The Los Angeles Times (8/27, Kaplan) reports a study has found that brain function could “benefit from bariatric surgery,” although “the effects measured were modest,” citing a study published Tuesday in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. Researchers at the University of Sao Paolo in Brazil tracked patients before and after they had weight-loss surgery and found women in that group and the control group did equally well on the cognitive tests. However, “compared with their initial results, the obese women improved on one of the tests – the Trail Making Test – after their surgeries, the researchers found.”

Related Links:

— “Lose weight to gain brain power? Study says it may work,” Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times, August 26, 2014.

The NPR (8/27, Singh) “Shots” blog reports that about “two-thirds of adolescents who have had a major depressive episode don’t get treatment, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. “A study involving 100 teens and published Aug. 27 in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that “pairing depressed teens with a counselor or clinician…can help them follow through with treatment.” The study also found that “getting parents more involved” also helped the kids stick with treatment.

Related Links:

— “Depressed Teens May Need Extra Support To Stick With Treatment,” Maanvi Singh, National Public Radio, August 26, 2014.

Medscape (8/26, Pullen) reports that the results of a 99-patient study published online Aug. 25 in Pediatrics suggests that “during the last six years, the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, has reported a more than five-fold increase in the percentage of adolescents who have been admitted with Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS-Wt). “ The article notes that the patients “do not meet the diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa (AN) because they are not underweight,” but “they experience the life-threatening complications of weight loss seen in patients with AN.” The study authors say the results suggest “that clinicians should carefully assess adolescents of higher weight if they have experienced extensive weight loss.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

The Sacramento (CA) Bee (8/25) “Sacto911” blog reported that “thousands of law enforcement officers around the country…have been trained in techniques to help officers defuse potentially violent encounters with” people with mental illnesses, and such “Crisis Intervention Team training has helped reduce use-of-force incidents involving mentally unstable people.” A study recently “published in a journal of the American Psychiatric Association concluded that officers who took [crisis intervention] courses were more likely to refer people to mental health services than arrest them.”

Related Links:

— “Police say violent encounters with mentally ill people on rise,” Cynthia Hubert, Sacramento Bee, August 25, 2014.

USA Today (8/26, Wagner) reported that in a phone interview with a reporter from the Arizona Republic, Ira Katz, MD, acting director of mental health operations of the US Department of Veterans Affairs, along with “Caitlin Thompson, deputy director for suicide prevention, said veterans’ mental-health care is a national success story that merits a B+ if graded on a curve against other programs.” Katz pointed out that “recent data indicate the suicide rate is increasing among men in the general US population, but is stable among VA patients.”

However, “the positive evaluations come despite VA findings that the number of veteran suicides began rising in 2007” and also appear “to clash with criticism from Congress, watchdog organizations and whistle-blowers who say VA mental-health programs are beleaguered by delays in care, dishonest record-keeping and staffing shortages.”

Related Links:

— “VA touts progress on suicides; data tell another story,” Dennis Wagner, USA Today, August 25, 2014.