According to the New York Times (5/26, Caron), research “suggests that, for some patients, the anesthetic ketamine is a promising alternative to electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, currently one of the quickest and most effective therapies for patients with difficult-to-treat depression.” In the “largest head-to-head comparison of the two treatments,” investigators “found that ketamine, when administered intravenously, was at least as effective as ECT in patients with treatment-resistant depression who do not have psychosis.” The findings were published online May 24 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Psychiatric News (5/26) reported, “The participants receiving ECT reported greater problems with memory at the end of treatment compared with those who received ketamine, though by the one-month follow-up, there was little difference between the two groups,” the study revealed. Additionally, “ECT participants reported more musculoskeletal adverse effects, whereas ketamine participants reported more dissociation symptoms.”

HCPlive (5/27, Kunzmann) also covered the study.

Related Links:

— “Ketamine Shows Promise for Hard-to-Treat Depression in New Study “Christina Caron, The New York Times, May 26, 2023

Healio (5/26, Weldon) reported, “High school-aged teens experiencing depression or suicidal ideation have increased perceived access to firearms compared with their peers,” which “is especially concerning, the researchers said, because easy firearm access increases the risk for suicide, which is the second leading cause of death among adolescents.” After examining data “from a web survey of 1,914 parent-teen duos between June 24, 2020, and July 22, 2020, to generate a nationally representative sample of U.S. teens,” investigators found that “teens with depression or suicidality were 56% more likely…to believe they had easy and quick access to a firearm either on their property or off it.” The findings were published online May 22 in the journal Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Teens with depression, suicidality have increased perceived access to firearms “Rose Weldon, Healio, May 26, 2023

According to NBC News (5/26, Syal), “evidence is growing of marijuana’s association with psychiatric disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, especially in young men.” A studypublished online May 4 in the journal Psychological Medicine has found “evidence of an association between cannabis use disorder and schizophrenia,” a finding “most striking in young men ages 21-30, but was also seen in women of the same age.” The study examined “data from almost seven million men and women in Denmark over the course of a few decades to look for a link between schizophrenia and cannabis use disorder.”

Related Links:

— “Marijuana linked to mental health risks in young adults, growing evidence shows ” Akshay Syal, NBC News, May 26, 2023

According to HCPlive (5/30, Walter), “patients with mental health disorders and patients who are taking psychotropic” medications “are at an increased risk of sleep disorders, including sleep apnea and insomnia,” researchers concluded in a study that “identified medical claim data from the Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators…for mental disorders, psychotropic” medication “use, and demographic data for individuals aged 18-64 years between 2016-2020.” The findings were published online May 27 in the Annals of General Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Mental Disorders Associated With Sleep Apnea, Insomnia “Kenny Walter, HCPlive, May 30, 2023

mHealth Intelligence (5/25, Vaidya) reports, “Medicaid coverage of telehealth services between 2013 and 2019 was associated with significant increases in telehealth use and healthcare access, but private insurer coverage of telehealth during the same period was not similarly linked to increases in use and access, a recent study shows.” The findings were published online in Health Services Research.

Related Links:

— “Medicaid Coverage Linked to Rise in Telehealth Use, Healthcare Access “Anuja Vaidya, mHealth Intelligence, May 25, 2023

MedPage Today (5/25, Monaco) reports, “Withdrawing from antidepressants likely won’t affect how well psilocybin works for treatment-resistant depression, according to a phase IIb randomized controlled trial.” The findings of an “analysis of 233 participants treated with a single dose of the investigational psilocybin treatment COMP360” were presented at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

The Washington Post (5/24, Cimons) reports, “A daily multivitamin – an inexpensive, over-the-counter nutritional supplement – may help slow memory loss in people age 60 and older,” according to the findings from “a large nationwide clinical trial” published online ahead of print in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The study revealed that people “taking multivitamins showed an estimated 3.1 fewer years of memory loss compared with a control group who took a placebo.” In other words, “the multivitamin group was an estimated 3.1 years ‘younger’ in terms of their memory function than the placebo group.”

According to the AP (5/24, Aleccia), the study “tracked more than 3,500 people over age 60 for three years.” Participants were randomized “to take a daily multivitamin or a dummy pill,” then were “evaluated annually for three years with internet-based exams that measure memory function.” Investigators also found that memory “improvement was maintained for at least the remaining two years of the study and was more pronounced in people with heart disease.”

Related Links:

— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)

STAT (5/24, Goldhill, Subscription Publication) reports that “when seriously depressed patients don’t respond to antidepressants, the alternatives are limited,” but researchers have “found that ketamine performs at least as well as the current gold standard for such patients, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), suggesting it deserves consideration as a frontline response for people with treatment-resistant depression.” The research was presented at the American Psychiatric Association 2023 Annual Meeting and simultaneously published online May 24 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

MedPage Today (5/24, Monaco) reports, “The open-label trial randomized 403 patients with non-psychotic treatment-resistant major depression to either ketamine or” ECT. Investigators found that “following a 3-week treatment period, 55.4% of the patients in the ketamine group and 41.2% of those in the ECT group had a treatment response, a 14.2% difference…that fell well within the trial’s noninferiority threshold.”

Related Links:

— “Ketamine is comparable to ECT for patients with treatment-resistant depression, study shows ” Olivia Goldhill, STAT, May 24, 2023

Medscape (5/24, Brooks, Subscription Publication) reports, “Securing an appointment with a mental health professional in the United States continues to be a challenge, with wait times for an in-person appointment north of two months and over one month for a telepsychiatry visit,” according to a 948-psychiatrist study that “examined general psychiatry outpatient availability during the COVID-19 pandemic in five states – New York, California, North Dakota, Virginia, and Wyoming.” The findings were presented at the American Psychiatric Association 2023 Annual Meeting. Robert Trestman, MD, chair of the APA Council on Healthcare Systems and Financing, said, “There aren’t enough primary care doctors, and there certainly aren’t enough psychiatrists.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

The Washington Post (5/24, Gilbert) reports, “U.S. authorities have seized increasing quantities of illegal ketamine, according to new research, a trend that coincides with the psychedelic drug’s rising popularity as a treatment for mental health ailments.” In fact, “the number of ketamine seizures by federal, state and local law enforcement in the United States increased from 55 in 2017 to 247 in 2022, while the total weight increased by more than 1,000 percent over that time, according to a” research letter published online May 24 in JAMA Psychiatry. The study’s lead author “sees the trend of seizures as evidence of greater recreational demand for ketamine.”

CNN (5/24, McPhillips) reports, “In addition to the risk of contamination with other potent drugs, using ketamine without medical supervision could lead to adverse outcomes, experts” contend. Gerard Sanacora, MD, PhD, “a psychiatry professor at the Yale School of Medicine,” stated, “Ketamine is possibly the major advance in the area of psychiatry in the past fifty years, but it’s not without risk.” Dr. Sanacora added, “The reality is it is an amazing treatment for many people, but we also know that it is a drug that people misuse and will abuse. And if there isn’t tight control on it, you can guarantee that it will find its way into illicit drug use.”

Related Links:

— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)