A chemical used to degrease industrial parts that was also used as a surgical anesthetic until the 1970s may increase the risk for Parkinson’s disease, researchers report. Their new study found that two years of heavy exposure to the liquid chemical TCE may boost Parkinson’s risk by 70%. TCE, or trichloroethylene, lingers in the air, water and soil. It has been linked to certain cancers. For the study, researchers compared Parkinson’s diagnoses in about 160,000 U.S. Navy and Marine veterans. A little more than half came from Camp Lejeune, a Marine base in Jacksonville, N.C., where TCE used to degrease military equipment fouled the water. Between 1974 and 1985, service members spent at least three months at Camp Lejeune or Camp Pendleton in California. TCE levels in the water at Camp Lejeune were 70 times higher than maximum safety level. Water at Camp Pendleton was not contaminated. Data included follow-up health information from 1997 to 2021, by which time the veterans might have been expected to develop Parkinson’s disease. In all, 430 vets were diagnosed with Parkinson’s. The risk for those who spent time at Lejeune was 70% higher than that for Camp Pendleton vets. On average, service members were stationed at their camps for about two years, beginning at age 20. They were diagnosed with Parkinson’s at an average age of 54 for Lejeune…  read on >  read on >

Americans are less anxious than they were in early 2020, at the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic, but many still have anxiety about keeping themselves or their families safe. In a new poll by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), 70% of U.S. adults reported being anxious or extremely anxious about keeping safe. About 78% of adults expressed anxiety over inflation. About 70% were anxious about a potential recession. And 67% had worries about gun violence, including 42% who were “very anxious” about gun violence, which was an increase of 5% over the previous month. “Ongoing stress about our basic needs can lead to other negative mental health effects,” said APA president Dr. Rebecca Brendel. “The impact of this stress means that psychiatrists will need to continue work with the communities they serve, the larger mental health field and policymakers to ensure those who need care can access it,” Brendel said in an APA news release. The association surveyed about 2,200 adults between April 20 and April 22, weighting the data to approximate a target sample of adults based on gender, educational attainment, age, race and region. Overall, 37% felt more anxious this year than at this time last year. That was also an increase of 5%. In all, 30% said they had talked about mental health issues with a mental health professional in the past…  read on >  read on >

The high cost of — everything: Rising inflation rates are ramping up anxieties among some groups of Americans much more than others, a new study reports. Women, middle-age adults and people with less education or lower pay are feeling much more stress over higher prices, as well as people who were previously married but are now widowed, divorced or separated, according to findings published May 15 in JAMA Network Open. “In general, it’s vulnerable populations — people who are more exposed to changing prices,” said lead researcher Cary Wu, an assistant professor of sociology at York University in Toronto. For the study, Wu and his colleagues analyzed data on nearly 370,000 Americans who participated in the Household Pulse Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The survey data revealed: Women were 30% more likely to be stressed by inflation than men. People who were widowed or divorced were about 50% more likely than married couples to be stressed, and those separated were twice as likely. People with a graduate degree were 40% less likely to feel the pinch from inflation than those with a high school diploma, while those with a bachelor’s were 50% less likely. As would be expected, family income also played a crucial role in feeling inflationary stress. About 66% of people earning less than $25,000 felt stressed regarding high inflation, compared…  read on >  read on >

More than 10 million people in the United States are living with bipolar disorder, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). It’s characterized by severe, dramatic shifts in mood that can catch people off guard. The name captures the dramatic swing from elation to despair. With treatment, many people with bipolar disorder lead stable, satisfying lives. What is bipolar disorder? Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition marked by extreme swings between mania (elevated mood) and depression. On average, it starts around age 25, according to NAMI, although it may begin in adolescence. “These are not just your normal run-of-the-day mood swings,” said James Maddux, a senior scholar at George Mason University’s Center for the Advancement of Well-Being, in Fairfax, Va. He explained that the condition “involves a manic episode that could be for several weeks or several months, followed by a crash into a major depression — which also can last several weeks to several months.” Bipolar disorder symptoms The main symptoms of bipolar disorder are mania or hypomania and depression. These periods may occur separately, one right after the other or at the same time, according to NAMI and the American Psychological Association. Mania is marked by: Elevated mood Psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusional thinking Impulsive behavior Risk-taking Poor decision-making Irritability, agitation and restlessness Overconfidence Suicidal thoughts Hypomania is…  read on >  read on >

