Rates of postpartum depression have more than doubled in little over a decade among American women, a new analysis shows. While about 1 in every 10 new moms (9.4%) suffered postpartum depression in 2010, that number rose to almost 1 in every 5 (19%) by 2021, report a team from Kaiser Permanente Southern California. Why the steep rise? Better detection and reporting could be playing a big role, the researchers said. However, rising rates of obesity during pregnancy could also be a factor, since obesity has long known to be a risk factor for postpartum depression. Whatever the reasons, “the prevalence of postpartum depression is high and rising,” said a team led by Dr. Darios Getahun, a Kaiser researcher based in Pasadena, Calif. His team published its findings Nov. 20 in the journal JAMA Network Open. As defined by the researchers, postpartum depression is “a depressive disorder that occurs within 12 months following childbirth.” Like other forms of depression, symptoms include sadness, anxiety and lack of interest in activities that were once pleasurable. Mothers with postpartum depression may fail to bond with their infant, neglect breastfeeding and develop other illnesses. “In severe cases, postpartum depression can lead to suicide or infanticide,” Getahun’s team wrote in the report. In their new analysis, the researchers tracked rates of postpartum depression for more than 442,000 California pregnancies between…  read on >  read on >

Parents can’t monitor everything their kids watch online, but a set of new guidelines may help young people manage their own viewing habits. “Research consistently shows that video content, and the platforms that host it, have the potential to help or harm teens,” said Arthur Evans Jr., CEO of the American Psychological Association (APA).  “It is the shared responsibility of video platforms, content creators, parents, caregivers, educators, policymakers and the technology industry to create an environment where youth can learn and express themselves safely online,” he added in an APA news release. The association announced new recommendations to help parents, policymakers and tech companies give teens the power to manage their own viewing habits. They include steps that can be taken right away, as well as longer-range recommendations for Big Tech and policymakers. For educators: Teach teens to be choosy. Videos can help with homework, teach new skills or hobbies or provide insights into different experiences and cultures, APA points out, calling on schools to teach video literacy. The aim: “To expand [teens’] knowledge and abilities while resisting manipulative platform features designed to prolong their engagement and profit from their attention.” For creators: Modify features that can affect teens’ well-being. Platforms that recommend content to young people, switch between short videos and autoplay content to extend viewing time may lead to abnormal viewing habits and…  read on >  read on >

Drugs already taken by millions of diabetes patients appear to also help slash asthma attacks by up to 70%, new British research shows. The two drugs are metformin, one of the most widely used diabetes medications, and the GLP-1 class of medications that include Ozempic, Mounjaro and Saxenda. A study of nearly 13,000 people with diabetes and asthma found that metformin cut a patient’s odds for asthma attacks by 30%, while adding in a GLP-1 med reduced it by another 40%. The effects appeared to rely on more than just improved in blood sugar control or weight reduction, the authors said, and suggest that metformin and GLP-1s might work directly on airway function to ease asthma. All in all, the findings “suggest potential for repurposing anti-diabetic. drugs to much needed alternative treatments for asthma,” said a team led by Chloe Bloom. She’s a senior lecturer in respiratory epidemiology at Imperial College London. Her team published its findings Nov. 18 in JAMA Internal Medicine. As the researchers explained, there’s long been good reason to suspect that metformin might improve asthmatics’ respiratory health. The drug has anti-inflammatory effects, they said, and it also appears to reverse some of the changes in airways and the “hyper-responsiveness” of airways that asthma brings. The data on GLP-1s shows similar effects: The same cellular receptors that the drugs work on in…  read on >  read on >

Folks who stress-eat fatty foods like cookies, chips and ice cream might be able to protect their health with a nice cup of cocoa or green tea, a new study says. Drinking cocoa that’s high in healthy flavanols along with a fatty meal can counteract some of the impact of fats on the body, particularly the blood vessels, researchers found. “Flavanols are a type of compound that occur in different fruits, vegetables, tea and nuts including berries and unprocessed cocoa,” said lead investigator Rosalind Baynham, a research fellow with the University of Birmingham in the U.K. “Flavanols are known to have health benefits, particularly for regulating blood pressure and protecting cardiovascular health.” For the study, researchers asked young and healthy adults to eat two butter croissants, a slice and a half of cheddar cheese, and half a pint of whole milk for breakfast. The participants also were randomly assigned to drink cocoa either high or low in flavanols. The research team then subjected the participants to a stressful math test, and monitored their blood vessel function and heart activity. “This stress task induced significant increases in heart rate and blood pressure, similar to the stress you may encounter in daily life,” Baynham said in a news releaase. People who ate fatty foods with a low-flavanol drink had reduced blood vessel function when they were placed…  read on >  read on >

