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In This Issue
about
safe harbor
about
alternative
mentalhealth.com
Editor's note
Articles
Lead and
Selenium Affect Cognitive Skills in Elderly
Inhaled
Anesthetics May Contribute to Alzheimer’s Disease
Essential
Fats Improve ADHD Symptoms
Bacteria
in Dirt May Boost Mood as Well as Antidepressants
Antidepressants
Don’t Help Bipolar Patients
Healthy Habits
Lower Depression, Anxiety Risk
The Editors
Dan Stradford, Editor
Alan Graham, Contributing Editor
SafeHarborProj@aol.com
AlternativeMentalHealth.com
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About Safe Harbor
Safe Harbor was founded in 1998 in the
wake of growing public dissatisfaction with the unwanted
effects of orthodox psychiatric treatments such as medication
and shock therapy.
Seeking to satisfy the desire for safer, more
effective treatments, Safe Harbor is dedicated to educating
the public, the medical profession, and government officials
on research and treatments that, minimally, do no harm and,
optimally, cure the causes of severe mental symptoms. Our
primary thrust is education on the medical causes of severe
mental symptoms and the use of nutritional and other natural
treatments.
About AlternativeMental
Health.com
ALTERNATIVEMENTALHEALTH.COM
is the world's largest website devoted exclusively to
alternative mental health treatments. It includes a directory
of over 350 physicians, nutritionists, experts, organizations,
and facilities around the U.S. that offer or promote safe,
alternative treatments for severe mental symptoms. Many of the
physicians listed do in-depth examinations to find the
physical causes behind mental problems.
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.
Contact Us
Safe Harbor
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Altadena, CA 91001
Phone: 626-791-7868
Fax: 626-791-7869
SafeHarborProj@aol.com
AlternativeMentalHealth.com
Safe Harbor New Mexico
Louisa Putnam, President
505-988-4242
louisa_putnam@mcmxi.com
We welcome your donations. As a nonprofit
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web site or mailed to the above address. We also accept Visa/
MasterCard by phone. Thank you.
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Editor's note
As the world now knows, on April 16, 2007, student Cho
Seung-Hui, the son of Korean immigrants, opened fire on the
Virginia Tech campus in a mad rage and took the lives of 32
people, then himself. In the following days, massive media
interest questioned what could have prompted the slaughter.
For us here at Safe Harbor, one of our first thoughts was,
of course,
"Was he on psychiatric medication?" And, yes, from
interviews published since the incident, it seems certain he
was.
The good news is that the press were quick to ask this
question early in the game. The bad news is that they had to
ask it at all. And we had to ask ourselves, "How many
more times will drug-induced mass killings have to occur
before our society sees this for what it is?”
Right now the general public has a vague awareness that
antidepressants and perhaps some other psychiatric drugs might
cause a rare effect of suicidal or homicidal impulses. But
right now this is all sort of fuzzy noise in the public
consciousness. Very few connect this with the drama that
unfolded at Columbine and so many other murder sprees in which
we know the killer was on medication. Few live in dread,
knowing this will happen again because the medications remain
on the market.
But those in the pharmaceutical industry and the FDA are
acutely aware of the matter. They know unquestionably that
these drugs can obliterate a person’s conscience and bring
him to kill. How many more slayings of innocents are needed
before someone who can DO something about it steps forward and
brings a halt to this insanity?
While it is understood that millions are dependent on these
medications, does this justify the continued slaughter of
decent people? While medications may be actually needed in a
minority of cases, the fact is that many alternatives exist
for most people. Of course, this would cost pharmaceutical
companies billions in profits.
As the old Bob Dylan song asks: "How many
deaths will it take till we know that too many people have
died?"
Lead and Selenium Affect
Cognitive Skills in Elderly
Two studies reported in the January 2007 issue of the
journal Epidemiology showed correlations between blood
levels of lead and selenium and cognitive ability in the
elderly.
One study, carried out by Dr. Marc G. Weisskopf of the
Harvard School of Public Health and colleagues, looked at the
effects of cumulative lead levels in more than a thousand
elderly men over a nine-year period. None of the subjects had
high occupational lead exposure. Bone and blood were
tested for lead levels.
Results showed that elderly men with the highest lead
levels in their blood and bone had the worst scores on
cognitive tests and worse deterioration over time. As blood
lead levels went up, their vocabulary scores went down—as
did performance and reaction time scores on tests of
visual/special and visual motor tests.
A second report on research carried out in France examined
the relationship of selenium to cognitive ability. Selenium is
an antioxidant and researchers theorized that since oxidative
stress contributes to poor cognitive function, low selenium
may be directly linked to declining mental skills. Led by
researcher N. Tasnime Akbaraly, who in past research has
demonstrated a connection between low selenium levels and
higher mortality rates, the team began with 1389 subjects
between the ages of 60 and 71 and studied them over a
nine-year period.
The team concluded: "Among subjects who
had a decrease in their plasma selenium levels, the greater
the decrease in plasma selenium, the higher the probability of
cognitive decline. Among subjects who had an increase in their
plasma selenium levels, cognitive decline was greater in
subjects with the smallest selenium increase. There was no
association between short-term (2-year) selenium change and
cognitive changes."
