It’s commonly thought that having a companion animal — be it a dog, cat or bird — is good for the owner’s mental health. A new study suggests that’s not so, at least for people with severe mental illness and for pets that aren’t trained therapy animals. Pets may, however, be an important part of the social network for folks with severe mental illness. Having pets was not significantly associated with the well-being, depression, anxiety or loneliness scores for owners with a range of severe mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder and psychosis, according to the study published July 14 in the journal Human-Animal Interactions. This research followed up on a 2021 survey, in which researchers found a self-reported decline in mental health with animal ownership. This may have been due to pandemic restrictions and the challenges of looking after the animal in lockdown. “In the absence of COVID-19 restrictions, a possible explanation for our current findings could be that the added responsibility of animal ownership may still exacerbate other potential stressors experienced by people living with severe mental illness. This includes the cost of food, veterinary bills and uncertainty over housing,” lead author Dr. Emily Shoesmith, a research fellow at the University of York in the United Kingdom, said in a journal news release. “Our findings may also imply that animal ownership and the…  read on >  read on >

The color of the oceans has changed over the past two decades, which has scientists concerned about the impact of climate change. “I’ve been running simulations that have been telling me for years that these changes in ocean color are going to happen,” said study co-author Stephanie Dutkiewicz, senior research scientist in Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. “To actually see it happening for real is not surprising, but frightening. And these changes are consistent with man-induced changes to our climate,” Dutkiewicz added in a school news release. Though subtle to the human eye, these color changes have happened over 56% of the world’s oceans — an expanse that is larger than the total land area on Earth, the researchers said. Tropical ocean regions near the equator have become steadily greener over time. This suggests that ecosystems within the surface ocean must also be changing, the authors said. “This gives additional evidence of how human activities are affecting life on Earth over a huge spatial extent,” said study lead author B.B. Cael of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, England. While deep blue water reflects very little life, greener waters indicate ecosystems, including plant-like microbes known as phytoplankton that contain the green pigment chlorophyll. The pigment helps plankton harvest sunlight, which they use to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.…  read on >  read on >

Racial discrimination may drive health inequities from an early age, according to researchers who found that it puts kids at risk for obesity. “Exposure to racial discrimination must be acknowledged as both a social determinant of obesity and a significant contributor to obesity disparities among children and adolescents,” said lead researcher Adolfo Cuevas. He is an assistant professor of social and behavioral sciences at the NYU School of Global Public Health in New York City. Specifically, the new study found that children who experience racial discrimination were more likely to develop a larger waistline and higher body mass index (BMI). BMI is an estimate of body fat based on height and weight. Black and Hispanic youth have higher rates of obesity, a problem that is a major health issue overall in children and teens in the United States, the study authors noted. A growing body of research underscores the negative effects of racial discrimination. Among those: It puts people at risk for sleep problems, high levels of the stress hormone cortisol and poor mental health. And it has previously been linked to higher BMI in adults. For this study, the researchers used data for nearly 6,500 kids aged 9 to 11 years who were participants in a study of adolescent brain development from 2017 to 2019. These young people were asked whether they were treated…  read on >  read on >

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 >

U.S. federal officials took a big step toward protecting children from a contaminant blamed for irreversible health effects, proposing tougher standards for removing lead-based paint in pre-1978 buildings and child care facilities. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the proposed new standards Wednesday at an event in Newark, N.J. If finalized, the new rules would protect up to 500,000 children under age 6 from lead exposure each year. The proposed standards would apply to homes and child-care facilities. “The Biden-Harris Administration is taking a whole-of-government approach to ensuring that the most vulnerable among us — our children — are protected from exposure to lead,” EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe said in an agency news release. “This proposal to safely remove lead paint along with our other efforts to deliver clean drinking water and replace lead pipes will go a long way toward protecting the health of our next generation of leaders.” The plan is aligned with the EPA’s aim to address racial, ethnic and economic disparities in lead exposure. Lead-based paint is more likely to be found in lower-income areas, putting communities of color at greater risk. Racial segregation in housing over the years, called redlining, is part of this. Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, noted there is no safe level of lead. “Even low levels…  read on >  read on >