Risks of developing mental health problems if brother or sister affected

That is the title of this article I am reviewing today. "What is the risk of developing a mental disorder if a brother or sister has the condition? Now a large survey using data from all patients hospitalized in psychiatric wards in Israel, and their siblings, has given some answers: having a sibling with schizophrenia increases your risk of developing the condition by a factor of x10, with increased risks of developing bipolar disorder and other mental disorders.  Similar increases are seen with siblings of patients with bipolar disorder. This is the first study to assess risk of developing any psychiatric diagnosis in siblings of all patients hospitalized for any type of mental disorder in an entire population, and is presented at the ECNP neuroscience congress in Vienna." All of this I do not understand for my case.  None of my brother or sisters have a mental disorder.  The only ones in my family that have mental illness is a cousin on my moms side and a second cousin on my dads side. I do not think I will ever know before I die why I have this mental illness.
The article goes on to say: "The lifetime chance of suffering a mental disorder is extremely high. It is estimated that each year 38.2% of the EU population suffers from a mental disorder, corresponding to 164.8 million persons affected. It is known that siblings of patients with major mental disorders have an increased risk of suffering from the same disorder, but until now the risks have not been quantified
Now an international team has examined the rates of mental disorders in the families of 6111 Israeli patients who had been hospitalised with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or depression. They compared them to over 74,000 controls, age-and gender matched controls, taken from the Israeli Population Registry, which records all births, deaths, marriages and divorces in the country. By comparing the relative rates of mental disorders, they were able to show just how much more siblings are at risk of the same, and also other mental health conditions."  I really would like to know why I have this disease and even though I high functioning it has caused me problems in my life.  I recieved my first breakdown when I was twenty seven.  Looking back on my life though I believe I had symptoms when I was nineteen and married it did affected my marriage and is one of the reasons I am not still married.
The article ends: "If a brother or sister has schizophrenia, a sibling has x10 greater chance of themselves suffering from schizophrenia. They also have x6 to x8 increased chance of suffering from schizoaffective disorder, and x7 to x20 greater risk of suffering from bipolar disorder than the general population. If a brother or sister suffers from bipolar disorder, then their siblings have x4 greater chance of suffering from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and other psychiatric disorders. According to lead researcher, Prof. Mark Weiser MD: "This is a large study which allows us to put meaningful figures on the risks of developing mental disorders after they have arisen in a brother or sister. The figures are quite striking, with x10 risk of developing schizophrenia, and similar risks once a sibling has developed bipolar disorder. These results are important clinically, as they encourage mental health workers to be aware of the increased risk of psychiatric disorders in siblings of patients. These results can also be used by researchers studying the genetic underpinnings of mental disorders, as they indicate that the same genes might be associated with increased risk for various psychiatric disorders. There was no external funding for this work."  I have two sisters and two brothers and none of them have a mental illness.  I have a lot of cousins and none of them have this disease except for the cousin that had this disease and committed suicide.  I knew why he committed suicide the state hospital in Oregon said if he came back he was going to spend the rest of his life there and he was only twenty years old.  I know that when I was released from the state hospital and relapsed here on the streets I  did not want to go back because I thought I would never get out again I was wrong they only kept me for a weekend.

