About Us

Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments is the public voice of Treatment Online. Here we strive to report and comment on the most important news in medication, treatment, psychotherapy, clinical research and other areas of mental health. We chose the title Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments to represent the broad range of topics that pique our interest. Beside new issues in Bipolar Disorder, PTSD, Schizophrenia or drug addiction you will also find pertinent discussions on parenting, healthy eating, therapy strategies and all manners of health care, especially as they relate to mental health.

Categories 

Mental Health Links

Treatment Links 

Home > Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments

Previous Month June, 2005July, 2005September, 2005October, 2005November, 2005December, 2005January, 2006February, 2006March, 2006April, 2006May, 2006June, 2006July, 2006August, 2006September, 2006October, 2006November, 2006December, 2006January, 2007February, 2007March, 2007April, 2007May, 2007June, 2007July, 2007August, 2007September, 2007October, 2007November, 2007December, 2007January, 2008February, 2008March, 2008April, 2008May, 2008 Next Month

[1] 2 3 4 5 Next

Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 12:59 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Postpartum Depression Not Limited to New Moms Several concurrent studies defy popular opinion to reveal that the crippling influence of postpartum depression (PPD) can hit new dads and young kids just as hard as mothers. In fact, rates of depression recorded in the period after the birth of a child (particularly the first) are nearly as high for men as they are for women. Perhaps most tragically, the children themselves are affected in ways that can dramatically alter their development. Postpartum depression, a frequently severe condition that must be distinguished from the standard physical and emotional fatigue common to new parents, can begin within 2 to 3 weeks of birth and last a full year or longer. As recent studies prove, it's surprisingly common among men: the fathers of young children were twice as likely as control subjects to qualify for clinical depression diagnoses. A recent study by Virginia's ... read more Category: Depression Link To This Entry - comments (4) Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 12:44 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Billions in Lost Earnings Attributed to Mental Illness The emotional toll of mental illness can be overwhelming for the afflicted and their loved ones. Common illnesses like depression can lower the quality of life for years, impairing the ability to enjoy simple pleasures or the company of others. While this toll is clear to anyone who has personally encountered mental illness, it has been difficult to quantify in a way that can impress upon businesspeople the magnitude of the problem. In a step towards such quantification, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) conducted an economic study, published in the May issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. Mental illness worsens the financial situation of the individual, their employer, and the economy as a whole. Some costs are obvious and easy to record objectively, such as the payment for a therapy session, but others, such as lost wages and productivity are much harder to pin down. Sometimes the ... read more Category: Depression Link To This Entry - comments (5) Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 11:20 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Smoking Bans May Prevent Teens From Becoming Established Smokers Laws that ban smoking in restaurants may have an important impact on the smoking habits of local teens, researchers from Boston University School of Public Health report in a study of 2,217 Massachusetts teenagers, aged 12 through 17. Their findings, which appear in this month's issue of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, demonstrate that smoking bans can influence whether or not teens smoke. To better understand the influence of smoking bans on specific stages teens move through as they become smokers, the researchers focused on three categories of cigarette use: non-smoking, experimental smoking (defined as having smoked less than 100 cigarettes), and established smoking (having smoked 100 cigarettes or more). The subjects were interviewed about their smoking behavior between 2001 and 2002, and they were reinterviewed two years later and then again after another two years had passed. The collected data represented over 300 towns in Massachusetts, where ... read more Category: Addiction Link To This Entry - comments (4) Wednesday, May 07, 2008 - 13:26 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Researcher Finds Bipolar Disorder Worsens With Weight Many mental health medications can cause physical health to deteriorate. Antipsychotic medications and mood stabilizers like lithium often bring substantial weight gain and with that a higher risk of heart disease and diabetes. New research, presented by Dr. Cynthia Calkin at last week's American Psychiatric Association Meeting, suggests that the interaction between bipolar disorder and weight is a two-way street rather than simply a matter of mental illness and medication causing physical problems. Dr. Calkin studied 276 patients from the Maritime Bipolar Registry. She found that obese patients were significantly more likely to have severe and chronic mood problems. Even just being overweight moderately lowered scores on the Global Assessment of Functioning Scale, suggesting that fat ratios really do correlate with illness severity. Greater weight also raised the risk of co-occuring mental illnesses like generalized anxiety disorder. This study could not determine precisely how weight interacts with bipolar disorder, ... read more Category: Medication Info Link To This Entry - comments (4) Wednesday, May 07, 2008 - 13:20 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Childhood Abuse Leads to Genetic Changes, Depression and Suicide Early-life experiences and environmental conditions, combined with the influence of an inherited genetic framework, guide our development as we grow into adulthood. But ongoing research illuminates the depths to which these experiences - especially those of the traumatic variety - actually change the chemical makeup of our brains. Abused children, no matter how resilient their character, often suffer from the weight of a traumatic youth for the rest of their lives. New studies of individuals who were abused as children and later committed suicide reveal the prominence of the chemical changes that these experiences bring about. The brains of those who suffered abuse extreme enough to lead to severe depression and suicide bear very similar abnormalities, implying that this trauma affects the brain in near-universal ways. This concept is not entirely new. A history of childhood abuse is significantly more common among suicide victims than an ... read more Category: Parenting Link To This Entry - comments (4) Wednesday, May 07, 2008 - 13:06 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Mouse Study Implicates Brain Enzyme in Obesity In a new study from the May issue of Cell Metabolism, researchers from Duke University Medical Center further our understanding of the mechanisms that may underlie the drive to eat. Using mice, they examined how CaMKK2, an enzyme found in the hypothalamus, fits into a network of molecular factors that influence hunger and eating habits. Their findings indicate that when CaMKK2 is blocked or absent, mice maintain a healthy weight and are less likely to develop diabetes. Research into obesity has identified many factors involved in appetite, and CaMKK2 may be an important element of this network because it stimulates AMPK, an enzyme that regulates cellular energy and has been shown to affect food intake. In their study, the researchers found that mice lacking CaMKK2 have less AMPK activity. In addition, while normal mice will eat more and after being administered ghrelin, a hormone that creates the urge ... read more Category: Diet , Aging and Eating Disorders Link To This Entry - comments (6) Tuesday, May 06, 2008 - 15:09 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Advil May Reduce Risk of Alzheimer's Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are used to treat a wide variety of ills, from arthritis to headaches to gout. Many elderly people take small daily doses of NSAIDs like Aspirin and Advil as a general protection against any inflammatory problems that might arise in the future. As researchers started to link Alzheimer's Disease (AD) to inflammation, speculation grew that NSAIDs could lower the risk of AD. Despite some promising results, no one was able to conclusively show this benefit because the positive studies were small, short, and counterbalanced by negative studies. Finally, a team led by Dr. Steven Vlad may have settled the matter with a massive long-term study published this month in Neurology. Dr. Vlad studied over five years worth of 250,000 files from the Veterans Affairs Health Care system. He found that veterans who took NSAIDs for more than five years had a 25% reduction in ... read more Category: Diet , Aging and Eating Disorders Link To This Entry - comments (2) Tuesday, May 06, 2008 - 14:51 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Bipolar Diagnoses Often Inaccurate It would appear, according to ongoing research, that bipolar disorder is both over- and underdiagnosed. In a strange compliment to earlier stories regarding the considerable number of bipolar individuals who don't get the help they desperately need because their condition is mistaken for major depression, a new study demonstrates the fact that quite a few of those who receive positive diagnoses do not actually qualify. This discrepancy stems from both an incomplete understanding of the condition and a failure to follow accepted diagnostic standards. It's unclear why many clinicians seem so imprecise in naming the disorder, but firmer practical guidelines clearly need to be drawn - and meticulously followed.   The study, sponsored by Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University, involved some 700 psychiatric outpatients who ... read more Category: Bipolar Disorder Link To This Entry - comments (2) Tuesday, May 06, 2008 - 12:56 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Low Levels of Vitamin D May Contribute to Depression in Older Adults Depression experienced by older adults is often dismissed as just another part of aging, but depression and suicide among the elderly remains a serious problem that must be addressed. New research appearing in May's Archives of General Psychiatry demonstrates how a physical condition may contribute to depression in older populations. The researchers found that individuals with low levels of vitamin D and high levels of a hormone secreted by the parathyroid gland were more likely to also have symptoms of depression. In their study, researchers from Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam analyzed blood samples from 1,282 seniors, aged 65 through 95. They measured levels of vitamin D and serum parathyroid hormones (PTH), while ... read more Category: Depression Link To This Entry - comments (4) Tuesday, May 06, 2008 - 11:41 posted by TheEditorInChief Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Women Continue to Close Gap with Men on Alcoholism Asking a question in a different way can often result in a new or surprising answer. Such is the case with a recently published study into female alcohol dependence. Interested in guaging what, if any, change had occured in prevalence of alcohol dependence in women of different generations, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis