Early menarche associated with depressive symptoms in early adolescence

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Emily Stapley summarises a Mendelian randomisation study that investigates associations between the timing of menarche with depressive symptoms and depression in adolescence.

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Associations between video game use, academic performance and mental health issues in European primary school children

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Pete Etchells posts his debut Mental Elf blog on a recent study, which explored whether video games were associated with mental illness, cognition or social skills in young children.

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Smokescreen: smoking in the movies and initiation of smoking in adolescents

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Sally Adams on a new systematic review and meta-analysis which suggests that smoking imagery in films may increase the risk of smoking initiation in young people.

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Cannabis and mental illness: it’s complicated!

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Suzi Gage considers the findings of a big new US cohort study, which investigates the relationship between cannabis use and various substance use, mood and anxiety disorders.

The blog also features a podcast interview with Suzi Gage talking about this new study and her own work in this field, plus a short conversation with Ian Hamilton highlighting his forthcoming #CannabisMatters event.

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Mondays and New Year’s Day associated with peaks in suicide incidence

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Emily Stapley reports on a recent study of the timing of general population and patient suicide in England. She discovers that Springtime, Mondays and New Year’s Day are all associated with peaks in suicide incidence.

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Proton-pump inhibitors and risk of dementia

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Caroline Struthers reports on a recent prospective cohort study which finds a strong association between the use of proton pump inhibitors and a significantly increased risk of dementia.

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What happens to people after discharge from secure psychiatric hospital?

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Laura Hemming considers a recent systematic review of patient outcomes following discharge from secure psychiatric hospitals. The review finds that patients from secure units have a higher chance of mortality and suicide following discharge, than people from other settings.

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Cannabis: what do we know and what do we need to know?

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Ian Hamilton considers a recent literature review published in JAMA Psychiatry, which explores the effects of cannabis use on human behaviour, Including cognition, motivation and psychosis.

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Increased vulnerability of migrants: non-affective psychosis in Sweden

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Mina Fazel considers the findings of a new Swedish cohort study, which looks at the risk of schizophrenia and other non-affective psychoses in refugee migrants and non-refugee migrants from across three continents.

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