Dr. John's Health Matters
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Posts tagged "suicide"
Tuesday, Sep 1st, 2009 ↓Tags: workplace job work stress bullying bully sleep disturbance disorder suicide prevention risk violence harassment behaviour hostile
Low Rates of Help-Seeking Among Those Who Contemplate or Attempt Suicide →
July 23, 2009 (Medscape.com)— Nearly half of individuals who contemplate suicide and one-quarter of those who have attempted suicide do not seek help, new research shows.
A study published in the July issue of Psychiatric Services indicates that 48% of individuals in a sample from the Canadian Community Health Survey who had suicidal ideation in the past year did not seek help from a healthcare professional and in fact did not perceive a need for help.
In addition, 24% of those in the sample who actually attempted suicide themselves did not seek help or believe they needed help.
“This is worrisome, given that suicidal ideation and suicide attempts can lead to eventual completed suicide if left unaddressed,” lead investigator Jitender Sareen, MD, from the University of Manitoba, in Winnipeg, told Medscape Psychiatry.
In the study, Dr. Sareen and colleagues examined a sample of 36,984 individuals age 15 years and over in the Canadian Community Health Survey Cycle 1.2. Among these individuals, 1234 had suicidal ideation in the past year. Another 230 said they had tried to kill themselves in the previous year.
The investigators found that individuals who had made a suicide attempt or had suicidal thoughts were much less likely to seek help than those in the sample who had a mental disorder but were not suicidal.
The individuals who had suicidal ideation or attempted suicide cited a wide range of reasons for not seeking assistance. The most common reason among people who had suicidal ideation was that they preferred to manage the problem themselves.
For full medical article see link above.
Parental Death Has Major Impact on Depression Risk in Youth →
July 23, 2009 (Medscape.com)— A parent’s death more than quadruples the risk for depression for children, adolescents, and young adults, new research shows. Further, depression affects 10% of bereaved youth compared with 2% of nonbereaved youth, and those who continue to be depressed at 9 months are likely to continue to suffer from depression during the second year after the loss.
Led by David Brent, MD, the study is published in the July issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Parental Suicide, Accidental Death Linked To Higher Incidence of Depression
The investigators studied the incidence and prevalence of psychiatric problems at 9 and 21 months after the loss of a parent in 154 bereaved subjects aged 7 to 25 years vs a group of 100 matched controls with 2 living parents. The bereaved subjects had lost a parent due to suicide, accident, or sudden natural death.
Parental suicide was associated with a higher incidence of depression in bereaved youth than losing a parent by sudden natural death but not compared with losing a parent by accidental death. “I was surprised that the rate of different disorders in the youth whose parents died by accident were similar to the youth whose parents died by suicide,” Dr. Brent told Medscape Psychiatry.
Risk for onset of depression plateaued after about 9 months in offspring whose parents died by accident or natural death but continued to rise until about 24 months in those whose parent died by suicide. Dr. Brent said that although this risk has continued to rise in the suicide group, the difference is not yet statistically significant.
“The most common problems kids have are depression, posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD], and intense grief,” Dr. Brent said. “Kids who blame others for the death seem to have a more difficult course, so understanding attributions about the death is important.”
For full medical article see link above.
Tags: parent death loss depression child adolescent bereaved psychiatric problem suicide accident ptsd posttraumatic stress disorder
FDA Adds Stronger Warnings to Propoxyphene →
July 7, 2009 (Medscape.com)—The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is adding stronger warnings to pain medications that contain propoxyphene, such as Darvon and Darvocet, because of new data on fatal overdoses linked to propoxyphene products. The FDA is requiring the manufacturers of these drugs to strengthen the drug’s boxed warning and to create a medication guide for patients.
The agency is stopping short of a phased withdrawal from the market as demanded by a Public Citizen petition filed in 2006.
To reduce the likelihood of overdose, the FDA will now require that manufacturers of propoxyphene-containing medications strengthen their label and include a boxed warning on the potential for overdose. Manufacturers will also be required to develop a medication guide for patients stressing that they use the medication as directed. Propoxyphene has been on the market since 1957.
For full medical article see link above.
Suicide Linked With Alcohol Abuse →
June 24, 2009 (Medscape.com)— Suicide is linked to alcohol intoxication across a broad range of ethnic groups, according to data from 17 states reported in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) June 17 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
About 24% of those who die from suicide show evidence of alcohol intoxication, including 37% of American Indian/Alaskan Native suicide deaths, 29% of Hispanic suicide deaths, and 28% of persons aged 20 to 49 years. The lowest percentage was 7% in non-Hispanic blacks.
