NAMI's Road to Recovery and Cure

Roadmap to Recovery & Cure
"Report of the NAMI Policy Research Institute Task Force on Serious Mental Illness Research
The 40-page report is now available!

News release: NAMI Task Force Calls For Stronger, Smarter Investment In Federal Scientific Research on Serious Mental Illnesses
Roadmap to Recovery & Cure full report (PDF, 497kb)
Background information about the Task Force and a list of its members
Take Action Now for Improved Research Funding!

Use the links below to access sample letters and contact information for key policy makers:
Contact your Congressional Representatives
Contact President Bush
Contact Dr. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH)
Contact Senators Harkin and Specter, who hold leadership positions on the Senate’s Labor, Health, and Human Services Subcommittee that oversee"

In this download there's nothing about diagnosis of the physical causes of mental illness. It's like an anecdotal drugs ad with footnotes.
PDF Link

The physical causes of mental illness are outlined here and include

*Finding the Medical Causes of "Dementia" in the Elderly: the Genesis Protocols Used by the Los Angeles County Genesis Program

*Finding the Medical Causes of Severe Mental Symptoms:
The Extraordinary Walker Exam by Dan Stradford Founder, Safe Harbor

*Medical Causes of Psychiatric Symptoms (Extensive)

*Medical Causes of Psychosis, Anxiety, and Depression
by Ronald J. Diamond, M.D., Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin

*The Medical Evaluation Field Manual of the State of California: Basic Screening Procedures for Finding Medical Causes of Severe Mental Symptoms

*The 29 Medical Causes of Schizophrenia

Only one road makes sense...

Omega-3 may boost brain function in boys: Study

Maybe there's nothing wrong with hyperactive kids... maybe it's nutritional~! Fish oil is better than Ritalin. Cheaper, too. Our brains are 60% fat by dry weight... makes sense...


Omega-3 may boost brain function in boys: Study
By Stephen Daniells, 24-Feb-2010

"Supplements of the omega-3 fatty acid DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) may alter the function of the brain associated with working memory, according to results of a new study with healthy boys.

Scientists from the University of Cincinnati showed for the first time using neuro-imaging that supplementation with DHA alters the functional activity in cortical attention networks in humans.

“The present findings add to an emerging body of evidence from preclinical and clinical imaging studies that suggest that dietary DHA intake is a robust modulator of functional cortical activity,” wrote lead author Robert McNamara in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

European support

The study follows hot on the heels of, and vindicates, backing from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for DHA-related brain and eye health claims for infants.

EFSA’s Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) said DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) levels of 100mg of per day were appropriate for 7-24 month-old infants along with 200mg per day for pregnant and lactating women.

The DHA claims relating to brain health stated: “DHA intake can contribute to normal brain development of the foetus, infant and young children”

Another shorter chain, omega-3 fatty acid, ALA (alpha linolenic acid), was affirmed as important for the normal brain development of children up to the age of 18 but no levels were specified.

Study details

While there is a growing body of evidence linking DHA to cognitive function, Dr McNamara and his co-workers note that it is unkown how DHA supplementation may affect functional cortical activity in humans. In order to fill this knowledge gap, they recruited 33 health boys aged between 8 and 10 and randomly assigned them to receive one of two doses of DHA (400 or 1200 mg per day, Martek Biosciences) or placebo for eight weeks.

Brain activation patterns were measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a test of sustained attention (playing video games). The results showed that DHA levels in the membrane of red blood cells (erythrocytes ) increased by 47 and 70 per cent in the low and high dose DHA group, while the placebo groups experienced an 11 per cent drop in DHA levels.

The “main finding” from the fMRI data was an indication of significant increases in the activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex part of the brain in the DHA groups – an area of the brain associated with working memory. Changes in other parts of the brain, including the occipital cortex (the visual processing centre) and the cerebellar cortex (plays a role in motor control) were observed.

“These findings suggest that this imaging paradigm could be useful for elucidating neurobiological mechanisms underlying deficits in cortical activity in psychiatric disorders associated with DHA deficiencies, including ADHD and major depression,” wrote the researchers.

The study was co-funded by Martek, the National Institutes of Health, and the Inflammation Research Foundation.

Source: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Published online ahead of print, doi:10.3945/ajcn.2009.28549
“Docosahexaenoic acid supplementation increases prefrontal cortex activation during sustained attention in healthy boys: a placebo-controlled, dose-ranging, functional magnetic resonance imaging study”
Authors: R.K. McNamara, J. Able, R. Jandacek, T. Rider, et al."

