A new study, published online Feb. 13 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, further suggests the importance of folic acid in fetal neural development. The study received wide coverage from print media and medical websites. Although the websites of the three major US television networks cover the story, only the NBC Nightly News featured an on-air segment devoted to the study.

NBC Nightly News (2/12, story 11, 0:25, Williams) reported that “a new study found that women who take folic acid supplements around the time they become pregnant may be 40% less likely to have children with autism.”

USA Today (2/12, Szabo) reports, “In the new study, which included more than 85,000 Norwegian children, doctors asked pregnant women to fill out a questionnaire about supplement use, both before and during their pregnancies.” Investigators “then followed the children, born between 2002 to 2008, for an average of six years.”

The New York Times (2/13, A20, Rabin, Subscription Publication) reports, “Women taking folic acid, a B vitamin, before pregnancy were less likely to give birth to children with the most severe form of autism.” However, the Times points out that “the absolute risk that a child would have autism disorder was very low: 0.2 percent among women not taking folic acid, versus 0.1 percent among those who did.”

The Los Angeles Times (2/12, Kaplan) “Booster Shots” blog reports, “Among the 85,176 children in the study, 270 (or 0.32%) received an ASD diagnosis – 114 (0.13%) had autistic disorder, 56 (0.07%) had Asperger syndrome and 100 (0.12%) were diagnosed with ‘pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified,’ or PPD-NOS.” These youngsters “were more likely to be born to women who did not take folic acid. In the raw analysis, mothers who skipped the supplement were more than 2.1 times more likely to have a child with autistic disorder compared with mothers who took the supplement.”

Bloomberg News (2/13, Kitamura) reports, “The study was funded by the Norwegian government and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.”

According to MedPage Today (2/13, Neale), “‘The finding that periconceptional supplement use might reduce the risk of autism is encouraging; however, it is important to confirm this finding in other population-based birth cohorts,’ Robert Berry, MD, MPHTM, of the CDC’s Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disorders in Atlanta, and colleagues wrote in an accompanying editorial. The fact that folic acid supplementation was not associated with an increased risk of autism spectrum disorders is reassuring, they said, and ‘this should ensure that folic acid intake can continue to serve as a tool for the prevention of neural tube birth defects.'”

Also covering the story are Reuters (2/13, Pittman), the Huffington Post (2/13, Pearson), the CNN (2/12, Sloane) “The Chart” blog, the NPR (2/13, Hamilton) “Shots” blog, HealthDay (2/13, Reinberg), Forbes (2/13, Herper), the ABC News (2/13, Lupkin) “Medical Unit” blog, a “MyHealthNewsDaily” feature on the NBC News (2/13, Winters) website, the CBS News (2/13, Castillo) website, and the Daily Mail (UK) (2/13).

Related Links:

— “Association Between Maternal Use of Folic Acid Supplements and Risk of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Children, The JAMA Network, February 13, 2013.

The New York Times (2/11, Bouton) “Well” blog examines the relationship between hearing loss and dementia. “In a 2011 paper in the Archives of Neurology, Dr. [Frank] Lin and colleagues found a strong association between the two. The researchers looked at 639 subjects, ranging in age at the beginning of the study from 36 to 90 (with the majority between 60 and 80).” Participants were followed for about 18 years. “‘Compared to individuals with normal hearing, those individuals with a mild, moderate, and severe hearing loss, respectively, had a two-, three- and five-fold increased risk of developing dementia over the course of the study,’ Dr. Lin wrote in an e-mail summarizing the results.” A study of 1,984 seniors published online last month in JAMA Internal Medicine confirmed the 2011 study’s results.

Related Links:

— “Straining to Hear and Fend Off Dementia, “Katherine Bouton, New York Times, February 11, 2013.

Bloomberg News (2/12, Pettypiece) reports, “Chaotic, overcrowded emergency” departments (EDs) “may cause some heart patients to develop post-traumatic stress disorder,” according to research letter (2/12) published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Researchers “tracked 135 patients who came to the” ED “at a New York City hospital with a condition called acute coronary syndrome [ACS].” The investigators “compared the traffic at the” ED “during the time they were there with whether the patients experienced symptoms of PTSD a month later.”

Modern Healthcare (2/11, Subscription Publication) reports that the researchers found that “there was a connection between a crowded ED and getting symptoms of PTSD.”

MedPage Today (2/12, Petrochko) reports that in particular, researchers found that “greater emergency department crowding was tied to higher levels of one-month PTSD symptoms (Β=2.0, P<0.05) induced by ACS." The findings "remained significant after adjusting for patient characteristics (Β=2.5, P=0.01) and length of stay (Β=3.0, P=0.02)." HealthDay (2/12, Reinberg) reports that study author Donald Edmondson said, "The modern emergency department is excellent at acute care, but a number of health system and hospital-level pressures have overcrowded them to a point where being treated there can, at times, worsen long-term prognosis." Related Links:

— “Crowded Emergency Rooms Linked to PTSD in Chest Patients,”Shannon Pettypiece, Bloomberg, February 12, 2013.

USA Today (2/12, Zoroya) reports that the “historic pace of troop suicides confounding the military through the war years is following servicemembers into civilian life, according to preliminary analyses of new veteran data.” While “only 4.5% of men ages 18-34 are veterans, veterans account for 10.8% of suicides in that age group, according to statistics from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The numbers are based on death data collected by the VA from 21 states.”

Rep. Miller Pushing To Increase Speed Of VA Claims Processing. USA Today (2/11, King) reports Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL), chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, “wants to speed up the time it takes to process veterans’ disability claims.” It is one of his two main priorities “outlined in a recent interview in his Capitol Hill Office. The other is providing veterans greater access to mental health services by allowing them to access the TRICARE system that serves active-duty military personnel.”

Related Links:

— “Suicide rate for veterans worries VA,”Gregg Zoroya, USA Today, February 12, 2013.

The AP (2/8, Marchione) reports, “One in 12 stroke survivors thought about suicide or that they would be better off dead,” according to research presented yesterday at the American Stroke Association conference in Honolulu. “That’s more than those with other health problems such as heart attacks or cancer, and it suggests that depression after stroke is more serious than many had realized.” The AP explains, “Depression may develop partly because strokes damage the very thing that controls mood – the brain, said a neurologist with no role in the study, Dr. Brian Silver of Brown University and Rhode Island Hospital.”

HealthDay (2/8, Preidt) reports, “The investigators analyzed data from the 2005 to 2010 US National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys and found that nearly eight percent of stroke survivors reported suicidal thoughts, compared with about six percent of heart attack survivors, five percent of diabetes patients and four percent of cancer patients.” Notably, “stroke survivors who had more severe depression, were younger, had higher body mass index…had less education, and were poorer, single or women were more likely to have suicidal thoughts,” the study found. “Seventeen percent of the people who’d had a stroke also had depression, which is the most common mental health complication in stroke survivors, the study authors noted.”

Related Links:

— “STUDY: MANY STROKE SURVIVORS THINK ABOUT SUICIDE,”Marilynn Marchione, Associated Press, February 7, 2013.