UGH ADHD meds

What does this mean?

"Lifetime and 1-year risks for all composite categories of psychopathology were significantly greater in girls with ADHD grown up relative to comparison girls; lifetime hazard ratios were 7.2 (95% CI=4.0-12.7) for antisocial disorders, 6.8 (95% CI=3.7-12.6) for mood disorders, 2.1 (95% CI=1.6-2.9) for anxiety disorders, 3.2 (95% CI=2.0-5.3) for developmental disorders, 2.7 (95% CI=1.6-4.3) for addictive disorders, and 3.5 (95% CI=1.6-7.3) for eating disorders. For lifetime psychopathology, all six composite categories remained statistically significant after controlling for other baseline psychopathology. Except for addictive disorders, significant 1-year findings remained significant after controlling for baseline psychopathology. The 1-year prevalences of composite disorders were not associated with lifetime or 1-year use of ADHD medication."

 

Does this mean medication use did not have any affect?

 

Because if so, then why are assholes obsessing over how to force kids that don't want to take meds to take them?

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20513228

 

"Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one such chronic health condition requiring long-term adherence to treatment. (Who says?) The aims of this review are to 1) review the extant literature regarding rates of adherence to medication for youth with ADHD; 2) summarize what is known regarding factors that impede and support greater adherence to medication; 3) introduce the Unified Theory of Behavior Change as a conceptual model that may assist in developing adherence treatment packages to support medication adherence; and 4) describe several potential interventions based on the Unified Theory of Behavior Change that may improve adherence to medication for youth with ADHD."

Inflammation, ADHD, and Chronic Disorginization

Chronic disorganization was previously considered to be a symptom of OCD, however, while it is commonly found in OCD patients new research finds that it has higher correlation with ADD (non-hyperactive) symptomology. Such is implied in such research:

"Multiple linear regressions demonstrated that after controlling for global negative affect, OCD symptoms did not significantly predict any of the core features of HD. Conversely, the inattentive (but not hyperactive/impulsive) symptoms of ADHD significantly predicted severity of clutter, difficulty discarding, and acquiring. These results challenge current conceptualizations of hoarding as a subtype of OCD, and suggest an association with neurocognitive impairment."

(Study available full text)

and also here:

" In conclusion, salient hoarding behaviors were found to be relatively common in a sample of children with learning disabilities and not necessarily associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder, supporting its nosological independence. It is unclear whether underlying cognitive features may play a major role in the development of hoarding behaviors in children with learning disabilities."

Also available full text.

ADHD has been correlated with high levels of proinflammatory cytokines and biomarkers.
As demonstrated here:
"(1) Total symptom ratings were associated with increases of the interleukins IL-16 and IL-13, where relations of IL-16 (along with decreased S100B) with hyperactivity, and IL-13 with inattention were notable. Opposition ratings were predicted by increased IL-2 in ADHD and IL-6 in control children. (2) In the CPT, IL-16 related to motor measures and errors of commission, while IL-13 was associated with errors of omission. Increased RT variability related to lower TNF-alpha, but to higher IFN-gamma levels. (3) Tryptophan metabolites were not significantly related to symptoms. But increased tryptophan predicted errors of omission, its breakdown predicted errors of commission and kynurenine levels related to faster RTs."

Available full text.

I'll go into greater detail about what the pro-inflammatory markers mean a little later. For now I will say that exercise, dietary phytochemicals from plants, amino acids, and also interestingly, social support, seem to show promise in reducing levels of interleukin 6 (IL6) which seems to be most prominantly related to inflammation in the brain. I'll link up a huge list of studies demonstrating that relationship shortly.

Changing the face of Mental Health treatment

I'm writing a gargantuan paper on inflammation, mental health, exercise and physical activity interventions, amino acids, HPA, trauma, and dietary interventions. This will only be based on abstracts of peer reviewed studies because I'm not qualified to judge the worth of the research itself, so my paper will do nothing but I hope inspire motivation for further research into more appropriate treatment models for mental health conditions.

