Ticks may be responsible for the spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Wisconsin’s deer population, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found that ticks can harbor transmissible amounts of the protein particle that causes CWD, a fatal neurological disease seen in deer, elk and moose. The pathogen, prion, can pass through soil or through bodily fluids, including feces. Prion can prompt certain proteins to fold abnormally, particularly in the brain. That can prevent these proteins from carrying out their normal functions. Over time, the CWD prion can cause severe brain damage and eventually death in deer, the study explained. While a lot of CWD studies focus on the role of soil in the disease’s spread, researcher Heather Inzalaco was curious about other means of transmission. She’s a researcher in the Wisconsin Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, housed in the UW–Madison department of forest and wildlife ecology. “Deer live these secret lives; we don’t see everything that they do,” Inzalaco said in a university news release. Inzalaco wondered if one possibility might be ticks. The arachnids acquire blood from CWD-infected deer, but she wondered if they could also host the prions. “Deer will groom one another to get places that they can’t reach on their own through self-grooming,” Inzalaco said. “If they’re grooming each other and they’re doing that to…  read on >  read on >

Depression, suicidal thoughts and other mental health problems sent record numbers of American kids, especially girls, to emergency rooms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Once there, many waited days or even weeks to be admitted to the hospital, a new study reports. “The system was already stretched to begin with and then the pandemic hit and more people were seeking care,” said senior researcher Haiden Huskamp, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School in Boston. “There are just not enough providers, clinicians, facilities or inpatient beds.” For the study, Huskamp and her colleagues looked at data on more than 4 million health insurance claims for U.S. children ages 5 to 17. They discovered nearly 89,000 ER visits for mental health problems in this age group. Compared with 2020, the first year of the pandemic, ER visits rose 6.7% between March 2021 and February 2022, the researchers found. Visits by teen girls jumped 22%. During that period, hospital admissions for mental health issues rose 8.4% and the length of hospital stays increased by nearly 3.8%. Moreover, the wait for a hospital bed was 76% longer than during the year before COVID, researchers found. To ease the problem, Huskamp said several steps are needed. No. 1: The shortage of mental health providers and burnout among them must be addressed. “We need to help support primary…  read on >  read on >

Older adults who regularly spend time with family and friends may have bigger brains to show for it, a new study suggests. Healthy brain aging is a complex matter, and researchers are still trying to understand which factors keep the mind sharp and which ones feed declines in memory and thinking. But a number of studies have suggested that social life matters. Social stimulation is thought to help support mental acuity; on the other hand, social isolation in the golden years has been linked to an increased risk of dementia. Exactly why, though, is unclear. So for the new study, researchers led by Dr. Toshiharu Ninomiya, of Kyushu University in Japan, asked a different question: Is social isolation connected to older adults’ brain volume? The brain naturally “shrinks” to a degree as people age, reflecting the loss of nerve cells and their connections. But that tissue loss is accelerated during the dementia process. If older people who are isolated tend to have smaller brains, the researchers reasoned, that might help explain the link with dementia. It turned out there was indeed a relationship, although not a causal one, according to findings published July 12 in the journal Neurology. Among nearly 9,000 Japanese adults aged 65 and older, more than 600 said they “seldom” saw or spoke with friends or relatives outside their household. And those…  read on >  read on >

About one-fifth of American workers say their workplace is toxic, and many say their mental health is harmed as a result. The American Psychological Association (APA) questioned 2,515 employed adults in April for its annual Work in America Survey. Nineteen percent stated that their workplace is very or somewhat toxic. “The number of individuals who report experiencing a toxic workplace without protection from harm is troubling,” said Arthur Evans Jr., APA’s chief executive officer. “No one should feel fear at work. It is clear there is much work to be done to foster a positive work environment for all workers in this nation,” he said in an association news release. “Toxic workplace” is described as a place where infighting, intimidation and other affronts harm productivity. Such places of employment usually see high absenteeism, low productivity and soaring turnover, the report noted. Mental health is also likely to suffer. More than half (about 52%) of those who reported a toxic workplace felt work had harmed their mental health, compared to 15% of those who reported a healthy workplace. Some of the other findings: About 22% of workers overall said they experienced harm to their mental health at work. 22% said they experienced harassment at work in the previous 12 months, up from 14% in 2022. 22% said they had witnessed discrimination and 15% experienced it. More…  read on >  read on >

The cleanup of industrial chemicals following a freight train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, early this year released high levels of some dangerous gases, including acrolein, investigators say. The Norfolk Southern freight train was carrying numerous hazardous chemicals. To avoid a catastrophic explosion after the Feb. 3 derailment, authorities opted for a controlled release of gases, and they also burned the train cars’ contents, which included toxic vinyl chloride. But residents were worried about their health and environmental hazards, so researchers have been assessing the local air. Using U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data, a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and Texas A&M University determined that nine of 50 gases reached levels above their baseline, especially acrolein, a respiratory irritant. Researchers noted that if these nine compounds remained at those levels, breathing the air could pose health risks. However, the amounts of many pollutants decreased significantly as the month wore on. Vinyl chloride, for example, declined to concentrations below long-term limits of health concern. The researchers assessed the local air quality with stationary and mobile sampling methods, and reported their findings July 12 in the American Chemical Society’s Environmental Science & Technology Letters. The team, which included Albert Presto, a research professor from Carnegie Mellon, used air-quality monitoring data from two EPA stations at fixed locations. They also drove a cargo van…  read on >  read on >