Reuters (8/14, Rapaport) reports that while “pain and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are among the most common reasons people use medical marijuana in the U.S., there isn’t much proof cannabis works for either one of these conditions, two research reviews” published in Annals of Internal Medicine suggest. In one review, investigators “examined 27 previously published studies on this topic,” and “found too little information to determine whether the drug helps most types of pain.”

The other “analysis of five previous studies of cannabis for PTSD found too little data to determine whether this would help relieve symptoms.” Also covering the story are CNN (8/14, Scutti), MedPage Today (8/14, Boyles), Healio (8/14), and HealthDay (8/14, Dotinga).

Related Links:

— “Little evidence shows cannabis helps chronic pain or PTSD,” Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, August 14, 2017.

STAT (8/11, Ross) reported “the cost of treating opioid overdose victims in hospital intensive care units” increased by 58 percent “between 2009 and 2015,” according to a study published Friday in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society. The average cost spiked from $58,500 to $92,500 over the seven-year period, which “far outpaced the overall medical inflation rate in the U.S.,” the article says.

HealthDay (8/11, Preidt) reported the study’s authors said the findings demonstrate the US “has reached a ‘new level of crisis’ and that opioid-related demand for acute medical care has exceeded the available supply.”

MedPage Today (8/13, Boyles) and Healthcare Finance News (8/11, Sanborn) also covered the story.

Related Links:

— “The cost of treating opioid overdose victims is skyrocketing,” CASEY ROSS, STAT, August 11, 2017.

In continuing coverage, Medical Daily (8/10, Delzo) reports, “Women and older adults in the United States are drinking a concerning amount of alcohol,” a finding that is “leading researchers” at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism “to label the problem a ‘public health crisis.’” NIAAA investigators arrived at the study’s findings after examining research “carried out in 2001-02 and 2012-13” that “involved about 43,000 and 36,000 participants, respectively.” The findings were published online Aug. 9 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Psychiatric News (8/10) reports that “a related editorial…described the costs associated with alcohol-related problems and noted that the populations that appear to be at greatest risk may also be least likely to have access to care.” The editorialist wrote that the study “makes a compelling case that the United States is facing a crisis with alcohol use, one that is currently costly and about to get worse.”

Related Links:

— “Alcoholism Among Americans Deemed A Public Healt,” Janissa Delzo, Medical Daily, August 10, 2017.

In an analysis piece, the Washington Post (8/10, Strauss) reports that “people who feel bad about feeling bad – that is, people who get sad about their own negativities and judge themselves harshly for having them – wind up with even more mental stress than people who learn to accept their emotions and thoughts,” according to a 1,300-adult study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging.

Related Links:

— “Feeling bad about feeling bad can make you feel really, really bad. New research really says this.,” Valerie Strauss, Washington Post, August 10, 2017.

Healio (8/10, Oldt) reports, “More than one-third of the US adult population misused prescription” medications “at least once in the past year,” researchers from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found after analyzing “data from the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.”

Related Links:

— “One-third of US adults misused prescription drugs in 2015,” Rachel N. Lipari, PhD, Healio, August 10, 2017.

The Washington Times (8/9, Kelly) reports, “Americans, especially women and minorities, are drinking more alcohol amid a public health crisis that is being overshadowed by the opioid epidemic and the debate over legalizing marijuana,” researchers concluded. The study, which was conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), revealed “increased alcohol use, abuse and disorders in all US demographic groups, with higher instances among women, older adults, minorities and those with low levels of education and income.” The findings were published online Aug. 9 in JAMA Psychiatry.

According to Bloomberg News (8/9, Tozzi), “the number of adults who binge drink at least once a week could be as high as 30 million, greater than the population of every state save California,” the study revealed. The overall rise in alcohol consumption “is ‘startling,’ said” study lead author Bridget F. Grant, PhD, “a researcher at” the NIAAA. Grant added, “We haven’t seen these increases for three or four decades.”

MedPage Today (8/9, Boyles) reports that in arriving at the study’s conclusions, “Grant and colleagues compared data from two editions of the National Epidemiologic Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions – one covering 2001-2002 and the other 2012-2013 – which track alcohol consumption patterns to identify changes in 12-month alcohol use, 12-month high-risk drinking, and 12-month alcohol use disorder.” After examining the findings, Grant “noted that alcohol dependence is still widely stigmatized and undertreated in the United States, far more than other mental health disorders.”

Meanwhile, the author of an accompanying editorial observed that “proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health budget would be ‘potentially disastrous for future efforts to decrease alcohol problems.’” Funding for the study was provided by the NIAAA and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Also covering the story are Reuters (8/9, Seaman), TIME (8/9, Sifferlin), HealthDay (8/9, Preidt), and Healio (8/9, Miller).

Related Links:

— “Alcohol abuse in U.S. increasing as researchers warn of ‘public health crisis’,” Laura Kelly, Washington Times, August 9, 2017.

Reuters (8/8, Crist) reports, “About 61 percent of firearm owners in the US have received formal training in handling their guns, but only one in seven say it included prevention of suicide,” which is the primary cause of deaths from guns, researchers found after analyzing nearly 4,000 responses from a “web-based survey that included questions about firearm ownership, storage, training and use.” The findings were published online July 11 in the journal Injury Prevention.

Related Links:

— “Few U.S. gun owners get training that includes suicide prevention,” Carolyn Crist, Reuters, August 8, 2017.

The Los Angeles Times (8/7, Holland) reports in a piece focused on alleviating homelessness in greater Los Angeles that approximately “half of homeless people with severe mental illness also have problems with alcohol or drugs,” homelessness researcher Dennis Culhane, PhD, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has found. Substance use “does not cause severe mental illness,” however. Instead, “homeless people with untreated mental illness” use substances to medicate themselves to alleviate symptoms.

Related Links:

— “Q&A Mental illness and homelessness are connected. But not how you might think,” Gale Holland, Los Angeles Times, August 7, 2017.

Reuters (8/7, Rapaport) reports, “Middle-aged people with risk factors for heart attacks and stroke may be more likely to develop dementia in old age than people with healthy cardiovascular systems,” researchers concluded. The study revealed that smoking, diabetes, hypertension, and prehypertension were associated with “higher odds of dementia.”

HealthDay (8/7, Thompson) reports that “investigators tracked nearly 15,800 participants in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study,” which is “a US National Institutes of Health-funded project designed to track the effect of hardened arteries on people’s long-term health.” All participants were followed for about 25 years. The findings were published online Aug. 7 in JAMA Neurology. Healio (8/7, Miller) also covers the study.

Related Links:

— “Heart disease risk in middle age tied to dementia later,” Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, August 7, 2017.

Healio (8/4) reported, “Clozapine use in treatment-resistant schizophrenia was associated with lower all-cause mortality and self-harm rates,” researchers found after evaluating “a population-based cohort of 2,370 individuals with treatment-resistant schizophrenia from January 1996 until death, first episode of self-harm, emigration, or June 2013.” The findings were published online July 28 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Mortality, self-harm lower with clozapine use in schizophrenia,” Wimberley T, et al., Healio, August 4, 2017.