"Omega-3 fatty acids
Overview:
Omega-3 fatty acids are considered essential fatty acids: They are necessary for human health but the body can’t make them -- you have to get them through food. Omega-3 fatty acids can be found in fish, such as salmon, tuna, and halibut, other seafood including algae and krill, some plants, and nut oils. Also known as polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), omega-3 fatty acids play a crucial role in brain function as well as normal growth and development. They have also become popular because they may reduce the risk of heart disease. The American Heart Association recommends eating fish (particularly fatty fish such as mackerel, lake trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna, and salmon) at least 2 times a week...."

More on Omega-3 and your health from the excellent site of the University of Maryland here

At top medical schools, more than half the profs have drug industry ties

By Jacob Goldstein

"Sometimes it seems like everybody has financial ties to the drug or device industry. As it turns out, it’s only a little more than half of everybody.

A survey conducted in 2006-07 and published this week in the journal Health Affairs found that 53% of academic research faculty in the life sciences at top schools reported financial ties to industry.

About a third of the respondents said they had served as consultants, nearly a quarter said they had been paid speakers and 20% said they had received research funding from industry. That last figure is down from 28% of researchers who said they received research funding from industry in a similar survey conducted in 1995.

The authors suggest a number of possible causes of the drop in researchers who said they got industry funding for research, including a big increase in NIH research funding since 1995 and more scrutiny of academic-industry ties.

(Speaking of that scrutiny, you might want to take a look at a story in this morning’s New York Times that describes how the big health-care bills in both houses of Congress would require industry to report payments to doctors.)"



Read more at WSJ Blog

Cats - and E. Fuller Torrey

Do cats cause schizophrenia? - an interview with E. Fuller Torrey

Pet Theory
Do Cats Cause Schizophrenia?
by Stephen Mihm
The New York Times Magazine on the Web
"I THINK CATS ARE GREAT," says E. Fuller Torrey. His office decor would seem to confirm this statement: A cat poster hangs on one wall; a cat calendar sits on his desk; and a framed picture of a friend's cat leans against the windowsill. He even admits to having a "cat library" at home. But Torrey's interest in felines is a bit different from that of your typical cat lover. That's because Torrey, a psychiatry professor at the Uniformed Services University of Health Science and the enfant terrible of mental health research, believes that Felis domestica may carry infectious diseases that could cause schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. "My wife thinks I'm going to be assassinated by cat owners," says Torrey with a sigh. "In fact, I like cats. Unfortunately, if we are correct that they transmit infections..." Here his voice trails off, and he pensively fingers his closely cropped beard.

Torrey often speaks in a self-deprecating manner of his "delusional" notions, but he's dead serious about the cat connection. He thinks "typhoid tabbies" are passing along Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite that causes brain lesions and, if Torrey is right, schizophrenia. Torrey first made the argument nearly thirty years ago. "It was considered psychotic," he admits. But since then, his ideas, though still outside the mainstream, have attracted converts, most notably the Johns Hopkins virologist Robert Yolken, with whom he now collaborates. Together, they're trying to prove that toxoplasmosis is but one of several infectious diseases that cause most cases of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It helps their case that previous explanations -- bad mothering, bad genes -- have proven deficient to varying degrees. But Torrey and Yolken have also uncovered some hard evidence to support their claims, and they are about to put their theory to the test with clinical trials of drugs that are new to the psychopharmacological arsenal: antibiotics and antivirals similar to those used by AIDS patients. If the duo finds that such drugs alter the course of schizophrenia, Yolken observes, their results "would represent a major advance in the treatment of this devastating disease as well as in understanding its basic etiology."

"SCHIZOPHRENIA is a cruel disease," Torrey has written, with considerable understatement. Although it affects only 1 percent of the population, schizophrenia is among the most debilitating forms of mental illness. Trapped in a world of private delusions, a schizophrenic might cling, for example, to the belief that he is Jesus Christ, or that the government has implanted a monitoring device in his mouth during a routine dental procedure. Visual and auditory hallucinations can range from the terrifying to the merely strange: gigantic spiders, voices that insult or instruct. Some schizophrenics withdraw, becoming mute or catatonic; others remain communicative but incoherent, jumping from one topic to another without logical connections."

Link
More on Torrey here:
from Washingtonian
Parasite mind control
Torrey bio with legal center links
Treatment Advocacy Center (Psychlaws)
Treatment Advocacy Center Blog

Wikipedia on Torrey
PDF - Biederman deposition includes information on the Stanley Foundation, source of Torrey's funding
Link
Torrey, Stanley Institute linked to illegal theft, resale of 99 brains
Link

Treating the 29 KNOWN and PROVEN causes of schizophrenia instead of chasing a theory would help a lot of sick people.
It wouldn't fund research, help keep jobs or sell drugs. But a theory that cats are behind madness apparently does... and to quote Torrey, though in a different context, "that is a definition of insanity".

