I just read about a briefing conducted by some mental health experts on July 27, 2010 which I found quite disturbing.  Apparently when the new 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the so-called Bible of mental health disorders, which clinicians use to help them categorize and diagnose mental disorders, comes out in 2013 there are so many newly proposed disorders (Toddler tantrums are a disorder? Really?) that these experts are in fear that soon no one will be "normal" anymore.

Some of the proposed additions - which include "mild anxiety depression," "psychosis risk syndrome,"  "temper dysregulation syndrome", and, yes, "toddler tantrums" - have the experts in fear that soon we will all have some sort of mental disorder.  "It's leaking into normality," said Til Wykkes of the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London.  "Its is shrinking the pool of what is normal to a puddle."

In a joint statement, Wykkes and colleagues Felicity Callard, also of Kings' Institute of Psychiatry and Nick Craddock of Cardiff University's department of psychological medicine and neurology, said many in the psychiatric community are concerned about the widening guidelines.  "Technically, with the classification of so many new disorders, we will all have disorders," they wrote.

The scientists also pointed to the current edition of the manual, the DSM-IV, citing how broadening of the definitions of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism and childhood bipolar disorders had "contributed to false epidemics" of these conditions, especially in the U.S.

"During the last decade," read the statement, "how many doctors were harangued by worried parents into giving drugs like Ritalin to children who didn't really need it?"

If you'd like to learn more about this issue, Wykkes and Callard published a comment in The Journal of Mental Health, which expresses the essence of their concerns, as well as highlighting another 10 papers in the same journal from scientists with similar concerns.

What do you think about this issue?  Are we at risk of turning normal into a disease?  What is normal anyway?

Are you concerned that your teen is watching too much TV?  According to a 2009 study, your concerns about too much TV could be valid.  The study found that watching more TV, especially for males, was linked to a greater risk for depression in young adulthood.

Dr. Brian A. Primack, of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and his team studied the TV, video, computer game and radio habits of about 4,100 healthy, non-depressed teens.

The teens reported an average of 5.68 hours of media exposure per day, including 2.3 hours of watching TV.

Seven years later, when the participants had become young adults, they were screened again and 308 (7.4%) had developed depression symptoms.

For each hour of watching TV as a teen, it was found that the risk of developing depression as a young adult increased, although young women were less likely to develop depression symptoms than the young men.

The study did not find any consistent link between depression and watching videos, playing computer games or listening to the radio, however.

While no conclusions could be drawn about how watching TV might influence the development of depression, the researchers speculated that it might have something to do with the fact TV watching interferes with other activities that protect against depression, such as socializing, playing sports or engaging in intellectual pursuits.  It might also disrupt sleep, they suggested, or the programs watched might contain messages which reinforce aggression or risky behaviors which themselves contribute to depression by creating feelings of fear and anxiety.

The study appeared in the February 2009 Archives of General Psychiatry.

Depending on your generation, you are probably familiar with songs like Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" and, more recently, Kesha's "Your Love Is My Drug," but, did you know that there is a real basis for the pain and depression that you feel when going through a break up and it could have some similarity to drug addiction?

Researchers looked at the brain activity in 15 college-aged heterosexual men who had recently been dumped by their girlfriends, but were still in love with them.  The men were shown a picture of their ex-girlfriend, then asked to solve a math problem to distract them.  After solving the problem, they were then shown a picture of a neutral person that they knew but didn't have any romantic feelings for.

Brain scans conducted while the men looked at the pictures showed that certain areas in the brain were stimulated much more when the men were looking at the object of their unrequited love than when looking at the neutral person.

These areas, according to the authors, are the same areas stimulated in cocaine addicts and are associated with physical pain and distress.

They also found, however, that there is truth to the old saw about time healing all wounds.  Over time, the level of brain activity the men experienced when looking at photos of their exes lessened.

The study was published in the July issue of the Journal of Neurophysiology.

Is it possible to do a genetic test for depression?  Some Dutch researchers think this may eventually become a reality.

In their study, the researchers evaluated blood gene expression profiles in two groups of people:  patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) and patients who were healthy with no diagnosis of MDD.

They were able to identify a set of seven genes found in whole blood that could differentiate between the two groups.

If a genetic test became available it would be a big step forward in treating depression, according to the authors.  Rather than having to rely on talking with patient and then making a clinical judgment about whether a patient is depressed, it would be possible to  perform an objective test.    Having a diagnostic test could also remove some of the stigma associated with depression, said the authors.

The study appears in the July 15, 2010 issue of Biological Psychiatry.