Researhers say preventive steps can halve the number of manic episodes

Australian researchers have developed a treatment that halves the number of manic episodes experienced by people with bipolar disorder.

The team from the Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria says it is the first study that conclusively proves patients can control their mania.

"This is the first time that we are aware of in the world that we've been actually able to reduce manic episodes," said lead researcher David Castle. "We are very excited about the program's success."

Half of the 84 trial participants were given medication alone. The second group took medication but also underwent weekly therapy sessions that taught them how to recognise the early symptoms of a manic or depressive episode, and steps to prevent the event.

FDA approves Risperdal's use in children

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a widely used adult psychiatric drug for the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in children and adolescents.

The action permits use of Risperdal for schizophrenia in youths aged 13 to 17 and for bipolar disorder in those aged 10 to 17, FDA said.

Omega-3s shown in study to help with depression

Many of us have heard about the health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids in our diet. Now there's research that shows omega-3s have anti-depressant effects in the body. That's the latest test results from a study in Tawan.
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Doctors discovered global areas that have a large consumption of omega-3s show a lower prevalence of depression.

Good sources of omega-3 fatty acids are fish and fish oil, as well as flax seed oil.

Researchers caution not to only use omega-3 fatty acids in the treatment of depression and bipolar disorder.

The study appears in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Some say rise in diagnosis of bipolar in children driven by drug company desires to raise sales

Now the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children is rising, Dr John Abramson, author of, "Overdosed America," says, and clearly it is the drug industry driving this medicalization to sell more products.

Army suicides at highest point in 26 years; 20 percent had mood disorders

Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, a new military report says.

The 99 suicides in 2006, which included 28 soldiers deployed to the two wars, amounted to a rate of 17.3 per 100,000, the report said. The average rate over the last 26 years has been 12.3 per 100,000.

Preliminary numbers for the first half of this year indicate the number of suicides could decline Army-wide but increase among troops serving in the wars, officials said.

Failed personal relationships, legal and financial problems and the stress of their jobs were factors motivating the soldiers to commit suicide, the report shows.

About a quarter of those who killed themselves had a history of at least one psychiatric disorder. Of those, about 20% had been diagnosed with a mood disorder such as bipolar disorder or depression; and 8% had been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, including post traumatic stress disorder.

Firearms were the most common method of suicide.

New study looks at risks of antypical antipsycotics in pregnancy

It has long been known that certain bipolar drugs, such as Depakote and Lithium, were dangerous during certain stages of pregnancy. Now, new research is suggesting that atypical antipsychotic used to prevent post-partum mania may put babies at risk.

The study reviewed women who had taken an antypical antipsychotic or haloperidol during pregnancy. Maternal and umbilical cord plasma samples were collected and delivery and were analyzed for medication concentrations.
All foru antipsychotics demonstrated incomplete placental passage. The data suggested fetal exposure and wide variety of outcomes depending on the medications.

Sleeping disorder pill examined for use to combat bipolar depression

A preliminary study of 85 patients with bipolar disorder shows that a drug used to treat patients with sleep disorders, according to an article in Science Daily, might also control the depressive symptoms associated with bipolar disorder.

At least 44 percent of the participants in the study reported improved symptoms, a noteworthy improvement for a disorder in which new treatments are needed, according to the study's author, Mark Frye, M.D., director of the Mayo Clinic Mood Disorders Clinic and Research Program.

The study appears in the August 2007 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

"There are very few treatments for the depressive phase of bipolar disorder and as a result there is an urgent need to evaluate potential new therapeutics," says Dr. Frye. "Mood stabilizers in general are better at treating mania than depression, but the depressive phase of the illness is far more common. We really need continued research in this area."

Links to other articles: Associated Content; DG News

Wake-up pill under study to treat patients with bipolar depression

A preliminary study of 85 patients with bipolar disorder shows that a drug used to treat patients with sleep disorders might also control the depressive symptoms associated with bipolar disorder. At least 44 percent of the participants in the study reported improved symptoms, a noteworthy improvement for a disorder in which new treatments are needed, according to the study's author, Mark Frye, M.D., director of the Mayo Clinic Mood Disorders Clinic and Research Program.

"Dark therapy" proposed as a treatment for bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder often affects the sleeping and waking cycle-and can also be exacerbated by a lack of sleep-recent research into ‘dark therapy’ as a form of treatment for bipolar disorder has provided another possibility, according to an article in the Insight Journal.

Light therapy has been used for years to treat seasonal affective disorder, a form of depression that occurs in winter when there is less available sunlight. Dark therapy works much the same way, but it focuses on exposing the patient to darkness instead of bright light. More specifically, dark therapy blocks out the blue spectrum lights—florescent, incandescent and LED.

Widow of bipolar judge publishes memoir about life before and after his suicide

Author Sel Erder Yackley is on a tour for her book, "Never Regret the Pain -- Loving and Losing a Bipolar Spouse."

