HealthDay (2/3, Thompson) reports a systematic review of 169 previous clinical trials found that “talk therapy is the best way to ease grief and depression following the death of a loved one.” Of the clinical trials reviewed, “76 evaluated whether psychotherapy could help people with their grief.” The review says, “Across studies, we found a positive effect of psychotherapy on grief disorder symptoms.” The researchers “also found some benefit from expert-facilitated support groups and enhanced contact from a person’s health care team, although the evidence there was not as strong.” The review was published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

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— “Grief Best Managed Through Talk Therapy, Evidence Shows,”Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, February 3, 2026

HealthDay (2/2, Thompson) reports a study found that “the symptoms women experience on the verge of menopause could be vastly different from what they might expect.” According to researchers, “women in perimenopause…expect to be plagued with hot flashes and night sweats. However, these women reported symptoms like exhaustion and fatigue far more frequently than those typically associated with menopause.” When middle-aged women participants were “asked which symptoms they associate with perimenopause, the women most often named hot flashes (71%), sleep problems (68%) and weight gain (65%). But women who actually were in perimenopause listed their most common symptoms as exhaustion (95%); fatigue (93%); irritability (91%); sleep problems (89%); depression (88%); and brain fog (87%).” The study was published in Menopause.

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— “Early Menopause Symptoms Might Not Be What Most Women Expect,”Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, February 2, 2026

The AP (2/2, Swenson) reports HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Monday that the agency “will devote $100 million toward a pilot program addressing homelessness and substance abuse in eight cities, building on an executive order” the President “signed last week related to addiction.” The agency “will also make faith-based organizations eligible for addiction-related grants and expand states’ ability to use federal health funding for substance abuse treatment in certain situations involving children, Kennedy said.” Kennedy also “said SAMHSA’s new pilot program will be called STREETS, or Safety Through Recovery, Engagement and Evidence-Based Treatment and Supports.” The initiatives “represent some quick momentum for” the President’s “executive order signed last Thursday launching what [he] calls the ‘Great American Recovery Initiative’ to better align federal resources on the addiction crisis.”

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— “HHS unveils program to address homelessness and addiction, part of a set of new initiatives,”Ali Swenson , AP, February 2, 2026

USA Today (2/2, Peter) reports, “About half of the U.S. Olympians and U.S. Paralympians set to compete at the Milano Cortina Games will not be at their best mentally, according to Jonathan Finnoff, chief medical officer of the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC).” To support these athletes, Finnoff “said the USOPC has built ‘an incredibly robust program.’ He noted the hiring of 16 dually certified mental health and mental performance [professionals], virtual consultation services with more than 500 psychological services professionals and several ways to assess athletes for mental health needs.” The increased emphasis comes after the “Borders Commission, created by the USOPC in 2018, concluded in a 2019 report that mental health care can and must be expanded.” The USOPC “said that between the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the Paris Olympics in 2024, it increased the number of licensed psychologists on its staff to 15 from six.

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— “How Team USA has evolved mental health services for Olympians,”Josh Peter, USA TODAY, February 2, 2026

Healio (1/30, Gawel) reported, “Hearing aids did not lead to any significant differences in cognitive testing among older patients with moderate hearing loss, but these devices may reduce risks for dementia, according to” research. The study “cohort included a median of 664 patients (mean age, 75.1 years; 49% women; 98% white) who received a prescription for a new hearing aid in the previous 3 years, including 402 who always or often used their hearing aid and 188 who sometimes or rarely used it, and a median of 2,113 (mean age, 74.2 years; 48% women; 99% white) who did not.” The findings were published in Neurology.

