Schizophrenia is eight different diseases, not one

That is the title of this article I am writing about today. “New research shows that schizophrenia is not a single disease, but a group of eight distinct disorders, each caused by changes in clusters of genes that lead to different sets of symptoms.  The findings sets the stage for scientists to develop better ways to diagnose and treat schizophrenia, a mental illness that can be devastating when not adequately managed, says C. Robert Cloninger, co-author of the study published Monday in the American Journal of Psychiatry. ‘We are really opening a new era of psychiatric diagnosis,’ says Cloninger, professor of psychiatry and genetics at the Washington University of Medicine in St. Louis.  Cloninger says he hopes his work will ‘allow for the development of a personalized diagnosis, opening the door to treating the cause, rather than just the symptoms, of schizophrenia.”  All people are different that is why I believe this approach should work. I know from reading everybody has different problems with this disease.
They go on to say: “Cloninger and colleagues found that certain genetic profiles matched particular symptoms. While people with one genetic cluster have odd and disorganized speech- what is sometimes called ‘word salad’ – people with another genetic profile hear voices, according to the study, funded by the National Institutes of Health.  Some genetic clusters gave people higher risks of the disease than others, according to the study, which compared the DNA of 4,200 people with schizophrenia to that of 3,800 healthy people.  One set of genetic changes, for example confers a 95% chance of developing schizophrenia.  In the new study, researchers describe a woman with this genetic profile who developed signs of the disorder by age 5, when she taped over the mouths of her dolls to make them stop whispering to her and calling her name.  Another patient- whose genetic profile gave her a 71% risk of schizophrenia – experienced a more typical disease course and began hearing voices at age 17.  The average person has less than a 1% risk of developing schizophrenia, Cloninger says.” I know this disease is bad and yet where my life was going and the bad luck I was having I do not know if I could have changed my life around as I did after I received this disease.  After my release from prison and my appeal I wanted to change my life.  With drugs and alcohol I do not know if I ever could.  I had to stop and get some sobriety in my life without doing while I was locked up.
The article goes on to say: “Psychiatrists such as Stephen Marder describe the study as a step forward.  Today, doctors diagnose patients with mental illness with a process akin to a survey, asking about the person’s family history and symptoms, says, Marder, a professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California-Los Angeles. ‘It underlines that the way we diagnose schizophrenia is relatively primitive,’ Marder says. Patients may wait years for an accurate diagnosis, and even longer to find treatments that help them without causing intolerable side effects.  Doctors have long known that schizophrenia can run in families, says Robert Freedman, editor in chief of the American Journal of Psychiatry and chair of psychiatry at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.  If one identical twin has schizophrenia, for example, there is an 80% chance that the other twin has the disease as well.  In the past doctors looked for single genes that might cause schizophrenia, without real success, Freedman says.” I know the side effects can be horrendous. The people are still left with some negative symptoms.  There really was no family history with me maybe a cousin that I never met.
I goes on to say: “The new paper suggests that genes work together like a winning or losing combination of cards in poker, Freedman says. ‘This shows us that there are some very bad hands out there,’ Freedman says.  In some cases- in which a genetic profile conveys close to a 100% risk of schizophrenia- people may not be able to escape the disease, Cloninger says.  But if doctors could predict who is at high risk, they might also be able to tailor an early intervention to help a patient better manage their condition, such as by managing stress.  Doctors don’t yet know why one person with a 70% risk of schizophrenia develops the disease and others don’t, Cloninger says. It’s possible that environment plays a key role, so that child with a supportive family and good nutrition might escape the diagnosis, while someone who experiences great trauma or deprivation might become very ill.  The study also reflects how much has changed in the way that scientists think about the genetic causes of common diseases, Marder says.  He notes that diseases caused by a single gene – such a sickle-cell anemia and cystic fibrosis – affect very few people. Most common diseases, such as cancer, are caused by combinations of genes. Even something as apparently simple as height is caused by combinations of genes, he says.  Doctors have known for years that breast cancer is not one disease, for example, but at least half a dozen diseases driven by different genes, says study co-author Igor Zwir, research associate in psychiatry at Washington University.  Doctors today have tests to predict a woman’s risk of some types of breast cancer, and other tests that help them select the most effective drugs. 
Those sorts of tests could be extremely helpful for people with schizophrenia, who often try two or three drugs before finding one that’s effective, Cloninger says. ‘Most treatments are trial and error,’ Cloninger says. If doctors could pinpoint which drugs could be more effective, they might be able to use lower doses, producing fewer of the bothersome side effects that lead many patients to stop taking their medication, Cloninger says.” Not only lower doses but also new drugs that work hopefully so people do not have any side effects. I believe it has a lot to do with environment and what a person is going through at the time this disease hits.  Stress has a lot to do with it.