Using abbreviations while texting might save some typing time, but it won’t make a good impression, a new study finds. People who use texting abbreviations like IDK or GOAT are perceived as more insincere and are less likely to receive replies, researchers discovered. “Our findings are especially relevant when we want to appear more sincere and strengthen social ties, such as at the beginning of a relationship or when we need to make a good impression,” said lead researcher David Fang, a doctoral student in behavioral marketing at Stanford University. For the study, published Nov. 14 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, researchers conducted a series of eight experiments involving more than 5,300 people. The team analyzed replies to conversations in Discord group chats and dating apps and sites, spanning 37 countries. Other experiments asked participants to rate their texting conversations with people who either were or weren’t using abbreviations. In the experiments, texters who used abbreviations received shorter and fewer responses, and they were less likely to receive contact information from the other texter. Young people tend to use more texting abbreviations, but even they weren’t fans of receiving texts loaded with abbreviations, results show. “While our overall results on age were mixed, it’s clear that younger people are not particularly fond of abbreviations, though the strength of this aversion may vary by…  read on >  read on >

The blockbuster GLP-1 drug semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) could curb drinking for people battling alcohol use disorder, helping them to avoid crises that require hospitalization, new research shows. Numerous studies had already hinted that semaglutide might act on appetite centers in the brain to suppress the urge to drink, just as it does the urge to overeat. Now, researchers in Finland say their nearly nine-year study of almost 228,000 Swedish people with alcohol use disorder who were taking semaglutide had a 36% lower odds of requiring hospitalization. Use of a second drug in the same class of GLP-1 medications, liraglutide (Victoza), was linked to a 28% reduction in hospitalizations, the team reported Nov. 13 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. The study couldn’t prove cause and effect, only associations. However, based on these and prior findings, the researchers say that “clinical trials are urgently needed to confirm these findings.” The research was led by Dr. Markku Lähteenvuo, of the University of Eastern Finland. Besides the finding that both semaglutide and liraglutide appeared to help keep people with alcohol use disorder out of the hospital, the study also found that semaglutide, in particular, was linked to a decreased risk for suicide. The researchers also noted that the two GLP-1 drugs appeared to outperform standard anti-alcoholism medications, such as naltrexone, disulfiram and acamprostate, in lowering hospitalizations among people with…  read on >  read on >

People are at higher risk of schizophrenia if they indulge in psychedelic drugs, a new study warns. Patients who land in the ER following hallucinogen use have a 21-fold higher risk of developing schizophrenia compared to the general population, Canadian researchers report. Even after controlling for a person’s existing substance use and mental health disorders, there remained a 3.5-fold increased risk of schizophrenia after ER treatment for psychedelics use. Hallucinogens include drugs like psilocybin, LSD, DMT (Ayahuasca) and MDMA (Ecstasy). “Our findings underscore a concerning link between hallucinogen use that requires care in the emergency room and increased risk of schizophrenia,” said investigator Dr. Daniel Myran, research chair in social accountability at the University of Ottawa. “While there is enormous enthusiasm for psychedelic-assisted therapy as a new mental health treatment, we need to remember how early and limited the data remains for both the benefits and the risks,” Myran added in a university news release. For the study, researchers analyzed health data for more than 9.2 million people ages 14 to 65 living in Ontario between 2008 and 2021. Researchers looked at emergency room visits involving hallucinogens, and whether patients had been diagnosed with schizophrenia afterward. Overall, annual rates of ER visits involving hallucinogens increased by 86% between 2014 and 2021, after remaining stable from 2008 to 2012, results show. About 4% of people were…  read on >  read on >