FRIDAY, Feb. 28, 2025 (HealthDay News) People hospitalized for a severe bout of COVID-19 are far from in the clear after they’ve recovered enough to return home, a new study says. COVID hospital patients have an increased risk of death from any cause for at least two and a half years following their initial illness, researchers reported in a new study published in the journal Infectious Diseases. They also are more likely to be hospitalized again, with particularly high risk for neurological, psychiatric, heart and lung problems, researchers found. “These findings are a stark reminder of the far-reaching impact of COVID-19, which extends far beyond the initial infection,” lead researcher Dr. Sarah Tubiana, an infectious disease specialist at Bichat Hospital in Paris, said in a news release. “While much attention has been given to the immediate dangers of the virus, our research shows that hospitalized COVID-19 survivors remain at greater risks of severe health complications months and even years later,” Tubiana said. “The long-term implications for public health are significant.” For the study, researchers followed nearly 64,000 French adults admitted to a hospital with COVID between January 2020 and August 2020. The team compared their health with nearly 320,000 other people matched for age, sex and location who had not been hospitalized for COVID during the same period. During follow-up for up to 30 months,…  read on >  read on >

TUESDAY, Feb. 25, 2025 (HealthDay news) — Antidepressants are frequently prescribed to people with dementia for symptoms like anxiety, depression, aggressiveness and sleeplessness. But a specific class of antidepressant medications — selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) — actually might speed up brain decline among some dementia patients, a new Swedish study suggests. Heavier doses of certain SSRIs are tied to a higher risk for severe dementia, researchers reported in a new study published Feb. 24 in the journal BMC Medicine. Taking more than the average amount typically prescribed for these drugs was linked to an additional decline of 0.42 points per year in a dementia scale that runs from 0 to 30, researchers found. The SSRI drug escitalopram was associated with the fastest cognitive decline, followed by citalopram and sertraline. Mirtazapine, which works in a different way, had less negative impact on brain function, researchers found. “Depressive symptoms can both worsen cognitive decline and impair quality of life, so it is important to treat them,” said senior investigator Sara Garcia Ptacek, an assistant professor of neurology at the Karolinska Institute in Solna, Sweden.  “Our results can help doctors and other healthcare professionals choose antidepressants that are better adapted for patients with dementia,” she added in a news release. For the study, researchers tracked the brain health of more than 18,700 patients enlisted in the Swedish…  read on >  read on >

Narcissists may seem self-assured, but new research shows they often feel excluded — and their behavior may be making things worse. Hallmarks of narcissm include an inflated sense of one’s importance, a hunger for admiration and negative response to criticism. The new research — published Feb. 20 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology — found that folks with those personality traits are more likely to be left out socially than their peers. And this rejection only reinforces their narcisstic behaviors, creating what the authors described as a self-perpetuating cycle. “Ostracism — being excluded and ignored — has severe, negative consequences,” they wrote. “Many people think of narcissism in terms of entitlement and arrogance, but our research highlights that narcissists also frequently experience social pain,” lead researcher Christiane Büttner of the University of Basel in Switzerland told The Washington Post. To explore the link between narcissism and exclusion, researchers analyzed data from multiple surveys and experiments conducted in Germany, the U.S., Britain, Switzerland and New Zealand. The study focused on “grandiose narcissists.” These are folks who display dominance, rivalry and are extra sensitive to social cues. This form of narcissism differs from “vulnerable narcissism,” which is more closely linked to insecurity, researchers noted. “One of the biggest questions going into this research was whether narcissists might actually report less ostracism because their grandiose self-image…  read on >  read on >