Loose Screws Mental Health News

I recently wrote about the MOTHERS Act and the unnecessary scare tactics surrounding it. A Dallas-Fort Worth TV station picked up on the story and provided a short one-sided view of the issue, continuing to purport that the bill is solely about drugging new moms. I don’t discount Ms. Philo’s terrible experience with her medication. In fact, I’d be against the act if its sole purpose was to force treatment on pregnant women – medicated or not. Again, I’d like to reiterate that the bill’s purpose is to educate moms about postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis – not to shove unnecessary pills down women’s throats.

If you have sleep apnea, your CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine may alleviate depression symptoms. My husband has sleep apnea and hasn’t been able to use the CPAP machine because of sinus problems. When he doesn’t use it (he hasn’t for a while), he’s noticeably moodier and prone to depressive symptoms. But then again, anyone who doesn’t get good sleep for several days is pretty moody.

AstraZeneca (AZ) is going after Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Novartis AG’s Sandoz unit after the two companies applied to make cheaper version of Seroquel available. AZ’s patent on Seroquel expires in 2011. The trial date for patent litigation is August 11. In the meantime, according to the Bloomberg report, the FDA is considering approval of Seroquel XR for bipolar depression and bipolar mania.

What is it about the U.K. that they seem to take pharma’s power more seriously than the U.S.? The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) charged GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the maker of Seroxat (Paxil in the U.S.), with not fully disclosing their clinical trial data that downplayed serious side effects such as increasing suicidal tendencies among those 18 years and younger. The MHRA also asserts that Seroxat didn’t alleviate depression as much as GSK’s initial data showed. GSK, of course, denied manipulating the data to show favorable results:

GSK denies withholding data, claiming the risks did not come to light until the results of nine studies were pooled.

The UK minister of public health, Dawn Primarilo, promised to address the issue of Big Pharma hiding negative clinical trial data.

“Notwithstanding the limitations that may exist in the law, pharmaceutical companies should disclose any information they have that would have a bearing on the protection of health,” she says.

In other news, I shouldn’t be a successful writer or novelist. The correlation between creative writers and suicide is ridiculously high. More than 70 well-known writers and poets have successfully committed suicide. How much more “unknown” writers and poets have as well?

(Image from Monthly Prescribing Reference)

Pregnancy is NOT a mental illness

I stumbled upon Yankee Cowgirl’s blog that mentioned Congress is working on the MOTHERS (Mom’s Opportunity to Access Health, Education, Research, and Support for Postpartum Depression) Act which would “strongly encourage pregnant women into mental health programs – that means drugs – to combat even mild depression during or after giving birth.”

She links to a column written by Byron J. Richards on newswithviews.com. He writes:

The Mothers Act is pending legislation that will indoctrinate hundreds of thousands of mothers into taking dangerous psych drugs.

He goes on to slam Big Pharma about how they control Congress and how mothers don’t need psych drugs for a natural birth process.

The Mothers Act (S. 1375: Mom’s Opportunity to Access Health, Education, Research, and Support for Postpartum Depression Act) has the net affect of reclassifying the natural process of pregnancy and birth as a mental disorder that requires the use of unproven and extremely dangerous psychotropic medications (which can also easily harm the child).

These are some serious accusations. I got pretty riled up myself and decided to see what Congress said in the bill.

Loose Screws Mental Health News

Advance apologies for sounding like I’m in a cynical mood. I’m working on something today that I’m not fond of.

---

An article in Newsday (by the Associated Press) says that researchers are becoming hopeful that hormonal therapy can ward off mental health decline in menopausal women, such as dementia. It seems that previous research found that hormonal therapy produced negative results, but the new research suggests that timing may be the defining factor. Older women in the later stages of menopause seem to be at more risk for heart attacks, strokes, and breast cancer. Doctors are saying hormone therapy may work in women in the earliest stages of menopause.

The Long and Short of It

1. Researchers have discovered that the malfunction of a gene thought to be associated with  schizophrenia or depression seems to have symptoms associated with those illnesses. They figured it out thanks to our trusty mice. The mutated gene is called DISC1 (Disrupted in schizophrenia 1).
2. Breast-feeding helps new moms battle depression. Consuming foods with omega-3 fatty acids also provides benefits. According to an author named Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, breast-feeding lowers stress levels. However, if the mother is having issues feeding her child, it can have the opposite effect and bring on depression.
3. Walter Cronkite’s daughter Kathy has a book, The Edge of Darkness, which details her battle with depression. Oh, and by the way, Joan Rivers and Mike Wallace deal with depression too. (That’s in the book.) EDIT: Polly of polarcoaster.net let me know that Cronkite’s book isn’t new.  She was just discussing her experience with depression in Cincinnati’s The Enquirer.
4. A new study shows that chronic depression may lead to diabetes in older people.

“The culprit appears to cortisol, a hormone produced in response to stress. When someone is depressed, cortisol levels rise. If depression is chronic, cortisol levels may stay consistently high.” – Debra Manzella, R.N.

Also, make sure you’re working on your 300+ crunches daily:

“Excess belly fat is a known risk factor for diabetes.”