War, depression, suicide: American veterans are finding help

France24 – AFP, 13 June 2019

Roger King, an Iraq war veteran from Long Island, has put his own physical and
psychological struggles to use as he helps other veterans adapt to civilian life Roger
King, an Iraq war veteran from Long Island, has put his own physical and
psychological struggles to use as he helps other veterans adapt to civilian life AFP

Center Moriches (United States) (AFP) - Roger King was 19 when he enlisted in the US Marine Corps in 2005. He left four years later after two deployments in Iraq, where a sniper's bullet nearly cost him his life.

Once home, he faced a new set of problems in his return to civilian life on New York's Long Island, including a suffocating sense of anxiety and difficulty being in group situations.

King was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a traumatic brain injury (TBI) -- two afflictions sadly common among veterans of the largest army in the world, bogged down in seemingly endless conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Increasingly depressed by the challenges of his new life, King began drinking.

This solidly built 33-year-old man quietly confides that he attempted suicide -- twice.

Russell Keyzer -- another New Yorker -- joined the National Guard shortly after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Now 42, he suffers from flashbacks, insomnia, panic attacks and other PTSD symptoms following two years with NATO's multinational force in Kosovo, where periods of relative stability alternated with violent outbursts.

After returning home in 2008, Keyzer sank into a life of drinking and depression. His marriage came crashing down and he found himself homeless. On no fewer than seven occasions, he says, he attempted to kill himself.

Today, King and Keyzer say they are doing much better, thanks in large part to an aid group for veterans, the Joseph P. Dwyer Veterans Peer Support Project, a non-profit organization created in 2012 in tribute to an army medic who killed himself in 2008 after returning home from Iraq.

'More needs to be done'

King and Keyzer spoke about their darker times at a recent "Wellness Day" organized by the association at a park in the coastal village of Center Moriches.

Veterans enjoyed a picnic, a salute to the US flag, yoga, meditation and kayaking -- all activities intended to foster a sense of security and camaraderie.

Some 20 organizations also set up stands to offer assistance.

"More needs to be done," King said. Groups like the Dwyer Project "should have been done in World War I, World War II, Vietnam."

He now leads a group of a dozen veterans for the project. They meet weekly.

"We thought of AA, NA," he said, referring to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, but "it's like you never really thought maybe this might help for veterans."

Now, King added, "the compassion and the caring is getting there."

Keyzer agreed.

"If the proper resources were there when we came home, we would not be in this position ... We would not have turned to drugs, we would not have turned to alcoholism," he said.

But he added: "Things are slowly changing for the better every day. There are more and more veterans' programs out there."

Peer support

Psychological support groups like the Dwyer Project have indeed been multiplying across the United States, as the world's leading superpower struggles to help its 20 million veterans -- nearly 10 percent of the adult population -- overcome their challenges and thoughts of suicide.

Many recent veterans are at the opposite end of the spectrum from the proud and smiling men and women who assembled in Normandy last week to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion during World War II.

More than 6,000 veterans -- many of them gun owners -- killed themselves each year from 2008 to 2016, according to a report published late last year by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

By comparison, a total of 6,951 American troops died in major war zones between 2001 and 2018, according to an analysis from Brown University.

Faced with those sobering statistics, the VA -- which administers some 1,200 hospitals and clinics -- has made suicide prevention a priority, establishing a hotline for troubled veterans that is among the most heavily used in the world.

Increasing awareness

The Veterans Crisis Line was launched in 2007 with a staff of 14; it now has more than 900 employees, with three call centers across the country including one in upstate New York, director Matt Miller told AFP.

The number of incoming calls has grown steadily, now totaling some 650,000 a year, he said.

"We are all increasing in our awareness" of suicide, he said, not just among veterans but among all civilians, where the rate -- while lower than among veterans -- has been climbing.

Fifty years after the hell of Vietnam and more than 17 years after US troops first intervened in Afghanistan, "there is a lot more awareness" about veterans' needs, said Marcelle Leis, who heads the Dwyer Project after 20 years in the Air National Guard.

