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People who attempt suicide might show signs early on. Here’s what to watch for

Suicide is a leading cause of death among children and adults, but spotting risk factors and warning signs isn’t easy.

Nearly 46,000 people in the United States died by suicide in 2020, which is about one death every 11 minutes, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Worldwide, nearly 800,000 people die from suicide yearly, and in 2020, there were 1.2 million attempts globally.

Researchers still haven’t nailed down how to better predict who’s at risk for attempting suicide, and whether or when vulnerable people will do it, said Justin Baker, clinical director of The Suicide and Trauma Reduction Initiative for Veterans at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.

“That is extremely, extremely difficult,” he said. “You can look back in time, when someone’s made an attempt or has died, and go, ‘Oh, look at all these things that were going on in their life.’ The difficulty is that a lot of people handle or experience those types of stressors as well but never go on to (attempt suicide).”

Additionally, there isn’t always a long time frame wherein someone is considering suicide and showing signs — and there can be as little as 5 to 15 minutes between someone deciding to attempt suicide and doing it, Baker added.

“What we collectively understand is it’s an emotional dysregulation and cognitive error that occurs,” Baker said. “They can’t fix the situation, or they can’t think their way through the situation, so suicide becomes a viable option as a way to manage the pain that they’re in. So they may take action on it in that really short, brief window.”

But there are some situations wherein a person who is suicidal and planning for a longer period of time will show behavioral changes, Baker added.

“If you’re noticing that kind of stuff, obviously that’s someone who is really close to being imminent risk — someone who’s really close to making that decision to end their life,” he said. “But I would argue most people don’t get that kind of warning.”

If you think you or someone you know is at risk, trained counselors with the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline could help you work through any signs you’re experiencing or seeing. To increase its accessibility, every state began rolling out 988 as the new lifeline on July 16. The previous number, 1-800-273-8255 (TALK), will always remain available to people in emotional distress or suicidal crisis, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

In Canada: Talk Suicide Canada – Hours: Available 24/7/365 for calls; 4 PM—12 AM ET for texts; Languages: English, French  1.833.456.4566  https://talksuicide.ca/

Here are some of the most common behavioral, verbal and emotional signs and risk factors you should pay attention to, according to experts.

Warning signs of suicide

Some people might seem like their usual selves in the weeks or days leading up to a suicide attempt, while others might show behavioral changes that don’t track with what you know about them, said Michael Roeske, a clinical psychologist and senior director of the Newport Healthcare Center for Research & Innovation.

Those can include practicing or preparing for suicide, which could look like exhibiting unusual behaviors with guns, pills or other potentially lethal items, according to SAMHSA.

Other potential behavioral red flags include giving away cherished belongings, sleeping too much or too little, withdrawing or isolating oneself, showing rage or desire to enact revenge, and acting anxious or agitated, according to Roeske, Baker and SAMHSA. Getting really intoxicated one night or driving recklessly could also be signs to watch out for, Roeske said.

Such behavior might be them “testing themselves to see if they can actually do it,” Baker said. “A lot of times people need to kind of work up to that actual making an attempt because it’s a biologic thing you have to go against, your own survival.”

Concerning comments

Talking about wanting to die — by suicide or otherwise — is another warning sign that should always be taken seriously, Roeske said. Such comments are sometimes just expressions of discomfort, pain, boredom or desire for closeness rather than a reflection of actually wanting to die, but that doesn’t mean you don’t monitor the person who’s making them, he added.

Some people might say they feel like they have no reason to live. “If someone is struggling to come up with a reason for living, that’s a much higher-risk person than someone who’s even able to identify one (reason),” Baker said.

Others talk about feeling like a burden on those close to them, Roeske said, or like they don’t belong anywhere or with anyone. Such comments might include “You don’t need me for this anymore” or “I feel like it’d be better if I just wasn’t here.” Teenagers considering suicide might not want their guardians to use their money for college, he added.