compared survey data from 1991-1992 to data from ten years later. These two data sets allowed researchers to negate the reporting differences often seen when different generations are surveyed at the same time. When they broke the numbers down, the Washington University team found that the women surveyed in 2001-2002 (those born between 1944-1953) were 20 percent more likely to be current drinkers, and that among those who drank, the group was 50 percent more likely to be alcohol dependent than drinkers from the previous generation. Speaking to Science Daily, lead researcher ... read more Category: Addiction Link To This Entry - comments (3) Monday, May 05, 2008 - 15:19 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Progesterone Minimizes Brain Injury The brain has an extraordinary ability to recover from damage, but just as skin sometimes scars when it closes a wound, mental scars sometimes remain years after a patient recovers from a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Our bodies do have some natural ways to minimize brain injury - triggering a coma or reducing our movement with a warning headache - but these protections are often unable to prevent permanent damage. A new study by Dr. Guomin Xiao, published last week in Critical Care, suggests that doctors may be able to prescribe a protective medication rather than just order bed-rest and anxiously test for damage. Dr. Xiao's work builds upon previous evidence that neurons can be protected with the hormone progesterone. While progesterone is most commonly known for its role in birth control medication, it has also displayed neuroprotective qualities in laboratory cultures and in a variety of animals. In ... read more Category: Stress Link To This Entry - comments (4) Monday, May 05, 2008 - 13:46 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Second-Hand Smoke Damage is Immediate, Dramatic Asking a smoker to "put it out" in a public space may not seem like the friendliest gesture, but research increasingly shows it to be a very reasonable public health request. We've long known that the damage inflicted by smoking is not limited to the person holding the cigarette. Studies of individuals working in confined smoke-friendly spaces have demonstrated how these toxic fumes damage cardiovascular functions over time even when they're not directly inhaled. But a new study has produced an even more damning portrait of the way second-hand smoke affects the system - the damage is dramatic and it happens with alarming speed. The American Lung Association estimates that nearly 50,000 non-smokers die of tobacco-related illness every year due purely to second-hand exposure, and the new study makes that initially shocking number more believable. Sponsored by the American College of Cardiology, the study demonstrates that spending ... read more Category: Addiction Link To This Entry - comments (2) Monday, May 05, 2008 - 12:33 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments In Adolescent Rats, Early Alcohol Consumption May Lead to Heavy Drinking Many alcoholics first began drinking during adolescence, but early exposure to alcohol is not a definite indication of future difficulties, and not all teens who drink develop dependence. In an effort to better understand why some teens who drink go on to abuse alcohol while others do not, researchers from Duke University Medical Center and the University of North Carolina studied patterns of behavior in adolescent rats given alcohol. Their results, which appear in the May issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, indicate that rats who drink most heavily during early alcohol exposure are most likely to abuse alcohol later on. Research has already indicated that adolescents may be more vulnerable to the effects of alcohol, as individuals who begin drinking in their teens are more likely to become alcohol dependent than those who begin drinking later in life. In their study, the researchers explain that other ... read more Category: Addiction Link To This Entry - comments (2) Monday, May 05, 2008 - 09:31 posted by TheEditorInChief Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments AADT's Session Wrap-Up High Self Esteem Puts Some on the Defensive - Confidence may be overrated - self-opinion and vulnerability are more complex than previously thought. Positive impressions of oneself can amount to a "fragile and shallow" cover that leaves one more susceptible to insult and injury. Weight Loss Possible When Self-Belief High - True confidence, on the other hand, can prove to be the best weapon in the weight-loss fight. While education is essential, those who are most confident in their ability to take off the weight also usually have the greatest success rates. College's High Cost, Before You Even Apply - With high school graduation rates at an all-time high and even mid-tier colleges growing more selective, the application process ended in disappointment for a larger percentage of students this year than ever before. The anxieties that ... read more Category: Our Psychology Link To This Entry - comments (2) Friday, May 02, 2008 - 11:57 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Sedatives Induce False Traumatic Memories of Hospital Visits to the intensive care unit (ICU) are harrowing, spurring many empathetic doctors to keep children sedated in order to spare them the experience. While the intention is compassionate, the result may actually be a greater risk of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) according to a study by Dr. Gillian Colville in the latest issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Colville interviewed 102 children two months after their stay in an ICU. Shockingly, 32 of them reported delusional memories, many of which were laced with ghastly hallucinations. These children falsely remembered horrors worse than needles and stern nurses, such as scorpions crawling over their skin, and they