But she quickly adds: "We have a lot of work to do."

Unlike the norm during the Korean and Vietnam wars, she said, troops sent to Iraq or Afghanistan often serve "multiple tours" and struggle while "going back and forth in this constant state of hyper-vigilance."

As they cope with the difficult return to civilian life, veterans have an added handicap: in their former military culture, asking for help could be seen as showing weakness.

"A lot of what we do is education to ask for help and garner support -- and learn that that's a sign of strength," Leis said.

She is cheered by the fact that many Vietnam veterans, even as they battle their own demons, have been quick to join support groups to help younger veterans.

"It is giving them a new sense of purpose, and helping them heal," Leis said.

'My blood is pumping'

King credits a Vietnam veteran as the first person to encourage him to seek psychotherapy, a crucial step on the road to healing.

While he admits to still having difficult moments, the former Marine, now married and the father of a three-month-old, has plans for the future: with a newly earned history degree, he hopes to work as a high school teacher.

And while he still misses the adrenaline rushes of combat, his weekend job as a firefighter helps make up for it.

"The alarm goes off, my blood is pumping (and) I'm going out to save somebody," King says with a smile.

More than 6,000 American war veterans kill themselves each year. Support groups are bringing veterans together in a bid to stop the deathshttps://t.co/RR57ZYQuVD

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 13 juni 2019

Award-winning teen writer Noa Pothoven chooses to die due to ‘unbearable suffering’

DutchNews, June 5, 2019 - By Senay Boztas 

A 17-year-old girl from Arnhem who suffered from years of PTSD, depression and anorexia after being sexually assaulted as a child has died. 

Noa Pothoven, the author of the award-winning book Winnen of Leren (‘winning or learning’) wrote in a post on Instagram – which has now been deleted – that she was ‘being let go because my suffering is unbearable.’ 

According to the AD, her last days were spent in a hospital bed in her family’s living room, saying goodbye to her near and dear, and her sister announced her death on Sunday. 

Although it has been widely reported around the world that she died through euthanasia – following an unconfirmed report from the Central European News wire service – the circumstances of her death are unclear. A journalist from Politico Europe has claimed that the reports were incorrect and due to a failure of checking. 

In her Instagram post, the young woman had said that she would stop eating, and expected to die within 10 days. 

She had, however, investigated the possibilities of euthanasia through the Levenseindekliniek in Den Haag last year, according to The Gelderlander local newspaper, and then been rejected. 

The young woman had written critically about her traumatising experiences of isolation cells in psychiatric care institutions, and praised GroenLinks MP Lisa Westerveld when she took up the subject of inadequate youth care in the Netherlands. 

After suicide attempts, last year she had said that she would try trauma therapy a final time and her mother, Lisette, told The Gelderlander that she was choosing ‘the road towards death’ while her family wanted her to choose life. 

A spokeswoman for Westerveld, who was one of the people invited to say goodbye to Ms Pothoven before her death, said: ‘as far as we know, she died because she didn’t eat any more,’ adding that the girl has not yet been buried. 

The euthanasia clinic that the young woman reportedly consulted last year would not confirm or deny if she was a patient. Elke Swart, spokeswoman for the Levenseindkliniek in The Hague, said: ‘We cannot say anything about it. There are very few young adults in euthanasia clinics, and it’s even rarer to see them for psychiatric reasons. Euthanasia of someone who is 60 is very different to that of someone who is 16. But we follow the law, which says someone must be in unbearable suffering with no other alternative.’ 

Although euthanasia has been legal in the Netherlands since 2002, the number of cases dropped for the first time in a decade last year. Three cases have been referred to the public prosecution service for not following strict rules, and some commentators have said doctors are more wary after more controversial circumstances involving dementia (2.4% of the 6,126 euthanasia cases last year) and psychiatric forms of suffering (1%). The vast majority of euthanasia procedures, however, involve someone with a terminal sickness, and 66% last year related to untreatable cancer.