Schizophrenia DNA study will leads medical breakthrough

That is the title of this article I am reviewing. "For a long time scientists have to fight around the reason for the development of schizophrenia, a complex psychiatric disorder, and the way to understand the treatment. People with schizophrenia – more than 21 million worldwide
Scientists at Harvard University and the Broad Institute examined the genomes of 64,785 people around the world and found that those who were with the debilitating psychiatric disorders more likely to have mutations in a common gene, according to published this Wednesday findings.
People with schizophrenia – more than 21 million worldwide – generally have less gray matter and fewer connections in their brains than healthy peers. But scientists are not sure why. The research, which for the first time, suggests that changes in a gene called complement component 4 or C4, in short, could be important. The gene was previously known to help the immune system to target infections. The study shows the possible reasons is that the symptoms of schizophrenia of not less than 3.5 million Americans trigger of 1% of the population. Schizophrenia symptoms such as hallucinations, cognitive difficulties, hallucinations and abnormal social behavior changed. However, psychiatrists have been mystified about its origins and biological bases. 'The basic scientific dilemma in schizophrenia and in all mental illness is that we do not even the most basic things about how these diseases start known,' said Dr. Steve McCarroll, a geneticist at Harvard University and one of the authors of the study." Yea I wonder why and how I received this disease.  I just had one bad thing happen after another since I received this disease.
The article goes on to say: "What is the reason of schizophrenia so difficult?
We knew about the area for a long time on the basis of genetic-association studies. But there are a lot of genes are, and no one had identified gene as a risk before explaining. When [co-author] Steve [McCarroll] came to me with preliminary data to support the genetic link with C4, I was very excited because my lab was to investigate the role of other immune proteins of the development brain, especially synaptic pruning. We had some progress in understanding which proteins are in normal development. And since schizophrenia is thought to be a disease of the nervous system, which is really exciting. By demonstrating that there are some synaptic loss led to the hypothesis that maybe this genetic link could be related to crop. We were also fortunate in a third laboratory, Michael Carroll, the immunologist who has been studying C4 bring. So in order to progress as to make this really a question, it needs this kind of an interdisciplinary approach. healthy synapse pruning and?
We know that it is necessary for circumcision developing mouse brain. But we do not know [about his role in the people], as we know, for the mouse. With the participation of the immune system in this synapse pruning schizophrenia can be classified as an autoimmune disease?" I do know my immune system is not working right.  The reason I was diagnosed with lung cancer my body just does not fight this stuff anymore.  That is the reason I also get so many sinus infections.
The article ends: "No, this is not an autoimmune. What this shows us that a gene to be that happens, an immune system gene is involved. The last decade has shown that there are a lot of immune genes, which are expressed in the normal, healthy brain. They are repurposed in the brain to do important things in the development especially. We have evidence that this play a gene and a path that is expressed in the brain, and is a normal role in the brain. or the purpose of the study researchers came together from all over the United States and studied the role of genetics and their influence on the individual chance of developing the disease. In the process, they isolated a particular gene that prompts the symptoms. According to their research, the people who have a gene that accelerated the normal development process “synaptic pruning” in their brains are at high risk of developing schizophrenia. When people suffer from schizophrenia, is their process of synaptic pruning in an overdrive condition, which means that they. Fewer connections with the prefrontal cortex, especially during adolescence and young adulthood, which led to the development in disorder
In particular, they say, this happens during adolescence and early symptoms of schizophrenia that are less well known, manifest, for example, memory loss and problems with attention, marked withdrawal from personal relationships and a severe lack of motivation. This is consistent with previous research that had identified this “pruning” as possible perpetrators.
For those who do research in schizophrenia have followed for a while now, this may have been expected. Previous research has suggested that late adolescence appears to be a window, may result in the early symptoms of schizophrenia. Taking certain medications during adolescence has also been linked to schizophrenia-like symptoms in later life associated. Although controversial, it may be that the mechanism in the game there is the same: The trimming function in the brain can go too far and create a breakdown in how the brain perceives and processes the data of our senses are giving it.
So why is this important? Due to the fact that schizophrenia often present with very different and far-reaching symptoms, looking for treatments that can fight all of them without significant side effects is difficult. Significantly improved However, this research suggests that there may be a way, if not avoided, schizophrenia, then eliminates targeted treatment for the cause, the patient’s outlook and contribute in particular to control psychosis effective." Looking back on my life and I have been doing a lot of that lately.  Even thought I did not have full blown schizophrenia during my teenage years I was different and had a lot of problems that could have been the schizophrenia starting back then.  It ruined a lot of my life that could have turned out different.

Heavy users of mental health care have substantially different patterns of health care use

That is the title of this article I am reviewing. "While a small number of people account for a disproportionately large portion of health services use, heavy users of mental health care have substantially different patterns of health care use than other heavy users of health care, according to new Canadian research. The study is one of the first to look at heavy users of mental health care specifically.While a small number of people account for a disproportionately large portion of health services use, heavy users of mental health care have substantially different patterns of health care use than other heavy users of health care, according to new research by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES).

