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As we kick off 2005, we at Safe Harbor are excited at what the new year has to offer.  We have already seen a dramatic shift in public opinion away from the “pill for every problem” mentality and realize the demand for non-drug options are greater than ever.

With that in mind, Safe Harbor has established three areas of focus for the upcoming year. First, we will be making an effort to work closer with those in academic circles to get alternative mental health concepts taught at the university and medical school level.  Virtually all major medical schools have an integrative medicine office these days and we will be researching how to help them integrate non-pharmaceutical solutions for mental health into their curricula.

Second, we want to develop wellness programs that psychiatric hospitals can implement with little cost, such as improved dietary plans, exercise programs, nutritional alternatives to drugs, etc. – approaches that will improve patient health and reduce dependency on medication.

Lastly, we want to see standard protocols developed in the field of alternative mental health.  This has been done for the treatment of autism by the DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) conferences and there is no reason it cannot be done for mental health in general.

We are open to suggestions in forwarding these goals.  Certainly, these things are needed and there is no question that the public and even a sizable part of the medical and psychiatric establishment want to see these objectives achieved.

I appreciate your publication every time it comes - much information that is difficult to find elsewhere. 

Thank you for addressing issues with Celiac Disease.  It is actually an auto-immune disorder rather than an allergy - completely different process in the body.  The pre-disposition to this disease is hereditary.  There are several excellent associations which have information on this condition.  The Celiac Society of America, Gluten Intolerance Group, and others; they all have web-sites, just search on “Celiac.”  The University of Maryland (Dr. Fasano) is one of the leading research centers for this disease, although many other medical schools have good research programs. 

Depression often accompanies this disease.  Ingestion of gluten literally destroys the villi in the small intestine, compromising the gut wall, interfering with absorption of nutrients, and allowing absorption of toxins which would normally leave the body.  This affects the whole body adversely, including the brain.  Serotonin levels are often decreased, but malnutrition alone can cause depression, and actually, just feeling crappy all the time can be pretty depressing.  Chronic CD often goes undiagnosed for years, with docs sometimes disregarding the symptoms as hypochondria; this can also be depressing.

Psychology 16 Course – “Mind and Metabolism”

Santa Monica College

Santa Monica, California

(310) 434-4000

Spring semester, starts in February. This unusual and sometimes controversial course will introduce the student to the theories, the research, and the therapies that work with nutritional factors rather than psychotropic medications to treat abnormal psychological states.

The instructors are Professors Lanum and Croxton.

While the title of Jeff Wilson's book is certainly the main subject of the text, the real story inside is about one man's struggle to come off of antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs after 23 years on them.

We follow Jeff's entire life, from childhood, seeing him wind through the highs and lows of living, seeking solutions for his mood problems and finally ending up on medication. From there it is a seemingly endless search for solutions as he runs the gauntlet of what psychiatry has to offer. He finds himself being labeled with various diagnoses: Depression, ADD, Bipolar Disorder. And for each diagnosis he gets a new drug.

Using a variety of non-psychiatric treatments such as Reiki, nutrition, and homeopathy, Jeff finally takes the plunge and weans himself off his medication. After months of agonizing withdrawal, the man who comes out the other end finds that life is much better without drugs. More importantly, he finds that the real answer of recovery lies in tenaciously taking responsibility for your life and health and finding your personal road to happiness.

But what is most powerful is the last thirty or so pages of the book where Jeff tells us what nearly a quarter century of treatment has taught him about the psychiatric profession and drug treatment in particular. It is one of the clearest, most logical, most sobering treatises on the subject that we have ever seen, accented by the fact that it comes from the pen of a man who speaks with the authority of such hellish experience.

© 2004 Patricia Wagner

You've probably heard the _expression: "It's not what you're eating. It's what's eating you!" This well-known saying reminds us that the thoughts we entertain can have an impact on our health.

Scientists have discovered that what you're thinking actually affects your physical health as well as your emotional well-being. Ulcers, indigestion, nervousness, high blood pressure and a wide variety of diseases can result from an injured immune system brought on by harmful thought patterns.

There are thoughts that heal and thoughts that hurt.

If you read this article through to the end, you will discover an effective tool to enhance your emotional and physical health.

Here are five keys to emotional well-being:

1. Emotions tag right along behind your thoughts, so guard your mind carefully.

Your emotions can't tell if what you're thinking about is really happening or if it's just an image in your head.

Prove this to yourself by thinking back to when you watched a terrifying scene on television on in a movie. Even though you knew what you were watching wasn't actually happening, you were still scared - weren't you?

Here's something to consider. About ten minutes after you start to dwell on something, corresponding emotions will follow.

We are what we eat - both physically and mentally. Pay close attention to what you're feeding your mind. The books, television, movies, newspapers and even the jokes we hear enter into our lives and become part of us.

