HealthDay (7/22, Preidt) reports researchers found that survival times following the diagnosis of dementia was similar for “patients of all ages,” but “varied depending on the type of dementia: 6.4 years for frontotemporal lobe degeneration; 6.2 years for Alzheimer’s disease; 5.7 years for vascular dementia; 5.1 years for dementia with Lewy bodies; and 3.6 years for rarer causes of dementia.” The findings were presented at the Alzheimer’s Association annual meeting.

Related Links:

— “Life Is Short After Dementia Diagnosis, No Matter Your Age, ” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, July 22, 2018.

Healio (7/19, Demko) reports that “heightened performance monitoring evident in early childhood was associated with the onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder during adolescence and smaller right dorsal anterior cingulate cortex volume,” researchers concluded in a 292-child study that also involved magnetic resonance imaging among some of the participants. The findings were published online July 18 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Heightened performance monitoring in early childhood linked to OCD,”Savannah Demko, Healio, July 19, 2018.

USA Today (7/18, Pitofsky) reports, “The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline saw calls double from 2014 to 2017, an increase that coincides with rising” US suicide rates. Last year, “the lifeline answered more than two million calls…up from one million calls in 2014, according to its latest figures.” Figures released June 7 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal a 25 percent increase in suicide rates “from 1999 to 2016.”

Related Links:

— “‘Like a busy emergency room’: Calls to suicide crisis centers double since 2014, “Marina Pitofsky, USA Today , July 18, 2018.

The New York Post (7/18, Wooller) reports researchers found that “nitrates used to cure” meats may increase the risk of mania. The researchers found that “people who ended up in the hospital diagnosed with mania were 3.5 times more likely to regularly eat nitrate-cured meats, compared to people with no history of serious psychiatric disorders.” The findings were published online July 18 in Molecular Psychiatry.

MedPage Today (7/18, Monaco) reports that included in the study were “1,101 individuals with or without a history of psychiatric illness.” In addition, rats were also studied.

Also covering the story are Newsweek (7/18, Gander) and HealthDay (7/18, Preidt).

Related Links:

— “Nitrate-Cured Meats Linked to Manic Episodes, “Kristen Monaco, MedPage Today , July 18, 2018.

TIME (7/17, Park) reports Bill Gates has pledged to dedicate funding to an award of “more than $30 million to the Diagnostics Accelerator, a project with the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF), that will focus on creating new strategies for diagnosing” Alzheimer’s disease. Gates said the goal is to spur “developments of a ‘real product for real patients’ by the medical community.”

Medscape (7/17, Brooks, Subscription Publication) reports Gates is joined by Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) co-founder Leonard Lauder and “other philanthropists, including the Dolby family and the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation.” The coalition aims to “develop novel biomarkers” for an Alzheimer’s disease and dementia diagnostic test.

Reuters (7/17, Steenhuysen) reports the investment will be awarded over three years, and Gates’ pledge “follows an announcement in November of [his] personal investment of $50 million in the Dementia Discovery Fund.” Reuters notes that the US FDA “has said that it would consider Alzheimer’s drug trials based on biological markers rather than clinical symptoms, paving the way for drugs to be tested far earlier in the disease process.”

Forbes (7/17, Tindera) and a Bloomberg News (7/17) online video also offer coverage.

Related Links:

— “It’s Nearly Impossible to Diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease in Living People. Bill Gates Wants to Change That, “Alicia Park, TIME Health., July 17, 2018.