CNN (5/14, Kounang) “The Chart” blog reported that about 50 percent of all Americans “take at least one prescription drug each month,” while 10 percent take “more than four,” citing a report from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. The annual report, titled “Health, United States, 2013” included a special section on prescription drugs this year. It noted, for instance, that Americans spend “a lot on prescription drugs. In 2011, Americans spent $263 billion on prescription drugs, which accounts for 9.7% of all national health expenditures (up from 5.6% in 1990).”

MSNBC (5/15) reported that heart medications “topped the list of most common prescription drugs.” The article noted that cardiovascular medication for treating high blood pressure, heart disease or kidney disease, “along with drugs to target cholesterol saw the highest usage reported in the three-year span.”

Related Links:

— “50% of Americans take prescription drugs,” Nadia Kounang, CNN, May 14, 2014.

The AP (5/14) reported that according to research scheduled for presentation at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Atlanta, adults with autism may be “much more likely than others to suffer from depression, high blood pressure, obesity and additional health woes that may partly result from their social isolation.” The study, which was “based on medical records for 2,100 adults with autism spectrum disorder” and medical records for 21,000 adults without autism, also revealed that adults with autism are “much less likely to smoke and drink alcohol.”

In a column in the San Francisco Chronicle (5/14), autism advocate and writer Laura Shumaker points out, “The study is one of the largest, most comprehensive efforts to examine the health of” adults with autism.

HealthDay (5/15, Salamon) reports that Paul Wang, MD, senior vice president and head of medical research, Autism Speaks, New York City, who was not involved in the study, said that autism is “not just a brain disorder – it’s really a disorder that affects the whole body. And this shows that these problems don’t go away.”

Related Links:

— “MANY HEALTH WOES COMMON IN AUTISTIC ADULTS: STUDY,” Associated Press, May 14, 2014.

HealthDay (5/13, Preidt) reports that a study published in Biological Psychiatry in which “the brain activity of more than 150 healthy adults was monitored while they tried to regulate their emotional reactions to unpleasant pictures.” In addition they were monitored for atherosclerosis, interleukin-6 levels.

The study found that “participants who had greater brain activity when trying to control their negative emotions also had higher levels of interleukin-6 and more signs of atherosclerosis.” Lead author Peter Gianaros, an associate professor in the department of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, summed the findings up as supporting “the popular belief that emotions are connected to heart health,” adding, “We think that the mechanistic basis for this connection may lie in the functioning of brain regions important for regulating both emotion and inflammation.”

Related Links:

— “Researchers Shed Light on Link Between Stress, Heart Trouble,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, May 13, 2014.

In “The Blog” for the Huffington Post (5/14, Cooper, Ma, Mft, Cch, Ceds), therapist Rebecca Cooper, MA, MFT, CCH, CEDS writes, “The American Psychiatric Association only recently recognized binge eating disorder as a diagnosable disorder.” The APA “defines binge eating disorder as ‘recurring episodes of eating significantly more food in a short period of time than most people would eat under similar circumstances, with episodes marked by feelings of lack of control.’” The individual who binge eats “may have feelings of guilt, embarrassment or disgust and may binge eat alone to hide the behavior.”

Related Links:

— “The Truth About Binge Eating,” Rebecca Cooper, Huffington Post, May 13, 2014.

TIME (5/14, Kedmey) reports that a study published online May 13 in the journal Tobacco Control suggests that “people suffering from depression, anxiety and other mental disorders are more than twice as likely to spark up an e-cigarette and three times as likely to ‘vape’ regularly than those without a history of mental issues.” Investigators “at the University of California-San Diego drew their findings from an extensive survey of American smoking habits,” which revealed that “among 10,041 respondents, 14.8% of individuals suffering from mental health disorders said they had tried an e-cigarette, compared with 6.6% of individuals who had no self-reported history of mental disorders.”

HealthDay (5/14, Preidt) reports that the study also found that “more than 60 percent of smokers with mental health disorders said they were likely or very likely to try e-cigarettes in the future, compared with about 45 percent of smokers without mental health conditions.”

Related Links:

— “The Weird Link Between E-Cigarettes and Mental Health Disorders,” Dan Kedmey, Time, May 13, 2014.