MedPage Today (2/22, Henderson) reports CODAC Behavioral Healthcare, which offers “opioid treatment in Rhode Island,” has “partnered with Brown University to study how well patients and [professionals] feel telephone counseling for” medication-assisted treatment (MAT) “has been working during the pandemic.” The partnership’s “results have proved promising in a potential bright spot for the addiction treatment sector, grappling with how best to protect vulnerable patients from potential exposure to COVID-19, serve new ones as overdoses spike during the pandemic, and get reimbursed for their efforts.” So far, “unpublished data show that the majority of 247 patients and 41 counselors who participated in a survey between August and October of last year believed telephone counseling improved the therapeutic relationship, Linda Hurley, president and CEO of CODAC, told MedPage Today.”

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Psychiatric News (2/19) reported, “Gastrointestinal symptoms are common in people who have major depressive disorder (MDD),” investigators concluded after analyzing “data from 3,256 MDD patients aged 18 years and older from the National Survey on Symptomatology of Depression.” The study revealed not only that “more than 70% of patients experienced gastrointestinal symptoms during depressive episodes,” but also that “a higher frequency of gastrointestinal symptoms was associated with an increased risk of psychological symptoms such as suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, anxious mood, depressed mood, insomnia, and feeling like a failure.” The findings were published online Feb. 17 in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

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— “Gastrointestinal Symptoms Common in Major Depressive Disorder, Study Shows, Psychiatric News, February 19, 2021

HCPlive (2/19, Walter) reported investigators “are now worried post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) rates may rise in patients infected with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).” In a 381-patient study, researchers “examined whether PTSD rates increased in patients who were hospitalized with COVID-19, but ultimately recovered.” The study revealed “‘a PTSD prevalence of 30.2% after acute COVID-19 infection, which is in line with findings in survivors of previous coronavirus illnesses compared with findings reported after other types of collective traumatic events,’ the authors” concluded. The findings were published online Feb. 18 in a research letter in JAMA Psychiatry.

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— “COVID-19 Increases Risk of PTSD “Kenny Walter, HCPlive, February 19, 2021

HealthDay (2/19, Norton) reported researchers “may have uncovered the reason” why antipsychotic “medications for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder cause weight gain and diabetes.” Working in the laboratory with pancreatic cells, investigators “found that dopamine influenced the production of both glucagon and insulin.” But, “when the researchers used antipsychotic medications to block the pancreatic cells’ D2-like receptors, that ramped up the production of both glucagon and insulin.” In the human “body, unchecked release of those hormones could quickly lead to a loss in insulin sensitivity and chronically high blood sugar levels.” The findings were published online Feb. 16 in the journal Translational Psychiatry.

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— “Many Psych Meds Trigger Weight Gain, But New Research Points to Better Options ” Amy Norton, HealthDay, February 19, 2021

The New York Times (2/18, Tavernise, Goodnough) reports “life expectancy in the United States fell by a full year in the first six months of 2020, the federal government reported on Thursday, the largest drop since World War II and a grim measure of the deadly consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.” The new data give “the first full picture of the pandemic’s effect on American life spans, which dropped to 77.8 years from 78.8 years in 2019.” The data “also showed a deepening of racial and ethnic disparities: Life expectancy of the Black population declined by 2.7 years in the first half of 2020, slicing away 20 years of gains.”

The Washington Post (2/17, A1, Bernstein) reports “Americans can now expect to live as long as they did in 2006, according to the provisional data released by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a part of the” CDC. Latinos lost 1.9 years of life expectancy, and white Americans lost 0.8 years, the data show. Bloomberg (2/18, Tanzi) says the report showed the gap in life expectancy “between the sexes rose to 5.4 years, the most in more than two decades.” Also reporting are the Wall Street Journal (2/18, Adamy, Subscription Publication), USA Today (2/18, Rodriguez), Reuters (2/18, Mishra, Chander), CNN (2/18, McPhillips), STAT (2/18), and Axios (2/18, Falconer).

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— “Sabrina Tavernise and Abby Goodnough “Sabrina Tavernise and Abby Goodnough, The New York Times, February 18, 2021