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| Mad genius and genes: Are highly creative people more likely to suffer mental illness? |
Sunday, May 26, 2019
Mad genius and genes: Are highly creative people more likely to suffer mental illness? | Genetic Literacy Project
Mad genius and genes: Are highly creative people more likely to suffer mental illness? | Genetic Literacy Project
NIAID’s Lab of Clinical Immunology and Microbiology seeks clinicians for an open position in the area of autoinflammatory diseases and immune dysregulatory diseases
Join NIAID and make a difference!
Caption: Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health. Credit: NIH
Staff Clinician
NIAID’s Laboratory of Clinical Immunology and Microbiology seeks an enthusiastic and highly motivated staff clinician to diagnose, treat, and manage patients with known and yet unknown autoinflammatory diseases. Take a lead role in the development and conduct of clinical protocols relevant to these patient populations at NIAID and the NIH Clinical Center, a state-of-the-art research hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.
The successful applicant must have an M.D. or equivalent and board certification in pediatric allergy and immunology or rheumatology. Internal medicine/pediatrics (med-peds) applicants are encouraged. An ideal candidate will have experience in clinical research and/or in conducting clinical trials.
To apply, submit a curriculum vitae, bibliography, and a list of three references to Dr. Raphaela Goldbach-Mansky (raphaela.goldbach-mansky@nih.
Visit NIAID Careers for more information about the position and working at NIAID.
HHS, NIH, and NIAID are equal opportunity employers.
New Issue of NIAAA Spectrum is Now Available!
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Volume 11, Issue 2 Is Now Available! | |
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In This Issue
Bringing Alcohol Treatment Into the Mainstream
Nearly 15 million people in the United States have alcohol use disorder (AUD), but in any given year, less than 10 percent of them receive treatment. And even those who receive treatment may not receive the type of care that best fits their needs and improves their chances of a successful recovery. More...
Noteworthy
On February 7, NIAAA, along with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), received the National Leadership Award from the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) at the CADCA 29th National Leadership Forum.
NIAAA@Work
On March 14, NIAAA scientists Mohammed Akbar, Ph.D., Rachel Anderson, Ph.D., Ivana Grakalic, Ph.D., and Soundar Regunathan, Ph.D., gave presentations on alcohol and the adolescent brain for teen students visiting the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring, Maryland.
By the Numbers
Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a common but undertreated health issue in the United States. According to a recent nationwide survey, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), nearly 15 million people age 12 and older had AUD in the past year. Of those individuals, it is estimated that less than 10 percent received any treatment.
News From the Field
In clinical trials for alcohol use disorder (AUD), abstinence and no heavy drinking days are currently the only end points approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. However, many individuals who do not achieve these end points may still reduce their drinking to less harmful levels during treatment.
Alcohol is involved in nearly half of all liver disease deaths in the United States each year. Alcohol-associated liver disease (AALD) now replaces hepatitis C viral infection as the lead cause of liver transplantation due to chronic liver disease.
Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a common, heterogeneous disorder, and this heterogeneity drives the need for precision treatment.
5 Questions With...
Acting Director of the Division of Treatment and Recovery Research and Acting Director of the Division of Medications Development
NIMH » Nationwide Essay Contest Challenges High Schoolers to be Frank About Mental Health
NIMH » Nationwide Essay Contest Challenges High Schoolers to be Frank About Mental Health
May 31 is the deadline to enter nationwide essay contest on mental health
 | There's only one week left to enter! The National Institutes of Health is inviting students aged 16 to 18 years old to participate in the “Speaking Up About Mental Health!” essay contest. Encourage the students in your life to submit an entry today throughChallenge.gov for a chance to win awards from a prize pool of $7,000. | |
Essays should explore ways to address the stigma and social barriers that adolescents, especially those from racial and ethnic minority populations, may face when seeking mental health treatment. The deadline for entries is May 31, 2019.
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Medication Fact Sheet
Medication Fact Sheet
CDC recently released some new tools to help older adults identify medicines, including opioids that cause side effects and increases the risk of a fall or motor vehicle crash. This fact sheethelps patients to identify medicines that put them at risk, potential side effects, and questions they can ask their doctor. The medicines fact sheet and two documents (Personal Medicines List & Personal Action Plan) that can help patients list their personal information can be downloadedhere.
CDC recently released some new tools to help older adults identify medicines, including opioids that cause side effects and increases the risk of a fall or motor vehicle crash. This fact sheethelps patients to identify medicines that put them at risk, potential side effects, and questions they can ask their doctor. The medicines fact sheet and two documents (Personal Medicines List & Personal Action Plan) that can help patients list their personal information can be downloadedhere.
CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain — United States, 2016 | MMWR
CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain — United States, 2016 | MMWR
CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain — United States, 2016
Recommendations and Reports / March 18, 2016 / 65(1);1–49
On March 15, 2016, this report was posted online as an MMWR Early Release.
