Feedback: We'd like to hear your comments and views. Please forward them to the e-mail address above. Contact information is below.

We have been informed by the California Board of Registered Nursing that the answer is YES for California nurses.

The California Psychology Board has also affirmed the hours are valid for continuing education credits for psychologists.

These boards accept Category 1 credits from the American Medical Association, which is what we are offering. Many boards for healing professions, such as chiropractors and nurses, accept Category 1 credits. If you have any questions, please contact us. Nurses from other states should check with their respective boards.

For full information on the conference, please visit AlternativeMentalHealth.com.

Forty-one children aged 8-12 years, with both specific learning difficulties and above-average ADHD ratings, were randomly placed on HUFA supplementation or placebo for 12 weeks.

The authors of the study reported (in Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry, 2002 Feb;26(2):233-9) that "At both baseline and follow-up, a range of behavioral and learning problems associated with ADHD was assessed using standardized parent rating scales; at baseline, the groups did not differ, but after 12 weeks mean scores for cognitive problems and general behavior problems were significantly lower for the group treated with HUFA than for the placebo group; there were significant improvements from baseline on 7 out of 14 scales for active treatment, compared with none for placebo."

Their conclusion: "HUFA supplementation appears to reduce ADHD-related symptoms in children with specific learning difficulties. Given the safety and tolerability of this simple treatment, results from this pilot study strongly support the case for further investigations."

A new article on insure.com, "Don't Let a Previous Mental Health Claim Ruin Your Health Insurance Prospects," details how those who have filed mental health claims in the past for orthodox psychiatric treatment may now be denied individual health coverage - or pay an exorbitant premium.

Individual insurers may deny coverage based on past counseling for anxiety, depression, grief, or an eating or sleep disorder, or use of prescription drugs to treat anxiety, depression, or a physical condition. Such drugs include Ativan, Klonipin, Paxil, Prozac, Serzone, Zoloft, Xanax, or Wellbutrin.

"People who've always had group health insurance are completely unprepared when they're forced to seek coverage in this [individual health insurance] market," says Karen Pollitz, a Georgetown University researcher who co-authored a 2001 study on the individual health insurance market for the Kaiser Family Foundation. "They think they're going to get the same coverage they had in their jobs, except they'll just have to pay a little more money. It's absolutely not like that at all. The individual health insurance market is unpredictable, inconsistent, and expensive."

Those who are offered an individual health insurance policy may find their coverage comes at a much higher price and excludes any treatment for past or present medical conditions.

Dr. Deborah Peel, president of the National Coalition of Mental Health Professionals and Consumers, recalls a young graduate student whose sleep apnea was treated with antidepressant medication. When he was dropped from his parents' group health insurance plan due to his age, he began applying for a policy in the individual market. He was turned down several times because his medical records showed he had taken an antidepressant - even though the medication was for a physical rather than mental condition.

The study, is the largest to look into the possible connection between inattention/hyperactivity and sleep.

Ronald D. Chervin, MD, MS, with University of Michigan Medical School, and colleagues surveyed parents of more than 850 boys and girls, aged 2-14, in pediatric waiting rooms.

The researchers asked the parents whether their children exhibited symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), such as inattention to tasks and schoolwork, distraction, forgetfulness, fidgeting, and excessive talking. They also asked whether the children snored, were often sleepy, or exhibited other symptoms indicative of sleep problems, such as difficulty waking up in the morning or mouth-breathing during the day.

The researchers tallied scores for each symptom or behavior on a sliding scale. Overall, 16% of the kids were frequent snorers and 13% scored high for hyperactivity. Interestingly, 22% of the habitual snorers were hyperactive, compared with only 12% of the infrequent snorers or non-snorers. The same pattern held when they looked at the relationship from the opposite direction.

Next, they stratified the children by age and sex and found that the snoring link was most dramatic in boys under 8 years old. In this group, 30% of regular snorers had high hyperactivity scores, compared with only 9% of less frequent snorers.

"If there is indeed a cause-and-effect link, sleep problems in children could represent a major public health issue," says Chervin in a news release. "It's conceivable that by better identifying and treating children's snoring and other nighttime breathing problems, we could help address some of the most common and challenging childhood behavioral issues."

Dr. Carolyn Hart had this to say in the Dec. 2001 issue of "Attention!":

"Narcolepsy can also coexist with or imitate AD/HD. This is a disorder in which sleep and wakefulness are not cleanly distinct, but intrude on each other. This too should be diagnosed with PSG [Polysomnogram: a measure of various physiological responses during sleep]...

"Nocturnal seizures and allergy symptoms are two medical causes of sleep disruption. Both usually give daytime clues too, but often allergy symptoms worsen at night and seizures might only occur during deep sleep so parents may not be aware of these problems. Electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring, PSG, and allergy testing should be considered if fatigue and inattention seem resistant to treatment efforts. One young teen was brought to me for an evaluation regarding suspected AD/HD; she fell asleep sitting in my tenth floor window seat, drooling down the window, while her parents told me her life story. She turned out to have nocturnal allergy symptoms and not AD/HD."

Brain scans show that chemicals such as toluene move rapidly to pleasure centers, then move out to other brain cells, causing the memory loss, vision problems, and serious mental defects well known to result from the practice of sniffing ("huffing").

Reuters quoted neuroanatomist Stephen Dewey of Brookhaven National Laboratory as follows:

"We have known it from behavioral studies - people will report euphoria and they will report highs. But we have never known this class of chemicals, these toluenes, go to the dopamine centers of the brain, much like cocaine."

Unlike illegal drugs such as cocaine, solvents are everywhere and easily accessed by youngsters who quickly learn they can give a cheap high.

"I get questions from fourth, fifth, sixth graders. They huff butane lighters," he said. "The most striking latest statistics suggest that 1 in 5 eighth graders have done it."

Writing in the journal Life Sciences, Dewey and colleagues said they injected toluene, the chemical that causes the "high" from sniffing, into baboons and then did PET scans of their brains and bodies.

The chemical went straight to clusters of brain cells that produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter or message-carrying chemical associated with pleasure.

"Then we watched it redistribute to the white matter in the brain. And it goes to the kidneys just as quickly," Dewey said.

This could explain the toxic side-effects of huffing or sniffing. "What you see is over time is you get cortical atrophy, characterized by changes in cognition, disorientation," Dewey said. Vision becomes blurred and victims can become uncoordinated.