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On the other hand, autoimmune diseases have been increasing in prevalence over the last century. While these diseases are rarely immediately fatal, in severe ca
by magila 10y ago
On the other hand, autoimmune diseases have been increasing in prevalence over the last century. While these diseases are rarely immediately fatal, in severe cases they can have a major impact on quality of life. Onset often occurs in early adulthood so the cost of treatment over a lifetime can be extremely high. The usual treatment, immunosuppressive therapy, also has serious risks of its own.
While there has been much progress on finding new treatments, their scope has been limited to new and creative ways of suppressing the immune system. There are a multitude of theories which attempt to explain the causes of autoimmune diseases, but we seem to be quite far from truly understanding them.
- alexandercrohde 10y agoAbsolutely. I wish this article wouldn't speak so generally when I hear consistent articles about major spikes in: - Autoimmune issues (especially allergies) - Obesity (particularly in children) and diabetes - Autism - Depression, ADD, and similar disorders
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago> Autism - Depression, ADD, and similar disorders My personal impression is that the rise of mental conditions is an increase in diagnosis, not occurrence. An awful lot of people who, just a few decades ago, would have been dismissed as lazy, stupid, whiny, or the all-purpose "crazy" are actually starting to receive recognition and treatment. That's a good thing.
- duaneb 10y ago> My personal impression is that the rise of mental conditions is an increase in diagnosis, not occurrence Do you have a source for this? It goes against much I've read myself recently—for instance, depression has strong links to inflammation—perhaps shitty diets and no exercise are catching up to people.
- soundwave106 10y agoThe problem with some of these conditions unfortunately is that it is only possible to speculate based on behavioral reports, because the term simply didn't exist back then (or if it did, it existed in widely varying terms describing some sort of "insanity" or "neurosis"). So unfortunately I don't think there is an answer to this question. In reading up on the histories of various classical composers, for instance, several of them appear to have suffered regularly from depressive orders (a very definitive example is Sergei Rachmaninoff). A few of them such as Erik Satie and Anton Bruckner appear to be afflicted with what we now know as OCD. Can we definitively diagnose, though? No, we only have reports to go off of. Heck, we're still pretty fuzzy with the diagnosis and root cause of some of these mental conditions now. (See: the definition of Aspergers)
- tcj_phx 10y ago> My personal impression is that the rise of mental conditions is an increase in diagnosis, not occurrence. Robert Whitaker [1] has looked into the matter, and proposes that standard treatments take an episodic disease and make it chronic. [1] Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America - http://www.madinamerica.com/product/62043/ http://www.madinamerica.com/product/62043/ My step-brother hates what his psychiatrists did to him. He stopped taking their drugs, and is rather normal now.
- PhasmaFelis 10y agoI'm sorry for whatever happened to your brother. Psychology is sadly not an exact science yet. But when I stopped taking my drugs, I was basically nonfunctional for months. You can't generalize from one data point.
- tcj_phx 10y ago> But when I stopped taking my drugs, I was basically nonfunctional for months. The body adjusts to compensate for the activity of the drug in the body, so the original problem frequently gets worse if the drug is taken away suddenly. There are strategies for helping people get off psychotropic drugs, but I don't think they cover this in psychiatrists' training programs. > You can't generalize from one data point. I don't know anything about my step brother, other than that my mom mentioned that he'd gotten himself off the pills. It might've taken him a while.
- OvidNaso 10y agoThe increase in suicide rates seems to be evidence against this hypothesis.
- lsc 10y agoare suicide rates going up overall? all I can find, back to the 1950s, is that the rate has gone up and down with no clear upwards or downwards trend over those years (2010 rates are slightly below 1950s rates) http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779940.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779940.html
- satai 10y agoFor CZ we have stats up-to 1870s: https://www.czso.cz/csu/czso/sebevrazdy_zaj https://www.czso.cz/csu/czso/sebevrazdy_zaj (link in czech - sorry. First image, brown line is relative suicidal rate that is probably a good metric for comparison.)
- jandrese 10y agoIsn't there a connection between anti-depressants and suicide? Basically they give you enough energy to get going, but not enough to break the depression so you have just enough to go and kill yourself. Basically, you have to watch someone like a hawk when they first go on antidepressants until they get over the hurdle and start feeling good again.
- 77897555 10y agoClinically speaking, perhaps biological evolution had a chance of dealing with this. Now, biological evolution has been replaced by "social evolution". A trait of physically debilitating condition, that is treatable, is no longer a reproduction fullstop. Those genes carry on. What genes will peter out are the absence of skills that are employable and not being able to find a partner because of that. Of course this is simplifying it to a large extent. The human population will drop over the next millenia. Whether that is because of waterwars, lack of food, natural calamities, or space colonisation is left as an exercise for the future generations.
- ngrilly 10y agoDo you know if the increase of autoimmune diseases is of the order of magnitude as the decrease of other diseases mentioned in the article?