Parents can be very effective buzzkills for their teens, just by letting kids know they’re being closely watched, a new study reports. Teenagers are less likely to drink, smoke or use drugs when parents keep tabs on their activities, according to findings published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. What’s more, teens don’t need to be busted at least once by their parents to get on the straight and narrow, results show. Simple awareness that parents are monitoring their behavior wound up cutting teens’ use of alcohol or drugs by 40%, without any actual punishment being doled out, researchers found. “Some parents think drinking or using drugs is something that kids are just going to do, no matter what,” lead researcher William Pelham, an assistant adjunct professor of psychiatry at the University of California-San Diego, said in a news release. “But that’s not true. Parents can make a difference.” Previous studies have found that teens are less likely to use drugs, alcohol or tobacco if they have parents who remain aware of their activities, know their friends, and know their whereabouts when they aren’t home, researchers said. The assumption up to now has been that monitoring works because parents are more likely to catch kids red-handed and inflict some sort of punishment like grounding them or taking away their smartphones, Pelham said.…  read on >  read on >

Nearly 100,000 U.S. children lost a parent in 2020 to gun violence or drug overdose, a three-fold rise since 1999, according to a new study. Overall, these two causes made up nearly a quarter (23%) of parental losses in 2020, almost double the level cited in 1999, according to a team who reported its findings May 4 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “US youth are at high and increasing risk of experiencing parental death by drugs or firearms,” a team led by Mathew Kiang of the Stanford University School of Medicine concluded.  In the study, Kiang’s team noted that, “the U.S. is experiencing dual overlapping public health crises of drug poisoning … and firearm deaths. Since 1999, more than 1 million residents of the U.S. have died by fatal drug poisonings and more than 750,000 by firearms.” Just how much is all this affecting the nation’s children?  To find out, the researchers combed through federal death statistics, fertility data and population demographics to estimate how many parents lost their lives to drugs or gun violence in recent years. Many of these parents died young: The study found the average age of fatal drug overdose or gun injury to a parent was just 42. Fathers were three times more likely to die from these causes than mothers. Drug overdose deaths are rising especially…  read on >  read on >

Worries over health-related costs are plaguing the minds of older Americans of all backgrounds, a new poll suggests. Five of the six health-related issues that most people found very concerning had to do with health care costs, according to results from the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging.  And the sixth issue – financial scams and fraud – also had to do with money, results show. “In this election year, these findings offer a striking reminder of how much health care costs matter to older adults,” Dr. John Ayanian, director of the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, where the poll is based, said in a news release. The poll is supported by AARP and Michigan Medicine, U-M’s academic medical center. Overall, 56% of people over 50 said they’re concerned about the cost of medical care for older adults, poll results show. Other top concerns included assisted living costs (56%), prescription medicine costs (54%), scams and fraud (53%), cost of health insurance or Medicare (52%), and the cost of dental care (45%), the poll found. The same six topics rose to the top regardless of age, gender, race, ethnic group, region of the country, political ideology or income level, researchers said. Other topics rounding out the top 10 health issues included access to quality assisted living (38%), overall quality of…  read on >  read on >

The silent symptoms of stress can be easily overlooked, but they’re important to recognize to protect one’s mental health, experts say. Visible symptoms of stress are fairly obvious – irritability, anger, impatience, muscle tension. “You may not be able to hide those for a long time. Immediately, people will notice it – family, friends and co-workers,” Dr. Asim Shah, chief of community psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said in a news release. But the silent symptoms of stress might take months to be noticeable, Shah said. “If you are isolated and alone, no one may notice except for you,” Shah said. While some stress in life is normal, monitoring silent symptoms is important. If they grow worse over time or start interfering with daily life, it might be a sign you need the help of a mental health professional, Shah said. “The silent symptoms of stress can be when people lose interest with their life. They’ll stop doing the things they once enjoyed,” Shah said. “They will get anxious, nervous or afraid and avoid things they used to do because they are overwhelmed and overburdened by it.”   Other silent stress symptoms include weight loss or weight gain, purposely pulling out one’s hair, or biting one’s nails. To manage stress, Shah recommends first starting with physical activity and relaxation techniques. “You can try…  read on >  read on >

People in homes with gas or propane stoves regularly breathe in unhealthy levels of nitrogen dioxide, a new study says. Typical use of these stoves increases exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) by an estimated 4 parts per billion, averaged over a year, researchers report. That’s three-quarters of the way to the NO2 exposure level deemed unsafe in outdoor air by the World Health Organization, researchers noted. “That’s excluding all outdoor sources combined, so it makes it much more likely you’re going to exceed the limit,” lead researcher Yannai Kashtan, a doctoral student in Earth system science at Stanford University, said in a news release. Breathing high levels of NO2 over time can intensify asthma attacks, and has been linked to decreased lung development in children, researchers noted. The mix of pollutants coming from gas and propane stoves could be responsible for as many as 200,000 current cases of childhood asthma, with one-quarter attributed to nitrogen dioxide alone, researchers estimated. Long-term exposure to NO2 from gas stoves also is high enough to cause as many as 19,000 deaths each year, researchers added. For the study, researchers used sensors to measure concentrations of NO2 throughout more than 100 homes of various sizes, layouts and ventilation methods. “I didn’t expect to see pollutant concentrations breach health benchmarks in bedrooms within an hour of gas stove use, and stay there…  read on >  read on >

