Category Archives: In The News

Suicides Among Active-Duty Service Members Holding Steady For Third Year In A Row

The Military Times (12/18, Kime) reports that for the third year in a row, “suicides among active-duty members have remained relatively steady, which Pentagon officials say could indicate that suicide-awareness and -prevention programs are hitting their mark.” Data released by the Defense Department indicate that “275 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines took their own lives this year as of Dec. 15 – two more than in 2014 and 22 more than in 2013.” Still, “the relatively steady pattern following a peak of 321 in 2012 is encouraging news, Defense Suicide Prevention Office director Keita Franklin said in a Dec. 15 interview.”

Related Links:

— “Military suicides hold steady in 2015,” Patricia Kime, Military Times, December 17, 2015.

Psychotherapy May Be Effective In Easing IBD Symptoms, Review Indicates

According to the New York Times (12/31, Bakalar) “Well” blog, a review published online Dec. 22 in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology suggests that psychotherapy may be “effective in easing the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome…even after therapy has ended.” After examining “data from 41 clinical trials that included 1,183 people assigned to psychotherapy and 1,107 controls,” investigators found that one year “after the end of treatment, 75 percent of the treatment group had greater symptom relief than the average member of the control group, although the benefits were modest.”

Related Links:

— “Psychotherapy May Have Lasting Benefits for Irritable Bowel Syndrome,” Nikolas Bakalar, New York Times, December , 2015.30

Teens’ Brains May Make Them More Susceptible To Addiction, Small Study Indicates

Reuters (12/31, Rapaport) reports that a small magnetic resonance imaging study published online Dec. 8 in the Journal of Adolescent Health revealed that teenage participants who identified themselves as smokers had heightened responses in dopamine-rich brain regions after watching videos of actors smoking. According to the study authors, the maturing teenage dopamine system causes the brain as a whole to react more significantly to rewards and thrills, which may render adolescents more susceptible to addiction.

Related Links:

— “Teen smokers may be hard-wired to crave cigarettes,” Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, December 30, 2015.

Many Patients Who Overdose On Opioids Continue To Get The Medications, Study Finds

The Los Angeles Times (12/29, Kaplan) reports in “Science Now” that “even after overdosing on opioid medications, more than nine out of 10 patients continued to get prescriptions for the powerful” pain medicines, a study published online Dec. 29 in the Annals of Internal Medicine indicated. Consequently, some patients “went on to suffer another overdose,” the study of 2,848 opioid overdose patients found.

The CBS News (12/29, Marcus) website reports that “seventy percent received prescriptions from the same” healthcare professional “who prescribed opioids before their first overdose.” The study “only included patients on private insurance and did not take into account those on Medicare and Medicaid who might also be vulnerable to opioid overdoses, said” lead author Marc LaRochelle, MD. The research “was primarily of patients prescribed the powerful” medications “for musculoskeletal pain – such as lower back or knee pain, for example – not cancer patients.”

Related Links:

— “More than 90% of people who overdosed on prescription painkillers can still get refills, study says,” Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times, December 28, 2015.

CDC Studies Outbreak Of Gun Violence In Wilmington, Delaware

The New York Times (12/25, A20, Bidgood, Subscription Publication) reported on a study by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on an outbreak of gun violence in Wilmington, DE. The Times said that shootings had gone up 45% between 2011 and 2013 and have remained stubbornly high.

The Times pointed out that researchers have called the study “a fairly rare look at gun violence by an agency that they say has been effectively limited for nearly two decades in pursuing that line of inquiry by its congressional appropriation.” The study concluded, “The majority of individuals involved in urban firearm violence are young men with substantial violence involvement preceding the more serious offense of a firearm crime.”

Related Links:

— “When Gun Violence Felt Like a Disease, a City in Delaware Turned to the C.D.C.,” Jesse Bidgood, , December 24, 2015.

CDC Data Reveal Where Americans Kill Each Other Most Often

The Washington Post (12/24, Ingraham) “Wonkblog” reported that according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “the risk of being killed by another person is lowest in New England and the upper Midwest, and highest in the deep South, particularly Mississippi and Louisiana.” The Post pointed out that Louisiana’s age-adjusted homicide rate of 11.67 per 100,000 people and Mississippi is a close second, at 11.41.

The Post also explained that the District of Columbia’s homicide rate is 13.67 deaths per 100,000 but that “comparing it to the more geographically diverse states isn’t very meaningful.” The Post wrote that “the homicide rate in Louisiana is a whopping nine times higher than the rate in New Hampshire, the state with the lowest homicide rate.”

Related Links:

— “Where Americans are most likely to kill each other,” Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post, December 23, 2015.

Kids in Single Parent And In Step Families 3x Prone to Mental Health Problems

The Telegraph (UK) (12/27, Donnelly) reported that “a major study” conducted by University College London researchers suggests that youngsters “brought up by single parents and in step families are three times as likely to suffer from mental health problems.” The study, which included some “10,000 children, found that those brought up by both natural parents are far less likely to suffer severe emotional and behavioural problems.”

Related Links:

— “Children brought up by both parents far less likely to suffer mental ill-health,” Laura Donnelly, The Telegraph (UK), December 26, 2015.

NFL Under Fire For Reportedly Withholding Funding For NIH Concussion Study

ABC World News (12/22, story 13, 0:25, Muir) reported that the NFL is “under fire” for “withholding $16 million from researchers investigating football-related head trauma.” The NFL was funding the study, which is being conducted by the National Institutes of Health, but the league was “reportedly critical of the doctor leading the project.” NFL officials are “disputing the report.”

The Washington Post (12/23, Larimer) reports on the ESPN “Outside the Lines” story, which claimed that the NFL “‘backed out’ of the planned seven-year, $16 million research project to attempt to diagnose chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in living patients.” The study was originally “to have been paid for by a $30 million grant from the NFL made to the National Institutes of Health in 2012.” However, “the NIH will fund the study itself, according to a Tuesday morning news release.”

The New York Times (12/23, B9, Belson, Subscription Publication) reports that the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke awarded the grant “as part of a long-term study of brain disease in former NFL and college football players, many of whom sustained multiple concussions on the field,” but the NFL “did not help pay for the grant.”

Related Links:

— “NFL disputes ESPN report on brain study funding; NIH says no NFL veto,” Sarah Larimar, Washington Post, December 22, 2015.

NIDA Researcher: Synthetic Marijuana “The Emerging Face Of Drug Abuse”

PBS NewsHour (12/23) correspondent William Brangham sat down with National Institute on Drug Abuse toxicologist Dr. Marilyn Huestis, among others, to discuss the “rise of the drug synthetic marijuana, commonly known as Spice or K2.” In the interview, Dr. Huestis predicted that synthetic marijuana will be “the emerging face of drug abuse for the future,” adding that some of the new drugs that come out are “very potent, up to 100 times as potent as cannabis.” She is studying the chemical composition of synthetic drugs in her lab and notes the challenges of identifying the “ever-changing cocktail of chemicals.”

Related Links:

— “What’s in that synthetic drug? An unknown grab-bag of toxic chemicals,” William Brangham, PBS NewsHour, December 22, 2015.