[HN Gopher] Sergey Brin, David Baszucki, Kent Dauten commit $150...
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Sergey Brin, David Baszucki, Kent Dauten commit $150M to fight
Bipolar disorder
Author : vanilla-almond
Score : 45 points
Date : 2022-09-16 18:20 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.forbes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.forbes.com)
| Eleison23 wrote:
| I have been through the wringer in the mental health system, and
| only 3 years ago did I discover the true genesis of my condition.
|
| My parents began shuffling me into therapists when I was about 8
| years old. It wasn't really effective because we were all
| resistant to it: admitting problems, wanting to change, sticking
| to a course of treatment. So it continued and I was put on SSRIs
| when I was 21. I loathed that development. I was further
| hospitalized and put on mood stabilizers a few years later.
| Needless to say, that was even more detrimental: I still didn't
| know why I was like this.
|
| Receiving a diagnosis of bipolar disorder was weird; they
| explained the chemical imbalance fairy tale and the way drugs
| would help, and they explained how many famous people throughout
| history had also suffered from this scourge, so I suppose I was
| supposed to feel like I was in good company. But it was
| unsatisfying, because if I had a mere mood disorder, why was my
| life so profoundly messed up? Just because I had a few bouts of
| sleepless nights?
|
| Fast forward to 3 years ago and I had a series of revelations
| which indicated significant and enduring childhood trauma and
| abuse. I landed on a diagnosis which isn't in the DSM and can't
| be medicated. That has been satisfying, because now I was
| equipped to both reject the drugs and work on the issues at the
| root of my profound anguish.
|
| "Bipolar disorder" is a silly catch-all description. It's a
| collection of behaviors and "symptoms" that can't be clinically
| tested, it's just a label to slap onto people so that they can be
| drugged and checkboxes can be ticked in a treatment plan by
| providers and your insurance (if any).
|
| If they're telling you that you're "bipolar" and they're trying
| to drug you and you're unsatisfied with that prognosis, then
| good! I encourage you to dig deeper and explore the root causes.
| You'll need to trust and commit to good therapists.
|
| For me, my faith in Jesus Christ as savior has made all the
| difference, and that's actually a gift which my adoptive parents
| gave me alongside everything else, so thank God for that!
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| "fight" bipolar disorder. Odd choice of words there. Sounds like
| they want to find bipolar people and beat them up.
| pstuart wrote:
| It fits in with the common trope of "The War on X".
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Fight heart disease, fight cancer. Common usage in this
| context.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| It is common, but still feels out of place for a psychiatric
| disorder. 'Understanding', or 'treating' seem like better
| choices. Like you wouldn't say 'we pledge to fight down's
| syndrome' - it doesn't work.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > It is common, but still feels out of place for a
| psychiatric disorder.
|
| Probably a result of there being a couple conflicting ways
| of looking at them: there's the "it's part of who you are
| (or I am)" perspective--so, an identity thing--and the
| "psychiatric diseases are just diseases like any other (so
| shouldn't be stigmatized any more than a broken arm would
| be)" perspective.
|
| Adhering to the latter, this kind of phrasing is exactly
| what's desired--writing about psychiatric diseases the same
| way we'd write about any other disease. Favoring the
| former, it could come off as insulting.
| tdeck wrote:
| I think this language started because healthcare advocacy
| organizations are trying to draft in the wake of military
| propaganda. Many governments of countries with active
| militaries (e.g. the US) spend a lot of money convincing
| the populace that fighting wars on the government's behalf
| is a great thing. Why not try to recapture that free
| advertising for a war on poverty, a war on drugs, or a war
| on cancer? IMO it's not a particularly healthy analogy but
| it's what we're steeped in.
| herf wrote:
| "Cara Altimus of the Center for Strategic Philanthropy will serve
| as managing director of BD2."
|
| HN may not know who she is, but Dr. Altimus is an accomplished
| researcher who has worked with Samer Hattar at Johns Hopkins and
| has done major work on ipRGCs. Very excited!
