Tag: News

People With Depression Miss Fewer Days In Supportive Workplaces

Researchers examined workplace policies and even varying gross domestic product for a recent global study on working with depression.

People with depression miss fewer days of work if they are employed somewhere that supports them in their illness, a new study has found.

The study, published in The British Medical Journal, looked at workers in 15 countries. It found that workers with self-reported depression who have managers who support and assist them miss fewer days of work, lessening the economic impact of their disease.

“Working in an environment where managers felt comfortable to offer help and support to the employee rather than avoid them was independently associated with less absenteeism and more presenteeism,” the authors concluded.

Supportive workplaces might have formal policies for handling mental health issues, time-off policies that allow for mental health episodes, or a system for referring people to mental health care. All of these can result in fewer missed days of work and therefore a lower economic impact of depression.

“We know that supportive managers and workplace practices are associated with greater openness and disclosure, in addition to more positive attitudes towards employees with depression,” the study authors write.

In addition to looking at differing workplace policies, the study authors looked at differences in support for depression in countries with varying gross domestic product (GDP). In countries with lower GDPs, people with depression were more likely to miss days of work, possibly because there are fewer resources available than in countries with higher GDPs.

“Country contextual factors such as country GDP and financial resources can also influence the availability of support and potential for investment,” authors wrote.

While this might be expected, study authors found that managers’ reactions to employees with depression were “at least as important” as a country’s GDP in predicting how often the employee would miss work.

Researchers also examined how social pressures impacted employees’ presence at work. They found that employees with depression were less likely to disclose their condition in Asian countries compared with Western countries, likely because of stigma around mental health in those places.

“Workplace policies and practices are likely to reflect broader sociocultural attitudes and beliefs about mental health and societal values about investment in prevention and support for people with mental health problems,” authors wrote.

“This may influence workplace culture in relation to openness and comfort in discussing mental health issues. Previous research has shown that a cultural context which is more open and accepting of mental illness is associated with higher rates of help-seeking, antidepressant use and empowerment.”

View the original article at thefix.com

28 July 2018
Opioid Prescribing Varies Widely By Region, Study Shows

In some states, patients were up to three times more likely to be prescribed opioids.

Whether or not patients are prescribed opioids in the emergency room and how many of the pills they get varies widely by region, according to a new study, suggesting that despite increased awareness about the dangers of opioids there is still plenty of room to cut down on unnecessary prescribing.

According to Science Daily, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine examined insurance claims to see how patients presenting with sprained ankles were treated for pain.

In some states, patients were up to three times more likely to be prescribed opioids. Researchers also found that people who received more opioid pills were five times more likely to fill an additional opioid prescription over the following six months.

“Although opioids are not—and should not—be the first-line of treatment for an ankle sprain, our study shows that opioid prescribing for these minor injuries is still common and far too variable,” said M. Kit Delgado, MD, MS, an assistant professor of Emergency Medicine and Epidemiology at Penn who led the study.

“Given that we cannot explain this variation after adjusting for differences in patient characteristics, this study highlights opportunities to reduce the number of people exposed to prescription opioids for the first time and also to reduce the exposure to riskier high-intensity prescriptions,” Delgado said.

The study examined more than 30,000 patient records and found that 25% were given opioids.

“Although prescribing is decreasing overall, in 2015 nearly [25%] of patients who presented with an ankle sprain were still given an opioid, a modest decrease from 28% in 2011,” Delgado said. “By drilling down on specific common indications as we did with ankle sprains, we can better develop indicators to monitor efforts to reduce excessive prescribing for acute pain.”

Researchers found that there was a huge variation between states in the percentage of patients given opioids. For example, only 3% of patients received an opioid prescription in North Dakota, compared to 40% in Arkansas. If states with above-average prescribing were reduced to the average amount, 18,000 fewer opioids pills would be prescribed each year.

In addition, if all patients were given the smallest supply of opioids, usually 10-12 pills, there would be a significant reduction in the number of pills distributed.

“Simply making these amounts the default setting electronic medical record orders could go a long way in reducing excessive prescribing as our previous work has shown,” Delgado said, noting that the concept could be expanded to other areas of care.

“It would be great to see analyses such as ours replicated in other settings, such as post-operative prescribing, where prescriptions are higher intensity. In these settings there may be greater opportunities to decrease transitions to prolonged opioid use by reducing excessive prescribing.”

