HealthDay (8/31, Reinberg) reported that, according to a study published Aug. 30 in the journal BMC Medicine, “alcohol in moderation may benefit mental health.” Researchers arrived at that conclusion after following “more than 5,500 light-to-moderate drinkers for up to seven years,” none of whom had drinking problems or depression at the start of the study. After adjusting for confounding factors, researchers found that “participants who drank two to seven glasses a week were the least likely to suffer from depression,” compared to people who did not drink at all.

Related Links:

— “Glass of Wine a Day May Ward Off Depression, Study Suggests, “Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, August 30, 2013.

Reuters (8/29, Doyle) reports that research published in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery suggests that depression may be common among individuals who have survived head and neck cancer, but these patients rarely seek help for the mental health. Investigators looked at questionnaire responses from more than 200 survivors of head and neck cancer who had undergone radiation treatment. The researchers found that while a small proportion of the individuals found to report the highest levels of depression took antidepressants or underwent psychotherapy one year after completing radiation treatments, none of these patients were receiving such mental health treatments five years after radiation.

Related Links:

— “Few head and neck cancer survivors seek mental help, “Kathryn Doyle, Reuters, August 28, 2013.

MedPage Today (8/29, Gever) reports that, according to a study published online Aug. 28 in JAMA Psychiatry, “suspicions that psychiatric medications increase the mortality risk associated with mental illness were not borne out in a review of clinical trial data.” In the majority of cases, “death rates among more than 90,000 adult participants in trials of drugs for depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) were, for the most part, the same or lower in those assigned to active” medications versus placebo, with the sole exception of “heterocyclic antidepressants, a class of old-line agents such as imipramine and amitryptiline.”

Related Links:

— “Psych Drugs Don’t Raise Death Risk in Mental Illness, “John Gever, MedPage Today, August 29, 2013.

HealthDay (8/29, Dallas) reports that, according to a study from the Global Burden of Disease Study published online Aug. 29 in The Lancet, in 2010, “mental and substance abuse disorders were the leading cause of nonfatal health issues” globally. A separate study in the same issue found that “opioid dependence causes the greatest health burden of all illicit drugs.” An accompanying commentary “noted that the ‘relative lack of information about the prevalence of mental and drug use disorders, and the harms associated with these disorders, emphasizes the need…for increased efforts to quantify both the prevalence of mental and drug use disorders and the risks posed by these conditions.”

The NPR (8/29, Knox) “Shots” blog reports that two legal substances, smoking and alcohol, “account for around 10 percent of the worldwide burden of illness and death.”

Related Links:

— “Mental and Substance Disorders Major Cause of Nonfatal Illnesses, “Mary Elizabeth Dallas, HealthDay, August 28, 2013.

USA Today (8/29, Szabo) reports that, according to a study published online Aug. 28 in JAMA Psychiatry, “depression may be far more common in men than previously estimated.” When symptoms such as “anger, aggression, substance abuse or risk taking, such as gambling or womanizing,” were factored in, in addition to traditional symptoms such as trouble sleeping and crying, investigators discovered that approximately “30% of both men and women had been depressed at some point in their lives.”

In a front-page story, the Los Angeles Times (8/29, A1, Healy) reports that the study’s conclusion upends “long-accepted statistics indicating that, over their lifetimes, women are 70% more likely to have major depression than men.” What’s more, when depression’s “symptoms are properly recognized in men, major depression may be even more common in men than in women.”

Related Links:

— “New criteria increase number of men with depression, “Liz Szabo, USA Today, August 28, 2013.