“The most important finding is that among the decedents tested, alcohol was found in every population and age group,” lead author Alex E. Crosby, MD, from the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, in Atlanta, Georgia, told Medscape Psychiatry.
“Health disparities need to be addressed, but alcohol misuse is an important issue for every group. The findings suggest that suicide-prevention efforts should include components that focus on alcohol problems. This isn’t a new idea, but one that needs to be reinforced.”
For full article see link above.
Changing Residences Associated With Increased Risk Of Suicidal Behavior Among Children →
ScienceDaily (June 2, 2009) — Danish children who move frequently appear to have an increased risk of attempted or completed suicide between ages 11 and 17, according to a new report.
Changes of residence occur frequently in modern society, and about half of children move at least once before their 10th birthday, according to background information in the article. Moving frequently is a burden to most people, including children, who typically move passively because of a parent’s decision. “Whatever inspires the move, such experiences during childhood may be traumatic or psychologically distressing and, therefore, may affect a child’s physical, mental, social and emotional well-being,” the authors write. “Some children have difficulties coping with the change and may exhibit their distress as suicidal behavior, the last-resort response to the hardship and stress.” Ping Qin, Ph.D., M.D., and colleagues at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, use data from Danish national registries to identify all children born between 1978 and 1995. Between 11 and 17 years of age, 4,160 of these children attempted suicide based on hospital records, and 79 completed suicide. For each suicide attempt or completion, the researchers selected 30 control children who were the same sex and age.
Compared with the control children, those who attempted suicide were more likely to have changed residences frequently—55.2 percent of suicidal children and 32 percent of controls had moved more than three times, and 7.4 percent had moved more than 10 times (compared with 1.9 percent of controls). Frequent moves were also more common among children who completed suicide.
A dose-response relationship was observed for both attempted and completed suicide, meaning that the more often a child changed addresses, the more likely he or she was to have attempted or completed suicide. The associations remained significant after the researchers controlled for other factors, such as birthplace and parents’ mental health.
“The breakdown of connections with peers, discontinuation of group activities, distress and worries related to the new environment are potentially psychologically distressing events for young children. Frequent exposures to these events can be stressful and confusing and may affect their psychosocial well-being, thus increasing their intention toward ending their life if they are unable to cope,” the authors write. In addition, moving is stressful for parents and may result in their inability to attend to their children’s emotional needs. “Children may feel ignored and have no one to communicate with. A suicide attempt may, to some extent, express the need for more attention from their parents.”
“Although we could not distinguish whether frequent change of residence was a causal risk factor or merely an intermediate variable of other risk factors for suicidal behavior, the findings from this study suggest the importance of stability on children’s psychosocial well-being,” they conclude. The results raise questions for parents who move frequently, such as whether they have to move, how to minimize the effects of necessary moves on children and how to further involve children in the moving process. “Last, but not least, parents, caretakers and schools should be aware of the psychosocial needs of children who have recently moved and be ready to help them resolve their distress together or through professional assistance.”
This study was funded by the Danish Health Insurance Foundation, the Danish Ministry of Social Affairs and the Stanley Medical Research Institute.
Journal reference:
- Qin et al. Frequent Change of Residence and Risk of Attempted and Completed Suicide Among Children and Adolescents. Archives of General Psychiatry, 2009; 66 (6): 628 DOI: 10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2009.20
Statin Cholesterol Drugs Offer Little Heart Protection Contribute to Suicides
by Byron Richards
October 3, 2006, after extensive review of all studies relating to cholesterol-lowering benefits by statin drugs, scientists reporting in the Annals of Internal Medicine pulled the rug out from under the current government-sanctioned cholesterol levels for reducing cardiovascular disease risk. Their conclusion, “current clinical evidence does not demonstrate that titrating lipid therapy to achieve proposed low LDL cholesterol levels is beneficial or safe.” This is not a trivial issue. Many billions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on the cholesterol drug scam. The health and well being of millions of Americans may have been compromised by reckless lowering of cholesterol, a substance that is vital to health and energy production.
It has long been recognized that adults who have naturally lower cholesterol levels during their 40s and 50s have less heart disease as they grow older. A large body of science supports the notion that LDL cholesterol levels lower than 130 mg/dL is an excellent goal for one and all. How a person should arrive at this goal is a matter of considerable debate. A good diet and exercise is the foundation for any person’s health program and for many this approach is adequate. The use of nutritional supplements to help lower cholesterol, products that have virtually no side effects and may be highly effective, is considered by the FDA to be an illegal health claim. Instead, the FDA expects Americans to use statin drugs to accomplish this goal, even though the medications have a general anti-energy effect and long list of potentially serious side effects that are not clearly explained to those taking the medications or even to the doctors giving them out.
