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Widespread and easy access to guns is the reason behind the shockingly high rate of firearm deaths in the United States, and not any rise in mental health problems suffered by perpetrators, a new study shows. The United States has the same burden of mental health disorders as 40 other countries with comparable populations, researchers reported recently in the journal PLOS One. However, the U.S. rate of death by firearms is 20 times greater than those other countries, results show. “We have the same degree of mental health issues as other countries, but our firearm death rate is far greater and continuing to increase,” said lead investigator Dr. Archie Bleyer, a clinical research professor with Oregon Health & Science University. “In most of the countries, firearms deaths are decreasing.” Polling has shown that most of the public believes that mental health disorders are to blame for the high U.S. firearm death rate, Bleyer said. But the latest findings indicate that firearm availability is the true cause of America’s gun death epidemic, Bleyer said. For the study, researchers compared the United States to 40 other countries with similar demographics between 2000 and 2019 using data drawn from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation Global Health Burden. The research team looked specifically at firearm deaths and the burden of mental health issues in the countries. Since… read on > read on >

It’s natural for a parent to want to protect their children and keep them from harm. But sometimes this understandable desire crosses over into “helicopter parenting,” an overbearing need to be part of a child’s every decision and dilemma. “A helicopter parent is often fueled by anxiety, and that anxiety can come in different flavors: anxiety for their child to be safe, successful or not to be emotionally harmed, as well as anxiety to keep up with the Joneses or what their family or culture expects,” said Dr. Laurel Williams, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. A helicopter parent typically doesn’t allow their child to pursue normal kid behavior on their own. Their instincts cry out for them to make the pathway easier for their kid. But this actually can hamper their child’s development, Williams said. The child might not learn how to handle failure or disappointment, or how to best interact with other children their age. Parents would be better off modeling how kids should handle letdowns like not making a sports team or getting a bad grade. “Be helpful in planning on how this doesn’t happen again, but if you don’t let them handle it on their own, you can delay their development,” Williams said in a Baylor news release. It’s important to identify when… read on > read on >

An analysis of where suicides are occurring in the United States shows that, tragically, location matters. People living in poorer areas with fewer resources are significantly more likely to fall victim to suicide versus those living in more affluent areas, new data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. “Improving the conditions where people are born, grow, live, work and age is an often-overlooked aspect of suicide prevention,” said the report’s lead author, CDC health scientist Alison Cammack. Her team published its CDC Vital Signs report on Sept 10. The analysis looked at factors such as insurance coverage, broadband internet access and household income in counties across the United States. They then compared those statistics to rates of suicide in each county. The results show that income, education and access to resources do matter. Compared to those counties scoring lowest when it comes to income, internet access and insurance coverage, suicide rates were: 26% lower in counties with the highest health insurance coverage 44% lower in counties where most homes have broadband internet access 13% lower in counties with the greatest average household income Initiatives that reduce these disparities might help bring suicide rates down, Cammack said in a CDC news release. “Public health programs that improve conditions in communities, such as those funded by CDC’s Comprehensive Suicide Prevention Program, can help… read on > read on >

Having asthma appears linked to raised odds for miscarriage and troubles with fertility among women, new Danish research shows. “We found that women fulfilling the definition of asthma had a higher rate of fetal loss and an increased use of fertility treatment. The more severe the asthma and the more flare-ups the women experienced, the more likely they were to need fertility treatment,” said study lead author Dr. Anne Vejen Hansen. She works in the department of respiratory medicine at Copenhagen University Hospital. Her team presented its findings Tuesday in Vienna at the annual meeting of the European Respiratory Society (ERS). The new study focused on data from almost 770,000 Danish women born from 1976 to 1999 and then tracked from 1994 to 2017, during their prime reproductive years. Women who had asthma were more likely to experience a miscarriage than women without the respiratory illness, with rates of 17% and 15.7%, respectively. They were also more likely to have a medical record showing that they’d had to try a fertility treatment: 5.6% of women with asthma did so, compared to 5% of women without asthma. However, it seems that most women with asthma did end up overcoming these hurdles and went on to bear a child: 77% of women, regardless of their asthma status, became mothers, the study found. “It’s reassuring that women seem… read on > read on >

New research uncovers a possible reason why teenaged girls struggled so mightily with their mental health during the pandemic: Scans showed their brains aged far faster than expected during that stressful time, even faster than the brains of their male peers. In the study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists measured cortical thinning, a process where redundant brain synapses are pruned and the outer layer of the cortex is thinned. While some experts believe this process is simply the brain rewiring itself for efficiency as it matures, it is known to accelerate in stressful conditions. That speeded thinning is also linked to depression and anxiety. How did the researchers discover that unusual thinning? After pandemic shutdowns started to lift, scans taken in 2021 showed that both boys and girls had experienced rapid cortical thinning during that period. But the thinning was far more pronounced in girls, whose thinning had accelerated, on average, by 4.2 years ahead of what was expected. Meanwhile, the thinning in boys’ brains had accelerated only 1.4 years ahead of what was expected. The greater impact on female brains could have been be due to differences in the importance of social interaction for girls versus boys, said senior study author Patricia Kuhl, director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington. Teenaged girls rely… read on > read on >

