Anxiety could be an early warning sign of Parkinson’s disease, a new study finds. People with anxiety have at least double the risk of developing Parkinson’s compared to those without the mood disorder, results show. Further, specific Parkinson’s symptoms serve as warning signs of the disorder in people with anxiety, researchers found. “By understanding that anxiety and the mentioned [symptoms] are linked to a higher risk of developing Parkinson’s disease over the age of 50, we hope that we may be able to detect the condition earlier and help patients get the treatment they need,” said co-lead researcher Dr. Juan Bazo Avarez, a senior research fellow with University College London Epidemiology & Health. Parkinson’s disease causes problems with movement, including shaking, stiffness and problems with balance and coordination, according to the National Institute on Aging. The disease occurs due to the death of nerve cells in the brain that produce dopamine, a chemical that is important to motor control. Parkinson’s is the world’s fastest growing neurodegenerative disorder, researchers said. It currently affects nearly 10 million people around the world. For the new study, researchers analyzed British health records for nearly 110,000 people who developed anxiety after age 50 between 2008 and 2018. Their medical data was compared to more than 878,000 people without anxiety. Researchers specifically looked for Parkinson’s symptoms — such as sleep problems,…  read on >  read on >

Low-birth-weight newborns have a higher risk of health complications if they become obese as children, a new study has found. Obese children who were low-birth-weight babies have a higher risk of insulin resistance, fatty liver and other health problems, researchers found. The study “supports the theory that individuals who were born low birth weight, or who are genetically predisposed to low birth weight, may be more vulnerable to health hazards — such as excess visceral fat — throughout the course of life,” said lead researcher Sara Stinson, a postdoctoral research fellow with Oslo University Hospital in Norway. Previous studies already have tied high birth weight to an increased risk of overweight and obesity, and low birth weight to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. To understand these links more, researchers analyzed data on more than 4,000 children. The data included birth weight, BMI, medical records, blood samples and a genetic health risk score associated with birth weight.  They found that a low-birth-weight child’s insulin sensitivity suffers if they put on excess pounds.  “In children with obesity, we see near normal insulin sensitivity in children born with a high birth weight and drastically decreased insulin sensitivity in children with low birth weight,” researcher Dr. Pauline Kromann Reim, a doctoral student with the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research at the University of Copenhagen…  read on >  read on >

A new slow-release pill form of ketamine can quell hard-to-treat depression without producing psychedelic side effects normally associated with the drug, early research suggests. Patients on the strongest dose of ketamine tablets saw significant improvement in their depression compared to a placebo, researchers found. On a 30-point depression scale, people taking the ketamine pill improved by 14 points, while the placebo group had an average reduction of 8 points. The tablet could provide an improvement over ketamine injections and nasal sprays, which already are used to treat depression, said researcher Colleen Loo, a clinical psychiatrist with the University of New South Wales in Australia. A derivative of ketamine called esketamine (Spravato) is already approved in the United States for treatment-resistant depression in adults. It comes as a pill, nasal spray or injection, but these all work quickly and produce psychedelic effects. “This is a way of administering ketamine to treat depression that’s much easier to give,” Loo said in a university news release. “Rather than having to come to the clinic and have an injection and have medical monitoring for two hours, once or twice a week, this is much more convenient and allows patients to have their treatment at home, making it as convenient as other antidepressant medications.” Extended-release ketamine also doesn’t cause the hallucinations typically associated with the drug, Loo added. It had…  read on >  read on >

