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Washington, DC -- A new research study featuring numerous controls and a national data set finds a link between abortion and psychiatric disorders. The study directly contradicts the report the American Psychiatric Association released in August claiming abortion causes no mental health issues for women. The research team found induced abortions result in increased risks for a myriad of mental health problems ranging from anxiety to depression to substance abuse disorders. Ultimately, the authors write that abortion is directly "responsible for more than 10% of the population incidence of alcohol dependence, alcohol abuse, drug dependence, panic disorder, agoraphobia, and bipolar...

An influential psychiatrist who was the host of the popular public radio program “The Infinite Mind” earned at least $1.3 million from 2000 to 2007 giving marketing lectures for drugmakers, income not mentioned on the program. The psychiatrist and radio host, Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin, is the latest in a series of doctors and researchers whose ties to drugmakers have been uncovered by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. Dr. Goodwin, a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, is the first news media figure to be investigated. Dr. Goodwin’s weekly radio programs have often touched on...

If you think they're out to get you, you're not alone. Paranoia, once assumed to afflict only schizophrenics, may be a lot more common than previously thought. According to British psychologist Daniel Freeman, nearly one in four Londoners regularly have paranoid thoughts. Freeman is a paranoia expert at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College and the author of a book on the subject. Experts say there is a wide spectrum of paranoia, from the dangerous delusions that drive schizophrenics to violence to the irrational fears many people have daily. "We are now starting to discover that madness is human...

BELLMORE, New York (CNN) -- Walking through a crowded shopping mall can bring back memories of war. The shifting crowds, the jostle of passers-by and the din can all trigger Army Sgt. Kristofer Goldsmith's post-traumatic stress disorder.

WASHINGTON, Oct 03, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the Mental Health Parity legislation that was approved by the House and signed into law today: "Today, the House acted in a bipartisan way to pass the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act with the aim of addressing the challenges felt by Americans on Main Street. "Among those many challenges is the fact that almost every American family has to grapple with mental illness at some point. "By including the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act in this essential...

Congress is within a whisker of passing a sound and fair-minded bill to require that group health insurance coverage for mental illness and substance abuse be provided on the same terms as coverage for physical illnesses. It would be a shame if the legislation, which caps more than a decade of struggle to achieve mental health parity in insurance coverage, were allowed to die while Congressional energies are focused on the all-consuming economic crisis. The bill would not require employers or health plans to cover mental illness or drug or alcohol abuse. But if they do, the treatment limits and...

Hyperactive children should no longer be given Ritalin, new health guidelines say. Ritalin should no longer be given to hyperactive children. The drug should not be prescribed to children under five and used for older children only when they have severe ADHD or as a last resort, the guidance says.Instead, parents should be taught psychological techniques for changing the behaviour of unruly youngsters diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.The guidelines were issued by the National Institute for health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) and the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health.The directive says parent training and education programmes should be offered...

Young girls who are sexually active are far more likely to suffer from depression than those who remain virgins, according to a controversial new study. American academics found that teenage sex leaves many girls with feelings of guilt and low self-esteem. Following a study of more than 14,000 adolescents aged between 14 and 17, researchers said that these feelings could be directly ascribed to sexual activity, rather than outside influences, such as family difficulties. The findings, which will fuel the debate about sex education in schools, were hailed as 'groundbreaking' by British experts who promote abstinence. But critics said that...

LONDON - A new study in the United Kingdom has revealed that homosexuals are about 50% more likely to suffer from depression and engage in substance abuse than the rest of the population, reports Health24.com. After analyzing 25 earlier studies on sexual orientation and mental health, researchers, in a study published in the medical journal BMC Psychiatry, also found that the risk of suicide jumped over 200% if an individual had engaged in a homosexual lifestyle. These findings strongly support the results of similar studies conducted in the United States, which have unveiled the severe physical and psychological health risks...

Those who knew Robert M. Sanchez say the Metrolink engineer led a solitary life in recent years and was intensely private, sharing little about a past that included tragedy and run-ins with the law. Sanchez died Friday at the helm of a Metrolink train after apparently failing to stop at a signal near Chatsworth and colliding with an oncoming Union Pacific train. The crash, the worst in modern California history, killed 24 others and injured 135. Investigators on Tuesday said they had ruled out train and track failure in the accident, and are close to ruling out signal failure. They...

