Healio (8/9, Demko) reported, “Diagnosing young children soon after symptom emergence expedites the start of interventions for autism spectrum disorder [ASD], and can help prepare children and their parents,” researchers concluded in a JAMA Network Insight published online Aug. 7 in JAMA Psychiatry. The piece added, “The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends screening young children at ages 18 months and 24 months for ASD, according to the paper.”

Related Links:

— “How clinicians can talk to worried parents about autism, “Savannah Demko, Healio, August 09, 2019

Medscape (8/9, Brooks, Subscription Publication) reported, “Eating dark chocolate may positively affect mood and relieve depressive symptoms, new research suggests.” Investigators “at University College London in the United Kngdom found that individuals who reported eating any dark chocolate in two 24-hour periods had 70% lower odds of reporting clinically relevant depressive symptoms compared to their counterparts who reported no chocolate consumption.” Still, “at least one expert said that at this point, the findings, although intriguing, are no more than food for thought and should not change dietary habits.” The study was published in Depression and Anxiety.

Related Links:

— “Sweet News: Dark Chocolate Tied to Lower Depression Risk, “Megan Brooks, Medscape (Subscription Publication), August 09, 2019

U.S. News & World Report (8/8, Hansen) reports a new survey reveals “one in seven Americans use products containing cannabidiol, the non-psychoactive compound found in cannabis.” The Gallup survey found that “14 percent of U.S. adults use CBD products, with younger people and West Coast residents more likely to use the cannabis-based goods.”

Related Links:

— “1 in 7 Adults Use CBD Products, Gallup Survey Finds, ” Claire Hansen, U.S. News & World Report, August 08, 2019

NPR (8/8, Greenfieldboyce) reports that while more American’s die from suicide with firearms than from homicide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “shies away from discussing the important link in this country between suicide and access to guns.” Documents “obtained by NPR” suggest the CDC “instead relies on vague language and messages about suicide that effectively downplay and obscure the risk posed by firearms.”

Related Links:

— “How The CDC’s Reluctance To Use The ‘F-Word’ — Firearms — Hinders Suicide Prevention, “Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR, August 08, 2019

Healio (8/8, Demko) reports, “The Medical Director Institute of the National Council for Behavioral Health convened an expert panel to examine the extent to which mental illness plays a role in mass violence and offer recommendations from” the perspective of behavioral health. Speaking with Healio, Joe Parks, MD, medical director of the National Council for Behavioral Health, said, “Mental illness is not a major cause of mass violence. Mass violence is caused by the social illnesses of hate and anger, not mental illness.” The panel’s “report [pdf] revealed that people with serious mental illness were responsible for less than 4% of all violence and less than one-third of mass violence,” but “in the wake of mass violence, policymakers and the public often point to mental illness as a key contributing factor.”

Healthcare Leaders Take Exception With Perceived Role Of Mental Illness In Mass Shootings MD Magazine (8/8, Kunzmann) reports that in wake of last weekend’s “successive but unrelated shootings in Dayton, OH, and El Paso, TX,” rhetoric focused “on the popular opinions of what drives the unrivaled rate of mass shooting events in the US: gun policies and regulation, public security measures, or mental health outreach.” This time, however, “healthcare thought leaders took exception with the discussion surrounding the perceived role of mental illness in such shootings.” To wit, “as Jessica Gold, MD, assistant professor of Psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis, and Megan L. Ranney, MD, associate professor of Emergency Medicine at Brown University Alpert Medical School, wrote in a piece this week, the association between gun violence and mental illness has been subjected to the illusory truth effect.” In addition to “clinical evidence showing people with mental health conditions are actually 10 times more likely to become a violent crime victim than perpetrator, there’s reason to believe current assumptions about” people with mental illness “only worsen their state.”

