Sunday, July 02, 2006

Bacteria, viruses and parasites may cause mental illnesses

A story seen in Newsweek

Scientists have long known that some diseases can cause behavioral problems. When penicillin was first used to treat syphilis, thousands of cured schizophrenics were released from mental asylums. Now, however, scientists have evidence that infections may play a far bigger role in mental illness than previously thought. They’ve linked cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia to a variety of infectious agents, and they’re investigating autism, Tourette’s and anorexia as well. They’re beginning to suspect that bad bugs may cause a great many other mental disorders, too. “The irony is that people talked about syphilis as the ‘great imitator’,” says University of Louisville biologist Paul Ewald, “but it may be the ‘great illustrator’—a model for understanding the causes of chronic diseases.”
This takes us back to the basic premise of psychiatry, and the fact that as more diseases are found to have legitimate treatable non-psychiatric causes, psychiatry looses business for it's big business sponsors.

It's probably makes sense to look for the actual disease first when dealing with a proposed psychiatrict disorder.

As seen in this previously linked item:

As soon as the organic disease process is identified, the claim of psychiatry on the case is largely undermined and it passes instead to neurology or another specialty.

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