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Latest News Around the Web

Many Individuals Who Had ED Visit For Cannabis Use Developed New Anxiety Disorder Within 3 Years, Study Finds

HCP Live (2/6, Derman) reports, “Many individuals who had an emergency department visit for cannabis use developed a new anxiety disorder within 3 years, according to a new study.” Investigators found that “this applied to 27.5% of individuals who visited the emergency room due to heavy cannabis use.” The findingswere published in eClinicalMedicine.

Related Links:

— “Heavy Cannabis Use Linked to Increased Risk for Anxiety,”Chelsie Derman, HCP Live, February 6, 2024

Yoga Appears To Bolster Brain Health In Older Women With Alzheimer’s Risk Factors, Researchers Say

HealthDay (2/28, Mundell ) reports Kundalini yoga “appears to have bolstered the brain health of older women who had risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease,” researchers concluded in a study of “more than 60 women” who practiced either Kundalini yoga or “memory enhancement training.” The benefits of yoga “included significant improvement in subjective memory complaints, prevention in brain matter declines, increased connectivity in the hippocampus which manages stress-related memories, and improvement in the peripheral cytokines and gene expression of anti-inflammatory and anti-aging molecules,” researchers said. The study was published in Translational Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Yoga Brings Brain Benefits to Women at Risk for Alzheimer’s,”Ernie Mundell, HealthDay, February 28, 2024

Study Suggests Long COVID Could Cause Measurable Cognitive Decline

The New York Times (2/28, Belluck ) reports patients with long COVID may experience “measurable cognitive decline, especially in the ability to remember, reason and plan, a large new study suggests.” Cognitive tests of nearly 113,000 UK patients “found that those with persistent post-COVID symptoms scored the equivalent of 6 I.Q. points lower than people who had never been infected with the coronavirus, according to the study, published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.” In addition, people “who had been infected and no longer had symptoms also scored slightly lower than people who had never been infected, by the equivalent of 3 I.Q. points, even if they were ill for only a short time.”

Related Links:

— “The New York Times (requires login and subscription)

CDC Releases Guidance On Identifying, Responding To Suicide Clusters

MedPage Today (2/28, Henderson ) reports the CDC on Wednesday issued new guidance “on identifying and responding to clusters of suicide, as tens of thousands of lives are lost to suicide each year in the U.S.” The agency recommended “three primary steps,” including “conducting a preliminary assessment to determine if a formal assessment is warranted; a formal assessment of the suspected cluster to determine whether it meets the definition of a cluster; and an investigation to identify similarities in cases that can guide community response.” CDC researchers wrote that while rare, suicide clusters “can have unique characteristics and challenges” and “can have considerable negative effects on the community, including prolonged grief and elevated fear and anxiety about further deaths.”

Related Links:

MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Justice Department launches antitrust investigation into UnitedHealth

The Wall Street Journal (2/27, Mathews , Michaels, Subscription Publication) reports that the Justice Department has launched an antitrust investigation into U.S. health insurer UnitedHealth.
Bloomberg (2/27, Tozzi, Strohm , Nylen , Subscription Publication) reports, “The probe opens a new layer of scrutiny on the largest U.S. health insurer that operates in pharmacy benefits, medical care, technology and other services.” The investigation “emerged out of concerns about UnitedHealth’s acquisitions of health-care providers and data companies, according to one of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing information that isn’t public.”

Related Links:

— “U.S. Opens UnitedHealth Antitrust Probe,”Anna Wilde Mathews, The Wall Street Journal, February 27, 2024

Foundation News

Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller to Receive MFP Anti-Stigma Advocacy Award

The 2024 Maryland Foundation for Psychiatry (MFP) Anti-Stigma Advocacy Prize will be awarded to Maryland Lieutenant Governor Aruna Miller for her Personal Interview on May 23, 2023 with WBAL News.
Lt. Gov. Miller was very helpful, conveying to the public in a very personal way the impact of her father’s mental illness – not only on him, but on their family. Her experience also demonstrated that one can live through this kind of experience and still become very successful adults. She also made an important point that mental illness isn’t a moral failing, but is a chronic health condition.

The Anti-Stigma Advocacy Award will be formally presented at the Maryland Psychiatric Society annual meeting on April 18.

The Foundation established this annual prize for a worthy media piece, preferably local or regional, that accomplishes one or more of the following:

  • Shares with the public their experience with mental illness in themselves, a family member, or simply in the community.
  • Helps others to overcome their inability to talk about mental illness or their own mental illness.
  • Imparts particularly insightful observations on the general subject of mental illness.

Click here for information about past winners.

PSA Examines Anxiety from Political and Social Media

The Foundation has re-released a Public Service Announcement to local Maryland radio stations that examines anxiety caused by political and social media. People experience a wide variety of feelings after a particularly divisive political campaign or a significant event getting 24 hour coverage across networks and online. Those feelings can include alienation from family and friends, anger at a system or event out of their control, and grief or helplessness at what may come. There are things that can be done to help, ranging from breaks from Facebook and TikTok and similar sites to seeking actual help from professionals.

Listen to the PSA on our home page or from our PSA collection, where you can listen to or download other advice given in past PSAs.

Call for Nominations for Anti-Stigma Advocacy Award

The Maryland Foundation for Psychiatry presents an annual award to recognize a worthy piece published in a major newspaper or on public media that accomplishes one or more of the following:

· Shares with the public their experience with mental illness in themselves, a family member, or in the community.
· Helps others to overcome their inability to talk about mental illness or their own mental illness.
· Imparts particularly insightful observations on the general subject of mental illness.

The article should be published or produced during the period from January 15, 2023 to January 9, 2024. A Maryland author and/or newspaper or major media outlet is preferred. Click here for past winners and published articles.

The award carries a $500 prize, which is given at the Maryland Psychiatric Society annual meeting in April. Please send nominations to mfp@mdpsych.org by January 10, 2024.

New Foundation Radio Spot Looks at Maryland’s Extreme Risk Protection Order

More than 2/3 of people who die from guns in the United States have their own finger on the trigger. A gun in the home increases the chance of a suicide there by three fold. The Maryland Extreme Risk Protection Order seeks to help mitigate that. This new radio spot from the Foundation examines how the order allows family, police, and clinicians to petition a judge to temporarily remove guns from the home of someone who is at risk for using them to harm themselves or others.

Gun Suicide Risk and Maryland LawGun Suicide Risk and Maryland Law, MP3, 1.1MB

You can listen to the ad using the player in the upper right of the website’s homepage. All past public service spots are also available for listening or to download on our Radio Advertisements page.

Foundation Radio PSA Examines Child and Teen Adolescent Health

Among children and teens the rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide have been surging for over a decade and made severely worse by the pandemic. The latest radio spot from the Foundation examines how suicide is now the second leading cause of death among children aged 10-14 and the rise in emergency room visits for young people has become a national emergency. The Foundation asks you to reach out to your local and state legislators to urge funding for mental health help for our youth.

Child and Adolescent Mental HealthChild and Adolescent Mental Health, MP3, 1.2MB

You can listen to the ad using the player in the upper right of the website’s homepage. All past public service spots are also available for listening or to download on our Radio Advertisements page.