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A less acknowledged fact is that the proportion of societal violence attributable to schizophrenia is small. http://m.bjp.rcpsych.org/conte...

Possibly because the number of schizophrenics is small, and the fact that the disease makes people ineffective at being surreptitiously violent disallowing for repeat offenses without being caught; plotting someone's demise with invisible conspirators tends to draw attention. A more interesting number is what percentage of schizophrenics turn violent versus what percentage of "normal" people, and statistically for what reasons? My hypothesis is that normal people have a smaller percentage - if not absolute numbers - who turn violent for petty or imagined reasons.

It's also been reasonably verified in medical studies, such as http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content....

It an also be difficult to measure.. The intensity of a mania can make one feel like one is very, very productive in many ways, but the productivity can be complete gibberish. This is visible professionally among coders who do binge programming sessions of exciting work that creates reams of exciting new ideas paradigms. But on review, the ideas are old, poorly implemented, and worse, entirely undocumented. This is followed by the attitude of "just read the code" and "it's so simple, it doesn't need testing".

Yes, I've seen work done by bi-polar colleagues before they were diagnosed or were off their meds. It may be less inventive, but it's far better quality code when they're medicated.

What's more, there's absolutely no evidence to back up the belief that babies require more bonding between them and their mother than with their father.

Because there's a risk of someone misinterpreting that statement as implying that parents and children or mothers and children don't need bonding - a quick few googled hits about the benefits of bonding (or risks of not bonding).
There's more out there, but I suggest to go talk to a midwife and/or doula if you are genuinely interested in knowing more about the subject.

First off I think it's a little grandiose to dismiss a person's claims (especially someone in your own field) because they happen to be bipolar. And to do this as an anonymous poster just doesn't seem right. But whatever.

You didn't read the article because she actually cites a peer-reviewed published article. I found it here. She also mentions some "20 or 30 scientific studies". They don't list them in the article but since she was willing to attach her name to the piece I'm sure you can contact her if you are interested.

Also the article nor the people cited in it ever claim mental illness is somewhat beneficial. One of the panelists actually says, the last line the in article, "I think the creativity is just one part of something that is mostly bad".

And its reported schizophrenia links.

After you get your level checked, you'll have to then decide what level is a good thing.

Here are four different recommendations for optimal levels in increasing order

IOM:
http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2010/Dietary-Reference-Intakes-for-Calcium-and-Vitamin-D/DRI-Values.aspx
>20 ng/mL (but their recommendations sort of imply not much more than that is important)

Dr. Fuhrman:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/vitamin_D_recommendations.aspx
35–55 ng/mL

Grassroots Health:
http://www.grassrootshealth.net/recommendation
40–60 ng/mL

Vitamin D Council:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
50–80 ng/mL (or higher for some specific conditions)

So, it's great to have a level. But even then there are disagreements about what is best.

Remember, parents have been warned heavily over the last decade or two to keep their kids out of the sun.

The vitamin D hpothesis easily explains stuff like the high rate (5X) of autism among Somali children or the high rate (9X) of schizophrenia among second generation Afro-Caribbeans in the UK.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/minneapolis-and-the-somal_b_143967.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2418996/
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/167/3/362

No doubt there are socieconomic issues at play in the disparity, but 5X and 9X?

Note that in the link you provide, the units were different (nmol/L which requires a higher level to be in the right range).

I'm still not following their logic to dismiss what they found: "Age-standardized means based on observed serum 25(OH)D concentrations were significantly (P http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/07/22/pregnant-women-advised-to-get-more-vitamin-d.aspx
"Please do not assume your levels are fine, as Drs. Hollis and Wagner found that over 87 percent of all newborns and over 67 percent of all mothers had vitamin D levels lower than 20 ng/ml, which is a severe deficiency state. As a result, the researchers recommended that all mothers optimize their vitamin D levels during pregnancy, especially in the winter months, to safeguard their babies' health. This finding could easily help to explain the disproportionately high numbers of poor outcomes among African American births, as deficiency is extremely common among people with darker skin colors."

