As kids and teens prepare to head back to school, parents might not have protecting their child’s lung health on the top of their to-do lists. But experts say it should be. “A new school year often means a new environment for students and staff, including new asthma triggers, exposure to new viruses, peer pressure to smoke or vape and other stressors that can impact the health of students,” said Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association (ALA). “Students and staff spend a significant amount of time in school, so it is critical to their well-being and education that they are in the healthiest environment and are making the healthiest choices possible.” To that end, the ALA has created a youth initiative to help schools and caregivers address chronic lung issues like asthma, air quality and tobacco-free policies. The initiative offers information, guides and sample policies that can be implemented in schools to protect students and staff. The group is also working to educate parents, students and school officials in four key areas of lung health: Asthma: There are 6.1 million kids under the age of 18 living with asthma, a leading cause of missed school days. The ALA has in-depth resources for parents, young adults and schools on managing asthma, including a free online course for school personnel who administer asthma…  read on >  read on >

Experts have long suspected it, but a new study confirms that folks who vape and smoke tobacco face higher risks for lung cancer than if they’d done either alone. “From a public health perspective, we have always been concerned about dual-use of both traditional and e-cig products,” said study lead author Marisa Bittoni, an oncology researcher at Ohio State University in Columbus. “This study presents clear evidence showing that vaping in addition to smoking can increase your risk for lung cancer,” said Bittoni, who works at the university’s Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. Her team tracked rates of both vaping and smoking among nearly 5,000 Columbus-area people diagnosed with lung cancer, and compared them to a group of almost 27,300 people without cancer. The results: Folks who had both smoked and vaped were eight times more likely to be in the lung cancer group than the group that was cancer-free. Moreover, people who both vaped and smoked were four times more likely to go on to develop lung cancer compared to people who had only smoked, Bittoni’s group found. The findings were published recently in the Journal of Oncology Research and Therapy. “Our findings provide the first evidence that smoking in combination with vaping significantly increases the risk of lung cancer compared to smoking alone,” said study co-author Dr.…  read on >  read on >

FRIDAY, Aug 2. 2024Mass shootings and other traumatic events hit community members hard, with those closest to the incident often experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) even years later, new research shows. “Outcomes of mass violence incidents in communities extend beyond direct survivors, including persistent PTSD in many adults” who live in those communities, concluded a team led by Angela Moreland, a professor of psychiatry at of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. Her team looked at data from a 2020 survey taken of almost 6,000 adults. All had lived in one of six communities hit hard by a mass shooting that occurred between 2015 and 2019: Dayton, Ohio; El Paso, Texas; Parkland, Fla.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; San Bernadino, Calif.; and Virginia Beach, Va. People were asked about their exposure to the event — whether they were actually on the scene or were close to someone who was. They were also asked questions aimed at assessing possible PTSD related to the event, as well as any other past traumatic events they’d experienced and how much social support they felt they were getting. About 1 in 5 of those surveyed said they either personally experienced the shooting event or were close to someone who had. About 1 in every 4 people surveyed did meet the criteria for PTSD experienced over the year prior to the survey, and…  read on >  read on >

Hospitalization for a heart-related emergency can have profound effects on a person’s mental health, a new study finds. People hospitalized for heart attack, stroke or other heart-related illnesses were 83% more likely to be diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder within the following year, according to results published July 31 in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Not only that, but this effect lingered: Up to nearly eight years later, those hospitalized were 24% more likely to be diagnosed with a psychiatric issue, researchers found. “If you or a loved one has been hospitalized for heart disease, be aware that mental health issues may arise during recovery,” said senior researcher Dr. Huan Song, a professor of epidemiology with the West China Biomedical Big Data Center at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China. “It’s important to monitor for signs of anxiety, depression or suicidal thoughts. These mental health challenges are common and treatable,” Song added in a journal news release. For the study, researchers analyzed the mental health history of nearly 64,000 British adults who’d been hospitalized with heart problems or stroke between 1997 and 2020. They were compared against another 128,000 people matched for age, gender and the presence of other serious but non-heart-related illness. Within the first year of hospitalization, the rate of mental health diagnoses among heart patients was nearly twice that of people…  read on >  read on >

