Mental Disorders


Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction on Par with Escitalopram for Anxiety Disorders

Both clinician-rated and patient-reported outcomes suggested that mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) was well-tolerated with comparable effectiveness to the first-line medication escitalopram for patients with anxiety disorders in a US randomized clinical trial. The trial included 276 participants (women 75%, men 25%; mean age 33 years; Asian 19%, Black 15%, Hispanic […]


Healthy and Sustainable Diet Beneficial for the Prevention of Depression and Anxiety

A prospective UK population-based cohort study suggests that higher adherence to the EAT-Lancet diet is associated with lower risks of incident depression, anxiety and their co-occurrence. The study included 180,446 participants (mean age 56.2, male 46.45%) with 11.62 years of follow-up. The diet largely consists of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, […]


Sleep Rhythm Disturbances May Be a Modifiable AD Risk Factor

A prospective population-based cohort study in the Netherlands suggests that sleep rhythm disturbances can precede amyloid-β (Aβ) deposition and may be a modifiable risk factor for Alzheimer disease (AD). From September 2018 to November 2021, 319 participants without dementia who underwent Aβ positron emission tomography (PET) were included with the […]


Brain’s Stress-Related Activity Mediated CVD Benefit of Physical Activity

A US cohort study suggested that physical activity (PA) appears to reduce cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in part by acting through the brain’s stress-related activity. The study included a total of 50,359 adults (median age 60 years; 40.1% male). Stress-related neural activity was measured as the ratio of resting amygdalar-to-cortical […]


Concomitant SSRIs and OACs Use Linked to Higher Bleeding Risk

A UK nested case-control study suggested that concomitant use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and oral anticoagulants (OACs) was associated with bleeding risk and should be closely monitored, particularly within the initial months of treatment. Between January 1998, and March 2021, 42 190 atrial fibrillation (AF) patients with major bleeding […]


Irregular Sleep Linked to Dementia and Brain Volume

A UK cohort study suggested that irregular sleep may represent a novel dementia risk factor. A random selection of 88,094 individuals (mean age 62 years, 56% women, and median sleep regularity index [SRI] 60) from a UK cohort was done between February 2013 and December 2015. The SRI was calculated […]


Neuroticism Causal to AF

A longitudinal cohort and mendelian randomization study suggested there was a modest, but significant longitudinal and causal relationship between neuroticism and atrial fibrillation (AF). In 394,834 UK participants (mean age 56.3 years, 45.9% male), AF occurred in 23,509 (6.0%) during a 10-year follow-up. Based on the median summary score from […]


Social Connection Issues Linked to Mortality

A UK prospective cohort analysis suggested that both functional (subjective) and structural (objective) measures of social connection were independently associated with all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. The analysis included 458,146 participants with a median of 12.6 years follow-up, 33,135 (7.2%) deaths, including 5112 (1.1%) CVD deaths. Friends/family visit frequencies < monthly were […]


BP Variability in Older Age Linked to Dementia Risk

A US cohort study suggests that high blood pressure variability (BPV) can indicate increased incident dementia risk in older age. The study focused on 820 participants (mean age, 77.0 years; 58.0% females) with data of brain autopsy and midlife to late-life BP. A mean of 28.4 yearly SBP measurements were […]


Metformin Cessation Linked to Increased Dementia Incidence

A US cohort study suggested that metformin cessation was associated with increased dementia incidence. The cohort consisted of 12 220 early terminators and 29 126 routine users, respectively (women 46.2% and 46.6%, respectively; mean age at start of first metformin prescription 59.4 and 61.1 years, respectively). Early terminators had 1.21 times the […]