The Los Angeles Times (3/19, Healy) “Science Now” blog reports that a study published online March 18 in the journal Neurology “distills a way for physicians and their patients, in the course of a regular office visit, to measure an individual’s risk of developing mild cognitive impairment, or MCI.” The study found that “in a population of 1,449 Minnesotans 70 to 89 years old, the resulting algorithm helped identify individuals whose scores were in the top 25% and who were more than seven times more likely to develop MCI than those in the bottom quartile of risk.” An accompanying editorial by Alzheimer’s researcher Dr. Timo Grimmer and cognitive neuroscientist Alan B. Zonderman, of the National Institutes of Health, “said the study offers physicians and their patients some key guidance on how to lower risk of dementia, starting in midlife: for women, avoid or stop smoking, and for men, stay trim.”

Related Links:

— “Measuring dementia risk: Now there’s a number for that, too,”Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, March 18, 2015.

Reuters (3/17, Hirschler) reported on a venture capital fund, the Global Dementia Discovery Fund, established to research novel ways to prevent and treat dementia. The fund, which has the backing of the UK government and some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, including GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Pfizer and Biogen Idec, has so far raised $100 million. The fund is the first of its kind to support dementia research. The AP (3/18, Johnson) and the Telegraph (UK) (3/18, Roland) also report on the story.

Related Links:

— “Dementia drug research aided by $100 million venture capital fund,”Ben Hirschler, Reuters, March 17, 2015.

The CBS News (3/18, Firger) website reports that a study published online March 16 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine compares “suicide rates in the workplace to those outside the job,” finding that “between 2003 and 2010, 1,719 people in the US committed suicide at work.” In that same time frame, “a total of 207,500 committed suicide outside the workplace.”

Newsweek (3/17, Kutner) reported that investigators “with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, used federal occupational injury databases to determine the rate at which people died by suicide while at their places of work, between 2003 and 2010.”

Related Links:

— “Suicide in the workplace: Which professions are high risk?,”Jessica Firger, The CBS News, March 17, 2015.

The New York Times (3/17, D3, Carey, Subscription Publication) reports that research published online March 13 in the journal Psychological Science suggests that “elements of social judgment and short-term memory, important pieces of the cognitive puzzle, may peak later in life than previously thought.” The study, which gathered information from 48,537 participants, also found that “an older brain…moves more slowly than its younger self, but is just as accurate in many areas and more adept at reading others’ moods — on top of being more knowledgeable.”

Related Links:

— “Older Really Can Mean Wiser,”Benedict Carey, The New York Times, March 16, 2015.

The New York Times (3/17, Parker-Pope) reports in its “Well” blog that research published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science reveals “just how bad loneliness and social isolation, even for people who prefer their own company, can be for health.” After analyzing “data collected from 70 studies and more than 3.4 million people from 1980 to 2014,” researchers found that “people who were socially isolated, lonely or living alone had about a 30 percent higher chance of dying during a given study period than those who had regular social contact.” In addition, “the effect was greater for younger people than for those over 65,” the study found.

Related Links:

— “The Toll of a Solitary Life,”Tara Parker-Pope, The New York Times, March 16, 2015.

The Boston Globe (3/17, Rocheleau) reports that “the rate of student suicide at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology continues to be notably higher than the national average for college campuses.” Over the past 10 years, “the university’s student suicide rate has been 10.2 per 100,000 students, according to a Globe review of public records as well as university and media reports,” compared to the US “national average for college campuses” of “roughly between 6.5 and 7.5 suicides per 100,000 students.”

Related Links:

— “Suicide rate at MIT higher than national average,”Matt Rocheleau, The Boston Globe, March 17, 2015.

The Salt Lake (UT) Tribune (3/17, McDonald) reports that “treating depression may be just as important for your heart as taking care of high cholesterol,” according to a study conducted by researchers at Intermountain Healthcare. Researchers arrived at that conclusion after analyzing “patient records and rates of death, coronary artery disease and stroke for more than 26,000 patients treated by Intermountain over a three-year period,” then comparing data “to records for 5,311 patients identified as having moderate to severe depression based on a nine-question depression screening, which assessed factors such as mood, sleep and appetite.”

Related Links:

— “Utah study: Treating your depression helps your heart,”Amy McDonald, The Salt Lake Tribune, March 17, 2015.

The Boston Globe (3/14, Weintraub) reported that research published online March 4 in the journal Heart indicated that “men who were anxious in their late teens were twice as likely to die from heart attacks four decades later.” The study, which involved 237,980 men, “confirms that anxiety can have lasting health effects and that people who are naturally high strung have to try harder than most to make themselves resilient to stress, said Scott Montgomery, the study’s lead author.”

Related Links:

— “High-stress teens beware of later heart ills,”Karen Weintraub, The Boston Globe, March 13, 2015.

The Baltimore Sun (3/13) reported that a recent study published last month in the journal Neurobiology of Disease “adds to growing evidence linking football with brain damage.” Results of the study, in which Johns Hopkins researchers examined retired NFL players, “add to a growing body of research and anecdotal accounts associating brain disease with the blows to the head that are a common part of football and other sports.”

Related Links:

— “Imaging study looks at brain injury in former NFL players,”Arthur Hirsch, The Baltimore Sun, March 13, 2015.

US News & World Report (3/14, Wang) reported that “one in four adults – approximately 61 million Americans – experiences mental illness every year, according to a study by National Alliance on Mental Illness,” and many of these people are in the workforce. Now, “some leaders in the corporate world have…adopted emotional health of their employees as a priority,” helping employees to reach their full potential. Such programs pay off in increased productivity, decreased absenteeism “and other indirect costs.” But, despite such progress, “the most challenging part of mental health issue in the corporate world is still getting rid of the stigma, said Clare Miller, director of partnership for Workplace Mental Health at American Psychiatric Foundation,” the educational and philanthropic arm of the American Psychiatric Association. Miller stated, “If you are an employer and are educating the employees about mental health, you are really sending out that message that it’s okay to reach out for help.”

Related Links:

— “Mental Health: A New Priority in Corporate America,”Nancy Wang, US News & World Report , March 13, 2015.