By Dr. Mercola

Newly released statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that more Americans now commit suicide than die in traffic accidents.^{1, 2, 3}

Between 1999 and 2010, the suicide rate among American adults ages 35-64 rose by more than 28 percent, to just under 18 deaths per 100,000.

The sharpest rise in suicides is seen among the middle-aged, suggesting there may be a link to the downturn in our economy, which to some degree has affected most Americans over the past decade. During the 1932 Great Depression, as many as 22 people per 100,000 committed suicide.

The suicide rate for men in their 50’s has risen by 50 percent, to nearly 30 suicides per 100,000.

The suicide rate for middle-aged women is just over eight deaths per 100,000. While not nearly as high as that for men, suicide rates still increased with age among women, with the largest increase seen among women between the ages of 60-64. In this age group, suicide rates rose by nearly 60 percent in the last decade.

According to the CDC:

“Prevalence of mechanisms of suicide changed from 1999 to 2010. Whereas firearm and poisoning suicide rates increased significantly, suffocation (predominantly hanging) suicide rates increased the most among men and women aged 35-64 years.

…Possible contributing factors for the rise in suicide rates among middle-aged adults include the recent economic downturn (historically, suicide rates tend to correlate with business cycles, with higher rates observed during times of economic hardship); a cohort effect, based on evidence that the ‘baby boomer’ generation had unusually high suicide rates during their adolescent years; and a rise in intentional overdoses associated with the increase in availability of prescription opioids.”

Antidepressants May Be Fueling the Problem

Sadly, the knee-jerk conventional treatment for depression and suicidal tendencies is almost exclusively prescription antidepressants. Every year, more than 253 million prescriptions for antidepressants are filled in the United States, making them the second most prescribed drug class in the United States (second only to cholesterol-lowering drugs).⁴

But how effective are antidepressants in alleviating the symptoms of depression?

Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that antidepressants are often no more effective than a placebo, and in some case less effective. A study published in the January 2010 issue of JAMA concluded there is little evidence that SSRIs (a popular group of antidepressants that includes Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft) have any benefit to people with mild to moderate depression.⁵ The researchers stated:

“The magnitude of benefit of antidepressant medication compared with placebo… may be minimal or nonexistent, on average, in patients with mild or moderate symptoms.”

SSRIs were found to be 33 percent effective, just like a sugar pill—but with far more adverse effects, including violence and suicidal thoughts and actions. Exercise actually outperforms antidepressants, but many still overlook this option.

Total Video Length: 1:02:10

Download Interview Transcript

More and more studies are confirming that antidepressants intensify violent thoughts and behaviors, both suicidal and homicidal, especially among children. And, since the late 1980s, there have been frequent reports of increased violent behavior, including homicides and suicides, among individuals taking antidepressant drugs.

Add to this a faltering economy and many literally feeling like they’re “fighting for their livelihoods” and the safety of their family, and the use of antidepressants may very well be pushing people over the edge rather than keeping them from it… It all depends on how you react to them.

Federal Institute for Mental Health Abandons Psychiatric ‘Bible’

There may be a glimmer of hope on the horizon however, in terms of psychiatric diagnosis and ultimate treatment. The misuse of psychiatric drugs is in part due to the reliance on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)—the “bible” of psychiatry, containing all the diagnostic codes for virtually every conceivable mental health problem and personality quirk known to man at this point. There are many problems with this reference book. As stated by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH):⁶

“While DSM has been described as a ‘bible’ for the field, it is, at best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each. The strength of each of the editions of DSM has been “reliability” – each edition has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity.

Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure. In the rest of medicine, this would be equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain or the quality of fever.

Indeed, symptom-based diagnosis, once common in other areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we have understood that symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment. Patients with mental disorders deserve better.” [Emphasis mine]

At the end of April, the NIMH (which is responsible for overseeing mental health research in the US, and funds more research in this field than any other agency in the world) announced it will no longer look to the DSM as the “gold standard” for categorizing mental health problems.⁷ In an effort to improve and transform psychiatric diagnosis and treatment, the Institute has launched the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project, which will incorporate genetics, imaging, cognitive science, and other information in order “to lay the foundation for a new classification system.”

Will Psychiatric Transformation Miss the Mark Yet Again?

