The Fox News (9/22) reported that a study published online Sept. 22 in the American Journal of Epidemiology “examined the relationship between maternal iron intake and having a child with autism-spectrum disorder.” Researchers “found a five-fold greater risk of autism…associated with low iron intake – by way of supplements – if the mother was age 35 or older at the time of the child’s birth, or if she suffered from metabolic conditions such as obesity, hypertension or diabetes.”

HealthDay (9/23, Gray) points out that the study, which “included 520 pairs of mothers and children with autism and 346 pairs of mothers and typically developing children,” merely “showed an association between low iron intake and the development of autism spectrum disorder,” but “it didn’t prove cause and effect.”

Related Links:

— “Could Low Iron Intake During Pregnancy Raise Autism Risk?,” Barbara Bronson Gray, HealthDay, September 22, 2014.

As part of its documentary series called Retro Report, which looks back at major stories that “shaped” the world, the New York Times (9/22, Haberman, Subscription Publication) explores, along with a video, “the enormous influence, both chemical and cultural,” that antidepressant Prozac (Fluoxetine HCl) “and its brethren have had in treating depression.” The concern gained “new resonance with the recent suicide of the comedian Robin Williams,” the piece notes.

The piece examines how Eli Lilly’s medication in the late 1980s and the 90s “was widely viewed as a miracle pill,” but over the years “backlash” developed due to concerns of potentially increased suicide risk in some, although no “definite” link was established. The Times wonders “whether the medical establishment, and perhaps society in general, has gone too far in turning normal conditions, like sadness, into pathologies.”

Related Links:

— “Selling Prozac as the Life-Enhancing Cure for Mental Woes,” Clyde Haberman, New York Times, September 21, 2014.

Although “some states have moved to curb long-term ‘solitary confinement’ in prisons, where research shows it can drive those with mental illnesses further over the edge,” little has been done to address the issue “in the country’s 3,300 local jails,” the AP (9/21, Geller) reported. The time that jail inmates spend in “lockdown” is usually “limited,” but those “with serious mental illnesses are more likely to break rules and stay jailed longer,” which increases the risk of “additional psychological damage.”

Related Links:

— “,” Adam Geller, Associated Press, September 22, 2014.

Reuters (9/18, Seaman) reports a new study published in JAMA has found that women exhibiting symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are more likely to be addicted to food than women without the disorder. The study does not state that PTSD is the cause of food addiction but may help explain a link between experienced trauma and obesity.

HealthDay (9/18, Dotinga) reports the study found women with PTSD are “almost three times more likely to develop an addiction to food.” The researchers came to this conclusion after examining “the results of Nurses’ Health Study II surveys of more than 49,400 female nurses in the United States in 2008 and 2009.”

Related Links:

— “PTSD symptoms tied to food addiction in women: study,” Andrew Seaman, Reuters, September 17, 2014.

The Los Angeles Times (9/17, Mohan) reports a study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry has found that “violence prone children who went through a decadelong intervention program grew up to have fewer psychiatric, drug-related and legal problems.” The study was launched in 1991 when “Congress wanted the National Institute of Mental Health to do something about youth violence” amid the crack epidemic occurring during that time.

Results “show modest improvement in psychological markers that predict long-term antisocial behavior and criminality. Program graduates also had fewer legal problems, substance abuse issues and risky sexual behaviors,” the Times reports. Moreover, “the data suggest that intervention can work, and effects can persist over many years.”

Related Links:

— “Intervention lowers drug, crime and behavior problems, but not by much,” Geoffrey Mohan, Los Angeles Times, September 16, 2014.