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Housework helps combat anxiety and depression 19 April 2008 From New Scientist Print Edition. FEELING down? You might be able to dust away your distress. Just 20 minutes a week with the vacuum cleaner or mop is enough to help banish those blues, and sport works even better. That's the message from Mark Hamer and his colleagues at University College London, who wanted to find out what benefits arise from different types of physical activity. They examined data from questionnaires filled in by almost 20,000 Scottish people as part of the Scottish Health Surveys, carried out every few years. Some...

Prayers couldn't save man from himself Tuesday, April 1, 2008 9:55 PM By Randy Ludlow THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Ultimately, the prayers of others could not save Marc Kidby from himself. On Feb. 8, Ohio University's Baker Center was evacuated as he threatened to jump from a fifth-floor ledge inside the student union. A group of students prayed for his safety, writing inspirational notes that a campus police lieutenant read to him. Their prayers were answered. After four hours, Kidby left the ledge. On Feb. 18, he prepared to jump from the sixth floor of the Athens city parking garage. Police...

WASHINGTON, March 18, 2008 – Help for servicemembers coping with the effects of wartime service is just a phone call or a mouse click away, thanks to a nationwide network of mental health professionals. “Give an Hour” is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that has created a national network of mental health professionals providing free counseling services to returning veterans and their loved ones, according to Barbara Romberg, the group’s founder and president. “The participating mental health professionals will offer a wide range of services including individual, marital and family therapy, substance abuse counseling, and treatment for post traumatic stress...

Women may be at risk of mental health breakdowns if they have abortions, a medical royal college has warned. The Royal College of Psychiatrists says women should not be allowed to have an abortion until they are counselled on the possible risk to their mental health. This overturns the consensus that has stood for decades that the risk to mental health of continuing with an unwanted pregnancy outweighs the risks of living with the possible regrets of having an abortion. MPs will shortly vote on a proposal to reduce the upper time limit for abortions “for social reasons” from 24...

When the Gallup pollsters asked Americans what they thought about their own mental health, they were intrigued by the difference between Democrats and Republicans. While 58 percent of Republicans reported having excellent mental health, only 38 percent of Democrats described themselves that way. The study was no surprise to D. Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., a noted psychiatrist and author of a controversial book that makes the clinical case liberalism is a mental illness. "Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of...

Navy Chaplain Dick Pusateri has witnessed the stress of war on the faces of troops put in harm's way daily, in the strained relationships of families facing long deployments and the confessions of men shaken by the human cost of war. For too long, chaplains were among the few people combat Marines felt they could turn to in a crisis. The Navy and Marine Corps aim to change that by sending teams of mental health professionals to the frontlines this month, after studies showed a jump in the past five years in cases of combat-related mental health disorders, primarily post-traumatic...

Veterans have no legal right to specific types of medical care, the Bush administration argues in a lawsuit accusing the government of illegally denying mental health treatment to some troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The arguments, filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, strike at the heart of a lawsuit filed on behalf of veterans that claims the health care system for returning troops provides little recourse when the government rejects their medical claims. The Department of Veterans Affairs is making progress in increasing its staffing and screening veterans for combat-related stress, Justice Department lawyers said. But their...

Middle age is truly miserable, according to a study using data from 80 countries showing that depression is most common among men and women in their forties. The British and U.S. researchers found that happiness for people ranging from Albania to Zimbabwe follows a U-shaped curve where life begins cheerful before turning tough during middle age and then returning to the joys of youth in the golden years. Previous studies have shown that psychological well-being remained flat throughout life but the new findings to be published in the journal Social Science & Medicine suggest we are in for a topsy-turvy...

Lack Of Imagination In Older Adults Linked To Declining Memory ScienceDaily (Jan. 8, 2008) — Most children are able to imagine their future selves as astronauts, politicians or even superheroes; however, many older adults find it difficult to recollect past events, let alone generate new ones. A new Harvard University study reveals that the ability of older adults to form imaginary scenarios is linked to their ability to recall detailed memories. According to the study, episodic memory, which represents our personal memories of past experiences, "allows individuals to project themselves both backward and forward in subjective time." Therefore, in order...

