Month: October 2023

Reading of the Week: Running vs SSRIs for Depression – the new JAD Paper; Also, Climate Change & Mental Health, and Understanding My Schizophrenia

October 26, 2023 /

From the Editor

“Go for a Run to Beat Depression – It’s Just As Effective As Taking Medication”

– New York Post

“Running could be just as effective at treating depression as medication, scientists find”

– The Independent

Patients often ask what they can do to get better from their depression. Should we be advising them to put on a pair of runners and go for a jog? A new paper published in the Journal of Affective Disorders seems to suggest as much – and it’s caused a bit of media buzz. In the first selection, Josine E. Verhoeven (of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and her co-authors describe this 16-week study that offered 141 people with depression and/or anxiety either a running intervention or medications, and looked at several mental and physical health outcomes. “We showed that while antidepressant medication and running therapy did not statistically significantly differ on mental health outcomes… the interventions had a significantly different and often contrasting impact on several physical health outcomes, with more favorable outcomes for those in the exercise intervention.” We consider the paper and its implications.

In the second selection, Pim Cuijpers (of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and his co-authors discuss climate change and mental health in a new viewpoint for JAMA Psychiatry. Though they note the lack of high-quality research in the area, they argue that it would disproportionately affect low and middle-income nations. They then point a way forward. “There is no doubt that climate change will have a major impact on mental health in the coming decades.”

And in the third selection which is written anonymously, a person with schizophrenia talks about his experiences in a paper for Schizophrenia Bulletin. He tries to empower himself, working to limit side effects and cope with the voices. “My brain disease is incurable, but it is not an excuse for me to be irresponsible or to give up on life.” 

DG

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Reading of the Week: Legal Cannabis at 5 – Considering Nonmedical Legalization with a CMAJ Commentary, Dr. Buckley’s Reflections and Major Papers

October 19, 2023 /

From the Editor

On Oct. 17, 2018, the government of Canada will launch a national, uncontrolled experiment in which the profits of cannabis producers and tax revenues are squarely pitched against the health of Canadians. When Bill C-45 comes into force in mid-October, access to recreational marijuana will be legal, making Canada one of a handful of countries to legalize recreational use of the drug. Given the known and unknown health hazards of cannabis, any increase in use of recreational cannabis after legalization, whether by adults or youth, should be viewed as a failure of this legislation.

 – Dr. Diane Kelsall, Editor-in-Chief, CMAJ, October 2018

On Tuesday, Canada’s experiment with the legalization of cannabis for nonmedical purposes turned five. Did use go up? What about health care utilization? Have there been benefits from justice and social justice perspectives? Is it the failure that Dr. Kelsall feared?

Now is a good time to pause and review the impact of this change. In this Reading, we try to do just that. 

We start with a CMAJ commentary just published. Benedikt Fischer (of Simon Fraser University) and co-authors look at the evidence, including studies on use and ED presentations, as well as statistics on purchases. “A consideration of the evidence 5 years after implementation suggests that success in meeting policy objectives has been mixed, with social justice benefits appearing to be more tangibly substantive than health benefits.”

Dr. Leslie Buckley (of the University of Toronto) mulls this moment with some comments about the CMAJ paper, and the larger discussion. “[T]he legal changes were enacted and resulted in positive outcomes while the preventive changes which would require more financial investment and tight regulation received less attention.”

Finally, we look at three important papers on cannabis that have been featured in this series over the past five years, and another one that we haven’t looked at before.

DG

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Reading of the Week: Health Care Workers & Suicide – the new JAMA Paper; Also, Esketamine vs Quetiapine for Treatment-Resistant Depression (NEJM)

October 12, 2023 /

From the Editor

Sure, we are biased – but ours is a different type of job. Working in health care can involve life and death situations and trying to help those who are at their most vulnerable. The stakes can be high. 

But how does such work affect the workers themselves? Dr. Mark Olfson (of Columbia University) and his co-authors try to answer that question in a new paper for JAMA. In it, they analyze suicides among six different types of health care workers, including physicians, by drawing on a US data that offers a nationally representative sample from 2008 to 2019, including 1.84 million people. “Relative to non-health care workers, registered nurses, health technicians, and health care support workers in the US were at increased risk of suicide.” We consider the paper and its implications.

And in the other selection, Dr. Andreas Reif (of the University Hospital Frankfurt) and his co-authors focus on treatment-resistant depression. In this new paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine, they report on the findings from a study where 676 patients were randomized to either esketamine nasal spray or an antipsychotic augmenting agent in addition to an antidepressant. “In patients with treatment-resistant depression, esketamine nasal spray plus an SSRI or SNRI was superior to extended-release quetiapine plus an SSRI or SNRI with respect to remission at week 8.” We also look at the accompanying editorial.

DG

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Reading of the Week: Fatal Overdoses & Drug Decriminalization – the new JAMA Psych Paper; Also, ChatGPT vs Residents, and Chang on Good Psychiatry

October 5, 2023 /

From the Editor

Does decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of street drugs reduce overdoses? Proponents argue yes because those who use substances can seek care – including in emergency situations – without fear of police involvement and charges. Opponents counter that decriminalization means fewer penalties for drug use, resulting in more misuse and thus more overdoses. The debate can be shrill – but lacking in data.

Spruha Joshi (of New York University) and co-authors bring numbers to the policy discussion with a new JAMA Psychiatry paper. They analyze the impact of decriminalization in two states, Oregon and Washington, contrasting overdoses there and in other US states that didn’t decriminalize. “This study found no evidence of an association between legal changes that removed or substantially reduced criminal penalties for drug possession in Oregon and Washington and fatal drug overdose rates.” We consider the paper and its implications.

In the second selection, Dr. Ashwin Nayak (of Stanford University) and his co-authors look at AI for the writing of patient histories. In a new research letter for JAMA Internal Medicine, they do a head-to-head (head-to-CPU?) comparison with ChatGPT and residents both writing patient histories (specifically, the history of present illness, or HPI). “HPIs generated by a chatbot or written by senior internal medicine residents were graded similarly by internal medicine attending physicians.”

And in the third selection, medical student Howard A. Chang (of Johns Hopkins University) wonders about “good” psychiatry in a paper for Academic Psychiatry. He reflects on the comments of surgeons, pediatricians, and obstetricians, and then mulls the role of our specialty. “I have gleaned that a good psychiatrist fundamentally sees and cares about patients with mental illness as dignified human beings, not broken brains. The good psychiatrist knows and treats the person in order to treat the disease.”

DG

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