Suicide

Mood and other risk factors

Psychological factors, distressing situations or genetics can increase the likelihood of someone considering, attempting or dying by suicide, according to SAMHSA. These risk factors can’t cause or predict a suicide attempt, but being aware of them is important, according to SAMHSA:

  • Hopelessness. “They don’t have a sense of the future getting better, or they just feel really unable to imagine not being in the pain that they’re in,” Roeske said.
  • Extreme mood swings. This includes if someone who’s usually really stressed or depressed suddenly seems calm or cheery, according to Roeske and Johns Hopkins Medicine. This person might have decided to attempt suicide without telling anyone, and they feel relieved by that. Also indicative of this is cheeriness after a depressive episode.
  • Obsession with death or lethal means. Some people have artistic or musical interests that are more grim than others, but if their engagement with those things surpasses what’s normal for them, that would be concerning, Roeske said.
  • Experiences of abuse, neglect or other traumas
  • Substance abuse problems
  • Mental disorders such as schizophrenia, depression or anxiety, and personality disorders, especially coupled with lack of treatment
  • Severe physical illnesses, including chronic pain. “Especially if it’s sort of recalcitrant and very difficult to treat, people can become very hopeless,” Roeske said. “It’s really just, ‘I don’t want to feel this anymore and I can’t find any other way. I feel trapped.’”
  • Family or personal history of suicide. “The greatest predictor of completed suicide is past suicide attempts — the reason being is because you’ll see an escalation in lethality, or the means by which someone does it,” Roeske said.
  • Job or financial loss
  • Relationship problems or loss
  • Loss of interest in activities or school
  • Prolonged stress from other causes, such as harassment or bullying
  • Easy access to potentially fatal means
  • Exposure to a suicide or to graphic or sensationalized accounts of suicide. “On the one hand, we don’t want people to shy away from the topic of suicide. We want people to approach and even use the word with others and have discussions around it,” Roeske said. But if a depiction or account gratuitously romanticizes or justifies the sense of relief that might be garnered from suicide, that’s problematic.
  • Insufficient social support or sense of isolation

How to help someone who is suicidal

If any of these signs resonate with you, seek professional help and talk with someone you can trust and feel supported by, Baker said. Psychotherapy and certain psychiatric medications, such as antidepressants, can help, Roeske said.

If a loved one is showing signs they might be at risk of suicide, “it’s not really your job to be able to predict the future,” Baker said. But you can be supportive and intentional about asking them what’s going on, Roeske and Baker said.

“You’re not going to cause someone to be suicidal by asking directly about suicide,” Baker said. “The worst they’re going to say is ‘no’ and not get offended. If they are, still ask them. I’d rather have someone offended at me than dead.”

When checking on someone, use what experts call a narrative, person-centered approach, Baker recommended. That might look like an open-ended question: “Hey, I’ve noticed life’s gotten overwhelming these past couple days. Do you want to tell me about it?”

As the person responds, you can, to some extent, listen, express appreciation for them sharing their story and offer to help figure it out together, without offering advice on how to handle it, Baker said. But if your loved one seems more at risk or in the process of attempting suicide, “you no longer have time or the luxury to get their opinion,” he added. Get medical care or call 911.

When Roeske first started working as a clinician, he had a young female patient who was a very accomplished equestrian, went to a prestigious school and had a lot of family resources, he said — but she had been chronically suicidal for 10 to 15 years, since she was a teenager.

“Every time she would go to her mom and tell her that, her mom would (say things like) ‘Oh, you’re so beautiful. Look at how you are with the horses,’” Roeske said. “And (the patient) said, ‘What it felt like was Mom was afraid of what I was saying and needed to distance herself from it.’

She said that therapists would do the same thing — you know, ‘create a positive gratitude list or correct your cognitive distortions.’ Finally, there was a psychiatrist that looked at her as she said, ‘I think I’m going to kill myself.’ And the psychiatrist said, ‘I think you might, too.’ And she said it was the first time someone was willing to be in there with her.”

When talking with someone who’s suicidal, you might want to tell them all the wonderful reasons why they should stay alive, Roeske said — but that can actually make them feel more lonely.

If you’re concerned about someone who lives in your household, mitigate opportunities to attempt suicide by restricting access to or removing potentially lethal items such as firearms or pills, Roeske said. Just hiding a gun isn’t a sufficient precaution, experts have said.

