LinkBlog
Generalized Anxiety Disorder - Patient treatment manual (pdf)
Understanding post-traumatic stress disorder
Most People are Optimists - Except for Lawyers
recommended links
Depression Is Real Coalition
-
ABIL: Agoraphobics Building
Independant Lives -
Agoraphobia and Panic
Disorder Foundation -
Anxiety Disorders Association
of America - Anxiety Network Australia
- Anxiety-Panic.Com
- AnxietyZone
- Army Behavioral Health
- BrainPhysics - OCD
-
Canadian Network for Mood
and Anxiety Treatments - Children of Hoarders
- Choices in Mental Health (UK)
-
Dart Foundation: Gateway to PTSD
information -
David Baldwin's
Trauma Information Pages - EMDR Institute, Inc.
- EMDR Network Japan
- Fear of Flying course (free)
- Healthy Minds
- Information for People with Anxiety Disorders
- Internet Guide to REBT, CBT
- Living with a Brain Disorder
- Morita Therapy
- Mayo Clinic : Depression
- Mayo Clinic : GAD
- Mayo Clinic : OCD
- Mayo Clinic : Panic Attacks
- Mayo Clinic : PTSD
- Mayo Clinic : Social Anxiety
-
Medicines.org.uk - Anxiety &
Depression guides - Mind-Your-Mind Canada
- National Center for PTSD
-
National Institute of Mental
Health (NIMH) - No Such Thing As Crazy
- OCD Action, UK
- OCD Ireland
- Obsessive Compulsive Foundation
- Open Minds, Open Doors
- Out of the silence - site for young people with mental illness
- Paniccure.com
- Partners With PTSD
- Prescription Drug Information
- Psychiatric Service Dog Society
- PsychNews
-
Rational Emotive Behavior
Therapy (REBT) - Sane Australia
-
Shyness & Social Anxiety
Service of Australia -
Social Phobia/Social Anxiety
Association - Social Anxiety Support board
-
South African Depression &
Anxiety Group - Suicide Prevention Help
-
tAPir - the Anxiety Panic
internet resource -
The Panic Center (Free
CBT based programs) - The School of OCD
- UN-WHO Drug Trials Database
- U.S. Army Behavioral Health - PTSD
we support
"just don't smoke"
Yul Brynner
- Menthol cigarettes harder to quit
- Secondhand smoke in cars serious threat to kid's health
- Starting smoking young increases addiction risk
-
Smoking doesn't slim girls;
stunts boys' growth - 40 reasons why you should quit smoking
- Pregnant smokers 'prime' their kids to smoke
- Smoking related coronary artery disease quickly reversed if young smokers quit
- Not ready to quit? Try cutting back
- Half smoking again within year of lung cancer surgery
- Cutting back 'compensation' increases toxin load per cigarette
- Tobacco companies upped nicotine level 11% since 1998
- Workplace passive smoke increases lung cancer risk
- Hooked by genes: The DNA sequences cigarette companies love
- Smoking causes long lasting changes to brain's bio chemistry
- Nicotine receptor stimulant trebles the odds of stopping smoking
- Bupropion, nortriptyline double chances of quitting
- Nicotine's powerful role in reinforcing smoking
- Pregnant smokers raise child's risk of stroke, heart attack
- Smoking linked to pancreatic cancer
- Neurobiology of Smokers' Cravings
- 'Low cancer risk' cigarettes as deadly as regular kind
- Quitting reduces lung cancer death risk by 70%
- Fetal nicotine exposure linked to teen attention problems
- Outdoor second-hand smoke exposure can harm
- Response to day's first cigarette predicts ease of quitting
- 'Healthy' children of smoking parents aren't really so healthy
- Children of smokers have up to five times higher levels of a nicotine toxin
- Smoking increases risk of dementia
- Smoking kills even after quitting
- Antenatal second hand smoke exposure increases child's psychological problems
- Smoking could kill 1 billion this century: WHO
- Just 1 cigarette can lead to nicotine addiction
- Smokers less likely to survive early stage lung cancer
- Smokeless tobacco delivers carcinogens more efficiently than cigarettes!