A 17-year-old rape victim was NOT euthanised in the Netherlands.@euronews @Independent @DailyMailUK @dailybeast are all wrong
It took me about 10 mins to check with the reporter who wrote the original Dutch story.
Noa Pothoven asked for euthanasia and was refused (cont.) pic.twitter.com/e7PYQSCxG1

— Naomi O'Leary (@NaomiOhReally) 5 juni 2019

Related Articles:

Why international newspapers reported the death of Noa Pothoven as ‘euthanasia’…when it wasn’t - New

Media misreport Dutch teen Noa Pothoven's death as euthanasia

Germanwings crash co-pilot hid illness from airline

Yahoo – AFP, Celine Jankowiak with Deborah Cole in Berlin, 27 March 2015

French gendarmes and investigators sift through the scattered debris on March 26, 

2015 at the crash site of the Germanwings Airbus A320 in the French Alps above

the southeastern town of Seyne (AFP Photo/Anne-Christine Poujoulat)

The black box voice recorder indicates that Andreas Lubitz, 27, locked his captain out of the cockpit on Tuesday and deliberately flew Flight 4U 9525 into a mountainside, French officials say, in what appears to have been a case of suicide and mass murder.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that "everything is pointing towards an act that we can't describe: criminal, crazy, suicidal".

German prosecutors revealed that searches of Lubitz's homes netted "medical documents that suggest an existing illness and appropriate medical treatment", including "torn-up and current sick leave notes, among them one covering the day of the crash".

A police officer pictured outside the apartment 

of Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot of the crashed

 Germanwings plane, in Duesseldorf, western

 Germany, on March 26, 2015 (AFP Photo/

Federico Gambarini)

They did not specify the illness.

But Bild daily earlier reported that Lubitz sought psychiatric help for "a bout of serious depression" in 2009 and was still getting assistance from doctors, quoting documents from Germany's air transport regulator.

The paper also cited security sources as saying that Lubitz and his girlfriend were having a "serious crisis in their relationship" that left him distraught.

Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said that Lubitz had suspended his pilot training, which began in 2008, "for a certain period", before restarting and qualifying for the Airbus A320 in 2013.

According to Bild, those setbacks were linked to "depression and anxiety attacks".

Lubitz lived with his parents in his small home town of Montabaur in the Rhineland and kept an apartment in Duesseldorf, the city where his doomed plane was bound.

Duesseldorf prosecutors said the evidence found in the two homes "backs up the suspicion" that Lubitz "hid his illness from his employer and his colleagues".

They said they had not found a suicide note, confession or anything pointing to a "political or religious" motive but added it would take "several days" to evaluate the rest of what was collected.

Reiner Kemmler, a psychologist who specialises in training pilots, noted that people "know that depression can compromise their airworthiness and they can hide it".

"If someone dissimulates, ie they don't want other people to notice, it's very, very difficult," Kemmler told Deutschlandfunk public radio.

Desperate captain used 'axe'

Lubitz locked himself into the cockpit when the captain went out to use the toilet, then refused his colleague's increasingly desperate attempts to get him to reopen the door, French prosecutor Brice Robin said.

According to Bild, the captain even tried using an axe to break through the armoured door as the plane was sent into its fatal descent by Lubitz.

This could not be immediately confirmed, but a spokesman for Germanwings told Bild that an axe was standard emergency equipment on board the aircraft.

A policeman stands next to a police car in

 front of a house in Duesseldorf, western 

Germany, on March 26, 2015, during the

 investigation into the Germanwings 

plane crash over the French Alps 

(AFP Photo/David Young)

The tragedy has already prompted a shake-up of safety rules, with several airlines announcing a new policy requiring there always be two people in the cockpit.

German aviation industry body BDL and the transport ministry agreed to the rule for Lufthansa, its subsidiary Germanwings and other companies, while the European Aviation Security Agency threw its weight behind the policy.

Meanwhile, the UN world aviation body stressed that all pilots must have regular mental and physical check-ups.

'Unimaginable'

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the findings that Lubitz appeared intent on crashing the plane added an "absolutely unimaginable dimension" to the tragedy, in which most victims were German and Spanish nationals.

