
Yes, You Can Catch Insanity - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/23/dominoes/yes-you-can-catch-insanity
======
derefr
I find it odd that medical treatment insists on being so _causal_ —diagnosing
a specific illness, and then treating for that illness, but never, ever
treating if you don't have evidence of a particular illness.

It makes sense if you're dealing with hypochondriacs or drug-seekers, and it
makes epidemiological sense to withhold some treatments from prophylactic use
(like antibiotics) to preserve their efficacy. But if you're dealing with an
idiopathic illness for over _four years_ , I would think there would come a
time where you'd ask the doctor, "can I just try some antibiotics to see what
happens? And how about some antiretrovirals, antiparasitics, and antifungals
while you're at it?"

Just methodically working through the safe, first-line treatments to the major
disease classes, taking each for a month or so and seeing what happens, would
probably fix 90% of people's chronic illnesses. Even if it didn't, paying
attention to people's reactions to being on various medications are some of
the best diagnostic tools there are—which second-line treatment regime to
pursue would likely become rapidly apparent.

But instead, people can go years slowly dying from something that they could
fix with a few pills from the corner pharmacy, if a doctor would deign to
"tinker" rather than working from theory.

~~~
verteu
> people can go years slowly dying from something that they could fix with a
> few pills from the corner pharmacy, if a doctor would deign to "tinker"
> rather than working from theory.

This is a principal-agent problem. Doctors don't have much incentive to cure
you. They have a strong incentive to avoid malpractice lawsuits. Thus they are
extremely risk-averse.

~~~
dredmorbius
The past week's Medicare physician payment reform in the U.S. should help with
that. It's an outcomes-based system.

------
duckdogkitty
I completely agree with this article, based on my own experiences.

My wife acquired Bipolar 2 after a prolonged systemic infection at 30 years
old. After years of hospitals, tests, virtual bankruptcy and little to no
progress, I decided to do something.

I started by looking at human population studies which showed lower incidences
of her mental illness, and based on differences in diet, exercise, and
medicines I discovered a possible difference in India from WHO publications
and .

After reviewing several PubMed and other academic papers on the subject, I
thought perhaps that dietary difference may account for disease incidence
differences. So, comparing the most common Indian food ingredients versus US
diets, I came across turmeric.

Turmeric has shown strong anti-inflammatory properties, positive effects on
astocyte cell regrowth, and may improve neural myelination. It is used in many
Indian dishes but relatively few American dishes. It's used throughout the
middle east and asia, but mostly for grilling.

So I purchased imported Indian turmeric, and started cooking it into all that
I could every day, especially soups and other combinations with pepper and oil
as it's done in India.

Inside two months and she started to sleep less than her typical 16 hours a
day. She quit listening to music all her waking hours. Her mood made positive
strides. She played with the children. It was a small, however exceptionally
positive change.

Following five years of improvements, the outcomes have been great. She is
again driving, teaching, and just needs her single medication at the most
minimal measurement essential. She now has clear thinking, great memory, and
no longer experiences the symptoms of side effects.

She has not been hospitalized since.

Take it as quackery, miracle, or however you like. Perhaps it may help
someone, someday. I know studies are in being proposed, and perhaps it may
improve the lives of others.

~~~
epmatsw
I've actually heard good things about turmeric. If you don't mind me asking,
why imported Indian turmeric though? Is it different from what you would get
in the States (aka what I've got in my pantry)?

~~~
nathannecro
I've had the opportunity to play around with turmeric in a medical/biological
setting. Turns out, the compound most likely responsible for a lot of
turmeric's biologically active properties (basically inflammation
reduction/anti-tumor effects) is curcumin[1].

A lot of the spices used for cooking (especially ones sold cheaply and in
bulk) may contain less curcumin[absolutely no citation here] because:

1\. Spices and herbs grown for bulk may be grown in poorer conditions with
higher stressors in the environment and growth accelerants added to the feed.
This may result in a (non-processed) spice with a lower amount of nutrition
relative to a spice grown with TLC. Empirically, there is a fairly significant
gulf between the flavor (to me) of plants grown organically vs agriindustrial
techniques. However, the community seems to be divided as to if the
nutritional content significantly differs[2].

2\. Industrial processing techniques may destroy or modify many of the taste-
inactive compounds in an attempt to optimize for maximum flavor. It's
interesting to note here that curcumin's coloration is what gives turmeric
it's golden sheen. At home, my Safeway turmeric contains dyes. I sort of
assume that the processing that the spice goes though removes/destroys some of
the coloration compounds (curcumin likely included).

