(Post-) Corona Psychosyndrome?

By now, I have had three cases sharing a stunningly similar history and clinic.
All of them were female, aged 40-60 y/o.
They all had extremely suspicious Corona-like symptoms in March (peak of COVID in Austria), including

– fever
-shortness of breath, coughing
– fatigue
– feeling sick “unlike ever before”
– pain “everywhere”
– they were not able to even get up from their bed or lift a spoon to eat soup.

They were all tested negative via PCR – but much too late (at a time when you would expect a negative result, no matter what).

Two had no psychiatric history before, one had a history of panic attacks and PTSD decades ago, remitted, and had not needed treatment since then.

NOW, months later:

– physically still disabled
– sometimes bouts of coughing, shortness of breath, some days good, some days horible
– senses (smelling) still disturbed

PSYCHIATRIC:
– affective dysregulation: some days good, some days (maybe 4/7) severely depressed, even suicidal
However: on good days, no depressive symptoms at all!
– fatigue
– being short tempered
– anger
– social withdrawal
– sleep issues


Three similar cases in a row a too much to not make me suspicious.
Cornoavirus harms small vessels (endothelium) and thus the brain.
The symptoms could correspond to a malfcuntion of the frontal lobe and the lymbic system post-corona.

Environmental pollution is associated with increased risk of psychiatric disorders in the US and Denmark

The search for the genetic factors underlying complex neuropsychiatric disorders has proceeded apace in the past decade. Despite some advances in identifying genetic variants associated with psychiatric disorders, most variants have small individual contributions to risk. By contrast, disease risk increase appears to be less subtle for disease-predisposing environmental insults. In this study, we sought to identify associations between environmental pollution and risk of neuropsychiatric disorders. We present exploratory analyses of 2 independent, very large datasets: 151 million unique individuals, represented in a United States insurance claims dataset, and 1.4 million unique individuals documented in Danish national treatment registers. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) county-level environmental quality indices (EQIs) in the US and individual-level exposure to air pollution in Denmark were used to assess the association between pollution exposure and the risk of neuropsychiatric disorders. These results show that air pollution is significantly associated with increased risk of psychiatric disorders. We hypothesize that pollutants affect the human brain via neuroinflammatory pathways that have also been shown to cause depression-like phenotypes in animal studies.

Source: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000353

Vitamin D: Polemic misinformation

Recently, misleading information about Vitamin D supplementation has beeen circulating – not only in scientific papers but also in the press.

It has been mentioned that Vitamin D supplementation does not help to prevent osteoporosis or heart attack.

However, the studies cited were of very very low quality.

For instance, many failed to
– assess if there was Vitamine D deficiency in the first place before supplementation
– assess if Vit D levels actually rose to sufficient levels
– some never even bothered to measure.

Verdict: A lot of wasted time.

On the contrary, for depression, there is very clear data favoring Vitamin D supplementation IF there is a lack. The antidepressant effect is significant!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4011048/

Dietary Supplement Offers Hope for Schizophrenia Prevention…?

Source:

Perinatal Choline Effects on Neonatal Pathophysiology Related to Later Schizophrenia Risk 
Randal G. Ross, M.D.; Sharon K. Hunter, Ph.D.; Lizbeth McCarthy, M.D.; Julie Beuler, B.S.; Amanda K. Hutchison, M.D.; Brandie D. Wagner, Ph.D you could try these out.; Sherry Leonard, Ph.D.; Karen E. Stevens, Ph.D.; Robert Freedman, M.D.
Am J Psychiatry 2013;:. 10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.12070940
Perinatal supplementation of the essential nutrient choline may lead to a lower risk of children developing schizophrenia, new research suggests.  Continue reading

Is traffic pollution tied to autism risk?

A recent study seems to suggest just this.
Source: Archives of General Psychiatry, online November 26, 2012
and Reuters (click to see more)

 

Immediate adjunctive Thyroid Hormone to enhance antidepressant effect?…. probably not

The Combination of Triiodothyronine (T3) and Sertraline is Not Superior to Sertraline Monotherapy in the Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder

Garlow SJ, Dunlop BW, Ninan PT, Nemeroff CB

J Psychiatr Res. 2012;46:1406-1413.

Continue reading

Botox in Depression: Risk or Chance?

Source: Scientific American

Botox is mostly used to reduce for its positive effects on wrinkles.
However, recent findings suggests that it may have both negative and positive effects in various psychiatric conditions… Continue reading

Beware: Lyme Disease has a high prevalence in Austria and may cause depression

Lyme Disease (Borreliosis) is a bacterial infection transmitted by ticks and has a high prevalence in Austria. While early signs of infection may go unnoticed, chronic infection may lead to depression - which often is not properly diagnosed. Continue reading

Thyreoliberin intranasal: rapid antidepressant and antisuicidal effects?

Source: Szuba et al.,<a title="Journal of clinical psychopharmacology buy levitra cheap.” href=”http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16012274#”>J Clin Psychopharmacol. 2005 Aug;25(4):325-30 and Daily Mail.

Thyreoliberin (TRH) is a hormone that stimulates the release of TSH from the pituitary, which then leads to a stimulation of thyroid hormone production. New research shows interesting additional effects: Continue reading