Psychiatric News (1/14) reports, “College students in states where recreational use of marijuana is legal appear to be using marijuana more frequently than peers in states where such use is not legal,” researchers concluded after analyzing survey responses from “undergraduates aged 18 to 26 to the National College Health Assessment survey between 2008 and 2018.” Included in that final sample were “234,669 students who attended 135 college in seven U.S. states where recreational use of marijuana was legalized, and 599,605 students who attended 454 colleges in 41 states where recreational use was not legal.” The study revealed that “students who attended college in states where recreational use of marijuana is legal were 23% more likely to report marijuana use than students in states where such use is not legal.” The findings were published online Dec. 13 in the journal Addiction.

Related Links:

— “College Students in States With Legalized Marijuana Report Greater Use of Drug, Psychiatric News, January 14, 2020

Healio (1/14, Schaffer) reports, “Women with polycystic ovary syndrome [PCOS] are more likely to have an eating or sleeping disorder and report decreased sexual satisfaction than those without PCOS,” investigators concluded after analyzing “data from 36 studies conducted through August 2018 assessing prevalence of any eating, sleep or sexual function disorders among women with PCOS (n = 349,529).” The findings of the systematic review and meta-analysis were published online in Clinical Endocrinology.

Related Links:

— “PCOS increases likelihood of eating, sleeping disorders, “Regina Schaffer, Healio, January 14, 2020

NPR (1/15, Chatterjee) reports that “an estimated 1 in 7 pregnant women and new mothers become clinically depressed during pregnancy or postpartum” across the US, but their obstetricians “often lack the skills to address this common problem,” which results in few women getting “a diagnosis or treatment.” However, “a statewide program in Massachusetts offers support to obstetricians and gynecologists in screening for and treating depression in pregnant women and new moms.” Nancy Byatt, founding medical director of the program known as the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program for Moms (MCPAP for Moms), “says she developed the program after doctors told her they didn’t know how to help pregnant and new moms recover from depression, and that they needed a ‘lifeline’ to support them.”

Related Links:

— “‘A Lifeline’ For Doctors Helps Them Treat Postpartum Depression , “Rhitu Chatterjee, NPR, January 15, 2020

Healio (1/13, Gramigna) reports, “Children and adolescents who self-harm have a significantly increased risk for future suicide compared with those in the general population,” investigators concluded in a 9,173-individual “prospective observational cohort study conducted in England.” The study also revealed that “this risk is especially prevalent among those who repeated self-harm, older adolescents and males.” The findings were published online Jan. 8 in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.

Related Links:

— “Suicide rate among youth who self-harm 30 times higher than general population, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, January 13, 2020

HealthDay (1/13, Thompson) reports, “As legalization of recreational marijuana spreads across the United States, more people are showing up in” emergency departments “with psychotic symptoms after consuming too much pot, said” Itai Danovitch, MD, “chairman of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.” Some people “with a family history of mental illness might wind up with a full-fledged psychotic disorder that will require extended treatment, Danovitch noted.” Dr. Danovitch “said he counsels young people to consider their genetic risk for mental illness before they use marijuana.”

Related Links:

— “Can Pot Bring on Psychosis in Young Users? It May Be Happening, Experts Say, ” Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, January 13, 2020

The Minneapolis Star Tribune (1/11, Olson) reported a study “found greater risks of social and emotional problems in infants whose mothers consumed marijuana during pregnancy.” Specifically, the research “found that 9.1% of babies from marijuana users were at risk, compared to 3.6% of babies whose mothers didn’t consume the drug while pregnant.” The study, “based on toxicology urine tests of 3,435 pregnant women during prenatal checkups, and the performance of their children around 12 months of age” also found “that 8% of mothers tested positive during pregnancy for the presence of THC.” The findings were published in the Journal of Perinatology.

Related Links:

— “Minnesota study links pot use in pregnancy to infant health risks, ” Jeremy Olson, The Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 11, 2020

Healio (1/10, Gramigna) reported, “Patients with Alzheimer’s disease who use antipsychotic medications may be at an increased risk for head injuries and traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs,” investigators concluded in “a nationwide register-based cohort study conducted in Finland” that went on to identify “incident antipsychotic users from the Prescription Register,” then matching “them with nonusers by age, sex and time since diagnosis, for a total of 21,795 matched pairs.” The findings were published online Jan. 7 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Related Links:

— “Patients with Alzheimer’s who use antipsychotics at increased risk for head injury, TBI, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, January 10, 2020

The Washington Post (1/9, Wan) reports that an increasing number of Americans are committing suicide in the workplace, according to statistics released “last month by the Bureau of Labor of Statistics on occupational fatalities.” The number of workplace “suicides for 2018 was 304 – an 11 percent increase from the year before and the highest number since the bureau began tracking the data 26 years ago.” The figures on workplace suicides “reflect the larger crisis in society.” In fact, “since 1999, America’s suicide rate has steadily increased, climbing 33 percent in the past two decades.”

Related Links:

— “More Americans are killing themselves at work, “William Wan, The Washington Post, January 9, 2020

Psychiatric News (1/9) reports, “Youth who drink energy drinks (beverages that contain high levels of caffeine) may be more likely to start drinking alcohol or using tobacco,” investigators concluded after collecting and then analyzing “data from a longitudinal study of 3,071 youth aged 9 to 17 in 44 German schools.” The study revealed that “baseline energy drink consumption was associated with significantly higher odds of initiating any tobacco, cigarette, e-cigarette, hookah, and alcohol use.” The findings were published online Jan. 8 in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Related Links:

— “Energy Drink Consumption Among Youth Associated With Tobacco, Alcohol Use, Psychiatric News, January 9, 2020

Newsweek (1/8, Moyler) reports investigators “have identified six genetic variants linked to the development of anxiety disorders” after examining “genetic and health data derived from 200,000 veterans of the United States Armed Forces, which was compiled in the Million Veteran Program.” Five of the “six genetic variants associated with higher risks of developing anxiety disorders” were “found in white Americans, while an additional one was found in black Americans.” The variants “were found on chromosomes 1, 3, 6, 7 and 20,” and “the one on chromosome 7, was previously identified to be correlated with higher occurrences of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.”

Medscape (1/8, Brooks, Subscription Publication) reports, “In European Americans, the two strongest anxiety-related loci were on chromosome 3 near special AT-rich sequence-binding protein-1 (SATB1), a global regulator of gene expression that influences expression of multiple genes involved neuronal development, and on chromosome 6 near estrogen receptor alpha (ESR1), which encodes” a receptor for estrogen. Even though “this finding might help explain why women are more than twice as likely as men to suffer from anxiety, the researchers note that they identified the variant affecting estrogen receptors in a veteran cohort made up mostly of men, and that further investigation is needed.” The findings were published online Jan. 7 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Scientists Discover Six Genetic Links To Anxiety In Largest-Ever Study On Subject, “Hunter Moyler, Newsweek, January 8, 2020