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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...

Denial Healthy? Not Necessarily by: Bethany Stotts, August 28, 2008 Five academics have challenged the conventional wisdom that silence in the face of emotional trauma is an unhealthy reaction. “Contrary to common assumption, this study demonstrates that individuals who choose not to express their thoughts and feelings in the immediate aftermath of collective trauma are capable of coping successfully and in fact are more likely to do so than individuals who do express,” write five professors who hail from the University of California at Irvine, the University of Buffalo, and the University of California at Santa Barbara. Their research tracked...

Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto and himself a leading contender for the country's presidency, was suffering from severe mental illness as recently as last year, it has been reported. Mr Zardari used the medical reports to successfully fight a now defunct English High Court case Mr Zardari, co-chair of the Pakistan People's Party, was diagnosed with a range of psychiatric illnesses, including dementia, major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. The illnesses were said to be linked to the fact that he has spent 11 of the past 20 years in Pakistani prisons...

Our insane mental health system Faith-based finalists: The poorest among us are those who’ve lost their minds, according to psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey | Marvin Olasky I first heard E. Fuller Torrey critique America's mental health non-system nearly two decades ago—and the evidence of breakdown has only increased since then. The mentally ill now form probably half of the homeless and prison populations. Exploited and victimized by others, and often terrorized by their own phobias, they are a threat to themselves and to others, causing one-tenth of the homicides in the United States. Torrey, a psychiatrist who specializes in helping...

Report: Hospital Patient Died After Being Left in Chair for 22 Hours Tuesday, August 19, 2008 E-Mail Print Share: RALEIGH, N.C. — Investigators say a North Carolina mental patient died after nurses at a state mental hospital left him in a chair for 22 hours and failed to feed him or help him to the bathroom, a newspaper reported Tuesday. Security video showed Steven H. Sabock, 50, as he died in April after he choked on medication at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro and a nurse stood nearby without helping, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported. The newspaper said the...

A member of the American Psychological Association and one of the trained psychologists asked by the APA to examine their report on the long-term psychological effects of abortion on women, has concluded that it is nothing more than a "politically-motivated exercise" in support of legal abortion. Rachel M. MacNair, Ph.D. wrote that after close examination of it, she saw "no evidence" that the APA's report "was actually interested in keeping up with real science." The report, published earlier this month, claimed to have examined all the available research literature since 1989. It concluded that there were no significant negative psychological...

On June 20, 2006, William Bruce approached his mother as she worked at her desk at home and struck killing blows to her head with a hatchet. Two months earlier, William, a 24-year-old schizophrenic, had been released from Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta, Maine, against the recommendations of his doctors. "Very dangerous indeed for release to the community," wrote one in William's record. But the doctor's notes also show that William's release was backed by government-funded patient advocates. According to medical records, the advocates -- none of them physicians -- appear to have fought for his right to refuse treatment,...

On June 20, 2006, William Bruce approached his mother as she worked at her desk at home and struck killing blows to her head with a hatchet. Two months earlier, William, a 24-year-old schizophrenic, had been released from Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta, Maine, against the recommendations of his doctors. "Very dangerous indeed for release to the community," wrote one in William's record. But the doctor's notes also show that William's release was backed by government-funded patient advocates. According to medical records, the advocates -- none of them physicians -- appear to have fought for his right to refuse treatment,...

Against Depression, a Sugar Pill Is Hard to Beat Placebos Improve Mood, Change Brain Chemistry in Majority of Trials of Antidepressants By Shankar Vedantam Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, May 7, 2002; Page A01 A new analysis has found that in the majority of trials conducted by drug companies in recent decades, sugar pills have done as well as -- or better than -- antidepressants.Companies have had to conduct numerous trials to get two that show a positive result, which is the Food and Drug Administration's minimum for approval. What's more, the sugar pills, or placebos, cause profound changes in...