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Inhaled Anesthetics May
Contribute to Alzheimer’s Disease
Amyloids are insoluble fibrous protein aggregations. A
hallmark of Alzheimer’s Disease is the progressive spread of
amyloid plaques in the brain.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's School of
Medicine have discovered that common inhaled anesthetics
increase the number of amyloid plaques in the brains of
animals. This could accelerate the onset of neurodegenerative
processes such as those found in Alzheimer's.
Roderic Eckenhoff, MD, Vice Chair of Research in the
University of Pennsylvania's Department of Anesthesia and
Critical Care, and his co-authors, reported their findings in
the March 7, 2007, online edition of Neurobiology of Aging.
About 60 million people worldwide are given inhaled
anesthetics each year. The drugs are known to cause
"post-operative cognitive decline" in many cases,
which can last for days, weeks or years.
The researchers focused on the anesthetic
halothane and its effects on the brains of mice. "This
animal study data suggests that we have to at least consider
the possibility that anesthetics accelerate certain
neurodegenerative disorders," said Eckenhoff. "In
the field of Alzheimer's research, most effort is focused on
delaying, not curing the disease. A delay in the onset of
Alzheimer's disease of only three to five years would be
considered a success. Therefore, if commonly used drugs, like
anesthetics, are accelerating this disorder, even by a few
years, then a similar success might follow even small changes
in the care of the operative patient."
Essential Fats Improve ADHD
Symptoms
More research has now confirmed previous studies that
showed that supplementing with polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA)
improves ADHD symptoms.
Researchers studied 132 Australian children, aged 7-12, who
scored high on ADHD symptom testing. Those put on omega-3
(fish oil) and omega-6 (primrose oil) supplements showed
significant improvement after 15 weeks, according to parental
reports, than those on placebo. Improvement continued the
following 15 weeks. When the placebo group was put on the
supplements, they, too, showed the same level of improvement.
Researchers concluded: "Significant medium to strong
positive treatment effects were found on parent ratings of
core ADHD symptoms."
The study was reported in the April 2007 issue
of the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics.
Bacteria in Dirt May Boost
Mood as Well as Antidepressants
UK scientists reporting in the journal Neuroscience
(posted online March 28, 2007) claim that exposure to a
friendly soil bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae, could improve
mood as effectively as antidepressants by boosting the immune
system.
Researchers exposed mice to the bacteria and tested the
animals with the "forced swim" test commonly used in
testing antidepressant drugs. This exercise measures mood
levels by how long the mice swim before giving up. The study
found that the exposed mice paddled much longer than a control
group.
"You could say the [bacteria-exposed] mice had a more
active coping style," said study leader Chris Lowry of
the University of Bristol in England.
The study's findings are similar to those of previous
research which showed that human cancer patients treated with
the bacteria reported significant increases in their quality
of life.
"These studies help us understand how the
body communicates with the brain and why a healthy immune
system is important for maintaining mental health," Lowry
said. "They also leave us wondering if we shouldn’t all
be spending more time playing in the dirt."
Antidepressants Don’t Help
Bipolar Patients
Although antidepressants have been widely prescribed in
50-70% of patients for the depression phase of bipolar
symptoms, a new study finds they are not generally effective.
"It is clear from this data," said Dr. Thomas R.
Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health,
"that antidepressants are not the answer."
In the study, 366 patients at 22 academic centers in the
U.S. were randomly assigned to receive one of two
antidepressants or a placebo for 26 weeks, in addition to mood
stabilizing medication they were receiving. Patients also
received psychological and social therapy.
Of the 179 participants who received an antidepressant in
addition to a mood stabilizer, 23.5% achieved a "durable
recovery," defined as an eight-week period marked by no
more than two depressive or two manic symptoms. In the
placebo group, 27.3% of patients achieved a "durable
recovery."
The study was reported in the New England
Journal of Medicine. The lead author was Dr. Gary Sachs,
director of the bipolar clinic at Massachusetts General
Hospital.
Healthy Habits Lower
Depression, Anxiety Risk
The site http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=vtoteacab.0.vtqveacab.sx8mssn6.521&ts=S0253&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.medicalnewstoday.com
reports on a study led by Coen H. van Gool, Department of
Health Care Studies, of Universiteit Maastricht, supporting
the age-old notion that proper diet and exercise can affect
mood.
The study looked at more than 1,100 adults and found that
those who reported excessive alcohol use (an average of three
or more drinks daily) at the beginning of the study were more
likely to suffer from depression six years later, as were
those who were overweight at the beginning of the study. And
those who reported exercising for more than 30 minutes daily
at the beginning of the study period were less likely to be
depressed six years later.
In a related study reported in the April 15, 2007, issue of
the American Journal of Epidemiology, UK scientists
found that men who partook in intense exercise in their
non-work hours had lower depression and anxiety scores than a
control group five years later. This did not hold true for men
who performed intense physical labor at work.
The research looked at over 1100 Welsh men who reported
their exercise habits and then, at three different times over
ten years, reported on their depression and anxiety levels.
Researchers postulated that the improvements were due to
exercise-induced mood-enhancing brain chemistry and the
self-esteem benefits of being in good physical condition.
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