In conclusion, it's possible that the imported turmeric has come from a
location where the plant is grown with more TLC, processed less harshly, and
is more fresh.

However, to be perfectly honest, it's likely far more efficient to consume
curcumin pills. Like most alternative medication (unregulated pills), it's
fairly difficult to actually get any sort of guarantee. And though you can
purchase lab-grade curcumin from Sigma Aldrich, it's fairly pricey
(approximately 6 $/g). Also...it's lab grade so I'm very unsure if I'd be bold
enough to try eating it. As a pure powder, it's also a pretty severe irritant.
When was working with it, I worked with it wearing a full mask on.

Also, I'd also like to point out that while the compound itself has been shown
to do a bunch of neat things, it's biologically tricky for it to actually
become absorbed by the human body. (Side note, since my research, there has
been apparently further work done documenting delivery mechanisms and
bioavailibility of curcumin. It's actually pretty neat.[3])

1:
[http://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2014/186864/](http://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2014/186864/)
Also, see the entire class of diarylheptanoids.

2:
[http://ucanr.edu/datastoreFiles/608-787.pdf](http://ucanr.edu/datastoreFiles/608-787.pdf)

3:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3918523/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3918523/)

~~~
duckdogkitty
Thank you, I appreciate the info. I'm glad to see the science progress, and
perhaps we'll discover better treatments in the process.

------
contagiouse
I thought this was going to be an article about Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron,
notoriously associated with Project MKUltra, and his curious hypothesis of
contagious mental illnesses and how psychiatric conditions might possibly be
transmitted by way of the mere interactions of differing personalities, and
institutional social norms:

    
    
      Cameron stated, "Get it understood how dangerous these 
      damaged, sick personalities are to ourselves - and above 
      all, to our children, whose traits are taking form and 
      we shall find ways to put an end to them." [1]
    

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Ewen_Cameron#Mental_ill...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Ewen_Cameron#Mental_illness_as_a_social_contagion)

------
rrss1122
I believe it's the stranglehold of the pharmaceutical industry on psychology
that prevents research like this from going forward. Instances like Isak's
ordeal with PANDAS and Susannah Cahalan's battle with anti-NMDA receptor
encephalitis show that more research should go into how infections and
autoimmune response can cause some forms of mental illness.

I was particuarly appalled when I read that doctors gave Isak anti-depressants
to treat his mental illness. These are the medicines the pharmaceutical
industry have been pushing on us for decades to treat any malady of the mind,
and they have been proven to be barely more effective than placebo treatments.

Their first priority is pushing pills, not our well-being.

~~~
epistasis
From the article:

>They didn’t give it much thought. Periodic strep tests on Isak had always
come back negative. And his symptoms seemed too dramatic to be the result of a
simple, common childhood infection.

I don't think there's any institutional stranglehold stopping research in this
direction, just standard human reasoning. As a scientist, there are enticing
hypotheses to follow that pop up every single day, and it's hard to judge what
should get the investment of time and money.

>Their first priority is pushing pills, not our well-being.

These were doctors prescribing these, not the pharmaceutical industry, and I
believe that the doctors were trying, something, anything, that they believed
might work. What's more risky, using a drug that's been proven to help adults
(barely better than placebo or not), or going after an as-yet-untested
hypothesis about streptococci, that doesn't fit our current understanding of
the problems? There are certainly issues where pharmaceutical interests are
not aligned with our health and well being, but I don't really see this
child's unfortunate trajectory as part of that. The failure rests more on the
science just not being there, and us not having a great understanding of the
mind.

~~~
jedrek
It really bugs me when people talk about Big Pharma pushing pills, cause
really, 8-9 times out of 10, it's patients begging for pills. Are
pharmaceutical companies angels? Fuck no, neither are doctors, but if nobody
was buying, they wouldn't be selling.

There's a great post on reddit from a doctor who wrote about a typical
patient-doctor interaction (which I'm too lazy to find right now):

Patient comes in with elevated blood pressure, about 30 lb overweight,
sedentary lifestyle. Doctors talks about blood pressure, possible future
issues with it, recommends patient start getting some exercise, portion
control, lose some weight, maybe a dietary consult.

Patient comes in a month or three later for a follow up visit. No weight loss,
no drop in blood pressure. Doctor writes a script.

Hell, when I was checking out doctor review sites for a podiatrist, one of the
negative opinions he had said, "He didn't even prescribe me anything!

