January 20, 2009
FRIDAY, Jan. 16 (HealthDay News) — Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia appear to share common genetic causes, a new, far-reaching Swedish study concludes.
In analyzing three decades of generational information on 2 million families in Sweden, researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm found that blood relatives of people with either mental disorder had a notably higher risk of developing bipolar disorder or schizophrenia during their lives, compared to the general population. Read More
October 6, 2008
MONDAY, Oct. 6 (Health.com) — About 44% of children diagnosed with bipolar disorder continue to have symptoms of the psychiatric disease in adulthood, according to the first study to follow such children over time.
The study supports the idea that children can indeed get bipolar disorder, once a controversial diagnosis thought to occur only in adults. Although the details are still murky, most psychiatrists now agree that children can have the disease.
In adults, bipolar disease is characterized by dramatic mood swings, from depression to mania. In children, experts don’t always agree which symptoms warrant a bipolar diagnosis, what will happen to youngsters as they age, or which treatments are most effective.
The new study answers a key question. “Do these kids with bipolar—when they grow up—get the adult form of the disease? And this paper says, ‘Yes they do,’” says study author Barbara Geller, MD, a professor of psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis. Read More
September 3, 2008
TUESDAY, Sept. 2 (HealthDay News) — The older the father, the greater his child’s risk for bipolar disorder.
That’s the conclusion of a new study by Swedish researchers who compared 13,428 people with bipolar disorder to more than 67,000 people without the condition.
“After controlling for parity (number of children), maternal age, socioeconomic status and family history of psychotic disorders, the offspring of men 55 years and older were 1.37 times more likely to be diagnosed as having bipolar disorder than the offspring of men aged 20 to 24 years,” wrote Emma M. Frans, of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and colleagues. Read More
June 5, 2008
THURSDAY, June 5 (HealthDay News) — Teens with bipolar disorder are at greater risk of smoking and substance abuse, says a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) study that supports previous research. Read More
April 25, 2008
FRIDAY, April 25 (HealthDay News) — There’s not enough scientific evidence to determine whether omega-3 fatty acid supplements can help treat people with bipolar disorder, say researchers at the University of Oxford in England.
People with bipolar disorder can shift between mania (elevated mood and energy) and depression. However, the use of omega-3 supplements to treat bipolar disorder is worthy of further study, since they seem to have no serious side effects, and many experts recommend them for people with heart disease and some immune disorders, said study authors Paul Montgomery and Alex Richardson. Read More
