The NPR (8/20, Hensley) “Shots” blog reports that, according to a study published online in the journal PLoS One, individuals “who had taken LSD, psilocybin (the brain-bending chemical in magic mushrooms) or mescaline at any time in their lives were no more likely than those who hadn’t to wind up in mental health treatment or to have symptoms of mental illness.” Researchers arrived at that conclusion after analyzing “survey data collected from more than 130,000 randomly selected Americans between 2001 and 2004.” The data came from the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Related Links:

— “Study Finds No Link Between Hallucinogens And Mental Problems, “Scott Hensley, NPR, August 20, 2013.

The Los Angeles Times (8/20, Mohan) “Science Now” blog reports that according to a study published online Aug. 19 in JAMA Pediatrics, “a second child is seven times more likely to be diagnosed with autism if an older sibling has the diagnosis.” Interestingly, “rates for maternal half-siblings suggested that a mother’s contribution to recurrence was stronger than that of the father,” a finding suggesting that “factors unique to the mother and her pregnancy may contribute to autism.”

Related Links:

— “Autism is shared among siblings, study finds, “Geoffrey Mohan, Los Angeles Times, August 19, 2013.

The Los Angeles Times (8/19, Mohan) “Science Now” blog reported that, according to a study published Aug. 19 in the journal Psychological Science, the effects of bullying may be felt into “adulthood, when victims are far more likely to have emotional, behavioral, financial and health problems.” Even after adjusting for confounding factors, researchers found that individuals who “were both victim and perpetrator as schoolchildren fared the worst as adults: they were more than six times more likely to be diagnosed with a serious illness or psychiatric disorder” and to smoke on a regular basis.

On its website, CBS News (8/20, Castillo) points out that, according to the results of a survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately “20 percent of US students in grades 9 through 12 were bullied at some point in 2011.” But bullying is not just confined to the classroom. A study published in the June issue of Pediatrics “showed that people who were bullied by their siblings may have more adult metal health problems like depression and anxiety than those who had been bullied by their peers.”

The Time (8/20, Sifferlin) “Healthland” blog points put that researchers “studied 1,420 children between the ages nine to 16 who reported being victims of bullying, acting as bullies, or both (bully-victims),” as well as a group of control children uninvolved in bullying. The youngsters “were questioned four to six times during the study, and when they were between 24 to 26 years old, they were evaluated on certain psychiatric measures, whether they engaged in risky or illegal behaviors, their wealth, and the status of their social relationships.”

Related Links:

— “Children bullied in school may have more problems as adults, “Geoffrey Mohan, Los Angeles Times, August 19, 2013.

HealthDay (8/16, Preidt) reports that according to the results of a 224-patient study published online Aug. 15 in the American Journal of Public Health, “psychiatric patients who took part in a smoking-cessation program while they were in the hospital for treatment of mental illness were more likely to quit smoking and less likely to be hospitalized again for mental illness.” A year and a half “after leaving the hospital, 20 percent of those in the treatment group had quit smoking, compared with 7.7 percent” of controls, and 44 “percent of patients in the treatment group and 56 percent of” controls had been readmitted.

Related Links:

— “Quit-Smoking Programs Work for Psychiatric Patients, “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, August 15, 2013.

Reuters (8/16, Seaman) reports that research published online in the Journal of Pediatrics suggests that soda consumption may be linked to certain behavior problems in children.

The CNN (8/16) “The Chart” blog reports that investigators “followed the habits of about 3,000 mother-child pairs.” Information on “soda consumption was compiled when the children were 5 years old.” The mother were “asked…to self-report how many servings of soda their child drinks on a typical day, and” to “answer a series of behavioral questions.”

Related Links:

— “Soda drinking tied to kids’ behavior problems: study, “Andrew M. Seaman, Reuters, August 16, 2013.

Medscape (8/14, Cassels) reports that research published in the American Journal of Psychiatry suggests that the “duration of anorexia nervosa (AN) appears to be the prime risk factor for premature death in girls and women with eating disorders.” The “20-year follow-up study,” which included more than 280 patients, indicated “that treatment-seeking patients who had AN for a period of 0 to 15 years had more than a 3-fold increased risk for death compared with the general population, whereas for those who had AN for 16 to 30 years, the risk for mortality was increased almost 7-fold.”