Gun Lobby Hijacks Bill Intended to Improve Gun Buyer Background Checks Legislation Passed by Congress Would Revive Failed Multi-Million-Dollar Program to Restore Gun Privileges of Persons Currently Ineligible to Possess Firearms Because of Mental Health Disability WASHINGTON, DC--Leading national gun violence prevention organizations the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Legal Community Against Violence, and the Violence Policy Center today warned that a bill intended to improve the records available to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)--the national system used to screen gun buyers--has been hijacked by the gun lobby and would now do far more harm than...

As of Monday, annual checkups for the nearly half a million Massachusetts children on Medicaid will carry a new requirement: Doctors must offer simple questionnaires to detect warning signs of possible mental health problems, from autism in toddlers to depression in teens. The checklists vary by age but ask questions about children's behavior - whether they are spending more time alone, seeming to have less fun, having trouble sleeping - that are designed to trigger discussion between parents and doctors. The conversations may or may not lead to a referral to a specialist

IOWA CITY, IOWA It's the time of year when the Frank Capra classic "It's a Wonderful Life" is aired on cable channels at all hours. You know the story: How George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, arrives on a bridge in a fit of despair, ready to take his own life. How the angel Clarence steps in and gives him a glimpse of what Bedford Falls would be like if he had never existed. How in the end the town comes together to save George from financial ruin, and the angel Clarence gets his wings. Well, after the death of...

The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder by Allan V. Horwitz and Jerome C. Wakefield Oxford University Press, 287 pp., $29.95 Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness by Christopher Lane Yale University Press, 263 pp., $27.50 Let Them Eat Prozac: The Unhealthy Relationship Between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression by David Healy New York University Press, 351 pp., $18.95 (paper) 1. During the summer of 2002, The Oprah Winfrey Show was graced by a visit from Ricky Williams, the Heisman Trophy holder and running back extraordinaire of the Miami Dolphins. Williams was there to...

Don't worry, be happy: If you're a Republican, those words should be easy to follow. A roundup of Gallup health polls over the past four years finds that Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to report having excellent mental health. The survey found that 58 percent of Republicans polled reported having excellent mental health. Only 38 percent of Democrats and 43 percent of Independents reported the same. The study concluded it was unclear why there was such a strong correlation, but the relationship between party affiliation and mental health was virtually constant even within categories of income, age, gender...

Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to rate their mental health as excellent, according to data from the last four November Gallup Health and Healthcare polls,” Frank Newport of Gallup informs us: "...Fifty-eight percent of Republicans report having excellent mental health, compared to 43 percent of independents and 38 percent of Democrats. This relationship between party identification and reports of excellent mental health persists even within categories of income, age, gender, church attendance, and education."

The Gallup organization released a report this morning that explains much about our politics and our self-perception. In Republicans Report Much Better Mental Health Than Others, Gallup researcher Frank Newport explains how the data from four different Gallup Health and Healthcare polls describe Republicans of every socio-economic stripe as rating their mental health better than do either Independents or Democrats. Significantly better. According to the report, Republicans' mental health is described as Excellent by 58% of respondents, a rating achieved by 43% of Independents and only 38% of Democrats. Conversely, almost twice as many Democrats describe their condition as Fair/Poor...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- States appear to be taking more action to keep guns out of the hands of people with mental health problems in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, new figures show. Submissions of mentally ill patients' records to the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System for gun buyers have more than doubled since the massacre in April, the Justice Department announced Thursday. Currently, states are not required to send reports of mental health problems, which would prohibit buyers from purchasing a gun. But after the shootings -- when a student with a history of mental health...