Please note: An erratum has been published for this report. To view the erratum, please click here.
Interactive Training Series | Drug Overdose | CDC Injury Center
Interactive Training Series | Drug Overdose | CDC Injury Center
Applying CDC’s Guideline for Prescribing Opioids
An Online Training Series for Healthcare Providers
In 2017, almost 57 million American patients had at least one prescription for opioids filled or refilled. The average number of opioid prescriptions per patient was 3.4, and the average days of supply per prescription was 18 days.1 Taking opioids for longer periods of time or in higher doses increases the risk of addiction, overdose, and death. The CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain provides recommendations for safer and more effective prescribing of opioids for chronic pain in patients 18 and older in outpatient settings outside of active cancer treatment, palliative care, and end-of-life care.
This interactive online training series aims to help healthcare providers apply CDC’s recommendations in clinical settings through patient scenarios, videos, knowledge checks, tips, and resources. Providers can gain a better understanding of the recommendations, the risks and benefits of prescription opioids, nonopioid treatment options, patient communication, and risk mitigation. Each stand-alone module is self-paced and offers free continuing education credit. The list below contains information about the trainings currently available, as well as those planned for release for the remainder of this year.
May CDC Opioids Update
An Opioid Prescribing Interactive Online Training Series for Providers
An interactive online training series that supports providers in practicing safer and more effective opioid prescribing for chronic pain in primary care setting is now available! This series currently includes 11 modules that feature recommendations from the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain. Providers can move through each module at their own pace while learning about important factors to consider when starting, continuing, or stopping opioids. Each module offers free continuing education and includes clinical scenarios and tools and a resource library to enhance learning. The entire series can be found on our Training for Providers webpage.Medicines Risk Fact Sheet
CDC recently released some new tools to help older adults identify medicines, including opioids that cause side effects and increases the risk of a fall or motor vehicle crash. This fact sheethelps patients to identify medicines that put them at risk, potential side effects, and questions they can ask their doctor. The medicines fact sheet and two documents (Personal Medicines List & Personal Action Plan) that can help patients list their personal information can be downloadedhere.Webinar: Evidence-Based Strategies for Preventing Opioid Overdose
The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives at the Department of Health and Human Services will host a webinar featuring community practitioners engaged in programs for harm reduction, treatment initiation, and provider education. Presenters will discuss their work and the efforts that went into successfully implementing their programs.
When: May 29, 2019 from 12:00-1:30 PM EDT
URL: https://zoom.us/webinar/
Call-in Access: 1-929-205-6099
Webinar ID: 226961046
POC: Melissa Podolsky (oex0@cdc.gov)
URL: https://zoom.us/webinar/
Call-in Access: 1-929-205-6099
Webinar ID: 226961046
POC: Melissa Podolsky (oex0@cdc.gov)
Recent Articles and Publications
This MMWR report analyzes the demographic variation of drug overdose deaths involving cocaine and psychostimulants, showing increases in death rates involving cocaine and psychostimulants (e.g., methamphetamine) across age groups, racial/ethnic groups, county urbanization levels, census regions, and multiple states examined in this study from 2016-2017. Death rates involving cocaine and psychostimulants with and without opioids have increased. Synthetic opioids appear to be the primary driver of cocaine-involved death rate increases, and recent data point to increasing synthetic opioid involvement in psychostimulant-involved deaths. Increases in deaths involving cocaine and psychostimulants in recent years with and without opioids illustrates the growing complexity of the current overdose crisis. The relationship between stimulants (like cocaine and psychostimulants) paired with opioids is a growing problem that will require an increase in public health and data collection efforts in order to implement comprehensive, evidence-based drug overdose prevention.
Overdose deaths involving opioids have quadrupled since 1999. A recent study analyzed emergency department (ED) data from CDC’s Enhanced State Opioid Overdose Surveillance (ESOOS) program to understand changes in suspected heroin overdose from 2017-2018. Overall there was a significant yearly decrease of 21.5% in heroin overdose ED visits in the 23 ESOOS states. Subsequently, this report highlights the importance of using ED data as an early warning system for communities to better monitor and respond to overdoses.
A recent study evaluated the Safer Opioid Prescribing Practice Protocol (SOPP) implemented at a Level 1 trauma center for patients diagnosed to go home with a prescription for opioid medication after an inpatient admission between 2014 and 2016. The protocol was integrated into an existing electronic health record system as an electronic best practice alert. Implementation of the protocol into Level 1 Trauma Centers increased the use of non-opioid pain medication; decreased dispensing of high opioid dose medication (≥ 100 MME), increased the delivery of opioid safety education to patients, and initiated naloxone prescribing.
The CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain was developed to ensure that primary care clinicians work with their patients to consider all safe and effective treatment options for pain management. In a recent New England Journal of Medicine article, authors advise againist the misapplication of the Guideline that can risk the patients’ health and safety. A few examples of misapplication of the guideline along with and recommendations for safe and effective implementation of the guideline are included in this article. You can learn more here.
Mobile phone app designed to boost physical activity in women shows promise | National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Mobile phone app designed to boost physical activity in women shows promise | National Institutes of Health (NIH)
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Mobile phone app designed to boost physical activity in women shows promise
Activity trackers and mobile phone apps are all the rage, but do they really help users increase and maintain physical activity? A new study has found that one mobile phone app designed for inactive women did help when combined with an activity tracker and personal counseling.
Researchers said the findings offer important clues about how to make such app-based interventions successful—motivational messages and interactive feedback were notable features in this case. But they also highlight their limitations, as the app did not appear to be key in helping the women stay motivated past the first three months. Understanding what did, the researchers said, could eventually help the development of more effective technologies that can get people active and keep them active.
Funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health, the study is one of the first to examine how an app-based program can help increase and maintain objectively measured daily physical activity. It was published online on May 24 in JAMA Network Open, a peer-reviewed online-only journal.
“We showed that if you design an activity app using an evidence-based approach, it will be more effective,” said study leader Yoshimi Fukuoka, Ph.D., R.N., a professor in the Department of Physiological Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco. “Our findings could go a long way to get more people to move, particularly women.”
Regular physical activity has long been shown to reduce the risk of obesity, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes and other chronic conditions. However, according to the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, nearly 80% of adults are not meeting the recommended activity level. Women across all age groups are less likely to be physically active than men. While apps and physical activity trackers have become extremely popular way to break some of those barriers, their long-term effectiveness remains unclear.
/p> Previous activity app trials have been frequently short, and their sample sizes small, and most did not monitor activity objectively and continually. The current study, which lasted nine months, was called the mobile phone based physical activity education (mPED) trial. Fukuoka’s research group designed their app specifically for physically inactive women, incorporating behavioral change strategies known to work well for this group, such as personalized goal setting, self-monitoring, social support, and feedback. It was critical, the researchers said, that the women were able to engage with the program at home.
The app, which was developed exclusively for the study and is not commercially available, had three main functions, including a pre-programed interactive daily message or video that reinforced what was learned during a beginning counseling session, and a daily activity diary to record progress. The app automatically increased the participants’ activity goals by 20 percent each week to 10,000 steps daily. To improve adherence, participants received an automated message if the app had not been used for three consecutive days.
The trial involved 210 physically inactive women, ages 25 and 65. They were equally divided into three groups--a control that had no intervention but used a tracking device for the nine months of the trial; a “regular” group that got counseling and used the tracker and the app for three months, then used only the tracker for the remaining six months; and a “plus” group that got counseling and used the tracker and the app for the entire nine months. Unlike most other studies, the researchers measured women’s activity every 60 seconds, every day for nine months, instead of relying on self-reported activity or intermittent activity measured by the tracker.
During the first three months, the tracker showed that, compared to the control group, the women in the regular and plus groups logged about 2,000 steps more per day, equivalent to approximately 1 mile or 20 minutes of walking. They also increased their moderate to vigorous physical activity by 18 minutes a day.
In the following six-month maintenance period, however, the regular and plus groups logged about 1,400 steps more than the control group and got in eight more minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Researchers said these findings show that the women were able to sustain an impressive level of activity above their starting point. However, continued use of the app by the plus group did not add any extra benefit to help maintain this increased activity, compared to the regular group, which had stopped using the app after the first three months.
“Sustaining any behavior change is difficult in general, and in particular, sustaining the increased physical activity that resulted after the intervention,” Fukuoka said. “Still, it is encouraging to see that 97.6% of women in our trial completed a nine-month visit and kept up part of their increased activity.”
The researchers’ next goal is to refine maintenance strategies that can help maintain those increased levels of activity over a longer period.
According to the study, the intervention appeared to be equally effective, no matter the user’s age, race and ethnicity, body mass index, education, and household income, but the researchers cautioned that the findings might not be generalizable to men.
The research is part of a larger NIH effort to explore better ways to improve cardiovascular health.
“Exercise is just one pillar in a heart-healthy lifestyle and should complement other heart-healthy changes, such as choosing a healthy diet, aiming for a healthy weight, managing stress, getting sufficient sleep, and quitting smoking,” said Josephine Boyington, Ph.D., the NHLBI project officer for the study. “People should talk to their doctors about what changes are best for optimizing their individual heart-health plans.”
The study is supported by grant R01HL104147 from the NHLBI and by support from the American Heart Association. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier is NCT01280812.
About the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI): NHLBI is the global leader in conducting and supporting research in heart, lung, and blood diseases and sleep disorders that advances scientific knowledge, improves public health, and saves lives. For more information, visit www.nhlbi.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health®
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