USA Today (12/13, Weintraub) reports the Monitoring the Future survey, which has tracked habits of American teenagers since 1975, found the lowest ever rates of smoking, drinking, and other drug use. For example, the incidence of half-pack-a-day smokers has fallen from 11.1 percent of high school seniors in 1991 to 1.8 percent this year. Only 37.3 percent of seniors said they had ever been drunk, “down from a high of 53.2% in 2001.” National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Nora Volkow said the decline could be related to the fact that there are fewer “occasions to get together where the use of drugs would be facilitated,” though she acknowledged she does not have data to support that hypothesis.

Related Links:

— “There’s hope: Fewer teens are doing drugs than ever before,”Karen Weintraub, USA Today, December 13, 2016.

HealthDay (12/13, Preidt) reports, “If a test could tell them they were going to develop Alzheimer’s disease, most American seniors would take it,” researchers found after asking “875 people aged 65 and older if they would take a free, accurate test to predict their future risk of the progressive brain disorder.” In fact, “three-quarters said they would take such a test,” investigators found. The findingswere published online Dec. 12 in Alzheimer’s Research and Therapy.

Related Links:

— “Test Predicting Alzheimer’s Would Be Welcome, Survey Finds,”Robert Preidt, HealthDay, December 13, 2016.

Medical Daily (12/13, Dovey) reports researchers have identified “biomarkers in four specific subtypes of depression by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans of 1,000 patients with clinical depression, and comparing them to healthy control subjects.” The findings were published online Dec. 5 in Nature Medicine.

Related Links:

— “4 Depression Types: Biomarkers May Help Diagnose Disorder Subtypes, Help Patients Get Better Treatment,”Dana Dovey, Medical Daily, December 13, 2016.

President Obama’s signing of the 21st Century Cures Act was noted on one major network newscast, and received very favorable – though sparse – print coverage highlighting the measure’s potential to save lives and the bipartisan cooperation that brought it into being. NBC Nightly News (12/13, story 8, 1:35, Alexander), for example, remarked on the “rare moment of unity” in “a city badly polarized by politics,” in which Obama, in “what’s likely the last bill-signing of this presidency,” built “a legacy meant to last.”

The Washington Post (12/13, Eilperin, Johnson) reports the bill “had wide bipartisan support and has been held up as an example of what Congress can accomplish by working together.” It contained “several provisions that the White House has championed, including $1 billion for opioid abuse prevention and $4.8 billion for biomedical research funding.” It was “an emotional bill signing ceremony,” says USA Today (12/13, Korte), for a bill that was “a personal project for” Vice President Biden, who was in attendance and delivered remarks, as “the section of the bill allocating $1.8 billion in cancer research funding was named for his son, Beau, whose death from brain cancer in 2015 inspired what the White House called its ‘Cancer Moonshot.’”

Related Links:

— “Obama, paying tribute to Biden and bipartisanship, signs 21st Century Cures Act Tuesday,”Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post, December 13, 2016.

The New York Times (12/13, A18, Carey, Subscription Publication) reports, “About one in six American adults reported taking at least one psychiatric” medication, “usually an antidepressant or an anti-anxiety medication, and most had been doing so for a year or more, according to a” research letter published online Dec. 12 in JAMA Internal Medicine. The findings are “based on 2013 government survey data on some 242 million adults.”

According to the CBS News (12/12, Welch) website, the research letter also reveals that “over 80 percent of those taking these medications reported long-term use, which experts say is concerning since some” of these medicines “are recommended for shorter use and carry a number of serious risks.”

TIME (12/12, Sifferlin) points out, “More than 20% of white Americans reported being prescribed psychiatric” medications, “compared to about 9% of Hispanic adults, nearly 10% of black adults and close to 5% of Asian adults,” investigators found.

Related Links:

— “One in 6 American Adults Say They Have Taken Psychiatric Drugs, Report Says,”Benedict Carey, The New York Times, December 13, 2016.