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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday finalized a rule that will require the removal of all lead pipes from the country’s water systems. “We’ve known for decades that lead exposure has serious long-term impacts for children’s health. And yet, millions of lead service lines are still delivering drinking water to homes,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in an agency news release announcing the finalization of the rule. “With the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements and historic investments in lead pipe replacement, the Biden-Harris Administration is fulfilling its commitment that no community, regardless of race, geography or wealth, should have to worry about lead-contaminated water in their homes.” Experts welcomed the change. “The EPA’s new lead rule will begin to reverse the massive public health disaster of lead-contaminated tap water that has affected generations of our children. Every person has a right to safe and affordable drinking water, no matter their race, income or zip code,” Manish Bapna, president and CEO of Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said in the EPA news release. But one advocacy group noted the change falls short because it doesn’t also require water utilities to halt the contamination of lead in schools’ drinking water. “In setting a 10-year deadline for most utilities to replace lead pipes, the Biden administration is taking the most significant step to protect our drinking water from lead in… read on > read on >

“Black Box” warnings added to antidepressants might have contributed to an increase in suicide attempts and deaths among young people, a new evidence review claims. The warnings say that antidepressants might be associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviors in children and teens, and were intended to prompt doctors to more closely monitor young people prescribed the drugs, researchers said. Instead, the warnings caused doctors to think twice before prescribing antidepressants to youth, possibly prompting a decline in mental health among kids and teens, results show. “The sudden, simultaneous and sweeping effects of these warnings — the reduction in depression treatment and increase in suicide — are documented across 14 years of strong research,” said lead researcher Stephen Soumerai, a professor of population medicine at Harvard Medical School’s Pilgrim Health Care Institute. Since 2003, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has advised that antidepressants could be linked to suicidal thoughts and behaviors in young people. The FDA required that a Black Box warning be placed on antidepressants in 2005, notifying doctors of this possible effect in kids younger than 18. In 2007, the FDA expanded the warning to include young adults up to age 24. To see how the warning might have affected treatment of depression, researchers analyzed the pooled data from 11 studies between 2003 and 2022. The data show that fewer than 5% of… read on > read on >

Light therapy: It’s long been a go-to therapy for seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a kind of depression that can beset some people when winter looms and days shorten. But new research is suggesting that time spent in front of light box might ease other forms of depression as well. The new review of data was led by Artur Menegaz de Almeida, of the Federal University of Mato Grosso in Sinop, Brazil. His team noted that, right now, light therapy’s effectiveness has only been proven against SAD. However, “Bright light therapy has been studied as a potential adjunctive treatment for major depressive disorder, as light exposure is well understood to affect human mood and cognitive function,” he said in a news release from the American Psychiatric Association. Reporting Oct. 2 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, the Brazilian team pored through data from 11 randomized clinical trials involving a total of 858 patients. These people had diagnoses of nonseasonal forms of major depression or bipolar depression. Some patients used light therapy in addition to whatever medication they had been prescribed. Therapy was defined as sitting in front of fluorescent 10,000 lux-powered light box for at least 30 minutes, with treatment lasting for between 1 and 6 weeks. Their outcomes were compared to those of patients on other adjunct treatments, such as air ionizers or dim red light. A… read on > read on >

The health benefits of fluoridated drinking water may be waning as Americans increasingly turn to using toothpastes and mouthwashes that already contain fluoride, a new review suggests. The research, published Thursday in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, came to that conclusion after analyzing more than 157 studies that compared tooth decay in kids living in communities that added fluoride to their water supply with communities that didn’t. Exactly what did the scientists discover? The studies of more than 5,700 children conducted before fluoride-fortified toothpaste became widely available in the mid-1970s found that adding fluoride to water systems reduced the number of decayed teeth by an average of 2.1 teeth per child. However, studies conducted after 1975, including nearly 3,000 children in the U.K. and Australia, estimated the benefit was lower, at 0.24 fewer decayed baby teeth per child, just one-quarter of one tooth. Despite that finding, the researchers stressed municipalities shouldn’t interpret the results as a reason to stop adding the cavity-fighting mineral to their water systems. “When interpreting the evidence, it is important to think about the wider context and how society and health have changed over time,” study co-author Anne-Marie Glenny, a professor of health sciences research at the University of Manchester in England, said in a journal news release. “Most of the studies on water fluoridation are over 50 years old, before… read on > read on >

Whether abusive parents, drug addiction or gun violence are to blame, the fallout from childhood traumas can reverberate until a person’s final days of life, new research shows. “We found that early-life trauma in particular, especially physical abuse by parents, was strongly related to end-of-life pain, loneliness and depressive symptoms,” said senior study author Dr. Ashwin Kotwal, of the University of California, San Francisco’s division of geriatrics and the San Francisco VA Medical Center. Traumatic events in childhood may lead to poor health habits, social and emotional isolation and an increased risk of subsequent trauma, he explained in a UCSF news release. His team looked at data from a study that followed about 6,500 Americans over age 50 who died between 2006 and 2020. Their average age at death: 78. Study participants completed questionnaires about their experiences with 11 traumatic events and their psychosocial well-being and were interviewed every other year until they died. A final interview with a family member or friend with power of attorney provided insights about their final year of life. In all, 2 in 5 participants had experienced traumas during childhood, including exposure to relatives’ drug or alcohol abuse or getting into trouble with the law. The most common potential source of childhood trauma was being held back a grade in school. Life-threatening illness or having a spouse or child… read on > read on >