So what's eating you? Examine what you're feeling and then ask yourself this question, "What have I been thinking about recently?"

If you have a garbage can for a head, life will look like garbage to you.

2. Learn to develop a cheerful attitude toward life.  

Life can be painful, but it's possible to overcome.

Choose to behave in a cheerful way as much as possible even if you don't feel like it. You may be surprised at what happens. Cheerfulness is contagious.

A positive attitude toward life may help ward off sicknesses. Psychology Professor Sheldon Cohen (Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh) found that relaxed, happy people are less prone to catch colds than unhappy, anxious people.

3. Deal with stress as an opportunity to grow.

Stress can be a killer.

People who go through stressful events seem to get sicker more often than those who have less problems confronting them. But some people thrive on stress. This tends to show that the problem is not stress, but how we deal with it.

When we experience times of anxiety and fear, our brains release hormones as part of the fight-flight syndrome to prepare us for dangerous situations. When the body receives too many of these "danger" messages from our brains, our disease-resistance systems are weakened.

Stressful situations seem to cause increased illnesses in those who consider themselves to be victims and who react with anxiety and frustration.

Others see stressful situations as opportunities to overcome. So why not choose this positive approach yourself?

4. Make the right friends.  

Select people who are cheerful instead of depressed for the majority of your friends.

Emotions can be transferred almost by osmosis. Retired baseball Coach, John Scolinos (from California Polytechnic College, Pomona), used to tell his winning baseball players, "Show me who you're with and I'll tell you who you are."

We need a positive social life that includes friends, close family members, churches and members of organizations.

Those who have satisfying social lives enjoy improved resistance to illness.

5. Let wisdom from the world's greatest book be your guide.

"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones" (Proverbs 17:22 NIV).

"All the days of the afflicted are bad, but a cheerful heart has a continual feast." (Proverbs 15:15 NASV).

For 17 years, Gene Haislip – the now-retired director of the DEA´s Office of Diversion Control – set production quotas for controlled substances like methylphenidate (MPH), the federally restricted stimulant variously marketed as Ritalin, Concerta, and Metadate.

During his tenure, he campaigned to raise public awareness about over-prescribing of stimulants to children, about the drug's high rate of street diversion, and about its long-term health impact on young patients.

"This affects the most sensitive part of our population," says Haislip, who now consults drug companies on issues of federal compliance. "When I was at the DEA, we created awareness about this issue. But the bottom line is we didn't succeed in changing the situation because this - prescribing methylphenidate, for example - is spiraling.”

DEA statistics on production of the central nervous system stimulant show an increase from 5,000 kilograms in 1993 to 20,967 kilograms in 2002. Haislip attributes the explosive growth in prescriptions – probably the fastest ever for a controlled substance – to research findings that are funded and guided by the pharmaceutical giants from start to finish.

AlterNet interviewed Dr. William Pelham, director of the Center for Children and Families at State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY). Pelham, a 30-year ADHD researcher, served on the scientific advisory board for McNeil Pharmaceuticals, which markets the methylphenidate-based children’s drug Concerta.

Author of over 250 research papers on ADHD, many with industry grants, Pelham told Alternet about the methods McNeil-Alza uses to ensure that the studies it subsidizes show the drug in its most favorable light.

 McNeil paid Pelham in 1997-1999 to conduct one of three studies it used to obtain FDA approval. Based on the three studies, it claims that 96 percent of children taking Concerta experience no problems in appetite, growth, or sleep.

But the studies were skewed. Two of the three studies, including Pelham's, used only subjects that were already taking MPH and responding well to it. By loading the studies with patients known to respond well to methylphenidate, McNeil was able to validate its foregone conclusions about the safety of Concerta.

"I'm surprised the FDA is letting them use the studies to advertise no side effects," he says. "They had no side effects because they took only people with only a positive history of medication."

When his paper was in the galley proof stage at the medical journal

Pediatrics, Pelham says he joined a conference call with corporate higher-ups who urged him to change what he had written.

Not stopping there, the company commissioned a follow-up study on the conversion study mentioned above, did its own analysis of the data, and coordinated the paper writing. "I insisted on seeing the analyses and having major inputs into the manuscript and it was like pulling teeth to get wording and analyses changed," Pelham says. Ultimately the paper was accepted by a major journal without his knowledge and published under his name.

When Pediatrics published an NIH-funded study on the long-term effects of stimulants on children, reporting that consistent use of the stimulants stunts children’s growth by an inch or so every two years, methylphenidate giants Novartis and McNeil-Alza neglected to mention the findings in their web-based marketing materials. Spokespersons contacted said they couldn’t possibly include all the studies on the subject because there are too many.

"No drug company in its literature mentions the fact that 40 years of research says there is no long-term benefit of medications," Pelham added.