~~~
e40
_It really bugs me when people talk about Big Pharma pushing pills, cause
really, 8-9 times out of 10, it 's patients begging for pills. Are
pharmaceutical companies angels? Fuck no, neither are doctors, but if nobody
was buying, they wouldn't be selling._

In this trio, I blame the doctors far more than anyone. Patients have no clue,
they just want to be cured. It's the responsibility of the doctors to only
prescribe what is necessary.

Every time I hear my father say he got antibiotics for his cold I cringe, and
wonder WTF the Dr. he saw was thinking. I think the count is up to a dozen
times he's received them in the last 10 years.

~~~
ad_hominem
> _In this trio, I blame the doctors far more than anyone. Patients have no
> clue, they just want to be cured. It 's the responsibility of the doctors to
> only prescribe what is necessary._

That's a bit naive. Many patients practically demand pills, and if you
displease them all you'll take a hit on your "patient satisfaction" metrics,
which in turn displeases the hospital administration as things like Medicare
funding are tied to these metrics. So unfortunately, doing what's best for the
patient doesn't always correspond with what's best for the doctor keeping
their job.[1]

Blaming the doctor for having to make an impossible choice is not entirely
fair. I think the federal government (Medicare) and hospital administrators
need to reevaluate the weight they put on patient satisfaction and the
pressure it puts on physicians as well as patient outcomes.

[1]:
[http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/821288](http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/821288)

~~~
epistasis
I completely agree with this, but also think that it's important for patients
who are sick to leave their doctor experience somewhat soothed.

I think that if a patient listens to explanations about how antibiotics won't
help with their viral infection, but still wants something to be done, that
perhaps doctors should be allowed to prescribe cheap placebos of some sort.
Though this is in some ways incredibly disrespectful to the patient, perhaps
if it wasn't a sugar pill and something truly soothing, like bed rest and warm
soup, it may pass ethical muster.

There's a reason that unsound treatments like homeopathy gain traction. Some
people just want to be cared for and told that they are in good hands and will
get better faster than if they were on their own.

~~~
tormeh
I like this idea. Just have a can of ready-made soup - store-bought if
necessary - and just add something somewhat odd-but-good-tasting. A patient
with half a brain will understand they're being fooled, but whoever seeks
homeopathy wants to be fooled anyway, so that won't be an issue.

------
mellavora
Poor kid. Glad the ordeal is over.

Mind/body. It's one system. Of course issues with one impact the other.

However--Not all mental disease is caused by infection. Schizophrenia, for
example, is associated with a number of abnormalities in brain structure.

~~~
wusher
Recent research is showing a link forming between Schizophrenia and
Toxoplasmosis infections.

[http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/9/11/03-0143_article](http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/9/11/03-0143_article)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis)

------
pera
Just two days ago I found this article:

 _Do Bartonella Infections Cause Agitation, Panic Disorder, and Treatment-
Resistant Depression?_

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2100128/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2100128/)

------
Falkon1313
I find it interesting because strep is very easy to test for and very easy to
cure (for the most part - although the test failed in this case), but I've
seen such a wide variety of responses to it.

When I was young, the doctors would always test and almost always prescribe
antibiotics. Initially they gave shots, which of course I hated as a kid, but
they were effective and very fast - within a few days I'd be better. Then they
switched to multiple week courses of pills, which also worked but left you
sick a lot longer. (Now I wish they'd go back to shots.)

Then something weird happened - they quit testing and started guessing. A
quick glance down the throat followed by either "May be strep, here's a
prescription." or "Might go away on its own. Come back in a couple weeks if it
hasn't gone away." I know people who ended up hospitalized because of this.
Even if it might not get worse, why make them suffer extra weeks, miss
school/work, and risk it getting worse when it could so easily be tested and
treated with a cheap, readily-available cure?

I wonder why testing and applying an appropriate response to test results fell
out of fashion in general. How much more advanced might psychiatric medicine
be if doctors generally did test like scientists (not just for strep, but
whatever) instead of guessing like astrologers? There's probably a lot that
could have already been discovered.

------
raldu
Here is a related story about a urinary tract infection causing psychotic
symptoms and some additional thoughts on immune system, psychosis, and
evolution.

 _Infection and Psychosis in Schizophrenia_
[http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.com.tr/2013/06/infect...](http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.com.tr/2013/06/infection-
and-psychosis-in-schizophrenia.html)

------
fiatmoney
Interesting synchronicity with this result that pain killers / anti-
inflamatories seem to have psychological effects:

[https://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases...](https://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/acetaminophen-
may-reduce-both-pain-and-pleasure.html)

------
MollyR
It's fascinating and makes sense.