A new government study published Monday has found that the medicines most often prescribed for schizophrenia in children and adolescents are no more effective than older, less expensive drugs and are more likely to cause some harmful side effects. The standards for treating the disorder should be changed to include some older medications that have fallen out of use, the study’s authors said. The results, being published online by The American Journal of Psychiatry, are likely to alter treatment for an estimated one million children and teenagers with schizophrenia and to intensify a broader controversy in child psychiatry over the...

When Claire, a pixie-faced 6-year-old in a school uniform, heard her older brother, James, enter the family’s Manhattan apartment, she shut her bedroom door and began barricading it so swiftly and methodically that at first I didn’t understand what she was doing. She slid a basket of toys in front of the closed door, then added a wagon and a stroller laden with dolls. She hugged a small stuffed Pegasus to her chest. “Pega always protects me,” she said softly. “Pega, guard the door.” James, then 10, had been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder two years earlier. He was...

MELBOURNE: Scientists have discovered that going veggie could be bad for your brain-with those on a meat-free diet six times more likely to suffer brain shrinkage. Vegans and vegetarians are the most likely to be deficient because the best sources of the vitamin are meat, particularly liver, milk and fish. Vitamin B12 deficiency can also cause anaemia and inflammation of the nervous system. Yeast extracts are one of the few vegetarian foods which provide good levels of the vitamin. The link was discovered by Oxford University scientists who used memory tests, physical checks and brain scans to examine 107 people...

Health Team 9 Psychologist, Dr. Steve O'Brien says new research suggests being consumed with cleanliness can have implications on physical and mental health. Dr. O'Brien says cleanliness is definitely healthy, but the more obsessed someone is with 'grime fighting,' the more likely the immune system is being weakened. He says a weakened immune system can mean people are more likely to get sick, have more problems with allergies and asthma. He says a weakened immune system can also trigger more problems psychologically like anxiety and depression. Consumed with cleanliness?

Vitamin 'may prevent memory loss' (Vitamin B12) A vitamin found in meat, fish and milk may help stave off memory loss in old age, a study has suggested. Older people with lower than average vitamin B12 levels were more than six times more likely to experience brain shrinkage, researchers concluded.

MOST teenage girls love to talk to their friends. And talk. And talk. ... But recently female friendship and girl talk, particularly among adolescents, has drawn growing interest from psychologists and researchers examining the question of how much talking is too much talking. Some studies have found that excessive talking about problems can contribute to emotional difficulties, including anxiety and depression. The term researchers use is “co-rumination” to describe frequently or obsessively discussing the same problem. The behavior is typical among teens — Why didn’t he call? Should I break up with him? And, psychologists say, it has intensified significantly...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Researchers from Spain have found a strong and independent link between cannabis use and the onset of psychosis at a younger age. The association, they say, cannot be explained by chance, and is not related to gender or the use of other drugs. It is, however, related to the amount of cannabis used.

ANOTHER DEADLY combination of too many guns and too little mental healthcare has exploded in Washington state, where a 28-year-old man allegedly killed six people on a two-hour shooting rampage Tuesday. The tragic story could get lost in the week's focus on presidential politics, but the presidential campaign is precisely where these issues should be debated.

ALGER, Wash. -- A shooting rampage in which six people were killed in a series of confrontations from a tiny town to the state's busiest highway ended with the surrender of a troubled man who was recently released from jail, authorities said. The man's mother described him as "desperately mentally ill," said he had been living in the woods and added that a Skagit County sheriff's deputy he's accused of killing had tried to help the family for years. State Department of Corrections officials identified the gunman in Tuesday's deadly spree as Isaac Zamora, 28, who had just served a...

The seemingly nonsensical Zen practice of "thinking about not thinking" could help free the mind of distractions, new brain scans reveal. This suggests Zen meditation could help treat attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (so-called ADD or ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety disorder, major depression and other disorders marked by distracting thoughts. < > "It is important that this type of research be conducted with high scientific standards because it carries a long-standing stigma - perhaps well-deserved? - of being wishy-washy," said researcher Giuseppe Pagnoni, a neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta. "Constructive skepticism should always be welcomed as a great sparring...