Full story at http://www.alternet.org/story/20594/

Living a life free of Prozac, drugs and alcohol has helped Jim Carrey deal with depression, he told 60 Minutes reporter Steve Kroft in an interview at the actor’s Brentwood home.

Carrey said he took Prozac for a long time but it didn't cure his depression. "There are peaks, there are valleys, but they're all kind of carved and smoothed out ... It feels like a low level of despair you live in where you're not getting any answers but you're living OK and you can smile at the office."

Carrey recently starred with Kate Winslet in The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a quirky romance about lovers who discover they really don’t want to forget each other – after intervention by a questionable “doctor” wrecks their lives.

"I rarely drink coffee,” Carrey told 60 Minutes. I am very serious about no alcohol, no drugs," he said. "Life is too beautiful."

Nutritional deficiencies during the formative years may make for aggressive or “hyperactive” behavior in later childhood and adolescence, according to a study of 1,559 children born in 1969 and 1970 on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean.

Signs of malnutrition (including iron-deficiency anemia, thin and discolored hair, and cracked lips) were assessed at age 3 years; IQ tests were administered at ages 3 and 11; and antisocial, aggressive, and hyperactive behavior was assessed at ages 8, 11, and 17 using reports from teachers and parents.

In relation to 1,206 comparison subjects, the 353 children with malnutrition signs at age 3 years were more aggressive or hyperactive at age 8 years, had more externalizing problems at age 11, and had a greater tendency to break rules and get in fights at age 17. The results were independent of the parents’ education level and economic status.

British general practitioners are to start prescribing self-help books supplied by the National Health Service as an alternative to mind-altering drugs, the Times Online UK reported in December.

The scheme will see patients with conditions ranging from “bipolar disorder” to head injuries being sent to the local library rather than the pharmacist.

There, they will hand in NHS "book prescription" forms to borrow the book most relevant to their diagnosis. Depressed individuals might be prescribed The Feeling Good Handbook rather than Prozac.

The idea, promoted by the Department of Health, is based on research that has consistently shown patients benefit from knowing more about their illnesses and learning psychological tactics to deal with them.

Health trusts around Plymouth will be among the first to implement the idea and are about to issue GPs with a list of the books recommended for each of a range of conditions.

Dr. Paul Farrand, senior lecturer in health psychology at Plymouth University, who devised the plan, said: "Primary care can only deal with clients once their problems become serious. There is a huge demand by people with mild to moderate psychological problems."

In a December 6 press conference, British health authorities escalated their SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) warnings, advising doctors to prescribe the antidepressants sparingly and consider non-drug interventions such as counseling or daily exercise.

After months reviewing the international data on the SSRIs, the government's drug regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, concluded that GPs are prescribing far too many pills for people who do not have a serious clinical condition.

Coinciding with the MHRA review, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) -- which assesses the cost-effectiveness of treatments -- issued new guidelines on depression and anxiety, emphasizing non-drug interventions.

The MHRA cautioned doctors to think “long and hard” before putting patients on the medications. This adds to the ban on prescribing them for people under 18, imposed a few months earlier.

The drugs have also been subjected to intensive scrutiny by the current health select committee investigation into the influence of the pharmaceutical industry.

Seroxat, the best-selling antidepressant in the UK (known as Paxil in the U.S.), has been marketed to doctors as a treatment for “social anxiety disorders.” This position was challenged by the regulators, who said the drug is not suitable for every sufferer of mild to moderate anxiety.

Anticipating that thousands of people would want to discontinue their medications following the announcement, the MHRA review urged patients to consult their doctors first, adding that warnings about the risk of withdrawal reaction when finishing a treatment should be strengthened. Such reactions can include nausea, paranoia and suicidal ideation.

The review said that in the majority of cases, the lowest recommended dose of SSRIs should be prescribed. Increasing the dose above this level has not proven beneficial.

The committee recommended that the SSRI venlafaxine (Efexor) should be prescribed only by specialists, and not to patients with heart disease; and that patients taking it be monitored closely. No type of antidepressant was recommended for the initial treatment of mild depression.

Patients who take SSRIs are also at risk of abnormal bleeding, according to a study of 64,000 antidepressant users, published in November in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

"We found a significant association between [the] degree of serotonin-reuptake inhibition by antidepressants, and risk of hospital admission for abnormal bleeding," said Welmoed Meijer, a pharmacoepidemiologist at the Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences in the Netherlands.

SSRIs work by stimulating production of the brain chemical serotonin, which affects blood clotting as well as mood. The result can be bleeding in the stomach, the vagina and even the brain, the researchers found.

Dr. Meijer advised caution in prescribing SSRIs for patients who have blood disorders such as hemophilia or anemia, those who have ulcers, and women who suffer from heavy menstrual bleeding.

