HealthDay (6/17, Reinberg) reports researchers used “genetic and survey data from hundreds of thousands of people” and “found that loneliness makes it more likely that someone will smoke.” Robyn Wootton, a senior research associate at the University of Bristol and a co-lead author of the study, said, “We found evidence to suggest that loneliness leads to increased smoking, with people more likely to start smoking, to smoke more cigarettes and to be less likely to quit.” The findings were published in Addiction.

Related Links:

— “Loneliness May Make Quitting Smoking Even Tougher, “Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, June 17, 2020

MedPage Today (6/17, Hlavinka) reports researchers found in a meta-analysis of 14 trials that among “patients who had attempted or were considering suicide, brief encounters with healthcare [professionals] reduced the risk of subsequent suicide attempts and improved access to follow-up care.” The review studywas published in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Brief Intervention Tied to Lower Repeat Suicide Attempt, “Elizabeth Hlavinka, MedPage Today, June 17, 2020

MedPage Today (6/15, Hlavinka) reports, “LGBTQ students attending schools with gay-straight alliance programs in place reported experiencing less bullying and better health outcomes than their LGBTQ peers whose schools lacked such programs,” investigators concluded. The survey study revealed that “among 17,112 LGBTQ high school respondents, 91% reported at least one experience with bullying of any type, and in fact most bullying was for ‘stigmatized identities’ unrelated to gender identity or sexual orientation, such as body weight or religion.” Even though “all forms of bullying were correlated with negative health outcomes like sleep issues, depression, or smoking, the presence of gay-straight alliance programs at schools, which focus on peer-to-peer connectedness to reduce prejudice, was not only associated with reductions in bullying, but improvements on these health outcomes,” the study revealed. The findings were published online June 15 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Related Links:

— “Gay-Straight Alliances at School Cut Bullying for LGBTQ Youth, “Elizabeth Hlavinka, MedPage Today, June 15, 2020

HealthDay (6/15, McNiff) reports that a recent study found “alarming” reported alterations “in eating and exercise” during the pandemic-related lockdowns among patients with obesity. Specifically, researchers found “almost 70% reported more difficulty in achieving weight-loss goals, and 6 out of 10 reported they were doing more stress-eating.” The findings were published in Clinical Obesity.

Related Links:

— “Lockdowns Making Things Worse for Obese Americans: Study, “Serena McNiff, HealthDay, June 15, 2020

MD Magazine (6/15) reports, “Familial psychiatric history could correlate with the risk of severe bipolar disorder activity in an individual,” investigators concluded after examining “both the Bipolar CHOICE (Clinical Health Outcomes Initiative in Comparative Effectiveness) comparing lithium with quetiapine and the LiTMUS trial, which compared optimized treatment with and without lithium.” In the trials were “a total of 757 patients.” The study revealed that “familial psychiatric history correlated with several disease severity measures, including hospitalizations, suicide attempts, and earlier onset.” The findings were published online ahead of print in the August issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Related Links:

— “Family History Link Found in Bipolar Disorder, “Kenny Walter, MD Magazine, June 15, 2020