A looming presidential election, continued economic struggles and the threat of gun violence have a rising number of Americans more anxious this year compared to last, a new poll finds. The survey, conducted in early April among 2,000 adults by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), found 43% of respondents saying they were more anxious this year than last. That’s a higher percentage than was found in polls conducted in 2023 (37%) or 2022 (32%) , the APA noted. Seventy percent of adults say they’re worried about current events, particularly the economy (77%), the upcoming election (73%) and news of gun violence (69%). “Living in a world of constant news of global and local turmoil, some anxiety is natural and expected,” APA president Dr. Petros Levounis said in a news release. “But what stands out here is that Americans are reporting more anxious feelings than in past years. This increase may be due to the unprecedented exposure that we have to everything that happens in the world around us, or to an increased awareness and reporting of anxiety.” Other issues weighing heavily on Americans’ minds: Keeping themselves or their families safe, 68% Keeping their identity safe, 63% Their health, 63% Paying bills or expenses, 63% The opioid epidemic, 50% The impact of emerging technology on day-to-day life, 46% Climate change, 55% When asked what daily factors…  read on >  read on >

The active chemical in magic mushrooms could prove to be a powerful antidepressant, a new review finds. Psilocybin outperformed a variety of “control” treatments in easing symptoms of depression, researchers reported May 1 in the BMJ. Those control groups received either placebo medications, the dietary supplement niacin (vitamin B), or microdoses of psychedelics. “This review’s findings on psilocybin’s efficacy in reducing symptoms of depression are encouraging for its use in clinical practice as a drug intervention for patients with primary or secondary depression, particularly when combined with psychological support and administered in a supervised clinical environment,” concluded the research team led by Athina-Marina Metaxa, a master’s student with the University of Oxford’s Department of Medicine in the U.K. Depression affects an estimated 300 million people worldwide, an increase of nearly 20% over the past decade, researchers said in background notes. Psilocybin has shown promise in reducing depression symptoms after one or two doses, with few side effects and no apparent risk of addiction, researchers said. To provide an overview of where research now stands, a U.K. team examined data from seven clinical trials involving 436 people with depression. Psilocybin provided a significantly greater change in depression scores than any of the control treatments, results show. The treatment effects of psilocybin were significantly more powerful among patients who had depression alongside another mental illness, and when…  read on >  read on >

Women approaching menopause appear to be at higher risk of depression, a new review indicates. Women in the transition period prior to menopause are 40% more likely to experience depression than premenopausal women, according to pooled data from seven studies involving more than 9,100 women around the world. The results show that women heading into menopause “are significantly more likely to experience depression than either before or after this stage,” said senior researcher Dr. Roopal Desai, a clinical fellow in psychology with University College London. “Our findings emphasize the importance of acknowledging that women in this life stage are more vulnerable to experiencing depression,” Desai added in a university news release. “It also underlines the need to provide support and screening for women to help address their mental health needs effectively.”  This transition period, called perimenopause, usually occurs three to five years before the onset of menopause, researchers said in background notes. During this transition, the ovaries begin producing fewer female hormones, and fluctuating hormone levels can cause mood changes along with irregular menstrual cycles and other symptoms, researchers said. This stage of menopause continues until a year after a woman’s last period, and can often last between four and eight years overall, researchers said. The analysis included studies involving women from the United States, Australia, China, the Netherlands and Switzerland, researchers said. Menopause symptoms…  read on >  read on >

At what age does loneliness strike adults the hardest? A new review maps it out, finding that people are more lonely as young adults, grow less lonely as they approach middle age, and then fall back into loneliness in old age, researchers reported April 30 in the journal Psychological Science. “What was striking was how consistent the uptick in loneliness is in older adulthood,” said researcher Eileen Graham, an associate professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “There’s a wealth of evidence that loneliness is related to poorer health, so we wanted to better understand who is lonely and why people are becoming lonelier as they age out of midlife, so we can hopefully start finding ways to mitigate it,” Graham said. Social isolation can increase the risk of premature death to levels comparable to daily smoking, according to the U.S. Surgeon General. For the review, researchers evaluated data from nine long-term studies conducted around the world. All of the studies showed a U-shaped loneliness curve, even though they tested different groups of people from the United States, the U.K., Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Australia and Israel, researchers said.   “Our study is unique because it harnessed the power of all these datasets to answer the same question — ‘How does loneliness change across the lifespan, and what factors…  read on >  read on >