Unfortunately, “we are no better able to predict who will die by suicide than who will be in a car accident,” Baker said. “This does not help to alleviate the grief or pain for those who have lost loved ones to suicide, but hopefully it helps remove some of the guilt and responsibility.”

CNN’s Jacqueline Howard contributed to this story, which was updated from a story originally published in September.

By Kristen Rogers, CNN   December 15, 2022

Editor’s Note: If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 (or 800-273-8255) to connect with a trained counselor or visit the NSPL site.

In Canada: Talk Suicide Canada – Hours: Available 24/7/365 for calls; 4 PM—12 AM ET for texts; Languages: English, French  1.833.456.4566  https://talksuicide.ca/

source: www.cnn.com


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Study finds folic acid treatment is associated with decreased risk of suicide attempts

The common, inexpensive supplement was linked with a 44% reduction in suicide attempts and self-harm.

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the US, with more than 45,000 people dying by suicide in 2020. Experts recommend many strategies and treatments to decrease the risk of suicide, including psychotherapy, peer support, economic support, and medications like antidepressants. Few if any would be likely to put folic acid supplements on that list, but a recent study done at the University of Chicago may change that.

The study, published in JAMA Psychiatry on September 28th, used data from the health insurance claims of 866,586 patients and looked at the relationship between folic acid treatment and suicide attempts over a two-year period. They found that patients who filled prescriptions for folic acid, also known as vitamin B9, experienced a 44% reduction in suicidal events (suicide attempts and intentional self-harm). Robert Gibbons, PhD, the Blum-Riese Professor of Biostatistics and Medicine at the University of Chicago, the lead author of the study, is hopeful that these findings could improve suicide prevention efforts, especially because of how accessible folic acid is.

“There are no real side effects, it doesn’t cost a lot of money, you can get it without a prescription,” Gibbons said. “This could potentially save tens of thousands of lives.”

Gibbons initially became interested in folic acid in the context of suicide because of a previous study in which his group looked for relationships between risk of attempting suicide and 922 different prescribed drugs. The study simultaneously screened each drug for associations with increases and decreases in suicide attempts. Surprisingly, folic acid was associated with a decreased risk of suicide attempt, along with drugs expected to be associated with risk of suicide, like antidepressants, anxiolytics, and antipsychotics.

This could potentially save tens of thousands of lives.

Robert Gibbons, PhD

One of the challenges of this earlier study was to analyze the effects of many drugs in a large-scale data set, which is difficult. Many people take more than one drug, and drugs can have different effects when taken together than when taken alone. It can also be difficult to get meaningful results from studies like these that look for relationships in large data sets because of confounding factors, which can cause two variables in a study, like suicide and a drug, to seem to have a direct causal relationship with each other. Sometimes, these are actually both related to a confounding factor, such as socioeconomic status or health-conscious attitudes, or because they are prescribed for a condition that is associated with suicide (e.g. depression). But Gibbons and his group were able to partially eliminate these complications by comparing subjects to themselves before and after being prescribed a drug, instead of comparing subjects who did and did not take the drug to one another.

In fact, they initially thought folic acid had only shown up in their study because of a simple explanation, but that turned out not to be the case. “When we first saw this result, we thought it was pregnancy. Pregnant women take folic acid, and pregnant women tend to have a low suicide rate, so it’s just a false association. So, we just did a quick analysis to restrict it to men. But we saw exactly the same effect in men,” Gibbons said.

To investigate and further confirm the relationship between folic acid and suicide risk, Gibbons and his co-authors did this new study and focused specifically on folic acid, and accounted for many possible confounding factors, including age, sex, mental health diagnoses, other central nervous system drugs, conditions that affect folic acid metabolism, and more. Even after adjusting for all these factors, filling a prescription for folic acid was still associated with a decreased risk of attempting suicide.

They even found that the longer a person took folic acid, the lower their risk of suicide attempt tended to be. Each month of being prescribed folic acid was associated with an additional 5% decrease in risk of suicide attempt during the 24-month follow-up period of their study.

