The San Diego Union-Tribune (1/9, Steele) reports, “Nationally,” Veterans Affairs is “embracing alternative therapies,” including meditation and yoga, “to help veterans deal with combat stress and…physical pain.” However, a “May VA research conference concluded that evidence of the benefit of these therapies on post-traumatic stress disorder — possibly the signature wound of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — is still thin. Now VA researchers in San Diego, which has the largest population of post-9/11 military veterans in the nation, have received funding to conduct additional studies.”

Related Links:

— “PTSD? Try meditation and yoga,” Jeanette Steele, San Diego Union-Tribune, January 8, 2012.

The AP (1/4, Johnson) reports, “Patients not taking medicine as prescribed cost the US healthcare system roughly $290 billion a year in extra treatment and related costs, research shows. One study estimated those patients pay about $2,000 a year in extra out-of-pocket medical costs.” Notably, “nearly three in four Americans don’t take their prescription medicine as directed. Even among those with serious chronic health conditions such as diabetes, about one in three don’t.”

Unfortunately, “for patients with chronic health conditions — nearly half the US population — not taking medications as prescribed can bring serious consequences,” even premature death.

Related Links:

— “Following the doctor’s orders on your medicine can save you thousands, prevent hospital stays,” Linda A. Johnson, Chicago Tribune, January 3, 2011.

HealthDay (1/3, Thompson) reports that “a growing body of research that has found that ‘positive activity interventions’ — like helping someone with groceries, writing a thank you note or even counting your blessings — can serve as an effective, low-cost treatment for depression.” Michelle Riba, MD, former president of the American Psychiatric Association, “agreed that positivity can have a dramatic effect on people’s psychological well-being.” She stated, “In general, people who help others stop focusing on their own pains and problems and worries and feel good about themselves.”

Related Links:

— “With Depression, Helping Others May in Turn Help You,” Denise Thompson, HealthDay, January 2, 201.

HealthDay (12/31, Mozes) reported, “Drug users who inject themselves with methamphetamine are 80 percent more likely to attempt suicide than those abusing other drugs,” according to a study published in the December issue of Drug and Alcohol Dependence. Researchers arrived at this conclusion after examining “material from interviews involving nearly 1,900 men and women that were conducted in the Vancouver area over seven years, from 2001 to 2008.”

HealthDay also pointed out that the study was partly funded by the US National Institutes of Health.

Related Links:

— “Meth Users Much More Likely to Try Suicide,” Alan Mozes, HealthDay, December 30, 2011.

HealthDay (1/3, Mann) reports that “the combination of poverty and having diabetes during pregnancy significantly raises the risk of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) in a woman’s offspring,” according to a study published in the January issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. In a study involving 212 children, 115 of which came from low-income families or had mothers with gestational diabetes or both, researchers found that “children born to such moms are as much as 14 times more likely to have AD/HD by the age of six.” In fact, mothers “who had either gestational diabetes or were poor were twice as likely to have children with AD/HD, but the combination of these two risk factors was even more powerful.”

Related Links:

— “Mom’s Poverty, Diabetes Might Raise ADHD Risk in Kids,” Denise Mann, HealthDay, January 2, 2012.

In the “First Person” column in the Miami Herald (1/3), Miami Herald editor Andrea Torres, a breast cancer patient, writes, “Experts in psychosocial oncology say that women with breast cancer have the third highest rate of depression among cancer diagnostic groups, and that major depression is an under-recognized and under-treated problem.”

Torres goes on to describe her particular battle with depression. Currently, she is being treated with antidepressants and “staying connected to others with the help of social media” to improve her outlook on matters. She is also “set to begin behavioral therapy soon.”

Related Links:

— “Facebook, medication help breast cancer patient deal with depression,” Andrea Torres, Miami Herald, January 3, 2012.

The Oregonian (12/30, House) reports, “Dextroamphetamine/amphetamine [Adderall] and its counterparts, including methylphenidate [Ritalin] and the over-the-counter caffeine [Vivarin], are growing in popularity among students who don’t have ADHD but use the medications as study tools to stay awake and alert during prolonged cram sessions.”

It’s estimated that “as many as a third of college students have used Adderall and its counterparts without a prescription” and “as the rate of ADHD medication abuse increases, higher education institutions are responding with new policies aimed at reducing the drugs’ prevalence on campus.”

A survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration found that “students who used prescription stimulants were eight times more likely than their counterparts to use cocaine and tranquilizers and five times more likely to abuse pain relievers.”

Related Links:

— “ADHD-drug abuse popular on Oregon campuses; university health officials fight back,” Kelly House, The Oregonian, December 30, 2011.

The AP (12/30, Pope) in a story appearing on at least 17 news websites reports, “The issue of when colleges should notify parents their adult children may be suicidal remains fraught with legal, medical and ethical dilemmas. College policies, state laws and professional codes of conduct vary widely – and occasionally conflict.”

A “2010 survey of counseling directors found that when a client was considered a ‘suicidal risk’ but didn’t meet the state-law criteria for involuntary hospitalization, 41 percent wouldn’t notify anyone else without a signed release from the student” and “only 13 percent said they would notify family; 22 percent said they would notify a superior, and 19 percent said it would depend on the situation.”

However, Carolyn Wolf, a mental health lawyer who advises college officials, said, “I’m in favor of notifying parents” and “advises parents to remember that FERPA, the federal education privacy law, has clear exceptions for risks to health and safety, as do state laws.”

Related Links:

— “Colleges and suicide threats: when to call home?

Read more: http://siouxcityjournal.com/ap/lifestyles/colleges-and-suicide-threats-when-to-call-home/article_c4a59775-cc6b-5fdc-a6c8-85d230c0e384.html#ixzz1iwh6xwzL,” Justin Pope, Sioux City Journal, December 29, 2011.

The Detroit Free Press /USA Today (12/29, MacLeod) reports, “The Communist Party does not acknowledge its mental facilities are used to silence critics, but according to numerous human rights groups and Chinese dissidents, China’s Communist-led government has for decades incarcerated healthy people in mental wards to suppress dissent.” Notably, “the rise in confinements is greatest among petitioners — the ordinary people who complain about local problems.”

Now, however, “some Chinese officials are pushing back against the political confinements. Prodded by academics, activists and former patients, China’s National People’s Congress is discussing what would be the country’s first ever mental health law.” According to psychiatry professor Wang Yue, of Peking University, “the draft legislation represents both a legal and social milestone for the world’s most populous country,” despite its shortcomings.

USA Today (12/29, Vogel) reports, “Halfway into an ambitious five-year campaign to end homelessness among veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs says it has made enough progress that the goal is within reach, even as a new generation of veterans returns from Iraq and Afghanistan.” Over the past two and a half years, the VA has aggressively used a “voucher program” to house “more than 33,000 veterans.” The VA “did so by changing its longtime policy of requiring homeless veterans to be successfully treated for substance abuse and mental ailments before being given apartments.”

To curb homelessness among returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, the VA has allocated $160 million in grants to non-profit community agencies to prevent low-income from falling into homelessness. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said, “We’ve learned we can’t end homelessness by street rescues alone.”