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The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why? by Marcia Angell

The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth by Irving Kirsch Basic Books, 226 pp., $15.99 (paper) Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America by Robert Whitaker Crown, 404 pp., $26.00 Unhinged: The Trouble With Psychiatry—A Doctor’s Revelations About a Profession in Crisis by Daniel Carlat Free Press, 256 pp., $25.00 It seems that Americans are in the midst of a raging epidemic of mental illness, at least as judged by the increase in the numbers treated for it. A large survey of randomly selected adults, sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and conducted between 2001 and 2003, found that an astonishing 46 percent met criteria established by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for having had at least one mental illness within four broad categories at some time in their lives. What is going on here? The authors emphasize different aspects of the epidemic of mental illness.

New Alzheimer's Prevention Efforts, And Non-Drug Treatments, Featured At 25th Conference Of Alzheimer's Disease International LONDON, March 4, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Beneficial Alzheimer's therapies that don't use drugs, and an update on prevention efforts, are the focus of the second day's plenary sessions at the 25th International Conference of Alzheimer's Disease International (ADI), March 12, 2010 at the Grand Hotel Palace, Thessaloniki, Greece. Prof. Robert Woods of Bangor University, Gwynedd, United Kingdom, says, Psychological therapies have been used with people with dementia for at least 50 years, aiming to improve or maintain cognition, functional abilities, and quality of life, and reduce distress, anxiety, depression and behavioral difficulties. In his presentation at the conference, titled Psychological Interventions with People with Dementia, Woods will share encouraging findings from recent research, including cognitive stimulation and behavioral approaches. Prof. The day's second plenary session will address the topic of Can We Prevent Alzheimer's. - The Prevention Working Group of ADI. Contacts:

Snake Oil? The scientific evidence for health supplements See the data: bit.ly/snakeoilsupps. See the static versionSee the old flash version Check the evidence for so-called Superfoods visualized. Note: You might see multiple bubbles for certain supplements. This visualisation generates itself from this Google Doc. As ever, we welcome your thoughts, crits, comments, corrections, compliments, tweaks, new evidence, missing supps, and general feedback. » Purchase: Amazon US or Barnes & Noble | UK or Waterstones » Download: Apple iBook | Kindle (UK & US) » See inside For more graphics, visualisations and data-journalism:

Pole of inaccessibility A pole of inaccessibility marks a location that is the most challenging to reach owing to its remoteness from geographical features that could provide access. Often it refers to the most distant point from the coastline. The term describes a geographic construct, not an actual physical phenomenon. Subject to varying definitions, it is of interest mostly to explorers. Northern pole of inaccessibility[edit] Northern pole of inaccessibility The northern pole of inaccessibility ( WikiMiniAtlas 84°03′N 174°51′W / 84.050°N 174.850°W / 84.050; -174.850 (Northern Pole of Inaccessibility)), sometimes known as the Arctic pole of inaccessibility, or just Arctic pole, is located on the Arctic Oceanpack ice at a distance farthest from any land mass. According to some reports, the first person to reach the spot on foot was Sir Wally Herbert, who arrived by dogsled in 1968. Southern pole of inaccessibility[edit] Southern pole of inaccessibility Oceanic pole of inaccessibility[edit] Eurasia[edit]

The Illusions of Psychiatry by Marcia Angell The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth by Irving Kirsch Basic Books, 226 pp., $15.99 (paper) Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America by Robert Whitaker Crown, 404 pp., $26.00 Unhinged: The Trouble with Psychiatry—A Doctor’s Revelations About a Profession in Crisis by Daniel Carlat Free Press, 256 pp., $25.00 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) by American Psychiatric Association American Psychiatric Publishing, 992 pp., $135.00; $115.00 (paper) But with the introduction of psychoactive drugs in the 1950s, and sharply accelerating in the 1980s, the focus shifted to the brain. When psychoactive drugs were first introduced, there was a brief period of optimism in the psychiatric profession, but by the 1970s, optimism gave way to a sense of threat. In the late 1970s, the psychiatric profession struck back—hard. Such is modern psychopharmacology.

Curiosity and medical education. [Med Educ. 2011] - PubMed result How My New Favorite Game Can Prevent Alzheimer's And Save The World Last week I was introduced to an intriguing little brain game that could very well prevent Alzheimer's disease, with the nice side effect of helping to save the world. The game was demonstrated no less than three times by a commenter on a previous article reading between the lines of some recent science-related news. What is this new Alzheimer's-busting miracle brain game? Before laying out rules, let's look at an example from the comments: "To opponents who insist no pollution can change the atmosphere, it's important to make the example of inserting 'taxes' for pollution and 'economy' for atmosphere." Do you see what Hank did there? Got the game yet? Confirmation of preexisting beliefs is mentally rewarding. Another example: Some scientists think growing genetically modified salmon would cause net harm to ecosystems if not done right, so we should never allow any GMO fish. Of course, you won't end up changing your viewpoint every time you play our game, nor should you. ***No, really.

Why You're Probably Less Popular Than Your Friends Are your friends more popular than you are? There doesn’t seem to be any obvious reason to suppose this is true, but it probably is. We are all more likely to become friends with someone who has a lot of friends than we are to befriend someone with few friends. This simple realization is relevant not only to real-life friends but also to social media. The number of friends we have is typical of many situations in which the average deviates from individuals’ experience. But once again, let’s adopt the perspective of the average person and reexamine these numbers. Of course, the argument applies to many situations.

Understanding the Fourier transform » #AltDevBlogADay Yes, I realize that after reading the title of this post, 99% of potential readers just kept scrolling. So to the few of you who clicked on it, welcome! Don’t worry, this won’t take long. A very long time ago, I was curious how to detect the strength of the bass and treble in music, in order to synchronize some graphical effects. I had no idea how to do such a thing, so I tried to figure it out, but I didn’t get very far. Eventually I learned that I needed something called a Fourier transform, so I took a trip to the library and looked it up (which is what we had to do back in those days). What I found was the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), which looks like this: This formula, as anyone can see, makes no sense at all. Eventually, I was able to visualize how it works, which was a bit of a lightbulb for me. Disclaimer: my math skills are pitch-patch at best, and this is just intended to be an informal article, so please don’t expect a rigorous treatment.

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