The study published in the January issue of Health Affairs is one of the first to look at heavy users of mental health care specifically -- most studies to date have focused on all heavy users.
The study found the average cost of health services used by heavy users of mental health care was more than 30 per cent greater than for other heavy users of health care. Mental health services, including psychiatric hospitalizations and visits to a physician or a psychiatrist, made up the largest portion (about 88 per cent) of the total cost, and services not related to mental health accounted for the remaining 12 per cent."Maybe because they want us to have a primary care doctor and we need more health care because of smoking and other habits we do not  get rid of.
The article goes on to say: "Heavy users of mental health care have complex needs, and it's crucial to address their needs through an integrated, multidisciplinary approach,' says Dr. Claire de Oliveira, Scientist and Health Economist in Social and Epidemiological Research at CAMH, and lead author on the paper. Using administrative health care data collected by ICES, the researchers examined health care use by people defined as heavy users based on the costs of the services they used -- also referred to as high-cost users. The study looked at nearly one million high-cost health care users age 18 years or older in Ontario in 2012. Five per cent -- 51,457 people -- were considered to be high-cost mental health care users, defined as people for whom costs for mental health services were at least 50 per cent of their total health care costs. Understanding which services they use can point to where improvements might occur, both in the delivery of services and in individuals' wellbeing.
Different population characteristics, and high rates of hospitalization
Heavy users of mental health care were younger relative to other high-cost users, and most came from lower-income urban neighbourhoods. People age 18 to 49 made up 58 per cent of heavy users of mental health care and only 24 per cent of other high-cost users. Heavy users of mental health care also tended to be more evenly split among men and women -- 49 per cent were males and 51 per cent were females -- versus other heavy users (42 per cent males and 58 per cent females). Other high-cost users were more likely to have chronic diseases, primarily circulatory and digestive illnesses." Why the chronic diseases?  Does mental Illness cause us to get sicker than the rest of the population."
The article ends with: "About 64 per cent of heavy users of mental health care had at least one psychiatric hospitalization in 2012. More than 90 per cent had at least one visit to a doctor for mental health care and one or more visits for other health care. The researchers note that other studies have shown that people who have psychiatric hospitalizations, particularly people with severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, have high rates of hospital readmission and low rates of physician visits after they are discharged from a psychiatric hospital stay. 'Our research shows that heavy users of mental health care have substantially different patterns of health care use than other high-costs health care users, representing a different patient population,' says Dr. de Oliveira. 'Their needs must be considered separately when looking to improve the quality of care for heavy users of health care in general.'
Opportunity for early prevention
As a next step, the researchers are developing a predictive model to identify mental health care users at highest risk of future hospitalization. 'If we can identify individuals at risk before they become high-cost users of mental health care, this may present an opportunity to provide earlier preventive health care and social services, such as high-support housing units,' says Dr. de Oliveira." I for one do not know why people do not take their medication and avoid the emergency rooms.  I for one would have to be dying before I would ever use the emergency room it cost to much. If people would take care of themselves there would never have to use an emergency room. 

Schizophrenia, depression, addiction: Different mental disorders cause same brain-matter loss

That is the title of this article I am writing about today.  "  A meta-analysis of 193 brain-imaging studies shows similar gray-matter loss in the brains of people with diagnoses as different as schizophrenia, depression and addiction.  In a study analyzing whole-brain images from nearly 16,000 people, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine identified a common pattern across a spectrum of psychiatric disorders that are widely perceived to be quite distinct.

