Social Media Exacerbates Startling Suicide Trends In Young Adolescents, Experts Say
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released statistics that show the suicide rate for children ages 10 to 14 has now surpassed traffic accidents. While no one factor can be blamed for the increases, experts say social media and changing cultural norms have played a large part. In other public health news: worrying about being sick can actually make you sick; the surgeon general talks about guns; smoking causes dangerous mutations with each passing year; and more.
The New York Times:
Young Adolescents As Likely To Die From Suicide As From Traffic Accidents
It is now just as likely for middle school students to die from suicide as from traffic accidents. That grim fact was published on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They found that in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available, the suicide rate for children ages 10 to 14 had caught up to their death rate for traffic accidents. (Tavernise, 11/3)
Stat:
Anxiety About Health Might Increase Heart Disease Risk
Being worried sick is more than just a figure of speech. It’s also a medical fact: Anxiety has been associated with everything from migraines to tumor metastases. But doctors thought that anxiety about health could be an exception. Obsessing about obesity might inspire you to exercise more, and stressing about lung cancer could get you off cigarettes. Or it might just stress you out — and potentially increase your risk of poor cardiovascular health, as researchers found in some 7,000 Norwegians. In a study, published Thursday in the BMJ, the authors reported that health anxiety — what physicians until recently called hypochondriasis — increased the patients’ risk of heart disease by 73 percent. (Boodman, 11/3)
POLITICO Pro:
Pulse Check: The Surgeon General Isn’t Scared To Speak Out On Guns
As a doctor who worked at one of Boston's busiest hospitals, Vivek Murthy is no stranger to life-and-death situations. But it's still a minor political miracle that he survived a battle with the NRA — a yearlong standoff over Murthy's comments about gun violence had threatened to derail his nomination for surgeon general before he was eventually confirmed in 2014. The bruising confirmation fight has made Murthy wary of misspeaking, but two years into the job, it hasn't changed his mind on guns. (Diamond, 11/3)
Los Angeles Times:
Every Year Of Smoking Causes DNA Mutations That Make Cancer More Likely
Attention smokers: For every year that you continue your pack-a-day habit, the DNA in every cell in your lungs acquires about 150 new mutations. Some of those mutations may be harmless, but the more there are, the greater the risk that one or more of them will wind up causing cancer. (Kaplan, 11/3)
Stat:
CTE Link To ALS Strengthened With Findings Of Kevin Turner's Autopsy
Kevin Turner, a high-profile professional football player who was thought to have died of ALS, was actually afflicted with the degenerative brain disorder chronic traumatic encephalopathy, according to results of his autopsy presented Thursday. The findings are the “best circumstantial evidence we will ever get that this ALS-type of motor neuron disease is caused by CTE,” said Dr. Ann McKee of the Boston University CTE Center at a press conference Thursday. That’s not to say that every case of ALS is actually CTE, but rather than CTE in certain parts of the brain can cause symptoms similar to ALS, and may be misdiagnosed. (Swetlitz, 11/3)
WBUR:
Late NFL Player Turner's Brain Called 'Best Evidence' Of Trauma Link To ALS Symptoms
The link between ALS and CTE has been known for years — NFL players face a quadruple risk of getting ALS — but [Ann] McKee said [Kevin] Turner's brain offers the best evidence yet of the connection... Of 90 brain-bank specimens examined so far, she said, 17 have been found to have both CTE and signs of ALS. The bank — run jointly by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Boston University School of Medicine and the Concussion Legacy Foundation — has received more than 380 brain donations so far. Turner had been a prominent plaintiff in the major concussion lawsuit brought by former players against the NFL. (Goldberg, 11/3)
The Washington Post:
Zika Causes A Unique Syndrome Of Devastating Birth Defects
The birth defects caused by Zika have been described in heartbreaking detail as the virus has spread to more than 45 countries, infecting hundreds of thousands of people, including tens of thousands of pregnant women. Now researchers have concluded that a Zika infection during pregnancy is linked to a distinct pattern of birth defects that they are officially calling congenital Zika syndrome. (Sun, 11/3)
NPR:
Sleepy Teens Have More Trouble Learning
Researchers wanted to know more about the associations between the amount of sleep students get, how sleepy they are in the daytime and a brain function known as self-regulation — the ability to control emotions, cognitive functions and behavior. Night owls tend to have the hardest time with self-regulation, the researchers found. These students have more memory problems, are more impulsive, and get irritated and frustrated more easily. (Stein, 11/3)
Health News Florida:
Tabling Taboo: Death Cafe Patrons Talk Mortality
The first Death Cafe was held in London in September 2011 to de-stigmatize talking about death over cake and conversation. This isn't a funeral home pitching their business. Topics range from grieving and funeral practices to end of life care and advance directives. Lizzy Miles is a hospice worker who organized the first death cafe in the United States four years ago in Columbus, Ohio. (Miller, 11/3)
Columbus Dispatch:
Study: Healthy Soul Leads To Healthy Body
A Harvard University study shows [Elsie] Young is not the only one to feel the effects of faith physically and emotionally. The study, published this year and led by epidemiology professor Tyler VanderWeele, found that women who attended religious services had a longer, healthier life. The more services attended, the study found, the better a woman’s chance of delaying death and the higher the odds of avoiding depression, suicide, smoking and other ailments. (King, 11/4)