RINCETON, NJ -- Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to rate their mental health as excellent, according to data from the last four November Gallup Health and Healthcare polls. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans report having excellent mental health, compared to 43% of independents and 38% of Democrats. This relationship between party identification and reports of excellent mental health persists even within categories of income, age, gender, church attendance, and education. The basic data -- based on an aggregated sample of more than 4,000 interviews conducted since 2004 -- are straightforward.

Educators and psychologists have long feared that children entering school with behavior problems were doomed to fall behind in the upper grades. But two new studies suggest that those fears are exaggerated. One concluded that kindergartners who are identified as troubled do as well academically as their peers in elementary school. The other found that children with attention deficit disorders suffer primarily from a delay in brain development, not from a deficit or flaw. Experts say the findings of the two studies, being published today in separate journals, could change the way scientists, teachers and parents understand and manage children...

WASHINGTON - People who tend to the elderly, change diapers and serve up food and drinks have the highest rates of depression among U.S. workers. Overall, 7 percent of full-time workers battled depression in the past year, according to a government report available Saturday. Women were more likely than men to have had a major bout of depression, and younger workers had higher rates of depression than their older colleagues. Almost 11 percent of personal care workers — which includes child care and helping the elderly and severely disabled with their daily needs — reported depression lasting two weeks or...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 8, 2007Wellington, New Zealand (LifeNews.com) -- The leading pro-life group in New Zealand has won the first court battle on its challenge of a 1977 abortion law. Right to Life of New Zealand took the law to the nation's high court saying that it was intended to provide abortion guidelines but has, instead, been used to promote unlimited abortions for any reason.Right To Life New Zealand filed suit against the Abortion Supervisory Committee saying the agency has misinterpreted the law. The measure was approved "with the objectives of stopping abortion on demand and to provide effective...

WASHINGTON — Thousands of U.S. soldiers in Iraq — as many as 10 a day — are being discharged by the military for mental health reasons. But the Pentagon isn't blaming the war. It says the soldiers had "pre-existing" conditions that disqualify them for treatment by the government. Many soldiers and Marines being discharged on this basis actually suffer from combat-related problems, experts say. But by classifying them as having a condition unrelated to the war, the Defense Department is able to quickly get rid of troops having trouble doing their work while also saving the expense of caring for...

Source: Loyola University Health System Date: September 30, 2007 Does Your Mood Take A Nosedive Each November? Science Daily — If you notice that your mood, energy level and motivation take a nosedive each November only to return to normal in April, you may have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), according to Loyola University Health System doctors. “This condition, characterized by depression, exhaustion and lack of interest in people and regular activities, interferes with a person’s outlook on life and ability to function properly,” said Dr. Angelos Halaris, chair of Loyola’s department of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences. But people should not...

AMSTERDAM, Sept. 21 -- Type 2 diabetes may be linked to mental health disorders, but age and gender may be contributing factors, according to two separate studies. Action Points * Explain to patients that it is not known whether type 2 diabetes causes mental health disorders or if they are co-morbidities. * These studies were published as abstracts and presented at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary as they have not yet been reviewed and published in a peer-reviewed publication. Symptoms of depression or psychological stress were associated with increased risk of type 2...

EARLIER this summer, the American Psychiatric Association announced that a 27-member panel will update its official diagnostic handbook, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The fifth edition, which is scheduled to come out in 2012, is likely to add new mental illnesses and refine some existing ones. High on the agenda will be the controversial diagnosis of childhood bipolar disorder. Recent data show that office visits by children and adolescents treated for the condition jumped 40-fold from 1994 to 2003. We still don’t know how much of this increase represents long-overdue care of mentally ill youth and how...

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The number of American children and adolescents treated for bipolar disorder increased 40-fold from 1994 to 2003, researchers report today in the most comprehensive study of the controversial diagnosis. Experts say the number has almost certainly risen further since 2003. Many experts theorize that the jump reflects that doctors are more aggressively applying the diagnosis to children, and not that the incidence of the disorder has increased. But the magnitude of the increase surprises many psychiatrists. They say it is likely to intensify the debate over the validity of the diagnosis, which has shaken child psychiatry. Bipolar disorder is characterized...