It also occurred to the authors that maybe people who take vitamin supplements in general want to improve their health and would thus be less likely to attempt suicide. To address this possibility, they did a similar analysis with another supplement, vitamin B12, as a negative control. But unlike folic acid, there didn’t seem to be any relationship between vitamin B12 and risk of suicide.

Although Gibbons and his co-authors were careful to adjust for confounding factors, they cannot yet say for sure whether the relationship between folic acid and suicidal events is causal; that is, they don’t yet know if taking folic acid will directly cause a person’s risk of suicide to become lower. To know for sure, the authors are following up this study with a large-scale randomized controlled trial (RCT) to test whether folic acid directly lowers the risk of suicidal events, including ideation, attempts and completion. This will involve randomly splitting subjects into two groups, giving a placebo to one group and folic acid to the other and comparing the rate of suicidal events over time.

If their findings are confirmed in the new research, folic acid would be a safe, inexpensive, and widely available suicide prevention strategy, and potentially help save thousands of lives.

September 28, 2022

By Lily Burton
PhD candidate in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics

source: https://biologicalsciences.uchicago.edu

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Why Suicide Is More Than A Mental Health Issue

Suicide prevention efforts shift towards improving mental health of everyone

Renowned chef Anthony Bourdain has been found dead in France while working on CNN program. He’s part of an age cohort with rising suicide rates in the U.S. (Frank Gunn/Canadian Press)
The deaths this week of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and designer Kate Spade come at at a time when new numbers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show suicide is on the rise.

The CDC said suicide rates in the U.S. increased more than 30 per cent between 1999 and 2016. The reasons for the rise are complicated and multidimensional.

“Suicide is more than a mental health issue,” Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC, told reporters on Thursday.

“We don’t think we can just leave this to the mental health system to manage.”

Multiple circumstances

Bourdain took his own life, CNN said Friday. New York City’s chief medical examiner ruled that Spade’s death earlier this week was also a suicide.

Spade’s husband and business partner, Andy Spade, said she suffered from depression and anxiety for many years, but was seeing a doctor regularly and taking medication.

In its Vital Signs report, the CDC said that nearly 45,000 Americans died by their own hand in 2016. The latest U.S. data suggests in 54 per cent of completed suicides, there were no known mental health conditions.

In a sampling of 27 states, relationship problems were considered a contributing factor in 42 per cent of all suicides in 2015. “Problematic substance use” was listed in 28 per cent of cases.

Even so, the CDC acknowledges that poor mental health isn’t always easy to detect. The agency said there could be a number of reasons why the reported level of mental illness could underestimate its actual effect, including:

  • Not all illnesses are formally diagnosed.
  • Stigma still surrounds a diagnosis.
  • Loved ones might not have been aware of a mental health condition.

 

‘Disturbing’ age findings

Bourdain and Spade died at 61 and 55, respectively — an age cohort with strikingly high suicide rates in the U.S., according to the CDC.

“Middle-aged adults had the largest number of suicides and a particularly high increase in suicide rates. These findings are disturbing,” said Schuchat.

Patrick Smith, CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association in Toronto, said he isn’t aware of a similar increase among that age group in Canada. But he said Bourdain and Spade’s deaths show that high-profile status is no bulwark against depression and other mental illnesses.

“Someone doesn’t say, ‘Wow, they had everything. I can’t believe they got cancer.’ But we still say that about suicide or depression,” said Smith.

“That’s really the societal challenge — to try to understand that depression and other mental illnesses can be found in every postal code and every income bracket.”

In the U.S., middle-aged adults also have higher rates of drug overdoses, Schuchat said. She pointed to emerging social science research suggesting increases in suicide correlate with “deaths of despair” among middle-age populations who may be harder hit by economic downturns.

suicide

 

The need for intervention

Suicide ranked as the ninth-leading cause of death in Canada in 2009, the last year for which numbers are available, and is the 10th-leading cause of death overall in the U.S.

In both countries, suicide prevention efforts are shifting toward meeting people’s needs before they reach crisis. Just as doctors don’t wait until cancer reaches stage 4 to intervene, Smith said experience in the U.K. shows that after community-based programs to provide support to people in workplaces and schools were introduced, prison populations were reduced and there was a dramatic drop in emergency room visits.