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— “Hearing aid prescriptions yield no significant difference in cognitive test scores,”Richard Gawel, Healio, January 30, 2026

The New York Times Magazine (1/30, Jones) interviewed “more than two dozen people who have been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder along with nearly 20 experts.” DID has been “included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” since 1994. It is considered “one of the most controversial diagnoses in psychiatry. For decades, some critics have argued that it is extremely rare, or that it doesn’t exist at all.” Despite skepticism, “the field of psychiatry has never had more robust scientific and clinical data about the disorder – including the ways it defies decades-old stereotypes. There are now multiple validated assessment tools for dissociative disorders, including D.I.D., as well as neuroimaging studies that show how severe dissociation manifests in the brain.” In contrast to the 1980s and 1990s, “neuroscientists now have more clues about how severe dissociation appears in the brain.”

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— The New York Times (requires login and subscription)

Reuters (1/29, Roy) reports, “More than a million fewer Americans have signed up for [ACA] plans for 2026, with enrollment dropping to about 23 million as monthly premiums for many soared due to the expiration of extra COVID-19 pandemic health insurance subsidies.” In 2025, about 24.2 million people signed up for the plans. According to data released Wednesday on CMS’ website, “nearly 3.4 million new consumers signed up for policies, while less than 19.6 million people were returning consumers.” According to KFF, the “total premium costs for subsidized [ACA] enrollees are expected to increase to an average $1,904 for 2026 from $888 in 2025.” Analysts also “said they expect the total enrollment to fall in coming months as Americans who were auto-enrolled fail to pay their premiums and are removed from coverage after three months.”

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— “Obamacare enrollment drops to about 23 million people for 2026,”Sriparna Roy, Reuters, January 29, 2026

The AP (1/28, Stobbe) reports CDC data indicate that US life expectancy increased “to 79 years in 2024 – the highest mark in American history. It’s the result of not only the dissipation of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also waning death rates from all the nation’s top killers, including heart disease, cancer and drug overdoses.” According to the AP, US life expectancy “rose at least a little bit almost every year” for decades, “thanks to medical advances and public health measures. It peaked in 2014, just shy of 79 years.” However, “it was relatively flat for several years before plunging as the COVID-19 pandemic killed more than 1.2 million Americans. In 2021, life expectancy fell to just under 76 1/2 years.” While it has started to rebound, experts note “the bad news is that the U.S. still ranks below dozens of other countries.”
        
CNN (1/29, McPhillips) adds that “there were 722 deaths for every 100,000 people in the US in 2024 – nearly 3.1 million deaths overall – according to final, age-adjusted data published Thursday by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. The 10 leading causes of death accounted for more than 70% of all deaths in the US in 2024, led by heart disease and cancer that killed more than 600,000 people each.” However, “death rates declined for each of the 10 leading causes of death in 2024, including a particularly sharp drop in unintentional injuries – a category that is largely comprised of drug overdose deaths.” The CDC data also show women can “still expect to live a few years longer than men but that gap is shrinking.”

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— “US life expectancy hit an all-time high in 2024, CDC says,”Mike Stobbe , AP, January 28, 2026

MedPage Today (1/28, Jeffrey) reports a study utilizing US commercial health insurance claims data found that “firearm injuries among parents were associated with increased rates of psychiatric disorder diagnoses and mental health visits in their children.” Researchers observed that “parental firearm injury was associated with 8.4 additional psychiatric diagnoses per 1,000 youths, as well as 23.1 additional mental health visits per 1,000 youths compared with controls averaged over the 12 months following the injury.” They noted the “increase was largest for trauma-related diagnoses such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with an additional 8.5 diagnoses per 1,000 youths versus controls averaged over the year.” The study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine.Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (1/27, George) reports, “Higher stages of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a disorder associated with repetitive head impacts often from contact sports like American football, were tied to increased odds of dementia, autopsy data showed.” Investigators found that “brain donors with stage IV CTE pathology and no other progressive brain disease had four times the odds of a dementia diagnosis compared with donors who had no CTE pathology (OR 4.48, 95% CI 1.97-10.90).” The data indicated that “donors with stage III CTE pathology were twice as likely to be diagnosed with dementia compared with decedents who had no pathology (OR 2.12, 95% CI 1.91-3.77).” The findings were published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)