Anger disorder more common than thought
Tue Jun 6, 2006 1:47 PM BST
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A surprising number of Americans suffer from a psychiatric disorder marked by angry, often violent, outbursts, -- called intermittent explosive disorder, or IED -- a national survey suggests.

Based on the findings, up to 16 million U.S. adults may have the condition. People with the disorder erupt in reactions that are grossly out of proportion to a perceived provocation -- attacking another person, threatening others with violence or destroying property.

Until now, there had been no good estimates of how prevalent IED is among Americans, and the new findings indicate that it is much more common than experts have suspected.

The survey, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, included a nationally representative sample of 9,282 U.S. adults. Standard diagnostic interviews showed that when IED was broadly defined -- three or more outbursts in a person's lifetime -- 7 percent of respondents had suffered the disorder at some point.

Just over 5 percent met a narrower IED definition of three anger "attacks" in one year.

On average, these men and women started showing signs of IED at age 14, which means that early diagnosis may be vital to preventing the long-term consequences of the disorder, according to the researchers, led by Dr. Ronald C. Kessler of Harvard Medical School in Boston.

IED commonly preceded other mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and substance abuse. And while 60 percent of survey respondents with the disorder said they had received psychiatric treatment for some emotional or substance abuse problem, relatively few -- 29 percent -- ever got help specifically for their anger.

The implication, according to Kessler and his colleagues, is that people with IED are typically being treated for problems that arise secondary to the disorder, rather than the IED itself.

An important question, they conclude, is whether early detection and treatment of IED can prevent later depression, substance abuse and other mental health problems.

Since IED so often arises at a young age, the researchers write, early detection "would most reasonably take place in schools and might well be an important addition to school-based violence prevention programs."

SOURCE: Archives of General Psychiatry, June 2006.

Self-mutilation rampant at 2 Ivy League schools
Survey: 17 percent at Cornell and Princeton purposely cut themselves



M. Spencer Green / AP
Sarah Rodey, 20, a University of Illinois student began self-injuring by cutting herself, a disturbing phenomenon that counselors say is happening at colleges, high schools and middle schools nationwide.

Updated: 9:32 a.m. ET June 5, 2006
CHICAGO - Nearly 1 in 5 students at two Ivy League schools say they have purposely injured themselves by cutting, burning or other methods, a disturbing phenomenon that psychologists say they are hearing about more often.

For some young people, self-abuse is an extreme coping mechanism that seems to help relieve stress; for others it’s a way to make deep emotional wounds more visible.

The results of the survey at Cornell and Princeton are similar to other estimates on this frightening behavior. Counselors say it’s happening at colleges, high schools and middle schools across the country.

Separate research found more than 400 Web sites devoted to subject, including many that glorify self-injury. Some worry that many sites serve as an online subculture that fuels the behavior — although whether there has been an increase in the practice or just more awareness is unclear.

Sarah Rodey, 20, a University of Illinois student who started cutting herself at age 16, said some online sites help socially isolated kids feel like they belong. One of her favorites includes graphic photographs that the site warns might be “triggering.”

“I saw myself in some of those pictures, in the poems. And because I saw myself there, I wanted to connect to it better” by self-injuring, Rodey said.

The Web sites, recent books and media coverage are pulling back the curtain on the secretive practice and helping researchers better understand why some as young as grade-schoolers do it.

“You’re trying to get people to know that you’re hurting, and at the same time, it pushes them away” because the behavior is so distressing, said Rodey, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

The latest prevalence estimate comes from an analysis of responses from 2,875 randomly selected male and female undergraduates and graduate students at Cornell and Princeton who completed an Internet-based mental health survey.

Seventeen percent said they had purposely injured themselves; among those, 70 percent had done so multiple times. The estimate is comparable to previous reports on U.S. adolescents and young adults, but slightly higher than studies of high school students in Australia and the United Kingdom.

'An increasing phenomenon'
The study appears in this month’s issue of Pediatrics, released Monday. Cornell psychologist Janis Whitlock, the study’s main author, also led the Web site research, published in April in Developmental Psychology.