The large majority of people with food allergy, and the caregivers of kids with such allergies, say the condition has led to psychological distress, a new study finds. However, only about 1 in every 5 such people have ever been assessed and counseled on their anxieties, the same report also found. “Our research highlights a major unmet need for psychological support for food allergy,” said Rebecca Knibb, a professor of psychology at Aston University in Birmingham, England. The main source of worry: The danger of anaphylaxis, a severe reaction to even small amounts of the food the person or their child is allergic to. The new study centered on an online survey of more than 1,300 adults with food allergy, as well as more than 1,900 caregivers of children with food allergy. Respondents to the survey came from more than 20 countries. In total, almost 68% of the adults with food allergy surveyed said that they’d had “direct experience” of psychological distress linked to their condition, as did nearly 78% of those caring for a child with such allergies. Most of those people said their main source of anxiety was the possibility of anaphylaxis, but “over half felt sadness about the impact of food allergy on their lives [54.1%],” Knibb’s team reported. Among caregivers of kids with food allergy, about 35% worried that the condition… read on > read on >

If you’re a 20-something who is unattached, having good friends is a key to happiness, new research shows. “The quality of your friendships is a key factor for your well-being, especially if you’re single,” a team led by Lisa Walsh, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of California, Los Angeles, reported Oct. 2 in the journal PLOS One. “We found that singles who were satisfied with their friendships tended to be happy with their lives, while those dissatisfied with their friendships were less happy,” they added in a journal news release. Other research has found that Americans in their early 20s tend to be less happy than at other times of life — and a growing percentage of folks in that age group are not in long-term relationships. While researchers are increasingly looking at single folks as a group, few studies have zeroed in on sub-groups, such as younger adults. This one analyzed responses to a survey of 1,073 single adults between the ages of 18 and 24. They were asked about their overall happiness as well as five factors that predict happiness: self-esteem, neuroticism, outgoingness, satisfaction with family and satisfaction with friends. The study was built on what is known as latent profile analysis — an assumption that individuals aren’t all the same and that differences among them fit diverse categories. Researchers found… read on > read on >

Nearly 8 in 10 Americans go through the day in a fog that interferes with their jobs, their moods and their relationships. Chalk it up to sleepiness: A new survey shows that 54% of Americans think they just don’t get enough sleep. “Daytime sleepiness is more than just an inconvenience — it can affect our ability to function our best, impacting everything from work productivity to personal relationships,” said sleep specialist Dr. Alexandre Abreu, a spokesman for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), the survey sponsor. The online poll of more than 2,000 adults was conducted in mid-May and revealed that daytime sleepiness is taking a big toll. Nearly half (47%) of respondents said it hampers their productivity, making it hard to focus and complete work efficiently. One-third (31%) said sleepiness affects the quality of their work — a complaint more often voiced by men than by women. A similar percentage (34%) of respondents see effects of sleepiness on their memory and mental recall, and 16% said it affects their reaction time behind the wheel. Notably, nearly a quarter (24%) said it affects their relationships with family and friends. “These statistics paint a clear picture of the widespread impact of daytime sleepiness,” Abreu said in an AASM news release. The academy says adults need seven or more hours of sleep a night. It recommends… read on > read on >

Even air pollution levels considered safe by U.S. standards appear to cause differences in the brains of growing children, a new review suggests. “We’re seeing differences in brain outcomes between children with higher levels of pollution exposure versus lower levels of pollution exposure,” said corresponding author Camelia Hostinar, an associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis. In all, she and her colleagues reviewed 40 studies. Most linked outdoor air pollution with differences in children’s brains, including the amount of the brain’s “white matter.” These differences affect thinking skills and may even be early markers for Alzheimer’s. Because their brains are still developing, air pollution poses a special risk to kids and teens. Relative to their weight, they absorb more contaminants than adults, researchers explained. As such, the authors called on parents and policymakers to add air filters to homes and schools near freeways to protect children from outdoor air pollutants. They urged other researchers to incorporate air quality measures into studies related to brain health and other health outcomes. The new review looked at research from the United States, Mexico, Europe, Asia and Australia that compared pollution levels with brain outcomes at various ages, from newborns to age 18. Some relied on brain imaging. Some looked at chemical changes in the body that affect brain function. Others looked for tumors in the… read on > read on >

As the southeastern United States begins to recover from Helene’s devastation, a new study suggests the health impact of major storms can linger for over a decade. So far, more than 120 people across six states have already been confirmed dead in Helene’s aftermath, although that number could rise much higher as rescue efforts continue. Now, a team from Stanford University reports the death toll over the much longer term could be in the thousands. Even years later, “in any given month, people are dying earlier than they would have if the storm hadn’t hit their community,” explained senior study author Solomon Hsiang. “A big storm will hit, and there’s all these cascades of effects where cities are rebuilding or households are displaced or social networks are broken. These cascades have serious consequences for public health,” said Hsiang, professor of environmental social sciences at Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability. Overall, the researchers estimate that anywhere between 7,000 and 11,000 excess deaths can be attributed to the years-long aftermath of a major tropical storm or hurricane. Adding up the damage, major storms have since 1930 contributed to the deaths of anywhere from 3.6 million and 5.2 million Americans, the team reported Oct. 2 in the journal Nature. That exceeds the combined number of deaths from motor vehicle accidents, infectious diseases or battle deaths in wars during… read on > read on >