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One group of Americans drinks more caffeinated beverages than all others. That’s people who smoke cigarettes and also have serious mental illness, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, according to new research. While Americans overall are drinking more caffeinated beverages than ever, this group consumes the highest amount and also has the highest risk of negative health consequences, said researcher Dr. Jill Williams, director of addiction psychiatry at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey, and colleagues. “Caffeine is generally considered safe and even has some health benefits,” Williams said in a Rutgers news release. “But we just don’t understand the cognitive and psychiatric effects of high caffeine intake, especially among smokers with mental illness.” The researchers analyzed data from 248 adult smokers who were recruited during a previous study. Participants were either outpatients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or from a control group with no psychiatric diagnoses. Each smoked a pack a day. Researchers collected blood samples from the participants to measure their serum caffeine levels. Participants also completed surveys on smoking history, caffeine use, physical health and psychological symptoms. While caffeine intake was highest in those with bipolar disorder, followed by schizophrenia, it was lowest in the control group. Williams suggested several theories that might help explain why this connection exists. First, there’s a well-established association between caffeine and smoking. People who… read on > read on >

When Dr. Yezaz Ghouri sees patients with the cramping, abdominal pain and diarrhea that are hallmark symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), he’ll typically ask how life’s going. More often than not, his patients say they are experiencing stress in their lives. Now, Ghouri’s team has established a link between IBS and anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation in patients who have been admitted to the hospital for their IBS. IBS is a chronic disorder of the gastrointestinal (GI) system that strikes up to 15 percent of the population. Ghouri, an assistant professor of clinical medicine and gastroenterology at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, thinks that stress may be expressed through both the mind and body. “I think it expresses in the form of mood disorders like depression, anxiety,” Ghouri said. “I think it expresses in a form of IBS, which is basically a manifestation of your autonomic nervous system [which controls involuntary actions like your heartbeat].” The study used data from more than 1.2 million IBS patients in 4,000 U.S. hospitals over three years. More than 38% of these patients had anxiety. More than 27% had depression. These numbers were double the levels of anxiety and depression found in patients who did not have IBS. Lead researcher Dr. Zahid Ijaz Tarar, an assistant professor of clinical medicine, pointed to what’s called the brain-gut… read on > read on >

Colon cancer continues to rise among younger U.S. adults, with the American Cancer Society reporting a doubling of cases in people younger than 55 in about 25 years. Also, significantly more Americans are being diagnosed with advanced stages of the disease, the cancer society says. As of 2019, 20% of colon cancer cases occurred in adults under age 55 — up from just 11% in 1995, according to the new report. Moreover, researchers found that the proportion of people diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer reached 60% in 2019, up from 52% in the mid‐2000s. The rate of advanced disease was 57% in 1995 before widespread screening was available. Cancer experts are baffled, especially since numbers are declining in the overall population. “We don’t know what is driving the increase in colorectal cancer among young people,” said senior researcher Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, senior vice president for surveillance and health equity science at the cancer society. “There is a lot of research going on. Some people say it’s probably obesity or changes in diet over the past decades that might be a reason, but really, we don’t know exactly what causes this rapid rise in colorectal cancer incidence rates,” he said. This year more than 153,000 Americans will be diagnosed with colon cancer and 52,550 will die from the disease, the researchers note. Screening is the best protection… read on > read on >

For decades, people turned to cigarettes in times of stress. Now, a preliminary study hints that young people are using vaping in the same way. The study, of nearly 2,000 U.S. teenagers and young adults, found that those who vaped nicotine or marijuana were more likely to report anxiety, depression or suicidal thoughts. In fact, a majority of vapers said they’d suffered anxiety or depression symptoms in the past week, while over half had contemplated suicide in the past year. The findings leave open the chicken-and-egg question. “One of the challenges is in teasing out the cause and effect,” said Loren Wold, a professor in the Colleges of Nursing and Medicine at Ohio State University. Many of the young people surveyed explicitly said they’d started vaping to deal with depression — including one-third of those who vaped marijuana. That’s worrying, Wold said, since no one would consider vaping a healthy coping strategy. Wold, who was not involved in the study, was lead author on a recent report from the American Heart Association (AHA) on the physical health consequences of vaping during adolescence. There’s still a lot to learn, as vaping is a relatively new phenomenon, Wold said. But it’s clear there are shorter-term effects, including inflammation in the airways, blood pressure spikes and increased stiffness in the arteries. So young people who vape could be… read on > read on >

After a heart attack, home rehab can literally be a lifesaver, a new study finds. Taking part in a home-based cardiac rehabilitation program lowered the risk of dying from heart complications by 36% within four years, compared with patients who were not in a rehab program, researchers report. “Cardiac rehabilitation programs save lives,” said lead researcher Dr. Mary Whooley, a professor of medicine, epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. According to the American Heart Association, which stresses the benefits of cardiac rehabilitation after a heart attack in preventing rehospitalization and deaths, rehab is greatly underused — with only about 44% of patients opting for it. Cardiac rehabilitation programs stress not smoking, eating healthy, exercising, managing stress and taking medications to lower blood pressure and cholesterol. Among patients hospitalized for a heart attack between 2007 and 2011, only 16% of Medicare patients and 10% of veterans took part in cardiac rehabilitation, the researchers said. But if 70% of patients took part in cardiac rehab, 25,000 lives could be saved and 180,000 hospitalizations prevented each year, according to the Million Hearts Cardiac Rehabilitation Collaborative, sponsored by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “Behavior change is really tough,” Whooley said. People are very motivated when they’re in the hospital and they’re sitting in a… read on > read on >