In the northwestern town of Haltern, which lost 16 students and two teachers who were returning from a school exchange, the revelations prompted shock and rage.

The principal of the stricken school, Ulrich Wessel, said "what makes all of us so angry (is) that a suicide can lead to the deaths of 149 other people".

German President Joachim Gauck, a Protestant pastor, attended a memorial service in Haltern Friday and also extended special condolences to the families of the victims in Spain and other countries.

Meanwhile in Montabaur, Mayor Edmund Schaaf urged reporters encamped in the community to show restraint with Lubitz's parents, a banker and a church organist, who live in a handsome home on a leafy, normally quiet street.

"Regardless of whether the accusations against the co-pilot are true, we sympathise with his family and ask the media to be considerate," he said.

A French gendarmerie helicopter winches up an investigator on March 26, 2015 near
scattered debris on the crash site of the Germanwings Airbus A320 in the French
Alps above the southeastern town of Seyne (AFP Photo/Anne-Christine Poujoulat)

Descent button

Investigators say Lubitz's intention was clear because he operated a button sending the plane into a plunge.

For the next eight minutes, Lubitz was apparently calm and breathing normally.

"He does not say a single word. Total silence," Robin said.

The second-in-command had all psychological tests required for training, Lufthansa's Spohr told reporters Thursday, insisting: "He was 100-percent airworthy."

Recovery operations at the crash site were ongoing, with French officials trying to find body parts and evidence. A second black box, which records flight data, has not yet been recovered.

"There's not much plane debris left. There's mainly a lot of body parts to pick up. The operation could last another two weeks," said police spokesman Xavier Vialenc.

Related Articles:

Psych meds found at home of Germanwings co-pilot: media reports
Police search home of Andreas Lubitz, Germanwings co-pilot behind crash

Children of Gaza face struggle to conquer war trauma

News.Net – AFP, Guillaume Lavallee, 3 August 2014

Palestinian children affected by the war gather around a UN volunteer at a
 school in Jabalia as part of a United Nations community mental health
programmes in the Gaza Strip, on August 2, 2014

Ask any child in Gaza to do a drawing and the resulting picture is likely to be a house being bombed by a fighter plane.

In the strife-torn Palestinian enclave, thousands of children are suffering from the trauma of war but resources to help them are scarce.

At a school in the northern town of Jabalia which has been converted into a refuge, specialist teachers hand out paper and coloured crayons to a motley band of shaken up children, asking them to draw whatever is in their head.

Jamal Diab, a nine-year old with red flecks in his brown hair, draws his dead grandfather. Under the drawing, he writes in Arabic: "I am sad because of the martyrs."

"A few days ago, aircraft bombarded our house. We had to leave quickly and leave everything behind. It was dangerous," the lad breathes timidly as he shows his drawing.

Tiny seven-year old Bara Marouf shows a drawing of his grandfather without any legs. He was seriously wounded in an air strike.

In the classroom, the same sketch comes up repeatedly: an aircraft filling the sky and bombarding a house, subtitled with the caption "I want to go home".

"Who is afraid of aircraft?" the teacher asks the children sitting in a circle on a mat.

Immediately little hands push towards the sky and high-pitched voices clamour: "Me", "me", "me".

"Me, I'm afraid of missiles and planes. Half our house was destroyed. We left it to come here," explains Itimad Subh, an 11-year-old girl with sparkling eyes.

'They blame themselves'

According to the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, about 300 children have been killed since the start on July 8 of Israel's offensive against Hamas militants firing rockets into the Jewish state.

Those who are still alive try not to internalise too much the violence they have experienced, seen and heard.

Inside the school, groups of youths attend half-hour sessions one after the other.

The two teachers, patient and exhausted, their faces enclosed in a tight veil, ask the children to jump on the spot and call out, then to wave their arms like someone disco dancing, to expel accumulated black thoughts, frustration and stress.

"The children have all lived extreme experiences," says Dr. Iyad Zaqut, a psychiatrist who manages the United Nations community mental health programmes in the Gaza Strip.

