HealthDay (1/10, Thompson ) reports, “A bout of depression can trigger a bump in body weight among people struggling with obesity, a new study has found.” Notably, “people who had an increase in symptoms related to depression experienced an increase in their weight a month later,” researchers found. The findings were published in PLOS One.
Related Links:
— “Vicious Cycle: Depression and Weight Gain Often Go Together,” Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, January 10, 2024
Psychiatric News (1/10) reports, “Military personnel and veterans who have been taking opioids for chronic pain may experience greater benefits from group therapy that integrates mindfulness techniques than from supportive psychotherapy, according to a” study. This “randomized clinical trial, which compared outcomes in veterans and military from Utah, found that those who received Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement…reported greater reductions in chronic pain symptoms and opioid use than those who received supportive psychotherapy.” The findings were published in The American Journal of Psychiatry.
Related Links:
— “Mindfulness Training Reduces Opioid Use, Craving Among Military Experiencing Chronic Pain,” Psychiatric News, January 10, 2024
The New York Times (1/10, Richtel ) reports, “Prescriptions for drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder surged during the coronavirus pandemic, particularly among women and patients ages 20 to 39, according to new research compiled by scholars affiliated with the” FDA. This “increase came as prescription rates held relatively steady for other key classes of behavioral health medications used to treat conditions such as depression and anxiety, according to the study.” The Times adds, “The reasons are not totally clear, the researchers found, and could include pandemic-related stress, recognition of undiagnosed cases, over-prescription and online marketing of medications.” The findings were published in JAMA Psychiatry.
The Hill (1/10, Sforza ) reports that the study found that the increase “contributed to the shortage of popular medications like Adderall.” The data indicated that “overall, stimulant prescriptions for those 20 to 39 jumped 30 percent, while nonstimulant ADHD prescriptions for that age group increased 81 percent.”
Related Links:
— “ADHD treatment prescriptions for adults surged during pandemic, fueling shortages: Study,” Lauren Sforza, The Hill, January 10, 2024
Healio (1/9, Weldon) reports, “Infants and toddlers faced socio-emotional development delays during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study.” The findings were published in JAMA Pediatrics.
Related Links:
— “COVID-19 pandemic delayed socio-emotional development in young children,” Rose Weldon, Healio, January 9, 2024
HCP Live (1/9, Derman) reports, “Home-use transcranial direct current stimulation…combined with a digital psychological intervention or digital placebo is not superior to sham for the treatment of” patients with “a major depressive episode, according to a new study.” The findings were published in JAMA Psychiatry.
Related Links:
— “Home-Use tDCS is Not an Effective Treatment for Major Depressive Disorder,” Chelsie Derman, HCP Live, January 9, 2024
HealthDay (1/9, Mundell ) reports, “Depression that emerges around the time of pregnancy raises a woman’s risk for suicide sharply and for many years, new Swedish research shows.” Investigators “found that a new mom’s odds for suicide soars seven-fold in the year after a diagnosis of perinatal depression – depression that arises just before, during or after a pregnancy.”
The study indicated that “between five to 18 years after delivery, the risk of suicide in women with perinatal depression was still more than double that of women unaffected by the illness.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.
Psychiatric News (1/9) also covers the story.
Related Links:
— “Pregnancy-Linked Depression Raises Odds for Suicide Years After Delivery,” Ernie Mundell, HealthDay, January 9, 2024
ABC News (1/8, Zhang) reports, “For children under the age of 2, television screen time is associated with sensory differences later in toddlerhood, according to a new study.” Notably, “children who watched any television or DVDs at 12 months of age were twice as likely by 36 months to experience ‘atypical sensory processing’ … compared to others of that age.” According to the research, “after 18 months of age, each extra hour of screen exposure per day was associated with around a 20% increased likelihood of sensory processing differences.” The findings were published in JAMA Pediatrics.
Related Links:
— “Screen time for kids under 2 linked to sensory differences in toddlerhood: Study,” Dr. Angela Zhang, ABC News, January 8, 2024
Healio (1/8, Weldon) reports, “Residential addiction treatment centers serving adolescents are scarce and expensive in the United States, new study findings suggest, despite increasing overdose rates among young people in recent years.” The findings were published in Health Affairs.
Related Links:
— “Study: Residential addiction treatment for adolescents limited, costly,” Rose Weldon, Healio, January 8, 2024
The New York Times (1/5, Kolata ) said, “People taking the wildly popular drugs Ozempic, to treat diabetes, and Wegovy, to combat obesity, are slightly less likely to have suicidal thoughts than people who are not taking them, researchers reported on Friday.” The findings were published in Nature Medicine.
The AP (1/5, Aleccia ) reported NIH and Case Western Reserve University researchers found that “people taking semaglutide had a 49% to 73% lower risk of first-time or recurring suicidal thoughts than those taking another drug for those conditions during a six-month follow-up period.”
CNN (1/5, Tirrell ) reported, “The findings from the new study come days after the FDA said it was reviewing reports of suicidal ideation among people using semaglutide and similar medicines and evaluating the need for regulatory action.” Similarly, “the European Medicines Agency said in July that it was reviewing 150 reports of possible cases of self-injury and suicidal thoughts among people taking semaglutide and similar medicines.”
Related Links:
— “People taking Wegovy and Ozempic have lower risk of suicidal thoughts vs. older drugs, study finds,” Jones Aleccia, Associated Press, January 5, 2024
MedPage Today (1/5, Robertson) reported, “Problems with the veterinary sedative xylazine – also known as ‘tranq’ – appeared to be concentrated in the eastern U.S. but were spread across the entire country, a cross-sectional study found.” Investigators found that “at least 43 states reported at least one xylazine-related overdose death from 2019 to 2022.” The data also indicated that “in 2019, 16 states had no xylazine forensic reports but by 2022, only two states had no such reports.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.
Related Links:
— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)