Interviews with members of more than 5,000 representative U.S. households as part of the National Comorbidity Survey Replication found that nearly 40 percent of those with major depressive disorder may actually have subthreshold hypomania, defined as a discrete period of increased energy, activity, and euphoria or irritability that is not related to impairment in daily activities. Hypomania is a less disruptive form of mania that lacks psychotic symptoms. The majority of patients with bipolar disorder experience hypomania, rather than mania…

NICE is currently developing a clinical guideline on the assessment and management of psychosis with co-existing substance misuse in adults and young people. As part of this process, draft recommendations have been published on the NICE website for public consultation. Psychosis is used to describe a group of severe mental health disorders characterised by the presence of delusions and hallucinations that disrupt a person’s perception, thoughts, emotions and behaviour. The main forms of psychosis are schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or other affective psychoses…

Lamictal (Lamotrigine), a medication approved by the FDA for the treatment of seizures and bipolar disorder, can cause aseptic meningitis, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has announced. Aseptic meningitis is inflammation of the meninges - the protective membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord, not caused by bacterial infection. The FDA and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the makers of the drug, are working together to update the prescribing information and patient medication guide to include this risk…

Scientists are reporting a possible explanation for the bone loss that may occur following long-term use of a medicine widely used to treat epilepsy, bipolar disorder, and other conditions. The drug, valproate, appears to reduce the formation of two key proteins important for bone strength, they said. Their study, which offers a solution to a long-standing mystery, appears in ACS’ monthly Journal of Proteome Research. Glenn Morris and colleagues point out that use of valproate, first introduced more than 40 years ago for the prevention of seizures in patients with epilepsy, has expanded…

Nearly half of patients hospitalized with bipolar disorder may suffer from hypertension, and the younger a person is diagnosed with the psychiatric condition the more likely they are to develop high blood pressure, according to a recent study. The research analyzed 99 patients hospitalized for bipolar disorder, a condition sometimes called manic-depressive disorder.

Inhibitors of GSK-3 proteins are being developed as potential therapeutics for numerous conditions, including bipolar disorder, Alzheimer disease, and diabetes. However, a team of researchers, led by Thomas Force, at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, has generated data in mice that indicate that these drugs might have adverse effects on the heart, suggesting that the risk/benefit assessment of such drugs might need to be considered carefully. In the study, mice lacking GSK-3-alpha were found to develop heart defects when they were analyzed at over 2 months of age…

A study from Rhode Island Hospital finds patients who were “over-diagnosed” with bipolar disorder were more likely to have received disability payments and for a longer period of time. The researchers propose a link between these unconfirmed cases of bipolar disorder and the receipt of the payments. Their study and findings are published in the June 2010 edition of the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. This study is based on previous work led by Mark Zimmerman, MD, director of outpatient psychiatry at Rhode Island Hospital…

This study formulates the hypothesis that rufinamide, a drug so far used against epilepsy, may also be effective in bipolar disorder, depressive and anxiety disorders, panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, and substance use disorders. It is just an hypothesis based on two cases that needs to be confirmed by specific studies. Rufinamide is a triazole derivative indicated in the USA for adjunctive treatment of seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome in children 4 years and older and adults…

A new study yields important new evidence that the use of atypical antipsychotics among the elderly for off-label purposes is associated with increased risk of developing diabetes. Atypical antipsychotics (AAs) are a group of newer-generation antipsychotic drugs that are indicated for the treatment of psychiatric conditions including schizophrenia, bipolar mania and acute mania; but are often prescribed for unapproved indications (”off-label”) by physicians…

USA Today: “On average, a seriously mentally ill person in the USA is three times more likely to be incarcerated than hospitalized, a report concludes today. In no state was a seriously mentally ill person - someone with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, for example - less likely to be incarcerated than hospitalized, the report by the National Sheriffs’ Association and the Treatment Advocacy Center found. But there were wide variations among states. In North Dakota, a seriously mentally ill person was equally likely to be hospitalized as incarcerated…