:: Jun-Jul 2008

Welcome to our Monthly Online Newsletter!

View all Treatment articles in our Treatment Report . The most recent articles are listed on top (not in alphabetical order). Click on the Topic on our home page and then the subtopic - Treatment Report. Stay updated on drugs and their side effects, and various other treatments, including exercise, nutrition, and supplements.

Highlighted Article

Clinical Guidelines

Diagnostic guidelines for bipolar depression: a probabilistic approach. (Bipolar Disord. 2008)

NGC - Bipolar affective disorder. A national clinical guideline. (2005)

NGC - Management of persons with psychoses.

NGC - Practice guideline for the treatment of patients with bipolar disorder (revision). (2002)

SIGN - Bipolar affective disorder (2005)

Internet Sites

Featured site

NIH - Bipolar

NIH - Bipolar Disorder Resources

NIH - Lithium (Systemic)

NIH - Medical Encyclopedia Bipolar disorder

NIH - Medical Encyclopedia Bipolar disorder - depressed

NIH - NIMH Bipolar Disorder

Related Topics - Highlighted Articles

Depression

Reevaluating therapies for bipolar depression. (J Clin Psychiatry. 2005) "Although the antidepressant efficacy of most mood stabilizers has not been satisfactorily proven, first-line therapy with 1 mood stabilizer alone or a combination of 2 mood stabilizers is still recommended by many guidelines. Inappropriate treatment of bipolar depression may leave patients at high risk of suicide and increased chronicity of symptoms; effective therapy should, therefore, be provided as early as possible. The efficacy and safety of antidepressants for bipolar depression both as monotherapy and when combined with a mood stabilizer should be studied in adequately powered trials in order to revise treatment guidelines."

Schizophrenia

Evidence of genetic overlap of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: Linkage disequilibrium analysis of chromosome 18 in the Costa Rican population. (Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet. 2005) "The long-standing concept that schizophrenia (SC) and bipolar disorder (BP) represent two distinct illnesses has been recently challenged by findings of overlap of genetic susceptibility loci for these two diseases. We report here the results of a linkage disequilibrium (LD) analysis of chromosome 18 utilizing subjects with SC from the Central Valley of Costa Rica."

In this newsletter:

Diagnosis, Imaging, and Screening
General Information
Risk Factors
Risk Reduction

	Diagnosis, Imaging, and Screening
Abnormal Corpus Callosum Integrity in Bipolar Disorder: A Diffusion Tensor Imaging Study (Biological Psychiatry 2008) “The findings demonstrate abnormalities in the structural integrity of the anterior CC in BD that might contribute to altered interhemispheric connectivity in this disorder.“

	General Information
Bipolar Disorder: Fast Facts Huge Risk for Substance Abuse Found Among Teens With Bipolar Disorder “A case-control study in youth with bipolar disorder with a mean age of 14 years found a significantly higher risk of substance-use disorder (drug or alcohol abuse or dependence) (31%) compared with controls (4%).”

	Risk Factors

	Risk Reduction