Suicide, Brains, and Football

In yesterday's New York Times, Alan Schwarz wrote about the tragic suicide of football player Dave Duerson this past week. Schwarz notes that prior to shooting himself, Duerson texted family members that he wanted his brain examined for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, a condition we've discussed before in our post Brains, Behavior, and Football.

Schwarz writes:

Doctors, N.F.L. officials and even many players denied or discredited the links between football and such brain damage for months or even years. The roughly 20 cases of C.T.E. that have been identified by groups at Boston University and West Virginia University were almost always men who had died — most with significant emotional or cognitive problems — with no knowledge of the disease. Now, for the first time he knows of, Stern said, a former player has killed himself with the specific request that his brain be examined.

I'm left to wonder, did this former football player have this problem? Sometimes depression alone causes memory problems and sometimes people with depression worry that they have Alzheimer's disease, or any number of other illnesses for that matter. Treating the depression may help the memory problems, and may alleviate the fears of other illnesses. And we don't know much about the Chronic Traumatic Encephelopathy induced by repeated head injuries: is the course of the dementia altered by early intervention with medications? Does the depression respond to the usual treatments for mood disorders? Could Mr. Duerson have been saved, at least for a while?

Here's an article on the treatment of chronic brain injury with hyperbaric oxygen in animal models:
http://www.hbot.com/first-successful-treatment-of-chronic-traumatic-brain-injury

And here's an emedicine article on treatments for repetitive brain injuries (not necessarily specific to CTE) with medicine recommendations, but no mention of antidepressants or medicines to slow the course of dementia:
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/92189-treatment

Here's a medscape article on CTE and dementia:
http://www.alzheimersreadingroom.com/2010/08/causes-of-dementia-chronic-traumatic.html

And, finally, here's a shout out to my friend and med school classmate Robert Morrison, M.D., Ph.D. whose paper for our public health class was published in JAMA back in 1986 as a state of the art review of boxing and brain injury: http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/255/18/2475.short

Is it worth it in the name of sports?

Could I ask a huge favor of the next football player who considers suicide? Instead of completing the act, could you have your depression treated and then write about the results? It would be an enormous contribution. Sure, it would be an anecdote, and not a controlled trial, but perhaps it would add something to the field. And we'd be happy to publish your story here on Shrink Rap.

My heart goes out to the family of Dave Duerson.

Clinical Psychiatry News Launches New Blog/Website

Clinical Psychiatry News sends out 40,000 tabloid newspapers a month to the nation's shrinks. Last week they launched a website with news feeds, on-line versions of their columnists' stuff, podcasts, videos, and more. Check it out at http://www.clinicalpsychiatrynews.com/home.html

CFS: Better With Therapy and Exercise?

In today's New York Times, David Tuller writes about a study that shows that psychotherapy is an effective treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome. In Psychotherapy Eases Chronic Fatigue, Study Shows, Tuller writes:

The new study, conducted at clinics in Britain and financed by that country’s government, is expected to lend ammunition to those who think the disease is primarily psychological or related to stress.

The authors note that the goal of cognitive behavioral therapy, the type of psychotherapy tested in the study, is to change the psychological factors “assumed to be responsible for perpetuation of the participant’s symptoms and disability.”

In the long-awaited study, patients who were randomly assigned to receive cognitive behavioral therapy or exercise therapy, in combination with specialized medical care, reported reduced fatigue levels and greater improvement in physical functioning than those receiving the medical care alone — or getting the medical care along with training in how to recognize the onset of fatigue and to adjust their activities accordingly.

Interesting. Generally, I like to stay away from the "it's all in your head" debates. I'll let our commenters do the talking here.

Videos about the Laron Dwarfs: Science Study of Dwarfs Who Don't Seem to get Cancer or Diabetes Mellitus

Videos about the Laron Dwarfs: Looking for Mimic Druug as Study Continues of Laron Dwarfs Who Don't Seem to get Cancer or Diabetes Mellitus

University Research Looks for Drugs to Mimic Laron Syndome Effect

Fascinating article appears of a study of a group of dwarfs who have been studied for years..The doctor following them noticed that this group of dwarfs in Ecaudor, Laron dwarfs didn't seem to get cancer or diabetes mellitus....The doctor, Dr. Guevara believes that the gene that stunts their growth also helps to prevent cancer and diabetes mellitus. Researchers are trying to illuminate the biological pathway and find drugs to mimic Laron Effect.
















see article here

'Immune' to cancer: The astonishing dwarf community in Ecuador who could hold the key to a cure







Article from Science

Growth Hormone Receptor Deficiency Is Associated with a Major Reduction in Pro-Aging Signaling, Cancer, and Diabetes in Humans



See

Dwarfs without Cancer or Diabetes

The Duck Was Nixed!

