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The concept of schizophrenia is dying

theweek.com

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Re: The concept of schizophrenia is dying

#2
I would argue that the indications of schizophrenia being associated with weed is ascribing a causative effect to a correlation. Weed doesn’t increase your chances of schizophrenia unless you already had something that would tilt you in that direction in the first place, from my experience. I would say I do agree that schizophrenia probably needs to be broken up; it was merely a collection of symptoms to begin with that couldn’t be explained by other means. Now we have explanations.

I am curious how this may affect schzioaffective, schizoid, and schizotypal disorders. That they’re not mentioned st all in this article is rather disappointing.

Re: The concept of schizophrenia is dying

#3

I would argue that the indications of schizophrenia being associated with weed is ascribing a causative effect to a correlation. Weed doesn’t increase your chances of schizophrenia unless you already had something that would tilt you in that direction in the first place, from my experience. I would say I do agree that schizophrenia probably needs to be broken up; it was merely a collection of symptoms to begin with t…

I was diagnosed schizoid because I was a smartass and said I could "hear things that others couldn't".

Re: The concept of schizophrenia is dying

#4
Schizophrenia is one of those disorders that medicine has, that is likely not one discrete condition, its likely a multitude of different psychological illnesses all flying under one banner, even if the underlying psychology and physiology are quite different for different people. As we get better with medicine, we find more illnesses - for example, its part of why I think cancer is found so much more often now, while there is undoubtedly more cancer (we're living longer, as it turns out, old age is a fellow traveler of cancer), we're also much better at finding it.

Re: The concept of schizophrenia is dying

#5

I would argue that the indications of schizophrenia being associated with weed is ascribing a causative effect to a correlation. Weed doesn’t increase your chances of schizophrenia unless you already had something that would tilt you in that direction in the first place, from my experience. I would say I do agree that schizophrenia probably needs to be broken up; it was merely a collection of symptoms to begin with t…

Schizophrenia also has a huge correlation with smoking tobacco cigarettes too but that doesn't mean cigarettes cause schizophrenia.

Re: The concept of schizophrenia is dying

#6

I would argue that the indications of schizophrenia being associated with weed is ascribing a causative effect to a correlation. Weed doesn’t increase your chances of schizophrenia unless you already had something that would tilt you in that direction in the first place, from my experience. I would say I do agree that schizophrenia probably needs to be broken up; it was merely a collection of symptoms to begin with t…

I suspect there's some vague "psychosis level" that spikes and decays exponentially when you use weed, lsd, etc. And then people with schizophrenia find these drugs near age 20 just as the level is rising naturally. So it looks like LSD triggered it but there's no real interaction besides adding the two curves.

Re: The concept of schizophrenia is dying

#7

I would argue that the indications of schizophrenia being associated with weed is ascribing a causative effect to a correlation. Weed doesn’t increase your chances of schizophrenia unless you already had something that would tilt you in that direction in the first place, from my experience. I would say I do agree that schizophrenia probably needs to be broken up; it was merely a collection of symptoms to begin with t…

There exists cannabis psychosis. Naturally, more psychosis will exacerbate a psychotic illness. It usually brings it on earlier and heavier in severity i.e typically schizophrenia presents later but cannabis usage in adolescents seems to trigger it.

The same is true for amphetamine. Interestingly, amphetamine has been hypothesised as a chemical model for schizophrenia. Amphetamine psychosis is extremely similar to the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. In fact, many of the treatments used for psychotic illnesses repress dopamine activity in certain receptors (the newer ones, the typical antipsychotics, are less 'targeted' than newer ones leading to Parkinsonian side effects).

Re: The concept of schizophrenia is dying

#8
I think a good case can be made that many of these "mental disorders" are actually metabolic problems. There are many causes behind an individual's metabolic problem that leads to schizophrenia/dementia/psychosis/(edit3: depression)/etc...

Sometimes people are malnourished. The B-vitamins are important cofactors for metabolic activity. An old/new treatment for "schizophrenia" is Vitamin B3 [0]. My girlfriend's treatment provider did a genetic test this past summer and found that she's a poor methylator. This means that she doesn't convert folic acid (synthetic Vitamin B-9) into folate very well. They've put her on prescription folate [1], and she's doing much better than when she was just double-tranquilized. I asked the biochemist about this issue, and he said that when on a good diet with folate-rich foods (liver, etc), even 'mutants' get plenty of folate.

[0] https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/06/schizophrenia-deconstru...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levomefolic_acid

The street pharmacy's stimulants (cocaine/meth) shred the mitochondria. These are known causes of substance-induce psychotic disorders.

People who drink heavily train their nervous system to become insulin-resistant and run on acetate (one of the breakdown products of ethanol). I think it's well-established that excess alcohol is inflammatory, which is also associated with psychosis.

So... Cute anecdote from today. I called two attorneys because I've hit a wall in my efforts to convince my girlfriend's treatment provider that she's been misdiagnosed and is not actually benefiting from the palliative maintenance medications (anti-psychotic/etc) they're still forcing her to take.

The first attorney listened to me, confirmed that it was within my legal rights to file pro-se petitions with the court, said that rural judges don't want to cause problems for their community's treatment provider, and said he couldn't help me because he'd already done some work for my girlfriend's treatment provider. He gave me the number for the second attorney.

It later occurred to me that the treatment provider certainly consulted him about my suit against them.

(minor edits)

edit2: physical injuries and inescapable/emotional stress are drains on the body's energy-producing capacity too. My other friend's father gradually became "schizophrenic" after he broke his back falling out of a tree.

Re: The concept of schizophrenia is dying

#9

I would argue that the indications of schizophrenia being associated with weed is ascribing a causative effect to a correlation. Weed doesn’t increase your chances of schizophrenia unless you already had something that would tilt you in that direction in the first place, from my experience. I would say I do agree that schizophrenia probably needs to be broken up; it was merely a collection of symptoms to begin with t…

The text does a decent job of not saying smoking weed causes psychosis:

"Compared with non-cannabis users, the daily use of high-potency, skunk-like cannabis is associated with a fivefold increase in the odds of someone developing psychosis."

But the photo caption below a picture of someone smoking weed explicitly states (not supported by a study; how could one possible do a double blind test on cannabis in the current regulatory environment) a causative effect:

"Smoking skunk every day increases your odds of developing a psychotic disorder fivefold"

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