 

If there is significant evidence that research based lifestyle interventions have clinical application to mental health recovery (there is)--- then I propose that we consider addressing the obstacles that mental health patients face with implementing lifestyle changes and do research on usability of programs--- if a program is clinically successful but only if patients are living in--- then it's not applicable to living out patients. We need to research ways to address the daily life dysfunction mentally ill have in participating in behaviors that will provide stability, nutrition, and recovery of brain functioning when ability to do self care has been compromised due to fatigue, low motivation, disorientation, spaciness, confusion, lack of focus, inattentiveness, and basic impairment of cognitive function.

 

My goal is to advocate for in home support, assistance with managing the difficulties of cooking, cleaning, organizing and creating routine--- or a pick up service for patients who have problems with timeliness and waking up in the morning, and continuing to show up, which is common in many forms of mental illness and impairs work performance and ability to hold jobs (and ability to successfully continue with a desired program or lifestyle change). Possibly we could provide semi-prepared meals with high fresh vegetable content, phytochemicals, fiber, protein and unsaturated fats that can be cooked in one pot or pan and easily cleaned up after--- either fully prepared for daily pick up--- or vegetables chopped and seasoned for weekly pick up.

  

I recognize the main reason such programs are unpopular is due to the economic cost of implementing them when we could just continue to pump meds into people and pharm companies and psychiatrists get paid and it's easy--- but it doesn't work. We aren't making these people better and we are ignoring the underlying medical conditions that are causing these symptoms.

 

(So far as pateints being disinterested in lifestyle changes--- this is another area worthy of research-- why the resistance and is there any way we can genuinely hear the obstacles people are facing with seeing lifestyle change as desirable and address those concerns with respect for individual choice and the desired results of the client/patient)

 

I'm not doing the research for this paper but my next thing will be to study the clinical significance of identifying struggling areas of the brain and doing physical and mental exercises that use that area of the brain in order to enhance functioning. Also research on the benefits of social relationships on health might call for some intervention in assisting people with creating meaningful relationships and encouraging social policies that increase peer relationships, empathy, and connectedness in school and family settings.

 

What will ultimately happen is that this research will probably generate some fairly successful (RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE) dietary and therapeutic programs that wealthy people can try out. If success is continually seen, my hope is that the use of such services will trickle down to lower income people. I wish I wasn't in the midst of right brained inflammation whatever brain disorder or this paper would paper would be so awesome and could probably convince the state mental hospital here to let me rework their dietary program. Of course if I didn't have these issues I would have an awesome degree by now anyways. Grrrrr.

What are REALLY trying to cure?

Reading a study on depression and IBS relationship with pupil dilation at presentation of negative information--- I came accross this quote:

"Depressed youths potentially demonstrate affective blunting, emotional avoidance, or a failure to regulate emotion after exposure to negative emotional information."

(Sorry can't link it's study as it's available through school)

Perhaps if you were to pull up the demographic of levels of shittiness in the lives of "depressed youth" you might find this response to be appropriate. You're trying to fix the wrong problem- YO. It's possible that the problem is not "the kids respond too much to negative"--- perhaps the problem is that the kids have adapted to too much negative existing in their reality.

Perhaps that's a factor in the development of IBS to begin with. Seeing as like everything in world cures IBS--- i.e. placebos seems to cure the shit out of IBS, perhaps that's actually what we should be researching and seeking "cures" for--- unhealthy environments--

What are they and how to assist families in achieving healthy relationships?

Guided Imagery, Snake Oil, and the need for Love

 

 

Guiden Imagery and relaxation improves allergice response  

"Our study confirmed a positive and clinically relevant effect of FR(functional relaxation) and GI(guided imagery) on total serum IgE levels"

 

Ok so I'm doing all this research on inflammation in the body and brain which seems to be at the root of a large portion of illness and also seems to be deeply relatied to hormones which seem to be deeply related to emotional stress and trauma.