were more likely to develop PTSD even when researchers controlled for severity of injury. Sixty-four of the children were able to remember true details of their stay, but these memories, while frequently disturbing, ... read more Category: Medication Info Link To This Entry - comments (6) Friday, May 02, 2008 - 11:39 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Deep Brain Stimulation Shows Promise as Depression Treatment As difficult as living under the cloud of depression can be, most cases significantly improve with standard treatments over time. 20% of depressed individuals, unfortunately, do not respond to therapy or medication, but a developing treatment that initially seems drawn from the pages of science fiction may prove more effective for these most severe cases than traditional anti-depressants. Deep brain stimulation is a form of treatment in which a small mechanical device implanted in the body sends mild electrical currents into electrodes in the brain to calm overactivity in the neurological regions responsible for controlling mood and facilitating the symptoms of clinical depression. Developing research implies that it could be very helpful to at least some of the millions whose depression resists all other treatments. The approach is not technically new as it has been approved for the ... read more Category: Depression Link To This Entry - comments (4) Friday, May 02, 2008 - 11:12 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments New Version of OxyContin May Be Harder to Abuse Recent national reports have illustrated just how serious the problem of prescription drug abuse has become, and new strategies are needed to prevent the inappropriate and potentially lethal use of these medications. An announcement made by the FDA this week points toward one potential way of addressing this growing crisis. They reported that the manufacturers of the powerful painkiller OxyContin, Purdue Pharma LP, have created a new version of the drug that may be more difficult to use recreationally. OxyContin, which was first introduced in 1996, is designed to be released into the body over a 12 hour time period and has helped many individuals suffering from serious illness or recovering form injury. As with other opiates, however, OxyContin is highly addictive, and recreational use of the ... read more Category: Addiction Link To This Entry - comments (5) Thursday, May 01, 2008 - 13:06 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Pentagon Encourages Treatment With "Don't Ask" Policy A survey released this week by the American Psychiatric Association revealed that approximately three-fifths of soldiers thought that seeking mental health treatment could damage their careers. While the Pentagon claimed that they had no reason to worry, their fear had some substantiation in a question on the Standard Form 86, Questionnaire for National Security Positions. That notorious question asks applicants to disclose mental health treatment received in the past seven years. Officials claim that less than one percent of clearance denials were from treatment evidence alone, but a review of transcripts from security clearance hearings shows that therapy discolsures were often the focus of doubts about an applicants suitability. Some disclosures wre followed up on to the point of interrogating therapists all the way back from active duty to adolescence. We have reported on this problem for a long time, but ... read more Category: Stress Link To This Entry - comments (7) Thursday, May 01, 2008 - 12:27 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Doctors May Be Key to Helping Smokers Quit Disputing the health risks posed by tobacco makes about as much sense as debating the color of the sky. Smoking causes emphysema, pneumonia, stroke and infertility and leads to cancers of the lungs, throat, and digestive system. Tobacco companies themselves no longer concoct extensive press campaigns to deny that fact (now they have anti-smoking ads that actually encourage the habit in teens). The argument that responsible adults have the right to destroy their bodies if they want to is fine, but it means little to the millions who've become addicted to the product and truly want to drop a horrible habit. 45 million Americans (that's more than 1 in 5 adults and nearly 1 in 4 adolescents) still smoke today, and at least 70% say they want to quit. Half of that majority try to ... read more Category: Addiction Link To This Entry - comments (3) Thursday, May 01, 2008 - 10:38 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Study Ties Alzheimer's-Diabetes Link to Blood Glucose Levels Scientists have yet to discover why Alzheimer's disease develops, but research conducted in recent years has shown that diabetes heightens an individual's risk. Past studies examining this link have shown that low levels of insulin, which characterizes diabetes, may also interfere with normal brain functions and lead to Alzheimer's. In a new study, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies investigated a related mechanism that may also explain this link: the connection between Alzheimer's, diabetes, and high blood glucose levels, which are caused by the body's inability to process insulin. Their work, which will appear in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, indicates that an interaction between blood glucose and beta amyloid may contribute to the progressive cognitive decline of ... read more Category: Diet , Aging and Eating Disorders Link To This Entry - comments (3) Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - 14:25 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Autism Risk Correlated to Polluter Proximity The scientific investigation into the cause of autism is surrounded by a highly emotional debate. Many parents, impatient to find an explanation for their childs problems, blame vaccines, especially those that use mercury preservatives. While vaccine fears