Medwire (8/14) reports on a study appearing in Schizophrenia Bulletin finding that “smoking is a major driver of death by natural causes among patients with schizophrenia.” Such patients were found to be “4.7 times more likely to die during follow-up averaging 6.2 years.” Meanwhile, patients with cardiovascular conditions were 2.5 times more likely to die, and those with “genitourinary conditions, most commonly urinary tract infection” were 4.35 times more likely to die. According to the study’s researchers, the findings indicate “the urgent need to more vigorously promote smoking cessation.”

Related Links:

— “Smoking cessation a priority in schizophrenia, “Eleanor McDermid, Medwire News, August 15, 2013.

By Jeff Barker, The Baltimore Sun
Updated August 13, 2013

A University of Maryland commission released its report today on how the school can best transition into the Big Ten. I wrote two stories on this.

One is on how Maryland believes the time is not right to restore any of the seven previously dropped athletic teams. The school is facing a $21 million operating deficit — much of it because the ACC continues to withhold millions of dollars in shared conference revenues as part of its dispute with the school over exit fees. The other story is on a new capital campaign to fund a long-anticipated indoor practice facility.

There’s another item that caught my attention. President Wallace Loh said in a letter to the university community that he was redirecting $500,000 per year in athletic department monies “to fund expanded mental health counseling services for all students.”

It’s unusual, although certainly not unprecedented, for athletic departments to fund non-athletic programs.

This particular funding comes from Pepsi’s deal that allows the soft drink maker broad access to campus venues. Loh decided to move some of the proceeds from the deal to mental health counseling.

I had a feeling that Loh’s interest in counseling was influenced by the horrific February incident in which a university student shot two other students, one fatally, before killing himself.

At a vigil following the shooting, Loh had become emotional.

“Each of us is asking, what do we need to change to prevent or mitigate the chances of something like this happening?” he had said.

When I asked about the new funding this week, Loh mentioned the shooting without prompting.

“You remember we had this tragedy last winter,” he said. “Mental health issues is the number one issue among students across this whole country. Everybody is scrambling to increase mental health resources. So here’s an opportunity.

“I talked to Kevin Anderson. He is an athletic director, but he is a university statesperson. He sees the interest of the university as a whole, not just athletics. And he said. ‘Look, I’m willing to let you have some of my money because you have an emergency need. I don’t want to have another student shot and killed.’ ”

The funding will be effective immediately.

During President Obama’s Saturday address of the Disabled American Veterans annual meeting, he announced aid efforts for veterans with PTSD and brain injuries. The Washington Post (8/11, Goldfarb) led its report with the President’s announcement of “an initiative to help treat veterans with brain injuries and mental-health conditions,” consisting of “a $100 million grant to research centers, led by the University of Texas at San Antonio and Virginia Commonwealth University, dedicated to treating brain injuries and mental-health issues, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder,” along with “an effort to share research among the numerous federal agencies studying and providing treatment to veterans with neurological problems.”

Related Links:

— “Obama announces aid initiative to help wounded veterans, ” Zachary A. Goldfarb, The Washington Post, August 10, 2013.

The New York Times (8/12, Saint Louis) “Well” blog reports that according to a study published in the September issue of Pediatrics, youngsters “with chronic stomach pains are at high risk for anxiety disorders in adolescence and young adulthood.”

On its website, NBC News (8/12, Carroll) reports that of those adults who had suffered from “abdominal pain as children, 51 percent had experienced an anxiety disorder during their lives, compared to 20 percent of those who didn’t experience” stomach pain in childhood. What’s more, “as adults, a full 30 percent of the childhood abdominal pain sufferers were still coping with some kind of anxiety disorder, compared to 12 percent” of those who had experienced no abdominal pain during childhood.

Related Links:

— “Risk of Adult Anxiety Seen in Children’s Stomachaches, “Catherine Saint Louis, The New York Times, August 12, 2013.