Among the Ivy League students who harmed themselves, about half said they’d experienced sexual, emotional or physical abuse that researchers think can trigger self-abuse.

Repeat self-abusers were more likely than non-injurers to be female and to have had eating disorders or suicidal tendencies, although self-injuring is usually not considered a suicide attempt.

Greg Eels, director of counseling and psychological services at Cornell, said the study’s findings are not surprising. “We see it frequently and it seems to be an increasing phenomenon.”

While Eels said the competitive, stressful college environment may be particularly intense at Ivy League schools, he thinks the results reflect a national problem.

Dr. Daniel Silverman, a study co-author and Princeton’s director of health services, said the study has raised consciousness among his staff, who are now encouraged to routinely ask about self-abuse when faced with students “in acute distress.”

“Unless we start talking about it and making it more acceptable for people to come forward, it will remain hidden,” Silverman said.

Some self-injurers have no diagnosable illness but have not learned effective ways to cope with life stresses, said Victoria White Kress, an associate professor at Youngstown State University in Ohio. She consults with high schools and says demand for her services has risen in recent years.

Psychologists who work with middle and high schools “are overwhelmed with referrals for these kids,” said psychologist Richard Lieberman, who coordinates a suicide prevention program for Los Angeles public schools.

He said one school recently reported several fourth-graders with burns on their arms, and another seeking help for “15 hysterical seventh-grade girls in the office and they all have cuts on their arms.”

In those situations, Lieberman said there’s usually one instigator whose behavior is copied by sympathetic but probably less troubled friends.
Rodey, a college sophomore, said cutting became part of her daily high school routine.

“It was part of waking up, getting dressed, the last look in the mirror and then the cut on the wrist. It got to be where I couldn’t have a perfect day without it,” Rodey said.

“If I was apprehensive about going to school, or I wasn’t feeling great, I did that and I’d get a little rush,” she said.

Whitlock is among researchers who believe that “rush” is feel-good hormones called endorphins produced in response to pain. But it is often followed by deep shame and the injuries sometimes require medical treatment.

Vicki Duffy, 37, runs a Morris County, N.J., support group and said when she was in her 20s, she had skin graft surgery on her arms after burning herself with cigarettes and a fire-starter. After psychological and drug treatment, she stopped the behavior 10 years ago.

Author of the 2004 book “No More Pain: Breaking the Silence of Self-Injury,” Duffy recalled being stopped on the street by a 70-year-old woman who saw her scarred arms and said, “’I used to do that.”’

Rodey said she stopped several months ago with the help of S.A.F.E. (Self-Abuse Finally Ends) Alternatives treatment program at a suburban Chicago hospital. Treatment includes behavior therapy and keeping a written log to track what triggers the behavior.

Rodey said she feels “healed” but not cured “because it’s something I will struggle with the rest of my life. Whenever I get really stressed out, that’s the first thing I think about.”

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

May 29, 2006, 1:25PM
Sole Bird Flu Survivor Shuns Treatment



A medical worker with protective gear, left, checks the health condition of Johannes Ginting while relatives support his weakened body at a hospital in Medan, north Sumatera, Indonesia, Monday, May 29, 2006. At least six of Ginting's relatives from tiny Kubu Simbelang village in North Sumatra have died of the virus. A seventh was buried before samples could be taken, but the WHO considers her part of the cluster _


By MARGIE MASON AP Medical Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

MEDAN, Indonesia — The sole survivor in a cluster of Indonesian relatives infected with bird flu lies in an open-air hospital room, chickens pecking outside his door and visitors shuffling in and out without masks or protective gear.

The patient, Johannes Ginting, is still very weak but seems unconcerned. He even fled the hospital when he first fell ill with the H5N1 virus, and has since resisted treatment, balking at the bird flu drug Tamiflu and other medicine.

"We had actually given masks and gloves to the family, and we informed them how dangerous this disease is, but they didn't cooperate with us," said Nurrasyid Lubis, deputy director of Adam Malik Hospital. "We also informed him how dangerous it is, but he didn't believe us."