To make matters worse, several years ago the government-funded National Cholesterol Education Program promoted new guidelines for the use of these drugs. It was recommend that individuals at high cardiovascular disease risk attain LDL levels < 100 mg/dL and individuals at very high cardiovascular risk attain LDL levels < 70 mg/dL. These are abnormally low levels of cholesterol, meaning drugs must be used to create an artificially low level of LDL cholesterol, an unnatural physiological condition. This is very difficult to do and requires high doses of statins, doubling or tripling the dose, oftentimes combined with other drugs. Needless to say, such therapies are extremely expensive and often do not work. These guidelines immediately boosted the sales of statins from fifteen billion per year when the report was released in 2004 to over twenty-two billion in 2005. And now we come to find out there is not a shred of scientific evidence to support that lowering cholesterol in this manner will reduce cardiovascular disease, compared to simply having an LDL lower than 130.
Statins are also being pushed for prevention of a first heart attack in people with only moderate cardiovascular risk. A careful analysis of the statistical data shows that such statin use may reduce cardiovascular death by 1% in this preventive population over a ten year period. However, the drugs kill 1% as a side effect, due to accidents, suicide, and infection. This means there is no benefit at all, from a societal point of view, for wasting billions of dollars of taxpayer money on this pointless preventive strategy.
The amount of money wasted on this fraudulent scheme is at least seven billion dollars a year, money that is in essence stolen from hard working Americans. Class-action lawsuits have already been filed against Pfizer for illegal Lipitor promotion, many are sure to follow.
Darvon Pain Killer Banned, Causes Addiction, Suicides
Panel Calls for Ban on Darvon Painkiller
AP WASHINGTON (Feb. 2) - Government medical advisers Friday recommended a ban on Darvon, a prescription medicine that’s been used to treat pain for more than 50 years but left a trail of problems such as addiction and suicide. A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted 14-12 to recommend withdrawing Darvon after a daylong hearing examining its risks and benefits. The FDA is not required to follow the recommendations of its advisers, but often does so. Darvon was first approved in 1957, when there were few alternatives for treating pain except aspirin and powerful narcotics. Now mainly marketed as Darvocet, which includes a dose of acetaminophen, the drug remains one of the top 25 most commonly prescribed medications. More than 20 million prescriptions were written in 2007. The consumer group Public Citizen had petitioned the FDA to withdraw Darvon because the drug offers relatively weak pain relief and poses an overdose risk, with the potential to be used in suicides. ”With a drug that has almost no evidence of benefit, any risk is unacceptable,” said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, a drug safety expert with Public Citizen who first sought a ban in the 1970s. “Hopefully the FDA will follow the vote of its advisers.” Two companies that market the drug — Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals and Qualitest/Vintage Pharmaceuticals— say the medication is safe and effective when used as directed. In documents filed with the FDA, the companies said doctors need a range of options to treat pain, and noted that many other painkillers have become drugs of abuse — some with far worse consequences. Dr. Jerry Avorn, a professor of medicine at Harvard and a critic of the pharmaceutical industry commended the FDA for taking a hard look at Darvon. ”I have been astonished at how widely used this drug is,” Avorn said. “It’s no longer the most abusable and most dangerous drug in its class, but the fact that there are worse drugs doesn’t make Darvon a good drug.” The United Kingdom banned its version of Darvon in 2005. If the FDA decides not to follow suit, it may take other steps, such as requiring stiffer warnings, safety studies or special education efforts aimed at doctors and patients. Wolfe said he is recommending that the drug be withdrawn gradually, because some patients have become dependent on it. In an analysis prepared for the hearing, the FDA’s safety office said it had searched the agency’s database of reported drug problems, but the result was “insufficient” to allow reviewers to make a clear-cut recommendation. The safety office found more than 3,000 reports of serious problems. The top three were suicide, drug dependence and overdoses. In a separate analysis, the FDA office that handles painkillers said Darvon is a weak pain reliever. Most studies show that in Darvocet, the widely used combination drug, the Darvon component appears to contribute “little or no” additional pain relief beyond that provided by the acetaminophen component, reviewers said. Wolfe presented the advisory panel with new data from the government’s Drug Abuse Warning Network, which tracks emergency room visits and deaths. It said that Darvon-related deaths rose to 503 in 2007, from 446 in 2006. In both years, about 20 percent were suicides. The network covers only about one-third of the U.S. population. Data from Florida’s medical examiner reporting system showed that in 2007 Darvon was present in the bodies of 341 people who died of any cause. Medical examiners identified it as the cause of death in 85 cases.
