Just like their humans, dogs get cranky when temperatures and air pollution levels surge. Heat and air pollution have previously been linked to human aggression. Now, researchers say it also appears that there are more dog bites on hot, polluted days. More research is needed to confirm these findings, according to study author Tanujit Dey, of the department of surgery at the Center for Surgery and Public Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, and colleagues. For the new study, the investigators used dog bite data from 2009 to 2018 in eight U.S. cities: Dallas, Houston, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Chicago, Louisville, Los Angeles and New York City. The data included more than 69,000 reported dog bites, an average of three per day over 10 years. When the researchers compared this bite information with daily levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), ozone, temperature, UV light and precipitation, they found that dog bites rose 11% on days with higher UV levels; 4% on higher temperature days; and 3% on days with increased ozone levels. Dog bites decreased slightly, by 1%, on days with higher levels of rainfall. No changes were seen in dog bites on days with higher levels of PM2.5 air pollution. The study findings were published online June 15 in Scientific Reports. These records did not include information about other factors that could have…  read on >  read on >

For the first time, researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have broken down statistics on depression among Americans, pinpointing which states the debilitating illness is most likely to strike. Adjusted for age, 18.5% of all American adults included in the new analysis said they’d been diagnosed with depression at least once in their lifetime. But incidence varied widely by state, from a low of 12.7% in Hawaii to more than double that (27.5%) in West Virginia, according to a team led by Benjamin Lee. He’s with the CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. The new findings should “help guide state- and local-level efforts to prevent, treat and manage depression,” depending on each state’s level of need, Lee’s group said. The need appears greatest in the Southeast and Northwest areas of the country. For example, besides West Virginia, residents in six other states in the Southeast — Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee — had rates of reported adult depression near or above 23%, the study found. In the Northwest, Montana, Oregon and Washington all had rates of depression 21% and higher, the researchers found. Nearly 23% of adults living in Utah said they’d been diagnosed with depression at least once, and two states in the Northeast — Maine and Vermont — each had adult depression rates…  read on >  read on >

Lesbians, gays and bisexuals are experiencing more mental health and substance use issues than their heterosexual peers, researchers say. According to a new government report released Tuesday, this includes major depressive episodes, serious thoughts of suicide, and more misuse of alcohol and drugs. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health includes a question about sexual orientation and has since 2015. Although that question on this 2021-2022 report from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) focused solely on people who are lesbian, gay or bisexual, the survey will include transgender and nonbinary people in 2023, CNN reported. “It is really important data, especially coming from an organization like SAMHSA that has such an influence over both national policy as well as resource allocation in terms of what kinds of prevention, treatment and recovery services get supported at the federal level,” Dr. Jeremy Kidd, a psychiatrist who has worked on studies to improve health outcomes for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer populations, told CNN. The report notes that “sexual minorities experience unique stressors that can contribute to adverse substance use and mental health outcomes.” Among the findings are that bisexual females were six times more likely to have attempted suicide in the previous year than their straight peers. Bisexual women were also three times more likely to have an opioid use…  read on >  read on >

While the challenges of farm work are well noted, the stressors affect not just the mental health of adults, but also their teenage children, according to new research. In results from the first year of a five-year study, researchers found that 60% of both adults and teens on U.S. farms met the criteria for at least mild depression. About 55% of the adults and 45% of the teenagers had symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder. “There’s a lot of young people growing up on a farm and participating in agricultural work. We’ve long acknowledged the inherent hazards of this work environment, and now we’re also recognizing its impact on mental health,” said researcher Josie Rudolphi, Illinois Extension specialist and assistant professor in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “Most of the work on farm stress and mental health is primarily focused on adult farmers. However, it is important to recognize that children are fully aware of what’s happening on the farm, and they are not immune to the stressors that exist,” Rudolphi said in a university news release. The researchers gathered data through online surveys of farmers and their children ages 13 to 18 throughout the United States. They used something called the Family Stress Model, developed in Iowa in the 1990s as a way to look at…  read on >  read on >

Many studies have suggested that light drinking can do the heart some good, and now researchers think they have found one reason why: It helps the brain relax. It’s no secret that many people pour a drink as a way to unwind and shed the stressors of the day. And research suggests that is not just a placebo effect. In the short term, alcohol has a quieting effect on the amygdala — a brain area that processes potential threats in our surroundings. Now the new study shows that amygdala activity is habitually dialed-down in moderate drinkers, relative to non-drinkers. And that appeared to partially account for their lower risks of cardiovascular ills, including heart attack and stroke. The findings, published in the June 2023 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, add to a large body of evidence connecting moderate drinking to a lower heart disease risk. “Moderate” is generally defined as no more than one alcoholic drink per day for women, and no more than two per day for men. No one, however, is suggesting that people drink for the sake of their heart health, experts stressed. For one, alcohol can clearly have harms. There’s the potential for abuse and dependency, and heavy drinking is known to be detrimental — including to the brain. Even moderate drinking can carry health risks,…  read on >  read on >

Humans are inhaling microplastics from the degradation of plastic products in the environment, and these tiny plastic particles are sticking in human airways, according to researchers. People inhale about 16.2 bits of these microplastics every hour — the equivalent of a whole credit card each week — according to a study published June 13 in Physics of Fluids. These microplastics usually contain toxic chemicals. “This study emphasizes the need for greater awareness of the presence and potential health impacts of microplastics in the air we breathe,” study co-author YuanTong Gu said in a journal news release. He’s a professor at Queensland University of Technology in Australia. Millions of tons of these microplastic particles have been found in water, air and soil, the researchers noted. Global microplastic production is surging, and in 2022 studies found microplastics deep in human airways, raising the concern of serious respiratory health hazards, they pointed out. The international team of researchers developed a computational fluid dynamics model to analyze microplastic transport and deposits in the upper airway. These microplastics tended to collect in hot spots in the nasal cavity and the back of the throat, the study showed. They were 1.6, 2.56 and 5.56 microns in size and spherical, tetrahedral and cylindrical in shape. The team also looked at movement during slow and fast breathing conditions. The complicated and highly asymmetric…  read on >  read on >

About one in every seven American kids aged 5 to 17 underwent some form of mental health treatment in 2021, the latest year for which statistics are available. So finds a new report from researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which pegs the percentage of kids who got mental health care in 2021 at 14.9%. Rates of mental health care were higher among older kids (aged 12 to 17), nearly 19% of whom received treatment over the prior year, than they were for children aged 5 to 11 (just over 11%). The new statistics don’t necessarily mean that more American children are suffering from mental illness, but it could mean that more are receiving the care they need, one expert said. “I have a report from 2015 that suggests that 49% of U.S. children have a mental health disorder of some kind, may it be ADHD [attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder], anxiety, depression, autism spectrum,” said Mary Karapetian Alvord, a psychologist who practices in Chevy Chase, Md. “But at that time, the stat was that only 7.4% [of these children] actually received one treatment within the year. So there’s definitely, I think, more access now, more availability.” However, another expert said the new numbers could reflect an increase in mental health troubles among kids. “Following the pandemic, we have seen substantial increases in mental…  read on >  read on >