On the other side of the hospital, health workers got a briefing on the importance of infection control. Posters depicting chickens and a burning globe are on walls throughout the building warning of bird flu, which has killed at least 124 people worldwide since it began ravaging Asian poultry in late 2003.

A quarter of the human deaths have been Indonesia, which has been criticized for acting too slowly to stop the spread of the disease.

Lack of public awareness is part of the problem, health experts say, noting that many people in the sprawling countryside have never heard of bird flu. Others, like 25-year-old Ginting, deny it is a problem.

At least six of Ginting's relatives from tiny Kubu Simbelang village in North Sumatra have died of the virus. A seventh was buried before samples could be taken, but the World Health Organization considers her part of the cluster _ the largest ever reported.

The case has drawn much attention because the infections have not been linked to contact with birds. Experts suspect limited human-to-human transmission may have occurred, but say no one else outside the family has fallen ill.

The disease remains hard for people to catch and most human cases so far have been traced to contact with infected birds. But experts fear the virus will mutate into a highly contagious form that passes easily among people, possible sparking a pandemic. They stress, however, that has not happened in Kubu Simbelang.

Ginting's mother, who declines to reveal her name, sits on a straw mat on a grassy patch outside her son's hospital room, at the end of a row of ground-floor rooms that open to the outside.

Despite losing three children and four grandchildren, she is not afraid to care for her son, who must be fed and is too weak to sit unaided since falling ill May 4.

She said he is slowly recovering, but still suffers a cough and struggles to speak.

"I'm not afraid. I don't even wear a mask or anything," she said. "If it spreads, I will be the first one to die."

Ginting's mother chewed on betel nut, a mild natural stimulant, as hens, roosters and chicks scratched the ground just feet away. Several cats also roamed outside her son's door.

"Why would I have to be afraid of chickens around here," she said. "The ones who died, they didn't eat chicken, after all."

The family, which has spoken to few outsiders, has been the subject of intense international interest because of the number of its members who were infected. WHO officials say it marks an important development with the H5N1 virus, which is thought to have been transmitted among people in a handful of other cases.

So far, scientists think, all such case have involved passing the virus between blood relatives. Some experts theorize that may mean some people have a genetic susceptibility to the disease, but there is no evidence to support that.

Many people in Ginting's farming village do not believe bird flu caused the deaths because no spouses or neighbors also got sick. Many, including Ginting and his family, have been uncooperative with health authorities.

"Johannes doesn't want to be injected, doesn't want to take Tamiflu or other antibiotics," Lubis said, although he added that the patient ha become more agreeable since first being hospitalized.

There is also a lack of knowledge about preventative steps, as shown by Ginting's uncovered visitors.

Lubis said the hospital held a seminar for the staff Monday to discuss infection control measures.

As he spoke, a woman outside Ginting's room picked through his garbage without gloves or other germ-protective gear. Family members of patients in the adjoining room lounged on the floor near his open door.

WHO guidelines call for health workers to wear masks, gloves, gowns, goggles and special boots when coming into contact with a bird flu patient, WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said.

Nurses and doctors who entered Ginting's room did wear protective gear, but no one interfered with the unprotected visitors.

Lubis said the hospital has done the best it can to isolate Ginting.

"For the room, we've done the maximum effort we can do," he said. "We don't know what more we can do beyond that."

Sleep More Important Than Diet for Weight Control
This Article
Also Appears In
Obesity / Overweight / FitnessWomen's Health / OBGYNSports Medicine / Fitness

Main Category: Sleep / Sleep Disorders News
Article Date: 24 May 2006 - 9:00am (PDT)

If you manage to get a good night's sleep on a regular basis your chances of staying slim or becoming slimmer are significantly higher, say researchers from Care Western University, Ohio, USA, after monitoring nearly 70,000 women for over a decade and-a-half. This is the largest study ever to examine the effects of sleep on weight over the long-term.