It's just personally horrifying to think, an infection could one day slowly
drive me insane.

I really hope we start getting everyone their personalized genome, so we can
start working on targeted cures based on an individuals genome.

------
rasur
An aside (and trying not to be snide with it) but you can certainly be
indoctrinated into Insanity (or perhaps Brainwashed might be a better term).

Just look at Religion and/or Cults.

To be sure, not the same cause, but debatably a variant on the theme of
'insanity'

~~~
DanBC
Insanity is an outdated term that usually refers to psychosis type illnesses.

When a person has a conversation with their God figure this happens in
(roughly) one of two ways.

1) they say a prayer and spend some introspective time thinking

2) they have an actual conversation with a real voice. Is someone in the room
with you? Ask them to say something. An auditory hallucination voice is as
real as that voice; it just happens to come from something that isn't there.

EDIT {this second one is what we would call"insane" or "ill" or
"pathalogical". But the vast majority of religious people do not experience
this, ever, no matter how religious they are.}

Describing religious behaviour as insanity isn't helpful. It shows a lack of
understanding of mental illness. It's not an effective attack on the harms
that some forms of religion can do.

~~~
Crito
Whether you want to call it mental illness or insanity _(I am neither a doctor
nor a lawyer, do I don 't have any preference for either term..)_, I cannot
fathom how the second possibility that you list does not qualify. People who
are experiencing auditory hallucinations while fully awake and rested should
seek professional help.

The first possibility would not be so worrying if people were not attributing
their own introspective thoughts to a flawless perfect benevolent supernatural
being. Nobody should ever be _that_ confident of their own ideas.

I think the attribution of the introspective thought to a supernatural being (
_not_ the introspective thought itself) can reasonably be thought of as
"crazy". I'm not saying it is in DSM, that there is some sort of recognized
illness that it can be attributed to, but it certainly isn't rational
thinking.

~~~
DanBC
Yes! Sorry, i hadn't finished. You're quite right, the second one is insanity.
But most religious people don't have that experience. I'll edit my comment.

------
MrFree
The 1st/top comment on this article by Steve C is very interesting.

------
yellowapple
No, you can't catch insanity, seeing as "insanity" is strictly a legal term;
"insanity" is not a vaild diagnosis per any psychological standard that I'm
aware of (most notably the DSM-IV).

------
a8da6b0c91d
There are some people who argue anti-fungal and anti-bacterial activity are
actually behind the effectiveness of a variety drugs that are not thought of
as such. Statins, for one example, clearly do save people from having a second
heart attack, even though the official cholesterol story justifying the drug
is problematic. Some say the statins are actually killing off a fungal
infection.

The article didn't even mention toxoplasmosis infection and links to mental
illness and other behaviors.

I don't think it's crazy to predict we're going to see more and more health
and behavior problems directly linked to infectious agents over time. People
bought this simple story that antibiotics saved us from all the infections 60
years ago.

~~~
derefr
Huh. Similarly, I have managed to "cure" a number of infections in my own
body, both fungal and bacterial—and even, apparently, a few cavities—purely
with a course of extra-strength expectorants and mucosal-membrane rinses
containing biologically-safe surfactants (e.g. baby shampoo.)

Basically, we think of diseases as things we have to fight with drugs—but our
immune systems are perfectly adequate at fighting blood-borne diseases, most
of the time. The only thing the body really struggles with is
plaques/biofilms—whether in the heart, in the liver, in the tonsils, in the
teeth, in the appendix, etc.

And we've invented tons of things that break up plaques/biofilms: surfactants,
mucosal thinners, ultrasound, etc. But we only apply them in very specific
cases (ultrasound only for free-floating stones, mucosal thinners only for
lung problems, scraping for arterial plaque, etc.) instead of thinking that
this is a class of problems, that will have a class of solutions that all
apply to any instance of the problem.

I bring this up because, by your statement, statins sound like yet another
item in that "biofilm-reducing" class of treatments that all happen to have
some miraculous and mysterious effect on both chronic fungal/bacterial
infections and inflammatory disease (Chron's, IBS, etc.)

~~~
aantix
You're one of the few people I've seen mention the usage of baby shampoo.

I saw it mentioned as a treatment for chronic sinus infections.
[http://blog.sethroberts.net/2014/01/19/journal-of-
personal-s...](http://blog.sethroberts.net/2014/01/19/journal-of-personal-
science-how-i-cured-my-sinusitis/)

------
niche
Sounds like this kid was a super evolved humanoid whose special powers were
tamed by pharmaceuticals

~~~
fennecfoxen
> "He would smash his head into windows and glass whenever the word ‘dead’
> came into his head."