ScienceDaily (Aug. 15, 2008) — A study of 439 U.S. and Mexican-born Latinas seeking pregnancy and postpartum services at public health clinics in San Antonio uncovered elevated levels of depression among the more "Americanized" women, report researchers from The University of Texas School of Public Health and The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. "Americanization" or acculturation is the process by which immigrants adopt the lifestyle and customs of their host nation, and key indicators include preferred language and place of birth, lead author Marivel Davila said. Davila is a graduate student at the UT School of...

The United States Supreme Court stated in Gonzales v. Carhart that “it is unexceptionable that some women will come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained … severe depression and loss of esteem can follow.” Abortion is a difficult and complex decision, because it has deep impact upon the woman, her own mental health and well-being, her physical health and well-being, her relationship with the child in utero, her relationship with her husband and/or relationship with her sexual partner, other family members, as well as society as a whole. As a scientist, medical...

August 13, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A report from the American Psychological Association (APA) published this week claims that there is no meaningful connection between abortion and subsequent psychological disturbances in women. When a woman has a negative psychological consequence, says the report, it is likely only to be in cases where a "wanted" child was aborted for eugenic reasons. "Among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy the relative risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single elective first-trimester abortion than if they deliver that pregnancy," the report says. The study's conclusions dovetail neatly...

Teen Screen Lawsuit Advances: Federal Court Affirms Family’s Right to Sue School for Subjecting Teen to Mental Health Test Without Parental Consent SOUTH BEND, Ind.—A federal court has given the green light to a civil rights lawsuit filed by Rutherford Institute attorneys in defense of a 15-year-old Indiana student who was subjected by school officials to a controversial mental health examination without the knowledge or consent of her parents. In ruling that the lawsuit filed on behalf of Chelsea Rhoades and her parents, Teresa and Michael, may proceed to trial, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana...

OSLO, Norway, August 7, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A 2008 study by the University of Oslo in Norway has found that young adult women who have had abortions are more likely to become depressed.The study, which involved 768 women between the ages of 15 and 27, was carried out in order to "investigate whether induced abortion was a risk factor for subsequent depression."According to Willy Pedersen from the University's Department of Sociology and Human Geography, who conducted the study, past studies have suffered in accuracy due to bad design, specifically a lack of control of "compounding factors." The new study strove...

Freudian Falloff by: Bethany Stotts, August 07, 2008 Are Freudian analyses of the human mind becoming a thing of the past? A new study released this month finds that psychiatric practices are increasingly opting for medical therapies over the traditional “couch talks” that once symbolized this mental health profession. Those consumers continuing to seek counseling are increasingly moving away from the psychiatry for counseling, preferring more non-medical approaches—partially because “managed care” such as HMO’s reimburse psychiatrists more for a 15 minute prescription session than for 45 minutes of psychotherapy. Two researchers from Columbia University and Beth Israel Medical Center found...

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Jan 01, 2003 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Cocaine appears to damage and perhaps destroy the brain cells associated with the "high" it produces, researchers reported Wednesday. "...the specific neurons interacting with cocaine are disturbed, damaged and maybe destroyed in the drug-use process."

Peter Tubic ignored a $50 parking fine in 2004, and on Monday, it cost him his $245,000 house. In what city officials believe is the first case of its kind, the city foreclosed on Tubic's house on W. Verona Court after repeated attempts to collect the fine - which over the years had escalated to $2,600 - had failed. "Our goal isn't to acquire parcels," said Jim Klajbor, special deputy city treasurer. "Our goal is to just collect taxes. . . . It is only as a last resort that we would pursue . . . foreclosure." Milwaukee County Circuit...

HARTFORD -- Using a unique state law, police in Connecticut have disarmed dozens of gun owners based on suspicions that they might harm themselves or others. The state's gun seizure law is considered the first and only law in the country that allows the confiscation of a gun before the owner commits an act of violence. Police and state prosecutors can obtain seizure warrants based on concerns about someone's intentions. State police and 53 police departments have seized more than 1,700 guns since the law took effect in October 1999, according to a new report to the legislature. There are...