View the original article at thefix.com

27 July 2018
Could Ketamine Replace Opioids In The ER?

A new study examined whether ketamine could work as an alternative to opioids for pain relief in an emergency room setting.

Ketamine could be a viable option for acute pain relief, working at least as well as morphine, according to a new medical review.

“Ketamine appears to be a legitimate and safe alternative to opioids for treating acute pain in the emergency department. Emergency physicians can feel comfortable using it instead of opioids,” Dr. Evan Schwarz, senior study author, said according to Medical News Today.

Schwarz led a team of researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis who reviewed the experience of 261 patients who were given only ketamine to treat their pain in the emergency room.

The researchers found that ketamine was as effective as morphine for pain relief. There were no severe adverse affects reported, although ketamine did have a higher instance of minor adverse affects. Overall, however, the study authors concluded that ketamine is an effective pain relief tool.

“Ketamine is noninferior to morphine for the control of acute pain, indicating that ketamine can be considered as an alternative to opioids for ED short‐term pain control,” study authors wrote.

Ketamine, which is a well-known party drug, was approved for medical use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1970. Since then it has been used as an anesthetic. It is also sometimes used in conjunction with opioids for pain relief. However, the new study indicates that low-dose ketamine can provide pain relief even when it is used alone.

With more healthcare providers looking for alternative pain treatments that do not involve opioids, this is a promising finding. Ketamine is not addictive and does not cause respiratory depression, two conditions that are the main risk factors when using opioids to treat pain, particularly in older patients.

The study looked at a relatively small number of patients. However, authors said that its findings indicate that more research is needed into using ketamine as a potentially safer pain-relief option for acute pain.

“Opioids are commonly prescribed in the emergency department (ED) for the treatment of acute pain,” study authors wrote. “Analgesic alternatives are being explored in response to an epidemic of opioid misuse. Low‐dose ketamine (LDK) is one opioid alternative for the treatment of acute pain in the ED.”

Ketamine has been showing promise for treating a variety of conditions. Earlier this year, ketamine nasal spray was shown to quickly reduce suicidal ideation in patients being treated in the emergency room.

View the original article at thefix.com

27 July 2018
Massive Study On Driving High To Take Place In California

The study aims to give law enforcement more accurate parameters in which to determine a driver’s intoxication level after using marijuana.

As marijuana gains legal status in more states, one of the central concerns among legal, law enforcement and medical professionals remains how cannabis use may impact driving.

Studies vary as to whether driving under the influence of alcohol or pot presents more of a danger, which has prompted institutions like the University of California-San Diego to seek hard data on the subject.

As High Times has reported, the school’s Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR) is currently recruiting individuals to participate in its hands-on study of cannabis’ impact on driving, which requires them to ingest smokeable marijuana before using the center’s driving simulator.

The goal is to provide both police and laboratories with more accurate parameters on which to determine a driver’s intoxication level after using marijuana.

The study, which according to High Times, is the largest of its kind to date, requires potential candidates to make an initial appointment with researchers to determine eligibility.

If accepted, the participant is paid $50, and returns for a full day assessment, during which they are given a joint to smoke; the study involves a variety of joints rolled on the site, as High Times indicates, and with varying amounts of THC, including ones with none of the psychoactive agent at all.

Participants then use the center’s driving simulator and complete iPad-based performance assessments, which focus on memory, attention and motor skills. A field sobriety test is then given before blood and saliva samples are collected from them. Once all the data has been obtained, participants are paid an additional $180.

The goal of the study is not to determine if one’s driving can be impaired by using marijuana, but rather, to determine the duration and level of impairment.

“If you smoked this morning, are you impaired throughout the day?” said Tom Marcotte, co-director of the CMCR. “Are you impaired for a couple of hours? Or are you not impaired? We’re trying to answer that.”

Ultimately, the researchers hope to improve field sobriety tests for marijuana use, which in their current form are used by law enforcement but considered unreliable in regard to determining THC levels in breath or fluid samples. In some cases, field sobriety tests cannot be used as evidence to determine whether a driver was impaired while behind the wheel.

View the original article at thefix.com

27 July 2018
Scientists On Marijuana's Health Benefits: We Need More Evidence
“We don’t have evidence about many things marijuana is marketed for and we need to communicate that to the public,” says one doctor.

Many Americans increasingly believe that marijuana has health benefits, even though there is little to no evidence one way or the other, Newsweek reported.

