Saturday, July 11, 2009

SSRI's (antidepressants) and ADHD Drugs for Kids Unsafe?

"The vast majority of the ssri's (antidepressants) and ADHD drugs are harmful and can be remedied with simple honest good absorbable nutrition from products like Zija. " Quote from Dr. Russ Bianchi, one of the world's leading nutritional food formulators. Read the article below recently published in the San Francisco Chronicle.


Antipsychotic drugs for kids raise hope, worry
Erin Allday, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, June 22, 2009

(06-21) 19:38 PDT -- Increasingly powerful antipsychotic drugs available on the market, and growing evidence that starting these medications early can help children with conditions like bipolar disorder, is putting doctors under more pressure than ever to diagnose and treat young people with mental illnesses.

As a result, some doctors say, mental illness, especially bipolar disorder, has been overdiagnosed much the same way attention deficit hyperactivity disorder was in the 1980s.
"ADHD was the diagnosis du jour in the '80s. Now it's become bipolar disorder," said Dr. Andrew Giammona, who heads the psychiatry department at Children's Hospital Oakland. "We're in a quick-fix society, and parents want to believe that if we had this treatment, we can get it fixed and move on."

Before the 1990s, bipolar disorder was a rare diagnosis in children under age 19. By 1994, U.S. doctors were reporting about 25 cases per 100,000 young people, and by 2002 that number had jumped to 1,000 cases per 100,000, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Medication was prescribed for about two-thirds of those patients, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Antipsychotic medications are among the most popular made by pharmaceutical companies. Earlier this month, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel recommended approval of three antipsychotic drugs for use in treating schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in children and teens. The FDA will make a final decision on Geodon, Seroquel and Zyprexa in the coming weeks.

While better drugs and increased diagnoses have been a blessing for many families, at FDA hearings in Washington, doctors and parents voiced concerns that the medication can cause long-term health problems - specifically, extreme weight gain that can lead to metabolic disorders like diabetes.

Not a trivial decision

"It would be controversial enough if it was just a diagnosis, but the diagnosis comes with these very potent medications," said Glen Elliot, chief psychiatrist and medical director of the Children's Health Council in Palo Alto. "My main message is parents need to be apprised that this is a cost-benefit analysis. You don't trivially put somebody on a medication."
As with ADHD, many thousands of children and teens really do have a mental illness that can be treated effectively with medication and therapy. Oakland parent Barbara Carlson said her son was 7 when he started having fits of violent rages, smashing windows and throwing chairs. After several days of testing, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder - but she was reluctant to put him on medication. "He was just so young," Carlson said. "I thought, 'He has his whole life ahead of him, what if this is the wrong diagnosis?' It was very scary to put him on medications."
Seven years later, she said the drugs have improved his life dramatically. He's had weight problems, but he's excelling in school and is active in sports and making friends.
Many mental health experts said they've felt pressure from families with troubled children to make a diagnosis and start treatment - a reaction that's understandable if the child is clearly having problems. But if doctors don't have the proper training to accurately diagnose a mental illness, children may not get the right treatment, said Dr. Robin Dea, director of mental health services for Northern California Kaiser Permanente.

Depression and mania

"I tell doctors, 'You have to be honest with yourself about your own level of experience with this condition,' " Dey said. "We have to be honest with ourselves about whether the medications are working, and if they're not working you need to keep questioning the diagnosis."
Bipolar disorder is thought to affect about 1 percent of children, although studies vary and some experts believe it affects as many as 5 percent of children.
The disorder in adults is marked by extended cycles of depression and mania, although people can have long periods of time where they have no symptoms at all. During manic periods, adults may get grandiose ideas, feel euphoric and be impulsive and make poor decisions.
Children with bipolar disorder tend to cycle through moods faster than adults, and they are more likely to be extremely irritable than euphoric, said Dr. Kiki Chang, director of the Pediatric Bipolar Disorders Program at Stanford University School of Medicine. Experts note that these children are not just kids with behavior problems.

"An irritable kid is most likely not bipolar, he's probably just upset about something," Chang said. "Bipolar kids may be extremely explosive, extremely angry. But they have to have these other symptoms: they're not sleeping as much, their mind is going faster and they're making poor decisions."

