The Washington Post (3/31, Gregg) reported, “Johns Hopkins University has pulled out” of a study to test whether marijuana can “treat post-traumatic stress disorder.” A spokeswoman for Johns Hopkins “said the university’s goals were no longer aligned with those of the administrator of the study, the Santa Cruz-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS),” while “a spokesman for MAPS said the dispute was over federal drug policy, and whether to openly challenge federal rules that say medical cannabis research must rely on marijuana grown by the federal National Institute on Drug Abuse.”

Related Links:

— “Johns Hopkins was ready to test pot as a treatment for PTSD. Then it quit the study.,” Aaron Gregg, Washington Post, April 2, 2017.

HealthDay (3/31, Preidt) reported, “Adults who self-harm appear to be at increased risk for suicide over the next year,” researchers found after examining “Medicaid data on more than 62,000 people in 45 states diagnosed with an initial self-harm episode between 2001 and 2007.” The findings were published online March 21 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Self-Harm Can Be a Harbinger of Suicide,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, April , 2017.

Medscape (3/30, Anderson) reports a panel of experts has “released a new report [pdf] containing recommendations to rectify the severe shortage of psychiatrists and the dearth of mental health services in the” US. Contained in the report are “a wide-ranging set of recommendations that touch on every area of the specialty, including training, funding, and models of care delivery.” American Psychiatric Association (APA) CEO and Medical Director Saul M. Levin, MD, joined the report’s lead authors to discuss “the report’s recommendations at a press briefing on March 28.” The experts “recommended new and advanced forms of treatment, such as collaborative care and telepsychiatry. ‘We should all be advocating for new, innovative models of care, such as telepsychiatry, which can increase access to specialty psychiatric services across the country,’ said Dr Levin.” The APA now “has a toolkit to help educate psychiatrists and other healthcare” professionals “on how to practice telepsychiatry, said Dr Levin.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

Reuters (3/30, Kelland) reports, “Depression is now the leading cause of ill health and disability worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO)” announced on March 30, “with more than 300 million people suffering” from the disorder. In fact, “rates of depression have risen by more than 18 percent since 2005, but a lack of support for the mental health combined with a common fear of stigma means many do not get the treatment they need to live healthy, productive lives.” The organization is now “running a mental health campaign to tackle stigma and misconceptions called ‘Depression: Let’s Talk.’”

The New York Daily News (3/30, Jagannathan) reports the WHO campaign “urges sufferers to both seek and get help for depression.” Currently, the WHO “estimates depression and anxiety fuel a global loss of roughly $1 trillion associated with lost productivity, people being unable to work and health care expenses…said” Dr. Shekhar Saxena, director of the WHO’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse. Even in countries with higher incomes and “advanced health care systems,” almost “half of people suffering from depression aren’t properly identified or treated.”

Related Links:

— “‘Let’s Talk’, WHO says, as depression rates rise 18 percent in a decade,” Kate Kelland, Reuters, March 30, 2017.

The Philadelphia (PA) Inquirer (3/29, Giordano) reports, “Women who suffered multiple traumatic events as they were growing up are at significant risk of serious depression beginning in the years leading into menopause,” researchers found.
HealthDay (3/29, Preidt) reports investigators arrived at these conclusions after following some 250 women for “16 years.” The findings were published online March 29 in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Study: Girlhood trauma linked to depression in menopause,” Rita Giordano, Philadelphia Inquirer, March 29, 2017.

Reuters (3/29, Reaney) reports that “heroin use in the United States has risen five-fold” over the past 10 years, while heroin addiction “has more than tripled, with the biggest jumps among whites and men with low incomes and little education,” researchers say. They found “no differences in heroin use or addiction among the major regions of the country.” Their findings were published online in JAMA Psychiatry.

CNN (3/29, Kounang) reports that “more people die from drug overdoses than from guns or car accidents.” Now, more people die of drug overdoses than died from AIDS during the “peak” of the epidemic in 1995.

TIME (3/29, Sifferlin) reports that heroin use increased among white Americans “increased from 0.34% in the earlier years to 1.90% in the later years,” compared to “0.32% in 2001-2002 and 1.05% in 2012-2013” among non-whites.

Related Links:

— “Heroin use, addiction up sharply among U.S. whites: study,” Patricia Reaney, Reuters, March 29, 2017.

USA Today (3/29, O’Donnell) reports “premature deaths among those aged 25-44 were way up in 2015,” driven primarily by “a surge of drug overdoses in suburban areas,” a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation revealed Wednesday. The report also found “a rural and urban divide, along with racial differences.”

Related Links:

— “Ranking of healthiest counties revealed as suburban overdoses soar,” Jayne O’Donnell, Frank Gluck and Darla Carter, USA Today, March 29, 2017.

The Washington Post (3/28, Dennis) reports that research (3/28) published in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicated kids “with elevated blood-lead levels at age 11 ended up as adults with lower cognitive function and lower-status occupations than their parents.”

TIME (3/28, Sifferlin) reports that for the study, investigators “followed 565 people in New Zealand who were part of a study of people born between 1972 and 1973.” Study participants “had their blood lead levels measured when they were 11 years old, and the researchers followed up with blood tests about decades later, when they were 38.”

Reuters (3/28, Rapaport) reports that study “participants with childhood blood lead levels above 10 micrograms/dl had average adult IQ test scores 4.25 points lower than their peers with lower blood lead levels.” The investigators, “after accounting for factors that can influence adult IQ and earnings such as childhood IQ and socioeconomic status as well as mothers’ IQ…still found that higher lead levels in childhood were” linked to “downward social mobility.”

Related Links:

— “Lead exposure alters the trajectory of children’s lives decades later, study finds,” Brady Dennis, Washington Post, March 28, 2017.

The AP (3/28) reports researchers in California, Maryland, and New Mexico “are working with public school nurses” to curb suicide rates among LGBT teenagers “by making school grounds safer.” The article reports that suicide rates “are three to four times higher for lesbian, gay and transgender students than their peers.”

Related Links:

— “Project aims to help school nurses tackle suicide rates,” Associated Press, Washington Times, March 28, 2017.

In “Science Now,” the Los Angeles Times (3/27, Kaplan) reports, “The longer a mother nurses – and the longer she does so exclusively – the bigger the benefits,” research indicates. One “perceived benefit of breastfeeding is the possibility that it boosts a baby’s brain.”

CNN (3/27, Kounang) reports a study published in Pediatrics, however, indicates “breastfeeding has little impact on long-term cognitive development and behavior.” Researchers arrived at this conclusion after following “7,478 Irish children born full term, from the time they were nine months old,” then evaluating them “at three years and again at five years of age.”

Related Links:

— “For babies, breastfeeding is still best, even if it doesn’t make them smarter (though it might),” Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2017.