As I’ve been looking for stories for this blog, I’ve encountered an abundance of riches, both from RSS feeds and stories my classmates have written.
There’s just not enough time to do them all justice with their own post. So, I’m going to take a cue from my favorite TV show, “Jeopardy!” (yes, I’m a nerd), […]

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Here’s another potential cause of many mental illnesses and other conditions: traumatic brain injuries.
Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York found that many people who suffered a major blow to the head later struggled with addiction, learning disabilities, memory loss and depression.
The good news is that they responded well to therapy for […]

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Mental illnesses are known to run in families.
Allaboutdepression.com says,
If you have a parent or sibling that has had major depression, you may be 1.5 to 3 times more likely to develop the condition than those who do not have a close relative with the condition.
The link is even stronger with bipolar disorder:
Of those with bipolar […]

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Kirsten Haglund of Michigan won the 2008 Miss America pageant on Saturday.
Like all Miss Americas, she has a cause. Based on her own experience with anorexia, she wants to raise awareness of eating disorders and encourage people to have a healthy body image.
“You have to have curves,” she said proudly.
“You can’t look like a […]

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I’m always a little skeptical of studies that try to determine whether prayer helps people recover from illness.
Not because I don’t believe in prayer, but because I think religious tenets usually can’t be measured within a scientific framework. Therefore, such studies just seem like a waste of time: No matter what your beliefs, you probably […]

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Depression is being realized as more than just a mental condition. Besides having numerous physical symptoms (including headaches, fatigue and problems with sleeping and digestion), it may contribute to heart disease, according to the American Heart Association.
The heart association cites a study that found men with depression had greater amounts of substances in the blood […]

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I don’t know if Heath Ledger and Britney Spears ever met, but if they had, maybe they would have compared stories about people questioning their mental health.
The tabloid headlines about Spears have proliferated since her bizarre behavior last year, not helped by her 16-year-old sister’s pregnancy and an invasion-of-privacy visit from Dr. Phil, which my […]

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As promised, here’s more on that New England Journal of Medicine study that suggested failing to publish studies on antidepressants’ effectiveness led to doctors prescribing them unnecessarily.
John M. Grohol at PsychCentral says the findings shouldn’t be that surprising, as researchers naturally want to tell people what works, not what doesn’t work.
However, he says drug companies […]

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Psychological struggles among veterans after they return from war are nothing new. In World War I, doctors first used the term “shell shock” to describe the anxiety and debilitating panic that struck troops who fought among heavy artillery fire in Europe. Some soldiers got to leave the fighting to recover, but others were sent back […]

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I had a flashback to college the other day when I was riding the El around the Loop.
As I sat bundled up in my wool pea coat, gloves and scarf, I noticed a young man wearing shorts and a Loyola University hoodie.
No jacket, and no long pants.
He reminded me of a friend from Calvin - […]

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