LGBTQ+ mental health concerns

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LGBTQ+ adults may have greater risk of poor brain health, likely due to ‘minority stress.

By , CNN

Those in the LGBTQ+ community may have a higher risk of adverse brain health outcomes compared with straight cisgender people — those who identify as the sex they were assigned at birth, a new study has found.

The large study of more than 393,000 adult participants, published Wednesday in the journal Neurology, found a 15% higher risk of a composite brain health outcome — including dementia, stroke and late-life depression — defined as a depressive episode first diagnosed at or after age 60.

“It is concerning to see the differences in brain health between sexual gender minority (SGM) individuals and cisgender straight people,” said lead study author Dr. Shufan Huo, postdoctoral research fellow in the department of neurology at the Yale University School of Medicine, via email. “At the same time, I am glad that we can raise awareness for this often overlooked group. Medicine has traditionally focused on white, male patients, but nowadays we realize that this approach does not sufficiently address the needs of our diverse population.”

Prior studies on the health of these groups, of which there are few, often have small sample sizes, lack more specific categories of sexuality or gender identity, and overemphasize topics such as HIV, hormone use, substance use disorder and mental health, the authors said.

The latest study “is important because it is the first one of this kind to collect detailed information on sexual orientation and gender identity,” said Dr. Riccardo Manca, research fellow in the department of life sciences at Brunel University London, who wasn’t involved in the study. “Such a degree of diversity in the sample makes it more representative of the LGBTQ+ population.”

The findings could help inform future studies that investigate increased risk of negative outcomes in LGBTQ+ subgroups to understand the specific challenges for each, Huo said.

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