What constitutes a good night's sleep? For this study, the researchers observed the effect sleeping five or fewer hours regularly has on a woman's weight over the medium and long term. They compared them to women who managed to regularly get 7 hours' sleep each night.

The findings were presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference, San Diego, California.

Women who don't get much sleep, up to five hours each night, are much more likely to have put on 33lbs (15 kilos) over a 16 year period - 30% more likely when compared to the women who managed to get 7 hours sleep each night. Light sleepers also have a significantly higher risk of becoming obese.

What surprised the researchers was that sleeping patterns had a much greater influence on women's long term weight than eating habits or physical activity.

At the start of the study, the women who slept up to five hours a night weighed 5.4 pounds more than those who got 7 hours or more. They also put on 1.6 pounds more each year than the good sleepers.

The researchers stressed that the 1.6 pounds extra per year may not sound like much, but this was an average. Multiply this number by ten and you are beginning to have a sizeable weight gap. Imagine what the difference would be over 20 or 30 years.

Dr. S Patel, lead researcher, said that hormones which regulate appetite are affected after just a few nights of sleep restriction. What surprised the researchers was that those who sleep less actually eat less than those who get adequate sleep. This shows that sleep is a much greater contributor to your long term weight than diet.

Dr Patel said he believes that people who sleep well fidget more during their waking hours - this helps them consume more calories. It is also most likely that hormones are tweaked in such a way as a result of how much we sleep - and this has a bearing on how many calories we burn off each day.

In order to stay/get slim, people have to focus on three factors:

-- Adequate sleep
-- Nutrition
-- Physical activity

Ask any professional sportsperson what the secret of top fitness is, and they will all say it is a combination of good training, eating the right foods and sleeping well - get one of those three factors wrong and you seriously undermine your chances of winning a race.

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today

I think the book is re-defining religious mythology in much the same was as the Gnostic gospels. Both this book and the Gnostic gospels elevate Mary Magdalene and the role of women in the church. I see the Davinci code as an offspring of the 1954 discovery of the Gnostic gospels. And as such, I celebrate it's widespread popularity. I love the way these Gnostic gospels redefine the divine into a unity of the masculine and feminine. For centuries now women have been the second class citizens of Christianity. And that has started to change and conservative theologists don't like it. Hence the concerted effort to refute the Davinci code by the Catholic church

This quote below is from the Gnostic gospel of Phillip and may help explain why these gospels are so controversial.



"...the companion of the Savior is Mary Magdalene. But Christ loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended... They said to him, "Why do you love her more than all of us? the Savior answered and said to them, "Why do I not love you as I love her?"

Apparently all but one set of the Gnostic gospels were destroyed by the Catholic church and the sole surviving papyrus gospels were not re-discovered until 1954.





As a side note, I also love the notion of duality seeking unity as it relates to the dichotomy of science and religion - aka Chardin - but that's another topic...

This seems awfully dangerous to me - for a boy this young to be running 65 km at once. I see that a human right's group in India is going to crack down on the man who has adopted this boy and is encouraging him to run like this. I hope they do crack down on him.


Budhia Singh, 4, runs along with soldiers in Bhubaneswar, in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, during his 65-kilometre run Tuesday. (Biswaranjan Rout/AP)

I want to start a group for girls to teach them about bullying. This seems to be a big problem in our schools leading to all sorts of psychological difficulties with girls. I wish there was some way to start educational groups for children about bullying. Groups in which they are encouraged to participate in an effort to reduce the shame they all feel as a result of bullying.

