USA Today (12/3, Painter) reports that a study published online Dec. 2 in JAMA Psychiatry suggests that “young adults who watch a lot of TV and engage in very little exercise” may encounter problems with thinking in middle age. For the study, researchers “followed more than 3,000 people, starting at an average age of 25 and ending when they took cognitive tests 25 years later.”

The Los Angeles Times (12/3, Kaplan) “Science Now” blog reports that those individuals “who were most likely to get the lowest scores were the ones who watched the most television and the ones who got the least exercise when they were young adults,” with “extreme couch potatoes” having “the greatest risk of intellectual decline.”

Related Links:

— “Study: too much TV, too little exercise might dull young adult brains,” Kim Painter, USA Today, December 2, 2015.

Reuters (11/28, Doyle) reported a study published online Nov. 17 in the Journal of Adolescent Health suggests that Southern California high school students are increasingly using hookahs, e-cigarettes, and other alternative tobacco products, often at the same time. The study showed that around 10 percent of 11th and 12th graders used e-cigarettes or hookahs in the last 30 days.

Related Links:

— “Hookah and e-cigarettes popular with high schoolers,” Kathryn Doyle, Reuters, November 27, 2015.

HealthDay (11/25, Preidt) reported that new research from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) found that reported alcohol consumption in the previous 30 days among women rose from about “45 percent to more than 48 percent, while it fell among men, from slightly more than 57 percent to just over 56 percent.” The investigators analyzed data from 2002 to 2012 and found that “the average number of drinking days in the past month also increased among women, from 6.8 to 7.3 days, but fell among men, from 9.9 to 9.5 days.” The findings were published online Nov. 23 in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Related Links:

— “Women starting to match men’s drinking habits,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay via CBS News, November 25, 2015.

Medscape (11/27, Brauser) reports that a study suggests that “not only is major depression common in black patients, it’s also associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events.” The “analysis of more than 3000 participants from the Jackson Heart Study, which is comprised of black individuals from Jackson, Mississippi, showed that those with major depressive symptoms at baseline (22%) had almost twice the hazard of having a stroke or CHD up to 10 years later compared with those without depressive symptoms.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

The Washington Examiner (11/25) reports that officials with the Department of Veterans Affairs “spent millions of taxpayer dollars promoting the Affordable Care Act to veterans who didn’t even need the coverage, but have dedicated relatively few resources to helping veterans on the agency’s long waiting list get access to their benefits, internal documents show.” Internal reports obtained by the Washington Examiner show the VA spent $6.125 million on an outreach campaign for the ACA that ended last year. An August documents “indicates the VA sent 2.8 million Affordable Care Act ‘buddy’ letters in Aug. 2013.”

By comparison, in August of this year, “the VA sent just 10,000 letters warning combat veterans that their eligibility for health care benefits was about to expire.” According to the article, many veterans with pending applications for the VA system were never told they needed to turn in their discharge papers as proof of military service.

Related Links:

— “VA spends millions promoting Obamacare, little cutting wait times,” Srah Westwood, Washington Examiner, November 24, 2015.

Medscape (11/25, Brooks) reports that approximately “one in 10 children as young as age three years may have suicidal thoughts or suggestive behaviors, and these linger into middle childhood for three of four children, particularly for those with depression or externalizing disorders,” according to the findings of a 306-child study published in the November issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and funded by the National Institutes of Health. An editorial accompanying the study observed that “the numbers of children who express suicidal thoughts and engage in these behaviors are ‘larger than we might have guessed.’”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

Reuters (11/25, Kelland) reports that an intervention review published online Nov. 25 in the Cochrane Library calls attention to side effects of the stimulant medication methylphenidate for the treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) in children, such as lack of appetite and loss of sleep. The review also concludes that evidence on the use of the medicine in youngsters is of low quality. Researchers arrived at these conclusions after analyzing data from 185 studies encompassing some 12,000 children and teens in the UK, the US, and Canada.

Related Links:

— “Research raises questions over ADHD drug effects,” Kate Kelland, Reuters, November 24, 2015.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (11/24, Venteicher) reports that HR 2646, “a mental health reform proposal from US Rep. Tim Murphy [R-PA], would start to counter a 50-year trend of moving treatment to patients’ homes and communities, rather than hospitals.” The American Psychiatric Association supports the measure, “saying hospitalization and outpatient treatment can benefit people with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.” APA president Renee Binder, MD, “said hospitals are better equipped than community-based programs to stabilize someone having a mental health crisis.”

Related Links:

— “Mental health bill would allow doctors to inform families

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/healthnews/9481966-74/mental-bill-health#ixzz3uUhIuhWp
Follow us: @triblive on Twitter | triblive on Facebook,” Wes Venteicher, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, November 23, 2015.

NBC News (11/24, Fox) reports a study by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), using data from 2002 to 2012, found that US women are drinking more while men are drinking a little less. This is an “especially clear trend among college students.” NIAAA researcher Aaron White said, “Males still consume more alcohol, but the differences between men and women are more diminishing.” The percentage of women who had an alcoholic drink in the past 30 days increased from 45 to 48 percent, while the percentage of men decreased from 57.4 to 56 percent. The number of days women consumed alcohol also increased from 6.8 days to 7.3 days on average, while men drank on 9.5 days, down from 9.9 days a month.

The Connecticut Post (11/24, Cuda) adds that White and his team found that binge drinking by 18 to 25 year olds in college did not change during the decade, but “among 18 to 25 year olds not in college, there was a significant increase in binge drinking among females and a significant decrease among males, effectively narrowing the gender gap in binge drinking in this age group.” The NIAAA also found that among 18 to 25 year old male drinkers, the behavior of mixing alcohol with marijuana increased 15 to 19 percent, while the percentage among female drinkers remained at about 10 percent.

Researchers noted that the rates of alcohol use disorder and driving under the influence did not increase for women during the decade, LiveScience (11/24, Miller) reports. Medical Daily (11/24, Smith) says the study was published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Related Links:

— “Male, Female Drinking Habits Becoming More Similar: Study,” Maggie Fox, NBC News, November 23, 2015.

The Washington Post (11/24, Bernstein) reports that nearly four in 10 Americans “know someone who has been addicted to prescription painkillers, including 25 percent who say it was a close friend or family member and two percent who acknowledge their own addiction, according to a new poll” released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The survey also found that 16 percent of people say they know someone who has died from an opioid overdose. The Post adds that by “a margin of 77 percent to 58 percent, those polled say it is easy to get non-prescribed painkillers than say it is easy for people who medically need the drugs to get them.”

Bloomberg News (11/24, Tozzi) reports that the demographics of those “touched by the crisis skew white, higher-income, college-educated, younger, and male.” According to the article, overdoses “are eclipsing car crashes as a leading cause of accidental death for American adults.”

Related Links:

— “Four in 10 say they know someone who has been addicted to prescription painkillers,” Lenny Bernstein, Washington Post, November 24, 2015.