The Alaska Dispatch News (12/5, Demer) reported, “Alaska’s suicide rate of 23 for every 100,000 people in 2013 was the second highest” in the US, falling behind that of “Montana, according to data reported to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” with “young Alaska Native men” being “particularly vulnerable.” The Dispatch News explained that “a multitude of factors usually contribute to a decision to take one’s own life, not a single bad thing like a lost job or broken relationship, but also mental illness, a lack of jobs and opportunity, alcohol abuse and among Native people, cultural loss.”

Related Links:

— “In rural Alaska, a new approach to fighting suicide emerges,” Lisa Demer, Alaska Dispatch News, December 5, 2015.

In a nearly 1,200-word piece, STAT (12/5, Dolgin) reported that “a small but growing number of surgeons…are pushing to introduce formal screening tools in cosmetic surgery clinics” across the US. They argue that “psychiatric questionnaires offer a way both to protect patients from unwarranted medical treatment and to preemptively defend plastic surgeons from legal and physical attacks.” Estimates indicate that body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) may affect “up to 15 percent of patients in cosmetic surgery clinics.” While BDD “is best managed with antidepressants and talk therapy…around half of all people with BDD” instead seek “appearance-enhancing treatments.” After such treatments, “few are happy with the outcomes.”

Related Links:

— “Plastic surgeons, fearing violence, turn to psychiatry to screen patients,” Ellie Dolgin, STAT, December 4, 2015.

The Washington Times (12/7, Scarborough) reports that a new study conducted by psychologists from the National Center for Veterans Studies at the University of Utah concludes that the US military’s suicide rate “is more a generational trait than a wartime offshoot.” Researchers found that 18- to 24-year old veterans are more likely to be products of single-parent homes, have “more adverse childhood experiences,” and have “diminished social integration.”

Related Links:

— “U.S. military’s millennials at greatest risk for suicide,” Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times, December 6, 2015.

HealthDay (12/4, Thompson) reports that “mass shootings and the accompanying carnage” that happen all too often in the US now have some “mental health experts” warning of possible “major consequences for the nation’s psyche.” But, people “struggling to cope with these violent events would do well to remember that it’s still very unlikely that you or yours will become directly involved in a shooting, said” Renee Binder, MD, president of the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Binder suggested that people “do a reality check and consider that the chances of this happening to someone you love is still very rare.”

Related Links:

— “Making Sense of the Senseless Violence,” Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, December 3, 2015.

USA Today (12/3, Painter) reports that a study published online Dec. 2 in JAMA Psychiatry suggests that “young adults who watch a lot of TV and engage in very little exercise” may encounter problems with thinking in middle age. For the study, researchers “followed more than 3,000 people, starting at an average age of 25 and ending when they took cognitive tests 25 years later.”

The Los Angeles Times (12/3, Kaplan) “Science Now” blog reports that those individuals “who were most likely to get the lowest scores were the ones who watched the most television and the ones who got the least exercise when they were young adults,” with “extreme couch potatoes” having “the greatest risk of intellectual decline.”

Related Links:

— “Study: too much TV, too little exercise might dull young adult brains,” Kim Painter, USA Today, December 2, 2015.