News: Fish oil protects against psychosis

News: Early intervention for psychosis gaining attention
When compared to countries with national health care, the U.S. delays early intervention in first-episode psychotic disorders. Several articles in the November issue of Psychiatric Services discuss strategic differences in responses, as well as model programs for doing so.
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News: Violence with psychosis rare toward strangers
Worries about violence and mental illness have affected public attitudes and influenced treatment options around the world. Researchers in Canada, Finland, Australia and the Netherlands looked at "stranger homicide" as a way to answer the question about whether psychosis threatens strangers.
Full Story | Topics: psychosis, research, stigma, violence | Comments (0)

News: Adults remember childhood abuse accurately
With evidence about the association of trauma, physical, and emotional abuse with the etiology of psychotic disorders, British researchers investigated the validity of retrospective reporting. . .
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From Our Readers: First psychotic breaks -- conference topic
Peter Stastny,* MD, writes about an upcoming conference (Nov 23): "Alternative responses to first psychotic breaks: Rethinking psychiatric crisis." After several years, there is a renewed focus on treatment for first psychotic episodes. An emphasis on early intervention and prevention of psychosis, with the goal of shortening the "duration of untreated psychosis" has obscured the view on the actual services that are being offered to individuals in the midst of a first episode. Recently, the National Institute of Mental Health...
Full Story | Topics: consumers, psychiatry, psychosis, recovery, research | Comments (7)

News: Cannabis and schizophrenia
Evidence indicates a relationship between marijuana use and later schizophrenia. Should this be a factor in debates about legalizing marijuana?(online surveys) Smoking marijuana (cannabis), an icon of the bandana-wearing flower-child generation, is a subject of ongoing medical debate and a ballot measure in many states. Is cannabis use harmless recreation, a medical necessity for end-of-life pain, or a disorder contributing to psychosis and associated with schizophrenia? Perhaps all three? It is the latter question that engaged a team of...
Full Story | Topics: drug use, marijuana, psychosis, research, schizophrenia | Comments (8)

News: Decriminalizing marijuana
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) intends to introduce a federal bill decriminalizing marijuana. While some view this as exciting news, the evidence linking marijuana addiction to the onset of psychosis and as a trigger for schizophrenia, along with the clinical impact of withdrawal of this highly addictive agent, should be part of any conversation. He followed his announcement on the Bill Maher show, with a press release today....
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News: Risk factors and prevention
The January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry (subscription required) has published two different articles addressing the predictive value of risk factors for psychiatric or substance abuse disorders. One article, a follow-up (n=591) study of young adults in Zurich, showed the specificity of manic symptoms in Bipolar II for predicting co-occurring substance use and addiction. A second articles discusses how combinations of five factors can predict the onset of full-blown psychosis in youth. The study was based on a sample...
Full Story | Topics: adolescents, bipolar disorder, psychosis | Comments (0)

News: Specifying care for an emergency
The Infinite Mind rebroadcast "An Educated Consumer," which originally aired in 2005, discussing Psychiatric Advance Directives (PAD). PADs are legal documents directing treatment teams what to do when it is impossible for a consumer to convey his or her wishes. They can address symptomatic behavior, or which medications work along with those to be avoided. PADs also name who may visit, or speak with a physician, what interventions (ECT, for example) should be employed or avoided. Consumers, family and...
Full Story | Topics: advance directives, hospitals, legal, medication, psychosis, therapies | Comments (0)

News: Early detection of psychosis
In an effort to speed treatment for a first psychotic episode, researchers in Norway and Denmark assessed the impact of a public information campaign about symptoms. An article in Schizophrenia Bulletin Advance Access (September 28) reports how multifaceted advertising -- television, newspapers, brochures, posters, lectures, videos and outreach to general practitioners -- educated the public. Students and teachers were a priority and every school in Norway was visited. "The main objective of this campaign was to provide knowledge about psychosis...
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News: Understanding subjective and empirical symptoms
The Advance Access (August 16)Schizophrenia Bulletin reports that Australian researchers are examining the balance of empirical observations with the subjective experience of patient symptoms at the onset of psychosis. "A disturbance of the basic sense of self, from which the more elaborated 'first rank' psychotic symptoms emerge" write the authors, "contributes to a way of connecting otherwise apparently disconnected symptoms."...
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News: Diagnosing substance abuse and psychotic disorders
With mounting evidence that marijuana is a major contributor to schizophrenia, part of the research agenda for the DSM-V includes differentiating between substance-induced psychotic symptoms and independent psychotic disorders....
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News: Identifying high-risk for psychosis
Schizophrenia Bulletin abstract $$ A review of eight studies of early interventions and markers for predicting transition to psychosis....
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News: MRI pinpoints how cannabis promotes psychosis
San Diego Tribune, April 30, 2007 Researchers from London’s Institute of Psychiatry have used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to link cannabis to “reduced function in the inferior frontal cortex brain region.” The association between THC, a potent ingredient of cannabis, and psychosis has long been suspected, and this study pinpoints where it interferes with the part of the the brain controlling emotional and behavioral responses. Recent strains of cannabis, also called "marijuana, " “skunk” or “weed,” show greater concentrations of...
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News: Grant expands programs to prevent psychotic break in kids
Building on a project in Portland, Maine, showing community supports and training can forestall psychotic illness, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation announced it is awarding $12.4 million to expand this program to four cities: Salem, Oregon, Sacramento, California, and Ypsilanti, Michigan....
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