Related Links:

— “Behavioral health experts recommend solutions to address mass violence, “Savannah Demko, Healio, August 08, 2019

CNN (8/7, Willingham) reports that “Dr. Pam Ramsden, a lecturer in psychology at the University of Bradford in the UK, has studied the psychological effects of consuming negative news from social media.” She “says this vicarious trauma affects a portion of the viewing public and though it is not a specific diagnosis, she has seen patterns similar to those that plague first responders.” Ramsden said, “Some individuals are left with post-traumatic stress and must be professionally treated, others are affected a short time with acute stress disorder.” Ali Dixon, a counselor who practices at the Anxiety & Stress Management Institute in Atlanta, “says she has had several clients express increased anxiety and concern because of recent news events” and “says the best way to cope with this anxiety is to pull away.”

Related Links:

— “When bad news gets to be too much, “AJ Willingham, CNN, August 07, 2019

Healio (8/7, Demko) reports, “Lower cardiorespiratory fitness levels were linked to a higher risk for depression and anxiety disorders,” researchers concluded. The findings of the four-study “systematic review and meta-analysis” were published online ahead of print in the October issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Related Links:

— “Lower cardiorespiratory fitness linked to greater risk for depression, anxiety, “Savannah Demko, Healio, August 07, 2019

FierceHealthcare (8/7, Finnegan) reports leaders from several physician and public health groups, including the American Psychiatric Association, penned a letter in the Annals of Internal Medicine calling “for action to prevent gun-related injuries and deaths.” Co-author Patrice Harris, M.D. and others wrote, “We, the leadership of 6 of the nation’s largest physician professional societies, whose memberships include 731,000 U.S. physicians, reiterate our commitment to finding solutions and call for policies to reduce firearm injuries and deaths.” The letters urges several policies, including extreme risk protection order laws, or “red alert laws,” and “supporting the ability of physicians to advise their patients on issues that affect their health, including counseling at-risk patients about mitigating the risks associated with firearms in the home and firearm safety.”

Related Links:

— “With one voice, 7 leading medical organizations call for action to prevent gun injuries and deaths, “Joanne Finnegan, FierceHealthcare, August 07, 2019

The AP (8/6, Stobbe) reports, “Prescriptions of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone are soaring, and experts say that could be a reason overdose deaths have stopped rising for the first time in nearly three decades.” CDC officials reported Tuesday that “the number of naloxone prescriptions dispensed by U.S. retail pharmacies doubled from 2017 to last year, rising from 271,000 to 557,000.” Meanwhile, “about 68,000 people died of overdoses last year, according to preliminary government statistics reported last month, a drop from the more than 70,000 in 2017.” CDC researchers also “noted there were fewer than 1,300 naloxone prescriptions dispensed in 2012, meaning the number grew more than 430-fold in six years.” Health officials “said pharmacies should be giving out even more.” The findings were published online in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
STAT (8/6, Joseph) reports that “while the number of naloxone prescriptions doubled from 2017 to 2018, there was still only one dispensed for every 69 high-dose opioid prescriptions.” Dr. Anne Schuchat, the Principal Deputy Director of the CDC, said: “We may never get to 1-to-1…but we think that ratio of 1-to-70 is too low.” Meanwhile, the CDC report “also uncovered drastic geographic disparities, with some counties dispensing the medication at 25 times the rate of other counties.” Specifically, “dispensing rates were often lowest in rural counties, a finding that Schuchat called ‘disappointing.’”

Related Links:

— “Boom in overdose-reversing drug is tied to fewer drug deaths, “Mike Stobbe, AP, August 06, 2019

NPR (8/6, Chatterjee) reports on its “All Things Considered” program and in its “Shots” blog research indicates mass shooting “incidents usually occur in clusters and tend to be contagious” and that “intensive media coverage seems to drive the contagion.” In a 2015 study published in PLOS One, “researchers at Arizona State University analyzed data on cases of mass violence.” Lead researcher Sherry Towers said, “What we found was that for the mass killings – so these are high profile mass killings where there’s at least four people killed – there was significant evidence of contagion.” Investigators “also found that what distinguished shootings that were contagious from those that weren’t was the amount of media coverage they received.” In addition, they “found that there is a window when a shooting is most likely to lead to more incidents – about two weeks.”

Related Links:

— “Mass Shootings Can Be Contagious, Research Shows, “Rhitu Chatterjee, NPR, August 06, 2019