The Washington Post (1/18, Ingraham) “Wonkblog” reports that research has “found no evidence” that teen “marijuana use leads to a decline in intelligence.”

The AP (1/19, Ritter) reports that in arriving at that finding, researchers “focused on 3,066 participants who were given a battery of intelligence tests at ages 9 to 12 – before any of them had used marijuana – and again at ages 17 to 20.” The majority of tests “revealed no difference between the two groups.” Nora Volkow, MD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “said that while the study has some limitations, it is important and deserves to be followed up with more research.”

Related Links:

— “Scientists have found that smoking weed does not make you stupid after all,” Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post, January 18, 2016.

HealthDay (1/19, Thompson) reports that despite mass shootings that have “prompted agony, anger and angst in the United States,” the US government continues to have a ban on funding for research into gun violence. HealthDay reports that “without that funding, experts say, crucial questions on gun safety and gun violence have been left unanswered.” Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine “noted that more than 33,000 people died from gunshot injuries and more than 84,000 were wounded in 2013.”

Related Links:

— “U.S. Ban on Gun Research Continues Despite Deadly Shootings,” Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, January 18, 2016.

On its “Morning Edition” program and in its “Shots” blog, NPR (1/19, Neighmond) reports that an increasing number of “adults over the age of 50” are being diagnosed for the first time with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD). In the case of adults, “the problem is not disruptive behavior or keeping up in school.” Instead, “it’s an inability to focus, which can mean inconsistency, being late to meetings or just having problems managing” tasks on a daily basis.

Meanwhile, MedPage Today (1/19, Blum) reports that adults whose AD/HD remains undiagnosed may “have impaired quality of life, productivity, and functioning compared with those who don’t have such symptoms, researchers reported” at the American Professional Society of AD/HD and Related Disorders (APSARD) meeting. In the study, which involved “more than 22,000 adults who had responded to the 2013 National Health & Wellness Survey,” adults with “AD/HD symptoms had significantly worse quality of life than those without symptoms as measured by the EQ-5D-5L index in adjusted analyses.”

Related Links:

— “Adult ADHD Often Disabling: Study,” Karen Blum, MedPage Today, January 18, 2016.

On its front page, the New York Times (1/17, A1, Kolata, Cohen, Subscription Publication) reported, “Drug overdoses are driving up the death rate of young white adults in the United States to levels not seen since the end of the AIDS epidemic more than two decades ago.” According to a New York Times analysis of death certificates, “the rising death rates for those young white adults, ages 25 to 34, make them the first generation since the Vietnam War years of the mid-1960s to experience higher death rates in early adulthood than the generation that preceded it.”

Related Links:

— “Drug Overdoses Propel Rise in Mortality Rates of Young Whites,” Gina Kolata and Sarah Cohen, New York Times, January 16, 2016.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1/14, Munz) reported, “With the prevalence of mental illness and shortage of mental” healthcare professionals, both patients and “clinicians are increasingly interested in how mobile applications and social media can be used to help improve care.” As a result, the number of mental health apps is growing. A report recently issued by the IMS Institute of Healthcare Informatics found that almost a third of new health apps “are related to mental health – most addressing anxiety, depression, autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or Alzheimer’s.” The article listed a number of mental health apps currently available.

Related Links:

— “Treating and preventing mental illness through your smartphone,” Michele Munz, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 14, 2016.