"It is very difficult for children to grasp what is happening, why their life is at risk, why they have to leave their homes, why they have to resettle, why they witness very traumatising scenes," Zaqut said.

"To prevent children from processing and thinking about all these issues, we try to distract them, to help them live some joy, to have a little fun inside the shelter.

"Generally, when they are exposed to traumatic events, the way they perceive the incident can be very distorted, they might blame themselves, they might blame their neighbours and this blaming is very harmful," the psychiatrist said.

"We try to reprocess these distorted ideas," he explained, noting that he has diagnosed cases of post-traumatic stress and adolescent depression.

No therapy in wartime

But it is hard to make much progress with the therapy.

In the Gaza Strip, 460,000 people -- more than a quarter of the population -- have been displaced by the fighting and have gone to stay with relatives or found refuge at UN shelters.

Fewer than 100 specialist teachers are "treating" more than 100,000 children.

Only in exceptional cases do the children have access to one-on-one meetings with psychologists and psychiatrists. And even fewer get a follow up.

Gaza has been in the firing line of military operations in 2008-2009 and again in 2012 but the consequences have been greater during this current war between Israel and Hamas.

UNICEF estimates that 326,000 minors in Gaza are in need of psychological help.

The children and adolescents sheltering in the UN centres can at least attend the group classes but hundreds of thousands of others affected by the war are left to wander unhelped through devastated neighbourhoods.

Taiwan researcher finds lactic acid bacteria fights depression

Want China Times, 2014-04-26

A young woman drinks probiotic yogurt.
(File photo/Li Sheng-wen)

Consuming lactic acid bacteria may help fight depression and increase the production of chemicals that control emotions, according to a researcher at National Yang Ming University on Friday.

Tsai Ying-chieh, director of the university's Probiotics Research Center and chairperson of the Taiwan Association for Lactic Acid Bacteria, stated that a strain called PS128 helped improve negative emotions in mice during laboratory tests.

The finding is the result of three years of experiments funded by the economics ministry. Tsai subjected mice with depression to forced swimming, maze running and open field movement to monitor changes in neural transmitters such as dopamine and serotonin as well as the stress hormone cortisol.

Dopamine levels more than tripled in depressed mice fed PS128 for two weeks and doubled in regular mice, indicating higher levels of happiness and excitement in both groups, Tsai said.

Serotonin, which eases agitation, fatigue and chronic pain, increased 20% in mice with depression and doubled in mice without, he said.

Cortisol returned to normal levels as well after the two-week treatment, he said.

Tsai said he has applied for patents in Taiwan and the United States in preparation for commercial production.

Thorpe’s Plight Shows How Sport’s Highs Can Lead To Lows

Jakarta Globe – AFP, February 5, 2014

Swimmer Ian Thorpe from Australia. (AFP Photo / Tim Clary)

Sydney. Elite sportspeople dedicate themselves to being the best but once it’s over and the buzz of winning is gone, the transition to regular life can be daunting and in some cases devastating.

The difficulties they can face on retirement were illustrated this week when Australian swimming great Ian Thorpe was admitted to rehab for depression after a mixture of painkillers and anti-depressants left him disoriented on a Sydney street.

The five-time Olympic gold medalist, one of the world’s most recognizable sportsmen, has been candid about battling the demons of depression and alcohol abuse since he called it quits in 2006.

Thorpe has dabbled in various business ventures and tried university courses, and he launched a failed comeback attempt in 2011. But he has been unable to find a direction to pursue and at age 31, he is struggling to cope.

As fellow ex-swim star Kieren Perkins said, after learning of Thorpe’s troubles: “There would be many of hundreds, if not thousands of athletes that don’t have the notoriety who are at any one time contending with the same things.”

Andrew Hughes, an expert in sports marketing and branding at the Australian National University, said dealing with the transition was a problem across all sports.

“When they stop, there’s no training regime, no fame, adulation, no adrenaline. It all disappears,” he said.

“A lot of athletes have no idea how to cope and that’s why you see some of them wanting to make a comeback. They long for being the best again.

