Salute! to your health

Vincent Van Gogh, Self-portrait, 1889

'Manic depressive' all 45 years, with psychotic symptoms starting at 11 and a diagnosis at 16 with a month of forced hospital. Currently considered 'high functioning' by the docs. Stubbornly hold down work, have stayed out of hospitals since, despite the annual disruptions of depression and mania, and operate 'opposite to emotion' enough (during any psychosis) to seem relatively normal most of the time to the community. We seem to be at an important juncture with bipolar studies that are now coming out. They've just developed a similar test animal model (! manic mice) that has helped them see a circadian rhythm gene link, and they've expanded their diagnostic criteria of BP that makes this disorder much more common (a larger group) than previously. Good potential for our futures managing this disorder. Three interesting articles: Circadian Rhythms May Influence Bipolar By: Psych Central News Editor on Wednesday, Mar, 21, 2007 http://psychcentral.com/news/2007/03/21/circadian-rhythms-may-influence-bipolar/ Medical News Today Bipolar Disorder: Understudied And Much More Common Than Previously Reported Main Category: Bipolar News Article Date: 18 Mar 2007 - 13:00 PDT http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=65380 Screwed up body clock may be the root cause of bipolar disorder Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2007 (EST) A new study by scientists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, US, has found that the bipolar disorder commonly known as manic-depression, may be due to a screwed up body clock. http://news.sawf.org/health/34830.aspx