While this is a step in the right direction, I hope they make the effort to go far enough… The NIMH admits that their approach began with certain assumptions, some of which, I think, may or may not be completely accurate in all cases. And if so, then the most effective treatments may still be completely overlooked. For example, one of the assumptions is that:

“Mental disorders are biological disorders involving brain circuits that implicate specific domains of cognition, emotion, or behavior.”

The assumption that all mental health problems are due to biological dysfunction is to take too narrow a view, in my opinion, because there’s also a spiritual and a bioenergetic component—both of which few psychiatrists bother to address. Also, by limiting it to “biological disorders involving brain circuits” they may completely miss the boat in terms of how nutrition affects your mental health. Mounting research shows that your gut health has a truly profound impact on your mental and emotional states, so to say that the cause of mental disorders is rooted in faulty brain circuits alone still seems rather dogmatic and archaic.

We may in fact be complicating matters when we really should be simplifying. There’s no doubt in my mind that proper nutrition, optimal gut health and vitamin D levels, along with regular exercise and an overall reduction in toxic exposures can go an enormously long way toward curbing the trend of rising mental health problems.

SPECT Imaging—An Invaluable New Tool for Psychiatry

That said, I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet, as I believe there may be room for modern diagnostic tools even within something as nebulous as mental health. For example, last year I interviewed Dr. Daniel Amen, a physician, board-certified psychiatrist, and one of the foremost experts on brain imaging science and brain plasticity. His work with SPECT imaging demonstrates how it can be a remarkably useful tool for psychiatry, especially more complicated cases.

Brain SPECT imaging is different from the anatomical MRI or CT scans. SPECT measures blood flow and activity patterns. It looks at how your brain works. (It’s similar to positron emission tomography (PET) scans, which looks at glucose metabolism.) When using SPECT imaging, physicians look for three things:

1. Areas of your brain that work well
2. Areas of your brain that are low in activity, and
3. Areas of your brain that are high in activity

The job then becomes balancing the different areas of your brain. According to Dr. Amen, most cases of depression and anxiety are symptoms of underlying brain dysfunction. For example, depression can arise if brain activity is too low in your frontal lobes. This inactivity means you cannot inhibit your negative feelings. Depression can also be a symptom of heightened or excessive activity in your frontal lobes, as this leads to an inability to stop thinking the bad thoughts in your head. A traumatic brain injury can also result in symptoms of depression. In fact, according to Dr. Amen, this is very common.

However, he does not dismiss or overlook the impact of lifestyle on brain function. Rather he readily admits that some brain dysfunction is directly related to toxic exposures and/or a combination of poor lifestyle habits, such as a poor diet and lack of exercise. And, unlike most psychiatrists who rely on drugs, Dr. Amen’s treatments to restore and optimize brain function focus on the four-pronged approach of diet, exercise, nutritional supplements, and correcting negative thought patterns.

This, I believe, is a beautiful example of how, by combining the best of both worlds—modern diagnostic tools and science, combined with natural common sense lifestyle changes—can truly make a difference in people’s lives. While getting a SPECT scan can be expensive, it may save you tons of money in the long run. According to a recent study by Dr. Amen and his colleagues, getting a SPECT scan will change what your doctor does 79 percent of the time.

“”We have a new outcome study that we’re publishing on 500 consecutive patients that came to the Amen Clinics who were complicated. After six months, 85 percent showed significant improvements in their quality of life,” Dr. Amen said.” We are very excited about our work. And we have been teaching our colleagues about it for decades… But it’s horrifying what’s happening overall in psychiatry. I would be very cautious about seeing a psychiatrist that is not gathering data on your brain before he or she puts you on multiple medications.”

The Rise of Energy Psychology

Many people avoid energy psychology as they believe it is an alternative form of New Age spirituality, yet nothing could be further from the truth. It is merely an advanced tool that can effectively address some of the psychological short circuiting that occurs in emotional illnesses. It is not any competition at all with any religion but merely an effective resource you can use with whatever spiritual belief you have.

My favorite technique for this is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which is the largest and most popular version of energy psychology.

EFT was developed in the 1990s by Gary Craig, a Stanford engineering graduate specializing in healing and self-improvement. It’s akin to acupuncture, which is based on the concept that a vital energy flows through your body along invisible pathways known as meridians. EFT stimulates different energy meridian points in your body by tapping them with your fingertips, while simultaneously using custom-made verbal affirmations. This can be done alone or under the supervision of a qualified therapist. By doing so, you help your body eliminate emotional “scarring” and reprogram the way your body responds to emotional stressors.