Hard to tell the difference

It's not always easy for doctors to tell the difference between a kid with bipolar disorder and one who's dealing with teenage angst or has some other problem, like post-traumatic stress. Giammona at Oakland Children's Hospital said he once diagnosed a child with bipolar disorder only to discover later that the patient had a food allergy that was making him extremely irritable.

"There's a lot of overlap with other potential diagnoses," he said. "There can be lots of reasons for symptoms that look like bipolar disorder. Just because they have the symptoms of the disorder doesn't mean they have it."
Dale Milfay, vice president of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in San Francisco, said it's crucial that children with mental illness get a correct diagnosis as soon as possible and start treatment right away. There may be medical advantages to early treatment, she said, but children also benefit from staying in school and developing crucial relationships with friends and family.

"The earlier people are diagnosed, the better their chances," Milfay said. "But you wouldn't want these drugs to be overused. There needs to be some real criteria that this is not something a primary care doctor can just diagnose."


E-mail Erin Allday at eallday@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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Monday, July 6, 2009




Hello Leaders,

Happy Fourth of July to all our Team across the country. I hope you had an enjoyable time with family and friends and celebrated our freedom and free enterprise.

I want to take a moment and congratulate everyone for a very exciting 11th Period that ended on Friday. Congratulations go to Ms. Cheri Lang and her 2 new leaders in the Minnesota market -- Ms. Becky Lott and Ms. Holly Rhodes.

Let's now focus on building for this Friday -- with the goal of enrolling 2 MIT's!! The best part of last period is the quality of individuals who see the vision of Zija International and have immediately taken action. It is exciting to see the new enrollments and the focus of two getting two. This momentum is sure to carry into the brand new qualification period.

Period 12, Cycle One, which began on 7/4/09, is action packed with opportunity. We have a great opportunity to build our business with Momentum Tuesday, on Tuesday, July 7, 2009. Invite guests, do a 3-way call on the AST Int'l number at 12 pm, 2 pm, 4 pm, 6 pm or 8 pm for 15-minute opportunity calls. Build momentum in your team by helping your guests build their organization immediately -- awesome! And, the day will conclude with our First Tuesday of the month Corporate Power Hour Opportunity Call at 9 pm. There will be some very important announcements by corporate after the business presentation segment of the call. Following AST International's Wednesday night training call at 9 pm, there will be a 9:30 “Miracle Tree” product call and Dr. Russ Bianchi will be Pat Anderson’s very special guest.

TAKE MASSIVE ACTION THIS WEEK!
What can you do to take full advantage of this week?

1. Set your goal to enroll two new MITs this week. Show those two new Distributors how to enroll their two new Distributors doing exactly what you did and you can make $900 THIS WEEK.
2. Click on the
MIT tab. Print off the new MIT Founders Tracking Chart. Fill it out with the Founders Team you are currently building. It is amazing how the mind will imprint your goal when it is in writing and you look at it everyday. Miraculously your actions will produce the results you want and as many $900 checks as you can vision. Teach your new Team Members to do the very same and your organization will explode.
3. Start today by exposing Zija to as many people as you come in contact with over the holiday weekend. Schedule follow-up times with them immediately and arrange with your upline to be on a three-way for your follow-up.
4. Invite everyone you have in process as well as everyone on your Team to Momentum Tuesday and the Corporate Power Hour Call, followed by the “Miracle Tree” call on Wednesday. What a powerful sequence, Exposure, three-way,Sunday night Opportunity Call, Momentum Tuesday three-ways, Power Hour call, three-way, Product call, three-way. How can anyone say no after that?
5. Check out events throughout the country and ask yourself and your teammates -- who do you know in that market. Get guests at those events.
6. Get registered today for the 2009 ZIJA International Convention in Las Vegas, NV, on October 23-24, 2009, at the Rio Hotel.

As we reflect on how America fought for it’s freedom as a nation and how the leaders, with such vision, were able to inspire the action necessary as a people to win that freedom, let's remember this quote. It reminds us it is about Leadership, Teamwork and a dedication to win a greater cause for all.

Don’t all of us want freedom in our Daily lives? Time freedom and financial freedom that will allow us to serve the greater good? I dedicate myself to every single person on our Team to do what ever is humanly possible to help our Team and everyone on our Team win the freedoms we desire. I ask you to dedicate yourself to the same.

-“We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” - Thomas Jefferson
Let’s rock and roll -- and put our "Dreamin' Green" into ACTION!

Juliana Miller -- "Dreamin' Green"
AST International,
ZIJA International