The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1/14, Munz) reported, “With the prevalence of mental illness and shortage of mental” healthcare professionals, both patients and “clinicians are increasingly interested in how mobile applications and social media can be used to help improve care.” As a result, the number of mental health apps is growing. A report recently issued by the IMS Institute of Healthcare Informatics found that almost a third of new health apps “are related to mental health – most addressing anxiety, depression, autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or Alzheimer’s.” The article listed a number of mental health apps currently available.

Related Links:

— “Treating and preventing mental illness through your smartphone,” Michele Munz, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 14, 2016.

The CBS News (1/15, Welch) website reports that a new study, “published online…in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, found that adult smokers who use e-cigarettes are actually 28 percent less likely to stop smoking cigarettes.” The study’s lead author wrote, “As currently being used, e-cigarettes are associated with significantly less quitting among smokers,” and the devices “should not be recommended as effective smoking cessation aids until there is evidence that, as promoted and used, they assist smoking cessation.”

HealthDay (1/15, Thompson) elaborates on the methods of the study, reporting that researchers “combined the results of 20 studies that had control groups of smokers not using e-cigarettes, comparing them to smokers who also use e-cigarettes to see which group quit tobacco more often.” They concluded that “the odds of quitting smoking were 28 percent lower in smokers who used e-cigarettes compared to those who did not.”

Related Links:

— “Study: E-cigarettes don’t help smokers quit,” Ashley welch, CBS News, January 14, 2016.

The Washington Post (1/15, Nutt) reports in “Health & Science” that mental health advocates “are divided over whether” gun control “proposals to ease the sharing of information with the FBI’s background-check system breach patient rights.” Two proposals in particular are causing concerns. The first “involves a new rule from the Department of Health and Human Services that makes it clear that health agencies and medical facilities can report the names of certain people without violating privacy laws.” The second is a White House push “to get the Social Security Administration to share with the FBI the names of mentally ill beneficiaries who do not manage their own affairs.” Some advocates claim such measures would “unfairly target” people with mental illnesses.

Related Links:

— “Are the mentally ill being unfairly targeted by the FBI’s gun list?,” Amy Ellis Nutt, Washington Post, January 14, 2016.

HealthDay (1/14, Preidt) reports, “Men with high levels of uric acid in their blood may be less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease,” a study published online Jan. 13 in Neurology suggests. After comparing “400 people in ongoing studies who developed Parkinson’s disease and more than 1,200 people in the same studies” who did not, researchers found that men with the highest urate levels “were nearly 40 percent less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease than those with the lowest levels.”

Related Links:

— “High Uric-Acid Levels, Lower Risk of Parkinson’s?,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, January 13, 2016.

Reuters (1/14, Rapaport) reports that a meta-analysis revealed the use of the antidepressant paroxetine (Paxil, Seroxat) early in pregnancy may be associated with an increased risk of giving birth to babies with congenital malformations. The findings were published online in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.

Related Links:

— “Paroxetine in early pregnancy once again linked to birth defects,” Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, January 13, 2016.

In a nearly 1,700-word article, National Journal (1/14, Askarinam, Subscription Publication) reports that about “forty percent of youth who needed mental health care between 2011-12 didn’t receive the necessary treatment, according to the Children’s Defense Fund’s 2014 State of America’s Children report.” That percentage is even higher among minorities and children “living in poverty.” Now, a new US Federal education law called the Every Student Succeeds Act may change that situation. The law “includes funding for schools to invest in the mental and behavioral health of their students,” authorizing “grants to the tune of $1.6 billion.”

Related Links:

— “Schools in Poor Areas Have More Students with Mental Health Needs,” Leah Askarinam, National Journal, January 13, 2016.

The New York Times (1/13, A11, Tavernise, Subscription Publication) reports that a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted 12 to 5 to recommend approval of “a new way of treating opioid addicts, using a slender rod implanted into the arm that delivers medicine for months at a time.” The device, “about the size of a small matchstick,” administers daily doses of buprenorphine for periods of six months.

USA Today (1/13, Szabo) reports that the device “has been shown to ease withdrawal symptoms, decrease cravings and cut the risk of relapse.”

Related Links:

— “Implant for Opioid Addicts Urged for Federal Approval,” Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, January12 , 2016.

MedPage Today (1/13, Jackson) reports that children “with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) faced a higher mortality risk through young adulthood compared with people without ASD,” a study published online Jan. 11 in JAMA Pediatrics reveals. The study of 1,912,904 Danish children “born from 1980 to 2010 who were followed through 2013” also suggests that “having both an ASD and the comorbid conditions of epilepsy or intellectual disability was associated with an increased risk of death that ranged from 2.6- to 7.6-fold higher than the general population.”

Related Links:

— “Autism Spectrum Kids Have Slightly Higher Death Risk,” Kay Jackson, MedPage Today, January 13, 2016.

The Los Angeles Times (1/13, Khan) reports in “Science Now” that “patients seeking and undergoing” bariatric surgery “were more likely to suffer from depression and binge-eating than the general population – but those with depression often saw their mental health improve after surgery,” the findings of a 68-study meta-analysis published Jan. 12 in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggest. The analysis reveals that “patients who were about to undergo bariatric surgery had rates of depression (19%) and binge-eating disorder (17%) that were both more than twice as high as they were in the general population (about 8% and 1% to 5%, respectively).”

Related Links:

— “Weight-loss surgery may reduce depression in some patients, study suggests,” Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times, January 12, 2016.

The Washington Post (1/11, Dennis) reports in “To Your Health” that prescription drug prices increased over 10% in 2015, according to an analysis released Monday by Truveris, “a health-care data company that tracks drug prices.” According to Truveris, prices for branded drugs increased 14.77%, specialty drug prices increased 9.21%, and generic drug prices rose 2.93%.

Related Links:

— “Prescription drug prices jumped more than 10 percent in 2015, analysis finds,” Brady Dennis, Washington Post, January 11, 2016.