While the following video will teach you how to do EFT, it is VERY important to realize that self-treatment for serious mental health issues is NOT recommended. For serious or complex issue you need someone to guide you through the process as there is an incredible art to this process and it typically takes years of training to develop the skill to tap on deep-seated, significant issues.

Research Backs the Use of EFT for Depression

I have been a fan of energy psychology for many years, having witnessed its effectiveness in my medical practice and in my own personal life. However, studies have been few and far between as science has been trying to “catch up” with clinical experience. That has finally started to change. Several studies have been published in the last few years, showing just how safe and effective EFT really is. For example, the following three studies show remarkable progress in a very short amount of time for people with a history of trauma:

1. A 2009 study⁸ of 16 institutionalized adolescent boys with histories of physical or psychological abuse showed substantially decreased intensity of traumatic memories after just ONE session of EFT.
2. An EFT study⁹ involving 30 moderately to severely depressed college students was conducted. The depressed students were given four 90-minute EFT sessions. Students who received EFT showed significantly less depression than the control group when evaluated three weeks later.
3. In a study of 100 veterans with severe PTSD¹⁰ (Iraq Vets Stress Project),¹¹ after just six one-hour EFT sessions, 90 percent of the veterans had such a reduction in symptoms that they no longer met the clinical criteria for PTSD; 60 percent no longer met PTSD criteria after only three EFT sessions. At the three-month follow-up, the gains remained stable, suggesting lasting and potentially permanent resolution of the problem.

Red Flags: Is Someone You Know Suicidal?

If someone close to you has recently endured a hardship, or you have noticed a change in their behavior, how can you tell when ordinary stress or sadness has progressed to a potentially suicidal level? Besides straightforward or “sideways” comments about not wanting to live any longer, some of the red flags that a person has a high risk for self-harm include:

Acquiring a weapon	Hoarding medication	No plan for the future
Putting affairs in order	Making or changing a will	Giving away personal belongings
Mending grievances	Checking on insurance policies	Withdrawing from people

 

If you think someone is suicidal, do not leave him or her alone. Most suicide attempts are expressions of extreme distress, not harmless bids for attention. A person who appears suicidal needs immediate professional help. Help the person to seek immediate assistance from their doctor or the nearest hospital emergency room, or call 911. Eliminate access to firearms or other potential suicide aids, including unsupervised access to medications.

Are You, or Someone You Know Currently Struggling With Depression or Feeling Suicidal?

If you are feeling desperate or have any thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a toll-free number 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or call 911, or simply go to your nearest Hospital Emergency Department.

I know firsthand that depression and suicide is devastating. It takes a toll on the healthiest of families and can destroy lifelong friendships. Few things are harder in life than losing someone you love, especially to suicide.

It’s impossible to impart the will to live to somebody who no longer possesses it. No amount of logic, reasoning, or reminders about all they have to live for will put a smile back on the face of a loved one who is seriously contemplating suicide.

If you are currently the one struggling in a dark place, realize that oftentimes you cannot change your circumstances. You can, however, change your response to them. I encourage you to be balanced in your life. Don’t ignore your body’s warning signs that something needs to change. Sometimes people are so busy taking care of everybody else that they lose sight of taking care of themselves. Know that it’s okay to take care of yourself. Putting yourself last is a serious mistake, as you need to find ways to “refill” and replenish your own energy stores or else you’ll eventually burn out.

There really are no easy answers—especially when the troubles are related to crumbling finances, joblessness, or tumultuous family- and living situations. So many seem to be suffering these days; emotional and mental pain really is epidemic. Knowing that others are suffering as well can be helpful to a degree, but overall, it may only add to the sum total of ones misery and adding to the feeling that there’s no hope… One of the most effective ways of being supportive is perhaps to simply allow yourself to reach out and try to truly connect with the person who is suffering—even if it’s a virtual stranger. Sometimes, having someone look you in the eye and asking you how you are, and really meaning it, can be the lifeline needed in that moment…

Long-Term Strategies for Improving Your Mental Health

You can’t make long-term plans for lifestyle changes when you are in a crisis, so clearly, the following recommendations are not meant to get you out of an acute situation. Rather, I invite you to take these lifestyle recommendations to heart as a preventive measure, before depression and other troubles set in. Optimizing your health may actually be one of the most important things you can do to help you make it safely through financially hard times, as faltering health in combination with poverty can lead even the most level-headed people to the limit of what they can endure.

