USA Today (12/13, O’Donnell, Pitofsky) reports, “A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report covering 2007 through 2017 (pdf) found that 17 percent of high school students are bullied,” and approximately seven “percent attempted suicide.” In fact, “suicide was the 10th leading cause of death for elementary school-aged children in 2014, the CDC reported.” What’s more, almost “13 percent of the children 17 and younger who were hospitalized for suicidal thoughts or attempts between 2008 and 2015 were ages five to 11.” The article interviews experts who discuss complicating factors behind child suicides in addition to bullying, such as depression and family conflict.

Related Links:

— “Child suicides can be linked to bullying, but it’s never the sole cause, mental health professionals say, “Jayne O’Donnell and Marina Pitofsky, USA TODAY, December 13, 2018.

HealthDay (12/12, Preidt) reports, “Extreme dieting behaviors often begin in the teen years and worsen in adulthood,” research indicated. The findings of the 1,455-adult study were published online Nov. 27 in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

Related Links:

— “Extreme Dieting in Teens Often Intensifies in Adulthood, “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, December 12, 2018.

Reuters (12/12, Carroll) reports, “Female military veterans with traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder or depression are more likely to develop dementia later in life than peers without those conditions,” research indicated.

HealthDay (12/12, Salamon) reports that for the study, researchers examined data involving “more than 100,000 older women veterans.” The findings were published online Dec. 12 in the journal Neurology. MedPage Today (12/12, George) also covers the study.

Related Links:

— “Dementia risk increased in female vets with brain injury, PTSD, “Linda Carroll, Reuters, December 12, 2018.

Healio (12/12, Demko) reports, “Youth aged five to 24 years beginning antipsychotic therapy who received doses higher than 50 mg chlorpromazine equivalents had a 3.5-fold increased risk for unexpected death,” researchers concluded after comparing “the risk for unexpected death among children and youth who started treatment with antipsychotic vs. control medications using data from Medicaid enrollees aged five to 24 years in Tennessee who had no diagnosis of severe somatic illness, psychoses, Tourette syndrome or chronic tic disorder.” The findings were published online Dec. 12 in JAMA Psychiatry.

According to Psychiatric News (12/12), the author of an accompanying editorial wrote, “The ‘[r]esults…heighten the already increased caution about prescribing antipsychotics to children and adolescents.’” She added, “Concerns about excess deaths are likely to increase because the prevalence of some disorders for which antipsychotics are prescribed off-label (e.g., attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) and the number of prescriptions for indicated and off-label use are rising.” Medscape (12/12, Anderson, Subscription Publication) also covers the study.

Related Links:

— “Antipsychotic use may increase risk for unexpected death among youth, “Savannah Demko, Healio, December 12, 2018.

The Washington Post (12/11, Bever) reports that fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond appears to have an alcohol problem, researchers concluded in findings (pdf) published in the Medical Journal of Australia. After analyzing “Bond films from 1962 to 2015 to better understand his patterns of alcohol use,” investigators “found that the British spy met more than half of the criteria for alcohol use disorder as defined by the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-5 classification system for mental disorders.”

Related Links:

— “Shaken not slurred: James Bond had ‘a severe chronic alcohol problem,’ public health experts say, “Lindsey Bever, The Washington Post, December 11, 2018.