HealthDay (9/26, Heubeck) reports, “It is possible to recover from an opioid addiction,” researchers concluded after “using data from the 2017 National Recovery Survey” to analyze “treatment and recovery services used by U.S. adults who had resolved opioid problems compared to those who had overcome an alcohol problem.” The findings were published online Aug. 2 in the Journal of Addiction Medicine.

Related Links:

— “Beating Opioid Addiction Can Be Tough, Here’s What Helps, “Elizabeth Heubeck, HealthDay , September 26, 2019

USA Today (9/26, Vanden Brook) reports, “The rate of suicide among troops increased to its highest level in five years,” a “comprehensive report [pdf] released” Sept. 26 by the Pentagon found. Specifically, “the rate of suicide among active duty military troops was 24.8 per 100,000 people in 2018,” compared to a rate of “18.5 per 100,000” just five years ago. The “overall spike in the rate” was attributed by the Pentagon to “small increases in suicides across all the services.” Newsweek (9/26, LaPorta) also covers the story.

Related Links:

— “Suicide among troops spikes in 2018 to highest rate in five years, Pentagon says, “Tom Vanden Brook, USA Today, September 26, 2019

Reuters (9/25, Rapaport) reports, “When young people with asthma have anxiety, depression or both, they’re more likely to visit the emergency” department (ED) “than if they didn’t have these mood disorders,” researchers concluded after examining “health insurance claims data from 2014 to 2015 for 65,342 children and young adults ages 6 to 21 with asthma.” The findings were published online Sept. 25 in Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Anxiety, depression tied to more ER visits with childhood asthma, “Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, September 25, 2019

The NBC News (9/25, Miller) website reports that researchpublished Sept. 25 in PLOS One “looked at the physical and emotional toll of paying attention to and participating in the political discourse.” The study revealed that “‘large numbers of American adults see politics as exacting a significant set of costs on their social, emotional, psychological and even physical health,’ said lead study author Kevin Smith, a political scientist at the University of Nebraska.” For the study, investigators examined “survey data collected by YouGov in March 2017 on 800 Americans – a time at which the costs of politics were ‘unusually acute,’ the researchers wrote.”

Newsweek (9/25, McCall) reports that “4.1 percent of respondents admitted to having suicidal thoughts triggered by events in politics⁠ – a number that would roughly translates to 13 million people if scaled up to current population figures,” the study found. The study also revealed that politics is “causing problems in…relationships – one in five said opposing political views have damaged a friendship, while 14.6 percent said that differences in political views have created problems for them in their immediate family.”

Also covering the story are the NPR (9/25, Chatterjee) “Shots” blog and HealthDay (9/25, Thompson).

Related Links:

— “Feeling sick or losing sleep over politics? You aren’t alone, “Sara G. Miller, NBC News, September 25, 2019

MedPage Today (9/25, Susman) reports, “A review of 15 years of suicides that were autopsied indicated that, most frequently, the person involved was a man, using a gun, in his home – and most of the time the individual left no explanation,” research indicated. The review of 657 suicide death records was presented at the annual meeting of the College of American Pathologists.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)