HealthDay (2/16) reports recent research suggests recreational “substance use is associated with an increased likelihood of premature and extremely premature atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD).” In the study, researchers “found that patients with premature ASCVD had significantly higher use of tobacco, alcohol, cocaine, amphetamine, and cannabis compared with patients with nonpremature ASCVD.” The findings and an accompanying editorial were published in the journal Heart.

MedPage Today (2/16, Lou) also reports on the study.

Related Links:

— “Recreational Substance Use Linked to Premature Atherosclerotic CVD, HealthDay, February 16, 2021

HealthDay (2/16, Mozes) reports researchers found in a long-term study that young teenage girls who spend more time on social media than their peers are more likely to die by suicide. The findings were published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Related Links:

— “As Social Media Time Rises, So Does Teen Girls’ Suicide Risk ” Alan Mozes, HealthDay, February 16, 2021

Psychiatric News (2/16) reports “switching patients with serious mental illness who are taking one or more antipsychotics to aripiprazole or ziprasidone may lead to weight loss and other cardiometabolic improvements,” according to a meta-analysis published in Schizophrenia Bulletin. The researchers “analyzed 61 articles, which described studies of 8,554 people (mean age, 39 years) – the majority of whom had been diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, or comorbid mental disorders.”

Related Links:

— “Switching to Aripiprazole or Ziprasidone May Reduce Weight Gain in Patients Taking Antipsychotics, Psychiatric News, February 16, 2021

ABC News (2/16, Reshef, Schwartz-Lavares, Moll-Ramírez) reports experts say healthcare workers who have been on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic “will have to face a mental health reckoning after being in the trenches fighting the global pandemic.” ABC News adds, “Experts say there is still not enough data to assess the psychological toll COVID-19 has had on physicians in the past year.” Some healthcare workers, including Dr. Lorna Breen at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, have died by suicide during the pandemic, due to the trauma of the pandemic, according to their families and friends. Before the pandemic, 300-400 physicians died by suicide each year, according to the APA.

Related Links:

— “An urgent mental health crisis: Health workers facing immense psychological toll from pandemic “Erielle Reshef,Ashley Schwartz-Lavares, and Victoria Moll-Ramirez, ABC News, February 16, 2021

The New York Times (2/14, Kwai) reports that with COVID restrictions “set to drag into the spring or even the summer, mental health professionals are growing increasingly alarmed about the deteriorating mental state of young people, who they say have been among the most badly affected by a world with a foreshortened sense of the future.” The Times says that as they remain “last in line for vaccines and with schools and universities shuttered, young people have borne much of the burden of the sacrifices being made largely to protect older people, who are more at risk from severe infections.”

Related Links:

— “‘What’s the Point?’ Young People’s Despair Deepens as Covid-19 Crisis Drags On ” Isabella Kwai and Elian Peltier, The New York Times, February 14, 2021