TODAY (9/12, Pawlowski) reports rising rates of alcohol use among women in the US is prompting concern about drinking habits, with a recent study indicating “rates of binge drinking increased by 17.5 percent among women between 2005 and 2012.” Aaron White, biological psychologist and Senior Scientific Adviser to the Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, said, “Alcohol use is increasing among women in the United States at a time when it’s decreasing among men. … There has been a real shift.” The piece says researchers speculate that with more women “delaying marriage and children, they’re extending their young adulthood – traditionally the risk period for alcohol problems – which can set a pattern of alcohol consumption patterns for years to come.”

Related Links:

— “Do moms need too much wine? Women’s drinking habits spark concern, “A. Pawlowski, TODAY, September 12, 2018.

HealthDay (9/12, Mozes) reports that after analyzing data on “nearly 200,000 Utah residents,” researchers found that patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) “may be more than twice as likely to develop” early Parkinson’s disease. The findings were published online Sept. 12 in Neuropsychopharmacology.

Related Links:

— “ADHD Tied to Raised Risk of Early Parkinson’s, “Alan Mozes, HealthDay, September 12, 2018.

Medscape (9/11, Brooks, Subscription Publication) reports, “Approximately 49 to 65 inpatients commit suicide each year in US hospitals,” researchers concluded after performing “a cross-sectional analysis of data from 27 states reporting to the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) for 2014-2015 and from hospitals reporting to the Joint Commission’s Sentinel Event (SE) database from 2010 to 2017.” The study authors estimated that “between 48.5 and 64.9 hospital inpatient suicides occur annually in the United States, with 31.0 to 51.7 of these events occurring during psychiatric hospitalization.” The findings were published online Sept. 3 in “the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety to coincide with National Suicide Prevention Week, September 9 to 15.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

Healio (9/11, Demko) reports, “Women with gestational diabetes mellitus may be at elevated risk for postpartum depression symptoms,” researchers concluded. The findings of the 1,066-woman study were published online Aug. 15 in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Related Links:

— “Link found between gestational diabetes, postpartum depression risk, “Savannah Demko, Healio, September 11, 2018.

NBC News (9/11, Fox) reports on its website that according to research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, a review of medical records from 2006 to 2015 “showed that a physician gave no explanation at all for writing an opioid prescription in 29 percent of the cases.” The findings by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Rand Corp. “help support criticism by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and others that say inappropriate prescribing practices have helped drive the opioid crisis.”

The Boston Globe (9/10, Finucane) reports “inappropriate prescribing, bad recordkeeping, or a combination of both were possible reasons for the missing data, according to the researchers.” Study author Tisamarie Sherry said, “Whatever the reasons, lack of robust documentation undermines our efforts to understand physician prescribing patterns and curtails our ability to stem overprescribing.”

Related Links:

— “Doctors gave no reason for a third of opioid prescriptions, study finds, “Maggie Fox, NBC News, September 10, 2018.