USA Today (8/14, Thornton, O’Donnell) reports despite mounting evidence that marijuana consumption during pregnancy is harmful, many women continue to use marijuana. For example, a study recently published in JAMA found a “sharp increase in the number of pregnant women smoking marijuana and an alarming link between cannabis use and preterm births, defined as 37 weeks or earlier.” Another JAMA study “concluded marijuana is ‘likely unsafe’ because pre-term births were twice as common in marijuana users vs. non users. (12% vs 6.1%).” Meanwhile, women may be subject to misinformation, as an NIH study of “over 400 Colorado dispensaries found nearly 70% recommended treatment of morning sickness with cannabis.” Furthermore, some women may be fearful of discussing marijuana use with their clinicians. Moreover, “with mixed messaging on marijuana in the U.S., pregnant women in need of relief are not able to make fully-informed decisions, physicians say.”

Related Links:

— “Weed while pregnant: Far more common and concerning than many realize, “Claire Thornton and Jayne O’Donnell, USA Today, August 14, 2019

HealthDay (8/14, Norton) reports, “School kids who get to bed early rather than staring at their devices at night may be better equipped to control their behavior,” research indicates. Investigators “found that 8- to 11-year-olds who got adequate sleep and had limits on ‘screen time’ were less likely than their peers to report problems with impulsive behavior.” The findings, which are “based on over 4,500 Canadian kids aged 8 to 11,” were published online in Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Less ‘Screen Time,’ More Sleep = Better-Behaved Kids, “Amy Norton, HealthDay, August 14, 2019

CNN (8/14, Williams) reports California high school and middle school students “will have some lifesaving information at their fingertips as they go back to school this year.” A law that went into effect in July “requires schools to print the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on student ID cards for seventh- through 12th-graders in public, private and charter schools.” The law “also says that student IDs may have information on the Crisis Text Line – which can be reached by texting HOME to 741741 – as well as local suicide prevention resources.”

Related Links:

— “California law puts a suicide hotline number on school ID cards, “David Williams, CNN, August 14, 2019

Nina Feldman writes in the NPR (8/13) “Shots” blog about buprenorphine “that curbs cravings and treats the symptoms of withdrawal from opioid addiction.” Feldman highlights one “mobile medical clinic parked on a corner of Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood” that facilitates the prescribing of buprenorphine to people addicted to opioids. The clinic “is a project of Prevention Point, Philadelphia’s only syringe-exchange program, and is part of the city’s efforts to expand access to this particular form of medication-assisted treatment for opioid addiction.” The piece adds that “doctors must apply for a special waiver from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to prescribe buprenorphine,” which is a barrier “to buprenorphine access.”

Related Links:

— “It’s The Go-To Drug To Treat Opioid Addiction. Why Won’t More Pharmacies Stock It?, “Nina Feldman, NPR, August 13, 2019

CNN (8/13, Asmelash) reports that while “social media use has been linked to depression, especially in teenage girls,” research interviews with nearly “10,000 children between the ages of 13 and 16 in England” contends “that the issue may be more complex than experts think.”

TIME (8/13, Ducharme) reports, “Social media is associated with mental health issues, the research says – but only under certain circumstances, and only for certain people.” The study found that “in girls, frequent social-media use seemed to harm health when it led to either cyberbullying and/or inadequate sleep and exercise.” However, “these factors did not seem to have the same effect on boys, and the study didn’t pick up on specific ways that social networks could be harming them.” The findings were published in the Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.

TODAY (8/13, Pawlowski) reports, “Still, heavy social media use predicted later poor mental health and well-being in both sexes.”

Related Links:

— “Social media use may harm teens’ mental health by disrupting positive activities, study says, “Leah Asmelash, CNN, August 13, 2019

Healio Cardiology Today (8/13, Dobkowski) reports, “Patients who had sustained hypertension in midlife to late life and those with midlife hypertension and late-life hypotension had an increased risk for dementia later in life compared with patients with normal BP in midlife and late life,” researchers concluded after analyzing “data from 4,761 patients (59% women; mean age at fifth visit, 75 years) aged 45 to 65 years.” The findings were published in JAMA.

Related Links:

— “Hypertension in midlife, late life increases risk for dementia, “Darlene Dobkowski, Healio Cardiology Today, August 13, 2019

According to HealthDay (8/13, Preidt), “researchers report they have identified 16 new genes linked to” autism spectrum disorder. After conducting “genetic analyses of 2,300 people from nearly 500 families with at least two children with autism,” investigators “pinpointed 69 genes that were associated with an increased risk of autism, 16 of which had not previously been linked to the disorder.” In addition, the scientists “found several hundred genes they suspect may increase the risk of autism based on their proximity to genes previously identified with an increased risk, and also identified several new biological pathways not previously identified in autism research.” The findings were published online Aug. 8 in the journal Cell.

Related Links:

— “Scientists Uncover More Autism Genes, “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, August 13, 2019

CNN (8/12, Azad) reports research examining over 20 studies on people between the ages of 10 and 24 “found that the odds of marijuana use were 3.5 times higher in people who vaped compared to those who didn’t.” Lead study author Dr. Nicholas Chadi said the findings indicate that “e-cigarettes really need to be considered in the broad category of addictive and harmful substances.” The findings were published online in JAMA Pediatrics.

HealthDay (8/12, Mundell) reports the investigators wrote, “Odds of using marijuana in youth with e-cigarette use were higher in adolescents age 12 to 17 [more than four times the risk] than young adults age 18 to 24 years [a 40% higher risk].” Moreover, the researchers “found that use of e-cigarettes typically comes before the use of marijuana in the young – suggesting that the vaping habit is a ‘gateway’ to the drug.”

Related Links:

— “Vaping linked to marijuana use in young people, research says, “Arman Azad, CNN, August 12, 2019

Healio (8/12, Demko) reports, “Veterans with a history of traumatic brain injury, or TBI, were twice as likely to die by suicide compared with veterans without history of TBI,” researchers concluded after looking at “the connections between TBI, suicide and suicide method among 215,610 veterans with a previous/current TBI diagnosis compared with 1,187,683 veterans without TBI receiving VHA care between 2006 and 2015.” The findings were published online July 30 in the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation.

Related Links:

— “TBI may increase suicide risk among veterans, “Savannah Demko, Healio, August 12, 2019

Healio (8/12, Demko) reports research indicates that “more frequent social contact with friends at age 60 years was linked to lower risk of developing dementia over a 28-year follow-up and higher subsequent cognitive performance over a 15-year follow-up.” Investigators arrived at these conclusions after examining “the link between social contact frequency and dementia over a long period in a retrospective analysis of the Whitehall study, a prospective cohort study of English participants aged 35 to 55 years at baseline assessment in 1985 to 1988 and followed to 2017.” The findings were published online Aug. 2 in PLOS Medicine.

Related Links:

— “Social contact during midlife appears to lower dementia risk, “Savannah Demko, Healio, August 12, 2019