Nine WashU faculty elected to AAAS

Nine faculty members at Washington University in St. Louis are among the 502 new fellows selected by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), one of the most distinct honors in the scientific community. The 2023 class includes: Deanna Barch, Laura Bierut, Kendall Blumer, Andreas Burkhalter, Jennifer Heemstra, Kathleen McDermott, Jeffrey Miner, Camillo Padoa-Schioppa and David Perlmutter. It is also the 150th year […]

Smoking causes brain shrinkage

Smoking shrinks the brain, according to a study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The good news is that quitting smoking prevents further loss of brain tissue — but still, stopping smoking doesn’t restore the brain to its original size. Since people’s brains naturally lose volume with age, smoking effectively […]

ICTS Precision Health Team Develops Genomic Return of Results Service

Returning genetic results to research participants requires thoughtful planning. ICTS Precision Health at Washington University in St. Louis, aims to catalyze genomic research by providing grant review and development services, guidance and resources for genomic researchers and genomics education in the community. Precision Health is a component of the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences’ Clinical and Translational […]

Academy honors six university faculty

Six Washington University in St. Louis faculty members and one alumnus are being honored by the Academy of Science – St. Louis for their outstanding contributions to the field. They will be recognized at an awards dinner Sept. 20 at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Laura Jean Bierut, MD, is the Alumni Endowed Professor of Psychiatry […]

Data from wearables could be a boon to mental health diagnosis

Depression and anxiety are among the most common mental health disorders in the United States, but more than half of people struggling with the conditions are not diagnosed and treated. Hoping to find simple ways to detect such disorders, mental health professionals are considering the role of popular wearable fitness monitors in providing data that […]

Cigarette smokers who try to quit often end up vaping and smoking

Most of the 40 million Americans who smoke cigarettes say they want to quit, and some move to e-cigarettes as a step toward quitting. However, a growing number of such people become dual nicotine users: They smoke traditional cigarettes and vape e-cigarettes, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found. Rather […]

Suicides less common in states that passed Medicaid expansion

Although there have been steady increases over the past 20 years in the number of people nationwide who die by suicide, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that such increases have slowed slightly in states that have implemented Medicaid expansion. “Suicide is a public health problem, and our findings […]

Medication that lowers risk of overdose underused

Less than half of Americans who received treatment for opioid use disorder over a five-year period were offered a potentially lifesaving medication, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Saint Louis University have found. And treatment with the medication was even more rare for those with what’s known as polysubstance use […]

In U.S., alcohol use disorder linked to 232 million missed workdays annually

Heavy alcohol use is associated with missing work, but the scope of that relationship has not been well understood. Now, based on survey data from more than 110,000 U.S. adults with full-time jobs, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have quantified the extent of the problem. Among U.S. adults working full […]

Alcohol problems severely undertreated

Some 16 million Americans are believed to have alcohol use disorder, and an estimated 93,000 people in the U.S. die from alcohol-related causes each year. Both of those numbers are expected to grow as a result of heavier drinking during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, in a new study involving data from more than 200,000 people […]

Opioid overdose reduced in patients taking buprenorphine

Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, opioid misuse has continued unabated in the United States, with an estimated 2.5 million or more Americans suffering from opioid use disorder. Most people treated for the disorder are given medications, such as buprenorphine, that activate opioid receptors. But there is disagreement about whether it’s safe to prescribe buprenorphine for […]

Smoking rates decline when mentally ill get help to quit

Such patients have higher than average smoking rates From the WashU School of Medicine Newsroom… Recognition of a disconnect between what patients with serious mental illness want and what health providers think they want appears to be a crucial step in reducing smoking rates among such patients. Those who have serious mental illness have significantly higher […]