Why are More Americans Taking Drugs for Mental Illness?

[Guest guest]

News article and abstract with link follow Mercola's intro. Reuters does

not mention pollutants and policies that allow pollutants, nor mentioned

are other ways to achieve hyper- and chronic-microglial activation. Also

not mentioned are possible roles for processed foods and for pollutants

in non-organic foods.

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*/Why are More Americans Taking Drugs for Mental Illness?/*

J. Mercola, M.D.

Many more Americans have been using prescription drugs to treat mental

illness since 1996. In fact, 73 percent more adults and 50 percent more

children are using drugs to treat mental illness now than were doing so

in 1996.

Among adults over 65, use of so-called psychotropic drugs -- which

include antidepressants and antipsychotics -- doubled between 1996 and 2006.

The findings come from several large public surveys of health in the

United States, including from the National Center for Health Statistics,

the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Substance Abuse and

Mental Health Services Administration and the Social Security

Administration... {more at Mercola url}

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/05/28/Even-More-American\

s-Are-Taking-Drugs-for-Mental-Illness.aspx

Mercola's sources:

1. */More Americans taking drugs for mental illness/*

Tue May 5, 2009 1:24pm BST

By Steenhuysen

http://uk.reuters.com/article/burningIssues/idUKTRE5440V120090505

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Many more Americans have been using prescription

drugs to treat mental illness since 1996, in part because of expanded

insurance coverage and greater familiarity with the drugs among primary

care doctors, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

They said 73 percent more adults and 50 percent more children are using

drugs to treat mental illness than in 1996.

Among adults over 65, use of so-called psychotropic drugs -- which

include antidepressants, antipsychotics and Alzheimer's medicines --

doubled between 1996 and 2006.

" What we generally find is there has been an increase in access to care

for all populations, " said Sherry Glied of Columbia University in New

York, whose study appears in the journal Health Affairs.

" Mental health has become much more a part of mainstream medical care, "

Glied said in a telephone interview.

In 2006, they said 16 percent of adults 65 and older had some form of

mental health diagnosis.

The researchers culled data from several large public surveys of health

in the United States, including from the National Center for Health

Statistics, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Social

Security Administration.

Glied said expanded drug coverage under Medicare, the federal insurance

program for the elderly, and the State Children's Health Insurance

Program for poor children, helped make such drugs more affordable.

The study found the number of children diagnosed and treated for mental

health conditions by their primary care doctor doubled between 1996 and

2006.

" The increases in prescription drug use were particularly rapid in the

early part of this decade, between 1996 to 2001, " Glied said. " For most

groups, they have slowed down since then. "

The researchers did not report total numbers of people treated or

calculate the dollar value of the drugs taken.

One worrisome finding, Glied said, was that there has been little

progress in access to care among people with more serious mental

illness. They found treatment for older adults with mental limitations

who need help dressing, eating, or bathing fell between 1996 and 2006.

About 7 percent of Americans with serious mental illness wind up in jail

or prison every year, the researchers said.

" New policies are desperately needed to reduce the flow of people whose

primary problem is a mental disorder into the criminal justice system, "

wrote Glied and colleague of Harvard Medical School.

While the study shows expanded mental health coverage for people with

insurance, especially for those covered in government health plans, they

said the ongoing recession and swelling ranks of the uninsured will

likely mean less mental health coverage for many Americans in the near

future.

(Editing by Maggie Fox)

2: */Better but not best: recent trends in the well-being of the

mentally ill./*

Glied SA, RG.

Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University

Health Aff (Millwood). 2009 May-Jun;28(3):637-48.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/28/3/637

Mental illness and its treatment are largely invisible. We use

multiple publicly available data sources to evaluate changes in the

well-being of Americans with mental illnesses over the past decade.

We find that access to care, including specialty psychiatric and

inpatient care, and financial protection have improved. However, not

all people with mental health problems have shared in these

improvements. Access to care among those with mental health

impairments appears to have declined, and we estimate that because

of continued increases in incarceration, at least 7 percent of the

population with serious and persistent mental illnesses are

incarcerated in jail or prison each year.

PMID: 19414869