Healio (5/13, Demko) reports researchers examined 35 studies in a meta-analysis and concluded that “methylphenidate use was significantly associated with sleep problems and several different types of insomnia.” The findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Methylphenidate treatment for ADHD tied to several types of insomnia, “Savannah Demko, Healio, May 13, 2019

In an opinion piece for The Hill (5/13), National Eating Disorders Association Chief Policy and Strategy Officer Chevese Turner writes that “second to deaths spurred by the opioid crisis, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric diagnosis,” but “insurance companies resist covering life-saving treatment.” Turner says that “recent landmark court decisions and amendments to state legislation are setting precedent for parity coverage of eating disorders treatment,” but “we need to remain diligent in stoking insurers to provide equal coverage for eating disorders treatment across the country.” Turner concludes, “We must continue pressing insurers through legal action and policy until all Americans…have true coverage of eating disorder treatment.”

Related Links:

— “Mental health coverage needs to include eating disorders, The Hill, May 13, 2019

In the New York Times (5/13, Carroll) “The Upshot,” Aaron E. Carroll, MD, a professor of pediatrics at the Indiana School of Medicine, writes, “Legislators and gun safety advocates often focus on how guns are” bought, even though “many lives could be saved, especially among children, if they looked more at how they are stored.” Just in the past decade alone, “guns killed more than 14,000 American children.” In new research, investigators have found that “even a modest increase in owners who lock up their guns would pay off in an outsize drop in gun deaths.”

CNN (5/13, Scutti) reports, “US households with children do not safely store firearms in the way the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends: locked up and unloaded.” Were parents simply to lock up “all their guns, then up to a third of gun suicides and accidental deaths among children and teens could be avoided, researchers” estimated. The findings were published online in JAMA Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “The Potentially Lifesaving Difference in How a Gun Is Stored, “Aaron E. Carroll, The New York Times, May 13, 2019

Reuters (5/10, Rapaport) reported that states which “require adults on Medicaid to work a set number of hours to get benefits may find many people lose coverage because behavioral health conditions and other chronic health problems make it hard for them to work,” according to a study published in Health Affairs. Data show only “23 percent of people with serious mental illnesses worked at least 20 hours a week, while only 43 percent of people with substance use disorders achieved this minimum number of work hours.” Among recipients “with both mental illness and substance use issues, only 32 percent worked at least 20 hours a week.” Meanwhile, “almost half of Medicaid enrollees without any identified health problems worked at least 20 hours a week.”

Related Links:

— “Medicaid work rules likely to penalize chronically ill: study, “Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, May 10, 2019

HealthDay (5/9, Reinberg) reports researchers found in two studies published in JAMA Dermatology that psoriasis “is often coupled with depression, anxiety and even bipolar disease, schizophrenia and dementia.” In one study, “Danish researchers collected data on more than 13,600 men and women with psoriasis,” and “over five years of follow-up, 2.6% developed mental problems, and over 10 years, that number rose to nearly 5%.” In the other study, “Korean researchers looked at more than 12,700 psoriasis patients,” and “found that the risk for anxiety, phantom medical problems, neurotic disorders and sleep problems was doubled and tripled among psoriasis sufferers compared to those without the disease.”

Related Links:

— “Psoriasis, Mental Ills Can Go Hand in Hand, “Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, May 9, 2019