For a Dancer
Jackson Browne

Keep a fire burning in your eye
Pay attention to the open sky
You never know what will be coming down
I don’t remember losing track of you
You were always dancing in and out of view
I must have thought you’d always be around
Always keeping things real by playing the clown
Now you’re nowhere to be found

I don’t know what happens when people die
Can’t seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It’s like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can’t sing
I can’t help listening
And I can’t help feeling stupid standing ’round
Crying as they ease you down
’cause I know that you’d rather we were dancing
Dancing our sorrow away
(right on dancing)
No matter what fate chooses to play
(there’s nothing you can do about it anyway)

Just do the steps that you’ve been shown
By everyone you’ve ever known
Until the dance becomes your very own
No matter how close to yours
Another’s steps have grown
In the end there is one dance you’ll do alone

Keep a fire for the human race
Let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know what will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don’t let the uncertainty turn you around
(the world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound

Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
But you’ll never know

Study Shows Babies Try to Help
By LAURAN NEERGAARD , 03.02.2006, 02:09 PM

Any parent can relate tales of a wobbly toddler's endearing desire to help out. Now scientists have documented it, in a study suggesting that the capacity for altruism emerges as early as 18 months of age.

It was a simple experiment to illustrate fairly sophisticated brain development: Tots watched as psychology researcher Felix Warneken did ordinary tasks, such as using clothespins to hang some towels.

Oops, he dropped a clothespin. Video shows one overall-clad baby glancing between Warneken's face and the dropped pin before quickly crawling over, grabbing the object, pushing up to his feet and eagerly handing back the pin.

Warneken never asked for the help and didn't even say "thank you," so as not to taint the research by training youngsters to expect praise if they helped. After all, altruism means helping with no expectation of anything in return.

Over and over, whether Warneken dropped clothespins or knocked over a stack of books or lost a marker he was going to write with, each of 24 toddlers repeatedly helped within seconds - but only if it looked like Warneken needed it.

That was the key: The toddlers offered no help when he deliberately pulled a book off the stack or threw a marker on the floor, Warneken, of Germany's Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, reports in Thursday's edition of the journal Science.

To be altruistic, babies must have the cognitive ability to understand other people's goals plus possess what Warneken calls "pro-social motivation" - a desire to socialize.

"When those two things come together - they obviously do so at 18 months of age and maybe earlier - they are able to help," Warneken explained.

But the babies aren't the whole story.

No other animal is as altruistic as humans are. We donate to charity, recycle for the environment, give up a prime subway seat to the elderly - tasks that seldom bring a tangible return beyond a sense of gratification.

Other animals are skilled at cooperating, too, but most often do so for a goal, such as banding together to chase down food or protect against predators. But primate specialists offer numerous examples of apes, in particular, displaying more humanlike helpfulness, such as the gorilla who rescued a 3-year-old boy who fell into her zoo enclosure.

But observations don't explain what motivated the animals. So, as part of work to tease out the evolutionary roots of altruism and cooperation, Warneken put a few of our closest relatives through a similar helpfulness study.

Would 3- and 4-year-old chimpanzees find and hand over objects that a familiar human "lost"? The chimps frequently did help out if all that was required was reaching for a dropped object - but not nearly as readily as the toddlers had helped, and not if the aid was more complicated, such as if it required reaching inside a box.

It's a creative study that shows chimps may display humanlike helpfulness when they can grasp the person's goal, University of California, Los Angeles, anthropologist Joan Silk wrote in an accompanying review. Just don't assume they help for the reasons of empathy that motivated the babies, she cautioned.


EARLY ALTRUISM: A study shows the capacity to help others - without expecting anything in return - emerges as early as 18 months of age.

DOUBLE DUTY: To be altruistic, babies must understand the goals of other people, as well as have a desire to be social.

ANIMAL INSTINCTS: Other animals are skilled at cooperating, too, but usually they are trying to reach a goal, such as protecting against predators.



Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

Dark Therapy for Bipolar Disorder



This is an absolutely fascinating article that just blew me away! I've always thought it was the rapid fire images from television sets that caused the dysregulation in mood seen in so many people today - and seemingly reaching epidemic proportions - in both adults and children.

But this article and the research done by NIMH points to artificial light as the culprit. Could it be that our brains haven't evolved to handle artificial light, let alone MTV, 24/7/365 instantaneous news from around the globe, video games, and the information super-highway.

It seems in some people artificial light is desensitizing the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the hypothalamus of their brains (ie their "biological clocks" are being thrown out of whack).

Chardin was right about the emergence of the noosphere. But our brains simply have not evolved fast enough to keep up.