MDNN: Transgender Mental Health, Opioid Addiction, and Type 1 Diabetes in Food Swamps

Hi, I’m Kevin Kunzmann, I’m Jenna Payesko, and this is MD Magazine News Network - it’s clinical news for connected physicians.

[Kevin]: A new study has reported that transgender and gender-nonconforming youth are diagnosed with mental health conditions more frequently than young individuals identifying with the gender assigned at birth. This large cohort analysis of pediatric patients enrolled in a comprehensive care system between 2006 to 2014 found that mental health diagnoses were more common for transgender patients in almost every iteration. The most common mental health diagnoses for the population were ADD in children 3 to 9 years of age, and depressive disorder in adolescents 10 to 17 years of age. For all diagnostic categories, prevalence was significantly higher among transgender and gender-nonconforming youth than in cisgender groups, as results showed that the number of cases of ADD was 3 to 7 times higher and depressive disorder cases 4 to 7 times higher.

[Jenna]: Hey look, bad opioid news. Researchers from the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California have found that patients at a higher risk for opioid overdose are still being prescribed opioids at a higher rate. An analysis of 13,000-plus health care visits found that new opioid prescriptions for adults in the general population increased insignificantly between 2005 and 2010, from 78 to 93 per 1000 persons. In that same time frame, rates of new opioid prescriptions for adults using opioids increased from 189 to 351 per 1000 persons. Researchers expressed surprise at the rise and fall of prescription rates among patient populations, but really, not much is left to be surprising in the wake of a national epidemic.

[Kevin]: Wow. Bummer. Anyway, a new cohort study has found that type 1 diabetes is more prevalent in areas of food swamps — areas with food service categorized as fast food, or bodegas and small convenience stores, in lieu of larger grocery stores. New York City-based researchers found that the prevalence in both pediatric and adult patients with type 1 diabetes is significantly greater in regions around fast food swamps, while just adult patients with type 2 diabetes is prevalent in the same areas. The findings also surprised these researchers, as pediatric type 2 diabetes has frequently been associated with poor diet, while type 1 diabetes has been better associated with immunology and heredity. Health care is truly wack.

[Jenna]: Wack indeed. And now for our weekly segment FDA Roundup, let’s go to Matt Hoffman, who’s just going to ramble off some new approvals and maybe let us know how his week was. Go ahead Matt.

[Matt]: The FDA announced TransMedics’s pre-market approval application for the Organ Care System Lung platform for the standard double lung transplant indication, finalized 2 documented recommendation policies they anticipate will drive the development of novel DNA-scanning technology to improve genetic disease diagnosis and treatment guidance, approved the abbreviated new drug application of daptomycin for injection as an antibiotic and generic alternative to Cubicin, accepted a New Drug Application for Alkermes once-daily, oral, investigative major depressive disorder therapy, ALKS 5461, approved Praxbind for the reversal of an anticoagulant in patients in need of emergency procedure, granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation to Hemlibra for patients with hemophilia A without factor 8 inhibitors, and approved Crysvita as the first treatment for XLH in adults and children ages 1 week and older.

Oh and my week was good. I got a haircut. Back to you guys.

[Kevin]: For these stories and more, visit us at mdmag.com. I’m Kevin Kunzmann, and I’m Jenna Payesko. Thank for you watching MDNN.