| hammock wrote:
| What are the proposed causes of bipolar disorder?
| monknomo wrote:
| There are some genetic factors that contribute - it tends to
| cluster in families. But genetic pre-disposition is just one
| factor; just because a person has some genes associated with
| bipolar doesn't mean they will develop it. Genes associated
| with bipolar have overlap with genes associated with
| schizophrenia and autism.
|
| Bipolar is also associated with trauma in a person's life,
| however some people develop bipolar without any particular
| trauma.
|
| There is also some evidence that it could be a result of viral
| infection, similar to MS.
|
| There seem to be some difference in calcium channels in cells
| among people with bipolar, as well as sodium levels within
| cells.
|
| Bipolar is associated with difference in blood brain barrier
| permeability.
|
| Bipolar is associate with increased propensity to get eczema.
|
| There are generally some structural difference in people with
| bipolar's brains, although it's unclear if those are what cause
| the disease, if the disease causes them or if treatment causes
| them. Or all of the above.
|
| Basically, there are tons of potential causes, but most studies
| are limited by size, length and the population willing to
| participate in them. Study participants are often in an in-
| patient setting, which is generally people with a more severe
| form of the disorder, and is also when the disorder is at its
| worst, and doesn't allow for tracking the overall course of the
| disorder. Some long term longitudinal studies would be great
| missedthecue wrote:
| according to the NHS, disruptive or traumatic life events
| samatman wrote:
| This is clearly neither necessary nor sufficient for the
| disease to present itself.
|
| Even as a factor, this is about as sophisticated as saying
| broken legs are caused by downhill skiing.
| mnemonicsloth wrote:
| > Even so, treatment breakthroughs have lagged and the drug often
| prescribed for the condition, lithium, was first used nearly 75
| years ago.
|
| This is false. I don't know what this author was doing. Even
| reading Wikipedia would give you a better understanding than
| that.
|
| Initial treatment for patients presenting with acute mania are
| antipsychotics like Risperdal or Geodon. After that they might
| try mood stabilizers like lamotrigine or seroquel, or any number
| of other things that are much more recent than lithium.
|
| If you want to learn more about the wild world of
| psychopharmaceuticals, I recommend crazymeds.com, which also
| tells you a lot about how mentally ill people often view
| themselves. It's fascinating even if you're not crazy.
| metadat wrote:
| My experience has been that Lithium is still very widely
| prescribed for bi-polar disorder as well as BPD (borderline
| personality disorder).
|
| It's not that there aren't alternatives, but they are much more
| hit-or-miss in terms of efficacy. Lithium tends to be more
| predictable in terms of keeping things stable, but the side
| effects are awful.
| frozencell wrote:
| * http://www.crazy-meds.org/
| crotho wrote:
| Lithium is still the fallback drug of choice with the best
| track record. In some countries it's as much as 50% of
| patients.
|
| I was first put on lamotrogine and it's mental side effects
| were far more debilitating than lithium's physical side
| effects. Lamotrogine destroyed my working memory to the point
| I'd consistently leave food on the stove and just forget about
| it. Lithium also works better for me. It is also dirt cheap
| compared to alternatives which don't work as well for many
| people.
|
| Other forms of Lithium also have potential for future
| treatments, with Lithium Orotate being considered for trials
| recently (few side effects, safer, crosses blood brain barrier
| more effectively, but was mischaracterized in the 70s and
| largely ignored until now).
| vanilla-almond wrote:
| An overview of Bipolar disorder: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-
| health/conditions/bipolar-disorder...