Most food and water contains “nano-sized” microplastics, and new animal research suggests these tiny particles pass from pregnant rats to their unborn offspring and may impair fetal development. The same could be true in humans, the study suggests. “Much remains unknown, but this is certainly cause for concern and follow-up study,” said Philip Demokritou, a professor of nanoscience and environmental bioengineering at the Rutgers School of Public Health, in New Jersey. A typical person ingests about a credit card’s worth of microscopic plastic particles each week, Demokritou estimated. This plastic is consumed through food and the air after erosion breaks down items exposed to the environment. Previous studies in pregnant laboratory animals have found adding these plastics to food impairs their offspring, but those studies didn’t determine whether the plastics could pass from mother to baby. For this study, researchers fed these nanoscale plastics to five pregnant rats. Through imaging, they found that those plastic particles permeated the placentas, as well as the livers, kidneys, hearts, lungs and brains, of their offspring. This shows that these plastics can breach the intestinal barrier of pregnant mammals, the maternal-fetal barrier of the placenta and all fetal tissues, the study authors said. “The use of plastics has exploded since the 1940s due to their low cost and versatile properties. From 9 billion metric tons produced over the last… read on > read on >

When expectant or new moms experience depression, known as perinatal depression, loneliness may be a driving factor. “We found that loneliness was central to the experiences of expectant and new mothers with depression. We know that depression and loneliness are often interconnected — each one can lead to the other — and this may be particularly true for perinatal depression [which includes postpartum depression],” said Dr. Katherine Adlington, an academic clinical fellow at UCL Psychiatry and East London NHS Foundation Trust. “Having a baby is a period of huge transition and upheaval that can involve losing touch with people and existing networks, such as work colleagues,” Adlington added in a University College London (UCL) news release. “This research suggests that loneliness is a major risk for mental health problems during pregnancy and for new mothers.” To come to that conclusion, the researchers reviewed accounts from 537 women in 27 research papers in multiple countries. Depression affects about 1 in 6 pregnant women, and then 1 in 5 women during the first three months after a baby is born. While significantly affecting new parents’ quality of life, it can also have long-term adverse impacts on their child’s development. Researchers studying this say those working with new mothers, including health care providers, should be aware of the importance of loneliness and the value of encouraging new moms… read on > read on >

TUESDAY, Feb. 28, 2023 (HealthDay Now) — A long-established Alzheimer’s drug can help people with a disorder that causes them to compulsively pull at their hair or pick at their skin, a new clinical trial has concluded. Memantine considerably improved symptoms in 3 out of 5 patients with either trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder) or excoriation (skin-picking) disorder, researchers reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry. “I think it was encouraging that it helped reduce the behavior of picking and pulling, compared to a placebo,” said lead researcher Dr. Jon Grant, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at the University of Chicago. “It gives me the idea that perhaps we’re onto the right underlying mechanism that might be happening here.” Hair-pulling and skin-picking disorders affect an estimated 3% to 4% of Americans, Grant said. Patients obsessively pull out strands of hair or pick at their skin, often doing themselves real physical harm. Memantine inhibits the activity of glutamate, one of the most abundant neurotransmitters in the brain. Overly high levels of glutamate in the brain can cause nerve cells to become overexcited, and this has been associated with conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease and multiple sclerosis, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Glutamate also has been linked to mental health problems like mood disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder, the Cleveland Clinic says. The U.S.… read on > read on >

Sen. John Fetterman will continue to be away from the U.S. Senate for several weeks but he is on the “path to recovery,” his spokesman said Monday. The senator is being treated for clinical depression at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after checking himself in on Feb. 15. “We understand the intense interest in John’s status and especially appreciate the flood of well-wishes,” Fetterman’s communications director, Joe Calvello, said in a statement posted on Twitter. “However, as we have said, this will be a weeks-long process and while we will be sure to keep folks updated as it progresses, this is all there is to give by way of an update.” The Pennsylvania Democrat has been struggling with the aftereffects of a stroke since last May. He has experienced depression “off and on throughout his life,” but it worsened recently. Capitol Physician Brian Monahan recommended Fetterman’s hospitalization. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s Sen. Bob Casey returned to the Senate on Monday after having surgery for prostate cancer, the Associated Press reported. Fetterman, a Democrat, suffered his stroke during a campaign against Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz but went on to win the November election. Fetterman was sworn into his seat, part of a 51-49 majority for the Democrats, in January, the AP reported. It is common to experience depression after a stroke. The mental health condition can be… read on > read on >

Work isn’t always easy, but sometimes it becomes almost unbearable. You might experience a constellation of symptoms, including emotional exhaustion, a reduced sense of personal accomplishment and cynicism, which affects how you interact with others in the workplace. This is a condition known as burnout and though it’s not listed in the diagnostic manual used by psychiatrists, it is a workplace-associated condition, according to the World Health Organization, said Dr. Jessi Gold, a member of the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Communications. “There are lots of reasons why it happens. It depends on the person and how work is impacting them,” said Gold, who is also an assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. What is burnout? Burnout can come from a mismatch between what was expected in a job and what it really is, such as more paperwork than helping people, Gold said. “That mismatch can create burnout pretty easily,” Gold said. “And not doing the things that bring you meaning and purpose can as well.” Lack of control can also be an issue. So can a dysfunctional environment with a micromanaging boss or a workplace bully, according to the Mayo Clinic, while unclear job expectations and a work-life imbalance can also be factors. The pandemic may have made matters worse. A recent survey found 52% of workers… read on > read on >