Ezine Archive

Editor’s Comment

I want to thank all who have contributed toward the success of our Oct. 9 awards benefit, those who have purchased tickets and those who have simply sent in checks or called in with their credit card numbers. I look forward to seeing many of you at the event. Your support is essential to our success.

Each week brings news of greater understanding in the society of the need for safe, non-drug approaches and interest in Safe Harbor’s work from other organizations.

This past month we have formalized a partnership with Patrick Holford, England’s most well-known nutritionist, author of 20 books, and founder of the Institute for Optimum Nutrition in London, to help forward his outstanding nutritional mental health information in the U.S. and elsewhere.

In late January 2004 we will collaborate with Julia Ross, founder of Recovery Systems, Inc., author of bestsellers The Mood Cure and The Diet Cure, to present the 3-day “Mood Cure Workshop” in Los Angeles. This will be extremely thorough education for practitioners who want to learn Ross’s successful nutritional techniques for the treatment of anxiety, depression, mood disorders, and addiction.

We have been approached by a well-known laboratory to partner on a similar conference in the future.

A Hawaiian mental health organization has proposed a future conference as well.

We have been asked by a Los Angeles psychiatric hospital for a presentation in early October on how to implement holistic approaches into their system. As part of this, we are creating a guidebook for the process: “Promoting Wellness in a Psychiatric Setting.”

We can do these things because of your continued support. Working together, we will make mental health treatment a Safe Harbor, and not the train wreck it often is today. It is happening slowly but surely. Our deepest thanks from our staff and volunteers for those of you who are helping us bring this about.

Announcement: Safe Harbor’s 3rd Annual Awards Benefit in

 

 

Announcement: Prof. James Croxton Speaks at L.A. Area Support Group Meeting

The next Safe Harbor Alternative Mental Health Support group will be on October 8th, from 7-9 pm at the Safe Harbor Office, 1718 Colorado Blvd, in the city of Eagle Rock. The speaker will be Jim Croxton, professor of Physiological Psychology at Santa Monica College. His Topic: Brain Biology: How the Brain Works and doesn’t Work. The meeting is free.

Attendees are requested to call Safe Harbor so we know attendance numbers. The office number is (232) 257-7338.

From The World of Integrative Psychiatry

The following are excerpts from emails on Safe Harbor’s Integrative Psychiatry list, an email list where healthcare professionals exchange information on non-drug approaches for mental disorders. Any professionals wishing to join can send an email saying so, stating their profession. Send to SafeHarborProj@aol.com.

Anxiety and breathing can get very bad if the atlas (top neck vertebra) is “out.” Frequently the problems are caused by orthodontic braces – particularly when they use headgears and when they extract the bicuspids. This type of orthodontic work compresses the skull and changes the bite to the point where abnormal mechanical stress is placed on the neck. Chiropractic or osteopathic adjustment can give immediate relief but the neck strain will likely return because the bite and skull problems are continually throwing things off. I’ve seen the best results with specific upper cervical adjustments (see: www.uppercervical.org – they have a doctor directory). It is hard to find a dentist who is really good with this type of corrective work, but you can get some referrals from www.chirodontics.com. You can get cranial osteopathy referrals from www.cranialacademy.com (you have to write to them for referrals).

When the problem originates in the skull, you have to be careful about doing high velocity adjustments of the neck (it just moves the strain further into the skull). Besides braces, I’ve also seen neck problems originate from cranial strains caused at birth and after significant bite changes (such as could occur following dentures, bridges and crowns that aren’t quite right).

My cranially savvy dentist sees a lot of people who were put on antidepressants or anti-anxiety meds to “treat” a problem that is in the cranium. These people are frequently thumb-suckers (as children), grinders and clenchers – all of which can be an effort to release the cranial restrictions.

It seems that when the problem is not in the cranium, the people respond pretty fast with chiropractic/osteopathic adjustments to the neck. If they don’t respond well to this, think cranium or TMJ (jaw disorder). But, one more thing – you also have to pay attention to organ dysfunction that can be triggering tightness in the neck and/or occipital areas. It seems that liver and gall bladder problems in particular can reflex back to the occipital/upper cervical region and cause mechanical strain there.

I see cranial and upper cervical problems quite frequently in children with autism, ADD, and learning disabilities.

