Medscape (8/21, Cassels) reports that, according to a study published online Aug. 17 in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, maternal consumption of “‘junk food’ during pregnancy and in early childhood is linked to a significantly increased risk for poor mental health, including anxiety and depression, in very young children.” Researchers arrived at this conclusion after having followed 23,020 mothers and their youngsters who were followed for five years. The study also found that “women who ate more unhealthy foods were significantly more likely to have children with more behavioral problems, such as tantrums and aggression.”

The NPR (8/20, Hensley) “Shots” blog reports that, according to a study published online in the journal PLoS One, individuals “who had taken LSD, psilocybin (the brain-bending chemical in magic mushrooms) or mescaline at any time in their lives were no more likely than those who hadn’t to wind up in mental health treatment or to have symptoms of mental illness.” Researchers arrived at that conclusion after analyzing “survey data collected from more than 130,000 randomly selected Americans between 2001 and 2004.” The data came from the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Related Links:

— “Study Finds No Link Between Hallucinogens And Mental Problems, “Scott Hensley, NPR, August 20, 2013.

The Los Angeles Times (8/20, Mohan) “Science Now” blog reports that according to a study published online Aug. 19 in JAMA Pediatrics, “a second child is seven times more likely to be diagnosed with autism if an older sibling has the diagnosis.” Interestingly, “rates for maternal half-siblings suggested that a mother’s contribution to recurrence was stronger than that of the father,” a finding suggesting that “factors unique to the mother and her pregnancy may contribute to autism.”

Related Links:

— “Autism is shared among siblings, study finds, “Geoffrey Mohan, Los Angeles Times, August 19, 2013.

The Los Angeles Times (8/19, Mohan) “Science Now” blog reported that, according to a study published Aug. 19 in the journal Psychological Science, the effects of bullying may be felt into “adulthood, when victims are far more likely to have emotional, behavioral, financial and health problems.” Even after adjusting for confounding factors, researchers found that individuals who “were both victim and perpetrator as schoolchildren fared the worst as adults: they were more than six times more likely to be diagnosed with a serious illness or psychiatric disorder” and to smoke on a regular basis.

On its website, CBS News (8/20, Castillo) points out that, according to the results of a survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately “20 percent of US students in grades 9 through 12 were bullied at some point in 2011.” But bullying is not just confined to the classroom. A study published in the June issue of Pediatrics “showed that people who were bullied by their siblings may have more adult metal health problems like depression and anxiety than those who had been bullied by their peers.”

The Time (8/20, Sifferlin) “Healthland” blog points put that researchers “studied 1,420 children between the ages nine to 16 who reported being victims of bullying, acting as bullies, or both (bully-victims),” as well as a group of control children uninvolved in bullying. The youngsters “were questioned four to six times during the study, and when they were between 24 to 26 years old, they were evaluated on certain psychiatric measures, whether they engaged in risky or illegal behaviors, their wealth, and the status of their social relationships.”

Related Links:

— “Children bullied in school may have more problems as adults, “Geoffrey Mohan, Los Angeles Times, August 19, 2013.

HealthDay (8/16, Preidt) reports that according to the results of a 224-patient study published online Aug. 15 in the American Journal of Public Health, “psychiatric patients who took part in a smoking-cessation program while they were in the hospital for treatment of mental illness were more likely to quit smoking and less likely to be hospitalized again for mental illness.” A year and a half “after leaving the hospital, 20 percent of those in the treatment group had quit smoking, compared with 7.7 percent” of controls, and 44 “percent of patients in the treatment group and 56 percent of” controls had been readmitted.

Related Links:

— “Quit-Smoking Programs Work for Psychiatric Patients, “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, August 15, 2013.