MedPage Today (11/13, Gever) reports, “Depression and asthma appear to go hand in hand, even in patients whose asthma is relatively mild and who report generally good health,” according to a study presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology annual meeting. “Analysis of some 13,000 participants in the Cooper Institute Longitudinal Study indicated that a diagnosis of asthma was a risk factor for reports of significant current depressive symptoms with an odds ratio of 1.41 (95% CI 1.16 to 1.65, P<0.001) after adjusting for asthma severity and self-assessment of overall health status." In addition, "asthma and a previous history of depression...were significantly associated, with an odds ratio of 1.65 (95% CI 1.40 to 1.90, P<0.001)," researchers reported. Related Links:

— “Asthma Patients Often Depressed,”John Gever, MedPage Today, November 12, 2012.

Medwire (11/13, Cowen) reports, “Depressive episodes take significantly less time to develop in patients with bipolar disorder (BD) than in those with unipolar depression,” according to a studypublished Dec. 15 in the Journal of Affective Disorders. The “study of 24 BD patients and 122 with unipolar depression who were aged at least 18 years and treated for a depressive episode” revealed that “the duration of depressive episode onset among BD inpatients was slightly more than one week, compared with around one month in those with unipolar depression.”

Related Links:

— “Speed of depression onset increased in bipolar patients, “Mark Cowen, Medwire News, November 13, 2012.

The Los Angeles Times (11/11, Glover, Girion) reported that prescription medication overdoses “now claim more lives than heroin and cocaine combined, fueling a doubling of drug-related deaths in the United States over the last decade. Health and law enforcement officials seeking to curb the epidemic have focused on how OxyContin [oxycodone], Vicodin [acetaminophen and hydrocodone], Xanax [alprazolam] and other potent pain and anxiety medications are obtained illegally.” But authorities “have failed to recognize how often people overdose on medications prescribed for them by their doctors.” A Times investigation “has found that in nearly half of the accidental deaths from prescription drugs in four Southern California counties, the deceased had a doctor’s prescription for at least one drug that caused or contributed to the death.”

Related Links:

— “Legal drugs, deadly outcomes, “Scott Glover, Los Angeles Times, November 11, 2012.

HealthDay (11/11, Preidt) reports, “People with rheumatoid arthritis [RA] have higher-than-normal rates of depression, which could increase their risk of death, according to a new study” scheduled to be presented at the American College of Rheumatology annual meeting. Investigators followed 530 patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Altogether, the researchers found that patients who were depressed faced twice the risk of death during the study period compared to patients who were not depressed. The study found that “the risk of death among depressed men was twice that for depressed women.” Male patients “with depression were five times more likely to die than women without depression.”

Related Links:

— “Study: Rheumatoid Arthritis Plus Depression May Be Deadly, “Robert Preidt, Healthday, November 12, 2012.

In an op-ed for USA Today (11/12), Warren Kinghorn, MD, a psychiatrist at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Durham, NC, said veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are dealing with more than a medical problem. Kinghorn said VA and other healthcare systems “need adequate resources to provide medical and psychiatric care for returning combat veterans. But perhaps even more than good medical care, veterans need individuals and communities who will commit to walk patiently alongside them, allowing them to tell their stories if and when they are ready to do so, even when these stories are distressing or complex or unbearably sad.” Veterans, Kinghorn said, “need a civilian culture that refuses to distance itself from them either through reflexive condemnation or, more commonly, through reflexive valorization.”

Related Links:

— “Column: PTSD, the moral dimensions, “Warren Kinghorn, USA TODAY, November 11, 2012.

Medscape (11/10, Brown) reported, “Female veterans who experience military sexual trauma (MST) often find it difficult to seek help; even with treatment, they can live with the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for years, according to a presentation” given at the American Psychiatric Nurses Association 26th Annual Conference held last month. “Ursula Kelly, PhD, ANP-BC, PMHNP-BC, assistant professor at the Emory University School of Nursing and a nurse scientist at Atlanta Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center in Georgia, works with female veterans who have experienced MST.” Medscape Medical News interviewed Kelly, who is “currently conducting research on factors that influence the ability of these women to seek treatment for PTSD.”

USA Today (11/12, Healy) reports, “In a study that’s already being greeted with notes of caution, Danish researchers report that children whose mothers had the flu or ran a fever lasting more than a week during pregnancy had an increased risk of developing an autism spectrum disorder [ASD].” However, Coleen Boyle, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, stressed that “the new study, out in today’s Pediatrics, is ‘exploratory’ and does not offer a specific cause of the developmental disability.” USA Today notes, “The study analyzed data collected from 97,000 mothers of children born from 1997 through 2003.”

Drawing a different conclusion from USA Today, MedPage Today (11/12, Walsh) reports, “It remains unclear whether mothers who develop common infections during pregnancy are more likely to have” children with autism. “Overall, no associations were seen for infections and autism spectrum disorder [ASD], although a twofold increased risk was seen for the more severe subtype of infantile autism (adjusted HR 2.3, 95% CI 1 to 5.3) following maternal influenza infection,” researchers reported. “There also was a threefold increase in risk for infantile autism when mothers reported having had a febrile episode lasting for a week or more (aHR 3.2, 95% CI 1.8 to 5.6),” the study found. Also covering the story are the NBC News (11/12, Fox) “Vitals” blog, theHuffington Post (11/12, Pearson) and Reuters (11/12, Pittman).

Related Links:

— “Study: Flu, fever in pregnancy linked to autism risk, “Michelle Healy, USA TODAY, November 12, 2012.

HealthDay (11/9, Mundell) reports that a study including 9,200 people presented at the American Heart Association annual meeting found that “selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)…may raise the risk for major bleeding in patients also taking warfarin.” Nevertheless, “because depression is such a tough-to-treat illness, experts say the finding is no reason for patients on warfarin to immediately drop their SSRI” antidepressants.

Related Links:

— “Common Antidepressants Tied to Higher Bleeding Risk in Warfarin Users: Study, “E.J. Mundell, HealthDay, November 8, 2012.

Medscape (11/9, Brauser) reports, “Preexisting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may be ‘an important component’ in identifying which children will be most negatively affected by watching television coverage of natural disasters, including hurricanes,” according to a 141-participant studypublished online Oct. 15 in the journal Psychological Science. “In one of the first studies to assess children after each of two disasters, investigators found that those who had residual symptoms of PTSD after going through hurricane Katrina had significantly higher levels of stress three years later after watching television coverage of hurricane Gustav than the kids who did not have earlier symptoms.”

The Washington Post (11/8, Huget) reports that a study published in the November issue of Preventive Medicine “found that those with the best mental health were those who exercised between 2.5 hours and 7.5 hours per week (150 minutes to 450 minutes; the optimal number varied a bit according to age, gender and physical health), as compared to those who exercised less — or more.” Notably, after examining “self-reported data for 7,674 participants in the US Health Information National Trends 2007 Survey,” investigators “determined that after the 7.5-hour-per-week mark was reached, symptoms of depression and anxiety started kicking in.”

Related Links:

— “More good reasons to exercise – but not too much!, “Jennifer LaRue Huget, The Washington Post, November 8, 2012.