Delivering meals to the infirm. Tutoring a student. Patrolling a city park. Helping out at a local library. All these activities not only serve the community, but also can help seniors avoid depression related to social isolation. Volunteering reduces the risk of depression by 43% among seniors, researchers reported in a study published Jan. 8 in the Journal of American Geriatrics Society. “Those engaged in volunteering activities had a significantly lower prevalence of depression,” senior researcher Dr. Guohua Li, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, said in a news release from the college. Volunteerism could be particularly important for seniors who’ve just retired, as they are at higher risk for depression, researchers added. For the study, researchers analyzed data gathered for nearly 3,000 seniors 65 to 79 as part of a study on aging drivers. Overall, about 6% of all the study participants had depression, researchers found But depression was double among those who didn’t volunteer compared to those who did, 8% versus 4%, results show. The study also showed that money is a root of happiness for seniors. Risk of depression was 47% lower for households with annual income of $50,000 to $79,999, and 59% lower for those making $80,000 or more, researchers found. Depression also was more common in people 65 to 69 compared with older seniors. For example, people 70 to…  read on >  read on >

Some of the most effective public policies for suicide prevention aren’t crafted with suicide or mental health in mind, a new study says. Efforts to increase the minimum wage, prohibit gender discrimination, or reduce alcohol consumption “have spillover benefits in that they also prevent suicides,” lead researcher Jonathan Purtle, an associate professor of public health policy and management at the NYU School of Global Public Health, said in a news release from the school. In fact, those policies might be more effective at preventing suicides than efforts to increase access to health care or limit firearms, researchers argue in a study published Jan. 7 in the Annual Review of Public Health. “This research highlights the importance of considering social determinants in suicide prevention,” researcher Michael Lindsey, dean of the NYU Silver School of Social Work, said in a news release. “An individual’s mental well-being is influenced not only by clinical factors, but also by their environment, circumstances, and experiences,” Lindsey added. Suicide rates have been on the rise over the past two decades, increasing by 37% since 2000, researchers said in background notes. For younger people 10 to 24, suicide increased 62% between 2010 and 2020. To see which public policies might best help prevent suicides, researchers first analyzed state bills passed during the last two decades that explicitly mentioned suicide.  They found a dramatic…  read on >  read on >

Patients have more access to their own medical test results than ever before, thanks to legislation requiring results be released as soon as they’re available. But that’s not necessarily a good thing, a new study warns. Many patients are reading test results in their electronic medical record before their doctor has had a chance to go over them, researchers say in a study published Jan. 2 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. This is provoking a lot of confusion and anxiety, mainly because medical reports contain a lot of jargon the average patient doesn’t understand, researchers said. For example, “a standard pathology report is written by a pathologist for a clinical specialist like a surgeon or a cancer doctor or for other pathologists to read,” lead researcher Dr. Cathryn Lapedis, a pathologist at University of Michigan Health, said in a news release from the college. To address this, Lapedis and her colleagues tested whether patients might benefit from pathology reports written in a way they would better understand. “A patient-centered pathology report gives important information on the patient’s diagnosis in a clear format that minimizes medical terminology,” Lapedis said. “For example, a standard pathology report will include a term like prostatic adenocarcinoma, but the patient-centered report will simply call it prostate cancer.” For the study, researchers recruited more than 2,200 men 55 to…  read on >  read on >

More and more adults are stuck in the middle of their families, caring not only for their children but also for aging parents and other older family members. The mental and physical health of these “sandwich carers” is more likely to deteriorate over time, a new study published in the journal Public Health says. “These individuals, who balance the demands of caring for both their children and aging parents, often experience a decline in their well-being,” lead researcher Dr. Baowen Xue, a lecturer in social epidemiology with the University College London, said in a news release from the school. “It’s crucial that we recognize and support the unique needs of this growing group to ensure their health and resilience,” Xue added. For the study, researchers analyzed data from about 2,000 sandwich carers, comparing them with 2,000 other people who only care for a child younger than 16. All participants were provided a pair of questionnaires aimed at assessing their mental and physical health. Results show that parents’ psychological distress increased significantly when they also had to care for an older relative, and even more if they spent over 20 hours a week providing care. Sandwich carers also suffered a faster decline in their physical health if they spent more than 20 hours a week in caregiving, researchers found. These folks must manage not only the…  read on >  read on >