TikTok content overwhelmingly promotes vaping, putting young users at potential risk of e-cigarette use, according to researchers in Australia. The popular social media platform’s own policies on promoting e-cigarette use are often violated, their new study shows. “Our study explored how e-cigarettes are promoted on TikTok, to assess the effectiveness of the platform’s own ‘drugs, controlled substances, alcohol and tobacco policy,’” said researcher Jonine Jancey, of the Curtin School of Population Health in Perth. “The sheer amount of potentially harmful content being fed to young people on TikTok shows self-regulation is failing.” The findings show the dangers of letting social media platforms create and enforce their own content policies, she said. “Of the 264 videos related to e-cigarettes that we studied and which had a total of 2.5 million views, 97.7% portrayed them positively, and these posts received 98.7% of the total views and 98.2% of the total likes,” Jancey said in a school news release. “These used humor, music, shared vaping tricks and referred to a ‘vaping community,’ supporting the normalization of these products.” Of 69 posts reviewed by researchers, about 26% violated TikTok’s content policy by promoting e-cigarettes for purchase, including links to information and discount details. “It seems there are no major consequences for those who do not follow TikTok guidelines and violate content policy,” Jancey said. “Social media platforms can decide…  read on >  read on >

Older adults are more easily distracted than younger folks, especially if they’re also physically exerting themselves, according to new research. “Our results suggest that older adults might have heightened distractibility,” said study co-author Lilian Azer, a graduate student from the University of California, Riverside. For the study, the researchers assessed the interaction between physical exertion — such as driving a car or carrying in the groceries — and short-term memory performance when distractors were also in play and when they weren’t. “Action and cognition, which interact often in daily life, are sensitive to the effects of aging,” Azer said in a university news release. “Our study found that in comparison to younger adults, older adults are less likely to ignore distractors in their surroundings when simultaneously engaging in a cognitive task and an effortful physical task. Ignoring task-irrelevant items declines with age and this decline is greater when simultaneously performing a physical task — a frequent occurrence in daily life,” she explained. The study team recruited 19 adults aged 65 to 86 and then enrolled another 31 younger adults, ranging from 18 to 28 years old. All participants were asked to grip a hand dynamometer at either 5% or 30% of their strength while they also did a short-term memory task. A visual gauge provided real-time feedback on the exerted grip force, a type of…  read on >  read on >

Did you know that ketamine is one of the newest possible methods for treating depression? For a better understanding of ketamine treatment, here are explanations of what it is, how it helps depression, what types of depression it can help with, its side effects and what you can expect during a ketamine therapy session. What is ketamine? Ketamine is a dissociative drug, meaning its mind-altering chemical properties cause you to disconnect from your body. It was first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as anesthesia for surgery, according to the National Library of Medicine. It has been used as a street drug under different names like Special K. Doctors sometimes prescribe ketamine for “off-label” (non-FDA-approved) uses, including for pain management and treating people who have depression and suicidal thoughts. As of 2019, the FDA did approve a form of the drug called esketamine, a nasal spray to treat one type of depression known as treatment-resistant depression. How does ketamine therapy help depression? “As a human being everyone has their own default network … a person with depression or anxiety, those people tend to look at the glass half-empty,” said Dr. Keming Gao, director of the Ketamine Infusion for Depression Clinic at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center. “So, the ketamine temporarily loosens up their default [network]. This whole thing is what people call neuroplasticity,”…  read on >  read on >