LinkBlog
RSS Feeds
recommended links
- ABIL: Agoraphobics Building
Independant Lives - Agoraphobia and Panic
Disorder Foundation - Anxiety Disorders Association
of America - Anxiety Network Australia
- Anxiety-Panic.Com
- AnxietyZone
- Army Behavioral Health
- BrainPhysics - OCD
- Canadian Network for Mood
and Anxiety Treatments - Children of Hoarders
- Choices in Mental Health (UK)
- Dart Foundation: Gateway to PTSD
information - David Baldwin's
Trauma Information Pages - e-couch free personal self-help guide
- EMDR Institute, Inc.
- EMDR Network Japan
- Fear of Flying course (free)
- Healthy Minds
- Information for People with Anxiety Disorders
- Internet Guide to REBT, CBT
- Knowledge Center of the
Neuroscience Initiative - Living with a Brain Disorder
- Morita Therapy
- Mayo Clinic : Depression
- Mayo Clinic : GAD
- Mayo Clinic : OCD
- Mayo Clinic : Panic Attacks
- Mayo Clinic : PTSD
- Mayo Clinic : Social Anxiety
- Medicines.org.uk - Anxiety &
Depression guides - Mind-Your-Mind Canada
- National Center for PTSD
- National Institute of Mental
Health (NIMH) - No Such Thing As Crazy
- OCD Action, UK
- OCD Ireland
- Obsessive Compulsive Foundation
- Open Minds, Open Doors
- Out of the silence - site for young people with mental illness
- Paniccure.com
- Partners With PTSD
- Prescription Drug Information
- Psychiatric Service Dog Society
- PsychNews
- Rational Emotive Behavior
Therapy (REBT) - Sane Australia
- Shyness & Social Anxiety
Service of Australia - Social Phobia/Social Anxiety
Association - Social Anxiety Support board
- South African Depression &
Anxiety Group - Suicide Prevention Help
- tAPir - the Anxiety Panic
internet resource - The Panic Center (Free
CBT based programs) - The School of OCD
- UN-WHO Drug Trials Database
- U.S. Army Behavioral Health - PTSD
we support
"just don't smoke"
Yul Brynner
- Menthol cigarettes harder to quit
- Secondhand smoke in cars serious threat to kid's health
- Lung Cancer can run in families
- Starting smoking young increases addiction risk
- Exercise helps smokers quit
- Smoking doesn't slim girls;
stunts boys' growth - Cutting down not enough, smokers must quit
- 40 reasons why you should quit smoking
- Pregnant smokers 'prime' their kids to smoke
- Smoking related coronary artery disease quickly reversed if young smokers quit
- Not ready to quit? Try cutting back
- Half smoking again within year of lung cancer surgery
- Cutting back 'compensation' increases toxin load per cigarette
- Tobacco companies upped nicotine level 11% since 1998
- Workplace passive smoke increases lung cancer risk
- Hooked by genes: The DNA sequences cigarette companies love
- Smoking causes long lasting changes to brain's bio chemistry
- Nicotine receptor stimulant trebles the odds of stopping smoking
- Bupropion, nortriptyline double chances of quitting
- Nicotine's powerful role in reinforcing smoking
- Pregnant smokers raise child's risk of stroke, heart attack
- Smoking linked to pancreatic cancer
- Neurobiology of Smokers' Cravings
- 'Low cancer risk' cigarettes as deadly as regular kind
- Quitting reduces lung cancer death risk by 70%
- Fetal nicotine exposure linked to teen attention problems
- Outdoor second-hand smoke exposure can harm
- Response to day's first cigarette predicts ease of quitting
- 'Healthy' children of smoking parents aren't really so healthy
- Children of smokers have up to five times higher levels of a nicotine toxin
- Smoking increases risk of dementia
- Smoking kills even after quitting
- Antenatal second hand smoke exposure increases child's psychological problems
- Smoking could kill 1 billion this century: WHO
- Just 1 cigarette can lead to nicotine addiction
- Smokers less likely to survive early stage lung cancer
- Smokeless tobacco delivers carcinogens more efficiently than cigarettes!
- Smoking permanently turns on genes that increase lung cancer susceptibility
- Secondhand smoke a health hazard for pets too
- Hypnosis for smoking cessation sees strong results
- Smoking doesn't burn fat
- Smoking linked to sagging breasts
- No evidence waterpipes decrease smoking harm
- Tobacco smoke + alcohol damage hearts more than either alone
Abstract+: Association of chronic hepatitis C with major depressive [but not anxiety] disorders
Clin Pract Epidemol Ment Health. 2007 Oct 23;3:22 doi:10.1186/1745-0179-3-22
Association of chronic hepatitis C with major depressive disorders: irrespective of interferon-alpha therapy
Carta MG, Hardoy MC, Garofalo A, Pisano E, Nonnoi V, Intilla G, Serra G, Balestrieri C, Chessa L, Cauli C, Lai ME, Farci P.
Background: Mood and anxiety symptoms in chronic hepatitis C (CHC) may be related to the patient awareness of the diagnosis and prognosis, to side effects induced by interferon (IFN)-alpha treatment, as well as to substance abuse. However, the observation of metabolic alterations in patients with CHC has led to hypothesize a direct effect of hepatitis C virus (HCV) on brain function. This study was aimed at elucidating whether CHC is associated with specific anxiety or mood disorders independently of confounding factors.
Methods: Patient cohort: consecutive patients, 135 with CHC and 76 with chronic hepatitis B (CHB). Exclusion criteria: previous treatment with IFN-alpha, co-infection with HCV and hepatitis B virus, infection with human immunodeficiency virus, drug or alcohol abuse, or malignancies. Controls: subjects without evidence of hepatitis randomly extracted from the database of a previous epidemiological study; they were divided into two groups of 540 (332 males) and 304 (220 males) as controls for patients with CHC and CHB, respectively. The psychiatric diagnosis was formulated by means of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview Simplified carried out by a physician according to DSM-IV criteria.
Results: A higher lifetime prevalence of major depressive disorder (MDD) was observed among CHC compared to CHB or controls. The risk of MDD was not statistically different between CHB and controls. Both the CHC and CHB groups showed a significantly higher frequency of panic disorder when compared to controls. No statistical differences were observed in the prevalence of general anxiety disorder and social phobia when CHC or CHB were compared to controls.
Conclusions: The present study provides the first evidence of an association between CHC and MDD, diagnosed on the basis of well-defined international criteria. This association is independent of treatment with IFN-alpha and is not influenced by substance or alcohol abuse. By contrast, anxiety disorders do not appear to be specifically associated with CHC.
Source...
Full text... (provisional, 
)