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Quoting the pages linked above:
|
| "Bipolar disorder is widely believed to be the result of
| chemical imbalances in the brain."
|
| As I understand it, the notion of a "chemical imbalance" as the
| cause of mental and mood disorders is highly dubious and losing
| support. It may be attractive within the context of a certain
| kind of reductive psychiatric paradigm and can sometimes sound
| a lot like New Age woo. What does it mean for neurotransmitters
| to be "in balance"? What is the cause of imbalances? If there
| is a cause, then is it really the imbalance that's at issue, or
| is the imbalance merely a sign of some underlying problem (like
| having too much bilirubin in the blood can indicate living
| failure)? Add to this that what are commonly accepted mental
| disorders are generally descriptive, collections of symptoms,
| rather than causes, though in common speech we often reify
| these descriptions into some cohesive cause to which we
| attribute causal power (this, too, can be appealing because it
| allows you to feel like the cause has been identified and this
| can feel comforting if you are suffering).
|
| Of course, I am not claiming that constitutional factors cannot
| cause or contribute to mental disorders. However, it is also
| possible to ascribe too much to constitution. We often speak of
| mental, constitutional, and moral factors as if they were
| distinct, but each can influence the other. Just as
| constitutional factors can contribute to mental disorders, so
| can moral factors. A habit of lying, for example, can
| contribute to depression and anxiety. Denial of truths that
| we'd rather not face can become expressed as obsessive-
| compulsive disorders. A hedonistic lifestyle can negatively
| impact cognition and lead to monomania. I think ignoring these
| other angles and searching solely for constitutional factors is
| a disservice. We are seeing an increase of mental disorders
| today and the causes are very unlikely to be solely
| constitutional.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Bipolar disorder falls so outside the norm of human
| functioning to exclude "lack of morals" as a cause or as a
| contributing factor.
|
| For myself, I am a "moral person" in most regards. There is
| nothing I can do to stop or prevent my episodes without
| medication.
|
| For most people it is a severely limiting disability.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| > A habit of lying, for example, can contribute to depression
| and anxiety. Denial of truths that we'd rather not face can
| become expressed as obsessive-compulsive disorders. A
| hedonistic lifestyle can negatively impact cognition and lead
| to monomania.
|
| I don't really know if any of these are true and I don't
| understand the correlation of these things. I don't know what
| correlates lying with depression and anxiety, partially
| because I know liars who aren't depressed or anxious, liars
| who are depressed or anxious, and don't know how their lying
| has a causal factor to anything. This also goes on for
| hedonistic lifestyles- I've seen depressed dropouts drowning
| in hedonism and I've seen ultra-wealthy hedonistic
| celebrities and I don't understand the correlation or
| causation you're trying to make.
|
| Can you please clarify this point? I genuinely don't
| understand this because it doesn't match my model of reality,
| which doesn't show any apparent correlations of generic
| character flaws (such as lying a lot) with specific mood
| disorders (like generalized anxiety).
| mnemonicsloth wrote:
| Dude, bipolar disorder can be just about cured in some people
| by dosing them with ground-up rocks. Lithium is a chemical
| element. If it isn't inducing some kind of chemical change,
| what is it doing?
| anm89 wrote:
| I don't believe anyone including the person you are
| responding to is suggesting that Lithium works outside of
| chemical pathways so it looks like you are attacking a
| strawman.
| samatman wrote:
| Inducing some chemical change is so broad as to be
| meaningless. "Chemical imbalance" is at least a claim, and
| GP was right to question it before going way off the rails.
| To address that: major mood disorders are caused by
| something, and it isn't the decisions of the sufferer.
| Those can make it better or worse, sure, but to even
| entertain the idea means you've never encountered this in
| the wild.
|
| Treating something with a chemical doesn't mean what you
| were treating is a chemical imbalance. If it's vitamin C
| and scurvy, yes, if it's ulcers and antibiotics, no.
|
| No one thinks bipolar disorder is caused by a lack of
| lithium. The theory of chemical imbalance is just a theory,
| one I don't happen to think has much going for it.
| mnemonicsloth wrote:
| You're being pedantic. I'm with you that "imbalance"
| sounds a little new-agey and imprecise, but I've talked
| to a lot of scientific and medical people about BiPD and
| I haven't met one yet who didn't understand what was
| actually being said: that bipolar disorder has some kind
| of physical, correctable cause in the brain. Somewhere in
| there, all those little lithium ions pummel a misfolded
| protein into shape or clog up an ion channel or something
| in such a way that the patient experiences relief.
