MedPage Today (11/26, Monaco) reports, “Among young children, the prevalence of eating disorders was similar between girls and boys,” researchers concluded. In fact, “in a large, nationally representative sample of American children, ages nine to ten years, about 1.4% (95% CI 1.0%-1.8%) had a diagnosed eating disorder according to” the American Psychiatric Association’s “DSM-5 criteria,” the study found. Included in the study were “data on over 4,500 children (majority were boys and white) who participated in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study,” which was “supported by the” National Institutes of Health “and other federal partners.” The findings were published online Nov. 26 in a research letter in JAMA Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “MedPage Today, (requires login and subscription), November 26, 2018.

The Economist (11/24) reported that around the world, the suicidal “rate has fallen by 38% from its peak in 1994.” Consequently, “over 4m lives have been saved – more than four times as many people as were killed in combat over the period.” Interestingly, this “decline has happened at different rates and different times in different parts of the world.” The exception is the US, where the suicide rate “has risen by 17% to 12.8 – well above China’s current rate of seven.”

In a separate but related article, The Economist (11/24) reported the rising US suicide rate “is largely among white, middle-aged, poorly educated men in areas that were left behind by booms and crushed by busts.” The US, “in particular, could spare much pain by learning from the progress elsewhere” to reduce suicide rates, including “better health services, labour-market policies and curbs on booze, guns, pesticide and” medications.

Related Links:

— “Suicide is declining almost everywhere, The Economist, November 24, 2018.

Healio (11/21, Demko) reported, “Exposure to any type of trauma at any time from early childhood through adolescence was linked to subsequent psychotic experiences,” research indicated. The findings of the 4,433-participant study were published online Nov. 21 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “All types of childhood trauma linked to later psychotic experiences, “Savannah Demko, Healio, November 21, 2018.

Reuters (11/23, Carroll) reported, “Patients who are treated in an intensive care unit (ICU) and survive are at increased risk of depression,” researchers concluded after following “4,943 ICU patients who had spent at least 24 hours in one of 26 ICUs in the UK between 2006 and 2013.” The study also revealed that “depression in ICU survivors was linked with a higher risk of death in the next two years.” The findings were published online Nov. 23 in the journal Critical Care.

Related Links:

— “ICU stay can lead to depression, “Linda Carroll, Reuters, November 23, 2018.

CNN (11/19, Scutti) reports, “Prenatal exposure to ambient air pollution was associated with an increased risk of autism spectrum disorder, a new study finds.”

HealthDay (11/19, Reinberg) reports researchers found that prenatal exposure to nitric oxide, “a common” traffic-related “air pollutant…was tied to higher odds of a child being diagnosed with autism by age” five. The findings of the 132,000-child study were published online Nov. 19 in JAMA Pediatrics. STAT (11/19, Weintraub) also reports.

Related Links:

— “Prenatal exposure to air pollution linked to autism risk, study says, “Susan Scutti, CNN, November 19, 2018.

Kaiser Health News (11/19, Waters) reports that in the aftermath of recent mass shootings across the US, “public health and mental health experts counter that blaming the violence on the mentally ill is unfair and inaccurate, pointing instead to lax gun laws.” Renée Binder, MD, “a professor of psychiatry at the University of California-San Francisco and a past president of the American Psychiatric Association,” said, “Most violence is not committed by people who are mentally ill.” Dr. Binder added, “Even if you took everyone who had any kind of mental illness and locked them up and gave them meds, it would hardly make a dent on the problem of violence.

Related Links:

— “Gun Control Vs. Mental Health Care: Debate After Mass Shootings Obscures Murky Reality, “Rob Waters, Kaiser Health News, November 19, 2018.

The Tennessean (11/18, Bliss, Wadhwani) reported, “The goal of Tennessee’s public psychiatric hospitals is to serve as a last-resort safety net to stabilize patients in crisis and then link them to ongoing treatment in their communities,” but because the state’s mental healthcare “system as a whole is overburdened,” about “one in three adults admitted to Tennessee’s public psychiatric hospitals will return within six months [pdf], according to federal data.”

Related Links:

— “13 suicide attempts, 18 hospitalizations, few options: Lost in Tennessee’s mental care system, “Jessica Bliss and Anita Wadhwani, The Tennessean, November 18, 2018.

The AP (11/17, Jojola) reported an ongoing investigation is tracking a “growing health care epidemic where hundreds of people” with dementia and similar conditions “are abandoned every year at metro-area hospitals,” a problem which “is costing hospitals and in some cases, taxpayers, millions of dollars a year.” Many such “at-risk adults…end up languishing in hospitals because they have no family to take care of them or a facility willing to take them in due to a lack of space, finances, or appropriate scope of care.” According to one survey of hospitals in the Denver area, “on a single day in September 113 at-risk adults were stuck in the system, beyond medical necessity,” and about 30 percent had mental health issues such as dementia.

Related Links:

— “People without caregivers end up stranded in hospitals, “Jeremy Jojola, AP, November 17, 2018.

USA Today (11/16, O’Donnell) reported, “From 2007 to 2017, the number of deaths attributable to alcohol increased 35 percent,” research indicated. What’s more, “deaths among women rose 67 percent,” whereas they rise “29 percent” among men. USA Today went on to summarize a number of studies indicating “increases for acute and chronic alcohol use.”

Newsweek (11/17, Wynne) reported, “Women are more susceptible to alcohol-related risks because they typically weigh less than men, and can feel the effects of alcohol faster, according to the National Institute on Alcohol and Abuse and Alcoholism.”

Related Links:

— “Alcohol is killing more people, and younger. The biggest increases are among women, “Jayne O’Donnell, USA Today, November 16, 2018.

HealthDay (11/15, Salamon) reports that in a “first-of-its-kind study, which surveyed white and Latino young adults identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT),” researchers found that “more than half of them experienced efforts to change their sexual orientation during adolescence.” The findings of the 245-young adult study were published online Nov. 7 in the Journal of Homosexuality.

Related Links:

— “Gay ‘Conversion Therapy’ Often Begins at Home, With Devastating Consequences, ” Maureen Salamon, HealthDay, November 15, 2018.