There's a perception that children don't kill themselves, but that's just not true. A new report shows that, for the first time, suicide rates for U.S. middle school students have surpassed the rate of death by car crashes.

The suicide rate among youngsters ages 10 to 14 has been steadily rising, and doubled in the U.S. from 2007 to 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2014, 425 young people 10 to 14 years of age died by suicide.

We've been reporting about the role that schools and school staff play in addressing students' mental health.

"Kids spend a lot of time at school ... it's where they live their lives," says David Jobes, who heads the Suicide Prevention Lab at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. "Suicide prevention has been focused on schools for a long time because it's a place where kids are and where a lot of problems can manifest."

Many educators don't feel comfortable talking about suicide, or often don't know what to do or say when a student needs help, Jobes says. He recommends resources from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention that are specific to schools.

"It's really hard to prevent it, if we don't know it's there," he says. So educators shouldn't be afraid to talk about suicide — because saving lives begins with "asking a question."

Yesterday we chatted with Jobes on NPR Live about the six myths on suicide that every parent and educator should now. You can watch the video here

This weekend marks the end of daylight saving time. That means that, on Sunday morning at 2 a.m., clocks across America will magically jump back one hour.

For many, this offers a small but valuable treat: An extra hour of sleep. But those extra winks may come at a high cost, according to a new research paper published in the journal Epidemiology. The study shows a drastic spike in diagnoses of depression immediately following the time change. What's going on here?

Roughly 1.6 billion people in about 70 countries observe DST. The exact day and time may differ, but the gist is the same: In the spring, we push our clocks forward, and in the fall we put them back. When we jump back in time, the hour of sunlight that was at the end of the day is now at the beginning. The goal is to make the best use of daylight as the seasons change and the days get either longer or shorter.

But it seems this transition can have a noticeable effect on many people's psychological health. Why? Because it screws with our circadian rhythm, or internal clock. When this clock gets out of sync, it can alter the chemicals in our brain, leading to depression.

A middle-aged male had success rapidly reducing fast-acting alprazolam (Xanax) dosage by taking very high doses of niacin, along with gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and vitamin C. The individual had been on 1 mg/day Xanax for 2 years, a moderate dose but a long duration. As a result, he had been presenting increased anxiety, personality changes, and ringing in the ears (tinnitus), all side effects likely due to long-term alprazolam use. Typical withdrawal from this drug would involve substitution medication, about a 10% dose reduction per week, and take a matter of months.¹ A fast withdrawal is a 12.5 to 25% reduction per week.² On very high doses of niacin, vitamin C, and also GABA, this individual reported being able to cut the dose 60% down to 0.4 mg in one week. The dose was reduced by 90% (to 0.1 mg/day) in less than a month. He reported residual anxiety, but that it was substantially less than when fully medicated. After 5 weeks, the medication intake was zero, with minimal residual anxiety.

Dosage

Niacin doses were between 6000 and 12,000 mg/day. The individual reported reduced anxiety when taking the highest levels of niacin. Bowel-tolerance levels of vitamin C were taken daily, with 750 mg of GABA twice daily. The individual also drank a quart of beet/cabbage soup broth daily for the first week, took 400 mg magnesium citrate/day, and took sublingual methylcobalamin (high-absorption B12), 5000 mcg twice a week. During the initial total withdrawal from alprazolam, intake of GABA was 750 mg 3 times daily. The patient experienced side effects of daily but manageable anxiety. He also reported occasional nausea, possibly attributable to the GABA and almost certainly attributable to the extremely high niacin intake. He experienced increased frequency of urination, especially at night. Evening niacin doses as inositol hexaniacinate (a semi-sustained-release, no-flush niacin) reduced nighttime urination. The individual used regular-flush niacin about three-quarters of the time; inositol hexaniacinate constituted the balance. Dosage was divided into 8 to 10 1000 mg doses in 24 hours. Niacinamide was specifically not used, as its nausea threshold is low (under 6000 mg day).

Everybody now knows that probiotics are good for you. But here are twelve recently discovered benefits of probiotics that might really surprise you!

1. Happiness

This surprising triple-blind study gave either probiotics or a placebo to 40 healthy people for 4 weeks. The probiotics actually significantly reduced negative thoughts associated with a sad mood compared to placebo. The positive effect was mostly because of reduced rumination and aggressive thoughts. This is the first ever evidence that probiotics can reduce negative thinking associated with sadness (Brain Behav Immun 2015; DOI:10.1016/j.bbi.2015.04.003).

2. Depression

In the first ever study of probiotics and psychological conditions, people with more depression had significantly better improvement in mood on a probiotic than on a placebo (Eur J Clin Nutr 2007;61:355-61). A second study found that a month of probiotic supplementation significantly improved depression and anger (Gut Microbes 2011;2:256-61).

