People stricken with a severe case of COVID-19 have a higher risk of mental illness in the year following their infection, a new study warns. However, vaccination appears to ward off these effects on mental health, researchers reported Aug. 21 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. People hospitalized for COVID have a 16 times higher risk of developing depression, in one example provided by researchers. Even those COVID patients not hospitalized have more than a doubled risk of depression. However, the incidence of depression among people vaccinated against COVID was the same as that of people never infected with the coronavirus, results showed. “Our results highlight the importance COVID-19 vaccination in the general population and particularly among those with mental illnesses, who may be at higher risk of both SARS-CoV-2 infection and adverse outcomes following COVID-19,” said lead researcher Venexia Walker, a senior research fellow in epidemiology at the University of Bristol Medical School in the U.K.. For the study, researchers analyzed the medical records of more than 18.6 million adults aged 18 and older in England. All these records covered the period before COVID vaccination was available, and about 1 million of the patients had a confirmed COVID diagnosis. The research team also analyzed another group of more than 14 million vaccinated people, more than 866,000 of whom had a confirmed COVID diagnosis, and a…  read on >  read on >

Suicide rates among female doctors are significantly higher than those of the general population, a new study finds. Female doctors have a 76% higher suicide risk than average folks, researchers found. Male doctors had about the same suicide risk as the general public, but they still had an 81% higher risk of suicide compared to other professionals, according to results published Aug. 21 in the BMJ. “Suicide rate ratios for physicians appear to have decreased over time, but are still increased for female physicians,” concluded the research team led by Eva Schernhammer, an epidemiologist with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. Doctors are considered a profession at high risk for suicide, researchers said in background notes. It’s estimated that one doctor dies by suicide every day in the United States, and around one every 10 days in the U.K., researchers said. A 2004 analysis found a higher overall risk of death for both male and female physicians, driven in part by higher suicide rates, researchers noted. For this new review, researchers analyzed data gathered in 39 studies from 20 countries between 1935 and 2020. A separate analysis of the 10 most recent studies showed a decline in suicide rates for both male and female doctors over time. However, the suicide rate for female doctors remains 24% higher compared with the general population,…  read on >  read on >

Type 2 diabetes increased by nearly 20% in the United States between 2012 and 2022,  with age, race, income level, obesity and lack of exercise all playing a role in the metabolic disease’s spread, a new study reports. “Diabetes is increasing day by day in the U.S., and it will increase even more in the coming years,” said lead researcher Sulakshan Neupane, a doctoral student with the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. “Diabetes costs around $412 billion, including medical costs and indirect costs like loss of productivity,” Neupane added in a university news release. “That’s a huge amount, and it’s only going to increase as more people are diagnosed.” Age is a major factor, with middle-aged people and seniors carrying a much higher risk of type 2 diabetes, researchers found. Seniors aged 65 and older were more than 10 times as likely to be diagnosed with diabetes as people ages 18 to 24, results show. Middle-aged folks 45 to 64 were more than five times as likely to get such a diagnosis. Income and education also played a role. People with high incomes were 41% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes, and the college-educated were 24% less likely. Black people were the racial and ethnic group hardest hit by diabetes, with just under 16% diagnosed with the disease, researchers said. The…  read on >  read on >

Eating red meat and processed meat can increase a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a new review finds. Regularly eating 50 grams of processed meat a day — the equivalent of two slices of ham — increased by 15% a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes within the next 10 years, results showed. Likewise, eating 100 grams of unprocessed red meat daily – for example, a small steak  — was linked to a 10% higher risk of type 2 diabetes. “Our research provides the most comprehensive evidence to date of an association between eating processed meat and unprocessed red meat and a higher future risk of type 2 diabetes,” said senior researcher Nita Forouhi, a program leader in nutritional epidemiology with the University of Cambridge in the U.K. For the study, researchers analyzed pooled data for nearly 2 million people who participated in 31 different studies in 20 countries. The study also found an 8% increased risk of diabetes among people who regularly ate poultry like chicken, turkey or duck. However, that association became weaker as more factors were taken into account, while the links between diabetes and red or unprocessed meat persisted, researchers said. The study “supports recommendations to limit the consumption of processed meat and unprocessed red meat to reduce type 2 diabetes cases in the population,” Forouhi said in a Cambridge…  read on >  read on >

It’s not a replacement for actual psychotherapy, but a newly designed app could help young adults with mental health issues lower their anxiety, researchers report. The app, dubbed Maya, “can be an accessible and impactful tool for those looking for support around anxiety. It is incredible to see our ideas come to life,” said study co-first author and app designer Dr. Avital Falk. She’s associate professor of psychology in clinical psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian, in New York City. The Weill Cornell team began developing the new app in 2019, in collaboration with members of Weill Cornell Information Technologies & Services. Maya relies on a tried-and-true form of psychotherapy called cognitive behavioral therapy. It gives folks new coping skills and shifts in thinking to better help them deal with daily mental challenges. Maya helps teach these kinds of coping strategies, and it’s targeted to young adults (18 to 25). That’s an age often rife with stress, as people transition from the family home into college and the workplace. Using a variety of videos, exercises and educational content, the app helps supply needed guidance to stressed users whenever they can’t reach a clinician for help. In a trial involving 59 young adults, most seemed attracted to using the Maya app for at least 11 of the 12 weeks of the study. They did not…  read on >  read on >

Just a daily cigarette or two before or during pregnancy endangers the health of newborns, a new study warns. Infants are 16% more likely to suffer major health issues following delivery if their mothers engaged in “light smoking” of one or two cigarettes a day prior to getting pregnant, researchers found. Those newborns also have a 13% higher risk of landing in neonatal intensive care, results showed. What’s more, these risks increase with the amount a woman smokes, and remain high even if she quits partway through her pregnancy, researchers found. These results run counter to the belief by some women that it’s okay to smoke before getting pregnant or during the first three months of pregnancy, or that light smoking is unlikely to be harmful, researchers said. “There is no safe period and no safe level of cigarette smoking shortly before or during pregnancy,” concluded the research team led by Dr. Bo Xi, a professor of epidemiology with Shangdon University in Jinan, China. Doctors “should emphasize the detrimental effects of even light smoking before and during pregnancy,” the researchers added. It’s estimated that about 1 in 10 pregnant women smokes in the United States, researchers said in background notes. Smoking during pregnancy is associated with a higher risk of preterm delivery, low birth weight and underdevelopment in the womb. However, it’s not clear how…  read on >  read on >