My top tips to support positive mental health are as follows:

• Energy psychology is one of the most powerful tools for resolving emotional issues—specifically a technique called EFT. For serious problems like depression you do NOT want to perform EFT on yourself, you need to seek guidance from a skilled professional,¹² ideally someone who is also trained in conventional methods. The effectiveness of any energy psychology technique will be significantly improved if you combine it with the tips that follow.
• Dramatically decrease your consumption of sugar (particularly fructose), grains, and processed foods. (In addition to being high in sugar and grains, processed foods also contain a variety of additives that can affect your brain function and mental state, especially artificial sweeteners.)
• Adequate vitamin B12. Vitamin B12 deficiency can contribute to depression and affects one in four people.
• Optimize your vitamin D levels, ideally through regular sun exposure. Vitamin D is very important for your mood. One study found that people with the lowest levels of vitamin D were 11 times more prone to be depressed than those who had normal levels.

The best way to get vitamin D is through exposure to SUNSHINE, not swallowing a capsule. Remember, SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) is a type of depression that we know is related to sunshine deficiency, so it would make sense that the perfect way to optimize your vitamin D is through sun exposure, or a safe tanning bed if you don’t have regular access to the sun.

• Get plenty of high quality animal-based omega-3 fats. Omega-3 fats are crucial for optimal brain function and mental health, and most people don’t get enough from diet alone. So make sure you take a high-quality omega-3 fat, such as krill oil.
• Evaluate your salt intake. Sodium deficiency actually creates symptoms that are very much like those of depression. Make sure you do NOT use processed salt (regular table salt) however. You’ll want to use an all natural, unprocessed salt like Himalayan salt, which contains more than 80 different micronutrients.
• Adequate daily exercise. Exercise is one of the best-kept secrets to preventing and treating depression.
• Make sure your cholesterol levels aren’t too low for optimal mental health. I have been educating the public about the underreported, adverse effects associated with lowering cholesterol through drugs like statins for many years, but what many still do not know is that low cholesterol is linked to dramatically increased rates of suicide, as well as aggression towards others.

This increased expression of violence towards self and others may be due to the fact that low membrane cholesterol decreases the number of serotonin receptors in the brain (which is approximately 30 percent cholesterol by weight). Lower serum cholesterol concentrations therefore may contribute to decreasing brain serotonin, which not only contributes to suicidal-associated depression, but prevents the suppression of aggressive behavior and violence towards self and others.¹³

Other Related Health Posts:

• He Murdered a Friend After Taking This Best-Selling Drug
• Depressed Teens Will Face Risks as Adults
• GPs ‘poor at spotting depression’
• Doctor’s diary
• Acupuncture Relieves Indigestion

Article Source: Health And Fitness Journal
If you like all this stuff here then you can buy me a pack of cigarettes.

Cell phones, microwave ovens, wi-fi, smart meters. What do they have in common? They all emit radiation in the radiofrequency range. And they all radiate controversy. Given that these devices are set to become as commonplace as light bulbs, it is understandable that questions arise about their possible health effects. There are all sorts of allegations that exposure can trigger ailments ranging from headaches to cancer. Allegations, however, do not amount to science. And there is a lot of science to be considered.

Let’s start with the fact that an alternating current flowing through a wire generates an electromagnetic field around it. This field can be thought of as being made up of discrete bundles of energy called “photons” that are created as the electrons in the wire flow first in one direction then in the other. Photons spread out from the wire, their energy depending on the frequency with which the current changes direction. The number of photons emitted, referred to as the ‘intensity’ or ‘power” of the radiation, depends on the voltage, the current and the efficiency of the circuit to act as an antenna.

In ordinary household circuits, the direction of the current changes sixty times a second, that is, it has a frequency of 60 Hz, the unit being named after Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, the first scientist to conclusively prove the existence of electromagnetic waves. The photons emitted by such a circuit travel through space and have the capacity to induce a 60Hz current in any conducting material they encounter. Essentially, we have a “transmitter” and a “receiver.” If special circuitry is used to produce current in the range of 10 million (10MHz) to 300 billion Hz (300 GHz), the photons emitted are said to be in the radiofrequency region of the electromagnetic spectrum. That’s because with appropriate modulation at the transmitter (amplitude modulation (AM), or frequency modulation (FM)) these photons can induce a current in an antenna that can be converted into sounds or images.