Charity helpline Childline recorded a 35 per cent increase in calls for help related to anxiety over the last year.

The number of children seeking help for anxiety has risen sharply, data from the NSPCC's Childline service has suggested.

The helpline, which offers support and counseling for distressed children, said it answered 11,706 calls which mentioned anxiety in 2015-16. By comparison, 8,642 such calls had been answered in the previous year. This represents an increase of 35 per cent.

Children as young as eight contacted them to discuss their anxieties, on issues ranging to personal and family concerns to wider political issues such as the EU referendum.

The charity said the problem appears to be getting worse, with provisional figures showing that from April to September the facility dealt with almost 6,500 contacts where anxiety was cited as the main issue - an average of more than 1,000 a month.

Why not just take a long bath?

That was my biggest question as I readied to go "floating," the latest wellness fad.

A flotation tank is a human-sized bathtub with a retractable lid that's filled with 160 gallons of body-temperature water and salted with 1,000 pounds of magnesium sulfate. The mineral, studies show, helps detoxify the body, reduce inflammation, and ease sore muscles. It is also said to trigger the release of endorphins.

The enclosed structure resembles baby Superman's Krypton escape pod, if his doomed parents had thought he'd need more of a jacuzzi experience as he traveled down to Smallville. You can wear your swimsuit, but the Pause Float Studio in Los Angeles suggests going nude, since, as the company's website explains, "Material on the body stimulates the senses."

Turin's new mayor has announced plans to make it a vegetarian city - even introducing a weekly meat-free day. But in an area with a meat-eating and rich culinary culture, the plans are proving divisive for residents.

It's midday, and the meat stalls in Turin's open-air food market, Porta Palazzo, are crowded with customers browsing the beef, salami and prosciutto on offer. Shopping for meat is an everyday ritual in the capital city of Piedmont, a region of Italy with a rich culinary history - but this could all be about to change.

In the summer the new mayor Chiara Appendino - of the populist Five Star Movement (M5S) - announced plans to make Turin Italy's first vegetarian city. The exact details of Appendino's five-year plan have yet to be fleshed out, but the city is expected to set up educational projects in schools to teach students about animal welfare and nutrition. There are also plans to create a vegetarian map of the city for tourists, and introduce a weekly meat-free day.

Cholesterol does not cause heart disease in the elderly and trying to reduce it with drugs like statins is a waste of time, an international group of experts has claimed.

A review of research involving nearly 70,000 people found there was no link between what has traditionally been considered "bad" cholesterol and the premature deaths of over 60-year-olds from cardiovascular disease.

Published in the BMJ Open Journal, the new study found that 92 percent of people with a high cholesterol level lived longer.

The authors have called for a re-evaluation of the guidelines for the prevention of cardiovascular disease and atherosclerosis, a hardening and narrowing of the arteries, because "the benefits from statin treatment have been exaggerated".

Thirteen cases of a sometimes deadly and often drug-resistant fungal infection, Candida auris, have been reported in the United States for the first time, health officials said Friday.

The infection, which often spreads in hospitals and other health care settings, can invade the ear canal, urine and bloodstream.

Four of the US patients diagnosed with the infection have died, although the precise causes remain unclear, the CDC said.

"We need to act now to better understand, contain and stop the spread of this drug-resistant fungus," the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Tom Frieden said.

"This is an emerging threat and we need to protect vulnerable patients and others."

A Chinese medicine technique using a smooth-edged instrument to scrape or rub certain areas of the body may relieve troublesome symptoms women experience in the years leading up to menopause, according to a new study.

Perimenopause can begin eight to 10 years before menopause, as estrogen levels fluctuate and start declining but menstrual cycles continue. During this time, and for another year or more after menstruation stops, women may experience hot flashes, insomnia, tiredness, mood swings, forgetfulness, aches and pains, vaginal dryness and pain during sex.

It's estimated that 75 percent to 92 percent of women going through perimenopause have at least some of these symptoms, and about 40 percent find them problematic enough to seek help, the study authors write in the journal Menopause.

Gua sha therapy is one of the most commonly used techniques in Traditional Chinese Medicine, they add, and it's thought to work by enhancing surface circulation and producing an antinflammatory effect.

"Gua sha therapy has been widely applied in clinical practice in China," said coauthor Pei-bei Duan of Jiangsu Province Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Nanjing.

Past studies have found it may prevent or treat many common and frequently-occurring conditions, such as acute or chronic pain, colds, flu, fever, heatstroke, asthma and emphysema, Duan told Reuters Health by email.