 2024

The New York Times (2/28, Belluck ) reports patients with long COVID may experience “measurable cognitive decline, especially in the ability to remember, reason and plan, a large new study suggests.” Cognitive tests of nearly 113,000 UK patients “found that those with persistent post-COVID symptoms scored the equivalent of 6 I.Q. points lower than people who had never been infected with the coronavirus, according to the study, published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.” In addition, people “who had been infected and no longer had symptoms also scored slightly lower than people who had never been infected, by the equivalent of 3 I.Q. points, even if they were ill for only a short time.”

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— “The New York Times (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (2/28, Henderson ) reports the CDC on Wednesday issued new guidance “on identifying and responding to clusters of suicide, as tens of thousands of lives are lost to suicide each year in the U.S.” The agency recommended “three primary steps,” including “conducting a preliminary assessment to determine if a formal assessment is warranted; a formal assessment of the suspected cluster to determine whether it meets the definition of a cluster; and an investigation to identify similarities in cases that can guide community response.” CDC researchers wrote that while rare, suicide clusters “can have unique characteristics and challenges” and “can have considerable negative effects on the community, including prolonged grief and elevated fear and anxiety about further deaths.”

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

The Wall Street Journal (2/27, Mathews , Michaels, Subscription Publication) reports that the Justice Department has launched an antitrust investigation into U.S. health insurer UnitedHealth.
Bloomberg (2/27, Tozzi, Strohm , Nylen , Subscription Publication) reports, “The probe opens a new layer of scrutiny on the largest U.S. health insurer that operates in pharmacy benefits, medical care, technology and other services.” The investigation “emerged out of concerns about UnitedHealth’s acquisitions of health-care providers and data companies, according to one of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing information that isn’t public.”

Related Links:

— “U.S. Opens UnitedHealth Antitrust Probe,”Anna Wilde Mathews, The Wall Street Journal, February 27, 2024

Psychiatric News (2/27) reports, “Children whose parents experience parenting stress and other parenting issues may have a higher risk of nonsuicidal self-injury in adolescence, a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry has found.” According to the study, “adolescents who perceived parental hostility and negativity at 6 years old had 1.8 times the odds of nonsuicidal self-injury compared with adolescents who did not. However, child characteristics and negative events did not appear to increase the odds of adolescents reporting nonsuicidal self-injury.”

Related Links:

— “Risk of Self-Harm Higher in Adolescents With Stressed Parents, Psychiatric News , February 27, 2024