MLive (9/8, Allen) reports, “Daily marijuana use among college students is the highest it’s been in more than three decades, and 51 percent of all full-time college students have admitted to smoking pot at some point in their lives.” The Monitoring the Future (MTF) study found that “illicit drug use has been rising gradually among American college students since 2006, when 34 percent indicated that they used some illicit drug in the prior year.” The “long-term MTF study…also tracks substance use among the nation’s secondary students and older adults under research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.”

Related Links:

— “Regular marijuana use among college students at a three-decade high, survey says,” Jeremy Allen, MLive, September 8, 2014.

HealthDay (9/9, Dotinga) reports that according to a study published online Sept. 8 in the journal Pediatrics, children “who were bullied by siblings were more than twice as likely to report depression or self-harm at age 18 as those who weren’t bullied by siblings.” Additionally, these youngsters were “nearly twice as likely to report anxiety as they entered adulthood.”

Researchers arrived at these conclusions after having “examined the results of studies of just over 2,000 people in the United Kingdom who were surveyed via questionnaire in 2003 and 2004 at an average age of 12, and then answered a survey again at the age of 18.” BBC News (9/8) also covered the study.

Related Links:

— “Sibling Bullies May Leave Lasting Effects,” Randy Dotinga, HealthDay, September 8, 2014.

USA Today (9/9, Weintraub) reports that according to a study published online in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, “signs of autism symptoms can be erased if babies begin therapy even before they can toddle.” The study, conducted “by the University of California Davis’ MIND Institute, provided directed therapy to babies ages 6-9 months old who were identified as having early signs of autism, such as an inability to make eye contact, lack of babbling and fixations.”

Notably, “by the time the seven babies reached their third birthday – a time when autism can reliably be diagnosed – five didn’t show any autism symptoms and a sixth had only mild symptoms.”

Related Links:

— “Study: Autism signs in babies can be erased,” Karen Weintraub, USA Today, September 9, 2014.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal (9/8) reported that CMS has expanded access to programs for autistic children by informing states that Medicaid will now cover Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment coverage. This initiative is expected to greatly decrease the amount of children on a wait list for services, which is currently 477 in Nevada.

Related Links:

— “Medicaid change aids autistic children,” Yesenia Amaro, Las Vegas Review-Journal, September 5, 2014.

HealthDay (9/5, Preidt) reports that according to a study recently published in the journal Burns, “adult survivors of childhood burns are at increased risk for depression and suicidal thoughts.” The study of “300 people in Australia who were hospitalized for burns between 1980 and 1990” revealed that “42 percent of the participants had experienced some type of mental illness, 30 percent had suffered depression and 11 percent had attempted suicide.”

Related Links:

— “Serious Childhood Burns Tied to Long-Term Mental Health Risks,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, September 4, 2014.

HealthDay (9/5, Preidt) reports, “Nearly 10 percent of Americans aged 12 and older were illicit drug users in 2013, and almost 20 million said they used marijuana, making it the most widely used drug,” according to a report issued yesterday by the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The report “also found that more than 14 percent of adults aged 18 and older said they received mental health treatment or counseling in the past year, and that nearly 44 million had a mental illness in 2013.” In addition, 10 “million adults aged 18 and older said they had a serious mental illness in the past year that interfered with a major life activity, according to the report.”

Related Links:

— “10 Percent of Americans Admit to Illicit Drug Use,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, September 4, 2014.

Bloomberg News (9/4, Kitamura) reported that according to a report (9/5) issued by the World Health Organization, “a death by suicide occurs every 40 seconds somewhere in the world.” The WHO’s first-ever global report on suicide also found that approximately “three-quarters of those suicides occur in low- and middle-income countries, where self-poisoning by pesticide is the leading cause, and other common methods include hanging and firearms, the WHO said.”

McClatchy (9/5, Zarocostas, Subscription Publication) reports that around the world, “an estimated 804,000 people killed themselves in 2012, a rate of about 11.4 per 100,000 population.” Men “were almost twice as likely as females to kill themselves, WHO reported, with a rate of 15.0 per 100,000 for men, versus 8.0 for women.” In the US, “of the 43,361 Americans who killed themselves in 2012, 34,055 were male and 9,306 for female.”

Related Links:

— “Suicide Every 40 Seconds Requires Prevention Measures,” Makiko Kitamura, Bloomberg News, September 4, 2014.

On its front page, the Washington Post (9/3, A1, Kunkle) reports that “recent findings suggest that biological, genetic and even cultural influences may play heavy roles” in why more women than men get Alzheimer’s disease. For example, “a recent study…found that women with the APOe4 gene were twice as likely to get Alzheimer’s as women who did not carry the gene,” even though “the risk factor appeared to be little different between men who had the APOe4 gene and those who did not.”

Women are more likely to develop depression, and previous research has tied late-life depression to dementia. Scientists are also trying to narrow down the role played by the hormone estrogen, which helps regulate brain metabolism in females.

Related Links:

— “Why do more women get Alzheimer’s? Research points to genetics, other factors,” Fredrick Kunkle, Washington Post, September 3, 2014.

Modern Healthcare (9/4, Rice, Subscription Publication) reports that, according to a study published in the September issue of JAMA Psychiatry, “an estimated 267,000 patients visited an emergency department between 2009 and 2011 because of adverse drug events such as overdose, excessive sleepiness and head injuries associated with use of psychiatric prescriptions.”

Specifically, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Johns Hopkins University found that some “89,094 adult patients visited an emergency department annually because of adverse drug events from taking sedatives, antidepressants and antipsychotics.” In September 2013, through the Choosing Wisely campaign, the American Psychiatric Association issued “a list of recommendations for safe-prescribing of antipsychotics.”

Related Links:

— “Nearly 90,000 ED visits annually linked to psychiatric drug events/a>,” Sabriya Rice, Modern Healthcare, September 3, 2014.

HealthDay (9/2, Preidt) reports on a new study that challenges the perception that marijuana is not addictive, highlighting that many teen marijuana users showed withdrawal symptoms when they made efforts to stop using the drug. “As more people are able to obtain and consume cannabis legally for medical and, in some states, recreational use, people are less likely to perceive it as addictive or harmful,” study co-author John Kelly, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Addiction Medicine, said in a statement.

In the new study, researchers followed outcomes for 127 teens between the ages of 14 to 19. “Of those 90 teens, 76 (84 percent) met criteria for marijuana dependence, including increased tolerance for, and use of, marijuana, as well as unsuccessful attempts to reduce or stop using the drug,” the article notes.

Related Links:

— “‘Pot Addiction’ May Be Real, Study Suggests,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, September 2, 2014.