Low Cholesterol Linked to Depression and Suicide →
Jan 29 09 (NaturalNews) The next time you stop in for your annual check-up with your doctor, chances are you’ll be checking on your cholesterol levels. With fears spiked about having high cholesterol, even those in the low-risk categories are monitoring their levels religiously. After all, there’s nothing like the merit badge of a low cholesterol reading. It’s good enough to put a big, bright smile right across your face—or it may just drive you into depression. That’s right. Those charmingly low numbers may be the cause behind depression, anxiety, violence and even suicide.
This is hardly an extremist idea fed by a few confused souls. Just take a look in the British Medical Journal published in September of 1996, where a French study looked at over 6,000 men. The study revealed that men with low cholesterol were three times more likely to commit suicide. A similar study at Payne Whitney Clinic in New York showed a similar result: when dividing men into four groups based on cholesterol levels, suicide risk doubled in the group with the lowest levels.
For full article, see link above.
FDA Requires Increased Suicidality Warning on Antiepileptic Labels →
ROCKVILLE, Md., Dec. 16 08 (medscape) — The FDA announced today it will require that all 21 antiepileptic drugs carry a label warning of an increased risk of suicidality.
The warning affects all drugs used to treat psychiatric disorders, migraine, and other conditions, in addition to epilepsy.
The agency initially warned physicians of the increased risk of suicidality associated with the drugs last January.
The label change follows the agency’s review of 199 clinical trials of 11 antiepileptic drugs that found patients on the drugs had almost twice the risk of suicidality compared with patients given a placebo.
For full medical article, see link above.
Health Canada Warns of Antidepressant Venlafaxine Overdosage, Increased Risk of Fatal Outcome →
OTTAWA, Ontario — October 30, 2008 — Health Canada, along with the manufacturers of extended release (XR) venlafaxine capsules, are informing healthcare professionals of an association between venlafaxine XR overdosage and the increased risk of fatal outcome compared with that observed with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants, but lower than that of tricyclic antidepressants.
For full medical article, see link above.
Tags: venlaflaxine antidepressant ssri drug safety fetal children pregnancy women suicide
Stop-Smoking Drug Linked to Suicide →
Oct 27 08 (NaturalNews) The Veterans Administration (VA) is issuing a warning that the popular anti-smoking drug Chantix has been linked to an elevated risk of suicide. This warning comes months after the FDA first expressed concerns over the psychiatric effects of the drug.
Chantix helps people quit smoking by simulating the effects of nicotine in the brain, while at the same time making real nicotine less effective. As early as November 2007, the FDA warned that many people were experiencing changes in emotions and behavior, including depression and suicidal thoughts, within weeks or even days of starting the drug. By February, the agency had strengthened its message, saying, “it appears increasingly likely that there may be an association between Chantix and serious neuropsychiatric symptoms.”
For full article, see link above.
Epilepsy and Psychiatric Drugs like Neurontin Double Risk of Suicidal Behavior →
Oct 07 08 (NaturalNews) The FDA issued a warning on earlier this year that anti-epileptic drugs double the risk of suicidal thoughts among people that take them, regardless of whether they are used as a treatment for epilepsy or other conditions.
Anti-epileptics, also known as anticonvulsants, are taken by millions of people as treatment for epileptic seizures, bipolar disorder, and severe pain like that from migraine headaches.
“All patients who are currently taking or starting on any anti-epileptic drug should be closely monitored for notable changes in behavior that could indicate the emergence or worsening of suicidal thoughts or behavior or depression,” the FDA said. The agency also advised that doctors consider whether the benefits of prescribing the drugs outweigh the risks for each individual patient.
For full article, see link above.
Ambien Sleep Drug Linked to Abnormal Thinking and Behaviour →
On May 7 2008, the FDA approved safety labeling revisions for zolpidem tartrate (Ambien; sanofi-aventis US) to warn of the risks for abnormal thinking and behavioral changes associated with use of this and other sedative-hypnotic drugs.
Because sleep disturbances can be the presenting manifestation of a physical and/or psychiatric disorder, patients with insomnia that does not remit after 7 to 10 days of therapy should be evaluated for the presence of a primary illness.
Worsening of insomnia or the emergence of new thinking or behavioral abnormalities during treatment can likewise indicate an underlying physical or psychiatric disorder. Use of sedative-hypnotics in primarily depressed patients has been linked to worsening depression, including suicidal thoughts and actions and completed suicide.
