Celeb suicides highlight troubling trend in midlife

Sobering report teases out factors leading to suicides

CHICAGO, June 9, (AP): The deaths of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and fashion designer Kate Spade highlight a troubling trend — rising suicides among middle-aged Americans.

Mental health problems, often undiagnosed, are usually involved and experts say knowing warning signs and who is at risk can help stop a crisis from becoming a tragedy.

Bourdain, 61, and Spade, 55, died three days and a continent apart this week amid a new US report showing an uptick in suicides rates in nearly every state since 1999. Middle-aged adults — ages 45 to 64 — had the largest rate increase, according to the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Previous studies have suggested economic downturns and the nation’s opioid crisis contributed to the rise in middle-aged suicides.

Dr Christine Moutier, a psychiatrist and chief medical officer for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, said Friday it’s important for everyone to know the warning signs and to intervene when family members, friends or co-workers appear troubled. Asking if they’ve had suicidal thoughts is not harmful and lets them know you care, she said.

Behavior that may indicate someone is suicidal includes:

Talking about feeling hopeless, trapped, a burden to others or wanting to die.

Unusual mood swings or withdrawing from family, friends and usual activities.

Giving away important possessions.

Increased use of alcohol or drugs. This week’s report found that many suicides were in people with no known mental illness. But Dr Joshua Gordon, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, said that contradicts years of data, suggesting many have “gone undiagnosed and untreated. It’s very troubling.”

Gordon said doctors need to ask patients at every opportunity about their mental health and evaluate their risk for suicide.

“When you ask everybody and not just people you might suspect, you double the number you detect,” he said.

Gordon noted that psychotherapy and certain psychiatric drugs have been shown to reduce suicidal tendencies.

Moutier of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, said that suicides can be “contagious” — hearing about one may make others who are already at risk turn to self-harm. She said celebrity suicides also typically prompt an increase in calls to suicide help lines.

“People should know that suicide is preventable. Anyone contemplating suicide should know that help is available, and that there is no shame in seeking care for your mental health,” Dr Altha Stewart of the American Psychiatric Association said in a statement.

Suicide rates inched up in nearly every US state from 1999 through 2016, according to a new government report released last Thursday.

More than half of suicides in 2015 in a subgroup of 27 states were among people with no known mental health condition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. Suicide is rarely caused by any single factor, health officials said, but information from coroners’ reports suggest many of the deaths followed relationship problems, substance use and financial crises.

Prevention efforts, often focused on mental health, could be broadened to focus on people undergoing life stresses like job losses or divorces, the CDC’s Dr Anne Schuchat said in a media briefing.

“Suicide is more than a mental health issue,” Schuchat said. “We don’t think we can just leave this to the mental health system to manage.”

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death and one of just three leading causes that are on the rise. The others are Alzheimer’s disease and drug overdoses.

There were nearly 45,000 suicides in 2016. Middle-aged adults — ages 45 to 64 — had the largest rate increase, rising to 19.2 per 100,000 in 2016 from 13.2 per 100,000 in 1999.

The report said people without known mental health problems were more likely to die by firearms than those with known mental health problems.

Family members or friends concerned about someone who is struggling can ask directly about suicide and remove firearms or any other means the person is considering from the home, said Jennifer Stuber, director of Forefront Suicide Prevention at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Prevention efforts are best done when “people can get help solving the underlying drivers of the problems causing them to feel hopeless and despair,” Stuber said.

The CDC report comes at a time of heightened attention to the issue with the suicide this week of designer Kate Spade. The designer’s husband, Andy Spade, has said she suffered from depression and anxiety for many years.