The meta-analysis of 193 peer-reviewed papers, published Feb. 4 in JAMA Psychiatry, reports a loss of gray matter in three brain structures that, although physically separate, participate in a network associated with high-level functions, including planning and decision-making.
The findings call into question a longstanding tendency to distinguish psychiatric disorders chiefly by their symptoms rather than their underlying brain pathology.
In any given year, nearly one in five Americans meets the criteria for a diagnosis of psychiatric illness. 'The idea that these disorders share some common brain architecture and that some functions could be abnormal across so many of them is intriguing,' said Thomas Insel, MD, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, who wasn't involved in the study but is familiar with its contents.
The researchers drew on component studies that have been around for some time, said Insel. But these studies tended to focus on one or another psychiatric disorder in isolation, whereas the Stanford investigators 'have stepped back from the trees to look at the forest and see a pattern in that forest that wasn't apparent when you just look at the trees,' Insel said.
'In many of these published studies we reviewed, researchers have tended to interpret their biological findings in terms of the one disorder they're focusing on,' said Amit Etkin, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford and the study's senior author. Lead authorship is shared by Madeleine Goodkind, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in Etkin's group, and Simon Eickhoff, DrMed, a professor of clinical neuroscience and medical psychology at Heinrich-Heine University Dusseldorf." This looks like a good study about how different the gray matter is in people with different symptoms.  I would like to know more how studying this can help diagnosis different schizophrenia people.
The article goes on to say: "Similar gray-matter loss
Despite experienced clinicians' intuitive grasp of the blurred lines separating diverse psychiatric conditions, there's nonetheless often an assumption that these disorders, traditionally classified on the basis of predominant symptoms, are discrete in reality, noted Etkin, who is also an investigator at the Sierra-Pacific Mental Illness Research and Clinical Center at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. "We tried to ask a basic question that hasn't been asked: Is there any common biological basis for mental illness?"
We tried to ask a basic question that hasn't been asked: Is there any common biological basis for mental illness?
To address that question, he and his colleagues pooled data from 193 separate studies containing, in all, magnetic-resonance images of the brains of 7,381 patients falling into six diagnostic categories: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder and a cluster of related anxiety disorders. Comparing the images with those from 8,511 healthy control subjects, the research team identified three separate brain structures, several centimeters apart from one another, with a diminished volume of gray matter, the brain tissue that serves to process information. These structures -- the left and right anterior insula and the dorsal anterior cingulate -- are known to be parts of a larger network in the brain whose component parts tend to fire in synchrony. This network is associated with higher-level executive functions such as concentrating in the face of distractions, multitasking or task-switching, planning and decision-making, and inhibition of counterproductive impulses.
Gray matter loss in the three brain structures was similar across patients with different psychiatric conditions, the researchers found.
These structures can be viewed as the alarm bell of the brain, Etkin said. "They work together, signaling to other brain regions when reality deviates from expectations -- that something important and unpredicted has happened, or something important has failed to happen." That signaling guides future behavior in directions more likely to obtain desired results."  It still does not answer the question why some people with schizophrenia keep all these skills even when they have it.  Some people lose all three of these skills.
The article ends with: "Some incongruities
In addition to gray-matter loss in these three structures, people diagnosed with major depression also had gray-matter loss in other structures, including the hippocampus and amygdala, two key areas involved in storing memories and processing emotion, respectively. Schizophrenia was marked by reduced gray matter in several other structures, as well as an increase in gray matter in a region called the striatum, which Etkin suggested may be due more to the antipsychotic medications prescribed for schizophrenia than to the disease process itself.
Further analysis showed that gray-matter shrinkage in the three implicated brain structures was independent of any medication effects or overlapping psychiatric conditions.
Next, Etkin and his colleagues turned to three large databases containing both structural and functional MRI scans of healthy subjects. Among healthy people, gray-matter volume in the right and left anterior insula and the dorsal anterior cingulate correlated with performance on classic tests of executive function. Such a test might involve, for example, asking the test-taker to note the color of the word "blue," displayed in a color other than blue, after seeing it briefly flashed on a screen. This finding strengthens evidence that among psychiatric patients, the generally observed gray-matter loss in brain structures associated with executive function is behaviorally significant.
The discovery that psychiatric disorders typically studied in isolation from one another turn out to share a common structural deficit mirrors, in some respects, a genetic analysis conducted in 2013 by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital that showed shared genetic glitches among several categories of mental illness, said Insel. But this is the first imaging study to do so, he said.
'I wouldn't have expected these results. I've been working under the assumption that we can use neuroimaging to help classify the different forms of mental illness,' Insel said. 'This makes it harder.'
Other Stanford study co-authors are Desmond Oathes, PhD, a psychiatry and behavioral sciences instructor; postdoctoral scholar Ying Jiang, MD; graduate student Andrew Chang; and research assistants Laura Jones-Hagata, Brissa Ortega, Yevgeniya Zaiko and Erika Roach."Well they cannot tell different forms of schizophrenia although this is still a very good study, now if they can figure out how to stop people with the three mental illness from losing that gray matter.  People with major depression from losing memories and emotions.

