At-home brain stimulation therapy can safely and effectively treat severe to moderate depression, a new clinical trial shows. Rates of treatment response and depression remission were three times higher in people receiving the noninvasive brain stimulation, researchers said. “The study results bring promise that an innovative treatment modality may become available for patients suffering from mood disorders some time in the near future,” said co-lead researcher Dr. Jaire Soares, chair of psychiatry with the University of Texas McGovern Medical School. For the study, 174 people diagnosed with depression were randomly assigned to receive or forego brain stimulation during a 10-week course of treatment. Those receiving brain stimulation got five 30-minute sessions a week for the first three weeks, followed by three 30-minute sessions a week for the next seven weeks. The therapy is called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), in which a current of between 0.5 to 2 milliampere is applied to the scalp through two electrodes. This amount of electricity causes at most a slight tingling sensation along the scalp. The stimulation was self-administered by patients in their own homes, researchers said. About 45% of people receiving the stimulation wound up with their depression in remission, compared with 22% of the control group, researchers found. “The burden of depression is mostly keenly felt by the 280 million people worldwide currently managing symptoms. While a…  read on >  read on >

An overwhelming majority of teens and young adults are worried about how climate change will affect their future, a new survey has found. About 85% of 16- to 25-year-olds are worried about the impact of climate change on people and the planet, according to the survey of nearly 16,000 people from all 50 states. That includes nearly all who identify as Democrats (96%), as well as overwhelming numbers of independents (86%) and Republicans (75%). In almost all states, as least half of teens and young adults reported being very or extremely worried, results show. “Given the environmental crises happening all around, these findings should not be surprising,” said lead researcher Eric Lewandowski, a clinical psychologist with the NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City. “Nonetheless, it is stunning to find such high levels of distress, and desire and plans for action, in young people across the country, in every state and of every political stripe.” The survey also found that: More than 60% say climate change makes them feel anxious, powerless, afraid, sad and angry More than one-third (38%) say their feelings about climate change affect their ability to function daily Three-quarters (76%) said the future is frightening, with climate change weighing on future life decisions such as where to live (69%) and whether to have children (52%) Two-thirds (66%) believe climate change…  read on >  read on >

Is vaping finally losing its coolness for American teens? The latest tally of federal data finds that 550,000 school kids, mostly high schoolers, quit using e-cigarettes in 2024. Vaping rates fell from 10% of high school students in 2023 to 7.8% this year, “reaching the lowest level ever measured” by the National Youth Tobacco Survey, reported a team of researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Reaching a 25-year low for youth tobacco product use is an extraordinary milestone for public health. However, with more than 2 million youth using tobacco products and certain groups not experiencing declines in use, our mission is far from complete,” Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, said in a news release announcing the new data. Rates of use of traditional cigarettes are also extremely low: Only 1.4% of middle- and high-school kids now smoke, the report found. The only bit of bad news: A relatively new tobacco product on the scene, nicotine-laden tobacco pouches, which people place between the cheek and gum, are showing upticks in popularity among teens. Pouches now rank as the second most popular tobacco product, with 2.4% of high school students using them regularly. “Nicotine pouch sales have substantially increased nationwide since 2016,” noted the team led by CDC investigator Ahmed Jamal, and “nearly one million (890,000)…  read on >  read on >

A new diagnosis of Alzheimer’s or other dementia often spurs a person to move from their home, new research shows. “One possible explanation is that individuals with dementia and their caregivers may choose to move closer to family or informal caregivers, either with independent housing arrangements or entering formal long-term care services,” wrote a team led by Momotazur Rahman, an associate professor of health services, policy and practice at Brown University in Providence, R.I. The study was published Oct. 14 in the journal JAMA Network Open. The researchers used Medicare data on the residential histories of over 1.6 million Medicare beneficiaries. All had received a diagnosis of either dementia, heart attack, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or colon cancer in 2016.  Each person’s domicile (including nursing homes) was tracked over the eight years before and after the 2016 diagnosis — 2012 through 2020. In the four years before a dementia diagnosis, there was no difference observed in where people lived or whether they relocated, the study found. However, within the four years of a dementia diagnosis, 22% of people moved to a different U.S. county, Rahman’s group found. That’s a 40% jump in relocations compared to folks who’d been diagnosed with other conditions, such as heart attack or COPD. People with a dementia diagnosis were also more likely to move to another state, the study…  read on >  read on >

