One out of every five adults who attempt suicide never met the criteria for a mental illness by the time the attempt happened, new research shows. “This finding challenges clinical notions of who is at risk for suicidal behavior and raises questions about the safety of limiting suicide risk screening to psychiatric populations,” concluded a team led by Dr. Maria Oquendo. She’s past president of the American Psychiatric Association and a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. The study, published Feb. 21 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, focused on data from nearly 2,000 Americans ages 20 to 65 who had all had a history of suicide attempt. The study found that 6.2% had no history of a mental illness prior to or after their attempted suicide. Another 13.4% had made a first attempt at suicide prior to the onset of any mental illness diagnosis. Some did not meet the criteria for a mental illness until years after the attempt, the study found. That means that a total of 19.6% of adults with a lifetime history of attempted suicide had no prior evidence of mental illness beforehand. For doctors, this means that they may need to be ask patients questions regarding any prior attempt at suicide, because it may have happened in the absence of a diagnosed mental illness. According to the researchers, a…  read on >  read on >

Weather disasters driven by climate change are stressing out U.S. teenagers, a new study warns. Teens with the most firsthand experience of events like hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, droughts and wildfires were more likely to show signs of mental distress than peers who hadn’t been confronted with the effects of climate change, researchers report. “We know that climate change has and will have catastrophic impacts across the globe, but we were alarmed to find that climate-related disasters already were affecting so many teens in the U.S.,” said lead researcher Amy Auchincloss, an associate professor of epidemiology in Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health in Philadelphia.  “For example, within the past two years, many school districts in our study were subject to climate disasters for over 20 days,” Auchincloss added in a university news release. Researchers said this was the first large-scale attempt to look at the mental health of adolescents following multiple disaster events. For their study, researchers drew on federal survey data for more than 38,600 high school students from 22 public school districts in 14 states. The largest share of the districts were located in the southern and western regions of the country. The districts had been affected by 83 federally declared climate disasters within the past 10 years, researchers said. These included 24 hurricanes, 23 severe storms, 20 wildfires, 10 floods, four…  read on >  read on >

Data from dozens of studies supports the notion that mental health crises are a big factor behind rising rates of maternal deaths during and around pregnancy in the United States. “We need to bring this to the attention of the public and policymakers to demand action to address the mental health crisis that is contributing to the demise of mothers in America,” said Dr. Katherine Wisner, who led the review. She’s associate chief of perinatal mental health at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. “The rate of maternal mortality in the United States is 2-fold to 3-fold greater than that in other high-income countries,” her team noted in the study, which was published Feb. 21 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. Could mental health issues play a role in many of these tragedies? To find out, Wisner and her colleagues looked at data from 30 recent studies and 15 historical references. They found that: Mental health risks rise during pregnancy. The period in and around a pregnancy is “associated with elevated risk for new-onset or relapse of maternal psychiatric disorders,” the researchers reported. For example, 14.5% of pregnant mothers develop depression while pregnant, and another 14.5% battle the illness during the three months after delivery Many pregnant women face risks for suicide, opioid overdose. The data showed that suicide or opioid overdose together account for nearly…  read on >  read on >

Of course grief can ravage your mind, but science shows it can also weaken your body, leaving you open to illness. “As humans, we are strongly motivated to seek out social bonds that are warm, dependable, friendly and supportive,” explained George Slavich. He directs the Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA.  “Losing someone close to us terminates that bond and the social and physical protection they provided, which historically could have put the body at an increased risk of physical danger,” he added in a UCLA article. Much of that danger comes from a hypervigilant, but in some ways weakened, immune system. As Slavich explained, after the loss of a loved one, your brain and body react as if they’ve lost a key line of defense. The immune system escalates its would-healing capabilities (priming for potential threats) but at the same time lowers its guard against viruses. That’s why folks are vulnerable to colds and flu when they’re hit by grief or other stressors, Slavich noted. Bodily inflammatory responses also rise, he added, and that can lead to “feelings of sickness, fatigue, loss of pleasure and social and behavioral withdrawal.” Physical pain might also result from grief. One study found that heightened production of immune system proteins could make grieving people more sensitive to…  read on >  read on >

Hormone replacement therapy might help women avoid depression as they go through menopause, a new study finds. Women treated with hormone therapy at a menopause clinic in Ontario, Canada, experienced a reduction in their symptoms of depression, researchers report Feb. 21 in the journal Menopause. This improvement occurred whether or not antidepressants were also prescribed, results showed. “This study showed a beneficial effect of hormone therapy on mood symptoms during menopause when used alone and a synergistic effect when used in combination with antidepressants,” said Dr. Stephanie Faubion, medical director for The Menopause Society. “It also highlights the high prevalence of mood symptoms during this transition and the need to address women’s symptoms holistically rather than having a singular focus on hot flash management,” Faubion added in a society news release.  Depression has been shown to be particularly likely to occur around the time of menopause, researchers said. In this study of 170 women, about 62% of participants scored as “depressed,” said researchers led by Dr. Alison Shea, from The Research Institute of St. Joseph’s Healthcare in Hamilton. Hormone therapy has been shown to effectively manage hot flashes, but its ability to address mood-related symptoms is less established, researchers said in background notes. Hormones influence the brain pathways that regulate mood during and after menopause, and are thought to play a role in depressive symptoms,…  read on >  read on >

Women working in health care endure significantly more stress and burnout compared to their male co-workers, a new review concludes. Gender inequality, a poor balance between work and life and a lack of workplace autonomy all create pressure on female health care professionals, researchers report. On the other hand, there are factors that can protect women from stress and burnout: a supportive and flexible work environment, opportunities for professional development and mindfulness meditation. “Human beings are not equipped to handle the combined, intense pressures in healthcare, in part due to the pressure to not take time to care for yourself,” said researcher Leigh Frame, associate director of the George Washington University Resiliency & Well-being Center. For the study, Frame and her colleagues analyzed the results from 71 prior studies published in 26 countries and four languages between 1979 and 2022. The studies reviewed stress and burnout among a range of female health care workers, including doctors, nurses, clinical social workers and mental health providers. This is the first comprehensive analysis to examine the relationship between work stress and well-being in female health professionals, researchers said. The pandemic prompted the review, as it cast a spotlight on health care burnout. Results showed that women are under tremendous pressure to succeed both at home and on the job. Such pressure contributes to toxic stress, occupational burnout, depression,…  read on >  read on >

Black voters support a ban on menthol cigarettes by a wide margin, refuting claims that such a ban would be strongly opposed by Black Americans, a new survey shows. Black voters support by a 37-point margin the menthol ban proposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, with 62% in favor and 25% against. That’s even greater than the 29-point margin by which all voters support the ban, with 58% in favor and 29% against. Implementing the rule would not harm President Joe Biden’s chances of re-election, the poll found. There was no change in Biden’s overall standing after voters were asked to assume his administration ended the sale of menthol cigarettes. “There is clear evidence that the menthol rule has no meaningful electoral impact,” concluded The Mellman Group, a leading political research firm that conducted the poll on behalf of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free kids. In December 2023, the Biden administration announced it was delaying until March a long-planned ban on menthol cigarettes. The ban had been opposed by some civil rights leaders with ties to Big Tobacco, who argued it would give police an excuse to target Black smokers. Media reports said that a poll commissioned by tobacco giant Altria also influenced the administration’s decision to delay the ban.  The Altria poll, presented to the administration but never publicly released, claimed that the…  read on >  read on >