Also included on the site is an array of articles on topics ranging from the medical causes of schizophrenia to the effects of toxic metals on mental health.

Special AlternativeMentalHealth.com T-shirts and bumper stickers are available at our online store.

A bookstore page lists top books that cover many areas of alternative treatments with titles like Natural Healing for Schizophrenia and Other Common Mental Disorders and No More Ritalin.

AlternativeMentalHealth.com has been created to educate the public, practitioners, and government officials on the medical conditions that create "mental illness" and the many safe resources available for addressing and often curing severe mental symptoms.

(My thanks to readers who caught my spelling error in last month's issue in the phrase "as ye sow, so shall ye also reap" - I shall not let it happen again!)

Remarkably, this issue starts our 5th year of bringing you the AMH News. The small newsletter we started is now so full of announcements and news items that we can scarcely contain them all. 

Through the hard work and support of so many, Safe Harbor now has events going across the planet the next three months.

Would you like to help? Like all other organizations, Safe Harbor needs funding to operate. We need it to hire staff, pay our bills, and fund the many events we do. 

Once a year Safe Harbor actively engages in fundraising so that we can support this important work. That time is now. Our big event is October 7, as you see below. A lot of people, including Dr. Laura Schlessinger, are donating their time and efforts to make this event a success to bring us much-needed funds.

You can help by buying your tickets early. If you can't come, you can donate tickets or donate to our general funds or to help us underwrite the event. Or you can connect us with a foundation that may want to help underwrite the event or support our work.

If you can help us with the finances, I assure you that we will provide the heart, passion, and hard work so that, together, we can continue to carry out our motto of "changing lives every day."

Eating abundant amounts of niacin-rich foods can protect against mental decline by 80%. That is the finding of a new study reported in the August issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery & Psychiatry authored by Dr. Martha Morris of the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging in Chicago. 

It has been known that a severe deficiency of niacin (B3) causes a condition called pellagra, which is characterized by dementia, and that pellagra can be resolved with synthetic niacin. However previous studies did not determine whether dietary niacin would also be an effective guard against mental deterioration.

Dietary data was collected every three years from 1993 to 2003 from a group of 6158 Chicago 
residents over 65 years old. Cognitive testing was done four times over that period of time. A 
random sample of various subgroups within this larger group (sorted by race, age, sex and those who had a change in cognitive performance) was done. Of 815 people identified for the random sample, 131 participants experienced mental decline. 

The random sample was then divided into five groups, rated according to their intake of dietary niacin. The top fifth (highest intake of niacin-rich foods) were 80% less likely to develop dementia than the group in the bottom fifth. The middle three groups were 70% less likely to develop dementia than the bottom fifth. 

The study provided controls for various important risk factors for dementia, such as age, education, race, and the presence of a gene associated with risk for Alzheimer's, as well as intake of various other B vitamins, antioxidants, fats, and folate.

Food sources of niacin include liver, poultry, fish, lean meats, whole and enriched grains (except corn), dried peas and beans, nuts, peanuts, Brewer's yeast, wheat germ, avocados, and dates.

Ishita Sanyal's life completely changed when she learned that a loved one was believed to have the most dreaded mental illness, schizophrenia. As a psychologist, she felt helpless to improve the quality of life for the affected individual or the parents. Neither medication nor counseling can provide what is most needed in these cases - rehabilitation, learning life skills, social 
interaction, and communication.

None of the centers she looked into offered real, practical answers. She decided to do it herself, founding the Turning Point center and designing its entire program. Where other centers offered bookbinding or pickle making as occupational therapy, she launched a computer training program for mental patients, the first of its kind in Calcutta.

Her programs have garnered international praise, usually accompanied by astonishment that she has done all this without funding. She is recognized as a pioneer in making patients more responsible. Her paper on the role of responsibility in mental treatment has been adopted by the WFSAD Conference (World Fellowships for Schizophrenia and Related Disorders).

Turning Point's first conference took up the subject of caring for the caregiver. Under her 
leadership the first parent group was formed in Calcutta, a precursor to the present trend toward family acceptance and contribution as an alternative to institutionalization.

Ishita has arranged a number of awareness programs on mental health, and plans to start a mental health quiz program at Swabhumi.

