Reuters (10/6, Rapaport) reported, “Most law enforcement agencies and many gun retailers may be willing to temporarily store firearms to help prevent suicide,” researchers concluded after surveying “448 law enforcement agencies and 95 gun retailers in eight states.” The findings were published online Sept. 21 in the American Journal of Public Health.

Related Links:

— “Some police and retailers may store guns to help prevent suicide,” Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, October 6, 2017.

Medscape (10/9, Anderson) reports, “Midday bright white light therapy may be effective for patients with bipolar depression,” researchers concluded after randomizing 46 patients “to a group that received broad- spectrum bright white fluorescent light (7000 lux) or to one that received inactive dim red light (50 lux).” The findings were published online Oct. 3 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association. Healio (10/9, Oldt) and Psychiatric News (10/4) also covered the study.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

HealthDay (10/5, Mozes) reports, “Being born at an extremely low birth weight,” that is, at 2.2 pounds or less, “seems to increase the risk for developing mental health issues as an adult,” but such “risk can be lowered by lessening exposure to bullying and family stress during childhood and adolescence,” researchers found after reviewing “40 years’ worth of data” on “nearly 180 extremely low birth weight children who had been born between 1977 and 1982 and survived into adulthood,” then comparing “their adult mental health status…with that of 145 adults who had been born at a normal weight.” The findings were published online Oct. 3 in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Protecting Preemies From Stress Might Improve Later Mental Health,” Alan Mozes, HealthDay, October 5, 2017.

HealthDay (10/5, Reinberg) reports, “Taking a multivitamin during pregnancy may reduce a child’s risk of developing autism,” research indicated. After analyzing data on “more than a quarter-million mother-child pairs in Sweden,” investigators found that “multivitamin use with or without added iron or folic acid was associated with a lower likelihood of child autism with intellectual disability, compared with mothers who did not use supplements.” The findingswere published online Oct. 4 in the BMJ. Healio (10/5, Oldt) also covers the study.

Related Links:

— “Prenatal Multivitamins Linked to Lower Autism Risk,” Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, October 5, 2017.

USA Today (10/3, Weintraub) reports that according to a new report to be released today by the advocacy group UsAgainstAlzheimer, American families are decreasingly able to provide care for loved ones with Alzheimer’s. American families have fewer financial resources and “Medicare and Medicaid are simply not prepared to cope with the growing numbers of people with this disease,” according to UsAgainstAlzheimer chairman George Vradenburg. While “fewer 75-year-olds are getting the disease, … more people are living to 85, and roughly half of them will develop Alzheimer’s, statistics show.”

Related Links:

— “Caregiving for Alzheimer’s patients at risk in coming years, report says,” Karen Weintraub, USA Today, October 3, 2017.