Psychiatric News (5/16) reports, “Older adults who use the internet regularly have nearly half the risk of dementia as adults with limited internet use,” according to findingspublished online May 3 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. The study, which “included 18,154 adults aged 50 to 64 who did not have dementia at baseline and who responded to at least one survey between 2002 and 2016,” also indicated that “the more years of regular internet use, the more pronounced the anti dementia benefits become.”

Related Links:

— “Regular Internet Use May Lower Dementia Risk in Older Adults, Psychiatric News, May 16, 2023

Healio (5/16, VanDewater) reports, “Among people with depression, the most common reasons for hospitalization were physical conditions rather than psychiatric ones,” investigators concluded in findingspublished online May 3 in JAMA Psychiatry. After analyzing “data from the U.K. Biobank, the Finnish Health and Social Support Study” and “the Finnish Public Sector Study…to identify associations between self-reported or physician-diagnosed depression and reason for hospitalization,” the study team found not only that “people with depression were most likely to be hospitalized for an endocrine, musculoskeletal or vascular disease,” but also that depression was associated “to the progression of heart disease and diabetes.”

Related Links:

— “People with depression commonly hospitalized for physical medical conditions “Kalie VanDewater, Healio, May 16, 2023

Reuters (5/16, Heavey) reports, “The Biden administration is seeking to meet with the makers of the life-saving medication naloxone used to reverse opioid overdoses in an effort to increase access and reduce cost, a spokesperson for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy” (ONDCP) announced. ONDCP Director Dr. Rahul Gupta “‘plans to have conversations with manufacturers to share his key principle moving forward: the easier it is for people to access naloxone, the more lives we can save,’ the spokesperson said.”

Related Links:

— “White House wants to improve access to opioid overdose reversal medication “Susan Heavey, Reuters, May 16, 2023

The New York Times (5/15, Kolata) reports that researchers have discovered a genetic mutation in one patient that appears to delay Alzheimer’s disease from entering the patient’s entorhinal cortex, even though brain scans “revealed severe atrophying and…rough, hard, amyloid plaques and spaghetti-like tangles of tau proteins.” This particular “mutation results in a potent version of a protein, Reelin, in the entorhinal cortex,” and this “super-potent Reelin ultimately prevents tangled strands of tau proteins from sticking together and forming the structures that are a characteristic of Alzheimer’s.” The discovery has prompted researchers to investigate this as a potential target in developing the next generation of Alzheimer’s therapeutics. The findings of the research were published in Nature Medicine.

The Washington Post (5/15, A1, Johnson) reports that “this man is only the second patient identified with the miraculous ability to defy the devastating Alzheimer’s gene.” A previously known patient with a different mutation also had a brain “clogged with the characteristic amyloid plaques of Alzheimer’s, [but] it was relatively free of the tangles of tau that are also associated with the disease.” Investigators “did find an overlap between the two different gene mutations that helped protect these individuals: Both mutations affect proteins that bind to the same receptors on the surfaces of brain cells.”

Related Links:

— “Mutation Protected Man From Alzheimer’s Disease, Hinting at Treatment “Gina Kolata, The New York Times, May 15, 2023

Healio (5/15, VanDewater) reports, “Most self-harm diagnoses occurred within 24 months of a dementia diagnosis, and vice versa, with a greater risk for self-harm within six to 12 months after dementia diagnosis,” researchers concluded in a study that “linked data from” Australia’s “Admitted Patient Data Collection, the ED Data Collection, the Mental Health Ambulatory Data Collection, the New South Wales (NSW) Registry of Births, Death and Marriages and the NSW Cause of Death Unit Record File” to “identify 154,811 people who had no history of self-harm who were diagnosed with dementia between July 2001 and December 2014 – termed the dementia cohort – and 28,972 people who had no history of dementia who were diagnosed with self-harm between January 2005 and December 2014 – termed the self-harm cohort.” The findings were published online May 1 in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia.

Related Links:

— “Dementia diagnosis increases self-harm risk in first year “Kalie VanDewater, Healio, May 15, 2023