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HealthyPlace.com Newsletter

This Week - July 27, 2003

1. VNS effective for severe depression
2. Selling counterfeit drugs on the net
3. Empowerplus: Miracle pill or ripoff?
4. Report: U.S. mental health system in disarray
5. Caregivers of mentally ill face risk of physical illness
6. Help for parents of eating disordered teens who refuse help
7. Lax parents to blame for attention deficit behavior problems
8. Predicting domestic violence
9. Has anyone ever broken free from OCD?
10. Thought for today

VNS Study Shows Device Treats Depression

Preliminary results from Cyberonics' Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) study suggest that long-term use of the therapy can produce improvements in depression. The data is expected to secure FDA approval for VNS in the treatment of depression.

According to stock analysts who follow Cybertronics this study confirms that VNS Therapy offers the most effective solution for recurrent treatment resistant depression, over current pharmacological therapy and ECT.

Read more here

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Counterfeit Drugs and the Good Life

You've seen the email spam ads: "buy Zyprexa, Ambien, etc. without seeing a doctor." Apparently many people did because Michael Carlow, a chain-smoking ex-con, earned nearly $40 million last year selling people fake drugs. That story is here. (Ed. Note: If it sounds too good to be true, then it usually is. If you purchase your meds online, go through a licensed pharmacy that you're familiar with -- like Walgreens or Eckerds.)

Lure of a Miracle Pill for Mental Illness

Empowerplus, a derivative of a feed supplement used to prevent aggressive pigs from savaging each other, has been banned from Canada, but some users with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder swear it's given them mental wellness without drugs.

Company co-founder, David Hardy, calls the supplement "the most significant breakthrough in health since time's beginning." Meanwhile the executive director of the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario is concerned about schizophrenia patients who drop their medications in favor of Empowerplus.

And now that it's been banned in Canada, some schizophrenics who swore by the supplement have committed suicide -- reportedly because life wasn't worth living without it.

The details are here. And if you or a family member have taken Empowerplus, please share your experience on our bulletin board.

Additional schizophrenia articles are linked from the Thought Disorders Community homepage.

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Disarray in Mental Health Programs

Treatment and support programs for the mentally ill are in woeful disarray across the United States, according to a presidential commission.

The New Freedom Commission on Mental Health is the first presidential commission in a generation to evaluate services for people with schizophrenia, depression and other mental disorders.

It found agencies are providing only fragmentary help to patients and allowing many to slip through the cracks.

"We have an unintended conspiracy to keep people disabled," Mike Hogan, director of the Ohio Department of Mental Health and chairman of the panel, told the Washington Post.

But does the current administration even care? Read how the report was buried.

Caregivers of Mentally Ill Face Risks of Physical Illness

People who care for a severely mentally ill family member not only face a heavy emotional burden but are also at high risk of physical illness, new research shows.

Why is that? Find out here.

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How Can a Parent Help a Teenager Who Refuses Help For an Eating Disorder?

You can see it plain as day. Your child has an eating disorder. But when you try to address the problem, the child says "what problem?" or refuses help. What's a parent to do?

Here are some suggestions from Kim Fowler, program director at Remuda Ranch Programs for Anorexia and Bulimia.

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REMUDA RANCH - Help for your eating disorder

The caring and compassionate team at Remuda Ranch can help you or a loved one overcome an eating disorder. Our highly professional treatment team and biblically- based individualized programs have worked for hundreds of our patients.

Take the first step toward living a life that is not controlled by fear and food. Call us now at 1-800-445-1900. We'll be happy to answer your questions. or visit our site.

Lax Parents Blamed for 'Attention Deficit' Behavior

Expert says a lot of ADD and ADHD symptoms are in fact easily confused with basic behavioral problems that don't need to be treated with a drug.

Hundreds of thousands of children prescribed the anti-hyperactivity drug Ritalin may simply be the victims of lax parenting.

Behavioral expert Warwick Dyer claims parents need to accept more blame for their children's "disorders" and move away from the chemical cosh of prescription drugs.

Mr. Dyer has developed a program that focuses on the way parents behave towards their children - and in the last five years has claimed a 100 per cent success rate. Read more about how it works.

view video: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Myths and Facts

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Predicting Domestic Violence

Children who suffer family violence are at risk of perpetrating domestic abuse themselves once they reach adulthood, finds to a study that followed over five hundred families for 20 years.

Lead author Miriam Ehrensaft, a psychologist at Columbia University says that three factors are the strongest predictors: "serious behavior problems in adolescence, exposure to domestic violence, and power punishments by the parents—harsh discipline.”

Being subjected to physical abuse as a child was most likely to connect to violent romantic relationships later in life. Yet Ehrensaft was most surprised to find that harsh parenting alone was associated with domestic violence down the road. "These children learn coercive forms of communication and conflict resolution from their parents," she says.

These violent forms of communication aren’t easily replaced. "The treatment programs we have right now don't work very well," says Ehrensaft. She recommends that prevention programs start as early as possible, by at least 10 years of age. "The earlier you start to change these behaviors, the better."

Notably, the study found no gender difference among the violent. Both men and women are equally likely to commit acts of physical aggression. More than 20 percent of both genders reported being violent with their partner; 5 percent of this violence brought injury to the partner.

Ehrensaft and researchers at Columbia first contacted 543 randomly selected children back in 1975. They, along with their parents, were interviewed in 1983, 1985 and 1991. The final survey, done in 1999, asked about aggressive behavior, romantic history and recent life changes. The study was published in the August issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

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Bulletin Board:
Has Anyone Broken Free From OCD?

fig5000:

"I have once successfully broken free from my OCD. But now it is back again. I was just wondering if anyone has completely gotten rid of their obsessive thoughts?"

Can you help fig5000? Respond here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Here's something to think about...

"Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born." - Dr. Dale Turner

From all of us here at HealthyPlace.com, we hope you have a good week.

Previous Newsletters

• July 20, 2003
• July 14, 2003
• July 6, 2003
• June 30, 2003
• June 22, 2003
• June 15, 2003
• June 8, 2003
• June 2, 2003
• May 26, 2003
• May 20, 2003
• May 12, 2003
• April 28, 2003
• April 14, 2003
• March 31, 2003
• March 24, 2003
• March 12, 2003

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