STAT (7/24, Thielking) reports research indicates that “a supportive manager might help employees with depression miss fewer days on the job.” After examining “survey data from 16,000 employees and managers in 15 countries, including the U.S.,” researchers “found that workplaces where managers support and help employees with depression have lower rates of missed days on the job due to depression.” Such “support can come in the form of a formal policy, a referral system for care, or transitional support to help employees take time off work for mental health reasons and then return to their roles.” The findings were published online July 23 in BMJ Open. HealthDay (7/24, Preidt) also covers the story.

Related Links:

— “Employees with depression miss fewer days when managers are supportive, study finds, “Megan Thielking, STAT, July 24, 2018.

HealthDay (7/23, Gordon) reports researchers concluded that women may be underdiagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease while men may be overdiagnosed with the condition, because many tests used to diagnose the condition rely on verbal memory, which women tend to be better at. The findings were presented at the Alzheimer’s Association annual meeting.

Related Links:

— “Why Alzheimer’s May Be Tougher to Spot in Women, “Serena Gordon, HealthDay, July 23, 2018.

Reuters (7/23, Rapaport) reports that research suggests “fathers of young children may be almost as likely as new mothers to experience symptoms of depression.”

Medscape (7/23, MacReady, Subscription Publication) reports that investigators found that “of the fathers screened in a large, population-based cohort, 4.4% had a positive result for depression, which is similar to the percentage of mothers who screened positive, at 5.0%.” The findings were published online in JAMA Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “New dads need depression screening, too,”Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, July 23, 2018.

MedPage Today (7/20, Monaco) reported, “Depression during pregnancy for mothers was tied to several adverse outcomes for the baby,” research indicated. The study revealed that “compared with mothers who did not have depression, those who were diagnosed with major depressive disorder during pregnancy had several raised inflammatory and cortisol biomarkers in their third trimester.” What’s more, “children exposed to depression in utero had adverse effects on neurobehavioral functioning as early as six days postnatal” and were less able to handle stress as evidenced by “higher cortisol responses” over time. The findings of the 106-woman study were published online July 19 in Psychoneuroendocrinology.

Related Links:

— “Offspring Feel Effects of Maternal Depression After Birth,”Kristen Monaco, MedPage Today, July 20, 2018.

The NBC News (7/20, Scher) website reported, “A new study shows that removing trash and adding trees to empty lots helped people feel happier and reduced symptoms of depression.”

According to TIME (7/20, Ducharme), research published online July 20 in JAMA Network Open “found an association between urban restoration efforts in Philadelphia and the mental health of city residents.” Included in the study were “442 adults.” Also covering the story were HealthDay (7/20, Preidt) and MedPage Today (7/20, Hlavinka).

Related Links:

— “Clean, green public spaces make us happier, study finds, “Avichai Scher, The NBC News, July 20, 2018.

HealthDay (7/22, Preidt) reports researchers found that survival times following the diagnosis of dementia was similar for “patients of all ages,” but “varied depending on the type of dementia: 6.4 years for frontotemporal lobe degeneration; 6.2 years for Alzheimer’s disease; 5.7 years for vascular dementia; 5.1 years for dementia with Lewy bodies; and 3.6 years for rarer causes of dementia.” The findings were presented at the Alzheimer’s Association annual meeting.

Related Links:

— “Life Is Short After Dementia Diagnosis, No Matter Your Age, ” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, July 22, 2018.

Healio (7/19, Demko) reports that “heightened performance monitoring evident in early childhood was associated with the onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder during adolescence and smaller right dorsal anterior cingulate cortex volume,” researchers concluded in a 292-child study that also involved magnetic resonance imaging among some of the participants. The findings were published online July 18 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Heightened performance monitoring in early childhood linked to OCD,”Savannah Demko, Healio, July 19, 2018.

USA Today (7/18, Pitofsky) reports, “The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline saw calls double from 2014 to 2017, an increase that coincides with rising” US suicide rates. Last year, “the lifeline answered more than two million calls…up from one million calls in 2014, according to its latest figures.” Figures released June 7 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal a 25 percent increase in suicide rates “from 1999 to 2016.”

Related Links:

— “‘Like a busy emergency room’: Calls to suicide crisis centers double since 2014, “Marina Pitofsky, USA Today , July 18, 2018.

The New York Post (7/18, Wooller) reports researchers found that “nitrates used to cure” meats may increase the risk of mania. The researchers found that “people who ended up in the hospital diagnosed with mania were 3.5 times more likely to regularly eat nitrate-cured meats, compared to people with no history of serious psychiatric disorders.” The findings were published online July 18 in Molecular Psychiatry.

MedPage Today (7/18, Monaco) reports that included in the study were “1,101 individuals with or without a history of psychiatric illness.” In addition, rats were also studied.

Also covering the story are Newsweek (7/18, Gander) and HealthDay (7/18, Preidt).

Related Links:

— “Nitrate-Cured Meats Linked to Manic Episodes, “Kristen Monaco, MedPage Today , July 18, 2018.

TIME (7/17, Park) reports Bill Gates has pledged to dedicate funding to an award of “more than $30 million to the Diagnostics Accelerator, a project with the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF), that will focus on creating new strategies for diagnosing” Alzheimer’s disease. Gates said the goal is to spur “developments of a ‘real product for real patients’ by the medical community.”

Medscape (7/17, Brooks, Subscription Publication) reports Gates is joined by Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) co-founder Leonard Lauder and “other philanthropists, including the Dolby family and the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation.” The coalition aims to “develop novel biomarkers” for an Alzheimer’s disease and dementia diagnostic test.

Reuters (7/17, Steenhuysen) reports the investment will be awarded over three years, and Gates’ pledge “follows an announcement in November of [his] personal investment of $50 million in the Dementia Discovery Fund.” Reuters notes that the US FDA “has said that it would consider Alzheimer’s drug trials based on biological markers rather than clinical symptoms, paving the way for drugs to be tested far earlier in the disease process.”

Forbes (7/17, Tindera) and a Bloomberg News (7/17) online video also offer coverage.

Related Links:

— “It’s Nearly Impossible to Diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease in Living People. Bill Gates Wants to Change That, “Alicia Park, TIME Health., July 17, 2018.