“Nothing in life can replicate it, it is not being replaced by anything as fulfilling or satisfying.”

He said administrators need to ensure athletes are encouraged to view achievement not just in sporting terms, and to be equally proud of getting good grades or working in the community.

He added that it was important they start establishing a plan for life after sport as soon as possible, although many did not.

Most sports in Australia run an Athlete Career and Education Program to help prepare for life out of sport, but it doesn’t always work out, as evidenced by Thorpe.

Some even drift into crime. Fellow former Australian swimmer Scott Miller, a silver and bronze medalist at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, narrowly avoided jail last month on drug charges.

Even Thorpe’s long-time rival Grant Hackett has been in the headlines for the wrong reasons, trashing his apartment in an alcohol-fueled rampage in 2011 that saw his wife leave him.

It is a problem across all sports, with plenty of high-profile cases, notably former English footballer Paul Gascoigne’s very public struggle with alcohol and mental issues.

Even yachtsmen find life away from the spotlight hard, as noted by former America’s Cup winning skipper John Bertrand, who is now president of Swimming Australia.

“When I retired, I went through something similar after winning the America’s Cup, nothing as extreme as what we are seeing with Ian,” said Bertrand, who skippered Australia II to victory in 1983, ending 132 years of US supremacy.

“That is the big challenge for any person coming from the highest of the high: to find a new area of endeavor within their life where they can become passionately involved and loving what they are doing.”

Australian Institute of Sport psychologist Renee Appaneal said it was important to focus on how athletes had coped with big career and personal steps in the past.

“Transition out of sport is just another transition in their life and we encourage them to look back at how they have successfully coped with other transitions, such as from junior to senior level, leaving home for training academies,” she said.

“It’s all about having a development pathway and how they manage that, while helping them deal with stress.”

It was also important to have a support network, she added, but conceded this was harder for elite athletes who are the centre of attention.

“It is harder for them to find trusted resources and support. This is not unique to sport, it impacts all people in the limelight.”

Appaneal said while many sports help athletes prepare for retirement, more could always be done in delivering the strategy and skills to cope, and also in raising public awareness on issues such as depression.

Antidepressant drug sales plummet as patents expire and patients flee to safer alternatives

Natural News, by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer, Tuesday, April 03, 2012                           

               

(NaturalNews) The market for antidepressant drugs is quickly drying up as patents on long-time blockbusters like Lexapro, owned by Forest Laboratories, and Seroquel, owned by AstraZeneca, continue to expire. And because they are unable to develop new multi-billion-dollar blockbuster drugs to take their places, many drug manufacturers are ditching the antidepressant business altogether, especially as studies continue to emerge showing that antidepressants are largely useless and cause more harm than good.

A recent Reuters report appears to bemoan the fact that development of a new antidepressant drug ceased after it was discovered that the drug was ineffective. Highlighting an overall trend of failure in this area of drug development within the drug industry, the report actually positions drug companies as victims that will stand to lose billions of dollars in profits as a result of their collective failure to come up with new drug options.

According to projections compiled by Thomson Reuters Pharma, worldwide sales of antidepressant drugs are expected to drop by more than half in the next four years. While antidepressant drugs raked in $15 billion in 2003, they are expected to fetch less then $6 billion by 2016 -- and there is no indication that this downward trend will slow any time soon.

Drug-makers also appear to be abandoning research and development of new antidepressants because an increasing number of patients are waking up to the ugly truth about their deadly side effects, and ditching them for safer alternatives. One such reminder of this disturbing truth came in the form of a 2010 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), which found that antidepressants are basically useless for the vast majority of people who take them http://www.naturalnews.com/028498_antidepressants_clinical_trials.html.

Antidepressants are also exceedingly dangerous, as they can lead to suicidal or homicidal tendencies in some patients. A study conducted by drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), for instance, revealed last year that its own antidepressant drug Paxil actually make patients worse off mentally, as they are more prone while taking the drug to attempt taking their own lives or the lives of others (http://www.naturalnews.com).