Yackley was the wife of former La Salle County Circuit Judge Frank X. Yackley, who shot himself at a local firing range in 1986. In 2006, Yackley, now living in Chicago, published a memoir of her life before and after her husband's suicide. She discusses in detail the low points -- and high points -- of living with a man who struggled with bipolar disorder.

Lizzie Simon addresses developing a balanced relatioship with your psychiatrict and other health professionals

Lizzie Simon, the artist, speaker and author of My Bipolar Trip Through 3D writes a column in the latest issue of bp Magazine (which is not available online) about how patients can create more respectful and more balanced relationships -- partnerships -- with their psychiatrists that will better their health.

A link to bp and its subscription form is here.

Blood test said to classify bipolar patients

Curdium Medica, the drug development company specializing in "personalised medicine", tapped investors for more cash yesterday to develop its treatment for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder that would allow doctors to classify bipolar patients based on the subgroups of the disorder from which they suffer.

This follows the company's discovery of a blood diagnostic test, named PsychINDx, which classifies patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder into four subgroups. Until now, schizophrenia was considered as one disease and treated as such, not always effectively. But the company hopes to develop drugs that will target the patient depending on which subgroup of the disease they suffer, from instead of the "one-size fits all" treatment currently available.

A review of Bipolar Depression: A Comprehensive Guide

A review of this paperback book devoted to bipolar depression addresses the long-term course of bipolar illness is often complicated by periods of increasingly treatment-refractory depression. Clinicians are often faced with the dilemma of initial-onset depression—determining whether the depression is a part of bipolar or unipolar illness—and worry about antidepressant-induced mania

A call for a holistic approach to bipolar treatment

Treatment of mood disturbance in bipolar disorder is undergoing a paradigm shift, according to a paper on Pharmaweb.com Traditionally, drug therapy has been focussed on efficacy in acute mania or depression. Now psychiatrists are realizing the need to evaluate drug treatments from other perspectives, Their full effects as acute and mood-stabilising agents, side effect profiles, effects on neurocognitive functioning, quality of life, and on psychosocial functioning, are also important when considering therapy.

Paper examines the danagers of antidepressant treatment

An Abkhazie Institute for Social and Economic Reform paper examines the risk factors connected to the use of antidepressants, taking time to focus on the question of whether antidepressants should be prescribed to bipolar patients because of their risk of inducing mania.

News org questions skyrocketing prescriptions of antipsychotics to children

The St. Petersburg Times examines how more parents, who are at wit's end, are begging doctors to help them calm their aggressive children or control their kids with ADHD. Doctors are increasingly prescribing powerful antipsychotic drugs, which are approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

In the past seven years, the number of Florida children prescribed such drugs has increased some 250 percent. Last year, more than 18,000 state kids on Medicaid were given prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs. Even children as young as 3 years old. Last year, 1,100 Medicaid children under 6 were prescribed antipsychotics, a practice so risky that state regulators say it should be used only in extreme cases.

DBSA-Northern Virginia executive director offers an alternative to mental health legislation pending in the Commonwealth

Jayson Blair, the executive director of DBSA-Northern Virginia, offers support -- through groups and other means -- as the ultimate answer to addressing the mental health crisis in Virginia at a time when the General Assembly is attempting to pass legislation to address two violent events involving mentally ill people from Centreville. Blair does so in an op-ed in Times Community Newspapers, which publish more than a dozen local newspapers in Fairfax and Loudoun counties.

"It is clear that Commonwealth of Virginia's legislature will act soon to reform the state's mental health laws, most probably attempting to make it easier to involuntarily commit those with mental illnesses," he writes. "One thing that is also clear is that we are not headed back to the days of institutionalization, where thousands of people, many of whom did not belong, were warehoused in state hospitals often for years. No matter what changes are made to the laws that would have made it easier to hospitalized the Chos and Kennedys of the world, there will be a point where they will make a reentry into the community and there has to be something for them ..."

Marja Bergen tackles creativity and mood disorders

Marja Bergen tackles creativity and mood disorders in an article in CanadianChristiany "Creativity is especially important for those who struggle with emotional health<" she writes. "This may be why so many people with mental health issues become artists it helps them survive. As a creative person living with bipolar disorder, I've always been interested in the mysterious connection between this disease and creativity."

Bergen, the author of Riding the Roller Coaster: Living with Mood Disorders (Northstone, 1999) has written a new book, yet to be published is addresses Christians living successfully with bipolar disorder. She is the founder and a facilitator of Living Room, the faith-based Mood Disorders Association of BC support group.

U-Cincinnati gets big federal grant to research slowing the progression of bipolar disorder

University of Cincinnati researchers received a $9 million federal grant to personalize treatments for bipolar disorder and finding ways to keep the disease from progressing, according to an article in The (Cincinnati) Enquirer.

The National Institute of Mental Health money will pay for setting up the Bipolar Disorder Imaging and Treatment Research Center at UC’s College of Medicine.

Bipolar disorder is a serious mental illness that affects about 6 million Americans. It is a leading cause of disability worldwide. Symptoms include dramatic shifts in mood, energy levels and ability to function.