As our publisher was designing the cover for our book, we put in a request. We'd like a duck on the cover. No Duck, we were told. As we dusted ourselves off, our editor came back and said the design department had agreed to put a duck on the spine of the book. We rejoiced! Here and there, Roy would mutter about the duck. Remind them, don't let them forget about the duck. As the cover was finalized and the galleys were finished, we received a note from our beloved editor. Are you sure? Of course! People will think you are quacks. But we're not quacks, anyone who reads our book will know that. Roy was convinced that it would add to the idea that this isn't just another dry reference textbook, it's an easy to read, ducky kind of book. I thought a little duck would be fine. Our editor sent the picture of "our duck:Now let me tell you.
I did not like this duck.
I did not like this duck at all.

The duck had long lashes, looked way too happy for a psychiatry book, and looked like a toddler's bath toy. We're shrink rappers, but we don't squeak! Oh, and we're not quacks.

Here is the duck I wanted. Very small, very subtle. Think of the penguin logo for Putnam Books.
Only think of it as a duck. Here is the duck I wanted. Our editor agreed, I think, that it was a better duck:


And happy with our duck (though ClinkShrink thought the first duck with the flirty eyelashes was fine)... I get an email from the marketing department. It is a very serious email about how well they think our book will do, and how packaging is important to the overall product. The upshot: there will be no duck. Our opinions were not wanted, the duck was gone, it was a done deal.

Quack?

Oh, the duck would have been just fine....

Henry's Demons: A Father-Son Memoir of Schizophrenia

My mother and father and the dreaded healthy definitely believe I am schizophrenic.
---Henry Cockburn


Now here's a Shrinky book I haven't read. Or at least not yet?

In yesterday's New York Times Book Review, Darin Strauss reviews a father-son memoir by Patrick Cockburn and Henry Cockburn. Henry's Demon's is the story of Henry's battle with schizophrenia.

Did Strauss like the book? I couldn't say. He spent a fair amount of time picking apart the writing of the father/war correspondent. I think he wished the son of a novelist had become schizophrenic for the sake of fewer cliches.

What about Amazon, how do it's reviewers feel? No reviews yet. If you read this book, by all means, tell me what you think! Here's the father-son dual on the Diane Rehm Show if you'd like to listen to their tale.

Can Yoga and Mind Body Intervention Help People Get Pregnant Boost Fertility

"If somebody would have told me 3 to 4 years ago that I would be encouraging patients to go for yoga, acupuncture ( to promote reproductive fertility i.e increase chances of having a baby) or any other integrative treatment, they would say my head would need to be examined," said a reproductive endocrinologist......
I remembered this quote from a former article I wrote about in healty medical Blog when I read a recent NY Times article titled Yoga’s Stress Relief: An Aid for Infertility?







Intuitively it seems right that anything that reduces stress ought to help fertility..(My intuition also tells me I ought to be rich ,but that's another story). So it seems like yoga could conceivably help...even acupuncture has been put forward as a way to help infertility..see healty medical Blog see Can Acupuncture Help You Get Pregnant?




The Times article says "Besides taxing the mind, body and wallet, infertility can be lonely. Support groups have long existed for infertile couples, but in recent years, “yoga for fertility” classes have become increasingly popular. They are the latest in a succession of holistic approaches to fertility treatment that have included acupuncture and mind-body programs (whose effectiveness for infertility patients is backed by research); massage (which doesn’t have specific data to support it); and Chinese herbs (which some say may be detrimental).


see

Treating Infertility

see

Yoga's Stress Relief Aid for Infertility?

A Video about Mind Body and Infetility










In the previous healty medical Blog article about Yoga and Infertility, Yoga Touted as Help for Infertility , I referenced a report that said "While some people may dismiss the value of alternative medicines, a study by the National Institute of Mental Health found more than half of 56 participants with fertility issues gave birth one year after joining a mind-body program compared to only 20 percent in a different group".



I think the National Institute of Health funded mind body infertility study they are talking about is one by Dr. Alice Domar of Harvard Medical School, a scientist who has been studying this for years..."Dr. Domar’s five-year study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and examined two questions. First, the researchers asked whether psychological interventions could affect pregnancy rates. Second, they wondered if these interventions could help prevent the depression women tend to suffer as they experience infertility.



"The psychological interventions in the study took the form of support groups or mind/body groups meeting once a week for ten weeks. The results showed that more than half of the women in the intervention groups conceived a healthy baby within the first year. Only one out of five women in the control groups became pregnant. The control groups had received routine care, but no psychological intervention."
see Psychological Support Boost Fertility



Talking about another, different study which looked at stress, stress enzymes and the impact on fertility, a specialist wrote on his blog "With such findings it would appear that patients would benefit if they were enrolled in various stress reducing programs when try to conceive. Mind body programs, support groups, acupuncture and massage appear to offer the greatest benefit".


see

Study Suggests Stress Reduction May Increase Pregnancy Rate



See also

Cycle of stress:Getting pregnant, having monster PMS - how the S factor may play a part