Modern Insanity: What Really Makes Us Crazy (LiveScience)

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Modern Insanity: What Really Makes Us Crazy

Robin Nixon
Special to LiveScience
LiveScience.com – Wed Jul 29, 8:33 am ET

"Last month, researchers found that schizophrenics were more likely to have been subjected to influenza in the womb than healthy individuals. Other common experiences can also drive away our wits, long after we are out of diapers.
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"In short bouts, inflammation is the body's way of protecting itself. But if prolonged, it can take a tremendous toll. Like heart disease and insulin resistance, mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, depression, autism, anxiety and bipolar disorder have all been linked to inflammation. And the prevalence of many of these illnesses has increased in lockstep with modernization, Ilardi said.
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"Many mental illnesses are recognized as a problem with brain chemistry, and therefore treated chemically with medication. But behavior also alters brain chemistry. Several primitive habits, researchers have found, may check the stress response and prevent it from making our brains sick. A program developed by Ilardi and colleagues - that helps individuals adopt the habits of cool, collected cavemen - is proving more effective in treating mental illnesses than conventional medication. "
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It's all about the inflammation? Well, ok, I guess. A linked article embedded in that article makes the opposite case that many mental health problems are actually adaptions for enhanced survival or reproduction. The linked article posits anxiety disorder as an overexpression of something that keeps you alive because it keeps you alert for danger. And bipolar disorder increases chances for reproduction. Apparently a high level of sexual activity is the payoff for bipolar disorder- they say, they say. But I will buy that any number of physical health problems are linked to inflammation and brain and body are one so there is bound to be interaction.

The end of the article gives solid advice for improving anybody's physical and mental health. Healthy diet, plenty of exercise, sleep, sunshine, and keep the big picture in mind. Also stay connected to people (post on WP, all you lurkers, it's good for you) and try not to perseverate. Staying connected to people is supposed to stop the perseveration. I have noticed a number of threads where somebody gets stuck in a loop and other posters try to bump them out of it.

I buy the inflammation/modern life premise when applied to problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. I think they are on much shakier ground tying inflammation and modern lifestyle (which also leads to inflammation) to things such as schizophrenia, anxiety or bipolar or autism. Especially when the article contains an embed link to an article saying those very things are actually adaptions to enhance the survival of the species (happiness is irrelevent to the survival of the species).

I don't think three members of three different generations of my family all were born with AS because of inflammation, or in utero lifestyle. Genetics makes a lot more sense.

Keeping slim will reduce inflammation. But an easier natural solution is turmeric. Google the terms turmeric and inflammation. I get this powder cheaply from a local middle eastern food store. Cucurmin, the active substance in turmeric, is poorly absorbed, so it is best consumed in the middle of a meal that includes fat. I consume three heaping teaspoons morning and evening.

ROFLOL.. because what men need is an excuse to act like cavemen... Bet now guys will be coming up with doctors' notes explaining that they have to act like jerks for their mental health..

I saw that article too. Inflammation is the new "thing" in pop medicine these days. Many books have been written, and a few docs have made names for themselves in the media. But the information is mostly old: balancing omega fatty acids, for instance, has been well known for over a decade.

More to the point, where is the evidence that ancient hunter/gatherer societies experienced nothing but good mental health, no neurological or psychiatric problems? To my knowledge, there is none. Since many surviving societies have stories and rituals associated with getting rid of sociopaths and other undesirables, that is evidence to the contrary.

I don't doubt that many aspects of modern life are tough on those of us on the spectrum. But my AS has been with me despite being slender, eating reasonably well, and being physically active (lots of walking since I don't like to drive).

Staying connected to people is tricky for Aspies, of course. What counts as connected? How do you stay connected if you cannot "connect" to people due to a lack of nonverbal communication skills and the other differences/deficits associated with ASDs?

I like LiveScience.com, but their articles tend to be very simplistic, and often contain important errors or omissions.

Note: for Aspies who are sensitive to salicylates, tumeric has a lot of it. Probably better to eat salmon, walnuts, or use flax oil.

Not to mention that in such societies, a lot of times people with health problems (physical or mental) just didn't survive very long. It wasn't that there were fewer sick people because people were healthier, it was that there were fewer sick people because more of them died.

For centuries anybody who was a little "odd" was burned as a witch, at least in Europe. I'm willing to bet that plenty of autistics, schizophrenics, and other neurologically disabled people ended up executed for witchcraft. In modern Africa, the same thing happens. Children who seem off will be killed as witches. For a while in some parts of Europe, women were labeled as witches after they went through menopause and were gotten rid of. Also, any baby that had obvious problems after birth would be killed or abandoned. So many autistics seem to have been "blue babies"; such infants were usually smothered or abandoned to die. Today we do all sorts of medical heroics to save blue babies. People in India have traditions of infanticide of any baby that looks like it won't make it; that's likely blunted their population increases. Westerners seem to think that every baby deserves a chance when that's just not so.

You know, I should argue with that, on principle.. but I've never in my life been glad to be alive. Not ever.

Japan and China have similar traditions, though now gone in Japan and largely confined to rural China. In the West, "cover-ups" of various sorts continue to this very day. My father told me that when he was growing up in the semi-rural Midwest, kids who committed suicide were said to have had a "gun accident" or "hunting accident". No one would say out loud what everyone apparently knew. Today we still have instances of abandoned babies and teenagers (i.e.: Nebraska and its hospital drop-off policy), so there are still a variety of ways that not everyone gets the same chance, if any chance at all.