However, another variable is how much vitamin D do people with different ethnicities or skin color need? So, even the general ranges above, are they appropriate for all ethnicities? Maybe people with darker skin have other adaptations to function well on less? So, there remains more to research about all this. But with that said, just look at how much sun people got 1000 years ago, and look at how much people get now, and considering how melanoma is one of the easiest to detect and treat cancers, how much sun or vitamin D supplements seems "conservative" considering the conditions human are adapted for? Pretty much no humans in the past spent all their lives in caves that I'm aware of (except maybe rich ones, but they probably got diseases of affluence like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and so on).

We got hit by this ourselves with health issues with our kid (as well as a C-section, which turns out to also be at increased risk with vitamin D deficiency). We just naively followed all the advice to stay out of the sun, etc.. I actually asked our pediatrician if we should be giving vitamin D sup

I agree. We know more, there are some things in our social organisation that are better (democracy, vs feudalism, bans on toruture, etc.).

On the other hand, we can sometimes be worse: we can be cruel and uncarig - which is perhaps why 13th century England had only 188 suicides over a century, whereas the UK currently has about 3,000 a year (a MUCH higher per capita rate even with the roughly 30 fold population growth).

And if you think ADD is nothing like Asperger's... why not look at the official DSM-IV Criteria

How about we also go looking at differential diagnosis, then?

From http://apt.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/7/4/310

The conditions differ in that ADHD lacks the classic impairment in reciprocal social interaction, narrow interests, repetitive routines and non-verbal problems of Asperger syndrome.

Often talks excessively.
vs
lack of social or emotional reciprocity and stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language

A kid with ADHD will talk about trains all the time. A kid with Asperger's will talk in weird ways about trains all the time. Definitely, def-definitely all the time.

Is often easily distracted.
vs
encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus

Erm... what? One says "doesn't focus for more than 20 seconds", the other says "focuses for 20 days in a row."

I went here and I could see the text without issues...

Childhood factors that influence the expression of violence in adulthood are numerous and include economic, ecological and individual factors (such as personality traits).1 Diet has been causally associated with population mortality rates, neurocognitive deficits, disruptive behaviour, antisocial and aggressive behaviour, and offending behaviour in a prison population.2â"5 Furthermore, decision biases, such that rewards are subjectively overweighted and punishment underweighted, are associated with delinquency.6 Confectionery (sweets/chocolates), often used as a quick reward for children, has also received attention,3,7 although studies have mostly focused on the short-term effects of diet on behaviour: the long-term effects have yet to be determined. The objective of our study was to extend what is currently known about childhood risk factors for violence by also considering the role of confectionery. We hypothesise that excessive confectionery consumption increases the likelihood of violence in adulthood.

Method

Our analysis included data on the births and families of babies (respondents, hereafter) born in the UK in one particular week (n = 17 415) derived from the British Cohort Study which began in 1970. Information was requested on all babies born (alive or dead) after the 24th week of gestation from 00:01 on Sunday 5th April to 24:00 on Saturday 11th April 1970. It is estimated that not more than 5% and not less than 2% of all births were missed. Since 1970 there have been seven data collections designed to monitor respondentsâ(TM) health, education, social and economic circumstances. These additional waves took place when respondents were aged 5, 10, 16, 26, 30, 34 and 42 years. We used data from the age 10 wave when respondents were asked how frequently they consumed confectionery, and the age 34 wave, when self-report violent offending data and additional information on socioeconomic status were collected. Additional data were taken from the age 5 wave that characterised respondentsâ(TM) early development, including parenting style. Respondents were coded positive for perpetration of violence (violence, hereafter) if the most recent offence, between the age 30 and age 34 surveys, for which they were found guilty involved violence. Violence data were collected using a reliable self-report computer-assisted interview methodology.8 Confectionery consumption was reduced to a binary variable (every day = 1, less often or never = 0) owing to small numbers in the violence variable. To check the robustness of estimates we regressed confectionery consumption onto violence and then incrementally added control variables. With no substantial change in either the sign or significance of the effect of eating confectionery, we then sought the most parsimonious model by removing control variables that yielded no significant association. Numerous control variables were entered into initial models, including information on: the childâ(TM)s behaviour at home at age 5 years and maternal circumstances based on the Rutter A Scale of behavioural deviance (completed by a parent, usually the mother, and designed to measure behaviour-adjustment problems) and the Malaise Inventory (a 24-item self-completion scale designed to assess psychiatric morbidity);9 aggression and impulsivity at age 10 years, assessed by the childâ(TM)s class teacher; mental ability at age 5 years, derived from figure drawing and vocabulary tests, reduced to a single mental ability score using a procedure described by Batty10 and validated against a health visitorâ(TM)s subjective assessment of ability. Forty-three questions were used to assess parental attitudes in the age 5 wave and iterated principal factor analysis with an oblique rotation method11 (Kaiserâ"Meyerâ"Olkin measure of sampling adequacy 0.88) yielded three factors: an authoritarian attitude to parent