Over 9,000 U.S. adults participated in an online survey, with 81% responding that weed had at least one medical benefit. From treating diseases like epilepsy and multiple sclerosis to providing some measure of relief from anxiety, stress or depression, the majority of Americans feel the drug is medically valuable.

Not so fast, scientists say.

“The public seems to have a much more favorable view [of marijuana] than is warranted by the current evidence,” the University of California San Francisco’s Dr. Salomeh Keyhani said in a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Interestingly, because the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) categorizes weed as a Schedule I substance (alongside heroin and MDMA), researchers are limited in being able to research it at all.

“[People] believe things that we have no data for,” Keyhani cautioned. “We need better data. We need any data.”

In the absence of empirical data, she suggests, Americans are coming to their own conclusions about the drug.

“Cannabis is useful for neuropathic pain; it might be useful for nausea and vomiting for cancer and HIV, anorexia, and it might have use in refractory epilepsy in children, but those are very narrow indications,” Keyhani told MedPage Today. “We don’t have evidence about many things marijuana is marketed for and we need to communicate that to the public.”

A 2017 Gallup survey reported that 45% of U.S. adults have tried marijuana once, while other surveys indicated that 22% of Americans regularly use it. With weed now legal in over half of the U.S. for medicinal purposes, marketing is becoming a huge factor in public perception, Keyhani observed.

“It’s a multi-billion dollar industry, not regulated to the extent of tobacco or alcohol,” she said. “It seems every state is developing a regulatory structure itself. The conflict between federal law and state law has left an open space commercial entities can exploit.”

Despite widespread support for marijuana, the survey revealed that 91% of Americans believe it carries risks. (Only 9% believed the drug has no risks.) The survey yielded some surprises, too:
- 37% of Americans thought edible marijuana could prevent health problems.
- 50.1% agreed that marijuana was “somewhat addictive.”
- 25.9% said it was “very addictive.”
The average age of participants was 48 (“64% were white, 12% were black, 16% were Hispanic, and 8% were of other races”).

Mount Sinai’s Yasmin Hurd said the results aren’t surprising so much as they highlight “the fact that scientists and clinicians don’t publish their studies in newspapers, so the general public isn’t really aware of the scientific evidence that might run counter to their beliefs.”

View the original article at thefix.com
27 July 2018
The Go-Go’s Talk Addiction, New Broadway Musical

“We only had one tool in our box, and that was drugs and alcohol because there was just so much going on,” said guitarist Jane Wiedlin.

The Go-Go’s are back in action with a new Broadway musical and a fresh take on the band’s hectic heyday.

In a recent interview with People, the LA-based band, known for pop hits like “Vacation” and “Our Lips Are Sealed,” reflected on coping with the onslaught of fame following the release of their debut album Beauty and the Beat, which went double platinum in 1981.

“We only had one tool in our box, and that was drugs and alcohol because there was just so much going on,” said guitarist Jane Wiedlin. “It was so stressful. You were exhausted, so you’d have to pep yourself up and then you’d have to bring yourself down.”

Aside from personal differences among the band members, problematic drug use also influenced the break-up of the band in 1985. Looking back, it was a much-needed break from the fast-paced lifestyle.

“I felt really lost during that time. Now when I look back, I think, ‘Thank God all that happened, because I don’t think I would’ve ever grown up,’” said Wiedlin.

“I felt I had just become consumed with being a Go-Go, and it took me years to find my identity,” said bassist Kathy Valentine. “It was a real gift because when we did start coming back and playing together, I was able to do it with so much more balance.”

The Go-Go’s have reunited several times since their break-up to record new music and tour together. But this time, members like Belinda Carlisle and Charlotte Caffey are doing it sober.

“I got sober. I put myself before all of it,” Caffey told People. “I needed my sanity more than I needed anything else. I was fighting for myself every day, and I’m very happy I did.”

Last year, singer Belinda Carlisle addressed the extent of her cocaine use over the years. “After three decades of cocaine use, I can’t believe I’m not dead. I should actually look like the Phantom of the Opera with just two holes in the front of my face,” she said last August.

Now, the band is gearing up for a revival, with a new Broadway musical Head Over Heels that debuted on Thursday (July 26) in New York City. The musical features hits by the Go-Go’s including “We Got the Beat” and “Cool Jerk.”

View the original article at thefix.com

27 July 2018
DEA Agents Who Helped Bring Down Escobar To Tackle Opioids In New Series

The docu-series will reportedly give viewers unprecedented access to how the DEA plans and executes drug busts.

