J.D. Butler was planning a future with his girlfriend at his favorite New York City restaurant when that future came to a sudden, crushing halt. “They were planning on when she was moving in and arranging floor plans on the table, with where the furniture was going to go,” said his mother, Karen Butler, a lifelong New York resident. “And he had a grand mal seizure, and then his heart stopped.” A subsequent autopsy revealed that J.D.’s fatal seizure was brought on by mitragynine toxicity, caused by long-term ingestion of the widely used herbal supplement kratom, Butler said. “She said there was evidence in his organ tissue that it had been in his body consistently for a while,” Butler said. “It’s one of those drugs to which you develop a tolerance, so you have to keep taking more and more and more.” Kratom is coming under fire in the United States, targeted by a series of lawsuits following wrongful deaths associated with its use. A Florida jury awarded $11 million last week to the family of a woman who died after taking kratom, in a lawsuit against the company that sold her the supplement, according to NBC News. The woman, a 39-year-old mother of four, collapsed in her kitchen while making breakfast for her family in June 2021. A coroner said Krystal Talavera died from…  read on >  read on >

So, your high schooler has been complaining of headaches. Should you worry? Maybe, claims new research that finds bullying and suicidal thoughts are both linked to more frequent headaches in teens. “Headaches are a common problem for teenagers, but our study looked beyond the biological factors to also consider the psychological and social factors that are associated with headaches,” said study author Dr. Serena Orr, of the University of Calgary, in Canada. “Our findings suggest that bullying and attempting or considering suicide may be linked to frequent headaches in teenagers, independent of mood and anxiety disorders.” This isn’t proof that bullying causes headaches, but shows an association between the two. A study limitation is that headaches were self-reported. The research included more than 2.2 million teens who were an average age of 14. About 0.5% of all the participants self-reported being gender-diverse, including transgender or nonbinary. The participants answered questions about their headaches, including if they had them in the past six months and how often. The teens also answered questions regarding mental health, including whether they had diagnosed mood or anxiety disorders or both; about bullying in the past year and about suicidal thoughts and attempts. About 11% of participants reported having frequent, recurring headaches, defined as headaches occurring more than once a week. About 25% of the participants reported being victims of frequent…  read on >  read on >

Being exposed to lead while in the womb or during early childhood may increase a person’s chance of engaging in criminal behavior as an adult, a new review claims. To arrive at this conclusion, the review authors evaluated 17 previous studies that used varying methods to test for lead exposure, including blood, bones and teeth. They also addressed the effects of exposure at different ages, including in the womb or early childhood, later childhood, and adolescence or adulthood. The reviewed studies had a wide range of findings, including that, in some cases, no links were found between early childhood lead exposure and later delinquent behavior. One of the studies showed a link between exposure and antisocial behavior, but not arrests. However, several studies did find links between early childhood exposure to lead and later arrests, including drug-related arrests. Some of the studies were more robust than others, the investigators found, using a tool to evaluate each study for statistical bias. The findings were published online Aug. 1 in PLOS Global Public Health. Exposure to lead can cause kidney damage, cardiac issues, immune system dysfunction, reproductive problems and impaired neuro-developmental function in children, the study authors noted. More evidence is needed to strengthen understanding, said the authors, who included Maria Jose Talayero Schettino of George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. Still, preventing lead exposure is important…  read on >  read on >

One dose of the hallucinogenic ingredient in “magic mushrooms” may help some people with anorexia move past their preoccupation with body image, an early study suggests. The study, of just 10 women with anorexia, tested the effects of a single dose of psilocybin plus psychological counseling sessions. Researchers found that the treatment appeared safe, with patients rating the experience as a positive one. And within three months, four of 10 women had a significant improvement in their eating disorder “pathology.” That meant certain eating-disorder behaviors — including preoccupation with weight and body shape — improved to the degree that they were close to what’s typical of people without an eating disorder. There are plenty of caveats in the findings, however, experts said. The phase 1 trial was small and designed primarily to make sure the treatment was feasible and safe. So, no conclusions can be drawn about the effectiveness. Still, the early findings indicate that psilocybin is worth further study, said Dr. Evelyn Attia, director of the Center for Eating Disorders at Columbia University and Weill Cornell Medicine, in New York City. “I’d very much like for this to be studied further,” she said. Attia, who was not involved in the study, is also with the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA). At any given time, about 0.4% of young women and 0.1% of young men…  read on >  read on >