Source: Washington University in St. Louis Date: August 26, 2007 Gambling Addiction Assessment Tool Applies Equally For Different Races Science Daily — "With African-Americans and other minority groups having both problem and pathological gambling rates that are 2-3 times higher than Caucasian gamblers, accurate diagnosis is essential to treat gambling addiction," says Renee Cunningham-Williams, Ph.D., a leading gambling addictions expert and visiting associate professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis. Unfortunately, as with other mental health disorders, African-American and other minority groups receive disparate care from symptom recognition and diagnosis through treatment. In a first step to...

Too many people are being diagnosed with depression when they are merely unhappy, a senior psychiatrist said today. Normal emotions are sometimes being treated as mental illness because the threshold for clinical depression is too low, according to Professor Gordon Parker. Prof Parker said depression had become a "catch-all" diagnosis, driven by clever marketing from pharmaceutical companies and leading to the burgeoning prescription of antidepressant drugs. Writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), he said the drugs were being marketed beyond their "true utility" in cases in which people were unhappy rather than clinically depressed.

At the camp for sick children where he worked as a counselor, Jeremy Davis was known for his extraordinary empathy, his ability to intuit the kind of support his charges might need. In the days before he died, his concern for a brother who suffers from sickle cell anemia seemed to warp and grow inside his head. He put on his brother's clothes, trying to inhabit his sibling's world and take the mantle of his pain. He could not sleep or eat and began disappearing on rambling walks. His family took him to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, initiating...

Love 'really hurts' Last Updated: 2:51am BST 07/08/2007 Being in love does make you sick, scientists believe. According to researchers at Imperial College London, the ups and downs of romance can be dangerous. "Love has some obvious physical effects," said Professor Martin Cowie. "Pupils dilate, palms become sweaty and the heart rate increases. Large amounts of adrenaline are running through our system which does cause problems," he added. Stress-related illnesses at work arise from similar physical conditions, Prof Cowie says. "We have seen a big rise in people complaining of flu-like symptoms over a long period of time," he said....

Caitlyn & Marguerite sat knee to knee in a sunny room at the Hawks Camp in Park City, Utah. On one wall was a white board with these questions: What’s your favorite vacation and why? What’s your favorite thing about yourself? If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Caitlyn, who is 13, and Marguerite, who is 16 (I’ve used only their first names to protect their privacy), held yellow sheets of paper on which they had written their answers. It was the third day of the weeklong camp, late for icebreakers. But the Hawks are kids with...

Women in their 40s are more likely to drink potentially harmful amounts on a night out than younger people, researchers in Cardiff have found. While men's drinking peaked in their late 20s, women's alcohol intake reached its heights among the over-40s. In a year, 893 people were breathalysed late at night in the city centre for the Cardiff University study. It found 40% of men and 20% of women had drunk over a level which put them more at risk of injury and ill-health. Researchers said their findings came as "something of a surprise". Binge-drinking is defined as eight units...

For Immediate Release Media review copies and interviews available on request Contact: Fred Baughman, MD fredbaughmanmd@cox.net Author: The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes "Patients" of Normal Children http://www.trafford.com/4dcgi/view-item?item=9628 Is your child taking Ritalin? Is there a plague of psychiatric diseases in children? This is a true story. On March 21, 2000, fourteen-year old Matthew Smith was having a good time skateboarding with two of his cousins. Suddenly, he collapsed to the floor and started turning blue. His cousins called 911 but the paramedics couldn’t revive him. At the hospital he was pronounced dead from a heart attack – a heart...

