MedPage Today (6/13, Boyles) reports researchers found that “college students who didn’t get enough sleep had more depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues.” Investigators arrived at this conclusion after examining “data from 110,496 college students surveyed in the 2011-2014 waves of the” National College Health Assessment. The findings were presented at SLEEP 2019.
Related Links:
— “Sleep Deprivation Ups Mental Health Risk in College Kids, ” Salynn Boyles, MedPage, June 13, 2019
HealthDay (6/13, McKiski) reports research indicates that “just a half hour of vigorous exercise” may help reduce the symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). The findings of the 35-participant study were published in the May issue of the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
Related Links:
— “Workouts: A Prescription to Ease Severe Chronic Anxiety?, “Kayla McKiski, HealthDay, June 13, 2019
Reuters (6/12, Rapaport) reports, “Heart attack survivors with chronic mood disorders may be more likely to die prematurely than their counterparts who don’t suffer these problems,” researchers concluded after evaluating nearly “58,000 patients for emotional distress two months after a heart attack, and again at 12 months after the event,” then following “a majority of patients for at least four years.” The study revealed that “compared to those who didn’t report any emotional distress at all, people who felt depressed or anxious at both assessments were 46% more likely to die of cardiovascular causes during the follow-up period and 54% more likely to die from other causes.” The findings were published online June 3 in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. The author of an accompanying editorial observed, “We do not know for certain whether treating depression or anxiety improves survival, but there is some evidence that it probably does.”
Related Links:
— “Chronic depression after heart attack tied to increased risk of death, “Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, June 12, 2019
USA Today (6/13, O’Donnell) reports that “young adults were more likely than any other age group to die from drugs, alcohol and suicide over the past decade.” Drug-related fatalities “among people 18 to 34 soared 108% between 2007 and 2017, while alcohol deaths were up 69% and suicides increased 35%, according to an analysis out Thursday of the latest federal data by the non-profit Trust for America’s Health and Well Being Trust.” The analysis, which used Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, “found the increases for these three ‘deaths of despair’ combined were higher than for Baby Boomers and senior citizens.”
Related Links:
— “‘Deaths of despair’ from drugs, alcohol and suicide hit young adults hardest, “Jayne O’Donnell, USA Today, June 13, 2019
Reuters (6/12, Rapaport) reports that “nearly half of trauma patients, even those without brain injuries, experience social deficits that make it harder for them to interact with friends and stay involved in the community, a recent study suggests.” For the study, “researchers followed 805 adults hospitalized for moderate to severe traumatic injuries. During the year after the injury, 364 of them, or 45%, reported experiencing social dysfunction.” The findings were published in the journal Surgery.
Related Links:
— “Traumatic injuries linked to later social dysfunction, “Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, June 21, 2019
HealthDay (6/11, Mozes) reports researchers found children “who had participated in athletic programs between ages 6 and 10 had less emotional distress, anxiety and shyness by age 12.” The findings of the 1,492-child study were published in Pediatric Research.
Related Links:
— “Can Playing a Sport Foster Better-Adjusted Kids?, ” Alan Mozes, HealthDay, June 11, 2019
Healio (6/12, Demko) reports that “long-term benefits of psychotherapeutic and combined treatments were superior to pharmacological treatments for PTSD across six randomized clinical trials with follow-up data.” The findings of the “network meta-analysis” were published online June 12 in JAMA Psychiatry. According to Healio, “future research needs to address clinically meaningful questions, like what clinicians can do when the first treatment fails, not just the question of whether psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy is better…wrote” the authors of an accompanying editorial.
Related Links:
— “Psychotherapeutic, combined treatments superior to pharmacological treatment in PTSD, “Savannah Demko, Healio, June 12, 2019
The Washington Post (6/7, Dias) reported on the phenomenon of mothers discovering they have autism after the condition is diagnosed in their child. The Post adds that “autism is about four times more prevalent in boys than in girls,” and that for decades, physicians often didn’t consider it as a possible diagnosis for girls, but now there is a growing consensus that many girls and women with the condition have been “overlooked.” The article highlights several cases of women being diagnosed with autism after their children were diagnosed and describes the mixture of emotions that come with the late diagnosis.
Related Links:
— “‘I understand exactly who he is’: Moms discover they share autism with their children, “Isabela Dias, The Washington Post, June 11, 2019
Medscape (6/11, Yasgur, Subscription Publication) reports, “Rates of nonsuicidal self-harm…are rising, especially among adolescent girls and young adult women,” and “few of these people receive medical or psychological help,” researchers concluded after conducting “a secondary analysis of data from the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Surveys for 2000, 2007, and 2014 regarding individuals aged 16–74 years (n = 7243, 6477, and 6477, respectively).” The findings were published online June 4 in The Lancet Psychiatry.
Related Links:
— “Rates of Self-Harm Soar, Especially Among Girls, Young Women, “Batya Swift Yasgur, MA, LSW, Medscape, June 11, 2019
NBC News (6/12, Edwards) reports on its website that “rates of deaths from suicides, drug overdoses and alcohol have reached an all-time high” in the US, but “some states have been hit far harder than others.” A report from the Commonwealth Fund showed that West Virginia “had the highest drug overdose death rates, fueled mostly by the opioid epidemic,” and that those rates “rose by 450 percent between 2005 and 2017.” Death rates from suicide and alcohol “also showed regional disparities,” with people dying “at higher rates by suicide or from alcohol than from drugs in Montana, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Oregon and Wyoming.”
Related Links:
— “https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/u-s-death-rates-suicides-alcohol-drug-overdoses-reach-all-n1016216, “Erika Edwards, NBC News, June 12, 2019