The rate of self-reported mental distress and depression among American adults who identify as transgender or gender-diverse (TGD) has more than doubled between 2014 and 2022, an analysis of federal health data reveals. During that time, “a record number of enacted laws has threatened the rights and protections of TGD people, including restricting access to gender-affirming care and permitting discrimination in public accommodations,” noted a team of researchers led by health care policy investigator Michael Liu, of Harvard Medical School. The findings are published June 24 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. Liu’s team tracked survey data from the federal government’s ongoing Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which follows the self-reported physical and mental health of U.S. adults over time. The analysis started in 2014, the first year in which gender identity was added to the survey, and tracked data through 2022. Liu’s team found that the “prevalence of frequent mental distress increased from 18.8% in 2014 to 38.9% in 2022” among transgender or gender-diverse people. In contrast, the rise in mental distress was less steep among cisgender people — from 11.2% to 15.5%. Depression rates among transgender and gender-diverse adults also rose sharply between 2014 and 2022 — more than doubling from 19.7% to 51.3%, Liu’s group found. Over the same time period, depression rates among cisgender adults rose only slightly, from 18.6% to…  read on >  read on >

When a couple can’t get pregnant, the focus is often on the prospective mom, but that needs to change, a Houston urologist says. “Both partners need evaluation,” said Dr. Larry Lipschultz, a professor of urology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “With fertility, you can’t finger point. It’s not a male or female problem as much as it needs to be considered a couple’s problem.” Men who are infertile have no way to know unless they’ve had specific surgeries or an accident involving their testicles. The only sign is being unable to get a woman pregnant. A fertility test can confirm this. Once a man hits his 50s, his fertility drops. It’s not as dramatic a decline as that which a woman experiences during menopause — rather, it happens little by little.  Guys who are obese or who put on weight may also have trouble producing enough sperm. A doctor might recommend losing weight, to boost production of male hormones. A diet rich in foods containing antioxidants may also be suggested. “The issue with obesity is that fat metabolizes testosterone to estrogen, which is bad for sperm production,” Lipschultz said in a Baylor news release. “Generally, trying to maintain a good bodyweight through exercise and proper diet is going to be helpful.” Keep in mind that the testosterone should not come from an outside…  read on >  read on >

Transgender and bisexual adults have rates of loneliness that are much higher than that of cisgender and heterosexual people, new data shows. Federal health data on U.S. adults from 2022 finds the highest rates of self-reported loneliness among people who identify as bisexual (56.7%) or transgender (rates ranging from 56.4% to 63.9%), according to researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s compared to the 30.3% of straight people who said they often felt lonely, and the 32.1% of cisgender people who said they were lonely. Cisgender people have a gender identity that corresponds with the one they were assigned at birth. “Addressing the threat to mental health among sexual and gender minority groups should include consideration of loneliness and lack of social and emotional support,” concluded the team led by Katherine Bruss. She’s with the CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. As Bruss’ team noted, feeling connected to others socially brings “significant health benefits,” including “a sense of belonging, and of being cared for, valued and supported.” On the other hand, loneliness has long been tied to ailments such as depression, anxiety, heart disease and diabetes. Bruss’ group say there’s been a lack of data on loneliness rates among LBGTQ+ populations. In the federal government’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, adults were asked questions like, “How often…  read on >  read on >

As summers get hotter and hurricane seasons less predictable, more Americans now say that climate change affects their mental health, a new poll finds. In a survey conducted among more than 2,200 adults at the end of May, 53% of respondents said they believe that the effects of global warming impacts Americans’ mental health. That’s up from 48% of those questioned in a similar poll conducted in 2022, according to the poll’s sponsor, the American Psychiatric Association. “As psychiatrists, we know our mental state is not immune to these weather changes, and we also know that certain communities are disproportionately impacted,” said APA President Dr. Ramaswamy Viswanathan. “I would encourage those who feel overwhelmed to remember that there is still hope in the solutions we can adopt as individuals and on a more global scale.”  It isn’t just peace of mind that’s being upset by high temperatures, wildfires, hurricanes and the like. According to the poll, 39% said that climate change is also affecting folks’ access to food, 37% said it was taking a toll on personal finances, their family (36%), housing (34%), their neighborhood (25%), their job or career (26%) or their education (24%). Age mattered: “The majority of respondents ages 18-34 said climate change impacts their mental [53%] and physical health [52%], while less than a quarter [<25%] of adults ages 65+ said…  read on >  read on >