have been discredited by the preponderance of the evidence, it remains plausible that environmental factors like mercury, which can greatly damage a developing fetus, can raise the risk of autism. In a recent study of school districts in Texas, published in Health & Place, Dr. Raymond Palmer found a strong correlation between distance from a polluter and rates of autism. Dr. Palmer collated 1998 to 2002 records from the Texas Educational Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency, focusing on the mercury released by factories and power-plants. The most obvious correlation that popped out was that for every 1000 pounds of mercury from factories and from power plants, there was a 2.6% ... read more Category: Parenting Link To This Entry - comments (2) Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - 12:44 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Depression During Pregnancy May Predict Parenting Stress Feelings of stress and anxiety often accompany the happiness and excitement surrounding an impending birth, and it is not uncommon for women to experience depression during pregnancy as well as after. New research from the University of Melbourne in Australia indicates the extent to which depression can affect the future well-being of pregnant women and their families. By questioning women during and after their pregnancies, the researchers found that depression experienced during pregnancy may contribute to continued depression and higher levels of family tension. In their study, which appears in BMC Psychiatry, the researchers examined risk factors for depression occurring during pregnancy (antenatal depression), depression occurring after pregnancy (postnatal depression), and parental stress. In addition to studying many factors implicated in depression— prior health history, predisposing characteristics, life events— they also focused on how antenatal depression, postnatal depression, and ... read more Category: Parenting Link To This Entry - comments (3) Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - 12:41 posted by TheEditorInChief Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Two Surveys Reveal American Struggles, Drug Swapping Data released today from two new surveys painted a troubling picture on two fronts. In one survey of over 100,000 Americans, Gallup found that roughly the same number consider themselves to be thriving as struggling. More worrisome is that the latter group has swelled by more than 25 percent in the last two years. Gallup asked respondents to rate their well-being on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 being the worst and 10 being the best. Nearly half of the survey's participants responded that they felt they were a 7 or above, which is considered to be "thriving." 47 percent of the respondents said that they were between a 4 and a 7, a group that Gallup calls "struggling." 4 percent of respondents said they were a 4 or below, which is considered "suffering." In 2006, 37 percent of Americans were found to be in ... read more Category: Our Psychology Link To This Entry - comments (5) Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - 11:42 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Clearer Connections Drawn Between Alcohol, Risk and Pleasure Why do we like to drink, again? Is it the bubbly sense of pleasure that covers us after we've knocked a few back or the deceptive impressions of invulnerability that begin to build as the drinks pile up? Why does alcohol cause so many to, as they say, throw caution to the wind? And why do we continue to drink even as we watch the habit lead to unfortunate behaviors in ourselves and others? As often as we're lectured on the negative effects of alcohol, we've only just begun to fully understand its effect on our bodies and, most importantly, our ever-volatile brains. New research further clarifies that testy relationship. Using magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques to scan and observe the active brains of a dozen subjects, researchers at the National Institutes on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism ... read more Category: Addiction Link To This Entry - comments (3) Tuesday, April 29, 2008 - 15:27 posted by BlogMeister Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments Intelligence Improvement With Training Until relatively recently, the brain was thought of as an entirely static structure. But the paradigm shifted when scientists found evidence that new connections can quickly form and that entirely new neurons can be generated in adult brains. Even after this revelation, the predominant view was that, while some cognitive functions could improve, there were other forms of intelligence that were circumscribed before adulthood. Fluid intelligence especially was assumed to be innate, but a study by Dr. Susanne Jaeggi, published this week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that fluid intelligence can ebb and flow throughout life. Fluid intelligence is the ability to solve novel problems without relying on crystalized knowledge. On tests of fluid intelligence, a bright child can outperform an average adult with decades of experience to draw on. Dr. Jaeggi tested adult volunteers for baseline fluid intelligence before assigning them ... read more Category: Our Psychology Link To This Entry - comments (10)

[1] 2 3 4 5 Next

Previous Month June, 2005July, 2005September, 2005October, 2005November, 2005December, 2005January, 2006February, 2006March, 2006April, 2006May, 2006June, 2006July, 2006August, 2006September, 2006October, 2006November, 2006December, 2006January, 2007February, 2007March, 2007April, 2007May, 2007June, 2007July, 2007August, 2007September, 2007October, 2007November, 2007December, 2007January, 2008February, 2008March, 2008April, 2008May, 2008 Next Month

Archives 

Vlog Entries 

Psych and Addiction Blogs

Medical and Health Care Blogs

Other Friends & Good Reads