Blind Faith

BLIND FAITH
What happens when drugs, science and money mix?
"Our investigation discovered complex, seemingly ubiquitous, financial relationships between giant pharmaceutical companies and the scientific community tasked with establishing the safety of our drugs.
And the financial entanglements are not just pervasive, they are oftentimes virtually invisible.
Blind Faith also reveals a frightening escalation in the number of unsafe drugs being pulled from Canadian store shelves, an astounding number of medications that are routinely prescribed for unapproved uses and a federal bureaucracy that seems ill-equipped to offer Canadians the safeguards they deserve.
Much of our investigation focuses on McMaster University and the researchers who work there. You'll learn that in recent years the amount of money the pharmaceutical industry pours into McMaster and its teaching hospitals has almost quadrupled.
For many at McMaster, that explosion in funding is a source of genuine pride, emblematic of the university's stature in the scientific community.
Fair enough.
But that explosion has also exacerbated the very real concerns many have about the uneasy relationship that sometimes exists between scientists and the people who pay for their research.
Initially, we focused our attention on Mac simply because it's in our back yard.
But what we discovered over the course of our investigation is that the university's outstanding success in attracting private funding has brought into particularly sharp focus many of the ethical issues such funding raises.
Universities across North America face increasing scrutiny in this area, and the scientific community is, itself, debating the implications of the increasingly cosy relationship it has with the pharmaceutical world. In Blind Faith, you'll come to understand why that is a conversation in which we should all participate."

Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine now available online

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, February 29, 2008

JOURNAL OF ORTHOMOLECULAR MEDICINE NOW ONLINE

(OMNS February 29, 2008) The archives of the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine are now posted online. Past issues from 1967 through 2002 are available for downloading, at no charge, at http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/index.shtml

"36 years of important material is now freely available to everyone," said Steven J. Carter, Executive Director of the Toronto-based International Schizophrenia Foundation, which publishes the Journal.

The Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine has led the way in presenting, in advance of other medical journals, new health concerns and treatments including niacin therapy for schizophrenia and coronary disease; vitamin C for cancer; and the nutritional treatment of behavioral disorders, and drug and alcohol abuse. The JOM was also the first medical journal to publish papers on the nutritional treatment of allergies, autism, and AIDS. JOM published pioneering research on candiasis in 1978, mercury amalgam toxicity in 1982, and chronic fatigue syndrome in 1988. The Journal has published over 100 papers on nutritional medicine and cancer, and over 400 articles on schizophrenia and other psychiatric illnesses. JOM is peer-reviewed.

The Journal was founded in 1967 as the Journal of Schizophrenia, and subsequently titled the Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry until 1986. Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling authored 9 papers in the Journal from 1970-1992. It was Pauling that gave nutritional medicine the name "orthomolecular." Says JOM Editor-in Chief Abram Hoffer, MD, PhD: "In 1968, Dr. Pauling proposed the term orthomolecular (1,2) which we recognized as the correct word to define the total interest in nutrition, clinical ecology, and the use of vitamin and mineral supplements. All the pioneers in orthomolecular medicine have reported their findings in this journal. It thus represents a unique source for these earlier and current studies which provide a basis for the increasing growth of nutritional medicine."

ONLINE, BUT NOT ON MEDLINE
Curiously, after over 40 years of continuous publication, JOM is still not indexed on MEDLINE. There are about 5,000 other journals indexed by the taxpayer-funded U.S. National Library of Medicine, and over 700 million MEDLINE searches each year. Not one of those searches found a single paper from the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine. (3)

In 2006, Psychology Today wrote: "The National Library of Medicine refuses to index the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, though it is peer-reviewed and seems to meet their criteria." (4)

MEDLINE does, however, index material from Newsweek, Consumer Reports, Reader’s Digest and Time magazines.

Those who may feel think this is irregular may wish to contact the National Library of Medicine’s Deputy Director, Betsy L. Humphreys, at the National Institutes of Health, Bldg. 38, Room 2E17A, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894 or email betsy_humphreys@nlm.nih.gov or humphreb@mail.nlm.nih.gov

The Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine archives, numbering over 600 papers, are posted and topic-searchable at http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/index.shtml

References:

(1) http://www.orthomed.org/pauling2.html ; http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/MM/B/B/J/Q/_/mmbbjq.pdf ; http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/MM/B/B/J/Q/
(2) http://www.orthomed.org/pauling.html
(3) http://www.doctoryourself.com/medlineup.html
(4) Psychology Today, Nov-Dec 2006. http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20061101-000002.html
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=20061101-000002&page=4

Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org

The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.

Editorial Review Board:

Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D.
Damien Downing, M.D.
Harold D. Foster, Ph.D.
Steve Hickey, Ph.D.
Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.
Bo H. Jonsson, MD, PhD
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D.
Erik Paterson, M.D.

Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D., Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org


To Subscribe at no charge: http://www.orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html

JOM is here