The AP (12/26, Irvine) reports on a 12-step meeting focused on helping people for whom “tech gets in the way of daily functioning and self-care.” According to the AP, “an American Academy of Pediatrics review of worldwide research found that excessive use of video games alone is a serious problem for as many as nine percent of young people.” Just this past “summer, the World Health Organization also added ‘gaming disorder’ to its list of afflictions,” and “a similar diagnosis is being considered in the” US.

Related Links:

— “‘Hi, my name is ___, and I’m addicted to tech’, “Martha Irvine, AP, December 26, 2018.

HealthDay (12/26, Mozes) reports research indicates that “older folks can cut their depression risk by 32 percent simply by going to cultural activities every few months.” According to HealthDay, the “results are based on a decade-long tracking analysis that stacked cultural engagement – plays, movies, concerts and museum exhibits – against depression risk among approximately 2,000 men and women over the age of 50,” all of whom were “participants in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA).”Related Links:

— “Head to the Movies, Museums to Keep Depression at Bay, “Alan Mozes, HealthDay, December 26, 2018.

U.S. News & World Report (12/21, Levine) reported, “Bullying…harms children who witness it,” researchers found after examining “data from nearly 4,000 Quebec high school students.” The findings were published in the December issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Gabrielle Shapiro, MD, “professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City,” who also chairs “the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Children, Adolescents, and Their Families,” said that when people who witness bullying “are feeling empathy for a victim but don’t speak up, they can feel sad and anxious and bad themselves. They are struggling with moral issues of right and wrong.” And, “according to the website StopBullying.gov, managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than a quarter of U.S. students in grades six to 12 say they have been bullied at school, and” almost “71 percent of young people say they have witnessed bullying at school.”

Related Links:

— “Why Bullying Harms More Than Just the Victim, “David Levine, U.S. News & World Report, December 21, 2018.

Healio (12/21, Demko) reported, “The prevalence of benzodiazepine use among adults in the United States was higher than previously reported,” researchers concluded after “analyzing data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.” In addition, “the analysis found that the prevalence of benzodiazepine use among adults aged 50 to 64 years exceeded the prevalence among those aged 65 years and older, the group that historically had the highest benzodiazepine use,” the study revealed. The findings were published online Dec. 17 in Psychiatric Services, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Benzodiazepine use among US adults higher than previously reported, “Savannah Demko, Healio, December 21, 2018.

Healio (12/20, Demko) reports, “Analysis of a large general population-based sample of Swedish twins” demonstrated that “genetic risk factors for psychiatric disorders – including autism,” attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, “tic disorders, intellectual disability, anxiety disorders and major depressive disorder – were associated with milder traits of these disorders.” Investigators arrived at that conclusion after analyzing “genetic data from 13,412 people and phenotype data from 13,923 twin pairs at age nine years, 5,165 pairs at age 15 years and 4,273 pairs at age 18 years.” The findings were published online Dec. 19 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Psychiatric disorders show genetic correlations with related traits, “Savannah Demko, Healio, December 20, 2018.

Mason Marks, a visiting fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, argues in an opinion at the Washington Post (12/20) for strong oversight of emerging suicide prediction tools used commercially by companies such as Facebook. Marks writes that “corporations outside health care are racing to use AI to predict suicide in billions of consumers, and they treat their methods as proprietary trade secrets. These private-sector efforts are completely unregulated,” but he says the FDA “could exercise its power to regulate medical products and treat suicide prediction tools like mobile health apps or software-based medical devices.”

Related Links:

— “Suicide prediction technology is revolutionary. It badly needs oversight, “Mason Marks, The Washington Post, December 21 2018.

The Boston Globe (12/19, Weisman) reports on research released by the Gerontology Institute of the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Boston that found depression diagnoses among seniors over 65 appear to have grown in the last three years. Indeed, nearly one third of seniors were treated for depression in Massachusetts, higher than the overall rate for New England (25 percent), according to Medicare records.

Related Links:

— “Depression, ranging in severity, shadows old age for nearly a third of Mass. seniors, ” Robert Weisman, The Boston Globe , December 19, 2018.

Endocrine Today (12/19, Neuffer) reports, “Use of substances such as alcohol, opioids and sedative medications may be higher among adults with type 1 diabetes [T1D] compared with the overall U.S. population,” researchers concluded in a 4,311-adult study. The findings were published online in the journal Diabetes Education

Related Links:

— “Substance Use Higher Among Adults With Type 1 Diabetes Vs. General Population, “Phil Neuffer, Healio, December 19, 2018.

Healio (12/19, Demko) reports, “Observational study findings” published online Dec. 11 in the American Journal of Psychiatry that described “the emergent course of bipolar disorder in high-risk offspring of affected parents revealed that the course of bipolar disorder usually evolves in a progressive clinical sequence.” In addition, the study, which “analyzed the emergent clinical course of bipolar disorder over one to 21 years follow-up in 279 high-risk offspring of affected parents and 87 control patients,” revealed “important predictors of bipolar disorder included childhood sleep and anxiety disorders, clinically significant mood symptoms, and psychotic symptoms in depressive episodes.”

Related Links:

— “Emergent course of bipolar disorder among at-risk offspring develops over time, “Savannah Demko, Healio, December 19, 2018.

Forbes (12/18) contributor David DiSalvo writes, “People suffering from anxiety and depression may be at higher risk for developing other major health conditions like heart disease, suggests new research” published online Dec. 18 in the journal Health Psychology. For the study, investigators “analyzed health data for more than 15,000 adults over a four-year period from the Health and Retirement study, a large US population-based study of older adults.” The study revealed that “compared to those without anxiety and depression, participants suffering from those conditions were at 65% increased risk of a heart condition, 64% for stroke, and 50% for” hypertension, plus an “especially high” risk “for arthritis at 87%.” Healio (12/18, Demko) also covers the study.

Related Links:

— “Depression And Anxiety Linked To Higher Risk Of Other Major Health Conditions, Suggests New Study, “David DiSalvo , Forbes, December 18, 2018.