In continuing coverage, the Deseret (UT) News (9/18, Betar) reports that a new plan proposed by US Surgeon General Regina Benjamin will “focus on making suicide prevention a part of everyday life.” Among other things, the “plan asks community groups, friends and family members to take an active role in suicide prevention, including utilizing Facebook.” The News points out that Veterans Affairs “has hired 1,600 new mental-health workers under an executive order by President Obama.”

VA Using Crisis Line To Prevent Suicides. The KREX-TV Grand Junction, CO (9/17, Dias) website reported, “With September being Suicide Prevention Month, the Department of Veterans Affairs is stepping up its efforts.” Officials with VA are trying to prevent suicides “by providing easily available support right away through their crisis line.” The “important thing is that we know that treatment works and we know that we can intervene at the earliest level of crisis, that goes a long way,” said Sonja Encke, suicide prevention coordinator at the Grand Junction VA. KREX-TV Grand Junction, CO (9/17, 6:19 p.m. MT) aired a similar report.

Related Links:

— “Updated suicide prevention plan integrates social media, increased awareness, “Thomas Betar, Deseret News, September 17, 2012.

The Washington Post (9/18, Huget) “The Checkup” blog reports that a new study “finds that people who harm themselves — by intentionally injuring or poisoning themselves, with or without suicidal intent, according to the study’s definition — remain at greater risk of early death from both natural and external causes for years after their initial self-harming incident.”

MedPage Today (9/18, Phend) reports, “Suicide attempts and other self-harm may point to individuals at high risk for premature death due to overall poor health,” according to a 30,950-person study published online in The Lancet. “The rate of death from natural causes was two- to 7.5-fold higher than expected in people with a history of self-harm,” researchers reported. “While accidental poisoning and suicide were the top causes of death in this group overall, circulatory and digestive diseases were major contributors as well.”

Related Links:

— “Self-Harm Tracks Poor Health,”Crystal Phend, Medpage Today, September 17, 2012.

The AP (9/18) writes that “a new report says substance use and misuse among troops and their families has become a ‘public health crisis’ and that Pentagon methods for dealing with it are out-of-date.” The study, conducted by the Institute of Medicine, was requested by the Defense Department. Among its findings, “about 20 percent of active-duty service members reported they engaged in heavy drinking in 2008, the latest year for which data was available;” “Binge-drinking increased from 35 percent in 1998 to 47 percent in 2008;” and “the rate of medication misuse is rising.” Perhaps most troubling, the report also noted that “the armed forces’ programs and policies have not evolved to effectively address medication misuse and abuse.” One change the report suggested was the use of FDA-approved medication designed to combat addiction.

Related Links:

— “Study: Level of military substance abuse now a ‘public health crisis,’ Pentagon care outdated,”Associated Press, The Washington Post, September 17, 2012.

CNN (9/15, Enayati,) reported that “several recent studies underscore how critically important it is for those fighting” cancer “to learn how to combat stress.” For instance, in a study recently published in PLoS ONE, “a team of researchers led by Lorenzo Cohen, professor of general oncology and director of the Integrative Medicine Program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, found that symptoms of depression among a group of patients with late-stage renal cell carcinoma were associated with an increased risk of death.” The primary “suspects in Cohen’s study: cortisol — also known as the ‘stress hormone’ — and inflammatory pathways.”

Related Links:

— “Stress, depression may affect cancer survival, “Amanda Enayati, CNN, September 14, 2012.

HealthDay (9/14, Dallas) reports that adolescents who are “new smokers suffer nearly all of the same negative psychological effects when they try to quit as people who’ve smoked for years,” according to an analysis published online Sept. 4 in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research. Scientists at Brown University Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies divided the study population, which ranged in “age from 13 to 19,” into three groups: “22 nonsmokers, 27 smokers who did not change their habit, and 47 smokers who avoided cigarettes for almost a full day.” They noted that the “teen smokers had about nine cigarettes each day for about two years”; and after quitting the habit, the researchers found that the teens “experienced the same withdrawal symptoms, smoking urges, negative mood swings and intense cravings as those recorded in adults.”

Study Links Secondhand Smoke To Memory Problems. HealthDay (9/14, Dallas) reported that secondhand smoke “has a negative effect on brain function,” according to a study published online “recently” in the journal Addiction. Over four and a half years, researchers at Northumbria University in the UK “compared a group of smokers” with one group of nonsmokers “exposed to secondhand smoke either at home or in a ‘smoking area’ for an average of 25 hours a week” and one group of nonsmokers not exposed to secondhand smoke. An “event-based memory test, which focuses on memory for future intentions” showed that nonsmokers in the secondhand smoke group “forgot almost 20 percent more” than did the other nonsmoking group; and smokers forgot “30 percent more than those who were not exposed to secondhand smoke.”

Related Links:

— “Quitting Smoking Just as Hard for Teens: Study, “Mary Elizabeth Dallas, HealthDay, September 14, 2012.