U.S. News & World Report (11/21, Galvin) reports, “Deaths tied to traumatic brain injuries have risen amid higher rates of suicides and accidental falls in the U.S., a new analysis (11/21) says.” There “were 61,131 TBI-linked deaths in 2017 alone, and nearly half of these deaths were by suicide or homicide from 2015 to 2017, according to the study released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” The report “details an alarming uptick in TBI-related suicides, the vast majority of which were by gun.”

Related Links:

— “Suicide Is Top Cause of Deaths Tied to Traumatic Brain Injury, “Gaby Galvin, U.S. News & World Report, November 21, 2019

The Miami (FL) Herald (11/20, Mayo) reports on diabulimia, “an eating disorder combined with the chronic illness of type 1 diabetes [T1D].” The condition, in which “patients learn how to restrict, or even omit, their insulin in order to lose or control weight,” is “growing at an alarming rate among adolescents and young patients with” T1D.

Related Links:

— “They’re underdosing insulin to lose weight. It’s a risky game diabetic girls are playing , “Christina Mayo, The Miami Herald, November 20, 2019

The Washington Post (11/20, Wan) reports, “Years after being shot, a large proportion of gun victims continue to suffer from increased unemployment, alcohol and drug abuse, and post-traumatic stress disorder, a new study shows, and the effects persist even when the injuries were minor.” The study authors acknowledge “that treatment for gun injuries may need to change,” as “currently, patients may be discharged quickly from the hospital, often with no checks on their mental health or follow-up care. And they say growing evidence suggests that gunshot trauma is harder to recover from than other types of injuries.” The report was published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Surgery.

HealthDay (11/20, Mozes) reports, “About 70,000 Americans survive gun shootings every year, but little research has looked at the long-term aftereffects, the study team said.” For this study, they “conducted phone interviews with 183 patients who were shot between 2008 and 2017 and treated at an urban, level 1 trauma center.”

Among the news outlets covering this story are Newsweek (11/20, Gander) and Healio (11/20, Gramigna).

Related Links:

— “Shooting victims have increased risk of mental harm long after physical injuries have healed, study finds, “William Wan, The Washington Post, November 20, 2019

Reuters (11/20, Millar) reports a study published in The Lancet Psychiatry concluded that “having an abortion does not increase women’s risk of suicide.” The study was “based on data from 520,000 Danish women over 17 years” and “found pre-existing mental health problems were the strongest risk factor for women trying to end their lives.” Investigators also “found that among women who had a first-trimester abortion, 8.9 in 1,000 made a non-fatal suicide attempt in the year before the procedure, while 8.6 per 1,000 did in the year directly after,” and “said the similarities in the rate indicated that the suicide attempts could not be attributed to the abortion.”

Healio (11/20) reports the study suggests that “although women who have had an abortion have a higher risk for nonfatal suicide attempts, the abortion itself is not the cause.” Julia R. Steinberg, PhD, one of the study’s authors, said, “There are 12 states that inform women seeking abortions that abortion increases or may increase their risk for suicidal ideation or mental health problems.”

Related Links:

— “Danish study rejects link between abortion and suicide, “Molly Millar, Reuters, November 20, 2019

Bloomberg BusinessWeek (11/20, Koons) reports that more Americans “turn to out-of-network providers when seeking mental health care than when seeking medical care, and the trend continues to worsen, a new study shows, despite a law designed to prevent this problem for people seeking treatment for conditions such as depression and addiction.” In an update of a 2017 report about access to mental health treatment, researchers “found that the disparity between medical coverage and mental and behavioral health coverage continued to grow in 2016 and 2017.”
        
Forbes (11/20, Japsen) also reports on the story.

Related Links:

— “Mental Health Coverage Continues to Fall Short, Study Shows, “Cynthia Koons, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, November 20, 2019