HealthDay (10/22, Gordon) reports, “The commonly used antidepressant Prozac [fluoxetine] doesn’t appear to help reduce obsessive-compulsive behavior in children and teens with autism,” researchers concluded in a study that “recruited nearly 150 children and teens with autism,” only 109 of which “completed the study.” The findings were published online Oct. 22 in JAMA.

Medscape (10/22, Anderson, Subscription Publication) reports that all “study participants had ‘significant problems’ with obsessive-compulsive behaviors, with a total score of six or more on the Children’s Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale–Modified for pervasive developmental disorders (CYBOCS-PDD).” But, “commenting for Medscape Medical News, Gabrielle L. Shapiro, MD, clinical professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and chair of the American Psychiatric Association…council on children, adolescents and families, described the study as ‘somewhat flawed.’” Besides “the CYBOCS, the inclusion of other outcome scales ‘more specific’ to” children with autism “in the primary analysis may have produced different results, said Shapiro, who was not involved with the current study.”

Healio (10/22, Gramigna) reports that the author of an accompanying editorial “emphasized the nullification of the overall findings by the prespecified analyses.” He wrote, “Despite the limitations, the outcome…is consistent with similar trials and contributes new evidence that SSRIs do not add any value over placebo for repetitive behaviors in children and adolescents with ASD as captured in the CYBOCS-PDD.” The editorialist called for “additional rigorous studies…both to identify other potential treatments for core symptoms and, for SSRIs, to determine whether clinical indications other than repetitive behaviors might account for their persistent widespread use in ASD.”

Related Links:

— “Antidepressant Doesn’t Ease Obsessive Behaviors of Autism, “Serena Gordon, HealthDay, October 22, 2019

The Washington Post (10/21, Wan) reports, “In the face of rising rates of depression, anxiety and suicide among young people, some states and school systems have” now begun “allowing students to take mental sick days off from school.” For example, in 2018 “Utah changed its definition of valid excuses for absences to include mental health issues,” and this past summer, “Oregon enacted a law – driven by a group of high school student activists – that allows students to take days off for mental health.” Meanwhile, “students in other states, including Colorado, Florida and Washington, are attempting to get similar laws passed.”

Related Links:

— “Schools now letting students stay home sick for mental-health days, “William Wan, The Washington Post, October 21, 2019

The NPR (10/21, Hamilton) “Shots” blog reports neuroscientists “are offering a new reason to control blood sugar levels: It might help lower your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.” This past Sunday, at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago, investigators presented “new research exploring the links between Alzheimer’s and diabetes.”

Related Links:

— “Keeping Your Blood Sugar In Check Could Lower Your Alzheimer’s Risk, “Jon Hamilton, NPR, October 21, 2019

Patients taking high doses of loperamide in an attempt to self-manage opioid withdrawal or to achieve a euphoric high may be at risk of severe cardiac events. If you suspect that a patient is misusing loperamide, ask your patient: Have you been taking loperamide? How much loperamide do you take and how often? Are you aware of the severe heart risks associated with loperamide misuse? Learn more about loperamide misuse, including the right questions to ask your patients, at LoperamideSafety.org.

Related Links:

— “Understanding Loperamide Abuse

Healio (10/21, Gramigna) reports, “Children whose fathers have poor mental health are more than twice as likely also to have poor mental health,” researchers concluded after using “data for 75,879 children from the 2011 to 2012 National Survey of Children’s Health” to estimate “prevalence and odds of poor mental and physical health among children based on the overall and mental health status of fathers, as well as pertinent sociodemographic covariates.” The findings were published online Oct. 9 in the journal Health Equity.

Related Links:

— “Child mental health status may be closely linked to father’s, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, October 21, 2019

The New York Times (10/21, Klass) reports on the work of University of Pittsburgh postdoctoral scholar Frances Wang to understand the role of genetics in adolescents’ risk for developing alcohol use disorders and other “conduct problems, like aggression and antisocial behavior, which can be predecessors of alcohol problems.” Dr. Wang helped to author “a study published in 2018 in the journal Development and Psychopathology, which looks at a particular biological attribute – the functioning of serotonin, a neurotransmitter – determined by a combination of genetic factors.” Dr. Wang said that “for most people it’s the interaction between already having that genetic risk and an environment that increases genetic risk or makes genetic risk come out.” In another study, Dr. Wang and her colleagues “found that the serotonin function may be related to a tendency to become impulsive in the face of negative emotion, a trait called negative urgency.”

Related Links:

— “When Teen Drinking Becomes a Disorder, “Perri Klass, M.D., The New York Times, October 21, 2019

Healio (10/18, Gramigna) reported, “States with more behavioral health workers experienced a minor reduction in adjusted firearm suicide rates,” researchers concluded after conducting “a time-series cross-sectional analysis to compare firearm suicide rates in states with more available treatment professionals with rates in states with fewer professionals.” The findings were published online Oct. 7 in the journal Health Affairs.

Related Links:

— “, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, October 18, 2019

ABC News (10/17, Bhutani) reports on its website that a study published in Stroke indicates that PTSD may be contributing to the increased incidence of stroke among “young and middle-aged adults.” Researchers “found that young veterans with PTSD had a 36% increased risk for stroke,” and “they also had a 61% increased risk for transient ischemic attack (TIA), a brief, self-resolving stroke-like event that can represent a warning for future stroke.”

Related Links:

— “Strokes are becoming more common in younger adults and PTSD may be a cause, “Dr. Saumya Bhutani, ABC News, October 17, 2019

The Washington Post (10/17, Siegel) reports a Society of Actuaries study “identified which parts of the economy have suffered the most from” the opioid crisis. The study found the epidemic “cost the U.S. economy at least $631 billion – and that more than two-thirds of that toll fell on individuals and the private sector.” About a third of the economic burden – $205 billion – came from “excess health care spending for people with opioid-related disorders,” and 40 percent – $253 billion – of estimated losses were from premature mortality “mainly due to lost lifetime earnings for people who died from overdoses.”

Related Links:

— “Opioid crisis cost U.S. economy at least $631 billion, study finds, “Rachel Siegel, The Washington Pos, October 17, 2019

The New York Times (10/17, Bakalar) reports, “Extroversion, an energetic disposition, calmness, and maturity” in high school “were associated with a lower risk of dementia 50 years later,” researchers concluded after administering “a 150-item personality inventory given to a national sample of teenagers in 1960.” That “survey assessed character traits – sociability, calmness, empathy, maturity, conscientiousness, self-confidence and others – using scores ranging from low to high.” Investigators then “linked the scores of 82,232 of the test-takers to Medicare data on diagnoses of dementia from 2011 to 2013.” The findings were published online Oct. 16 in JAMA Psychiatry. Also covering the story are HealthDay (10/17, Mozes) and Healio (10/17, Gramigna).

Related Links:

— “Can Personality Affect Dementia Risk?, “Nicholas Bakalar, The New York Times, October 17, 2019