During slumber, our brain engages in data analysis, from strengthening memories to solving problems ...Until the mid-1950s, scientists generally assumed that the brain was shut down while we snoozed. Although German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus had evidence in 1885 that sleep protects simple memories from decay, for decades researchers attributed the effect to a passive protection against interference. We forget things, they argued, because all the new information coming in pushes out the existing memories. But because there is nothing coming in while we get shut-eye, we simply do not forget as much. Then, in 1953, the late physiologists Eugene Aserinsky...

Are you really lazy? Would you rather just sit around the house and watch TV all day instead of actually producing and trying to contribute to society? In the political world many conservatives would call those people Democrats but they may have now finally have found an excuse for their lifestyle of living off other people's hard work and money. It is the laziness gene. New Excuses for Workers: Laziness Gene is Discovered Is there really a laziness gene? Dr. Sanjay Gupta explained it this way on CNN, "Well, there is some preliminary research now actually looking at this very...

Less able to achieve their life goals, women end up unhappier than men later in life, even though they start out happier, a new survey of Americans suggests. Early in adult life, women are more likely than men to fulfill their family life and financial aspirations, leading to greater overall happiness...

Female transsexuals may have their genes to blame for feeling like they belong to the wrong sex. Scientists identified a specific gene variant in female-to-male transsexuals that meant they had been exposed to higher levels of sex hormones during their early development. Almost half the female-to-male transsexuals in the study carried the gene variant.

Genome deletions raise chances of developing mental illness.Rare genetic changes associated with a heightened risk of schizophrenia have been revealed by two independent studies.The surveys have identified sections of the human genome that, when deleted, can elevate the risk of developing schizophrenia by up to 15 times compared with the general population.Schizophrenia is a serious mental health problem and affects around 1 in every 100 people at some point during their lives. Genetic factors are thought to account for more than 70% of cases. But unlike many diseases with a genetic basis — and in common with many other psychiatric...

Two large studies of schizophrenia patients have yielded the most convincing evidence yet that the disease can be caused by mistakes in genes. The researchers linked a much higher risk for schizophrenia to three chromosomal regions that are missing chunks of DNA. Although only a tiny fraction of patients carried these particular glitches, similar errors may help explain other cases of the disease. Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder involving hallucinations and delusions that affects as many as 1 in 100 people; it often runs in families. So far, searches for common genes linked to schizophrenia have been unsuccessful. In...

In May 2008, the Gallup Organization asked 1,200 American adults how many days in the past week they had felt "outraged." The average number of angry days was 1.17, and 54% of those surveyed said none. Only one in 20 reported being outraged every day. Despite the litany of horrors presented to us daily by campaigning politicians, most of us appear to be doing really quite well managing our anger. ... Only one major group in the population has gotten angrier: people who call themselves "very liberal." While conservatives, moderates and nonextreme liberals all have seen their average levels of...

Chicago - Middle-aged married people who worry a lot have at least one thing to look forward to: Their risk of eventually developing Alzheimer's disease may be significantly less than carefree people of the same age who remain single. That's the take-home message from two studies presented jointly Wednesday in Chicago at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease. One study followed 1,449 men and women in Finland for an average of 21 years. It found that those who had a partner in midlife were about 50% less likely to develop dementia in late life - ages 65 to 79 -...

WASHINGTON – The Internet is where we spend more and more of our time. But for a growing number of people, it’s an out-of-control habit instead of a necessary part of life. Internet addiction -- an online-related compulsive behavior that interferes with normal living and causes severe stress on family, friends, loved ones and work -- is a psychological and behavioral problem that is spreading around the world, experts say. Kimberly Young, clinical director of the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery and author of the book “Caught in the Net,” said that about 5 percent to 10 percent of Americans...