Steve Murphy and Javier Peña are the former DEA agents who brought down cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. The Netflix show Narcos is based on their true experiences fighting the drug trade.

Now Murphy and Peña are behind a new show about the opioid crisis and the DEA’s efforts to fight it.

As The Wrap reports, this new docu-series will cover several different angles of the current drug war including what happened to the international drug cartels after the fall of Escobar.

The show hopes to capture “controlled busts,” where smaller dealers can still continue their deliveries in exchange for giving up bigger dealers.

The show will also feature doctors getting arrested for overprescribing opioids and pharmacists who are making fentanyl with their own pill presses.

Murphy and Peña plan to film in China, where you can buy opioids off the web and get them delivered through U.S. mail. Murphy and Peña also plan to travel with DEA agents through Europe on drug busts.

“What we want to do is show people what’s being done and what could be done,” Murphy says. “[The opioid epidemic] is now the leading cause of overdose deaths in the country.”

Murphy says the DEA is “onboard” with this series, and it promises to give viewers unprecedented access to how the DEA plans and executes drug busts.

“The DEA sees the seriousness of this epidemic,” says Murphy. “One of the things they agreed to do is take us to their Chinese counterparts and show us where fentanyl comes from, how it’s produced and how the pill press works.”

The timing couldn’t be better for a series that will tackle the opioid crisis head on.

Murphy told Fox Business, “The one thing that we’re finding out is that these new traffickers, like the ones we chased in the 1980s 1990s, are getting smarter at hiding their drugs. Now, most of them are coming through as counterfeit medications, and they are getting people sick, and they are dying.”

Peña added, “Today’s [drug crisis] is worse than it was in the 1980s because of how smart these drug dealers are getting in smuggling these drugs into the country in the most modern and efficient ways possible.”

The new Murphy and Peña show is currently being shopped around by powerhouse talent agency UTA.

View the original article at thefix.com

27 July 2018
Vets Turn To Medical Pot, Despite The VA's Policy

The VA remains focused on studying the drug’s “problems of use” instead of its “therapeutic potential.”

Once a month, the veterans’ hall in Santa Cruz, California, is home to an unlikely meeting, where dozens of former service members line up to receive a voucher for free cannabis products from local distributors.

“I never touched the stuff in Vietnam,” William Horne, 76, a retired firefighter, told The New York Times. “It was only a few years ago I realized how useful it could be.”

The VA medical system does not allow providers to discuss or prescribe medical marijuana, since the drug remained banned under federal law, which governs the VA.

However, up to a million veterans who get healthcare through the system have taken matters into their own hands, using marijuana to relieve symptoms of PTSD, pain and other medical condition associated with combat.

“We have a disconnect in care,” said Marcel Bonn-Miller, a psychologist who worked for years at the veterans hospital in Palo Alto, California, and now teaches at the University of Pennsylvania medical school. “The VA has funded lots of marijuana studies, but not of therapeutic potential. All the work has been related to problems of use.”

This means that veterans like those in Santa Cruz can end up self-medicating with cannabis without any medical oversight.

A bill proposed this spring would mandate that the VA study cannabis for treating PTSD and chronic pain.

“I talk to so many vets who claim they get benefits, but we need research,” said Representative Tim Walz, a Democrat from Minnesota, who introduced the bill along with Phil Roe, a doctor and Republican from Tennessee. “You may be a big advocate of medical marijuana, you may feel it has no value. Either way, you should want the evidence to prove it, and there is no better system to do that research than the VA.”

Still, VA spokesperson Curt Cashour said the bill is not enough to change the department’s policies.

“The opportunities for VA to conduct marijuana research are limited because of the restrictions imposed by federal law,” he said. “If Congress wants to facilitate more federal research into Schedule 1 controlled substances such as marijuana, it can always choose to eliminate these restrictions.”

Former Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs David J. Shulkin said that it’s time the system looked into the potential benefits of cannabis.

“We have an opioid crisis, a mental health crisis, and we have limited options with how to address them, so we should be looking at everything possible,” he said. Although two small studies are currently being done at the VA, Shulkin would like to see more.

“In a system as big as ours, that’s not much, certainly not enough,” he said.

View the original article at thefix.com

26 July 2018
How Processed Meats May Affect Mental Health

A new study examined whether the nitrates used to cure meat played a role in manic episodes.

Nitrates, a chemical relied on to cure meat, is believed to be linked to mania, a symptom of mental illness, Newsweek reports.

