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.

Reuters (12/18, Rapaport) reports, “More than two in five teens who use marijuana experience psychotic symptoms like hallucinations, paranoia and anxiety,” researchers found after surveying “146 teen marijuana users, ages 14 to 18.” The study revealed that 40 teens, “or 27 percent, reported hallucinations while using the drug and 49, or 34 percent, said they had experienced paranoia or anxiety.” The findings were published online Dec. 17 in a research letter in JAMA Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Teen pot users may hallucinate, become paranoid, “Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, December 18, 2018.

The New York Times (12/17, Jacobs) reports that researchers have “found a nearly fourfold increase in confirmed reports of child abuse on the Saturdays immediately after the distribution of report cards at Florida public schools.” The findings were published in JAMA Pediatrics.
Reuters (12/17, Rapaport) reports that the study indicated “abuse cases were more than three times more likely to happen on Saturdays after a report-card Friday than on Saturdays when children hadn’t gotten their grades the day before.” The increase “in abuse only appeared when report cards came home on Fridays, not when kids received them on other days of the week.”

Related Links:

— “When Report Cards Go Out on Fridays, Child Abuse Increases on Saturdays, Study Finds, “Julia Jacobs, The New York Times, December 17, 2018.

A nearly 4,500-word article in the Huffington Post (12/17, Raghavan) examines mental healthcare coverage for children, focusing in particular on the case of Logan, a boy from Allen, Texas, who was reportedly denied full-time care by United Behavioral Health after he set fire to his home and who was later arrested for threatening via social media to “shoot up a school.” The Post adds, “Data gathered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and a study by Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions suggest that one percent of the nation’s population under age 18, or roughly 740,000 children and adolescents, may qualify as having a psychotic disorder.”

Related Links:

— “Mental Health Care Coverage Is Leaving Kids Behind And Families Reeling, “Anita Raghavan, The Huffington Post, December 17, 2018.