The New York Times (3/16, Span, Subscription Publication) reports that “for years, geriatricians and researchers have sounded the alarm about the use of benzodiazepines among older adults,” including Valium (diazepam), Klonopin (clonazepam), Xanax (alprazolam) and Ativan (lorazepam), but “the cautions have had scant effect” while the opioid epidemic has compounded the problem. According to Michael Schoenbaum, an epidemiologist at the National Institutes for Health, “Way too many older Americans are getting benzos. And of those, many — more than half — are getting them for prolonged periods. That’s just bad practice. They have serious consequences.” The Times notes that in 2016 “the Food and Drug Administration issued a black-box warning about co-prescribing benzodiazepines and opioids, including those in cough products.”

Related Links:

— “A Quiet Drug Problem Among the Elderly,” Paula Span, New York Times, March 16, 2018.

Medscape (3/14, Brauser) reports, “Sustaining a traumatic brain injury (TBI) may be a risk factor for violent behavior and subsequent incarceration,” researchers concluded in “a large review of birth cohort, data linkage, and population studies.” The findings were published online Feb. 26 in The Lancet Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (3/14, Walsh) reports, “Patients with axial spondyloarthritis have high rates of depression, with almost one-third experiencing moderate-to-severe symptoms,” researchers found among “a cohort of 1,736 patients.” The findings were published online March 9 in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

Related Links:

— “Depression Common with Spine Disease,” Nancy Walsh, MedPage Today, March 14, 2018.

The CBS Evening News (3/14, story 10, 1:35, Glor) reported, “A new study out today finds women who are physically fit may be 90 percent less likely to develop dementia.” According to medical contributor Dr. Tara Narula explained that researchers following women in their 40s found that, after testing for fitness levels and the rates of dementia over a period of nearly 40 years, women with the highest levels of fitness “on average developed dementia at a rate of about five percent.”

USA Today (3/14, Weintraub) reports that the study published online March 14 in Neurology revealed that “the few highly fit women who did develop dementia became symptomatic at age 90 on average, 11 years later than the moderately fit,” the study found.

TIME (3/14, Park) reports that in contrast, “women with lower fitness had a 41% higher risk of developing dementia than women with average fitness.” The study “involved nearly 1,500 women in Sweden who provided information on their physical activity levels and took cognitive tests for up to 44 years.”

Also covering the study are HealthDay (3/14, Gordon) and Healio (3/14, Demko).

Related Links:

— “‘Highly fit’ middle-age women nearly 90% less likely to develop dementia decades later, study finds,” Karen Weintraub, USA Today, March 14, 2018.

CNN (3/13, Christensen) reports on its website that from 1980 to 2014, “2.84 million Americans died of alcohol, drugs, suicide, domestic violence or abuse, according to a study published Tuesday in the medical journal JAMA,” indicating a more than six-fold increase. More than half a million people died from “drug use disorders” and while “the rates of death varied widely, with increases between 8.2% and 8,369.7%, drug deaths were up in nearly every single county in the United States,” CNN reports.

Related Links:

— “Drug deaths rose 8,370% in some US counties over 34 years,” Jen Christensen, CNN, March 13, 2018.