But what happens when photons in this energy range interact with living tissue, such as our bodies? The greatest concern would be the breaking of bonds between atoms in molecules. Disrupting the molecular framework of proteins, fats and particularly nucleic acids can lead to all sorts of problems, including cancer. However, photons associated with radiofrequencies do not have enough energy to do this, no matter what their intensity. An analogy may be in order.

Consider a weather vane sitting on a roof. It is mounted on a sturdy metal rod, but of course can spin. You decide you want to knock it off the roof, but all you have are tennis balls. You start throwing the balls, but even if you hit the support, nothing happens. You just can’t impart enough energy to the ball to have it break a metal rod. And it doesn’t matter if you gather all your friends, and they all throw balls at the same time. You may have increased the “intensity” of your efforts, but it doesn’t matter, because no ball has enough energy. Of course if you had a cannon, you could knock down the target with one shot. That’s why high energy photons such as generated by very high frequency currents, as in x-rays, are dangerous. They can break chemical bonds! While you are not going to damage the weather vane with the tennis balls, you can surely make it spin, and the friction generated will heat up the base, the extent depending on how many balls are thrown.

Now, back to our photons. In the radiofrequency region, no photon has enough energy to break chemical bonds, but they can make molecules move around, generating heat. The more photons released, the greater the heating effect. This is exactly how microwave ovens work. They operate at radiofrequencies, but at a very high intensity or “power” level, meaning they bombard the food with lots of photons causing the food to heat up. You certainly wouldn’t want to crawl into a working microwave oven and close the door behind you. Similarly, you wouldn’t want to stand right next to a high power radio transmitting antenna, such as used by radio or TV stations, because you could get burned very badly. But the number of photons encountered drops very quickly with distance as they spread out in all directions, so that even standing a few meters from the base of such an antenna would not cause any sensation of heat. Just think of how quickly the heat released by a light bulb drops off with distance.

The “smart meters” that are being installed by electrical utilities monitor the use of electricity and relay the information via a built-in radio transmitter. But the radiation to which people are exposed from these meters quickly drops off with distance, as with the light bulb, and is way below established safety limits. Furthermore, the smart meters only transmit for a few milliseconds at a time for a grand total of a few minutes a day! Cordless phones, cell phones, routers, baby monitors, video game controls and especially operating microwave ovens expose us to similar radiation, usually at far higher levels. Smart meters are responsible for a very small drop in the radiofrequency photon bucket.

It must be pointed out, though, that safety standards are essentially based on the heating of tissues. But what about the possibility of “non-thermal” effects? What if radiofrequency photons cause damage by some other mysterious mechanism? Over the last 30 years more than 25,000 peer-reviewed papers have been published on electromagnetic fields and health, many devoted to non-thermal effects. Health agencies do not find present evidence persuasive of a hazard at ordinary exposure levels, and given the extent of research that has been carried out, it is unlikely that one will be identified in the future.

Although an overwhelming number of studies on cell phones and brain cancer have shown no effect, admittedly some have suggested a barely detectable link. Despite the weak evidence, the International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified electromagnetic fields associated with radiofrequencies as “possibly carcinogenic,” indicating a level of suspicion without any implication that the fields actually cause cancer. This notion pertains to cell phone use and has nothing to do with the far weaker fields associated with wi-fi and smart meters. I would have no issue with a smart meter in my house.

What then about those consumers who claim they have developed symptoms after smart meters were installed? I think it is appropriate to consider John Milton’s poetic view of the power of imagination: “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven.”

***

Joe Schwarcz, Ph.D., is the Director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society and teaches a variety of courses in McGill’s Chemistry Department and in the Faculty of Medicine with emphasis on health issues, including aspects of “Alternative Medicine”.  He is well known for his informative and entertaining public lectures on topics ranging from the chemistry of love to the science of aging.  Using stage magic to make scientific points is one of his specialties.

Other Related Health Posts:

• Warning: Cell Phones May Trigger ADHD and Other Behavior Problems
• FDA Suppressed Imaging Safety Concerns
• Sunny Health & Fitness Foot Massager
• Comparative Effectiveness Research: More Can Be Less
• More Dangerous Than Drinking and Driving

Article Source: Health And Fitness Journal
If you like all this stuff here then you can buy me a pack of cigarettes.

By Dr. Mercola

One in four teens has misused a prescription drug at least once in their lifetime, according to new survey results from the partnership at Drugfree.org and the MetLife Foundation.¹

This represents a 33 percent increase in the past five years!