Teenagers and young adults who frequently use cannabis are increasing their risk of suffering from psychotic symptoms such as bizarre behavior and delusions later in life, Dutch scientists recently announced.

“Cannabis does not act in the same fashion on psychosis risk for everybody. There is a group that is particularly susceptible,” Professor Jim van Os, of Maastricht University in the Netherlands, told a press conference on December 1.

He and his colleagues studied 2,437 young people in Germany, aged 14-24, and identified those with a predisposition for psychosis. They also questioned them about their cannabis use and followed them up for four years.

Cannabis users have, on average, a 6% greater chance of suffering psychotic symptoms than non-users, the study found. But for the 10% of people who are predisposed to such problems, as with a family history of schizophrenia, the increase in risk is 25%.

"If you are vulnerable, then the more cannabis you use, the greater your risk of psychosis," said Van Os.

An estimated 50% of volunteers who were predisposed to mental problems and frequently smoked cannabis suffered psychotic symptoms at some time during the four years of the study.

Women who are obese for many years are more likely to suffer brain atrophy - the abnormal loss of neurons – according to new research. A Swedish team followed 290 women over a 24-year period and found that women who were obese during this period were much more likely than slim women to suffer brain cell loss.

Between 1968 and 1992, Deborah Gustafson and colleagues at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden, measured the body mass index (BMI) of the women – their weight in kilograms divided by the square of their height in meters. A BMI of 30 or greater is considered obese. On their final visit the women, by then aged 70 to 84, also underwent CT scans of their brains.

The researchers found that almost half of the women showed brain cell death in the temporal lobe in 1992. On average, these women had a higher BMI than those who showed no brain cell loss. Among the women who were obese throughout the study, the incidence of brain atrophy was much higher than in the rest, even when other factors such as diabetes and lifestyle were taken into account. The researchers calculated that every 1 to 1.5 point increase in BMI was associated with a 13% to 15% increase in risk of temporal lobe shrinkage.

“BMI appears to be an independent predictor of brain cell loss in later life, and I would suggest that obesity is a risk factor in dementia,” Gustafson says.

Brain shrinkage in the temporal lobe is associated with Alzheimer’s disease and loss of cognitive function. Because the hypothalamus – the area of the brain considered important in controlling appetite – is located in the temporal lobe, Gustafson allowed that obesity might be a result of the brain damage rather than its cause. “But we do know that obesity contributes to vascular problems which can lead to neuronal death and a higher dementia risk. And obesity may increase the secretion of cortisol, which could also lead to brain cell atrophy.”

Depressed people 75 or older are just as likely to improve after an 8-week course with an inactive, placebo drug as with an antidepressant, according to research completed in November and reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

The study shows that after a short course of the SSRI citalopram (Celexa), around one-third of elderly people with depression went into remission -- the same improvement rate seen in people taking a placebo drug.

174 depressed subjects were given Celexa or a placebo for 8 weeks, and the outcomes were studied.

All the study participants were given some kind of "active intervention" in addition to their pills – a free medical workup, an MRI, weekly visits with health professionals, and free rides to and from their appointments. The supportive environment may have had some benefit in itself. "Giving a placebo is not doing nothing," Roose said in an interview.

"The active intervention and drugs was no different from the active intervention plus placebo," Roose told Reuters Health.

He added that among people with severe depression, Celexa-takers showed much bigger improvements than people on placebo, but said the difference is "not because the drug worked so much better, but

because the placebo worked so much worse.”

Full story at http://www.seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Eldercare/4-11-26Depressed.htm

As reported in Physiol Behav. Oct 15, 2004, the Pfeiffer Treatment Center (PTC) conducted an outcome study to measure the effectiveness of biochemical therapy for 207 consecutive patients presenting with a diagnosed behavior disorder.

The treatment protocols were based on clinical evaluation and the PTC’s past experience in the treatment of 8000 patients with behavior disorders over a 10-year period. Each test subject was screened for chemical imbalances previously found in high incidence in this population, including metal-metabolism disorders, methylation abnormalities, disordered pyrrole chemistry, heavy-metal overload, glucose dyscontrol, and malabsorption.

The clinical procedure included a medical history, assay of 90 biochemical factors, and a physical examination. Standardized treatment protocols were applied for each identified imbalance. The frequencies of physical assaults and destructive episodes were determined using a standardized behavior scale before and after treatment, with follow-up ranging from 4 to 8 months.

In all, 76% percent of the test subjects achieved compliance during the treatment period, with the remainder having discontinued the therapy. A reduced frequency of assaults was reported by 92% of the compliant assaultive patients, with 58% achieving elimination of the behavior. A total of 88% of compliant destructive patients exhibited a reduced frequency of destructive incidents and 53% eliminated the behavior. Statistical significance was found for reduced frequency of assaults and destructive incidents.