HealthDay (7/15, Doheny) reports that research presented at an international meeting of the Alzheimer’s Association suggests that “for certain seniors, widowhood may…delay dementia.” The study started with approximately “3,800 married men and women starting to show some brain decline.” Investigators found that participants “who were widowed progressed to dementia at age 92 roughly, while those who didn’t lose a spouse were demented by age 83 – nearly a 10-year difference.”

Related Links:

— “Widowhood May Delay Dementia in Some Seniors, Study Finds,” Kathleen Doheny, HealthDay, July 14, 2014.

In continuing coverage, the New York Times (7/2, Reynolds) “Well” blog reports that according to a study (7/2) published in the May issue of the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, “exercise may help to keep the brain robust in people who have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.” For the study, researchers from the Cleveland Clinic “recruited almost 100 older men and women, aged 65 to 89, many of whom had a family history of Alzheimer’s disease.”

All participants underwent brain scans before and after the study. Researchers found that “the brains of physically active volunteers at high risk for Alzheimer’s disease looked just like the brains of people at much lower risk for the disease.”

Related Links:

— “Can Exercise Reduce Alzheimer’s Risk?,” Gretchen Reynolds, New York Times, July 2, 2014.

HealthDay (7/10, Preidt) reports that according to a study published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, “muscle, bone and joint injuries, as well as mental health disorders, are the main reasons why US soldiers who served in Iraq left the military.” For the study, investigators tracked some “4,100 Army soldiers, aged 18 to 52, from the start of a 15-month deployment in Iraq in 2006 until the end of four years after their return to the” US.

Researchers found that “among those who were unable to return to a military career after the deployment, 60 percent had muscle, bone or joint injuries and nearly half had mental health conditions.” The most common conditions cited for leaving included traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder, and low back pain.

Related Links:

— “Muscle and Bone Injuries, Mental Disorders Plagued U.S. Iraq War Vets,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, July 9, 2014.

The AP (7/10, Tanner) reports that according to a study published July 9 in JAMA Psychiatry, adverse reactions to psychiatric medications result in some 90,000 emergency department “visits each year by US adults, with anti-anxiety medicines and sedatives among the most common culprits.” After analyzing “2009-2011 medical records from 63 hospitals that participate in a nationally representative government surveillance project,” researchers found that the majority of ED “visits were for troublesome side effects or accidental overdoses and almost 1 in 5 resulted in hospitalization.”

Related Links:

— “STUDY: PSYCH DRUG ER TRIPS APPROACH 90,000 A YEAR,” Lindsay Tanner, Associated Press, July 9, 2014.

Medscape (7/8, Brauser) reports that according to the results of a 712-patient study recently presented at the International Congress of the Royal College of Psychiatrists 2014, “excessive exercising, or so-called ‘exercise addiction,’ is a real problem and often occurs within the context of eating disorders.” The study also revealed that patients with an eating disorder “had significantly higher scores in weight control exercise, lack of enjoyment, exercise rigidity, and avoidance behaviors than those without an” eating disorder.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)