The AP (6/1, Golen) reports, “Researchers are moving ahead with efforts to develop a diagnostic test for chronic traumatic encephalopathy – even without the NFL’s help.” Researchers gathered on Wednesday at the Boston University School of Medicine “for the start of a seven-year, $16 million research project designed to find a test for CTE and identify its risk factors.” The DIAGNOSE CTE project “had originally been set to receive money that the NFL earmarked for concussion research” but the league’s “complaints about Boston University researchers led the National Institutes of Health to pay for it with other funds.”

The Boston Globe (6/2, Lazar) reports that the DIAGNOSE CTE study “will be the largest to date of living former football players and includes 240 men ages 45 to 74.” Researchers “say findings from the seven-year study, paid for by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, might be used to help veterans with brain injuries and others who suffer repetitive head traumas.” The researchers “pledge to share their data monthly with researchers around the world.”

Related Links:

— “Can brain damage be found in retired football players?,” Kay Lazar, Boston Globe, June 1, 2016.

Medical Daily (5/31, Bushak) reports, “Maintaining a social media presence that depicts a lifestyle that revolves around drinking and partying may predict future drinking problems among college students,” the findings of a study published in the June issue of the Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives suggest.

In the study, which included 364 undergraduate students over the age of 18, researchers found that “a social media account that detailed a student’s drinking escapades was more closely correlated to alcoholism than simply having a drink.” The National Institutes of Health has found that “four in five college students drink alcohol, half of whom take part in binge-drinking,” Medical Daily adds.

Related Links:

— “Social Media Can Help Us Spot College Students With Potential For Drinking Problems,” Lecia Bushak, Medical Daily, May 31, 2016.

The Tampa Bay (FL) Times (5/30, Neuhaus) reports that research “published online in a journal produced by the American Psychiatric Association” suggests “the VA is up to 30 percent better at providing medication to veteran patients than the private sector is for its patients.” This “was largely due to the VA’s ability to provide a one-stop shop for timely medication to patients with appropriate follow-up care, like therapy and blood-level checks to ensure proper medication dosages.”

The Times points out that “Dr. Katherine Watkins, a primary author of the study at the RAND Corporation, said the study compared more than 830,000 veterans against 545,000 non-veterans.” The study “compared data from veterans and patients in the private sector who were being treated for five mental health disorders: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, PTSD, major depression and substance abuse disorders.”

Related Links:

— “Study finds that VA treats PTSD better than the private sector,” Les Neuhaus, Tampa Bay (FL) Times, May 30, 2016.

Reuters (5/26, Rapaport) reports that early puberty and breast development in girls in comparison to their peers may be tied to an increased risk of depression. The findings of the 5,800-child study were published online May 26 in Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Girls’ early puberty and breast development tied to depression,” Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, May 26, 2016.

HealthDay (5/26, Preidt) reports, “Heavy drinking may fuel the risk of suicide among men when the economy is sinking,” research published in the July issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests. Researchers arrived at the study’s conclusions after analyzing “data from 16 states to compare alcohol use between suicide victims and the general population in 2005-2007, during the 2008-2009 recession, and again in 2010-2011.”

Related Links:

— “Tough Economy, Alcohol Fuels Suicide Risk in Men: Study,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, May 26, 2016.

Medscape (5/26, Brooks) reports, “Depressed patients who attempt suicide four or more times have a higher risk of eventually dying by suicide compared with their depressed peers who have never attempted suicide or who have done so fewer times,” research suggests. The findings of the 683-patient study were presented at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting. Meanwhile, APA president and study coauthor Maria Oquendo, MD, said “physicians need to ‘readjust their view of the multiple suicide attempter as someone who is just trying to get attention.” She added, “One of the things I tell my students is, you really shouldn’t use the term ‘suicide gesture’ because it trivializes the behavior of that individual, and if you can help get them through their rough patch, you might just save a life.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

Reuters (5/25, Seaman) reports a study published online May 25 in JAMA Psychiatry suggests that the risk of suicide attempts made by enlisted soldiers in the US Army appears to vary over time.

The ABC News (5/25, Mohney) website reports that after examining “data from 163,178 enlisted soldiers,” researchers found that “enlisted soldiers, who had never been deployed, accounted for 61.1 percent of the enlisted soldiers who attempted suicide.” Soldiers among that group faced the “highest” risk for a “suicide attempt…when they reached their second month of service.” Soldiers who were deployed appeared to be “at highest risk six months into deployment.” And, among soldiers who had returned home from a previous deployment, “five months after getting back home was their highest risk time” for making a suicide attempt.

Related Links:

— “In U.S. Army, enlisted soldiers’ risk of suicide attempts varies over time,” Andrew W. Seaman, Reuters, May 25, 2016.

HealthDay (5/25, Reinberg) reports, “As early as first grade, severely obese children are getting teased, picked on and bullied more than normal-weight kids,” research published online May 25 in Child Development indicates. Researchers arrived at this conclusion after gathering “data on nearly 1,200 first graders from 29 rural schools in Oklahoma.”

Medical Daily (5/25, Bushak) reports that youngsters “in general, including non-obese kids, rarely mentioned obese children as being a favorite classmate or playmate compared to non-obese kids.” What’s more, kids who were “severely obese…were more likely to be teased or ostracized and to show symptoms of depression.” Children “who were severely obese had it worse than those who were simply overweight.”

Related Links:

— “‘Fat Shaming’ Begins in First Grade,” Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, May 25, 2016.

USA Today (5/24, Bowerman) reports that “letting a baby cry it out, or cry until the child drifts off to sleep, does not cause long-term emotional or behavioral harm,” the findings of a study published online May 24 in Pediatrics suggest. After testing “the controversial sleep method of crying it out, and another commonly used sleep method on a group of 43 infants spanning from six months to 16 months,” investigators learned that babies “whose parents used ‘graduated extinction,’ or those who allowed their child to cry for increasingly long periods of time, were no more stressed than babies whose parents used bedtime fading, or the technique of moving bedtime later in hope that the child will fall asleep more quickly.”

In the New York Times (5/24) “Well” blog, Perri Klass, MD, writes that while graduated extinction and bedtime fading both “decreased the time it took children to fall asleep and graduated extinction reduced night wakings,” there is no seeming evidence that “you do harm by deciding to forgo ‘sleep training’ and waiting for the child to outgrow the night waking – as long as that doesn’t damage your marriage or your mental health.”

Related Links:

— “Study: Letting baby ‘cry it out’ won’t cause damage,” Mary Bowerman, USA Today, May 27, 2016.

The Wall Street Journal (5/23, Reddy, Subscription Publication) reports that two studies published in JAMA Psychiatry suggest that people who are diagnosed with AD/HD as adults may have a condition that is different than the AD/HD diagnosed in kids.

Reuters (5/23, Rapaport) says that one study included approximately 5,200 people, while the other study looked at more than 2,000 twins.

Related Links:

— “Can Adults Get a Different Kind of ADHD?,” Sumathi Reddy, Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2016.