Medscape (2/17, Davenport) reports that a study published online Feb. 3 in the journal Diabetes Care suggests that youngsters “with type 1 diabetes have an increased risk for psychiatric disorders, particularly early on after diagnosis, that appears to be associated with having the disease, rather than a common etiology.” For the study, researchers “included 17,122 children with type 1 diabetes and 18,847 of their healthy siblings and followed them to their 18th birthday.” Investigators found an “increased risk…for mood disorders, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, substance misuse, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, behavioral disorders, autism spectrum disorder, and intellectual disability, at respective hazard ratios of 2.0, 1.6, 2.2, 2.6, 1.5, 2.2, 1.7, and 1.8.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (2/15, Kuznar) reported that research suggests that “exercise may curb depression in adults with arthritis and other rheumatic conditions.” The “finding comes from a systematic review with meta-analysis” published online in Arthritis Research and Therapy.

Related Links:

— “Exercise Helps Battle Depression in Rheumatic Diseases,” Wayne Kuznar, MedPage Today, February 14, 2015.

In an investigatory piece, the Los Angeles Times (2/17, Therolf) reports that officials in Los Angeles County “are allowing the use of powerful psychiatric drugs on far more children in the juvenile delinquency and foster care systems than they had previously acknowledged, according to data obtained by The Times through a Public Records Act request.” The data reveal that “Los Angeles County’s 2013 accounting failed to report almost one in three cases of children on the drugs while in foster care or the custody of the delinquency system.” The Times also notes that “in California, 51% of children on psychiatric medications are taking the most powerful class of the drugs — antipsychotics — which have experienced explosive growth in foster care over the last 15 years, according to data obtained by the National Youth Law Center through a Public Records Act request.”

Related Links:

— “Rampant medication use found among L.A. County foster, delinquent kids,” Garrett Therolf, Los Angeles Times, February 16, 2015.

The New York Times (2/14, Span, Subscription Publication) “The New Old Age” blog reported in depth on a study published in the February issue of JAMA Psychiatry that indicates that among 65- to 80-year-old Americans, almost nine percent use benzodiazepines. The Times said that among older women, almost 11 percent take the sedative-hypnotic medications. The Times wrote that there have been decades of warnings about unhappy consequences of benzodiazepines for older users, including increased risks of fractures and falls, car crashes, and reduced cognition.

Related Links:

— “Continued Questions on Benzodiazepine Use in Older Patients,” Paula Span, New York Times, February 13, 2015.

The Salt Lake (UT) Tribune (2/13, Moulton) reports that a study published this week in the American Journal of Epidemiology suggests that “middle-age men, who already have the highest risk for suicide, are even more likely than others to kill themselves after short-term exposure to air pollution.” Researchers arrived at this conclusion after having studied “10 years of records for Salt Lake County residents who committed suicide.” Then, utilizing “raw data from air-monitoring stations and sophisticated modeling tools, they learned that men between the ages of 36 and 64 had the highest risk of suicide after breathing pollution, particularly nitrogen dioxide.”

Related Links:

— “U. study: Middle-aged men at highest risk of suicide after breathing bad air,” Kristen Moulton, Salt lake Tribune, February 12, 2015.