Sometimes people talk about their friend when they're really talking about themselves, like now.

This whole notion that weed can't do harm is so insidious that every time someone has an adverse reaction to weed it's written off somehow as it being laced, often times when that doesn't make any sense. Here's a clinical trial, was that laced too?

Two cases of "cannabis acute psychosis" following the administration of oral cannabis

There are other examples, you're free to search them Cannabis psychosis following bhang ingestion.

And the Erowid Experience Vault has reports of people who've had adverse reactions and many of those who report smoking weed alone go to the ER and testing shows only weed. Additionally some of them report prolonged experiences and flashbacks, from marijuana alone.

So while these people seem to have smoked weed, we'd have to assume that all those instances were laced with an invisible and tasteless mystery substance X and they were all too incompetent to tell the difference, including experienced users in clinical trials, and Occam's razor tells us that's less likely.

The fact is, and it's reported in the literature, cannabis causes adverse reactions including LSD-like hallucinations, psychotic reactions, and depersonalization, especially in higher doses, and flashbacks are reported. That however is not reflected in the public or the media.

1 drugs are harmful though, 2 people can do what they want to themselves until it impacts me.

Just because alcohol is legal doesn't mean that it should be or that it's good. Just because something is so popular that our leaders have tried it doesn't mean that it's okay to do, otherwise smokers who tell you "Don't Smoke; it's bad" would be factually wrong but they're not. By the way, have you noticed that our leader is a deranged retard? Alcohol destroys the brain, and cocaine and drugs in general mess with its function. Prohibition may have failed but that doesn't mean give up everywhere.

But where did you get this opinion? Did you do a lot of clinical research or did you just hear everyone else and the media saying it? The truth is the latter, making you the traditionalist. So how much of your argument is derived from popular opinion?

I used to think weed was benign even after I smoked it and found it was a nightmare. I had pseudo-hallucinations, I felt like I was dying, I was trapped in a time loop, I became painfully detached from my body, yet I still thought it must have been laced, and everyone told me the same or they said that sounds cool. It wasn't cool, and the detachment lasted for a long time.

It wasn't until I did some research about it and found those are all effects of weed alone, and they match negative experiences in the Erowid Vault, but you and everyone else like you overlook that and propagate a myth that weed is harmless and the stance about it is irrational.

I think alcohol should be restricted MORE; it just isn't. That doesn't mean that I irrationally think it's okay. And that alcohol is worse by this 'comparison' doesn't mean weed is now SOFT. Moreover, that we can't eliminate substance abuse is hardly a reason to do nothing about it.

As Gateway: cross-sensitisation of cannabis/opioid receptors

Two cases of "cannabis acute psychosis"

Psychological Responses To Cannabis

Animals Exposed To Marijuana's Active Component Will Self-Administer

How can smoking up harm society if it has no impact on others?

Again, he said earlier, and we are not in agreement that weed is harmless or has no impact on others. Especially when said impact is a car. And then there's the whole concept of what drug abuse does to families and society. Don't deny these facts and promote weed irresponsibly, because I list that as another example of how people abuse drugs and therefore can't be trusted to responsibly use, distribute and recommend them to others.

I'm sensing this'll go in circles so I'll just state my opinion and provide some links.