So rather than feel sorry for the drug industry which will have to "suffer" by taking in a few less billion dollars every year, the mainstream media and the public should be chiding Big Pharma for peddling these dangerous drugs in the first place, all the while having exploited the public all these years by charging obscene prices for them.

Sources for this article include: 

• http://www.reuters.com 
• http://www.utsandiego.com 
• http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com 
• http://www.investorplace.com

Related Article:

Painkiller sales soar around US, fuel addiction

Magic mushrooms may help with depression, say leading scientists

Active ingredient could allow sufferers to relive happier times, says team including former government adviser David Nutt

guardian.co.uk, Sarah Boseley, health editor, Monday 23 January 2012 

Magic mushrooms' active ingredient psilocybin enables users to
experience more vivid recollections. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP

A drug derived from magic mushrooms could help people with depression by enabling them to relive positive and happy moments of their lives, according to scientists including the former government drug adviser, Professor David Nutt.

Two studies, for which scientists struggled to find funding because of public suspicion and political sensitivity around psychedelic drugs, have shed light on how magic mushrooms affect the brain.

Nutt, from Imperial College London, was sacked as a government drug adviser after claiming tobacco and alcohol were more dangerous than cannabis and psychedelic drugs such as ecstasy and LSD.

He believes prejudice and fear have prevented important scientific work on psychedelic drugs. Research began in the 1950s and 60s but was stopped by the criminalisation of drugs and stringent regulations which made the work costly.

"Everybody who has taken psychedelics makes the point that these can produce the most profound changes in the state of awareness and being that any of them have experienced," said Nutt.

The drugs had been used for millennia, he said, since psychedelic mushrooms grew in the Elysian fields of Greece. Aldous Huxley wrote The Doors Of Perception about the insight such drugs gave him into the life of the mind.

The studies, led by Robin Carhart-Harris, also of Imperial College, looked at the effect that psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, has on the brain through the use of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. The first study on healthy volunteers, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), surprised the researchers. They had assumed the drug might increase activity in certain parts of the brain. Instead, it decreased it in the "hub" regions which link different areas.

"This loss of connectivity might mean consciousness is less constrained by inputs from the outside world via the senses, which could explain why people can imagine things very vividly," said Nutt.

The 10 men and five women who volunteered experienced changes in visual perception, extremely vivid imaginings and changes in their perception of time and of size and space.

The MRI scans showed lowered bloodflow to regions linked to the ego, the sense of self and personality.

A second study, to be published on Thursday in the British Journal of Psychiatry, gave volunteers cues to remember positive events in their lives such as their wedding or performance in a play. Their recollection became very vivid. "It was almost as if rather than imagining the memories, they were actually seeing them," said Carhart-Harris. "This could be very useful in psychotherapy, for instance in people with depression who find it very difficult to remember good times and are stuck in the negative."

The team are now hoping to do a further study which will involve giving psilocybin to depressed people who are undergoing psychotherapy, in the hope that it will allow them to relive times of past happiness.

The studies showed that psilocybin worked on the same areas of the brain as the SSRI antidepressants such as Prozac, as well as talking therapies and meditation as carried out by skilled practitioners. But the advantage over pills, the team believes, is that the positive effect could be long-lasting.

Related Articles:

Mind-altering drugs research call from Prof David Nutt

Pot-based prescription drug looks for FDA OK

Depression and distress affecting Merapi victims

Slamet Susanto, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta | Thu, 11/04/2010 10:48 AM

The cramped conditions in shelters and the sheer anxiety over the prospect of future eruptions are causing a number of Merapi refugees to suffer depression.

“Four evacuees are suffering from severe depression, and some are even suffering from psychological disorders and have been referred to mental hospitals,” health worker Retno Kusumastuti said Wednesday.

Retno, a Cangkringan community health center employee, was working at an evacuee health post in Glagahharjo, Sleman.

The four patients often daydreamed and cried hysterically, she said. “We have to call volunteers and soldiers to help calm them down.”

Many more evacuees are reported to be suffering similar distress. However, a lack of volunteers able to provide psychological care has made it difficult to assist such people, she said.