— Barbara Carr, Occupational Therapist

Hypoglycemia is the nutrition-aggression connection that I see frequently in children today. The mechanism appears to operate through the blood glucose system. Some children have abnormally high blood glucose levels after eating sugary foods that makes them feel calm and sleepy for a while. After that they produce too much insulin that sends the blood glucose down too low. When the low glucose levels start the child begins to feel irritable and less capable of intellectual functioning because the brain begins to starve for glucose. The susceptible child will then crave more sugar, and the sugar (plus other white, processed starches that quickly convert to sugar) will begin to replace every other food in the diet.

Children who suffer from this sugar craving show several behavioral effects: 1) emotional overreactivity – they whine more and cry both louder and longer than other children; 2) continuous stimulation-seeking that leads to rule-breaking, limit-testing, and dangerous behaviors; 3) never being satisfied, always wanting more, more, more; 4) external locus of control; 5) difficulty with work activities that require effort; 6) difficulty falling asleep at night and sometimes waking up screaming with nightmares.

Of course, with many of these children weight gain and eating disorders are also a problem, especially in adolescence. Sugar also rots their teeth. Children who try to live on sugar and starch have starving nervous systems. They act out mainly because they don’t feel well.

The cure is to:

Eliminate sugar except in small amounts as a dessert after a meal on special occasions (no more than once or twice a month).
Serve the protein and vegetable portions of the meal first and insist that the child eat that before the starch is served. If children with sugar craving have starch available they’ll eat that and refuse the meat and vegetables.
Don’t count milk as a protein food. Although milk does have some protein, it’s a beverage, not a food, and it contains lactose or milk sugar. Drinking too much milk can make sugar craving worse.
Never allow starchy snacks without an accompanying protein food. That means eating cheese or meat with the crackers.
Instruct the child that protein foods will make him strong, while sugar and snacks will make him weak.

Fifty years ago parents used to realize that children should eat meat and vegetables before they eat dessert. They also limited sweets because they couldn’t afford the doctor and dentist bills that resulted from eating too many sweets. Now we have antibiotics and health insurance, so parents don’t worry so much. Now our high school hallways are lined with candy and soda machines that make much money for the school. Numerous teenagers consume a terrible diet with terrible consequences. Poor diet isn’t the only problem our children face, but it’s one of the most common and the most hidden.

Carbohydrate craving also occurs in adults. When adults consume too many carbs they usually have very round bodies. A round-bodied angry adult probably eats too much sugar and starch and not enough of anything else. Protein foods and steamed vegetables should be eaten several times a day on a regular schedule. Taking a good multivitamin and mineral tablet every day is important. Psychiatric medications have an adverse effect on the digestive system that interferes with the improvement of dietary habits.

— Mary Sue Laing, M.Ed.

I find that in many patients with insomnia, the problem resolves promptly when their food allergies are recognized and avoided.

Also, a couple years ago I did a study of respiratory function (I was looking for restrictive conditions) in women with neck complaints, evaluating cervical xrays, chest expansion, vital capacity, max inspiratory pressure, and fibromyalgia criteria. They all had mechanical dysfunction of the cervical spine, dramatically reduced respiratory function, met the fibromyalgia criteria. Of course, those with FMS usually have sleep disorders and/or insomnia.

Anyway, in my literature review I found many references to ACTH being a respiratory stimulant as well as a suppressor of thyroid hormone and growth hormone. I routinely measure respiratory parameters, and biomechanics of the neck are rarely overlooked in a chiropractor’s office. The two seem to go hand in hand with all the usual problems we discuss on the Integrative Psychiatry list: anxiety, depression, fatigue, panic, cognitive problems, etc, etc.

So I suggest looking for respiratory RESTRICTION. The medical field seems to be biased to expect obstructive disease, but the problem here is restrictive. And have a chiropractor evaluate their spinal function.

— Marla Scripter, D.C., California

CNN’s Lou Dobbs: On Our Way to Becoming a Drug-Dependant Nation

Lou Dobbs, the financial news giant of the Cable News Network (CNN), has publicly voiced dramatic concern regarding the overuse of psychiatric drugs among the nation’s children and adults, particularly those pharmaceuticals aimed at “ADD,” depression, and anxiety.

The article, “Over-medication: a growing crisis – Aggressive marketing a major culprit,” appears at
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/opinion/6908288.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

In it, Dobbs blatantly declares, “Through a combination of pharmaceutical companies’ increased marketing, quick diagnoses from physicians and lack of proper referrals from doctors, we are simply inundating incredible numbers of people with unprecedented medication.”