Two groups of researchers hunting for schizophrenia genes on a larger scale than ever before have found new genetic variants that point toward a different understanding of the disease. The variants discovered by the two groups, one led by Dr. Kari Stefansson of Decode Genetics in Iceland and the other by Dr. Pamela Sklar of the Massachusetts General Hospital, are all rare. They substantially increase the risk of schizophrenia in those affected but account for a tiny fraction of the total number of cases. This finding, coupled with the general lack of success so far in finding common variants for...

BERKELEY _ A nude woman running in and out of traffic lanes on the I-80 freeway near Gilman Street disrupted traffic early this morning and required the California Highway Patrol, the Berkeley Police and ultimately, the Berkeley Fire Department to handle the situation. . . .

A new drug halts the devastating progress of Alzheimer’s disease, say British scientists. It is said to be more than twice as effective as current treatments. A daily capsule of rember, as the drug is known, stops Alzheimer’s disease progressing by as much as 81 per cent, according to trial results. Patients with the brain disorder had no significant decline in their mental function over a 19-month period. ‘We appear to be bringing the worst affected parts of the brain functionally back to life,’ said Dr Claude Wischik, who led the research. It is the first time medication has been...

Drugs designed to fight cholesterol might also prevent Alzheimer’s and other dementia Older people taking statin drugs are less likely to develop dementia than their counterparts who don’t take the pills, a study in the July 29 Neurology suggests. While the provocative finding offers hope that the cholesterol-reducing drugs might help against Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, scientists say this study is unlikely to be the last word on the topic. Indeed, it may just fuel an already lively debate over statins’ potential effect on dementia. Some research has hinted at benefits, while other studies, particularly in people...

The senator's bill says a 'mentally defective' vet can buy a gun unless a judge finds him dangerous. WASHINGTON - Since a severely mentally ill student went on a shooting spree at Virginia Tech last year, killing 32 people before turning a gun on himself, Congress and several states have worked to tighten rules on who can legally purchase a firearm. But a push by U.S. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina would prevent the federal veterans agency from adding the names of veterans declared "mentally defective" to a background check database unless the agency goes through the judicial system....

A number of polls in diverse locations indicate that mental illness may be far more pervasive than most experts have thought. A poll conducted by Time magazine and the Rockefeller Foundation claims to have found that 88 percent of people support bigger government. “People are scared,” said Time magazine Managing Editor Richard Stengel. “Personal responsibility is too big of a burden for the average guy. He needs the comfort of a ‘big brother’ who’ll be there to tuck him in at night, so to speak.” “It’s the government’s job to take care of the people,” declared poll respondent, Melissa Pewler....

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey visited Fort Bliss July 13 and said that an innovative program there to treat post-traumatic stress disorders ought to be replicated at other locations across the Army.

Climate change deniers have been having a field day with a recent report of the first known case of a patient diagnosed with "climate change delusion". The 17-year-old man believed that, due to climate change, his own consumption of water could run supplies dry, leading to the deaths of millions of people. He became suicidal, tried to stop drinking, and had been obsessively checking for leaking taps at home to prevent this happening. The case was reported in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry.

What can tattoos tell psychiatrists about the mental state of prisoners locked up after being judged unfit to stand trial or found not guilty by reason of insanity? Plenty, according to a Michigan Center for Forensic Psychiatry study published in the journal Personality and Mental Health. Body art may be a tip-off that inmates are suffering from antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), a mental condition characterized by, among other traits, a lack of empathy for others, remorselessness about crimes committed, pathological lying, cheating and stealing as well as physical and emotional aggressiveness. Researchers studied a sample of 36 inmates at a...

Australian doctors have published in a medical journal the case of a 17-year old held for observation, suffering the first observed case of “climate change delusion phenomenon” (CCD). It seems that he suffered from fears that “due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead to days to the deaths of millions of people through exhaustion of water supplies.” This particular product of modern education techniques “was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood…He also…had visions of apocalyptic events.” Where ever would he get such an idea? OK,...