Doctors might be overprescribing sedatives to stroke survivors, a new study warns. About 5% of people are prescribed a benzodiazepine following a stroke, to help calm anxiety and improve sleep, researchers found. Benzodiazepine meds include Valium, Ativan and Xanax. But these prescriptions often are for pills that last longer than a week, which could hamper a person’s recovery and increase their risk of addiction. “We found a pattern of potential oversupply with these initial benzodiazepine prescriptions, which would be enough for patients to become long-term users or possibly addicted,” said researcher Julianne Brooks, a data analytics manager at Massachusetts General Brigham in Boston. “The benzodiazepine prescriptions given under these circumstances may lead to dependence.” For the study, researchers analyzed a decade’s worth of Medicare claims data on first-time prescriptions for benzodiazepines among more than 120,000 stroke victims aged 65 and older. “For this older age group, guidelines recommend that benzodiazepine prescriptions should be avoided if possible,” Brooks said. These sedatives increase the risk of falls, broken bones, memory problems, confusion and other harmful effects, the researchers said. “However, there may be cases where benzodiazepines are prescribed to be used as needed,” Brooks noted. “For example, to treat breakthrough anxiety, a provider may prescribe a few pills and counsel the patient that the medication should only be used as needed.” Researchers found that about 5% of…  read on >  read on >

A young Israeli researcher who lost a sibling in the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israeli civilians said the tragedy has spurred her to study the unique aspects of grief at the sudden loss of a brother or sister. The research by Master of Arts student Masada Buchris, of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, hasn’t yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal and will become part of her thesis. But it’s already showing that grief over lost siblings differs from grief felt by the loss of a parent, partner or child. “This research is deeply personal for me,” Buchris said in a university news release. “Losing my sibling on October 7th was a life-altering event, and it became clear that many bereaved siblings face ‘unrecognized grief.’ This study is the first step towards understanding the profound consequences of such a loss and ensuring that siblings receive the support they need.” Buchris’ work focused on 444 people who lost a sibling in the Oct. 7 attacks, which killed over 1,200 people, according to the U.S. Department of State. The bereaved siblings averaged about 32 years of age, and just over two-thirds interviewed were women. Buchris said she used various standard psychological measurements to gauge each person’s “emotional distress, negative thoughts and coping mechanisms.” Her study so far has discovered that grief at the loss of a…  read on >  read on >

Obesity is a more powerful driver of breast cancer than previously thought, a new study suggests. About 40% of hormone-positive breast cancers in postmenopausal women might be linked to excess body fat, researchers reported Oct. 15 in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. That’s significantly more than previous estimates that linked excess weight to 1 in 10 breast cancer cases, based on measures of women’s body-mass index (BMI), researchers said. The real-world impact of obesity on breast cancer risk likely has been underestimated because BMI isn’t a very accurate measure of body fat, the researchers argued. “The findings of this study highlight the importance of considering more accurate measures of body fat than BMI to estimate the cancer burden attributable to obesity in postmenopausal breast cancer,” concluded the research team led by Veronica Davila-Batista, an associate professor of epidemiology with the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain. For this study, researchers compared BMI with a different measure of body fat called the CUN-BAE, an equation which accounts for gender and age in BMI measurements. The two measures were used to weigh 1,022 older Spanish women with breast cancer and another 1,143 matched women who didn’t have cancer. About 23% of breast cancer cases were linked to excess body weight as measured by BMI, researchers found. However, about 38% of breast cancers…  read on >  read on >