Telegraph – Thousands of veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq are likely to develop mental health problems, General Sir Richard Dannatt said. The news came as the Prince of Wales launched an appeal by the charity Combat Stress to raise £30million to pay for better mental health services for veterans across the UK. So far 180,000 British troops have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003. General Dannatt, the former Chief of the General Staff, said that as many as 8,500 former servicemen of these will develop mental health problems. Read article
Washington Post – Children who throw too many tantrums could be diagnosed with “temper dysregulation with dysphoria.” Teenagers who are particularly eccentric might be candidates for treatment for “psychosis risk syndrome.” Men who are just way too interested in sex face being labeled as suffering from “hypersexual disorder.” These are among dozens of proposals being unveiled Wednesday by the American Psychiatric Association in the first complete revision since 1994 of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or “DSM” — the massive tome that has served as the bible for modern psychiatry for more than half a century. Read Article
Ed. – This flies in the face of commonsense, which desperately needs a ‘comeback’. Language is being manipulated here, labels create distance between people when they are used. “It influences [how] research. . . . It affects legal matters, industry and government programs.” In short – affects people’s perspectives and behaviours. “The process” hasn’t really EVER been shielded from pharmacuetical interests, it’s just more blatant now. “in maintaining the old diagnostic criteria”? – It seems to be introducing a whole lot of unnecessary new Criteria.
msnbc – Too much boob tube also makes you weaker, research shows. You’ve accepted the idea that TV makes you dumber. You know there are lots of more edifying things you could be doing with your time than cheering on the contestants on “Survivor.” And unless you’re working out to an exercise video, you know those hours sprawled out in front of the screen are going to make you fatter — not to mention the impact of all that junk food you’ve been tempted to scarf down during the commercial breaks. But you’ll be surprised to learn the host of other bad things TV can do to you. Read Article
BBC – A form of group “talking therapy” is a cheap, effective way to alleviate low back pain, a UK trial has shown. The positive effect was still seen a year after the short six-session therapy programme, The Lancet reported. Read Article
Dialy Mail – Do you live surrounded by clutter – ancient copies of magazines, your children’s old toys, articles you’ve clipped out of newspapers over the years? If you find it hard to throw out things of limited or no value, you could be suffering from hoarding disorder. ‘Hoarding’ is just one of the new mental conditions being added to the psychiatrists’ bible, or the Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders (DSM), to give it its proper name. Read article
Discovery – Chronic lack of sleep could end up costing you more than the price of that extra cup of coffee you need to stay awake.
THE GIST: •Losing sleep may actually shrink some areas of your brain.•Researchers are unsure which comes first: gray matter loss or sleeplessness.•The findings could lead to new treatment plans for insomnia. Read Article
BW — A link appears to exist between attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and anomalies in the brain’s reward system, a new study suggests. Spanish researchers used MRI to scan the brains of 42 children with ADHD and 42 other children with no signs of ADHD and found that the ventral striatum was smaller, particularly on the right side, in those with ADHD. The ventral striatum includes the nucleus accumbens, which maintains levels of motivation when a person starts a task and continues to maintain motivation until the task is completed. Read article
Ed. – An anomaly from whose POV?
The Guardian – Childhood temper tantrums, teenage irritability and binge eating may soon rate as psychiatric disorders in the US, according to proposed changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the bible of the psychiatric profession. The proposals are the product of a 10-year effort to update the handbook, which influences the vast network of American healthcare providers, insurance companies, courts, prisons and universities. At stake are billions of dollars in insurance payments, pharmaceutical sales and medical fees. The proposed revisions, published online today, will be subject to public comment until late April. “It not only determines how mental disorders are diagnosed, it can impact how people see themselves and how we see each other,” Alan Schatzberg, president of the American Psychiatric Association, which publishes the guide, told reporters. “It influences how research is conducted as well as what is researched. It affects legal matters, industry and government programmes.” Read article
Ed. This is ridiculous! Tantrums are PERFECTLY normal – not opinion – FACT. Alan Schatzberg is quite correct. We ran an article about a book written on how mental orders are diagnosed, which discussed it from a cultural perspective. article Also of some relevance is the article stated “the problem is psychiatry’s heavy focus on the biomedical approach, which, research shows, is “fatally flawed,” From at least SOME psychiatrists POV, there isn’t a flaw in sight, lots of money (and patients) coming in, and in making definitions of Psych. diseases one has the temptation of the power of creating new ‘diseases’. Power corrupts.
AP — In the autism world, “Aspies” are sometimes seen as the elites, the ones who are socially awkward, yet academically gifted and who embrace their quirkiness. Now, many Aspies, a nickname for people with Asperger’s syndrome, are upset over a proposal they see as an attack on their identity. Under proposed changes to the most widely used diagnostic manual of mental illness, Asperger’s syndrome would no longer be a separate diagnosis. Read Article
PhysOrg.com – The story hit like a punch to the gut. Montana Lance, a 9-year-old with a toothy grin and a love of anything mechanical, had apparently committed suicide in a restroom at his elementary school in The Colony, Texas. And people wondered how that could even be possible. Why would a 9-year-old take his own life? How would a child that age even know about suicide? Much of the shock comes from the rarity of such an act. Read Article
Ed. – Special-needs teacher, Torey Hayden, speaks of one such case in her book “One Child” which is set in the seventies. And while the children’s characters are composites to protect identities – the problems are real. “Tyler was eight and had already tried to kill herself twice. The last time, the drain cleaner she had drunk had eaten away part of her esophagus. Now her throat bore an artificial tube and numerous red-rimmed surgical scars in ghoulish testimony to her skill.”