He points out the dramatic increase in the sales of antidepressants and stimulants in recent years, saying, “Something is very wrong here.”

He concludes: “A crisis looms. The pharmaceutical companies, the FDA and Congress must confront this issue now, and the physicians’ credo is an appropriate starting point: First, do no harm. That concept simply must take precedence over profit motives and casual prescriptions.”

Announcement: Safe Harbor Founder Speaks In Boston, Oct. 17

Non-Drug Approaches to Mental Disorders
A talk by Dan Stradford, Safe Harbor founder

Friday, October 17, 2003 at 7:30 pm
Location: First Unitarian Society in Newton – Headstart Room
1326 Washington St., Newton, MA
(corner of Highland St., parking behind Sovereign Bank)

Dan Stradford is the president and founder of Safe Harbor, the nation’s leading nonprofit advocacy group for non-drug approaches for mental disorders. Going into semi-retirement after a successful business career, Dan created Safe Harbor in 1998. He went on to establish the group’s Web site, AlternativeMentalHealth.com, which rapidly became the world’s largest on this topic. Today Safe Harbor has chapters in several cities, including Boston, and the global impact of Safe Harbor’s work continues to grow.

Safe Harbor Boston provides Healing Circles every Monday night from 7:00-9:00 pm at the First Unitarian Society.

For More Information:
Call: 617-964-5544 or Write to SafeHarborB@aol.com
Visit Safe Harbor’s site: www.alternativementalhealth.com
For directions to the First Unitarian Society in Newton: www.fusn.org

Article: Self-Help Tips for Those Who Hear Voices

Taken from the National Empowerment Center Web site:
http://www.power2u.org/selfhep/voices.html

Some research suggests that if you put a rubber band around your wrist and snap it each time the distressing voices start, they will decrease in intensity and/or frequency.

Some people have found it particularly helpful to use “I statements”. For instance, if a voice begins to tell me I am a whore, worthless, no good, etc. I can say out loud, “Right now I feel worthless, I feel like I am not good, I feel I am a whore”, etc. This is very different than saying “the voices say I’m no good, a whore, worthless” etc. In this strategy I say what I am hearing and own it as my thought and when I do this the voices don’t have to keep reminding me of it and they quiet down.

Keep a record. Some people have found it helpful to keep a record of the time, place, day and what they were doing just before the voices start up. By keeping a record for a few weeks you may begin to see a pattern. For instance you may begin to notice that your voices start up after visits to your family, after being in crowds, just before work, only when you use alcohol, etc. Once you notice a pattern you can avoid those situations and thereby eliminate the voices related to those situations.

Try some music. Research has shown that for some people using a Walkman(tm) and listening to your favorite music can help diminish the intensity of voices. Interestingly, it’s not that loud volume “drowns out the voices”. Rather, what seems important is that your attention is focused on music you like. Thus, if you really like Metallica but only have a Brahms concerto to play on your Walkman, no matter how loud you listen to Brahms it probably won’t diminish your voices. So make sure you are listening to music that engages your attention and that you really like!

Some people find that they hear voices that are particularly distressing when they have a fever or when they are pre-menstrual. Others find voice hearing gets worse after using alcohol, street drugs or over-the-counter drugs such as caffeine, sugar, antihistamines (cold medicines that cause drowsiness, such as Contact, Drixoral), etc. Knowing your body’s reaction to fever, PMS, over-the-counter drugs, street drugs and other physical conditions can help you both predict when voices may be most distressing and help you eliminate these factors or at least be able to predict the length of time you will feel acutely distressed.

Article: Antidepressants Intensify Bipolar Symptoms in Children

Antidepressants for the treatment of bipolar symptoms cause adverse effects in more than three quarters of children within the first four months of treatment, according to a study presented at the Fifth International Conference on Bipolar Disorders (Pittsburgh, June 2003) by Demetri Papolos, MD, from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

The study analyzed past data from 195 juveniles aged 2.4 to 18.8 years (mean age, 10.9 years) from two locations. Of the 195 patients, 134 (68.7%) were exposed to at least one trial of an antidepressant. The adverse effects were quantified in terms of rates, severity, and time of onset of “bipolar” episodes with respect to start of antidepressants. The results were similar at the two practice sites.