“Psychologists are available at posts, but not every day,” Retno said.

Fellow health attendant Ela Prastika was alarmed by another issue, citing the lack of integrated handling of child evacuees, despite the fact that children were more susceptible to trauma and difficult to help.

Wardi, 70, from Kinahrejo, Sleman, said stress levels were very high because of the overcrowded conditions in shelters.

Wardi and 80 other families who lived in the hardest-hit ring-1 zone have now lost their homes.

“We see other evacuees returning home to tend to their cattle, but our homes were destroyed and our cows were killed in the first eruption. We are more and more stressed every day, and if we stay at the shelter we may go insane,” said Wardi, who lost his son in Merapi’s first eruption on Oct. 26.

Wardi was no longer staying in an overcrowded shelter, having moved to a more spacious one at the Al Qodir Islamic boarding school in Kedung village, Cangkringan.

The Al Qodir shelter currently holds 300 refugees. The fact that all had lost their homes could psychologically help the group, Wardi said.

“If we stayed with others who still had their homes, we who lost our homes would become crazy, one by one,” he said.

The overcrowded conditions are partly attributable to the fact that huge numbers of residents living in safe zones have also taken refuge at shelters after they became panicked by Merapi’s explosive eruptions.

Wukirsari shelter, which was designed to hold 1,500, is currently sheltering 3,000 people. Many evacuees have been forced to sleep on the shelter’s porch.

Grashia Mental Hospital is currently treating 16 patients with mental disorders stemming from the Merapi eruptions.

Hospital director Rohana Dwi Astuti said depression and mental disorders were triggered by high levels of anxiety following the Oct. 26 eruption.

“As a result, many evacuees are anxious, worried and suffering from severe depression,” she said.

The hospital plans to carry out field counseling next week.

“We want to help evacuees suffering from psychological issues,” she said.

Related Articles:

Hundreds of Mt Merapi refugees mentally stressed

Govt carries out psychological recovery program for Merapi evacuees

One out of five Denpasar's teens depressed: Survey

Wasti Atmodjo, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar

A recent study suggests one out of five teenagers in Denpasar has suffered from depression or other serious mental illnesses over the last six months.

The survey, conducted by psychiatrist Lely Setyawati at senior high schools in Denpasar, came about after Lely worked with teenagers at Amerta Youth Center, a clinic for teens at Sanglah Hospital.

She said teenagers coming to the clinic were frustrated with various problems, ranging from conflict with parents, boyfriends or girlfriends to inability to escape bad living environments.

In the survey of 500 teens from Denpasar, said Lely, many teens admitted feeling sad and unhappy much of the time.

Others said they were easily tired, had little spirit, found it hard to concentrate, had no self-confidence and felt useless. Many felt uncertain about their futures.

Lely called these feelings the symptoms of serious depression, and said she was surprised by the findings.

"It turned out that almost 20 percent of respondents were suffering from depression. This was beyond my prediction."

She said she planned to expand her survey to other parts of Bali.

"From the survey we at least know the teenage situation in Denpasar is not much different from that in other big cities. The different is, social control is still high in Bali, such as from members of banjar neighborhood unit, making many teenagers slow to display inappropriate behavior.

"Unfortunately, the same social control makes teenagers reluctant to consult psychologists when they are facing problems," Lely said.

Child psychiatrist Endah Ardjana, the teen center's coordinator, said teens were at the age when a person not be considered neither a child nor a grown-up.

"Teenagers are in the transition period," she said. "They often experience unstable mental conditions."

Currently, the center assists youngsters overcome drug addiction, survive physical and sexual abuse and work through premature sexual relations.

Endah said most teens seeking assistance at the center had serious cases of depression, likely due to their feelings of shame in telling their stories or consulting experts.

Both Lely and Endah regularly visit junior and senior high schools to spread awareness on the need to maintain physical and mental health, and to aware of the consequences of sexual activity.

They also inform teens about the center, which promises confidentiality and offers the services of a team of specialists, including gynecologists and psychiatrists.