Among one of the most commonly abused class of drugs are stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall, of which one in eight teens (13 percent) said they had taken even though it wasn’t prescribed to them.

Prescription drugs don’t hold the same stigma as illegal recreational drugs, even though they can be just as deadly, leading teens to regard them as a “safe” way to get high.

In many cases, parents only add to this assumption, not only because they may take multiple prescription drugs themselves but also, as the survey reported, because close to one-third of parents believe prescription stimulants can improve their teen’s academic performance.

One in Six Parents Believe Prescription Drugs Give a Safer “High” Than Street Drugs

Another shocking belief held by one in six parents was that using prescription drugs to get high is safer than using street drugs. This might explain why 86 percent of teens said their parents had not talked to them about the risks of abusing prescription drugs. In fact, it’s often the parents’ own medicine cabinets that become their children’s “drug dealers” …

Some teens even describe having “skittles parties,”² where they combine a mix of pills they took from their parent’s medicine cabinet into one big bowl, then take a few just for fun.

Sadly, some teens pay for this one “bad” decision with their lives. Drug fatalities more than doubled among teens and young adults between 2000 and 2008, and these drug-induced fatalities are not being driven by illegal street drugs.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the most commonly abused prescription drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma now cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.³ As written in the Baltimore Sun:⁴

“According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, prescription drugs are second to marijuana as the drug of choice for today’s teens. In fact, seven of the top 10 drugs used by 12th-graders were prescription drugs.

More than 40 percent of high school seniors reported that painkillers are “fairly” or “very” easy to get. They also reported that they believed that if they were to get caught, there was less shame attached to the use of prescription drugs than to street drugs. This mirrors the perceptions of their parents, who when queried said that they felt prescription drugs were a safer alternative to drugs typically sold by a drug dealer.”

There’s Nothing “Safe” About Prescription Drug Abuse

If you have a teenager or pre-teen in your life that you care about, please make it a point to sit down and talk to them about the dangers of taking prescription drugs just “for fun.” Far from being “safer” than illegal street drugs, they can sometimes kill in just one pill.

Be sure to let them in on this simple fact: in many cases there’s no difference between a recreational street drug and a prescription drug. For example, hydrocodone, a prescription opiate, is synthetic heroin. It’s indistinguishable from any other heroine as far as your brain and body is concerned. So, if you’re hooked on hydrocodone, you are in fact a good-old-fashioned heroin addict.

Worse, pain-killing drugs like fentanyl are actually 100 times more potent than natural opioids like morphine, making the addictive potential and side effects associated with prescription drug use much higher. Among the most commonly abused prescription medications, along with their risks, which you can share with your teen, include:

Opioids (Painkillers)

Morphine, codeine, oxycodone, hydrocodone and fentanyl all fall into this category. These drugs are not only addictive, they can lead to slowed breathing and death if too much is taken.

Stimulants

These include drugs such as Ritalin, Concerta and Adderall (the latter of which actually contains amphetamine, known and sold on the street as “speed” or “crank”), which are often used to teat ADHD, narcolepsy and even sometimes depression. Along with being highly addictive, stimulants sometimes lead to feelings of hostility and paranoia, along with risks like irregular heartbeat, heart failure and seizures.

When a stimulant is combined with another medication, such as an over-the-counter cold medicine that contains a decongestant, it can cause dangerously high blood pressure or irregular heart rhythms.

Depressants

Used to treat anxiety and sleep disorders, medications such as Valium, Xanax, Ambien, and Sonata are also addictive, and cause side effects like confusion, drowsiness and impaired coordination. This can be especially risky among teens if they then get behind the wheel to drive, as it increases the risk of accidents. Further, if these drugs are combined with alcohol or pain medications, the results can be deadly.

In the Popular Science infographic above,⁵ you can see rankings of some of the deadliest drugs in the US, according to data from the CDC. What is striking about this graphic is not only the steady rise in drug-related deaths, but also the fact that close to 60 percent of the drug overdose deaths involve pharmaceutical drugs such as opioids (oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone), anti-anxiety drugs, antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs – the very same drugs often preferred by teens for a “safer” high.

Politicians are Worried About Soda … but What About Prescription Drugs?