Within the first four months of antidepressant treatment, 75.4% experienced some adverse effects. Increased cycling starting within a day of initiation of antidepressants was experienced by 79%, 70.9% experienced increased aggression, and 23.1% experienced psychotic symptoms.

Increased aggressiveness, violence, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors usually accompanied antidepressant exposure in the sample groups.

Article: Children’s Need of Connectedness and Meaning Gains Scientific Credence

Hardwired to Connect: The New Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities, profiled on Good Morning America, argues convincingly that the best therapy for children is a sense of connectedness and meaning in their lives.

The Commission on Children at Risk, a panel of leading children’s doctors, research scientists and youth service professionals, recently issued a report to the nation about new strategies to reduce the currently high numbers of U.S. children who are suffering from emotional and behavioral problems such as depression, anxiety, attention deficit, conduct disorders, and thoughts of suicide.

The Commission is basing its recommendations on recent scientific findings suggesting that children are biologically “hardwired” for enduring attachments to other people and for moral and spiritual meaning. Meeting children’s needs for enduring attachments and for moral and spiritual meaning is the best way to ensure their healthy development, according to the Commission’s report.

Said Dr. Kenneth L. Gladish, the National Executive Director, YMCA of the USA:

“The basic conclusion of this report is that children are hardwired for close connections to others and for moral and spiritual meaning. The report challenges all of us to strengthen those groups in our society that promote this type of connectedness. Here at the Y, we have been working for children and families since 1851 and we intend to be a part of that solution.”

The Commission on Children at Risk is sponsored by YMCA of the USA, Dartmouth Medical School and the Institute for American Values. Represented on the Commission are the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; Harvard Medical School; UCLA Medical School; Yale Medical School; Binghamton University; the Center for the Family in Transition. Thomas Insel, recently appointed director of the National Institute of Mental Health, is also on the Commission.

The Commission is calling upon all U.S. citizens to help strengthen what it calls “authoritative communities” as likely to be the best strategy for improving children’s lives, in its report, Hardwired to Connect: The Case for Authoritative Communities.

“Authoritative communities are groups of people who are committed to one another over time and who exhibit and are able to pass on what it means to be a good person. These groups provide the types of connectedness our children increasingly lack.

“Authoritative communities can be families with children and all civic, educational, recreational, community service, business, culture, and religious groups that serve or include persons under the age of 18 that exhibit certain characteristics. These characteristics are: 1) it is a social institution that includes children and youth; 2) it treats children as ends in themselves; 3) it is warm and nurturing; 4) it establishes clear boundaries and limits; 5) it is defined and guided at least partly by non-specialists; 6) it is multi-generational; 7) it has a long-term focus; 8) it encourages spiritual and religious development; 9) it reflects and transmits a shared understanding of what it means to be a good person; 10) it is philosophically oriented to the equal dignity of all persons and to the principle of love of neighbor.”

The Commission’s report represents the first time that neuroscientists have collaborated with social scientists who study civil society to improve outcomes for children. It is also represents the first time that a diverse group of scientists and leading children’s doctors are publicly recommending that our society pay considerably more attention to young people’s moral and spiritual needs.

Said the child psychiatrist Dr. Kathleen Kovner Kline of the Dartmouth Medical School, the report’s principal investigator:

“As children’s doctors, we began this project because our waiting lists are too long. Our challenge today is to shift from treatment alone to treatment plus prevention. Broad social changes are required. We need to become environmental advocates for childhood.”

Contact:
Institute for American Values
http://www.americanvalues.org/html/hardwired.html
Email: info@americanvalues.org
Phone: 212.246.3942

Article: Chemical Sensitivities Cause Mental Symptoms

 

Researchers from the State University of West Georgia and the Georgia Institute of Technology analyzed a random sampling of 1,582 individuals from the Atlanta, Georgia, metropolitan area to determine the prevalence of a hypersensitivity to common chemicals and the resulting physical and mental conditions. (Stanley M. Caress and Anne C. Steinemann, “A Review of a Two-Phase Population Study of Multiple Chemical Sensitivities,” Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 111, Number 12, September 2003)

27.5% reported that their hypersensitivity was initiated by an exposure to pesticides, while an equal percentage attributed it to solvents. Only 1.4% had a history of prior emotional problems, but 37.7% developed these problems after the physical symptoms emerged.

