Remember your besties from high school? Sure, they made a lasting impression, but science suggests they influenced the trajectory of your health, too. It’s not that far-fetched: Your friends carry genes that may or may nor predispose them to mental health issues ranging from addiction to anxiety and depression. That can influence the mental health of the people in their friend circle, according to researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “Peers’ genetic predispositions for psychiatric and substance use disorders are associated with an individual’s own risk of developing the same disorders in young adulthood,” said study lead author Jessica Salvatore. “What our data exemplifies is the long reach of social genetic effects,” she said in a Rutgers news release. Salvatore is an associate professor of psychiatry at the university. It’s a relatively new field of research called socio-genomics: How one person’s genetic makeup (“genotype”) can influence a wider network of people. Just how powerful is the socio-genomic effect? To find out, Salvatore’s group looked at Swedish data on over 1.5 million individuals born in Sweden between 1980 and 1998. They then pinpointed exactly where everyone went to school in their teen years. That was followed up by a deep dive into local medical, pharmacy and legal registries that documented any history of substance use and mental health disorders for the same individuals in adulthood.…  read on >  read on >

David Lynch, who transformed television and film with series such as “Twin Peaks” and movies like “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive,” announced Monday that he is battling the lung disease emphysema. Lynch, 78 and a former long-time smoker, first spoke about his illness in an article for Sight and Sound, a magazine from the British Film Institute. Although emphysema is limiting his mobility, Lynch said that he could continue directing, just remotely. He confirmed his diagnosis on a social media post. “Yes, I have emphysema from my many years of smoking,” Lynch said. “I have to say that I enjoyed smoking very much, and I do love tobacco — the smell of it, lighting cigarettes on fire, smoking them — but there is a price to pay for this enjoyment, and the price for me is emphysema.” He added that he quit smoking two years ago. “Recently, I had many tests and the good news is that I am in excellent shape except for emphysema,” Lynch said. “I am filled with happiness, and I will never retire.” According to the American Lung Association, over 3 million Americans are living with emphysema. “Emphysema causes damage to the lung tissue and alveoli or tiny air sacs. Over time, this damage causes the tiny air sacs to break and create one big air pocket instead of small ones,” the…  read on >  read on >

There’s a hint of good news for parents concerned about teen mental health: After 57% of U.S. teen girls surveyed in 2021 said they felt “persistent sadness,” that number declined somewhat by 2023, to 53%, new government data show. In the latest biennial poll of over 20,000 high school students nationwide, called the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that pandemic-era rates of despair may be ebbing, although they remain high. “One of our main priorities at CDC is improving Americans’ mental health,” Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC’s chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science, said in an agency news release. “The data released today show improvements to a number of metrics that measure young people’s mental well-being — progress we can build on. However, this work is far from complete.” In general, girls tend to feel persistent sadness more than boys: About 28% of boys surveyed in both the 2021 and 2023 surveys said they felt that way. In other survey findings, suicide risk among girls did not change between the two surveys. However, a rise in suicide attempts among Black students that appeared in 2021 has now declined significantly. “These data show that we’ve made some progress in tackling these issues in recent years, which proves that they are not insurmountable.…  read on >  read on >

Fireworks displays can cause worse air quality than wildfire smoke, a new study reveals. About 60,000 firework shells exploded over Manhattan’s East River as part of Macy’s Fourth of July show in 2023, researchers said. The colorful bursts caused air pollution in New York City to spike dramatically, with levels many times higher in the hours after the display than was caused by smoke from a Canadian wildfire that had blanketed the region a month before. Particle pollution levels peaked at 3,000 micrograms per cubic meter of air at a sampling site near the display, and 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter at two other nearby sites, results show. For comparison, New York City’s average daily particle pollution levels are 15 micrograms per cubic meter, researchers said. Those levels reached just 460 micrograms per cubic meter when wildfire smoke choked and reddened the Manhattan skies in June 2023. In addition to air pollution, water samples collected from the East River contained more than double the usual level of metals sometimes used to make fireworks explode in brilliant colors. These include nickel, lead and antimony. “Our findings suggest that major firework displays can create a temporary spike in air pollution that may pose a health risk to both humans and the environment,” said lead researcher Terry Gordon, a professor with the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Fireworks…  read on >  read on >

Depression can lower a woman’s chances of surviving breast cancer, a new study reports. Women with breast cancer and depression are more than three times as likely to die as women without either condition, researchers found. By comparison, breast cancer patients who aren’t also suffering from depression are only 45% more likely to die than healthy women. “The combination is what makes the risk of death increase tremendously and leads to thousands of years of life lost,” said lead researcher Jagdish Khubchandani, a professor of public health sciences at New Mexico State University. “We found in our study that the co-occurrence of depression further reduces survival among women with breast cancer,” Khubchandani added in a university news release. “Unfortunately, many women with breast cancer do not get timely or quality care for mental health issues such as depression.” For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 4,700 women aged 45 and older, about 5% of whom had breast cancer while nearly 13% had depression. They were followed for about eight years. “More than 4 million American women are living with breast cancer today, and more than a quarter-million American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year,” Khubchandani said. “Unfortunately, a large proportion of women with breast cancer suffer from depression, poor mental health and lower quality of life.” Results show that certain…  read on >  read on >

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 >