Daily Telegraph – Experts say the internet encourages users to dart between pages instead of concentrating on one source such as a book, the traditional staple of student research. This new ‘associative’ thinking leaves the majority incapable of ‘linear’ disciplines like reading and writing at length because their minds have been remoulded to function differently. And within three years, hundreds of thousands of British teenagers will require medication or hospital treatment for mental illnesses caused by excessive web use, psychologists warn. Read article
BBC – While most children like sweets, those with an extra-sweet tooth may be depressed or at higher risk of future alcohol problems, researchers say. The US team report in the journal Addiction that certain children are especially drawn to very sweet tastes. Read article
ScienceDaily — Children from urban areas whose mothers suffer from depression during pregnancy are more likely than others to show antisocial behavior, including violent behavior, later in life. Furthermore, women who are aggressive and disruptive in their own teen years are more likely to become depressed in pregnancy, so that the moms’ history predicts their own children’s antisocial behavior. Read Article
Deutsche Welle – 10,000 Germans commit suicide every year and 1 million people commit suicide annually worldwide. German researchers suggest that certain gene mutations may influence the ability to control suicidal impulses in patients. Read Article
Daily Telegraph – Dismissed by some as an excuse for badly behaved children, the illness aided the success of high-achievers including Lord Byron, Sir Walter Raleigh and Kurt Cobain, the late Nirvana frontman, he believes. Prof Michael Fitzgerald, from Trinity College in Dublin, believes that all three suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Read Article
The Times – In the lives of young people at high risk for developing serious mental illness, heading off that first psychotic episode can mean a world of difference. A new study has found that for a year after it was completed,12 weeks of dietary supplementation with Omega-3 fish oil reduced progression to full-blown psychosis in a large group of adolescents and young adults. The study subjects were young people who did not yet meet the criteria for full-blown mental illness, but whose grip on reality had begun to come loose, prompting them to seek psychiatric care. Read Article
The Huffington Post – Antidepressants are supposed to be the magic bullet for curing depression. But are they? I used to think so. As a clinical psychologist, I used to refer depressed clients to psychiatric colleagues to have them prescribed. But over the past decade, researchers have uncovered mounting evidence that they are not. It seems that we have been misled. Depression is not a brain disease, and chemicals don’t cure it. Read Article
Ed. – Remember, there are no ’side-effects’ – only effects – other than the one that the compound was chosen for.
Digital Journal – A study shows that taking magnesium supplements can boost memory and learning. This study also supports the idea that a magnesium deficiency may cause faster deterioration of memory as we age. In a published study in the journal Neuron, learning and memory improvements of old and young rats were observed by scientists when magnesium dosages were administered. Read article
Ed. – For information on the extent to which our bodies need Magnesium link OR Google: the importance of magnesium. Remember that the body needs minerals like Calcium and Magnesium IN BALANCE. Magnesium is known to be used up when the person/animal is under stress. It affects many different parts of the body, and Restless-legs syndrome can often be mitigated or cured with Magnesium supplements.
Daily Telegraph – Three out of four people in the UK suffer from depression at some point but only a third seek help, according to a new poll. Women are more likely to feel depressed than men, with 80% saying they regularly or occasionally feel down or unable to cope. Money is the biggest cause of depression, with more than half of all people surveyed saying they have felt down about money over the last 12 months. Read Article
ABC – British research suggests that up to 50 per cent of business managers could have psychopathic or similar tendencies. The study carried out by the British Psychological Society says such managers are often articulate and confident, but can be unpredictable, self indulgent and lacking in empathy. Read Article
Telegraph – Advertising spending by the Government has quadrupled since Labour came to power and has risen by almost 40 per cent in the last year, ahead of the general election, it was claimed last night. The Conservatives accused Labour of “raiding” taxpayers’ money to fund their election campaign. New figures uncovered by the Conservatives show that spending on advertising has increased to £232 million, which is a 39 per cent increase on the previous year. Read article
Daily Mail – A test that can detect Alzheimer’s up to 20 years before any symptoms show is being developed by British scientists. The simple and inexpensive eye test could be part of routine examinations by high street opticians in as little as three years, allowing those in middle age to be screened. Dementia experts said it had the power to revolutionise the treatment of Alzheimer’s by making it possible for drugs to be given in the earliest stages. Read Article
NY Times – AMERICANS, particularly if they are of a certain leftward-leaning, college-educated type, worry about our country’s blunders into other cultures. In some circles, it is easy to make friends with a rousing rant about the McDonald’s near Tiananmen Square, the Nike factory in Malaysia or the latest blowback from our political or military interventions abroad. For all our self-recrimination, however, we may have yet to face one of the most remarkable effects of American-led globalization. We have for many years been busily engaged in a grand project of Americanizing the world’s understanding of mental health and illness. We may indeed be far along in homogenizing the way the world goes mad. Read Article
BBC – After all the concern over possible damage to health from using mobile phones, scientists have found a potential benefit from radiation. Their work has been carried out on mice, but it suggests mobiles might protect against Alzheimer’s. Read article
Physorg.com – An increasing number of U.S. adults are being prescribed combinations of antidepressants and antipsychotic medications, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry. In some clinical situations, evidence suggests that more than one psychotropic (affecting the brain or mind) medication may be beneficial, according to background information in the article. … “In routine psychiatric practice, however, patients often receive psychiatric medication combinations that are not well supported by controlled clinical trials,” the authors write. Read Article
