Overuse of marijuana is increasingly being linked to dangerous bouts of psychosis, and a new study finds that antipsychotics may be needed to keep such patients out of the hospital. Psychotic episodes involve a dangerous psychiatric state in which people lose their connection with reality. These episodes can get so out of control that people may need hospitalization. However, new research finds that people who overuse marijuana and then experience their first psychotic episode may be helped by the quick use of injected antipsychotics. “These findings encourage the early use of second-generation, long-acting injectables as an important secondary pre­vention strategy to reduce rates of hospitalization” in such patients, reports a team led by Dr. Alexander Denissoff, of the University of Turku in Finland. His team tracked outcomes for 1,820 people who had a first psychotic episode and also had cannabis use disorder between 2006 and 2021. Just over 1,100 of these patients ended up being hospitalized due to “psychotic relapse,” according to the American Psychiatric Association news release. However, folks who had received any antipsychotic med were a third less likely to require hospitalization due to relapse, compared to those who hadn’t gotten these drugs. Comparing the effectiveness of various antipsychotics, risperidone came out on top, cutting the odds for relapse-linked hospitalization by 60%, the researchers found, followed by aripiprazole (58% reduction), oral clozapine (57%),…  read on >  read on >

A good night’s sleep is often hampered by caffeine, hunger, alcohol or chronic pain. Now, America has a new cause of poor sleep: the sound of gunfire on city streets. New research shows that gunshots are twice as likely to occur at night, mostly affecting the sleep of people in low-income neighborhoods. In fact, nearly three out of four gunshots (72%) occur at night in major U.S. cities, mostly on Saturday and Sunday, researchers found. “A nighttime gunshot likely disrupts the sleep of nearby community residents due to the sheer sound of the shot, which is then followed by a cacophony of sirens from police vehicles and ambulances,” said researcher Rebecca Robbins, an assistant professor of sleep medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. For the study, researchers analyzed more than 72,000 records on the time and location of gunshots in six major cities around the United States, including Baltimore, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, Ore., and Washington, D.C., between 2015 and 2021. The team tracked how many gunshots occurred during the day versus at night, and then created maps to show which neighborhoods are most plagued by nighttime gunfire. They also estimated the number of people who lived near a location where gunshots occurred. As many as 12.5 million nights of sleep were ruined by gunfire across the six cities, given the number…  read on >  read on >

A rotten work schedule in young adulthood can affect a person’s middle-aged health, a new study finds. Young adults who worked shifts outside the usual 9-to-5 schedule were more likely to report worse sleep and symptoms of depression in their 50s, researchers discovered. “Work that is supposed to bring resources to help us sustain a decent life has now become a vulnerability to a healthy life,” said researcher Wen-Jui Han, a professor with New York University. For the study, Han and her colleagues analyzed data from a long-term study that tracked the health of more than 7,000 people in the United States for more than three decades. Results showed that in their 20s through their 40s, people rarely have a straight 9-to-5 schedule. “Indeed, about three-quarters of the work patterns we observed did not strictly conform to working stably during daytime hours throughout our working years,” Han said in a university news release. “This has repercussions.” These sort of volatile work hours are associated with bad sleep, physical fatigue and emotional exhaustion, all of which can contribute to poor health, Han said. “People with work patterns involving any degree of volatility and variability were more likely to have fewer hours of sleep per day, lower sleep quality, lower physical and mental functions, and a higher likelihood of reporting poor health and depressive symptoms at age…  read on >  read on >

Two newly discovered genetic variations can have a powerful effect on a person’s risk for obesity, a new report says. Variants in the gene BSN, also known as Bassoon, can increase risk of obesity as much as sixfold, researchers report April 4 in the journal Nature Genetics. These variants affect about 1 in every 6,500 adults, researchers said. Variants of the APBA1 gene also are associated with increased obesity risk, results show. “We have identified two genes with variants that have the most profound impact on obesity risk at a population level we’ve ever seen,” said researcher Giles Yeo, a professor with the Medical Research Council’s Metabolic Diseases Unit at Cambridge University. Previous genetic variants associated with obesity have been linked to the brain pathways normally associated with appetite regulation, known as the leptin-melanocortin pathway, researchers said. Interestingly, neither the BSN nor the APBA1 gene are known to be involved in that brain pathway, researchers said. Instead, prior studies have found that these genes play a role in the transmission of signals between brain cells — suggesting that age-related brain declines might affect appetite control. Further, neither gene is associated with childhood obesity risk, researchers said. For the study, researchers used data from the UK Biobank genetic research project to perform genetic sequencing of body mass index in more than a half-million people. They found…  read on >  read on >