Medscape (6/19) reports that research published online in the Journal of the American Heart Association suggests that depression may “be particularly harmful to the heart in younger women.” Investigators analyzed data on “3237 participants in the Emory Cardiovascular Biobank, who were enrolled before undergoing elective or emergent coronary angiography.”

HealthDay (6/19, Mozes) reports that the researchers found that although “depression didn’t appear related to heart disease risk among men of any age or elderly women…among women 55 and younger,” each “one-point rise in depression symptom ratings translated into a 7 percent rise in heart disease risk.” Thus, “depressed young and middle-aged women faced a 2.17 times greater risk for experiencing a heart attack, or for needing an invasive procedure to widen their diseased arterial pathways.” These “women also faced similar elevated risk for dying from heart disease, and a 2.45 greater risk for dying from any cause during the study follow-up period.”

Related Links:

— “Depression Doubles Odds of Heart Attack for Younger Women: Study,” Alan Mozes, HealthDay, June 18, 2014.

Reuters (6/19, Emery) reports that research published online in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that women who take antidepressants during pregnancy may not have a higher risk of giving birth to a child with a heart defect.

On its website, TIME (6/19) reports that investigators analyzed data on “949,504 pregnant women, 64,389 of whom used antidepressants during the first trimester.” The researchers found that “the rate of heart defects in newborns was similar between the groups.” The article points out that “concerns about the risks of the drugs, primarily selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), on the developing fetus prompted the Food and Drug Administration in 2005 to add warnings about the risk of heart defects in babies born to moms taking antidepressants.”

Related Links:

— “Antidepressants in pregnancy pose little heart risk for fetus: study,” Gene Emery, Reuters, June 18, 2014.

USA Today (6/19, Painter) reports that according to a study published online June 18 in the BMJ, boxed “warnings that antidepressant medications might prompt suicidal thinking in some young people may have backfired, resulting in more suicide attempts.” While the study is “not the first to show that antidepressant use by young people fell sharply after warnings from the Food and Drug Administration and subsequent media coverage in 2003-04,” it appears to be “the first to link the change to an increase in suicide attempts among teens and young adults, researchers say.”

Related Links:

— “Warnings on antidepressants may have backfired,” Kim Painter, USA Today, June 18, 2014.

Medscape (6/18, Anderson) reports that according to a report published online June 16 in JAMA Pediatrics, there appear to be “no adverse cognitive effects on six-year-old children who were exposed to antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in the womb and then breast-fed while their moms continued this therapy.”

The study, which “included 177 mothers and 181 children for whom data were available on both cognitive assessment at age six years and breast-feeding status,” revealed that “these school-aged children scored higher on IQ tests than their non–breast-fed counterparts and had enhanced verbal abilities, even after adjustment for other factors related to child cognitive outcomes, such as maternal IQ.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

In an entry for the Washington Post (6/17) “Wonkblog,” Harold Pollack asked, in light of several recent mass shootings, including Elliott Rodger’s shooting rampage in Isla Vista, CA, if “mental health and law enforcement authorities could mount a better, more systematic response when a potentially dangerous person comes to their attention.”

In a piece in the Los Angeles Times, Renee Binder, MD, president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association, wondered whether a restraining order would also have been helpful in the Rodgers case. In light of the “concerns expressed by Rodger’s parents, a judge would have had the authority to temporarily seize his weapons, examine the relevant evidence, and perhaps connect some of dots that were missed in the original investigation.”

A judge might have also “temporarily prohibited Rodger from possessing firearms if it were determined that he posed a credible (though perhaps not immediate) risk.”

Related Links:

— “Why law enforcement missed Elliot Rodger’s warnings signs,” Harold Pollack, Washington Post, June 17, 2014.