Pulmonology Advisor (8/23) reported a new study by researchers at University of Massachusetts Amherst indicates that “following medical marijuana legalization (MML) in Massachusetts in 2012, there was an increase in pediatric cannabis exposure.” Study authors wrote, “The increase occurred despite the cannabis product packaging being designed to be difficult for young children to open, being unappealing to the youth, and requiring warning labels instructing that the product be kept away from children.” The findings were published online in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Pediatric Exposure to Cannabis Has Increased Since Medical Legalization, Pulmonology Advisor, August 23, 2019

Medscape (8/23, Parry, Subscription Publication) reported a new study suggests that “psychiatric illnesses are common in children and adults with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) who are receiving dialysis.” Specifically, while “only approximately 2% of all adults and 1% of children had been hospitalized with a primary psychiatric diagnosis, these amounted to a large number of patients (9058 elderly adults, 8570 middle-aged adults, and 122 children).” Also, researchers saw “that the rate of hospitalizations with psychiatric diagnoses increased over the course of the study period, predominantly attributed to secondary diagnoses.” The findings were published online in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

Healio (8/23) also reported.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (8/23, Boyles) reported, “The prevalence of depression, marijuana use, and alcohol abuse among former cigarette smokers in the U.S. have all increased since the mid-2000s, according to data through 2016 from the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)” analyzed by researchers at City University of New York. Data indicate that “prevalence of past-year major depressive episodes among former smokers rose from 4.88% to 6.04% from 2002 to 2016.” The findings were published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Related Links:

— “Is Your Child Emotionally Ready for College?, “Anthony Rostain and B. Janet Hibbs, Wall Street Journal, August 22, 2019

MD Magazine (8/22, Walter) reports, “By mapping the brain of” patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and their “family members, investigators have learned different patterns in the brain that could help lead to better diagnosis practices.” After conducting “a meta-analysis of global and subcortical brain measures of 6008 participants, 1228 of which are first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia (FDR-SZ), 852 of which are first-degree relatives of patients with bipolar disorder (FDRs-BD), 2246 control subjects, 1016 patients with schizophrenia and 666 patients with bipolar disorder from 34 schizophrenia and/or bipolar disorder family cohorts using standardized methods,” researchers “found that the first-degree relatives of bipolar patients had significantly larger intracranial volume (d = +.16, q < .05 corrected), while the first-degree relatives of schizophrenia patients had smaller thalamic volumes than the control subjects (d = −0.12, q < .05 corrected).” The findings were published online June 13 in Biological Psychiatry: A Journal of Psychiatric Neuroscience and Therapeutics. Related Links:

— “Relatives of Patients with Psychotic Disorders Have Distinct Brain Abnormalities, “Kenny Walter, MD Magazine, August 22, 2019