|
| It isn't precise. But back in the real world, the
| "chemical imbalance" explanation serves the very
| important purpose of explaining to a lot of ordinary
| people who otherwise wouldn't understand that bipolar
| people who are manic or depressed are not in control of
| what they do. And that's important, because when they're
| manic or depressed, bipolar people often act like bad
| people.
| samatman wrote:
| I'm not being pedantic at all, my best bet is that
| bipolar disorder arises from brain connectome structure,
| not chemical imbalance.
|
| The chemical imbalance theory of various disorders is
| ascendant but it's by no means universally supported for
| bipolar disorder. These days "depression is when you
| don't got serotonin" is likely to get you laughed out of
| the room.
| [deleted]
| confidantlake wrote:
| > A habit of lying, for example, can contribute to depression
| and anxiety. Denial of truths that we'd rather not face can
| become expressed as obsessive-compulsive disorders. A
| hedonistic lifestyle can negatively impact cognition and lead
| to monomania
|
| Is there any evidence of this? Not saying you are wrong but
| without a cite this just seems hand-wavy conjecture. I could
| just as easily say lying to yourself about the state of the
| world leads to happiness and it is the realists that are
| depressed and anxious.
| jstarfish wrote:
| > Just as constitutional factors can contribute to mental
| disorders, so can moral factors.
|
| I agreed with you up to here. It seems like you're replacing
| chemical imbalances with morality. Mental illness does not
| abide by morality.
|
| For example:
|
| > A habit of lying, for example, can contribute to depression
| and anxiety.
|
| Sure. People can be anxious about their lies catching up to
| them.
|
| Yet there are people that compulsively lie even when they've
| been outed and presented with material evidence to the
| contrary. It defies all logic and appears compulsive, like...
|
| > Denial of truths that we'd rather not face can become
| expressed as obsessive-compulsive disorders.
|
| I agree with this too, but two independent statements being
| True does not imply a causal relationship between them. This
| behavior is found in Histrionic and Narcissistic personality
| disorders too (and maybe Borderline?).
|
| It has been suggested that pathological lying is a symptom of
| OCD. The internet is divided on this, but in my anecdotal
| observations, this has held true. The worst liars I know all
| have OCD, but not everyone with OCD is a liar. I don't claim
| to understand why this overlap exists.
|
| > A hedonistic lifestyle can negatively impact cognition and
| lead to monomania.
|
| Sure, but what does one "get" from a Hedonistic lifestyle? I
| would suggest: dopamine surges.
|
| This might seem like an easy-to-reach response to Depression,
| but consider that monomania/ADHD (a cognitive disorder) is
| literally treated with...induced dopamine surges (in the form
| of amphetamines).
|
| So does the subject drown themselves in sex and drugs because
| they are a Lazy Glutton, because they are Depressed...or
| because there was something wrong with their ability to
| regulate dopamine production in the first place?
|
| My pet theory: the biggest shortcoming of modern psychiatry
| is that we over-extrapolate observations of small groups of
| people as though their traits universally apply to all
| humans. That some people thrived during quarantine while
| others went berserk should attest to how we are more
| different than we care to admit, but we don't have a non-
| eugenic way of cataloguing those differences beyond labeling
| everyone as having some sort of psychiatric disorder because
| their behavior deviates from arbitrary baselines (which is in
| itself a problem).
|
| Some people just can't follow orders, some are born leaders,
| some can't sit at a desk for 8-12 hours a day, some can live
| happily underground, some are liars and storytellers, some
| overeat. There's probably a genetic reason why individuals
| are wired to do each of these things, but our best guesses to
| date have been ridiculous and seem to be discredited with
| each new generation. Two cats of the same species won't
| behave identically either. Is either one flawed, or are both
| optimized for purposes we don't recognize?
| yourMaster666 wrote:
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