Probiotics may help in the treatment of depression

http://goo.gl/rkoELR

Over the past few years, studies have been undertaken to explore the possible impact of probiotics on behavior. It is within this context that the concept of a psychobiotic has arisen.

The authors of a new review article in Biological Psychiatry, Timothy Dinan and his colleagues from University College Cork in Ireland, define a psychobiotic as "a live organism that, when ingested in adequate amounts, produces a health benefit in patients suffering from psychiatric illness."

They review the evidence that these bacteria, when ingested in adequate amounts, offer enormous potential for the treatment of depression and other stress-related disorders.

The gut microbiota, which contains approximately 1 kg of bacteria, can be modulated by diet and many other factors. It is not static and can change from day to day, starting at birth. Evidence has shown that even the form of delivery (vaginal versus cesarean) alters an individual's microbiota.

Early life stress, such as maternal separation, is known to induce long-term changes in the microbiome. Dinan and his colleagues review one study that assessed the potential benefits of a specific probiotic, B. infantis, in rats displaying depressive behavior due to maternal separation. The probiotic treatment normalized both their behavior and their previously-abnormal immune response. This preclinical study and others like it strongly support the hypothesis that probiotics have the potential to exert behavioral and immunological effects.

It's time to listen to the voices in your head

http://goo.gl/0iGaoI

In the popular imagination voice-hearing is often viewed with fear and suspicion, frequently reified as a chaotic, corrupted symptom of illness. But that is changing, with a growing acceptance of voice-hearing as a profoundly human experience that can no longer be reduced to a mere symptom of psychiatric disorder. The work of Intervoice: The International Hearing Voices Network, and the enthusiastic response to Eleanor Longden's 2013 TED talk, which recounts her own journey to recovery from a demoralising psychiatric diagnosis, indicate the growing possibilities for people living with the experience to raise their voices with a sense of power and pride

Rules to Require Equal Coverage for Mental Ills

http://goo.gl/bVm8XN

The Obama administration on Friday will complete a generation-long effort to require insurers to cover care for mental health and addiction just like physical illnesses when it issues long-awaited regulations defining parity in benefits and treatment.

The rules, which will apply to almost all forms of insurance, will have far-reaching consequences for many Americans. In the White House, the regulations are also seen as critical to President Obama’s program for curbing gun violence by addressing an issue on which there is bipartisan agreement: Making treatment more available to those with mental illness could reduce killings, including mass murders.

Care gap addressed by integrating mental and medical services in community health centers

http://goo.gl/hVBvXL

In addition, a policy that was found to impact the availability of behavioral health treatment services in health centers was whether state Medicaid programs - the major source of insurance revenue for health centers - pay separately for behavioral services when they are rendered on the same day that medical care is provided, a policy known as same-day billing. In many states, only one payment is permitted even if both medical and behavioral services are provided. Health centers that were located in states that do not allow same-day billing were less likely to offer onsite substance abuse services or 24 hour crisis counseling.

"Permitting payments for both behavioral and medical care provided in community health centers could help more health centers begin to offer crucial services such as substance abuse treatment or crisis counseling," said lead author Emily Jones, PhD, MPP, who began this work as a doctoral student at SPHHS and now works for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Hepatitis C, a Silent Killer, Meets Its Match

An important moment in the history of recovery...

http://goo.gl/gUsrfk

Over the next three years, starting within the next few weeks, new drugs are expected to come to market that will cure most patients with the virus, in some cases with a once-a-day pill taken for as little as eight weeks, and with only minimal side effects.

That would be a vast improvement over current therapies, which cure about 70 percent of newly treated patients but require six to 12 months of injections that can bring horrible side effects.

My experience of living with DID: Dissociative moments

http://goo.gl/uupb6T

I am sitting at my desk, alone.  But I don’t feel alone.  Everything is normal, but everything is different.  There are sounds from the birds scrabbling on the roof.  They are two metres above me, by the skylight.  But they are far, far away.  The walls are a pale yellow but their vibrancy seems to grab me.  My eyes are sucking in their colour.  I am falling back, deep down into myself.  I am fuzzed in a fog.  I am outside myself and deep within myself all at the same time.  I am having a dissociative moment.

Moments like this happen all the time.  Sometimes I know what has triggered them; at other times, it’s a complete mystery.  I feel myself floating.  I feel as if everything around me has become unreal.  I feel that I, myself, am unreal.  Things that are familiar become unfamiliar.  Characteristics, such as colours, or shapes, or the contrast of light against the dark, stand out and grab my attention as if I am looking through a tube at them: everything else fades away, and there is just this one thing, this one mostly irrelevant thing, this life-hanging-on-it one thing and I can’t feel anything else or see anything else or do anything else but have my attention consumed by it.

No Longer Lonely: Online Social Community for People with Mental Illness

I'm not sure what to think of this. Anybody have any experience with it?

http://www.nolongerlonely.com/

We are a welcoming community that understands the trials and pitfalls of managing a mental illness. Find friends or seek romantic relationships knowing that everyone on this site has some form of mental illness.

Express yourself by posting your own blog, participating in forums, and sharing your poems, stories, or artwork.

The webmaster checks the IP address of every incoming profile and uses advanced techniques to prevent scammers from getting on the site..

NIMH Director Rethinks Standard Psychiatric Treatment for Schizophrenia

http://goo.gl/sY2mwg

In 2012, Harrow published a 20-year follow up, "Do All Schizophrenia Patients Need Antipsychotic Treatment Continuously Throughout their Lifetime? A 20-Year Longitudinal Study," which reiterated his 15-year conclusions. Harrow found that patients diagnosed with schizophrenia who were "not on antipsychotics for prolonged periods were significantly less likely to be psychotic and experienced more periods of recovery."

In addition to the Harrow study, what also convinced Insel to rethink treatment was astudy by Dutch researcher Lex Wunderink published in JAMA Psychiatry in July, 2013. Wunderink used a randomized design, the "gold standard" or research, and had similar results as Harrow. In Wunderink's study, patients were randomly assigned to either maintenance on antipsychotic drugs or a tapering-off and discontinuation of the drugs. Insel summarizes Wunderink's results: "By seven years, the discontinuation group had achieved twice the functional recovery rate: 40.4 percent vs. only 17.6 percent among the medication maintenance group."