Reuters (10/6, Rapaport) reported, “Most law enforcement agencies and many gun retailers may be willing to temporarily store firearms to help prevent suicide,” researchers concluded after surveying “448 law enforcement agencies and 95 gun retailers in eight states.” The findings were published online Sept. 21 in the American Journal of Public Health.
Related Links:
— “Some police and retailers may store guns to help prevent suicide,” Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, October 6, 2017.
Medscape (10/9, Anderson) reports, “Midday bright white light therapy may be effective for patients with bipolar depression,” researchers concluded after randomizing 46 patients “to a group that received broad- spectrum bright white fluorescent light (7000 lux) or to one that received inactive dim red light (50 lux).” The findings were published online Oct. 3 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association. Healio (10/9, Oldt) and Psychiatric News (10/4) also covered the study.
Related Links:
— Medscape (requires login and subscription)
HealthDay (10/5, Mozes) reports, “Being born at an extremely low birth weight,” that is, at 2.2 pounds or less, “seems to increase the risk for developing mental health issues as an adult,” but such “risk can be lowered by lessening exposure to bullying and family stress during childhood and adolescence,” researchers found after reviewing “40 years’ worth of data” on “nearly 180 extremely low birth weight children who had been born between 1977 and 1982 and survived into adulthood,” then comparing “their adult mental health status…with that of 145 adults who had been born at a normal weight.” The findings were published online Oct. 3 in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
Related Links:
— “Protecting Preemies From Stress Might Improve Later Mental Health,” Alan Mozes, HealthDay, October 5, 2017.
HealthDay (10/5, Reinberg) reports, “Taking a multivitamin during pregnancy may reduce a child’s risk of developing autism,” research indicated. After analyzing data on “more than a quarter-million mother-child pairs in Sweden,” investigators found that “multivitamin use with or without added iron or folic acid was associated with a lower likelihood of child autism with intellectual disability, compared with mothers who did not use supplements.” The findingswere published online Oct. 4 in the BMJ. Healio (10/5, Oldt) also covers the study.
Related Links:
— “Prenatal Multivitamins Linked to Lower Autism Risk,” Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, October 5, 2017.
USA Today (10/3, Weintraub) reports that according to a new report to be released today by the advocacy group UsAgainstAlzheimer, American families are decreasingly able to provide care for loved ones with Alzheimer’s. American families have fewer financial resources and “Medicare and Medicaid are simply not prepared to cope with the growing numbers of people with this disease,” according to UsAgainstAlzheimer chairman George Vradenburg. While “fewer 75-year-olds are getting the disease, … more people are living to 85, and roughly half of them will develop Alzheimer’s, statistics show.”
Related Links:
— “Caregiving for Alzheimer’s patients at risk in coming years, report says,” Karen Weintraub, USA Today, October 3, 2017.
The AP (10/3, Tanner) reports that people who survived this week’s shootings in Las Vegas may be at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Also at risk for “psychological fallout” are first responders, medical staff, eyewitnesses, and bystanders. Studies indicate “PTSD is particularly common among people exposed to mass shootings versus other types of trauma, with rates as high as 90 percent reported” by some researchers.
Related Links:
— “Concert shooting puts many at risk for post-traumatic stress,” Associated Press, October 4, 2017.
Medscape (10/4, Harrison) reports that research indicates “the financial costs associated with frontotemporal degeneration (FTD), the most common dementia in patients under age 60 years, are nearly twice as high as those associated with Alzheimer’s disease.” Data “from the web-based survey show the total annual per-patient cost of caring for a patient with FTD was $119,654 in 2016 US dollars,” approximately “two times higher than reported costs of taking care of a patient with AD.” The survey indicated “the median annual household income” one year “before an FTD diagnosis was in the range of $75,000 to $99,000. But 12 months after diagnosis it fell to the $50,000 to $59,000 range – a drop of up to 50%.” The findings were published online Oct. 4 in Neurology.
Related Links:
— Medscape (requires login and subscription)
Healio (10/4, Oldt) reports, “Analysis of a population-based cohort of” 11,108 “twins revealed a causal association between exposure to bullying and concurrent anxiety, depression, hyperactivity and impulsivity, and other mental health symptoms,” researchers reported. The findings were published online Oct. 4 in JAMA Psychiatry. The authors of an accompanying editorial “applauded the contribution of these findings to the mental health field.”
Related Links:
— “Bullying in childhood linked to poorer mental health,” Silberg J, et al., Healio, October 4, 2017.
HealthDay (10/4, Thompson) reports that research published online Oct. 4 in Neurology suggests “women who develop high blood pressure in their 40s could be much more vulnerable to dementia later in life.”
MedPage Today (10/4, Kneisel) reports that investigators “analyzed records for 5,646 members of the Kaiser Permanente system (3,095 women, 2,551 men) during 1964-1973 (average age 33 years) and 1978-1985 (average age 44 years).” The researchers found that “women who developed hypertension in their 40s were at significantly increased risk of dementia (HR 1.73, 95% CI 1.24–2.40) compared to normotensive women.” However, no association “was seen between midlife blood pressure and subsequent dementia risk in men.”
Related Links:
— “High Blood Pressure in 40s a Dementia Risk for Women?,” Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, October 4, 2017.
Reuters (10/4, Rapaport) reports that “23 percent of suicide victims age 50 or older shared suicidal thoughts with another person in the month before their death,” researchers found after examining “data on 46,857 suicide deaths among adults 50 or older in US states.”
HealthDay (10/4, Preidt) reports that “the older” the adults “were, the more likely they were to disclose” their intentions, the study revealed.
Healio (10/4) reports researchers also concluded via “logistic regression analyses” that “depressive mood…and health problems” were tied to “increased likelihood of suicide intent disclosure.” The findings were published online Oct. 3 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Related Links:
— “Older adults more likely to disclose suicidal thoughts as they age,” Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, October 4, 2017.