In addition to all these activities, she is a regular columnist at the Telegraph, working to promote broad public awareness and understanding of mental health issues.

Ishita may be contacted at sanishita@hotmail.com

Japanese researchers are concerned about the impact of environmental chemicals on normal hormone functioning in mammals, including humans, according to a July article in The Yomiuri Shimbun.

The article echoed the concern of the Japan Society of Endocrine Disrupters Research that DDT, dioxin, PCB, plastics, BPA, nonylphenol, and about 65 other named substances can suppress normal growth, nervous system and cognitive development, and fertility, with abnormal behavior a likely outcome.

The Society stressed the importance of the problem at its June 25 meeting, following the release of a report that rats fed Bisphenol A - a chemical used in the manufacture of wrapping paper, plastic bottles, and other products - found it more difficult to negotiate a maze and exhibited ADHD-like symptoms.

Female rats born to mothers that had ingested Glufosinate, a weed killer used on golf courses, were extremely aggressive toward other rats. The chemical structure of Glufosinate mimics that of glutaminic acid, which is indispensable to the human brain. 

A national campaign to assess the damage caused by such substances has lost momentum of late, said the story.

In Taiwan, an average drop of about five percentage points in IQ on average was reported among children aged 6 to 7 suffering from polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) poisoning. 

Underactive thyroid function in mothers during the early stages of pregnancy has been linked to lower IQ scores in their children. Chemically, PCB resembles thyroid hormones and may inhibit their production.

Studies conducted in the mid-1990s reported that small traces of an endocrine disrupter could lead to smaller testes in carp and smaller penises on crocodiles, while male fish exhibited more female traits.

Japanese scientists have dubbed such chemicals "environmental hormones" because of their 
hormone-like behavior when ingested, a kind of toxicity that defies usual classification. 

Yoichiro Kuroda of the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience said: "If something unusual happens to genes, any effects will take several thousand to several tens of thousands of years to become obvious. The abrupt changes in the past must have been caused by chemical substances."

Streptococcal infections may lead to dyskinesias (abnormalities in performing voluntary muscle 
movements) and associated psychiatric disorders in some children, says a July report in Archives of Diseases in Childhood.

In the report, Dr. R.C. Dale and colleagues summarized their experience of post-streptococcal 
dyskinesias and mental symptoms in 40 patients (ranging in age from 1.2 to 16 years) examined between 1999 and 2002 at London's Institute of Child Health.

The most frequent dyskinesias were chorea (rapid, involuntary dance-like movements) in 20 children, vocal tics in 17 children, and motor tics in 16.

An infectious illness compatible with beta-hemolytic streptococci shortly preceded the movement disorder onset in 34 children, the authors report, whereas the remaining 6 patients had 2 or more relapses associated with streptococcal infections.

Additionally, 33 of the children experienced mood swings, obsessions, compulsions, or depression, sometimes accompanied by unwanted behaviors.

The disorder resolved completely after one episode in 11 patients (27.5%), the results indicate, but 15 have persistent static disease, and 14 have relapses associated with further infections. It is hoped that further study will lead to effective treatment methodologies.

The maker of a leading anti-schizophrenic drug has notified doctors that it minimized potentially fatal risks and made misleading claims about the drug in promotional materials. 

Janssen Pharmaceutica Products sent a two-page letter to the health care community in July to 
clarify the risks of Risperdal, said Carol Goodrich, a spokeswoman for the Johnson & Johnson 
subsidiary.

The letter complied with a directive issued last year by the Food and Drug Administration, which told several makers of anti-psychotic drugs to update their product labels.

Janssen reported compliance in November 2003, but the FDA determined that the company's promotional materials still minimized the risk of strokes, diabetes and other potentially fatal complications. The agency also said Janssen made misleading claims that the medication was safer in treating mental illness than similar drugs. 

The Miami Herald reported in July that a handful of boys in Florida developed lactating breasts 
after taking Risperdal. 

Also in July, the drug - which is prescribed to more than 10 million people internationally - was named in a federal lawsuit by a doctor who claims children have been harmed and even killed by the misuse of drugs he blames on aggressive marketing by drug manufacturers.

Risperdal was first marketed about eight years ago.