According to Psych Central, manic episodes are “a mood state characterized by period of at least one week where an elevated, expansive, or unusually irritable mood exists.”

Those having manic episodes are often energized beyond their normal and may describe it as being “on top of the world.”

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine studied data on 1,101 people with and without mental illnesses between 2007 and 2017. The information in the data included health, dietary and demographic information about those who participated. Of those who participated, about 55% were female, 55% were Caucasian and 36% were African American.

Researchers initially intended to determine whether being exposed to certain infections made individuals more likely to have a mental illness.

However, the researchers discovered that individuals who had been hospitalized for mania were 3.5 times more likely to have consumed processed meat before their hospitalization in comparison to a group without mental illnesses.

To test their theory, the researchers fed rats nitrates. In doing so, they discovered that those rats were more likely to exhibit hyperactivity and irregular sleep patterns when compared to rats on a normal diet.

They also found that the rats that consumed nitrates had a different bacteria makeup in their digestive systems and exhibited differences in their brain’s molecular pathways linked to bipolar disorder.

Dr. Robert Yolken, lead author of the study and professor of neurovirology in pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, released a statement acknowledging the prominence of processed meat in the diets of those with manic episodes.

“We looked at a number of different dietary exposures and cured meat really stood out,” he stated, according to Newsweek. “It wasn’t just that people with mania have an abnormal diet.”

Previously, Yolken and his team conducted another study that implied that probiotics could decrease the likelihood that someone with mania would be re-hospitalized in the six months following hospitalization.

“There’s growing evidence that germs in the intestines can influence the brain,” he said. “And this work on nitrates opens the door for future studies on how that may be happening.”

Seva Khambadkone is an M.D. and Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins who participated in the study. According to Newsweek, he says genetic and environmental factors play a role in mental illness.

“It’s clear that mania is a complex neuropsychiatric state, and that both genetic vulnerabilities and environmental factors are likely involved in the emergence and severity of bipolar disorder and associated manic episodes,” he stated. “Our results suggest that nitrated cured meat could be one environmental player in mediating mania.”

View the original article at thefix.com

26 July 2018
Could Anti-Anxiety Meds Be The Next Prescription Drug Epidemic?

“We have this whole infrastructure set up to prevent overprescribing of opioids and address the need for addiction treatment. We need to start making benzos part of that.”

An increase in the number of drug overdose deaths among individuals who used benzodiazepines has some state and local health officials concerned that the drugs could be at the center of a new prescription drug crisis.

Benzodiazepines, which include such medications as Xanax, Valium and Klonopin, are commonly prescribed for anxiety or insomnia, and in the past two decades-plus, the number of prescriptions written for these medications has risen from 8 million to 14 million adults in the United States. But when taken in combination with prescription or illicit opioids, the likelihood of death can increase as much as tenfold, prompting medical and government officials alike to propose greater attention to their use.

According to an article in LiveWellNebraska, a joint publication by BlueCross BlueShield Nebraska and the Omaha World-Herald, the number of adults nationwide filling a prescription for benzodiazepines has increased two-thirds between 1996 and 2013—a period of time which, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), also saw the sales of prescription opioids quadruple in the U.S.

LiveWellNebraska also noted that while prescriptions for benzodiazepines appear to have leveled or declined slightly in the years—and opioid prescriptions have dropped by a fifth since 2013—the level of prescribing for benzodiazepines still remains higher than rates in the mid-1990s.

Taken on their own or in combination with painkillers, the drugs carry health risks that range from debilitating withdrawal to possible fatality. Research from the CDC found that 23% of individuals who died from an opioid overdose also tested positive for benzodiazepine.

Reaction from the medical community has been divided between support for benzodiazepines, which have shown to be effective at relieving serious cases of anxiety and insomnia.

The International Task Force on Benzodiazepines, which counts scientists, researchers and pharmacologists in its number, has formed in response to what has been perceived as backlash against the drugs, despite their potential for positive impact.

But other health officials and medical professionals have stated that increased focus on the potential health concerns from benzodiazepines may possibly prevent a widespread epidemic like the opioid crisis.

“We have this whole infrastructure set up now to prevent overprescribing of opioids and address the need for addiction treatment,” said Dr. Anna Lembke, a researcher and addiction specialist at Stanford University. “We need to start making benzos part of that. What we’re seeing is just like what happened with opioids in the 1990s. It really does begin with overprescribing.”

View the original article at thefix.com

26 July 2018