STAT (7/26, Joseph) reported a study of “more than 300,000 women who gave birth between 2008 and 2016” found nearly 2% “showed signs of ‘persistent’ opioid use” after childbirth. However, “both the percentage of women who filled their prescriptions and the rate of persistent opioid use declined” over the study period. HealthDay (7/26, Preidt) reported the study “found 1% to 2% of those women were still filling opioid prescriptions a year later,” and that “those most likely to be doing so were women who were prescribed opioids before giving birth, and those who got the largest initial doses.” MedPage Today (7/26, D’Ambrosio) reported the research showed “during the study period, opioid prescription fills decreased from 26.9% to 23.8% among women who gave birth vaginally and from 75.5% to 72.6% for women that had a C-section.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Study: 2% of women have ‘persistent’ opioid use after childbirth, “Lauren Joseph, STAT, July 26, 2019

Newsweek (7/24, Gander) reports researchers found that older people “with a high BMI and a big waistline…could be more likely to have a sign of brain aging linked to dementia.” The findings were published in Neurology. Medscape (7/24, Anderson, Subscription Publication) reports the researchers found that “greater body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) are associated with cortical thinning in the brain, especially in early old age.”

Related Links:

— “Big waist and high BMI associated with brain thinning linked to dementia, “Kashmira Gander, Newsweek, July 24, 2019

The Washington Post (7/24, Achenbach, Koh, Bennett, Mara) reports, “Southwest Virginia is among the regions in the United States hardest hit by the opioid epidemic, which has roots in prescription” analgesics. Newly-released “Drug Enforcement Administration data obtained and analyzed by The Washington Post” demonstrate “the swollen pipeline of prescription opioids from factories to pharmacies from 2006 to 2012.” The opioid epidemic “has been particularly brutal…in central Appalachia, which has seen the coal industry contract and now has some of the highest poverty and disability rates in the nation.” As to “how and why Appalachia became the epicenter of the epidemic,” this “is partly due to the real need for painkillers among workers hurt in coal mines and in other types of physically demanding jobs,” and also to the fact that opioid analgesics “were more addictive than people realized.”

Related Links:

— “Flooded with opioids, Appalachia is still trying to recover, “Joel Achenbach, Joyce Koh, Dalton Bennett, The Washington Post, July 24, 2019

Healio (7/24, Demko) reports, “Compensatory strategies – techniques to disguise autism – increased social integration, but were associated with poor mental health and delayed diagnosis among people with autism,” research indicated in a study that included “58 adults with a clinical diagnosis of autism, 19 with self-identified (but not formally diagnosed) autism and 59 without a diagnosis or self-identified autism (but with social difficulties).” The findings were published online July 23 in The Lancet Psychiatry. The author of a related commentary observed that “an important question for future research is whether subjective distress should be listed in the diagnostic criteria for” autism spectrum disorder. She wrote, “For example, DSM-5 could be revised to read: ‘Symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of current functioning [including subjective distress].’” She added, “This change would codify the experience of individuals with autism who function in the typical range, but do so through intense compensation that causes subjective distress.”

Related Links:

— “Compensatory strategies that mask autism may impede diagnosis, “Savannah Demko, Healio, July 24, 2019

HealthDay (7/23, Preidt) reports that extreme eating habits “in young children…could be a sign of autism, researchers say.” The study, which included more than 2,000 youngsters, revealed “atypical eating behaviors – such as hypersensitivity to food textures or pocketing food without swallowing – in 70% of kids with autism,” representing a rate 15 times of that usually “found in children.” The findings were published in the August issue of Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Related Links:

— “Extreme Eating Habits Could Be an Early Clue to Autism, “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, July 23, 2019