Psychiatric News (12/17) reports, “Suicide risk is about two times higher in patients with Parkinson’s disease than the general population, even after adjusting for physical and mental comorbidities,” investigators concluded after conducting a “a cohort study using Taiwan’s National Health Insurance data, identifying 35,891 patients who received a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis between 2005 and 2014, with follow-up through 2016.” Next, “each patient with Parkinson’s was matched with four control participants (those who had not been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease), for a total control cohort of 143,577.” The findings were published online Dec. 16 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Parkinson’s Disease Associated With Increased Risk of Suicide, Study Finds, Psychiatric News, December 17, 2020

Healio (12/16, Gramigna) reports, “Cotreatment with benzodiazepine and opioids was linked to increased long-term mortality risk,” researchers concluded after analyzing “data of 5,212 individuals aged 20 years or older who were included in the large, nationally representative National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys…which were conducted between 1999 and 2015.” The findings were published online Dec. 9 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Benzodiazepine-opioid cotreatment linked to increased long-term mortality risk “Joe Gramigna, Healio , December 16, 2020

MedPage Today (12/16, Hlavinka) reports, “Suicide risk was nearly doubled for patients with Parkinson’s disease compared with the general population,” investigators in Taiwan concluded in a study that included “35,891 Parkinson’s patients.” The study revealed that “overall, the cumulative incidence of suicide during 2005-2016 was 66.6 and 32.3 deaths per 100,000 for the Parkinson’s and control groups.” The findings were published online Dec. 16 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

HCPlive (12/15, Alicea) reports research indicates that “preschool children with asthma and food allergies” may “be at increased risk of having concurrent mental health problems.” Investigators arrived at this conclusion after having “assessed data from 4649 children, of which slightly more than half (50.3%) were over the age of five.” The findings were published online Dec. 7 in Acta Paediatrica.

Related Links:

— “Asthma, Allergies Associated with Increased Risk for Mental Health Issues “Jonathan Alicea, HCPlive, December 15, 2020

Medscape (12/14, Brooks, Subscription Publication) reports, “Middle-aged women with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and comorbid depression have a nearly fourfold increased risk for early death from a variety of causes in comparison with their peers who do not have those conditions,” investigators concluded in a study that included “more than 51,000 mostly White women from the Nurses Health Study II who were followed for nine years (2008 to 2017).” The findings were published online in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)