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, or MCS, is generally acknowledged to be a condition where individuals have an acute hypersensitivity to low levels of chemicals found in everyday substances such as household cleaning agents, pesticides, fresh paint, new carpeting, synthetic building materials, newsprint, perfume, and other petrochemical-based products. Individuals with hypersensitivity can encounter great difficulty functioning in normal working and living environments.

Current research suggests that MCS goes through a two-step process of initiation (causation) and triggering (subsequent reactions). Hypersensitivity emerges after initiation, which can result from a massive exposure to a specific toxic agent or a chronic exposure to one or more toxic substances, even at low levels. After initiation, triggering occurs, which involves reactions to a wider range of substances.

The second phase questionnaire had 71 questions and was administered only to individuals who had previously reported a hypersensitivity to common chemicals in the first phase. The sample used in this second phase was a derivative of the random survey, thus ensuring that it was representative of the target population. The initial phase located 199 individuals who reported a hypersensitivity to chemicals; 69 of these responded to the follow-up survey.

The main symptoms reported were headaches (88.4%), burning eyes (76.8%), breathing difficulties (59.4%), stomach distress/nausea (55.1%), dizziness (46.4%), loss of mental concentration (31.9%), and muscle pain (30.4%).

The products that made the largest percentage of respondents sick were cleaning agents (88.4%), pesticides (81.2%), perfume (81.2%), car exhaust (72.5%), barber shops/beauty salons (60.9%), new carpets (53.6%), new furniture (39.1%), chlorine in household water (39.1%), and fresh ink (26.1%).

13% moved from their homes because of their hypersensitivity. 34.8% reported that they removed carpeting or furniture from their home, and 47.8% stated that they had installed air and/or water filtration systems. 76.8% said they had changed their cleaning and personal hygiene supplies, and 15.9% said they had switched from gas appliances to electric appliances.

Only 1.4% of the respondents reported experiencing depression, anxiety, or other emotional problems before the onset of their symptoms. An additional 5.8% replied that they did not know if they had these emotional symptoms or not before they developed their hypersensitivity. Only 4.3% had ever taken any medication for emotional problems before the onset of their chemical hypersensitivity symptoms. In contrast, 37.7% of the respondents said that they experienced depression, anxiety, or other emotional problems after they developed their hypersensitivity, and 27.5% had taken some medication for these emotional problems after the emergence of their condition.

The findings indicate that the physical problems emerge first and emotional problems develop afterward.

Article: British Regulatory Agency Bans Effexor Use in Children

On September 19, 2003, the UK Committee on Medicines banned the use of Wyeth’s antidepressant Effexor in children, warning that the drug can make them want to kill themselves.

Efexor is reportedly being taken by at least 3,000 children in the UK, even though guidance to doctors states that it should not be given to anyone under 18. It is the second antidepressant to be specifically banned from use in children in four months.

There are around 50,000 children, some as young as six, on antidepressants in the UK. Last year, doctors wrote 170,000 prescriptions of the drugs for children under 18.

Just as with Seroxat, the GlaxoSmithKline drug banned in June, studies have shown that Efexor can cause children to have suicidal thoughts or to become hostile, a word which in the context of clinical trials can mean homicidal. Experts at the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which licenses drugs in the UK, are urging that children should not stop taking either drug suddenly, but should consult their doctor.

Article: Spanish Sage Enhances Memory in Healthy Young Volunteers

Sage (Salvia) has a longstanding reputation in British herbal encyclopedias as an agent that enhances memory, although there is little evidence regarding the efficacy of sage from systematized trials. New research published in Pharmacological Biochemical Behavior (June, 2003) confirms that sage is useful for memory function, at least in the short term.

In a two-trial experiment, researchers Tildesley, Kennedy, et al. (Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne) set out to determine the efficacy of sage in improving the memory of young adults.

Two experiments utilized a placebo-controlled, double-blind, balanced, crossover methodology. In Trial 1, 20 participants received 50, 100 and 150 microl of a standardized essential oil extract of Salvia lavandulaefolia and placebo. In Trial 2, 24 participants received 25 and 50 microl of a standardized essential oil extract of S. lavandulaefolia and placebo.

Assessment was undertaken using the Cognitive Drug Research computerized test battery prior to treatment and 1, 2.5, 4 and 6 hours thereafter. The primary outcome measures were immediate and delayed word recall.

A 50-microl dose of salvia essential oil significantly improved immediate word recall in both studies.