Archive for the ‘Mental health’ Category

Researchers in Japan examined levels of lithium in drinking water and noted that suicide rates were significantly lower in those areas with the highest levels of the element. Lithium is a naturally occurring element that can be found in tap water and is often used to treat mood disorders, such as bipolar disorder and acute mania. So should lithium be added to our drinking water? Not quite yet. There are no large-scale studies to demonstrate feasibility or safety in using lithium to this extent. However, the idea is one which will garner considerable debate. Like many medications it is yet unknown how lithium works in in the brain to treat mood disorders.

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Sleep is important for our mental, emotional and physical well being. Which is why mental disorders, such as depression, often have manifestations of sleep disturbance. However, the results of a University of Michigan study, to be presented at the upcoming World Psychiatric Association meeting, show that the complaint of sleep disturbance is enough to alert physicians that a patient may have a higher risk of suicide, whether or not they have a psychiatric condition. The more types of sleep disturbances people had, the more likely they were to have thoughts of killing themselves, or actually try to do so.

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Doodling may help with concentration and memory, so says a newly published study comparing doodlers and non-doodlers. Study volunteers were tested on how much they were able to recall after listening to a dull 2.5 minute-long telephone message. Those who doodled while listening performed 29% better in recalling specific names and places mentioned in the message. The other half of the group were left to daydream or do anything they pleased while on the phone. Researchers say that doodling is a simple task that may be sufficient to stop daydreaming, but it won’t necessarily distract you from the task at hand.

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Happiness can be infectious, and now researchers from the University of California San Diego say they can document it. By looking at years of data collected from the Framingham Heart Study, researchers looked at self-reported happiness ratings and found out that happiness spreads among people up to three degrees removed from one another. The study found that you are 15% more likely to be happy if a direct connection is happy, 10% if a friend of a friend is happy, and 6% if it’s a friend of a friend of a friend. Sadness, too, can spread, albeit more slowly.

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New insight into Alzheimer’s disease was reported by researchers at the Karolinska Institute this week. Scientists studying mouse models of the disease showed that when mice were fed with fast food products high in fat, sugar and cholesterol, they developed more “brain tangles” that lead to development of Alzheimer’s. These tangles of protein that develope in the brain are one of the hallmarks of the disease. Even though this is a mouse study, and the results may not necessarily be translated to humans, it’s yet another reason to consume less fast food and processed foods.

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A Brown University study of European households finds an association between depression and the presence of mold in the home. The risk for depression increased by about 40 percent among people who lived in moldy homes, said lead research author Edmund D. Shenassa. It is as yet unclear what the relationship between the two is – does mold actually cause depression, or are depressed people more likely to not clean their homes and allow mold to grow? The U.S. government has not established general guidelines for acceptable levels of residential mold. And no study has conclusively linked mold exposure to mental health problems.

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Johns Hopkins University Researchers report today that the percentage of patients who visit psychiatrists for psychotherapy (talk therapy) have declined from 44% in 1996-97 to 29% in 2004-05. They attribute this decline to an increase in use of medications as well as changes in insurance company policies – most psychiatrists receive less reimbursement dollars for a 45-minute visit than for three 15-minute visits. However, the study did not consider visits to health professionals who are not doctors but still provide talk therapy. Full story.