Weed impairs motor skills, is a gateway drug in teens, causes seriously adverse and psychotic reactions, and hallucinations and depersonalization that can recur or persist.

So I think it's very powerful and unpredictable and therefore dangerous.

Two cases of "cannabis acute psychosis" following the administration of oral cannabis

Cannabis psychosis following bhang ingestion.

Psychological Responses To Cannabis
Cannabis and acute functional psychosis (in individuals who have no history of severe mental illness), chronic psychosis, amotivational syndrome, Evidence for dependence..

Animals Exposed To Marijuana's Active Component Will Self-Administer

"Tolerance and dependence"

As gateway in teens:
issue of cross-sensitisation of cannabis/opioid receptors

Cannabis use increases risk of psychotic illness

Cannabis link to mental illness strengthened

Erowid has an Experience Vault where you can read about negative reactions, but it probably never occurred to you to do that. I'd quote the relevant sections but there are a lot of them, and it's daunting. Maybe I'll organize them one day.

Psychosis and Eventually Schizophrenia

Two cases of "cannabis acute psychosis" following the administration of oral cannabis

Cannabis psychosis following bhang ingestion.

Psychological Responses To Cannabis
Cannabis and acute functional psychosis, chronic psychosis, amotivational syndrome, Evidence for dependence..

Animals Exposed To Marijuana's Active Component Will Self-Administer

"Self-administration of drugs by animals, long considered a model of human drug-seeking behavior, is characteristic of virtually all addictive and abused drugs. ...The drug-seeking behavior in these animals was comparable in intensity to that maintained by cocaine... This finding suggests that marijuana has as much potential for abuse as other drugs of abuse, such as cocaine and heroin."

See: Tolerance and dependence

Cannabis use increases risk of psychotic illness

Cannabis link to mental illness strengthened

"Asperger Syndrome is a type of autism, and autism is a neurological disorder that affects the way a person interacts with others and his or her world. It's not a mental illness"1

"Despite Asperger's being listed in the APA's Diagnostic manual it is not a mental illness, it cannot be caused by trauma or neglect and it cannot be cured with therapy or a change in lifestyle or attitude." 2

You are confusing concepts disorder and illness. They are not synomyms. If you don't believe that, read this article about popular medical definitions of personality disorders. "They are distinguished from mental illness ---"

Maybe he stated that because it's true.

If you can produce a reputable, peer-reviewed study to the contrary, please share. Articles by Dailey and Cameron do not qualify.

It has been known for a long time now that sleep deprivation helps drastically improve patients with severe depression. However, if the patient is not already on antidepressant drugs, he will relapse back into depression - http://apt.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/7/2/117

This has been true to some extent with electroconvulsive therapy too. People with severe depression become normal for a few days, but they ultimately need antidepressants.

I wonder whether deep brain stimulation can solve this issue of long term pharmacotherapy, or will it be just one of those overhyped discoveries, which is no better than the existing tools we have?

It's a mystery what research this article is referring to.
We'll have to watch for a paper.

The only related paper I could find from Jirtle is

http://ajp.amjpathol.org/cgi/content/full/162/1/32 1

which just describes a method for making mice with IGF2R
knocked out only in certain tissues (total knockout is
fatal).

A big name in behavioral genetics is Plomin. A nice
overview of the heritability of g, along with preliminary
results of a DNA-pooling study pointing to IGF2R is

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/178/40/s41

The first paper I could find pointing to IGF2R goes back
to 1998

http://tinyurl.com/8yavr?__ChorneyEtAl1998

-Carl

http://apt.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/6/5/327

And his website seems to think that elevated 1,25-dihdroxycholecalciferol causes chronic fatigue. "scientific proof for chronic fatigue".

The reason CFS patients have more of the active form of Vitamin D is that they sit around on their arses doing nothing while their bones fall to bits.

This is not news. It is basic physiology. Active vitamin D promotes calcium absorption from the gut to replace that lost by inactivity.

If you want a cause, there a pretty plausable one here.

Why don't they get well? They don't get well if it is better to be ill. Simple really.