The Los Angeles Times (5/21, MacVean) reports in its “Science Now” blog that “in a study published Monday the Canadian Medical Assn. Journal, researchers surveyed thousands of teenagers about the effects of suicide by someone they knew or attended school with.” According to researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Canadian universities of Ottawa and Alberta, “Adolescents may be particularly susceptible to” the idea that suicide is “contagious.” The researchers found that “broadly, suicide death of a schoolmate was a stronger predictor of suicide outcomes than a suicide by someone who is personally known, perhaps because the death of a peer resonates with youth more than the death of a close adult.”

Related Links:

— “After a suicide, classmates often think about it too, study says, “Mary MacVean, Los Angeles Times, May 20, 2013.

On the front of its Personal Journal section, the Wall Street Journal (5/21, D1, Wang, Subscription Publication) reports that social behavior changes or deterioration in social or emotional functioning may be the first clues of a mental-health or neurological disorder. For example, inappropriate behavior may portend frontotemporal dementia or Alzheimer’s, while a lack of empathy can be seen in people with schizophrenia or autism. According to the article, family members are more likely than patients themselves to observe social changes. Neurology professor Katherine Rankin, of the University of California-San Francisco, suggested that middle-aged adults who notice such changes are advised to see a neurologist.

Related Links:

— “When Social Skills Are a Warning, “Shirley S. Wang, The Wall Street Journal, May 20, 2013.

HealthDay (5/20, Gordon) reports that a 992-participant study published online May 17 in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research “shows that college women are more likely to drink unhealthy amounts of alcohol on a weekly basis than are college men.” During “the study, 15 percent of women exceeded weekly drinking limits, compared to 12 percent of men.”

Related Links:

— “College Women More Prone to Problem Drinking Than Men: Study, “Serena Gordon, HealthDay, May 17, 2013.

Ross Douthat, in a column for the New York Times (5/19, Subscription Publication) wrote, “Over the last decade, the United States has become a less violent country in every way save one. As Americans commit fewer and fewer crimes against other people’s lives and property, they have become more likely to inflict fatal violence on themselves.” Noting that “more Americans now die of suicide than in car accidents, and gun suicides are almost twice as common as gun homicides,” Douthat claimed that “this trend is striking without necessarily being surprising. As the University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox pointed out recently, there’s a strong link between suicide and weakened social ties,” which is “exactly what we’ve seen happen lately among the middle-aged male population, whose suicide rates have climbed the fastest: a retreat from family obligations, from civic and religious participation, and from full-time paying work.”

Related Links:

— “All the Lonely People, “Ross Douthat, The New York Times, May 18, 2013.

Bloomberg News (5/18, Gale) reported, “The drug ketamine relieved symptoms of hard-to-treat depression within a day of treatment, in the largest study yet of the drug’s potential use for depression.” In the study of “72 people whose depression hadn’t responded to at least two antidepressants, patients taking ketamine were twice as likely to report improvement than those on a placebo.” The researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York “will present the findings at the meeting of the American Psychiatric Association,” which started Saturday in San Francisco.

Related Links:

— “Club-Drug Ketamine Relieves Depression in Largest Patient Study, “Jason Gale, Bloomberg News, May 18, 2013.