Soda taxes and other measures to lower soda consumption is a hot topic among politicians. Obviously, helping teens to drink less soda is an admirable and important public health goal, but what about the abuse of prescription drugs? One American dies every 19 minutes from an accidental prescription drug overdose,⁶ a phenomenon now being described as “the biggest man-made epidemic in the United States.”⁷ Yet, this is a soaring public health epidemic that receives far too little attention from the media and lawmakers alike.

Unfortunately, we’re living in an era when the drug industry is praised and revered for their “life-saving” medications, when in reality even their proper use often takes lives unnecessarily. Drugs are known to cause well over 125,000 deaths per year in the US when taken correctly as prescribed – and still the FDA allows fast-track approvals and countless new additions of poorly tested drugs to the marketplace that must later be withdrawn due to their lethal consequences.

This “FDA approval” makes teens believe that taking a few pills here and there is no big deal, and parents add to this flawed belief by often giving medications to their kids when they’re not really necessary – a practice that often starts at a very young age.

Nearly Half of Parents Give Cold Meds to Kids When They Shouldn’t

In children under the age of 4, common over-the-counter cough and cold medications can lead to allergic reactions, increased heart rate, slow breathing, confusion, hallucinations, drowsiness, sleeplessness, convulsions, nausea and constipation. This is why, since 2008, labels on these drugs state that they’re not intended for children under 4. Yet, according to a new survey, the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health, more than 40 percent of US parents give these cough and cold medications to their children aged 3 and younger.⁸

There is a common perception that if you’re coughing, sneezing or have a low-grade fever, you must take a medication to get rid of it. In reality, coughing and sneezing are tools your body uses to get rid of viruses and irritants, and fever also helps to kill bacteria and viruses.

So if you take a drug to stop these natural protections, you are actually stopping your body’s healing process — and in the long run it will likely take you even longer to feel better. That, combined with the serious risks these drugs can pose to children, makes a strong case against their use … yet many parents still reach for such medications at the first hint of a sniffle. For kids, this sends the message that drugs are necessary to make you “feel better” – a belief they may keep when they reach their teenage years …

Novartis Drug Company Being Sued for Illegal Kickback Scheme

You probably wouldn’t trust that a drug dealer on the street had your best interests at heart … you would assume they’re mostly interested in making a profit. But make no mistake – the leading pharmaceutical companies are also among the largest corporate criminals in the world, behaving as if they are little more than white-collar drug dealers.

In one of the most recent examples, the US government sued the drug company Novartis for giving pharmacies discounts and rebates to switch kidney transplant patients from competitors’ drugs to their own anti-rejection drug Myfortic. Medicare and Medicaid reportedly paid tens of millions of dollars in reimbursements to the pharmacies as a result of the illegal kickback scheme, which has reportedly been going on since 2005.

This is not an isolated incident, either. A 2010 study analyzed trends in criminal and civil actions against drug companies, and revealed that the drug industry is the biggest defrauder of the federal government under the False Claims Act.⁹ Despite stiffer financial penalties, criminal activity has increased dramatically in recent years. These white-collar criminals are the same ones behind the supposedly “safe” medications sitting in your medicine cabinet; if they’re willing to defraud the federal government, what makes you think they’re not willing to defraud you, too?

12 Signs Your Teen May be Abusing Prescription Drugs

Prescription drug abuse often goes unnoticed by parents until it’s too late, so be sure to keep a close eye out for the following signs that your teen may be abusing prescription drugs:

Changes in sleeping habits or energy level	Changes in mood or personality	Changes in personal hygiene or appearance
Changes in friends	Loss of appetite	Changes in grades or dedication to schoolwork
Constricted eye pupils (“pinpoint pupils”), which may be a sign of opiate use	Poor decision making	Restlessness or impulsive behavior
Missing medications around your home	Loss of interest in activities, sports, etc.	Sudden weight loss

 

If you notice these signs or otherwise suspect that your teen may be abusing prescription drugs, talk to them immediately about the dangers and seek professional help if necessary.

Other Related Health Posts:

• More Proof Cholesterol Lowering Drugs Are Useless
• Drug Firm Agrees to Pay One Billion Dollars in Major Scandal
• Why have Antipsychotic Prescriptions in Children Skyrocketed?
• Woman Faces Murder Charges After Newborn Son Dies From Methamphetamine Intoxication
• Why Do Doctors, Nurses Often Use Holistic Medicine for Themselves?

Article Source: Health And Fitness Journal
If you like all this stuff here then you can buy me a pack of cigarettes.