The Connecticut Mirror (9/25, Radelat) introduces the alarming trend of veteran suicide through personal stories. The article goes on to cite 22 national veteran suicides daily, with concerns of under-reporting due to stigmatization. Though Connecticut has one of the lowest rates at 28.8 per 100,000, compared to the national rate of 35.9, its veterans still commit suicide twice as frequently as non-veterans.

The article cites criticisms of VA healthcare, including mental healthcare’s wait times and the cycling of counselors. A VA audit in May found average wait times of four days at West Haven, 28 days at Waterbury, and 33 at Winsted. Maureen Pasko, suicide prevention coordinator with the West Haven VA hospital, said caregivers “only capture 50% of what is going.”

The article closes citing complaints of other suicide victims’ families and calls for overhaul of the VA healthcare system.

Related Links:

— “SUICIDE BY VETERANS REMAINS A DAUNTING PROBLEM AS VA STRUGGLES TO IMPROVE CARE,” Ana Radelat, Connecticut Mirror, September 24, 2014.

The Los Angeles Times (9/25, Healy) “Science Now” blog reports that according to a study published online Sept. 24 in the journal Neurology, “after the age of 60, ‘cognitive complainers’ – people who say they have noticed mental slippage – are more likely than those who do not complain of such changes to develop mild cognitive impairment, and to have Alzheimer’s-like plaques and tangles in their brains upon death even when dementia was never diagnosed.”

Related Links:

— “Cognitive complaints in the elderly are often dementia harbingers,” Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, September 24, 2014.

USA Today (9/23, Penzenstadler) reports that police agencies across the country, in embracing the Memphis Model, which “aims to de-escalate and divert people suffering a mental health crisis to services instead of jail,” are now facing “full hospitals and a shortage of psychiatric resources.”

Michele Saunders, the crisis intervention team coordinator for the state of Florida, says that in some ways this is a “good problem” because “a greater number get diverted from jail, and that increases the number into the treatment system.”

Related Links:

— “Police crisis system taxes psychiatric resources,” Nick Penzenstadler, USA Today, September 23, 2014.

NPR (9/22, Neighmond) reports in a radio report and in its “Shots” blog that chronic stress, either from major events or even minor issues such as fretting while stuck in traffic, can be “deadly,” citing a study that followed 1,293 men for years. The study, which is scheduled for publication in the journal Experimental Gerontology, found that the “most stressed-out people have the highest risk of premature death.”

The blog post highlights a couple of solutions for “chronically upset worriers,” pointing out that exercise and meditation could help alleviate stress.

Related Links:

— “Best To Not Sweat The Small Stuff, Because It Could Kill You,” Patti Neighmond, National Public Radio, September 22, 2014.

On its website, CBS News (9/22, Firger, Augenbraun) reported on the experiences of mothers whose children have severe mental illnesses. One of the mothers interviewed believes that “the mental health care system must move away from a symptom-based approach to treating mental illness often results in a wrong diagnosis or a succession of inadequate treatment efforts,” which is a “view…shared by Dr. Tom Insel, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), who explains that ‘symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment.’”

In his blog on NIMH’s website, Dr. Insel wrote that the healthcare “system must get better at diagnosing and treating mental illness based on the latest research into its underlying biological causes.”

Related Links:

— ““Every mom’s worst nightmare”: Coping with a child’s mental illness,” Jessica Firger and Eliene Augenbraun, CBS News, September 22, 2014.

The Hill (9/23, Viebeck) reports that Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced $100 million in grant funding for “mental health services for young people, nearly two years after a school shooting in Newtown, Conn. prompted a national debate on the issue.” Burwell noted the funds will be used for several related purposes, saying, “The administration is committed to increasing access to mental health services to protect the health of children and communities.”

Related Links:

— “New mental health grants announced post-Newtown,” Elise Viebeck, The Hill, September 22, 2014.

The Fox News (9/22) reported that a study published online Sept. 22 in the American Journal of Epidemiology “examined the relationship between maternal iron intake and having a child with autism-spectrum disorder.” Researchers “found a five-fold greater risk of autism…associated with low iron intake – by way of supplements – if the mother was age 35 or older at the time of the child’s birth, or if she suffered from metabolic conditions such as obesity, hypertension or diabetes.”

HealthDay (9/23, Gray) points out that the study, which “included 520 pairs of mothers and children with autism and 346 pairs of mothers and typically developing children,” merely “showed an association between low iron intake and the development of autism spectrum disorder,” but “it didn’t prove cause and effect.”

Related Links:

— “Could Low Iron Intake During Pregnancy Raise Autism Risk?,” Barbara Bronson Gray, HealthDay, September 22, 2014.

As part of its documentary series called Retro Report, which looks back at major stories that “shaped” the world, the New York Times (9/22, Haberman, Subscription Publication) explores, along with a video, “the enormous influence, both chemical and cultural,” that antidepressant Prozac (Fluoxetine HCl) “and its brethren have had in treating depression.” The concern gained “new resonance with the recent suicide of the comedian Robin Williams,” the piece notes.

The piece examines how Eli Lilly’s medication in the late 1980s and the 90s “was widely viewed as a miracle pill,” but over the years “backlash” developed due to concerns of potentially increased suicide risk in some, although no “definite” link was established. The Times wonders “whether the medical establishment, and perhaps society in general, has gone too far in turning normal conditions, like sadness, into pathologies.”

Related Links:

— “Selling Prozac as the Life-Enhancing Cure for Mental Woes,” Clyde Haberman, New York Times, September 21, 2014.

Although “some states have moved to curb long-term ‘solitary confinement’ in prisons, where research shows it can drive those with mental illnesses further over the edge,” little has been done to address the issue “in the country’s 3,300 local jails,” the AP (9/21, Geller) reported. The time that jail inmates spend in “lockdown” is usually “limited,” but those “with serious mental illnesses are more likely to break rules and stay jailed longer,” which increases the risk of “additional psychological damage.”

Related Links:

— “,” Adam Geller, Associated Press, September 22, 2014.

Reuters (9/18, Seaman) reports a new study published in JAMA has found that women exhibiting symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are more likely to be addicted to food than women without the disorder. The study does not state that PTSD is the cause of food addiction but may help explain a link between experienced trauma and obesity.

HealthDay (9/18, Dotinga) reports the study found women with PTSD are “almost three times more likely to develop an addiction to food.” The researchers came to this conclusion after examining “the results of Nurses’ Health Study II surveys of more than 49,400 female nurses in the United States in 2008 and 2009.”

Related Links:

— “PTSD symptoms tied to food addiction in women: study,” Andrew Seaman, Reuters, September 17, 2014.