In countries with more community support, rates of feeling suicidal will be similar, Smith said, but there’s a better chance of having lower suicide rates.

Everyone has to take care of their mental health and the goal is to normalize conversations to improve and enhance it, Smith said.

Bourdain spoke to CBC last year about some of the psychological challenges he faced separating from his second wife and missing his daughter while travelling the globe for his show Parts Unknown. He’d also talked about his struggles with mental health and a history of drug use.

The CDC recommends teaching children, teens and adults coping and problem-solving skills, building social connections and maintaining dialogue. The agency also encourages safe storage of pills and guns.

Where to get help:

Canada Suicide Prevention Service

Toll-free 1-833-456-4566

Text: 45645

Chat: crisisservicescanada.ca

In French: Association québécoise de prévention du suicide: 1-866-APPELLE (1-866-277-3553)

Kids Help Phone:  1-800-668-6868 (Phone), Live Chat counselling at www.kidshelpphone.ca

Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention: Find a 24-hour crisis centre

If you’re worried someone you know may be at risk of suicide, you should talk to them about it, says the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention.

Here are some warning signs:

    • Suicidal thoughts.
    • Substance abuse.
    • Purposelessness.
    • Anxiety.
    • Feeling trapped.
    • Hopelessness and helplessness.
    • Withdrawal.
    • Anger.
    • Recklessness.
    • Mood changes.
CBC News      Jun 08, 2018
With files from CBC’s Amina Zafar and Associated Press
source: www.cbc.ca
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Study focuses on precipitating circumstances of suicide in children and early adolescents

Study focuses on precipitating circumstances of suicide in children and early adolescents

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suicide was the 10th leading cause of death for children ages 5 to 11 in 2014. This was the first time suicide had shown up in the CDC’s top ten leading causes of death for children in this age group.

A recent study from Arielle Sheftall, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital demonstrates that some individual characteristics and precipitating circumstances may be more prominent in children who die by suicide compared with early adolescents who die by suicide. It is the first study to exclusively focus on precipitating circumstances of suicide in children and early adolescents, defined as ages 5 to 14.

“Children who died by suicide were more likely to have relationship problems with family members or friends whereas early adolescents were more likely to have boyfriend or girlfriend relationship problems,” said Dr. Sheftall, first author of the study. “These differences tended to fall along developmental lines given elementary school-aged children are more likely to spend time with family and friends and less likely to engage in romantic relationships, which become more common during adolescence.”

A current mental health problem was present in approximately 33 percent of decedents in the study sample. Among this group, a diagnosis of ADD or ADHD was more common in children who died by suicide compared to early adolescent decedents, who were more likely to be affected by depression or dysthymia.

Dr. Sheftall and her colleagues used the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) and analyzed suicide deaths from 2003 to 2012 in 17 different states, segregating them by age group. The NVDRS database is unique in its inclusion of information from multiple sources including medical examiners and law enforcement reports. This allows more in-depth information to be gathered concerning personal, familial, and social factors surrounding a child’s death.

suicide

“We also found that 29 percent of children and early adolescents disclosed their intention for suicide to someone prior to their death,” says Dr. Sheftall. “Our study highlights the importance of educating pediatricians, primary health care providers, school personnel and families on how to recognize the warning signs of suicide and what steps to take when suicidal intent is disclosed. These warning signs include a child making suicidal statements, being unhappy for an extended period, withdrawing from friends or school activities or being increasingly aggressive or irritable.”

Research indicates that the use of suicide risk screening tools by pediatricians increases the detection of suicide risk in youth 400 percent without overburdening clinical care. Not only do pediatricians potentially see at-risk children on a regular basis, early detection allows the healthcare providers an opportunity to alert parents of potential risks and increases the likelihood of a child receiving mental health services in a timely fashion.

“Although suicide is extremely rare in elementary school-aged children, parents should be aware that children can and sometimes do think about suicide,” says Jeff Bridge, PhD, director of the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and co-author of the study. “It is important to ask children directly about suicide if there is a safety concern. Research has refuted the notion that asking children directly about suicide will trigger suicidal thinking or behavior. It does not hurt to ask. In fact, asking about suicide leads to hope for at-risk youth.”