Alcohol, Tobacco, Drug Use Far Higher in Severely Mentally Ill

That is the title of this article I am writing about. “In the largest ever assessment of substance use among people with severe psychiatric illness, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Southern California have found that rates of smoking, drinking and drug use are significantly higher among those who have psychotic disorders than among those in the general population.  The finding is of particular concern because individuals with severe mental illness are more likely to die younger than people without severe psychiatric disorders.  These patients tend to pass away much younger, with estimates ranging from 12 to 25 years earlier than individuals in the general population, said first author Sarah M. Hartz, MD, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University.  They don’t die from drug overdoses or commit suicide -- the kinds of things you might suspect in severe psychiatric illness.  They die from heart disease and cancer, problems caused by chronic alcohol and tobacco use.”  Those two things are a wakeup call to stop using and live a long life.  Twenty three years sober is what I have in April it will be twenty four and I do not miss going to jail never knowing what I did the night before.  Fifteen years not smoking which I do not miss the high prices or the smell.

We all want to live a little bit longer if we can.  “The study analyzed smoking, drinking and drug use in nearly 20,000 people.  That included 9,142 psychiatric patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or schizoaffective disorder – an illness characterized by psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions, and mood disorders such as depression.  The investigators also assessed nicotine use, heavy drinking, heavy marijuana use and recreational drug use in more than 10,000 healthy people with mental illness.  The researchers found that 30 percent of those with severe psychiatric illness engaged in binge drinking, defined as drinking four servings of alcohol at one time.  In comparison, the rate of binge drinking in the general population is 8 percent.  Among those with mental illness, more than 75 percent were regular smokers.  This compares with 33 percent of those in the control group who smoked regularly.   There were similar findings with heavy marijuana use: 50 percent of people with psychotic disorders used marijuana regularly, versus 18 percent in the general population.  Half of those with mental illness also use other illicit drugs, while the rate of recreational drug use in the general population is 12 percent.”  It would be nice to know if they continued doing what they always did or did they just start after their mental illness.

The article goes on to say: “I take care of a lot of patients with severe mental illness, many of whom are sick enough that they are on disability, said Hartz.  And it’s always surprising when I encounter a patient who doesn’t smoke or hasn’t used drugs or had alcohol problems.  Hartz said another striking finding from the study is that once a person develops a psychotic illness, protective factors such as race and gender don’t have their typical influence.  Previous research indicates that Hispanics and Asians tend to have lower rates of substance abuse that European Americans.  The same is true of women, who tend to smoke, drink and use illicit drugs less often than men.  We see protective effects in these subpopulations, Hartz explained.  But once a person has a severe mental illness, that seems to trump everything.  That’s particularly true, she said, with smoking.  During the last few decades, smoking rates have declined in the general population.  People over age 50 are much more likely than younger people to have been regular smokers at some point in their lives.  For example, about 40 percent of those over 50 used to smoke regularly.  Among those under 30, fewer than 20 percent have been regular smokers.  But among the mentally ill, the smoking rate is more than 75 percent, regardless of the patient’s age.  With public health efforts, we’ve effectively cut smoking rates in half in healthy people, but in the severely mentally ill, we haven’t made a dent at all, she said.”  With drinking I believe you have to hit your bottom to quit.  I do not care how many A.A meeting you go to until something happens that is too much for you it will not be successful.  For smoking to quit you have to have a reason other than the cost.  You have to it is not an option to smoke any more.
My major in college was a drug and alcohol counselor.  I went on to go for my Master’s in Public Administration because I could not help a teenager that I believe they were suspending wrongly so I quit and went on to my get my Masters instead.  “Until recently, smoking was permitted in most psychiatric hospitals and mental wards.  Hartz believes that many psychiatrists decided that their sickest patients had enough problems without having to worry about quitting smoking too.  There were also concerns about potential dangers from using nicotine-replacement therapy, while continuing to smoke since smoking is so prevalent among the mentally ill. Recent studies, however, have found those concerns were overblown.  The question, she said, is whether being more aggressive in trying to curb nicotine, alcohol and substance use in patients with severe psychiatric illness can lengthen their lives. Hartz believes health professionals who treat the mentally ill need to do a better job of trying to get them to stop smoking, drinking and using drugs.  Some studies have shown that although we psychiatrists know that smoking, drinking and substance use are major problems among the mentally ill, we often don’t ask our patients about those things, she said.  We can do better, but we also need to develop new strategies because many interventions to reduce smoking, drinking and drug use that have worked in other patient populations don’t seem to be very effective in these psychiatric patients.”  It is probably because they say my life is messed up right now and that is all I have.  I am lucky I have things that I want and a family that I love and want to succeed so that helps me.  Also I know I touch alcohol again and it is back to prison because it will be soon that I do something stupid.