January, 2010
Antidepressants Could Pose Stroke Risk for Older Women
Could antidepressants be bad for your health? According to a Women’s Health Initiative study, participants who reported taking an antidepressant drug had a statistically significant increase in the risk of stroke and of death compared with participants not taking antidepressants. This study was recently featured in a Science Daily post.
“Depression is a serious illness with its own health risks, and we know that antidepressants can be life-saving for some patients. No one should stop taking their prescribed medication based on this one study, but women who have concerns should discuss them with their physicians,” says Jordan W. Smoller, MD, ScD, of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Department of Psychiatry, the study’s lead author.
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Few Americans with Major Depression Receive Treatment
Many adults in the U.S. with major depression do not receive treatment or therapy based on treatment guidelines, and some racial and ethnic groups have even lower rates of adequate depression care, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
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Women Arrested for Drunk Driving Increases While Men Take More Care
For those women who are striving for greater equality between the sexes, women are definitely gaining on men in one key area: arrests for drunken driving. According to a Chicago Tribune story, women are racing to catch up to men in DUI arrests, who still greatly outnumber women.
With this gap still in place, how is equality making a change? The number of arrests for men is declining, while the number of arrests for women is steadily rising. As Gail D’Onofrio, chairwoman of the emergency medicine department at Yale School of Medicine stated, “We’ve come a long way, baby, and this is not a good way.”
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Prescription Drug Abuse: A Growing Problem
It is easy to assume that a drug problem is only possible if a person were to take illegal drugs and become addicted. The problem with this assumption is it ignores the growing problem of abuse in terms of prescription drugs.
The Reading Eagle recently posted a piece that highlights the ease in which “normal” individuals become addicted to drugs. For Brandi B., an illegal drug never entered her system. It was a prescription for Dilaudid to ease the pain of ulcerative colitis that led to an addiction that eventually ruined her life.
Obesity Found to Be as Deadly as Smoking
New research finds that obesity has become an equal, if not greater, contributor to the burden of disease and shortening of healthy life in comparison to smoking.
Science Daily reports that in an article published in the February 2010 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers from Columbia University and The City College of New York calculate that the Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) lost due to obesity is now equal to, if not greater than, those lost due to smoking (both modifiable risk factors).
Study Identifies Effective Prevention Method for Depression in Elderly
Considering the impact that major depression can have on an individual, identifying risk factors and fighting to prevent their occurrence can be important. University of Rochester Medical Center researchers have pinpointed some of these factors in the elderly and their findings are summarized in a Science Daily release.
The research was led by Jeffrey M. Lyness, M.D., professor of Psychiatry at the Medical Center, which could lead to preventative measures. Such an approach could hold promise for those by providing the greatest health benefit at the lowest cost.
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Benefits of Peer Recovery Support Systems
It’s a long road back from addiction. The drug of choice can be alcohol, street or prescription drugs, or addictive gambling, spending, sex or eating. Although the faces of addiction are many, one outcome remains the same: all persons in recovery need the support of others. And these others need to be intimately familiar with what it means to be an addict.
Epileptic Issues in Infancy Can Lead to Schizophrenia Later in Life
There are a number of different elements that must be tracked in order to protect the natural development of the brain. For those who are dealing with specific physical impairments at a young age, treatments and medications can significantly impact development.
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Study Examines Risk of Suicidal Thoughts Among Childhood Cancer Survivors
Some may call an adult who survived childhood cancer blessed. For some of those survivors, this description misses the mark. In fact, these survivors have an increased risk for suicidal thoughts, even if it has been decades since their last cancer treatment.
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The Aftermath of Terrorism: How Exposure Affects Alcohol Consumption and Posttraumatic Stress
When a terrorist attack occurs, such as the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, there are many victims apart from those killed or injured in the attack. Many people who experience the effects of exposure to the attack and interpersonal loss can experience posttraumatic stress.
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