The spotted lanternfly is an invasive pest that can ruin grape, apple and hop crops and do terrible damage to maple and walnut trees. Luckily, man’s best friend is on hand to help fight this insect foe, a new study published in the journal Ecosphere says. Farmers and conservationists have trained dogs to sniff out lanternfly egg masses in vineyards and forests during the winter, before the pests can begin their springtime blight. A Labrador retriever and a Belgian Malinois were more than three times better than humans at detecting egg masses in forested areas near vineyards, researchers found. “A spotted lanternfly infestation in a vineyard can cause 80% to 100% mortality of the vines in one growing season,” lead researcher Angela Fuller, a professor of natural resources and the environment at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, said in a news release from the college. Spotted lanternflies are native to Asia, and likely arrived in the U.S. on goods shipped from overseas, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They were first detected in Pennsylvania in 2014, and have since spread to 18 other states, researchers said in background notes. When the insect feeds, it creates a sticky, sugary fluid that causes sooty mold, the USDA says. Lanternflies lay their eggs on any hard surface, including grills, vehicles, trailers, firewood, outdoor furniture, bikes and toys,…  read on >  read on >

Mind-opening psychedelic drugs can provide a needed boost to people dealing with cancer or struggling with alcoholism, according to a pair of new studies from New York University. One study found that psilocybin — the active ingredient in magic mushrooms — significantly reduced anxiety, depression, anger and other mental health problems in people with cancer, when combined with therapy. The second found that psilocybin can reduce depression, impulsiveness and other unhelpful feelings in people being treated for alcohol use disorder. “Our findings suggest that the mental health benefits of psilocybin therapy for cancer patients may reach far beyond what we have previously understood,” Dr. Petros Petridis, lead author of the first study and a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said in a news release from the school. For the first study, researchers analyzed data from two previous clinical trials that used psilocybin-assisted therapy to address anxiety and depression in nearly 80 men and women with cancer. The data showed that psilocybin boosted therapy’s ability to help cancer patients deal with their feelings, compared to therapy given with a placebo dose of vitamin B3. The positive benefits lasted at least six months. Further, results showed that psilocybin did not appear to cause any harmful side effects like paranoia, psychosis or phobia. For the second study, researchers randomly assigned 84 people…  read on >  read on >

Not sure what’s causing your child’s asthma? A new quick-and-easy nasal swab test for kids can diagnose the specific immune system drivers behind their asthma, potentially opening the door to better treatments, researchers say. The test diagnoses a child’s asthma subtype, also called an endotype. “Because asthma is a highly variable disease with different endotypes, which are driven by different immune cells and respond differently to treatments, the first step toward better therapies is accurate diagnosis of endotype,” senior researcher Dr. Juan Celedon, chief of pulmonary medicine at the UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, said in a news release from the hospital. Asthma is the most common chronic disease of childhood, affecting about 1 in every 10 kids, according to the National Institutes of Health. Traditionally, doctors classify asthma into different subtypes based on the immune cells that are causing inflammation that chokes off airways. There’s T2-high driven by T helper 2 cells, T17-high driven by T helper 17 cells, and low-low in which neither type of cell appears to be the cause. Precisely diagnosing an asthma subtype involves putting a kid under anesthesia and taking a small sample of lung tissue, which is then subjected to genetic analysis, researchers said. That procedure is so invasive that it’s just not worth it for kids with milder asthma, so doctors instead must guess asthma subtype based…  read on >  read on >

Considering a New Year’s resolution to quit smoking? New research might provide all the motivation you need: Each cigarette could shorten your life by up to 22 minutes, researchers say. The findings, published Dec. 29, 2024, in the journal Addiction, were based on mortality data from British smokers and suggest that smoking a pack of 20 cigarettes a day can cost someone nearly seven hours of life. “The time they’re losing is time that they could be spending with their loved ones in fairly good health,” said Dr. Sarah Jackson, lead author and principal research fellow at University College London’s Alcohol and Tobacco Research Group. The research shows that smoking tends to erode healthy middle years of life, rather than just the later years often spent in poorer health. The research, which was commissioned by the UK Department for Health and Social Care, includes mortality data on men from the British Doctors Study and data on women from the Million Women Study, a news release says. The studies found that lifelong smokers lost an average of 10 years of life compared with nonsmokers. “In terms of regaining this life lost, it’s complicated,” Jackson said. “These studies have shown that people who quit at a very young age — so by their 20s or early 30s — tend to have a similar life expectancy to people…  read on >  read on >