Mental Disorders


How to Benefit from Everyday Anxiety

Professor Wendy Suzuki of neural science and psychology at New York University provided tips of emotional regulation to turn everyday anxiety (not necessarily clinical disorders) into something productive. Tip number one is deep breathing, an immediate soothing mechanism. Tip number two is moving your body to get the transformative power […]


Escitalopram Safe and Effective for Anxiety in CHD

A US randomized clinical trial showed that for patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) and high anxiety, escitalopram was safe and effective for reducing anxiety. The trial included 128 outpatients (mean age 64.6 years, 29% women) with stable CHD and a diagnosed anxiety disorder between January 2016 and May 2020. […]


How to Help People Out of a Catastrophe

Dr. Markowitz at Columbia University outlined the types of therapies that are proven to work for people with a major trauma.  The most common diagnosis and response to trauma is depression. A lot of other people are going to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Other people will develop substance abuse. […]


Nociplastic Pain

The International Association for the Study of Pain has proposed a new term, nociplastic pain, to describe a third category of pain that is mechanistically distinct from nociceptive pain, which is caused by ongoing inflammation and damage of tissues, and neuropathic pain, which is caused by nerve damage. The mechanisms […]


The Younger the T2D Onset the Higher the Dementia Risk

A prospective UK cohort study revealed that younger age at diabetes onset was associated with higher risk of subsequent dementia. The study included 10 095 participants (67.3% men; aged 35-55 years in 1985-1988), with a total of 1710 cases of diabetes and 639 cases of dementia recorded over a median follow-up […]


Mind-Heart-Body Connection

A scientific statement from the American Heart Association revealed that there are good data showing clear associations between psychological health and cardiovascular disease (CVD) and risk, so called the mind-heart-body connection; there is increasing evidence that psychological health may be causally linked to biological, behavioral and psychosocial mechanisms that contribute […]


Leisure Activity Participation Declines before Developing Dementia

A prospective cohort study in Britain suggests that participation in leisure activities declines in the preclinical phase of dementia. The study included 8,280 participants (69% male, 91% white, mean age 55.8), participation in leisure activities (1997–99 assessment), with 18.0-year follow-up, was not associated with dementia (hazard ratio [HR] 0.92) but […]


2020 Report for Dementia Prevention, Intervention, and Care:

Excessive alcohol consumption, traumatic brain injury, and air pollution have been added to the 2017 Lancet Commission’s list of nine potentially modifiable risk factors for dementia, including less education, hypertension, hearing impairment, smoking, obesity, depression, physical inactivity, diabetes, and low social contact. Together the 12 modifiable risk factors may account […]


Predictors of Brain Function in the Oldest-Old

A US longitudinal observational cohort study suggests that APOE*2 allele and lower pulse pressure predicts resistance to amyloid-beta (Aβ) deposition in advanced aging. Of 100 participants, mean age at last cognitive evaluation was 92.0 years (range 86-100). Mean follow-up time from baseline to last measured Aβ status was 12.3 years […]


CBT on Par with Medication for Insomnia

A sequential multiple-assignment randomized trial concluded that behavioral therapy (BT) and zolpidem medication produced equivalent response and remission rates for insomnia. Adding a second treatment produced an added value for those whose insomnia failed to remit with initial therapies. The study included 211 adults (132 women; mean age, 45.6 years) […]