 

We need more research on these kinds of therapiesbut I truly think they will have genuine application.

 

Something about yoga: I've seen people with mental illness get worse. I saw a correlation between both people having mental illness and being attracted to exotic esoteric spiritual practices and people who didn't seem all that messed up get so obsessed (insert fanatic diet, movement therapy,yoga, random philosophical jargon) that one has to wonder if they weren't implicitly seeking to INCREASE or even CREATE a manic state that wasn't already there.

 

When I say this: I'm thinking along the lines of "crazy like us". People have x pathology--- they are looking for a way to present symptom sets such that they can be seen. I think people tend to intentionally albeit subconsciously CHOOSE activities that will increase a mentally ill state in an attempt to present to the world that they need support.

 

One theory as to why the placebos are helping people with mental illness MORE now than they used to is the change in the amount of service, support, and attention that people participating in the studies are given. People need to be seen, and they need to be seen at the specific level of the root of pathological problem. (I'm not going to bother looking for a more appropriate term and assume you get what I mean.)

 

You can over stimulate the "spiritual" areas of the brain to complete mania and the reality is that is actually the goal of a lot of the esoteric practices.

 

My point with all this is that I believe that people can bring themselves back into a balanced state. And when I say that, I mean even from extreme conditions. I think that MOST books on this subject are over reaching-- IE they get overzealous with positive results and write books saying, "You can fix your genes with meditation!" when this is a pretty wild claim (albeit one I believe worth researching)--- that has NOT been verified.

 

It's akin to telling someone in a hospital who can't walk, "You CAN walk, you just have to believe and you have to push yourself and it going to hurt but you have to do it."

 

On the one hand-- this might actually help the person walk. On the other hand, if the person can't walk-- you're torturing someone.

 

And on the ... er... third hand... if the person could walk but they need other interventions, you may have just prevented them from getting better support by pressuming they just need to "exert their will more forcefully".

 

One thing I've really been getting into is research on the nature of how supportive people in life-- meaningful relationships, etc etc--- have a protective factor in physical and emotional health. If that process has been disrupted in early life, it doesn't just get fixed when you add supportive people.

 

There's something to knowing that ultimately if you really need people they will disappear that changes you. People can say, "Sure, I'm here" but if you know, "Yeah but if I was helplessly dependant (a child) you wouldn't be there." and it changes how you relate to people.

 

The reason this is relevant to me is that a fundemental tenant of the self help industry (american style) is that all you need is yourself. I don't believe that is true. I believe that truly genuinely, for real health we need meangingful relationships, we need to believe there is an external reason for continuing through a painful existance, and in general, that kind of purpose usually comes from being needed/wanted/appreciated in a meaningful way by the external world. We also need to know on some level that if we fell apart there would be someone to carry us.Most of us don't fall apart in a permanent debilitating way.... so therefore most of us can have a sense int he back of our minds that "people are there for us" simply because that is how it worked in our lives. When we really truly were in need, we found someone.

 

For people who found themselves really truly in need of meaningful compassionate empathy and support and found the world bone dry--- creating that "false" pressumption that "people will be there for us if we really need them" is particularly difficult, because we know it isn't true. When a therapist tries to convince a person to trust the world--- they fail because they are being paid.

 

It's fundamentally NOT a case of someone agreeing to be there for you if you fall apart. It's a case of a person doing there job and tolerating your presence and giving some research based feedback because they want to be paid.

 

i'm not sure what the solution is, but I'm working on it. : )

Dissociation and Mental Health Disorders

Dissociation requires a physical process to occur in the brain (and very likely body). People who have near death experiences often report a sensation of feeling above their bodies watching what is happening below. So too, do some people who report dissociating from traumatic events. Interestingly, the temporal lobe seems to be affected both by sexual abuse and by near death experience. It's also considered the home of the religious experience in the brain (as usual other brain regions are involved as well-- modular brain models are problematic so we are told).


