I Was a Baby Bulimic

New York Times
July 15, 2009

I have neither a therapist’s diagnosis nor any scientific literature to support the following claim, and I can’t back it up with more than a cursory level of detail. So you’re just going to have to go with me on this: I was a baby bulimic.

Maybe not baby — toddler bulimic is more like it, though I didn’t so much toddle as wobble, given the roundness of my expanding form. I was a plump infant and was on my way to becoming an even plumper child, a ravenous machine determined to devour anything in its sights. My parents would later tell me, my friends and anyone else willing to listen that they’d never seen a kid eat the way I ate or react the way I reacted whenever I was denied more food. What I did in those circumstances was throw up.

(Continue reading here.)

Vets’ Mental Health Diagnoses Rising

New York Times
July 16, 2009

A new study has found that more than one-third of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who enrolled in the veterans health system after 2001 received a diagnosis of a mental health problem, most often post-traumatic stress disorder or depression.

The study by researchers at the San Francisco Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco, also found that the number of veterans found to have mental health problems rose steadily the longer they were out of the service.

(Continue reading.)

College Students With Depression Twice As Likely to Drop Out

College students with depression are twice as likely as their classmates to drop out of school, new research shows. But the study also indicates that lower grade point averages depended upon a student's type of depression. "The correlation between depression and academic performance is mainly driven by loss of interest in activities," said Daniel Eisenberg, assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and principal investigator of the study. "This is significant because it means individuals can be very depressed and very functional, depending on which type of depression they have.” (ScienceDaily, 7/7/09)

Children of Bipolar Parents Progress Along Pathway to Bipolar Disorder

02 July 2009

Journal of Affective Disorders

MedWire News: The offspring of bipolar disorder patients have an increased risk for anxiety, sleep, mood, and substance use disorders, which, in turn, places them at an increased risk for bipolar disorder, say Canadian scientists.

A broad range of symptoms and disorders from across the spectrum of psychiatric problems have been diagnosed in bipolar offspring. It has not been established, however, whether or not there is a predictable clinical sequence from non-specific, non-mood psychopathology to specific, mood psychopathology in offspring.

Read the full article here.

Treatment of Depression in Adults Should Consider Children

Physicians and other health care professionals who treat adults with depression also should consider the effects of the illness on their patients' children, according to a new report from the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine. “Depression interferes with quality of parenting and puts children of all age levels at risk for poor health and development," said Mareasa Isaacs, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Alliance of Multi-Ethnic Behavioral Health Associations. "The message is that it's really important to look at depression as something that affects not only the individual, but the children and other members of the family." (AAFP News, 7/3/09)

The 10 by 10 Campaign - Wellness Update

Volume 7
July 6, 2009
Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)

Greetings! This is the summer 2009 update on the 10 by 10 Campaign to promote wellness for people with mental illnesses and reduce early mortality by 10 years over the next 10 year time period. In This Issue:

-Guest Columnist
-The truth about madness
-Wellness: What You Need to Know
-Risk: Fatal illness more likely in bipolar patients
-Mood disorders common in polycystic ovary syndrome
-Moving nation from sick care toward wellness care
-General exercise guidelines for people with disabilities
-Depression in cancer patients: inquire or don’t, but be concerned
-Studies try to tease apart the links between depression and hearth disease
-Social rejection linked with pain in depresses patients
-Poor mental health, asthma risk linked?
-Loneliness as harmful as smoking and obesity, say scientist
-Happenings All Over the Country
-Spread the Word
-An active campaigner for the Pledge for Wellness
-Quotes-of-the-Month

(To read the newsletter, click here.)