The still waters of the Great Salt Lake run deep -- and dark. Take Wendy, a 40-year-old teacher and mother of three from Utah County. To all appearances, she led the perfect life. Just as she was expected to, she went from high school cheerleader to Mormon missionary to wife and mother. But life has a funny way of not being perfect," she said. "Three years into my marriage my husband was drinking, using drugs and stepping out on me. "I knew I was depressed and needed help, but there is a stigma about depression in this area," said Wendy,...

"New Ways to Diagnose Autism Earlier" read a recent headline in the Wall Street Journal. There is no question that you can diagnose anything as early as you want. The real question is whether the diagnosis will turn out to be correct. My own awareness of how easy it is to make false diagnoses of autism grew out of experiences with a group of parents of late-talking children that I formed back in 1993. A number of those children were diagnosed as autistic. But the passing years have shown most of the diagnoses to have been false, as most of...

Australian doctors have published in a medical journal the case of a 17-year old held for observation, suffering the first observed case of “climate change delusion phenomenon” (CCD). It seems that he suffered from fears that “due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead to days to the deaths of millions of people through exhaustion of water supplies”. This particular product of modern education techniques “was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood…He also…had visions of apocalyptic events”. Where ever would he get such an idea?...

Chicago, IL (AHN) - A new University of Chicago study linked happiness with age, with older people apparently happier than the youth. The findings are based on a study by Yang Yang, a researcher of the university's General Social Survey, in which 50,000 Americans have been interviewed since 1972 repeatedly to check trends, make comparisons and trace changes in responses over time. Tom Smith, director of the General Social Survey, reportedly said the findings had results that were contrary to popular expectations.Despite the health problems of older people, the study found that they have lesser financial, interpersonal and crime problems...

The House and Senate reached agreement on a policy framework for legislation that would require employers and health insurers to put mental-health coverage on par with that for physical maladies. Details of the agreement are expected to be set this week, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers is seeking funding for the measure, which would cost the government an estimated $1.3 billion over five years and $3.4 billion over 10 years, mainly because of lost tax revenue. Leading lawmakers such as Sen. Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.) hope to push the bill through Congress and send it to the White House...

It seemed an ideal marriage, a scientific partnership that would attack mental illness from all sides. Psychiatrists would bring to the union their expertise and clinical experience, drug makers would provide their products and the money to run rigorous studies, and patients would get better medications, faster... --snip-- An analysis of Minnesota data by The New York Times last year found that on average, psychiatrists who received at least $5,000 from makers of newer-generation antipsychotic drugs appear to have written three times as many prescriptions to children for the drugs as psychiatrists who received less money or none. The drugs...

Chapel Hill, N.C. (AHN) -- A new study found that stopping drinking alcohol can be detrimental to one's mental health.According to the findings of the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studies performed on mice who voluntarily drank alcohol for 28 days showed that when their alcohol consumption was stopped, it caused depression and a negative mood that set in 14 or more days after their systems were cleared of alcohol. This led scientist to believe that people who quit drinking, even moderate drinkers, will experience "negative mood states" days or weeks...

Andrew Bolt July 09, 2008 12:00am PSYCHIATRISTS have detected the first case of "climate change delusion" - and they haven't even yet got to Kevin Rudd and his global warming guru. Writing in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Joshua Wolf and Robert Salo of our Royal Children's Hospital say this delusion was a "previously unreported phenomenon". "A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood . . . He also . . . had visions of apocalyptic events." (So have Alarmist of the Year...

For a preview of America’s future if global warming advocates get elected (oh wait, BOTH candidates believe in this delusion) you have only to see what’s going on in Australia. Andrew Bolt describes what’s happening. First from a deluded teen ager: "A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood . . . He also . . . had visions of apocalyptic events." ..."The patient had also developed the belief that, due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead within days to the deaths of...

PSYCHIATRISTS have detected the first case of "climate change delusion" - and they haven't even yet got to Kevin Rudd and his global warming guru. Writing in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Joshua Wolf and Robert Salo of our Royal Children's Hospital say this delusion was a "previously unreported phenomenon". "A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood . . . He also . . . had visions of apocalyptic events."