Inside a Mental Hospital Called Jail

That is the title of this article click on the link to read the whole story. “The largest mental health center in America is a huge compound here in Chicago, with thousands of people suffering from manias, psychoses and other disorders, all surrounded by high fences and barbed wire.  Just one thing: It’s a jail. The only way to get treatment is to be arrested.  Psychiatric disorders are the only kind of sickness that we as a society regularly respond to not with sympathy but with handcuffs and incarceration.  And as more humane and cost-effective ways of treating mental illness have been cut back, we increasingly resort to the law enforcement toolbox: jails and prisons. More than half of prisoners in the United States have a mental health problem, according to a 2006 Justice Department study.  Among female inmates, almost three-quarters have a mental disorder.” That is a drag when the only way to get treatment is to go to jail.  What about the regular inmates the ones that do not have a mental illness.  You have enough doing your time than you have to worry about someone who has a mental illness to.  When I went to jail from the state hospital no one messed with my stuff do you know why because I had a mental illness and they did not know what I would do if they stole or did anything to me yes they were frightened.

You have games in the state hospital now in jail and prisons too.  You just want to do your time and get out. “People are not officially incarcerated because of psychiatric ailments, but that’s the unintended effect. Sherriff Dart says that although some mentally ill people commit serious crimes, the great majority are brought in for offenses that flow from mental illness.  One 47-year old man I spoke to, George, (I’m not permitted to use last names for legal reasons) is bipolar, hears voices and abuses drugs and alcohol.  He said he had been arrested five times since October for petty offenses.  The current offense is criminal trespass for refusing to leave Laundromat.  The sheriff says such examples are common and asks: ‘How will we be viewed, 20, 30, 50 years from now? We’ll be looked on as the ones who locked up all the mentally ill people. It really is one of those things so rich with irony: The same society that abhorred the idea that we lock people up in mental hospitals, now we lock people up in jails.’”  They should not be there in jail for petty crimes.  It seems like there are far too many not getting the treatment on the streets that they need.
The article goes on to say: “ A few data snapshots: Nationwide in America, more than three times as many mentally ill people are housed in prisons and jails as in hospitals, according to a 2010 study by the National Sheriffs’ Association and Treatment Advocacy Center.  Mentally ill inmates are often preyed upon while incarcerated, or disciplined because of trouble following rules.  They are much more likely than other prisoners, for example, to be injured in a fight in jail, the Justice Department says. Some 40 percent of people with serious mental illnesses have been arrested at some point in their lives.  In the 1800s, Dorothea Dix led a campaign against the imprisonment of the mentally ill, leading to far-reaching reforms and the establishment of mental hospitals. Now we as a society have, in effect, returned to the 1800s. In 1955, there was one bed in a psychiatric ward for every 300 Americans; now there is one for every 3,000 Americans, the 2010 study said. So while more effective pharmacological treatments are theoretically available, they are often very difficult to access for people who are only borderline.” I am different if I ever was in trouble again I would want to go to jail if I am medicated.  I’ve been to both the state hospital and jail.  I did not like jail unmedicated but would prefer it if I was medicated.
Ending the article: “TAXPAYERS spend as much as $ 300 or $400 a day supporting patients with psychiatric disorders while they are in jail, partly because the mentally ill require medication and extra supervision and care. ‘Fiscally, this is the stupidest thing I’ve seen government do, Dart says.  It would be far cheaper, he adds, to manage the mentally ill with a case worker on the outside than to spend such sums incarcerating them.  Cook County has implemented an exemplary system for mental health support for inmates. While in jail, they often stabilize.  Then they are released, go off their medication and cycle repeats.’”  They need the stabilization out here.  When a jail becomes a mental ward we need help.