Healio (8/31, Gramigna) reports, “Mental health during childhood and adolescence was linked to adolescent health behaviors,” investigators concluded after analyzing “data collected in 2008 and 2015 of 9,369 young people born between 2000 and 2001 who were included in the U.K. population-representative longitudinal Millennium Cohort Study.” The findings of the “cohort study” were published online in JAMA Network Open.

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— “Sleep, fruit/vegetable consumption, social media use influence adolescent mental health, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, August 31, 2020

MedPage Today (8/31, George) reports, “Fear of being out of mobile phone contact – known as nomophobia (no mobile phone phobia) – was extremely common among college students and was tied to poor sleep health,” investigators concluded in a study that “recruited 327 university students.” The study revealed that “nine out of 10 university students had moderate or severe nomophobia, which was linked to greater daytime sleepiness, avolition, and poorer sleep hygiene.” The findings were presented at the virtual SLEEP 2020, a joint meeting of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (8/30, George) reports that research indicated “nightmares that occurred twice a week or more were linked with cardiovascular disease in relatively young military veterans, even after controlling for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).” Investigators found, in the study of 3,468 US military veterans, that “frequent distressing dreams were associated with hypertension,…heart problems,…and myocardial infarction…after adjusting for age, race, and sex.” The findings were presented “at virtual SLEEP 2020, a joint meeting of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and the Sleep Research Society.”

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (8/30, George) reports, “More than half the people surveyed in an online population study experienced serious sleep difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic, but certain individuals reported better sleep.” Speaking at the virtual SLEEP 2020, Rebecca Robillard, PhD, of the University of Ottawa, described “three distinct profiles of sleep-related behaviors…during the pandemic.”

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

CNN (8/28, Thomas) reported experts wrote a letter published in the American Journal of Psychiatry arguing that the coronavirus pandemic has had a disproportionately large impact on people with developmental and intellectual disabilities, and that this population needs special support during the pandemic. The letter’s authors wrote, “People with intellectual and developmental disabilities were disproportionately isolated prior to the pandemic, and the intensification of that isolation stands only to weaken the community for all citizens.”

Related Links:

— “Covid-19 has disproportionately impacted those living with developmental disabilities, “Naomi Thomas, CNN, August 30, 2020