Annoyed that you still have a bit of tummy even though you work out all the time? Exercise actually is helping you develop healthier belly fat tissue, a new study says. That means that even if you don’t obtain six-pack abs, exercise is good for your long-term health, researchers said. “Our findings indicate that in addition to being a means to expend calories, exercising regularly for several months to years seems to modify your fat tissue in ways that allows you to store your body fat more healthfully if or when you do experience some weight gain — as nearly everyone does as we get older,” said researcher Jeffrey Horowitz, a professor of movement science at the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology. For the study, researchers compared two groups of people with obesity. One group of 16 people said they’d exercised at least four times a week for at least two years, while another group of 16 said they’d never regularly exercised. Samples were taken from belly fat tissue just under the skin, which is considered the healthiest place for the body to store fat. Fat stored under the skin is less likely to cause health problems compared to fat accumulating around or inside organs, researchers said. People who regularly exercised had distinct differences in their fat tissue that increased their capacity to store… read on > read on >

Taking steroids more than doubles a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a new study warns. Patients taking steroid pills, injections or infusions are 2.6 times more likely to develop diabetes than those not on steroids, researchers reported Sunday in a presentation at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Madrid. The results of this large-scale study confirm suspicions that the effects of steroids on blood sugar levels can boost diabetes risk, researchers said. “Existing information on how much more common new diabetes is in patients treated with glucocorticoids is based on small studies including patients with one or a few conditions,” said lead researcher Dr. Rajna Golubic, a lecturer in diabetes and endocrinology with the University of Oxford. “We wanted to expand the data to get a more accurate idea of how likely it is that people could develop diabetes while being treated with these drugs.” Steroids are used to treat a wide range of medical problems by helping quell inflammation. These include asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and cancer. Unfortunately, the drugs also increase blood sugar levels by reducing insulin sensitivity and interfering with cells’ ability to absorb glucose, according to Diabetes UK. To see whether this effect on blood sugar could cause diabetes, the research team analyzed data on more than 450,000 people treated… read on > read on >

People with type 2 diabetes are nearly twice as likely to develop asthma, a new review has concluded. Type 2 diabetics are 83% more likely to develop asthma, compared to those without diabetes, researchers found. The relationship also works the other way around — people with asthma are 28% more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, researchers report. “This relationship emphasizes the need for greater awareness among patients with type 2 diabetes or asthma and their healthcare providers,” said lead researcher Dr. Nam Nguyen with Taipei Medical University in Taiwan. For the study, researchers pooled data on 17 million people from 14 prior studies examining the link between asthma and type 2 diabetes. The results also showed that the more severe a person’s asthma is, the higher their risk of type 2 diabetes, researchers report. These findings suggest that asthma and diabetes might have some of the same underlying causes, or have other factors in common, researchers said. Nguyen said future studies should look into the potential links between asthma and type 2 diabetes. Researchers presented the study Monday at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes annual meeting in Madrid. Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. “Preventive strategies should be considered to lower the risk of type 2 diabetes in individuals with asthma,” Nguyen… read on > read on >

A form of psychotherapy can help women whose libidos have suffered as they go through menopause, a new study finds. Cognitive behavioral therapy significantly improved sexual desire and satisfaction in a small group of middle-aged and older women, researchers said. “To our knowledge, this is the first study that has examined the efficacy of a cognitive behavioral therapy protocol specifically aimed to improve sexual concerns experienced during peri- and postmenopause,” said lead researcher Sheryl Green. She’s associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences with McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. Declining estrogen levels cause sexual concerns in 68% to 87% of women in the midst of menopause or postmenopause, researchers explained in background notes. Treatment options for sexual problems like a loss of desire or pain during sex are limited, researchers said. For this study, researchers asked women to participate in four sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy aimed at managing sexual issues that accompany menopause. Cognitive behavioral therapy works by helping people recognize ways of thinking or patterns of behavior that are causing them problems with their mental and physical health. The therapist helps people come up with new thoughts or behaviors to replace the ones that are causing harm, as well as methods of meditation and problem-solving. Following the therapy, study participants experienced significant improvement in multiple areas of sexual function, body image and sexual… read on > read on >

Beginning Jan. 1, Americans with private health insurance coverage should gain better access to mental health care, as well as care to help ease substance abuse, federal officials announced Monday. “Like medical care, mental health care is vital to the well-being of America’s workers,” U.S. Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su said in a statement from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “The final rules issued today make it easier for people living with mental health conditions and substance use disorders to get the lifesaving care they often need,” Su said. The bottom line is that, beginning in 2025, private insurers must offer coverage for mental health ills just as they would for issues of physical health, “without imposing greater restrictions on mental health or substance use disorder benefits as compared to medical and surgical benefits,” the HHS said in its statement. The new rules are aimed at easing restrictions on care that insurers often subject policyholders to, including high out-of-pocket costs. Other restrictions include requirements that limit the scope or duration of mental health care benefits (such as prior authorization requirements), the use of “step” therapy, as well as standards that might keep providers from being admitted to a particular network. The changes have been a long time coming: Congress passed the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act back in 2008.… read on > read on >