- Smoking permanently turns on genes that increase lung cancer susceptibility
- Secondhand smoke a health hazard for pets too
- Hypnosis for smoking cessation sees strong results
- Smoking doesn't burn fat
- Smoking linked to sagging breasts
- No evidence waterpipes decrease smoking harm
- Tobacco smoke + alcohol damage hearts more than either alone
anti torture campaign
- Torture experts write APA policy
- [APA] still rocked by torture debate
- Petition for psychologists
- AMA president says APA "did not accurately represent our ethical guidelines"
- Psychologists Aiding Torturers
-
Annual conference endorses
APA's torture policy :( - Physicians for Human Rights call on Congress to vote No on Military Commissions Bill
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Torture is a Form of Trauma;
Trauma Causes PTSD - Psychoanalysts' association condemns torture use
- Humiliating, inhumane or degrading treatment IS torture
- Two American psychologists accused of war crimes. U.S. DoD investigating.
- DoD report proves psychologists central to POW/detainee abuse (pdf)
- 40 psychologists demand APA change policy on torture (pdf)
- Did the American Psychological Association turn a blind eye to torture for medicine precribing rights?
- Will psychologists still abet torture?
- Psychologist, Author Mary Pipher Returns APA Award Over Interrogation Policy
- Guantanamo Medical Role Likened to South Africa Under Apartheid
Deputy Army Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Lt. General John (Jeff) Kimmons, has stated that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through abusive interrogation methods in the last 5 years.
monument, Monmouth County
New Jersey.
[USA] Depression genetics study seeks volunteers
Four-year study seeks volunteers with history of depression
Which genes play a role in depression? Douglas Levinson, MD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine, is leading a multicenter study to identify them and is seeking volunteers with the illness.
"Our goal is to identify DNA sequences in specific genes that play a role in predisposing some individuals to developing depression," said Levinson, who recently arrived from the University of Pennsylvania, where he had also conducted research on the genetic basis of depression. "The information could ultimately yield better treatments that target the mechanisms identified by this and similar studies."
Major depressive disorder-which is marked by such symptoms as the inability to enjoy life, changes in sleep and appetite, suicidal thoughts, fatigue and poor concentration-develops in about 10 percent of the population. Women are twice as likely as men to develop the disorder.
Past studies show there is a genetic component to depression. Research on twins suggests that about 50 percent of the predisposition to depression is genetic. But, according to Levinson, researchers' knowledge does not extend much beyond that.
"We don't know the cause-not like we know the causes of TB or heart attack," he said. "We have some ideas, but nothing at the level of proof. We're not able to say, 'If this one gene is altered in the following way, that will decrease someone's risk of developing the disease.'"
In recent years, researchers have turned to members of families with multiple cases of depression to gain insight on the genetics behind this disease. For genetic "linkage" studies, researchers test DNA markers throughout the genome and identify the parts of chromosomes where depression-related genes may exist. In one such study published several years ago, Levinson found that a specific part of chromosome 15 is likely to contain one or more genes involved in depression.
"Research on twins suggests that about 50 percent of the predisposition to depression is genetic.""We are continuing to try to pinpoint the relevant genes and the specific role they play in depression," Levinson said. "And that requires our answering several questions: Which genes are they? How do they work together? And how will that information help us in the future?"
Levinson's study focuses on adults with recurrent cases of depression that start in childhood or early adult life. The researchers chose this focus, Levinson said, because past studies have shown that early-onset, recurrent depression seems to be more genetic than later-onset, single-episode depression.
During the four-year study, researchers at six universities will gather information on personal and family mental health history from 2,000 people with major depressive disorder. They will also use blood samples to conduct DNA studies.
Levinson is recruiting 300 participants for the Stanford portion of the study. Eligible participants will have had depression before the age of 31 and have experienced at least two depressive episodes. They must also have at least one sibling or parent with depression.
Also participating in the study are Columbia University, NYC; Howard University, Washington DC; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD; University of Iowa, Iowa City IA and Rush University Medical Center, Chicago IL.
People who would like more information or are interested in participating in the study should visit http://depressiongenetics.stanford.edu or call .
The study is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health.