St. Petersburg Times The 'atypical' dilemma Skyrocketing numbers of kids are prescribed powerful antipsychotic drugs. Is it safe? Nobody knows. By ROBERT FARLEY, Times Staff Writer Published July 29, 2007 [[[[[[[[FB: Saying of the prescribing of antipsychotic drugs: “Is it safe? Nobody knows” is surely not the fact of the matter. Those who have orchestrated the “skyrocketing” prescriptions of these drugs know, as they do so, they are dreadful brain body poisons—nothing but. I say “nothing but” because there is no defined disease = disorder = physical abnormality (gross, microscopic of chemical) of the brain or body that any antipsychotic...

Left-handers more at risk of mental illness By Laura Clout Last Updated: 1:49am BST 31/07/2007 Left-handed people may have an increased risk of developing schizophrenia, scientists have found. An international group of scientists, led by a team at Oxford University, have identified a gene that seems to increase the chance of being left-handed. The researchers said that the same gene - called LRRTM1 - may slightly increase the risk of developing the brain disorder. Schizophrenia is a highly complex condition that results in impaired perception and thought, it affects around one in every 100 people. Although little is known about...

Forgiveness is available to those suffering from the silent sin of abortion. One in three women will have an abortion by the age of 45, and half of those will have a second abortion. Despite the church's view on this controversial topic, more than 70 percent of these women consider themselves religious or Christian. In her ministry work, author Mary Comm has learned there are few places for people to turn in the Christian community following the trauma of having or participating in an abortion, leaving them vulnerable and susceptible to depression, shame, addiction and other negative coping mechanisms now...

Is it safe? Nobody knows.More and more, parents at wit's end are begging doctors to help them calm their aggressive children or control their kids with ADHD. More and more, doctors are prescribing powerful antipsychotic drugs. In the past seven years, the number of Florida children prescribed such drugs has increased some 250 percent. Last year, more than 18,000 state kids on Medicaid were given prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs. Even children as young as 3 years old. Last year, 1,100 Medicaid children under 6 were prescribed antipsychotics, a practice so risky that state regulators say it should be used only...

Binge-drinking 'causes drop in omega-3 levels' By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent Last Updated: 2:07am BST 25/07/2007 Binge-drinking reduces levels of essential fatty acids which play crucial roles in concentration and memory, scientists have found. Research shows that not only do heavy drinkers need to consume more omega-3 essential fatty acids (EFAs), but that their diets contain lower amounts of the important nutrients. Omega-3 is broken down into the fatty acids which form the structure of brain cell membranes and carry electrical signals between brain cells. Oily fish such as mackerel are a good source of omega-3, which has been shown...

Source: University of California - Los Angeles Date: July 17, 2007 Scientists Isolate Chemical In Curry That May Help Immune System Clear Plaques Found In Alzheimer's Science Daily — Researchers have isolated bisdemethoxycurcumin, the active ingredient of curcuminoids -- a natural substance found in turmeric root -- that may help boost the immune system in clearing amyloid beta, a peptide that forms the plaques found in Alzheimer's disease. Using blood samples from Alzheimer's disease patients, researchers found that bisdemethoxycurcumin boosted immune cells called macrophages to clear amyloid beta. Ground turmeric in small bowl. (Credit: iStockphoto/Jenny Horne)In addition, researchers identified the...

...But did you know that the Los Angeles County Jail houses the largest psychiatric population in the country? That's not justice. That's emblematic of a national emergency. Before the 1960s, people with mental illnesses were generally cared for in institutional settings, mostly state-run psychiatric facilities. Many advocates correctly saw this as "warehousing" people who could be cared for in less restrictive settings. Federal legislation and the courts powered a move toward deinstitutionalization, calling on states and counties to provide resources for social services, vocational rehabilitation and treatment services. The introduction of effective antipsychotic medications also drove the trend toward deinstitutionalization....

We've learned about "profiling" from watching crime dramas on television. Profiling is the collecting and recording of a person's behavior, and then analyzing psychological characteristics to predict or assess reactivity in certain situations. Profiling is also used to identify a particular group or kind of people, like consumers. It determines personality types and future behaviors. Law enforcement profilers identify how and when a felon is likely to commit his next crime. In newspapers and magazines, reporters perform background profiles as a part of feature stories by detailing a person's history and notable behaviors. In the corporate world, profiling has become...