Celebrity suicides seem to be contagious, prompting everyday folks to consider the same, a new study suggests. The 2014 suicide death of comedian Robin Williams caused a thousand-fold increase in the risk of suicidal thoughts, reflected in a spike in calls to what was then the equivalent of the current 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, researchers found. A similar but less intense response occurred in 2018 following the suicide deaths days apart of fashion designer Kate Spade and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, results showed. A spike in calls to crisis lines that was roughly half of that following Williams’ death occurred after Spade and Bourdain died, researchers found. “The model we developed shows how suicide contagion, including both suicidal ideation and deaths, spreads quickly following the suicide deaths of celebrities whose lives and work are known and likely meaningful to large portions of the population,” said researcher Jeffrey Shaman, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. No single factor causes suicidal thoughts or actions, but researchers have long thought that social processes can cause suicide to be “contagious.” People close to or familiar with people who have considered or attempted suicide can become more suicidal themselves, the theory goes. Suicide rates in the United States increased 37% between 2000 and 2018, declined 5% between…  read on >  read on >

The wildfires thats are increasing with climate change could harm the future brain health of humanity, a new study suggests. Wildfire smoke appears to increase people’s risk of a dementia diagnosis even more than other types of air pollution, researchers reported this week at the Alzheimer’s Association annual meeting in Philadelphia. The risk of dementia with wildfire smoke was notably stronger, even with less exposure, than that associated with other sources of air pollution, researchers found. “With the rising global incidence of wildfires, including in California and the western U.S., exposure to this type of air pollution is an increasing threat to brain health,” said Claire Sexton, senior director of scientific programs and outreach at the Alzheimer’s Association. “These findings underscore the importance of enacting policies to prevent wildfires and investigating better methods to address them.” Researchers found a 21% increase in the odds of dementia diagnosis for every increase of 1 microgram per cubic meter in levels of particle pollution caused by wildfire smoke, researchers found. By comparison, other forms of air pollution caused a 3% increased risk in dementia diagnosis for every 3 microgram per cubic meter increase in airborne particulates. Wildfires, motor vehicles and factories all spew a type of air pollution called fine particulate matter. These solid and liquid particles are 30 times smaller than the width of an average human…  read on >  read on >

People who’ve had a history of smoking can get a lung cancer spotted early — when it’s most treatable — through annual CT screening. Unfortunately, most Americans polled in a new survey didn’t know this potentially lifesaving screen exists. “The survey shows that we have a significant amount of work to do in increasing awareness about lung cancer screening,” said Harold Wimmer. He’s president and CEO of the American Lung Association (ALA), which conducted the 2024 Lung Health Barometer survey. Getting a tumor detected via an annual CT lung scan raises the odds of five-year survival from stage 1 to 4 lung cancer by 63%, according to the ALA. Under current American Cancer Society guidelines, yearly lung cancer screening with a low-dose CT scan is currently recommended for all people aged 50 to 80 who smoke or used to smoke, and who have at least a 20 pack-year history of smoking (meaning a pack of cigarettes smoked per day for 20 years). The new ALA survey canvassed 4,000 people across the United States about their knowledge of lung health and lung cancer. Only 38% of respondents knew that CT scans were now an available screening option for folks at high risk for lung cancer. Still, even that number is an increase from prior years, Wimmer noted. “Compared to our 2022 Lung Health Barometer, we saw a…  read on >  read on >

In findings that suggest more young Americans struggling with mental health issues are getting the help they need, a new poll shows that nearly a third of American adolescents and teens received some sort of mental health treatment in 2023. That translates to over 8 million young people between the ages of 12 and 17 getting counseling, medication or another treatment, the survey from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found. “We’re pleased to see that more people received mental health treatment in 2023 than the previous year,” SAMHSA Adminstrator Miriam Delphin-Rittmon said in an agency news release announcing the survey. Among adolescents, the biggest increase from 2022 was in the number of those getting mental health medications: Nearly 14% of those age 12 to 17 received such a prescription in 2023, up from 12.8% the year before. SAMHSA officials said they saw the increase shows that mental health treatment is finally being destigmatized. Rates of adolescents getting mental health treatment has increased virtually every year since 2009, though the agency noted that changes in how the survey was done were introduced in 2021. In 2022, the survey estimated that 7.7 million youths ages 12 to 17 had received mental health treatment of some kind. The increase in 2023 amounts to more than 500,000 more young people getting treatment, SAMHSA noted. Meanwhile, the rate of adolescents…  read on >  read on >