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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
Treating depression lowers cardiovascular disease risk factors
Patients suffering from major depression are at an increased risk for cardiovascular disease, but treating these patients with medication can greatly reduce the risk, according to new findings by University of Miami Miller School of Medicine researchers.
They specifically studied the stress-hemoconcentration, which is a blood chemistry work-up that includes a blood cell count, hematocrit values, hemoglobin, total serum protein, and albumin. The stress-hemoconcentration increases during psychological stress, such as that caused by depression, and the increase is a risk factor for heart disease.
"We studied 146 outpatient depressed patients against controls from the same Mexican-American Los Angeles community," said Ma-Li Wong, MD, professor and vice chair for translational research in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Miller School of Medicine and lead author of the study. "We took blood from all the participants at the start of the trial, and we found increased measures of stress-hemoconcentration in the mild to moderately depressed patients. Basically, when you are stressed out your blood becomes thicker than normal and thickened blood can put you at higher risk for a heart attack or stroke." All of the participants then completed eight weeks of a randomized, double-blind trial of antidepressant treatment with either the tricyclic antidepressant desipramine (Norpramin®, Pertofrane®) or fluoxetine (Prozac®). Blood was drawn from all participants at the end of the eight-week treatment.
"After the treatment phase we found the measures of stress-hemoconcentration to be improved and they correlated with an improvement in depression symptoms," said Wong. "Our findings suggest that reducing the stress-hemoconcentration in depressed patients through antidepressant treatment could reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease."
Wong ML, Dong C, Esposito K, et al. Elevated Stress-Hemoconcentration in Major Depression Is Normalized by Antidepressant Treatment: Secondary Analysis from a Randomized, Double-Blind Clinical Trial and Relevance to Cardiovascular Disease Risk. PLoS ONE 3(7): e2350. [Full text]