Dissociative experiences can involve other bodily sensations of "not existing". The parietal lobe is considered to be the part of the brain most responsible for the bodies awareness of itself and spatial awareness. The resulting temporal and parietal lobe epileptic activity whether full siezures, pseudoseizures, or partial siezures seems to be correlated with dissociation during sexual abuse. According to the following study, somatic, not psychological dissociation was most correlated with subsequent siezure activity.




http://journals.lww.com/jonmd/Abstract/1999/12000/Dissociation_in_Temporal_Lobe_Epilepsy_and.2.aspx


"Also, PES patients significantly more often reported sexual traumatic experiences." PES is pseudoepileptic siezures. This begs an interesting question of whether pseudo siezures are a result of the brain deliberately dissociating from an event identified as too stressful to fully feel--- and perhaps ES is more rooted in... something else (But What?!!)


Just wanted to call it first. Somatic dissociation is going to be highly correlated with abnormal funtioning in the parietal lobe.


The angular gyrus is also highly correlated with out of body experiences.

But where are we going?!

Another aspect of these studies are the implications they have for other neurological disorders which are currently (badly) diagnosed as psychiatric illnesses with disregard for the biological processes and traumas that are going on. (Yeah I'm looking at you shitty DSM whatever edition)

For example "Borderline Personality" is highly correlated with altered functioning in these brain regions. Why, oh why, did they claim these adult women "with histories of severe abuse" are "borderline personality disordered" women and not that they have PTSD? Why would they say this:

"Compared with control subjects, BPD subjects had significantly smaller right parietal cortex (−11%) and hippocampal (−17%) volumes. The parietal cortex of borderline subjects showed a significantly stronger leftward asymmetry when compared with control subjects. Stronger psychotic symptoms and schizoid personality traits in borderline subjects were significantly related to reduced leftward asymmetry. Stronger trauma-related clinical symptoms and neuropsychologic deficits were significantly related to smaller hippocampal size."

And not conclude that BPD is more likely a traumatic disorder than a "personality disorder" at all?

Fucking scientists.

Further more medical models of treatment with drugs will miss the point. If a person wants to escape their body you can't pump them full of meds and make them stay. A person has to make a conscious decision to be fully present in their body and increase their capacity to face the suffering in the reality of their life. The deeper the capacity to withstand the suffering and the deeper the drive to exist despite the suffering and be fully present, the more normalization of these kinds of symptoms you're going to see.

Time Travel Experiment

Excellent!!



When I was a wee little sophomore in highschool I began to get curious about whether or not time travel would happen in the future and how that would work with keeping it a secret from people in the past. (Basically I watched 12 Monkeys.)

Cooooole don't diiieeee!!!   (How depressing!)



So I created a brilliant experiement to determine if time travel will be possible in the future. Scientifically.

Here was my procedure:

1. Obtain diary.

2. Write super cool message sure to impress someone in the future who is CERTAIN to read my diary in 6897 AD.

"DEAR PEOPLE OF THE FUTURE. I AM WONDERING IF TIME TRAVEL IS REAL. IF TIME TRAVEL IS REAL WOULD YOU COME BACK TO MAY 23rd 1996 AND WRITE A MESSAGE TO ME ON THE WOODEN TABLE AT LA MADELINE ON XXXXXXXXXXX ROAD? I WILL KEEP IT A SECRET IF YOU DO."

3. Go to wooden table at Le Madeleine and see if message from the future has been written.

ABSTRACT:

Steps one and two were completed as described. The following day, wooden table at Le Madeleine was visited. No message was found on wooden table other than a previously existing carved sentence "Suck my dick, bitch." It was determined through detailed analysis that this message did not come from the future.

CONCLUSION: Due to ethical delimmas of allowing peoples "of the past" to be aware of time travel technology "of the future" results may or may not indicate that time travel is impossible. Our time traveling descendents of the future may have moral constraints and possible laws preventing them from contact with people "of the past". Another possible complication of the experiment is that said journal was lost, possibly preventing time travelers of the future from having awareness such an experiment took place.