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Writer/Psychiatrist Wanted!
Bipolar Network News is looking for a psychiatrist who would be interested in helping our editor-in-chief, Robert M. Post, write articles reviewing new research presentations and publications on mood disorders.
This is not a paid position, but a candidate would receive expenses for travel to major psychiatric meetings and would be cited as part of the editorial staff. Read more
BNN Editor Robert M. Post Wins Mogens Schou Award for Research from the International Society for Bipolar Disorder
Dr. Post
On May 4, 2017, at the annual conference of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders (ISBD) in Arlington, Virginia, Dr. Robert M. Post, Editor-in-Chief of Bipolar Network News, was presented the Mogens Schou Award for Research. It is one of the most prestigious honors in the field of research on bipolar disorder.
Mogens Schou was a Danish psychiatrist and researcher whose research in the 1950s led to lithium’s use in the treatment of bipolar disorder.
Upon the announcement of the award by Dr. Marion Leboyer, who received the Schou research award in 2011, Dr. Post received a standing ovation. The following comments are adapted from Dr. Post’s acceptance speech.
“It is the highest honor I could imagine to receive an award from the ISBD in the name of Mogens Schou. Not only did Schou pioneer the development of lithium for the recurrent mood disorders, but he beat back the British naysayers and critics (Michael Shepherd and Harry Blackwood) by conducting the definitive long-term controlled studies of lithium, and then continued to promote its benefits.
In Schou’s obituary, fellow researcher Dr. Paul Grof wrote,”What was most striking and profound about him was his love and compassion for people.” Schou himself said upon receiving an award, “For me every single patient whose life was changed radically by lithium outweighs honors and awards.”
Thus, it is only appropriate that I relay some of the new data on the broad clinical effects of lithium, especially since lithium today is used way too infrequently, particularly in the United States. This list is a bit too condensed, but LITHIUM: increases neuroprotective factors and neurogenesis (adults like me in the room are happy to know that we are still making new neurons). Lithium increases the volume of the hippocampus and cortex, and blocks cell death.
Lithium prevents mania, depression, and even recurrent unipolar depression, and reduces suicides 10-fold.
Lithium lengthens telomeres [bits on the ends of DNA that protect it during cell replication] back to normal, enhances health and longevity, decreases the incidence of some neurological diseases (including dementia), and half a pill a day for one year prevents the progression of mild cognitive impairment.
Remarkably, higher trace amounts of lithium in drinking water prevent suicide in the general population. This has now been shown in more than a half dozen studies that compare naturally occurring levels of lithium in the water in different geographic areas.
No other drug comes close to having this range of benefits. So I can only reiterate a message Schou was determined to spread in his final years: “We need to use lithium more often.”
If Schou had seen the excess of childhood-onset bipolar disorder in the United States, he would surely have lobbied for better treatment of these young people and more treatment research.
I thank the ISBD for this great honor and the opportunity to try to foster Schou’s ideals.”
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Lori Altshuler, Leading Figure in American Psychiatry, 1957–2015
We are sad to report the death of Dr. Lori Altshuler, one of the leading figures in American psychiatry. She passed away last month after a 10-year battle with cancer. She was the director of the Mood Disorders Research Program at UCLA and a founding member of the Bipolar Collaborative Network, which included US sites in Los Angeles, Dallas, Cinncinatti, and Bethesda and European sites in Utrecht, Freiberg, and Munich, and spawned the BNN newsletter.
Dr. Altshuler made important contributions to the understanding of bipolar disorder, particularly with her work on brain imaging. She also conducted countless treatment studies so that patients could be treated based on the best available evidence.
After funding for the Bipolar Collaborative Network ended in 2002, she organized all of the researchers to continue working together, and this resulted in more than 90 publications from the group. Her tireless and heroic efforts to improve the lives of people with bipolar disorder will be sorely missed.
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Print Archives are Available!
It was brought to our attention that there was a problem with the most recent link in our print archives, and now it is fixed. You can download Volume 16, Issue 3 here, along with any past issue dating back to 1995. (If you are an email subscriber you have already received this issue’s content, and if you are a print subscriber you should be receiving this issue in the mail any day now!)
Have you checked our Archives lately?
The most recent issues of the print BNN are available in our Print Archives. We’ve posted articles from the second and third issues of the BNN here on the blog, but if you prefer reading the issues as a whole, our Archives are the place to look. You can also find issues of the BNN dating back to 1995!
Have you checked our archives lately?
We are currently posting articles from the 4th issue of 2010 and will soon begin posting articles from the 5th issue. But we also just updated our archives, so if you can’t wait, you can download the full PDF versions of the print newsletters in our archives.
