The New York Times (8/21, Yin, Subscription Publication) reports there were “nearly 1.3 million hospitalizations involving opioids…in the United States in 2014,” representing “a 64 percent increase in inpatient stays and a doubling” in opioid-related emergency room visits since 2005, according to data “published this year” by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

The article extensively quotes senior AHRQ researcher Dr. Anne Elixhauser, who said the data “cover all areas, all age groups, male and female. And it’s only getting worse in the time frame we’re looking at here.” The article adds that online data managed by AHRQ “show that most inpatient stays involving opioids over the last decade were among patients covered by Medicaid, closely followed by Medicare patients.”

Related Links:

— “Hospitals Are Clogged With Patients Struggling With Opioids,” STEPH YIN, New York Times, August 21, 2017.

HealthDay (8/21, Reinberg) reports that research published in JAMA Neurology suggests “for seniors, and particularly” black patients, with hypertension, “lowering it may help keep their minds sharp.”

MedPage Today (8/21, Bacher) reports that during “a 10-year period, the greatest decline in cognitive status was seen in people with” systolic blood pressure (SBP) “levels of 150 mm Hg or higher.” Comparatively, “the least cognitive decline occurred in those with SBP levels of 120 mm Hg or lower.”

Healio (8/21) reports that the investigators “found that when compared with white patients, black patients had a greater difference in cognition between the higher and lower systolic BP levels: adjusted differences between the group with levels of 150 mm Hg or higher and the group with levels of 120 mm Hg or lower were –0.05 in white patients and –0.08 in black patients for Modified Mini-Mental State Examinations…and –0.07 in white patients and –0.13 in black patients for the Digit Symbol Substitution Test.” Data from “1,657 cognitively intact older adults” were used in the study.

Related Links:

— “Lower Blood Pressure Best for Seniors’ Minds,” Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, August 21, 2017.

Healio (8/21, Oldt) reports, “Risks for head injuries and traumatic brain injuries [TBI] were significantly higher among adults newly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease who recently began using antidepressants,” researchers found after conducting “a matched cohort study of 10,910 new antidepressant users and 21,280 matched nonusers between 2005 and 2011.” The findings were published Aug. 1 in Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy.

Related Links:

— “Antidepressant use in Alzheimer’s disease increases risk for head injury, TBI,” Taipale H, et al., Healio, August 21, 2017.

HealthDay (8/18, Preidt) reported that research published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology suggests “proton pump inhibitors do not appear to increase Alzheimer’s disease risk.” Investigators analyzed “data from Finland on nearly 71,000 Alzheimer’s disease patients and nearly 283,000 people without the disease.”

The researchers “found that use of the drugs was not associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s, even among those who took a higher dose or used the drugs for more than three years.”

Related Links:

— “Popular Heartburn Drugs Don’t Raise Risk of Alzheimer’s: Study,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, August 18, 2017.

Reuters (8/17, Rapaport) reports that research suggests “men with gambling addictions are more likely than their peers to have endured childhood traumas like physical abuse or violence at home, and treatment needs to address this underlying stressor.”

In the study of more than 3,000 men, investigators found that “compared with men who rarely if ever placed wagers, the men with a pathological addiction to gambling were more than twice as likely to have witnessed violence at home or to have experienced physical abuse or assault growing up.”

Additionally, “they were…more than three times as likely to have suffered a serious or life-threatening injury as” children. The findings were published in Addictive Behaviors.

Related Links:

— “Adult gambling addiction tied to childhood trauma,” Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, August 17, 2017.