The report also notes a recent increase in suicide rates among black children. Suicide by hanging, strangulation or suffocation was more common among black decedents in both age groups. More research is needed to establish whether unique patterns of suicide risk exist, so that prevention efforts might incorporate diverse strategies according to the children’s developmental level, race or ethnicity. The research team is currently investigating the best ways to screen young people for suicide risk in healthcare settings and make treatment recommendations to keep those youth identified as being at risk safe.

September 19, 2016
Source:  Nationwide Children’s Hospital   www.news-medical.net


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Here’s How To Cut High School Suicide Attempts 23%

Regular exercise for high school students can reduce suicide by 23%, a new study finds.

Exercise had a beneficial effect on both suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts.

The study is the first to show that exercise can help students who are being bullied.

Dr Jeremy Sibold, who led the research, said:

“I was surprised that it was that significant and that positive effects of exercise extended to kids actually trying to harm themselves.
Even if one kid is protected because we got them involved in an after-school activity or in a physical education program it’s worth it.”

The US survey of 13,583 high school students found that physical activity on four or more days was linked to a 23% reduction in suicidal ideation and attempts.

bullying sad teen child depression
Bullied high school students three times as likely to think about suicide.

The survey also revealed that:

  • 30% of students reported feeling sad for two or more weeks over the past year.
  • 22% reported suicidal thoughts.
  • 8.2% reported suicide attempts.

Bullied students were twice as likely to report sadness and three times as likely to think about suicide or try to act on those thoughts.

Suicide Awareness

Despite the benefits of exercise, many school administrators across the US are cutting physical education.

Currently only around half of young people in the US meet minimum standards for exercise (at least 60 minutes per day).

Dr Sibold said:

“It’s scary and frustrating that exercise isn’t more ubiquitous and that we don’t encourage it more in schools.
Instead, some kids are put on medication and told ‘good luck.’
If exercise reduces sadness, suicide ideation, and suicide attempts, then why in the world are we cutting physical education programs and making it harder for students to make athletic teams at such a critical age?”

The research was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (Sibold et al., 2015).
source: PsyBlog


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Are ‘Cat Ladies’ More Likely to Attempt Suicide?

By Alexandra Sifferlin       July 3, 2012

Women who are infected with the common cat parasite Toxoplasma gondii may be more vulnerable to suicide, a new study finds, adding to the evidence that T. gondii or Toxo, as the bug is known, may cause subtle changes in the human brain that lead to personality changes and even mental illness.
The parasite is excreted in cat feces — which is why pregnant women are advised not to change the litter box — but it also spreads through undercooked meat and unwashed vegetables. Pregnant women who become infected with T. gondii can pass it onto their fetus, possibly causing brain damage or stillbirth. Now the new study finds that expectant mothers who have the infection, called toxoplasmosis, may themselves be at higher risk of suicide.
The finding comes from a study of 45,788 Danish women who gave birth between May 15, 1992, and January 15, 1995. University of Maryland School of Medicine researchers tested the women’s babies for T. gondii antibodies, which the infants could only have acquired from their mothers, and compared infection rates to the women’s suicide rates logged in the Danish health registry. The team also cross-checked the mental health registry to find out if any of the women had been previously diagnosed with mental illness.

They found that women who were infected with T. gondii were one-and-a-half times more likely to attempt suicide than uninfected women. The higher the levels of T. gondii antibodies found, the higher the suicide risk. They were also more likely to try to commit suicide violently, with a gun, sharp object or by jumping. When the researchers took into account women’s previous mental illness, they found that those who had toxoplasmosis were more likely to attempt suicide than those who had been mentally ill.

“We can’t say with certainty that T. gondii caused the women to try to kill themselves, but we did find a predictive association between the infection and suicide attempts later in life that warrants additional studies,” lead study author Dr. Teodor T. Postolache, an associate professor of psychiatry and director of the Mood and Anxiety Program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said in a statement.

