The CBS News (1/30, Firger) website reports that a study suggests that “people who binge-watch television tend to be among the most depressed and lonely.” In the study, investigators “surveyed 316 young people about their television-viewing habits.” In addition, “the study participants, all between the ages of 18 and 29…answered questions about how frequently in life they experienced feelings of depression and loneliness.”

Newsweek (1/30, Kutner) reports that researchers at the University of Texas “discovered a correlation between binge-watching and loneliness, depression, and having self-regulation deficiency, which is an inability to control compulsions.”

Related Links:

— “Depression, loneliness linked to binge-watching TV,” Jessica Firger, CBS News, January 29, 2015.

The Washington Post (1/24, Johnson, Weiner) reports a “wave of heroin overdoses” that is killing dozens of people in Maryland and Virginia “inner-city neighborhoods, suburbs and rural enclaves.” Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R) and Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe have scrambled to make fighting the latest heroin surge afflicting their states. The Post says the “governors’ actions reflect mounting concern among public officials up and down the East Coast about the escalation in overdoses, which some say has become a public health epidemic.” The Post adds that experts say there is “no simple or inexpensive cure for heroin addiction — and there are differing views on which approach to try first.”

Related Links:

— “Overdose deaths from heroin galvanizing leaders in Maryland and Virginia,” Jenna Johnson and Rachel Weiner, Washington Post, January 24, 2015.

In an opinion piece in the Boston Globe (1/24), writer Ruth Graham wrote that in 2014, “a program called Mental Health First Aid received federal funding for the first time.” In the US, approximately 300,000 individuals have been trained in Health First Aid. While “the program has the support of many mental health professionals, who say that its broad approach to a wide array of mental health emergencies is sorely needed,” Graham writes that such “programs also inadvertently illuminate the extraordinary complexity of mental illness, and the limitations of a fraying safety net.”

Related Links:

— “The promise and limits of ‘mental health first aid’,” Ruth Graham, Boston Globe, January 23, 2015.

Reuters (1/24, Kennedy) reported that according to a study published online Jan. 8 in The Lancet, a school-based program designed to prevent suicide appears to diminish the likelihood that adolescents will want to commit suicide or attempt suicide. Some 11,000 high-school students in Europe took part in the study.

Related Links:

— “School-wide prevention program lowers teen suicide risk,” Madeline Kennedy, Yahoo News, January 23, 2015.

HealthDay (1/23, Norton) reports that a study recently published online in the journal Acta Neuropathologica suggests that “the brains of some veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who were injured by homemade bombs show an unusual pattern of damage.” After studying “autopsied brain tissue from five US combat veterans” who had survived blasts from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and then comparing those samples with autopsied brain tissue from 24 people who died from various causes, researchers found “a distinct pattern of damage to nerve fibers in key regions of the brain – including the frontal lobes, which govern memory, reasoning and decision-making.” The study authors theorized that this damage pattern may help “explain the phenomenon of ‘shell shock.’”

Related Links:

— “‘Hidden’ Brain Damage Seen in Vets With Blast Injuries,” Amy Norton, HealthDay, January 22, 2015.