
As Suicide Rates Rise, Scientists Find New Warning Signs - sndean
http://www.wsj.com/articles/as-suicide-rates-rise-scientists-find-new-warning-signs-1465235288
======
heimatau
Some big takeaways:

"Meanwhile, rates of suicide deaths are rising in the U.S. The rate jumped 24%
from 1999 to 2014, from 10.5 to 13 per 100,000 people, according to an April
2016 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

"While depression is the mental illness that is most strongly associated with
suicidal thoughts, it doesn’t often lead to suicidal acts. __Recent research
has shown that it is other mental illnesses, like anxiety disorders, problems
with impulse control and addiction, that are actually more strongly linked to
suicide attempts. Most first suicide attempts occur within a year of the onset
of suicidal thoughts. __" [Emphasis added]

"Another study from the same NIMH group has found that, among severely
depressed subjects, spending more time awake between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. (as
measured by a sleep study called polysomnography) is linked to increased risk
of suicidal thinking the next day."

"Computers analyzed more than 30,000 different risk factors, including
traditional ones like age and mental-health history. But some surprising
issues—such as gastrointestinal problems, infections and injuries like rib
fractures—were tied to increased risk."

"In a study published in 2010 that followed 157 people who had visited a
psychiatric emergency room, subjects are asked to classify words into
categories. The study found those subjects who were quickest at classifying
death and “me words” into the same group had three times the rate of suicide
attempts in the next six months compared with those who were quickest at
linking life and “me words.” (A past suicide attempt is the strongest
predictor of a future one.)"

~~~
r00fus
> "Another study from the same NIMH group has found that, among severely
> depressed subjects, spending more time awake between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. (as
> measured by a sleep study called polysomnography) is linked to increased
> risk of suicidal thinking the next day."

I wonder if something more general could be inferred - when I'm getting bad
sleep (stress-related, mostly), I tend to wake up at around 4AM. My day is
often cranky, sometimes I'm completely ineffective until noon.

Could overall sleep levels be more coincident with lower suicidal thoughts?

~~~
sndean
I wonder if that 4am to 5am timeframe is relevant. I've been falling asleep at
~5am for the past few years...

The key part may be "among severely depressed subjects," but I've noticed that
whenever my sleep changes (stress-related, too, or a random early meeting) my
following day is simply awful and I accomplish more-or-less nothing.

Something that seems obvious now, but wasn't obvious to me until recently, is
that people should be realllllyyy protective of their sleep. I guess that
study supports that idea.

------
perlpimp
Wonder if diet high in refined processed carbohydrates is a factor. I've
switched to paleo-like with fat no-carb/less protein(and somewhat calorie
restricted) days and much of that anxiety is gone. Can sugar be literally
murdering(some) people?

~~~
mrob
As an inanimate object, sugar cannot be literally murdering people. It's
possible that it's killing people, but "murdering" is both incorrect and
unnecessarily emotive language that looks like it's being used in an attempt
to bias the discussion.

~~~
cam_l
google literally.. ie. informal - used for emphasis while not being literally
true.

~~~
mrob
The problem is more the "murdering" than the "literally". Even if you read it
as "figuratively murdering" it's still excessively emotive language.

~~~
cam_l
I would argue that literally here is a modifier to murdering, and in fact both
are used here in an intentionally excessive (or emotional if you prefer) in
order to underline a point. By all means disagree with the point, but sugar
can actually be figuratively murdering people.

As an aside, to suggest that someone is using words to bias a discussion
pretty much misses the whole point of mounting an argument, does it not?

------
Shivetya
Well having had fun with depression I am never went through the suicide side
of things. However what I have noticed is a lot more medications seem to be
carrying the "suicidal thoughts warning" than used too. I am used to seeing
the "it causes sleepiness, don't operate heavy machinery" notes but I am
wondering how many combinations are needed before you find the secret "oh my
god I think life would be better without me". Its like the Joker from Tim
Burton's Batman, which combination kills.

------
klue07
> Computers analyzed more than 30,000 different risk factors, including
> traditional ones like age and mental-health history. But some surprising
> issues—such as gastrointestinal problems, infections and injuries like rib
> fractures—were tied to increased risk.

> Dr. Nock says that some of these may be self-inflicted or related to
> impulsive behavior. Using the historical data, the approach was able to
> detect 45% of suicidal acts an average of about three years before the
> event.

> A study using similar methods looking at suicide risk among U.S. Army
> soldiers in the year after hospitalization for psychiatric issues was
> published in 2015 in JAMA Psychiatry. The algorithm was able to predict
> about 53% of the suicides in that high-risk period.

I wonder what the false positive rates on these are.

------
sandworm101
>>> Researchers are hunting for so-called biomarkers, such as patterns of
brain activity on fMRI scans or levels of stress hormones in the blood, linked
to suicidal thoughts and acts.

It is so very western to treat suicide as a disease, a disorder of the brain.
We ignore the concept that suicide can be a rational act. In the east (Japan)
suicide is considered a private decision to be respected. That doesn't mean
that it isn't an evil that society should attempt to prevent. Some people have
may suffer medical conditions that make them prone to suicide, but other
perfectly healthy people may opt to kill themselves. We cannot treat them all
as medical problems. Sometimes the answer is much more practical, sometimes
the problem is purely economic.

Except in cases of assisted dieing. There we switch the approach and suddenly
declare that killing one's self can be rational decision. It is strange how we
muddle rationality and reasonableness, as if the fact that someone makes a
decision society disagrees with is per se irrational.

~~~
yesiamyourdad
I was thinking exactly the same thing. Yet there's a whole subthread debating
the wisdom of gun ownership because that's a popular axe to grind. Getting at
the root of the issue is trickier. Clearly depression and suicide are popular
topics on HN. We know that there's some kind of social problems that lead to
depression and suicide, but the best some people can come up with is to talk
about gun ownership.

Looking at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate),
the US is in a tie for 50th place for suicide rates. So in spite of the fact
that the US has a high gun ownership rate, we're not anywhere close to being
the top of the suicide rates.

Also, recall the articles around middle aged death rates in the US:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10499434](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10499434)
One of the takeaways is that people may be committing de-facto suicide by
following a pattern of life choices (addiction for example). The "Leaving Las
Vegas" effect (if you saw the movie, recall Nicholas Cage's character tried to
drink himself to death) is really hard to measure.

Side note: suicide is illegal in Nepal and "attempted suicide is illegal in
Nepal and people who attempt suicide when caught are subject to imprisonment,
fines or both", yet Nepal is ranked 7th on the list. One might be led to
conclude that this law is ineffective, if not counter-productive.

~~~
sandworm101
The gun thing is just crazy. It's one of those subjects where everyone can
paint on their own philosophy. So it winds up in every discussion. That makes
it a great weapon for those who want to maintain the status quo. They throw
the gun debate into the mix in full knowledge that it will shut down any other
meaningful discussion, thereby preventing anything from changing. In terms of
suicide, guns just make attempts more likely to succeed. I'd rather focus on
preventing the attempts from happening in the first place.

Laws against suicide are a little silly imho. Someone willing to kill
themselves is operating at a level beyond criminal laws. Nepal probably needs
to keep suicide legal for purposes of inheritance, so that surviving families
don't suffer. Laws that penalize suicide risk encouraging non-suicide suicides
that endanger other people such as "suicide-by-police".