An Iraq war veteran will not be court-martialed for leaving his post without permission for 15 months to undergo treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, the Army said. Instead of facing a bad conduct discharge _ a felony punishable by up to a year in military prison _ Spc. Eugene Cherry admitted he was absent without leave and was granted a general discharge, rather than an honorable discharge, the Army said Friday. "It really wasn't about proving I went AWOL _ that's a given," Cherry, who was to be tried by court-martial Monday, said in a telephone interview from Fort Drum...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new study finds that the number of requests for suicides declines when patients are successfully treated for depression. The research could have a significant impact on the assisted suicide debate as pro-life advocates have long said patients mostly seek help killing themselves when coping with severe depression. Group Health researchers conducted the study by examining more than 100,000 patients treated for depression and found that suicide attempts declined during the first month of treatment. Suicide attempts were most likely the month before the start of treatment and fell by at least 50 percent the month...

By his own admission, Christopher Doyle has “trouble disengaging from work.” Last year he didn’t take at least a week’s worth of paid time off due him from his job at American Century Investments. Welcome to the growing membership in the I’m-not-using-all-my-vacation club. Although about one-fourth of U.S. workers have no paid vacation days at all, most workers do. And a survey released last week by Yahoo HotJobs indicated that 46 percent of those workers didn’t use all their paid time off last year. Doyle, who leads the communications group at American Century, said the company’s generous holiday and paid-time-off...

Do you have a really bad memory, or past heartache, that you would prefer to forget? Researchers at Harvard and McGill University (in Montreal) are working on an amnesia drug that blocks or deletes bad memories. The technique seems to allow psychiatrists to disrupt the biochemical pathways that allow a memory to be recalled. In a new study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, the drug propranolol is used along with therapy to "dampen" memories of trauma victims. They treated 19 accident or rape victims for ten days, during which the patients were asked to describe their memories of...

CHICAGO - More than 30 percent of American adults have abused alcohol or suffered from alcoholism at some point in their lives, and few have received treatment, according to a new government study. Alcoholics who got treatment first received it, on average, at about age 30 — eight years after they developed dependence on drinking, researchers reported. "That's a big lag," especially combined with the fact that only 24 percent of alcoholics reported receiving any treatment at all, said study co-author Bridget Grant of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The treatment rate for alcoholics was slightly less...

Distorted Body Image Could Be Linked To Abnormal Brain Function 29 Jun 2007 Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), or dysmorphophobia, is a hidden disease that affects nearly three million Americans. It is hidden because patients with the disease often go to great lengths to hide from the world, often altering their appearance through plastic surgeries, wrongly perceiving themselves to be ugly or having a hideous physical flaw. Sanjaya Saxena, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, is leading a study to identify abnormalities in brain structure and activity that are associated with...

Background News "This is very exciting because it suggests that PAK inhibitors could be used for therapeutic purposes to reverse already established mental impairments in Fragile X children." FOUNDING EDITOR'S NOTE [Breaking Christian News]: We don't often post fulfillments of prophetic words. But some words are so very specific, and the fulfillment may also be specific, that to NOT post [it], would be a disservice to our readers. Kim Clement spoke of Autism in a word we posted on December 23rd from a December 8th session given in Portland, Oregon. We've included the portions of Kim's word—specific to autism—below. You...

Finding could set the stage for ways to reverse damage in sufferers of the inherited fragile X syndromeIn a case of life imitating art, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) reported today that they had successfully reversed mental retardation in mice, just as scientists did in the classic 1966 novel Flowers for Algernon. In the book by Daniel Keyes, scientists use experimental surgery—first tested on a mouse named Algernon—to dramatically boost the intelligence of a mentally retarded janitor named Charlie Gordon. Now M.I.T. scientists report in Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences USA that they ameliorated...