Yep, that totally makes _me_ think super-evolved humanoid with special powers.
100%.

~~~
jdpage
(Warning: long screed tangent to the article.)

To be fair, Superman locks himself in a closet because his powers are too
scary, but yeah, this is totally a different case.

There's this trope that people with mental illnesses—like John Nash, or Rain
Man, or Sheldon Cooper, or all of these people who can paint perfect
landscapes because they're on the autism spectrum or have brain trauma—are
more advanced than people who aren't. And yeah, these people can do things
that the rest of us would have a much harder time doing. But it also comes
with the fact that the world is going to be a much harder place for them. For
people who do have brain quirks that they can take advantage of, it can be a
really empowering narrative. It can also be harmful for people whose brain
quirks don't fit well into a role that's valued by society.

There's a difficult line to find there; what kind of neuroatypical behaviour
should or shouldn't be treated? Most people can agree that depression needs to
be treated, because it's harmful to the sufferer with no benefit. Or if
someone is hearing messages from aliens and running away from home and
wandering about alone in altered mental states, it's fairly uncontroversial to
put them on antipsychotics, even with the negative side-effects.

But on the other hand, the idea of medicating ADHD kids is massively
controversial, because the argument can be made that for many people diagnosed
with it are either misdiagnosed, or are just bored or learn differently. But I
also know ADHD people who legitimately cannot function if they don't take
their medicine. What should be medicated or what shouldn't?

Or here's an even more borderline case: what if someone is convinced that
they're hearing messages from the beyond, and decides to spend the next ten
years writing a book about how to live at peace with the world? What if the
book doesn't make sense? Should they be medicated, because they've clearly
broken with reality? Or should they be let alone, because there's a remote
outside chance that maybe we're all wrong and they're on to something? Should
they see a psychiatrist or a counsellor, who they can talk to and can keep
track of how well they're doing? If so, should that person take an authority
role, or should they be someone to be worked with to reach a mutually
agreeable course of medication (which may be none at all)?

Hence movements centred around neuroatypical people, and this narrative that
they're potentially a next stage in human evolution. Certainly, there are
plenty of neuroatypical people who have desirable traits because of it that
could very well become the norm, but there are also plenty of people whose
traits are simply going to be selected against. It's an incredibly attractive
narrative for those people, though, because society doesn't tend to value them
as people as much as 'neurotypical' people, which is absolutely terrible.

I personally think that there are three big takeaways for this:

1\. People are people, and should be valued as such. 2\. Not everyone has a
special talent that is valued by society, and that's okay. See #1. 3\.
Medication isn't fire-and-forget. It's something that needs to be constantly
re-evaluated and carefully managed.

~~~
DanBC
> There's a difficult line to find there; what kind of neuroatypical behaviour
> should or shouldn't be treated?

Does it cause you to pose a risk of harm to other people or yourself? If yes
then treatment is strongly suggested and sometimes forced.

Does it interfere with your day to day life? Does it stop you from living an
independant life or from being part of society (usually defined on your terms,
not someone elses)? If yes then treatment is offered and the plan should be to
help you achieve what you realistically want.

> There's this trope that people with mental illnesses—like John Nash, or Rain
> Man, or Sheldon Cooper,

A minor point but only one of those people has a mental illness. John Nash has
a psychosis type mental illness. The fictional character Sheldon Cooper will
probably be thought to have Asperger's Syndrome by most of the audience
(although the writers haven't declared any diagnosis and shift between
others). Asperger's isn't a mental illness, it's (in the US) a learning
disability (learning difficulty in the UK). Rain Man probably has Autism which
again is a learning disability (in US and UK).

> Or here's an even more borderline case: what if someone is convinced that
> they're hearing messages from the beyond, and decides to spend the next ten
> years writing a book about how to live at peace with the world? What if the
> book doesn't make sense? Should they be medicated, because they've clearly
> broken with reality? Or should they be let alone, because there's a remote
> outside chance that maybe we're all wrong and they're on to something?
> Should they see a psychiatrist or a counsellor, who they can talk to and can
> keep track of how well they're doing? If so, should that person take an
> authority role, or should they be someone to be worked with to reach a
> mutually agreeable course of medication (which may be none at all)?

You've posed this as if it's some big question but it really isn't. At least,
in England. Maybe it used to be different or it's different over there. People
who hear voices are provided support for that if they want it, but medication
is reserved for times when the voices are intrusive or distressing. Anti-
psychotic medication isn't fun and has considerable side effects.