Pediatricians have suspected it for years, and now a new study may be proving them right: Cold air really can help ease children’s croup symptoms. Croup is a common childhood illness that usually starts as an ordinary cold. It arises when the infection causes swelling around the voice box (larynx) and wind pipe (trachea), leading to some distinctive croup symptoms: a cough that sounds like a seal’s bark and a high-pitched “creaky” or whistling noise when a child inhales (what doctors call stridor). Fortunately, most cases of croup are mild. And pediatricians have long told parents they can try some old-fashioned tricks for milder croup symptoms: running a hot shower and standing with their child in the steamy bathroom; standing in front of an open refrigerator freezer, or wrapping their child in blankets and going outside in the chilly air for a bit. “The common denominator there is the moist air,” said Dr. Mike Patrick, an emergency medicine physician at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. “Indoor air, especially in the winter, is dry.” He said pediatricians were giving that advice back when he was a resident almost 30 years ago. There is a basis for it, Patrick and other pediatricians said. There is a “classic” croup scenario where a child develops worsening symptoms at night and worried parents rush the child to the ER.…  read on >  read on >

After the death of a parent, boys may have a tougher time than girls, a new study suggests. Young people who lose a parent before age 21 are at risk for poor mental health, lower income and unemployment in adulthood. Researchers say boys seem to be harder hit. The study was published July 25 in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. “Early parental death is strongly associated with a higher risk of children’s poor mental health in adulthood for both males and females, but the estimated odds ratios are usually quantitatively larger for males,” the authors, led by Petri Böckerman of the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, said in a journal news release. Böckerman and his colleagues collected data on nearly 1 million Finns born between 1971 and 1986. By age 31, about 15% had lost a parent. Nearly 12% lost their father; fewer than 5% lost their mother. Nearly 65,800 people lost a parent before age 21. They had higher odds of a hospital admission for mental health issues than those who lost a parent after age 30, the researchers found. Males appeared to be more vulnerable than females. Men were 70% more likely to be hospitalized as were 52% of women. Substance use disorders and intentional self-harm were the most common reasons for admission. Boys and young men who lost their moms…  read on >  read on >

When parents meet U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, one concern comes up time after time. “The most common question parents ask me is: ‘Is social media safe for my kids,’ ” Murthy said. “The answer is that we don’t have enough evidence to say it’s safe, and in fact, there is growing evidence that social media use is associated with harm to young people’s mental health.” Cyberbullying, cyberstalking, anxiety, inappropriate content, other social pressures, a distraction from school, and body image issues are but a few of the potential pitfalls. “We can’t just take away our kids’ phones or computers,” said Mari Radzik, a clinical psychologist in the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA). “It’s about figuring out how we can guide them in using and navigating these tools.” Here are tips parents can use to help teens ease the negative effects of social media: 1) Set rules: A federal law makes it illegal for children under 13 to have social media accounts, and legislation is being considered to protect kids’ information until they are 16. It’s best to put off social media for as long as possible, experts say. Parents should talk with their kids, reviewing rules and privacy settings, said pediatrician Dr. Jennifer Hartstein, who is part of the CHLA Care Network. If you’re unfamiliar…  read on >  read on >

Some medications may not treat inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) as effectively if patients carry a lot of excess belly fat, , new research shows. IBD includes illnesses such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Researchers say using the wrong anti-inflammatory drug for these patients could mean lower rates of remission. “Even though biologic medications have significantly improved outcomes for our patients with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, some people do not respond well to these therapies,” said Dr. Andres Yarur, a gastroenterologist at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. “In our study, we found that the patients with higher amounts of internal abdominal fat were less likely to improve and experience remission from their disease.” Unlike some anti-inflammatory drugs, biologics work by blocking targets that cause inflammation in the body. Researchers found that patients with higher levels of visceral fat had lower levels of the biologic medications in their blood after treatment and lower rates of steroid-free remission and bowel healing. Visceral fat is found deep within the abdomen, surrounding important organs, including the stomach, liver and bowels. “It seems the fat tissue on the inner side of the abdomen, in particular, impacts treatment, so we may need to use higher doses of the drugs to help these patients,” said researcher Dr. Gil Melmed, director of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical Research at Cedars-Sinai. For the study, the…  read on >  read on >