Tag: Lee

Reading of the Week: Glucagon-Like Peptide 1 Receptor Agonists & Mental Health – the New JAMA Psych Study; Also, Innovation and Lee on His Depression

May 29, 2025 /

From the Editor

These medications are widely discussed – and, yes, our patients ask about them. But how do glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists impact mental health and overall wellness? Should we hesitate before reaching for the prescription pad?

Aureliane C. S. Pierret (of King’s College London) and her co-authors attempt to answer these questions in a new paper just published in JAMA Psychiatry. In their systematic review and meta-analysis, they included more than 107 000 patients, comparing treatment with GLP1-RAs to placebo, looking at psychiatric, cognitive, and quality of life outcomes in those who are overweight, obese, or have diabetes. “Our results provide reassurance regarding the psychiatric safety profile of GLP1-RAs and suggest that GLP1-RA treatment is associated with improved mental well-being, in addition to the known physical health improvements.” We consider the paper and its implications.

When we hear innovations in mental healthcare, we tend to think of apps or wearables. In the second selection from Quick Takes, Daisy Singla (of the University of Toronto) discusses her recent study that expanded access to psychotherapy for perinatal women, reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety by drawing a page from work done in low-income countries. The key concept: training up laypeople to deliver therapy (task sharing). “It’s one of the largest psychotherapy trials in the world.”

And in the third selection, from The Globe and Mail, Joe Lee writes about his realization that he has depression and that it has affected his life for years. In a personal essay, he talks about his illness and the impact on his life. “Depression is weird like that. For some people, it sneaks in. For me, it’s always been there – like blood in my body.”

DG

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Reading of the Week: Does COVID Affect Outcomes? Also, Depression & Behavioural Economics (JAMA Psych), and Crawford on Virtual Care (Walrus)

October 8, 2020 /

From the Editor

As we head into the second wave, are there lessons from the spring?

This week, we have three selections.

In the first, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, Dr. Seung Won Lee (of the Sejong University College of Software Convergence) and co-authors look at mental illness and COVID-19 in South Korea. Doing a cohort study, drawing on national databases, they wonder about diagnosis and clinical outcomes for those with mental illness. “Diagnosis of a mental illness was not associated with increased likelihood of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2.” It’s a big finding – but is it relevant on this side of the Pacific?

wave-1

Can we nudge patients with depression to take medications? In the second selection, we look at a new JAMA Psychiatry research letter. Steven C. Marcus (of the University of Pennsylvania) and his co-authors offer financial incentives for medication compliance. They conclude: “In this pilot study, escalating incentives for daily antidepressant adherence significantly improved adherence compared with a control group during the critical first 6 weeks of treatment.”

Finally, in our third selection, we consider an essay by Dr. Allison Crawford (of the University of Toronto) from The Walrus. She writes about the change in mental health care with COVID-19, as virtual care has become the norm. “I take off my shoes so that I can enter softly and with an open heart. My patients can’t see my bare feet.”

DG

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