In a perspective piece in the Washington Post (3/1, Morris) “Health & Science” blog, Nathaniel Morris, MD, a resident physician in psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine, wrote that “evidence suggests that gun availability is a far better explanation for mass shootings than mental illness and that gun regulations targeted exclusively toward people with mental health issues will have minimal impact on the American epidemic of gun homicides.” Dr. Morris concluded that “when it comes to the link between guns and mental illness, gun-related suicides are an overlooked issue that takes more than 20,000 lives each year.”

Related Links:

— “We need to rethink mental health laws. But not because of mass shootings.,” Nathaniel Morris, Washington Post, March 2, 2018.

The AP (3/3, Rathke) reported that last month, the Agri-Mark dairy cooperative sent “a list of mental health services and the number of a suicide prevention hotline” to its 1,000 New England and New York farmer members who are under financial and psychological stress due to falling milk prices. According to the article, “a 2016 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report” found that “people working in farming, fishing and forestry had the highest rate of suicide.”

Related Links:

— “Milk co-op mailing highlights suicide risk for dairy farmers,” LISA RATHKE, Associated Press, March 3, 2018.

Medscape (3/2, Anderson) reported that “central hearing loss may share the same mechanism of neurodegeneration with cognitive decline,” research indicated. The 1,604-participant “study showed that patients with central hearing loss, or central presbycusis, were twice as likely to have mild cognitive impairment (MCI) as those with no hearing loss, but there was no association between age-related hearing loss, or peripheral presbycusis, and cognitive impairment.” The study is scheduled for presentation during the upcoming American Academy of Neurology 2018 Annual Meeting.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

Medscape (3/1, Brooks) reports, “Researchers have identified a novel gene variant involved in opioid addiction, a finding that may aid efforts to develop novel pharmacologic approaches to the treatment of opioid dependence.” Medscape reports that in a genome-wide association study, “investigators found that a variant on chromosome 15 (rs12442138) near the repulsive guidance molecule A (RGMA) gene was associated with opioid dependence at a ‘genome-wide significant’ level.” The study was published online in Biological Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

The Hartford (CT) Courant (3/1, Rosner) reports, “The number of privately insured women nationwide between the ages of 15 and 44 who filled a prescription for an” attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder AD/HD “medication soared 344 percent from 2003 to 2015, from 0.9 percent to 4 percent, according to” data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Amphetamine salts, lisdexamfetamine, and methylphenidate are the three commonly filled AD/HD prescriptions, according to the CDC, and all three of those drugs are classified as Category C drugs by the FDA, which means that “studies on animals have shown an adverse effect on a fetus and there are no adequate and well-controlled studies in humans, but potential benefit may warrant their use in pregnancy despite potential risks.”

Related Links:

— “ADHD Drug Use Rises Sharply Among Young Women,” Cara Rosner, , March 1, 2018.