The findings fall in line with previous studies on T. gondii infection in humans. (In animals also, the parasite has been shown to subvert brain chemistry and manipulate behavior, sometimes dangerously.) A Czech scientist, Jaroslav Flegr, has studied T. gondii‘s effect on human personality and mental illness for decades, as detailed in a lengthy article in The Atlantic in March. The bug resides in about one-third of the world’s population (in the U.S., 10% to 20% are infected), but it usually doesn’t cause any noticeable effects — healthy people fight off the flu-like symptoms of an initial infection, after which the parasite lies dormant in the brain. “[O]r at least that’s the standard medical wisdom,” wrote Kathleen McAuliffe in The Atlantic:

If Flegr is right, the “latent” parasite may be quietly tweaking the connections between our neurons, changing our response to frightening situations, our trust in others, how outgoing we are, and even our preference for certain scents. And that’s not all. He also believes that the organism contributes to car crashes, suicides, and mental disorders such as schizophrenia. When you add up all the different ways it can harm us, says Flegr, “Toxoplasma might even kill as many people as malaria, or at least a million people a year.”

Still, Flegr acknowledged that the effects of the parasite on personality were “very subtle” and that the “vast majority” of people wouldn’t even know they were infected. As for whether T. gondii infection could be used to predict self-harm or the odds of a car crash, Stanford neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky told McAuliffe: “[I]’m not too worried, in that the effects on humans are not gigantic. If you want to reduce serious car accidents, and you had to choose between curing people of Toxo infections versus getting people not to drive drunk or while texting, go for the latter in terms of impact.”

In the new study, researchers couldn’t establish that T. gondii infection caused increased risk of suicide, only that it was associated. And they’re not sure exactly why the link exists. “Is the suicide attempt a direct effect of the parasite on the function of the brain or an exaggerated immune response induced by the parasite affecting the brain? We do not know. In fact, we have not excluded reverse causality as there might be risk factors for suicidal behavior that also make people more susceptible to infection with T. gondii,” said Postolache in the statement.

The authors call for further studies focusing on the biological mechanisms of the parasite and how it may affect people’s suicide risk and other personality factors. If the findings hold up, perhaps T. gondii infection could be used to help prevent some of the 10 million suicide attempts that occur each year. “If we can identify a causal relationship, we may be able to predict those at increased risk for attempting suicide and find ways to intervene and offer treatment,” Postolache said.
In the meantime, people should cook their meat through, wash their vegetables and give their kitchen knives a good scrubbing to avoid spreading or contracting the parasite.
The study was published online in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

source: Time


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Facebook Launches Tool to Report Suicidal Behavior

Wed Dec 14, 2011 11:15am EST

(Reuters) – Facebook launched a new suicide prevention tool on Tuesday, giving users a direct link to an online chat with counselors who can help, the company said.

Friends are able to report suicidal behavior by clicking a report option next to any piece of content on the site and choosing suicidal content under the harmful behavior option, Facebook spokesman Frederic Wolens said.

Facebook will then email the user in distress a direct link for a private online chat with a crisis representative from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline as well as the group’s phone number.

The new tool gives people who may not be comfortable picking up the phone a direct avenue to seek help.

“This was a natural progression from something we’ve been working on for a long time,” Wolens said.

Users also have the ability to report suicidal behavior by going to the site’s Help Center or search for suicide reporting forms. They can also use reporting links around the site.

Worried friends who reported the behavior will also receive a message to say it is being addressed, Wolens said.

Facebook, the most popular Web-based social networking site, has more than 800 million active users worldwide. The Palo Alto, California-based company was co-founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004.

The new suicide reporting tool will be made available to people who use Facebook in the United States and Canada.

Wolens said that all reporting on the site is done anonymously and so a distressed user will not know who reported the suicidal content.

Nearly 100 Americans die by suicide every day, according to the Surgeon General of the United States.

In the past year, more than 8 million Americans 18 or older had thought seriously about suicide, according to a blog post by the Surgeon General accompanying the release of the new Facebook tool.

(Reporting by Lauren Keiper; Editing by Peter Bohan and Richard Chang)

source: Reuters