On Tuesday, Jan 24, 1995 WadeBlack2 at aol.com wrote:
" Ratio of U.S. Police officers who committ suicide each year to the
number of officers killed in the line of duty is 2:1 Harpers Index, January
1995"
From citation; Adv Biol Phychiatry, vol 17, pp 70-83 (Karger, Basel
1988 ) " The Role of Serotonin in Depression and Suicide: Do Serotonin
Reuptake Inhibators Provide the Key? "
" There is a body of evidence, the preponderance of which suggests
that a decreased availablity of 5- Hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) in the central
nervous system may be implicated in the propensity for some psychiatrically
ill patients to commit suicide. This relationship may be most direct in the
case of violent suicide.
To date, the evidence suggests the following: (1) Endogenously
depressed (unipolar) patients have a higher incidence of low CSF 5-HIAA
levels than either bipolar or nonendogenously depressed or non depressed
subjects. Low CSF 5-HIAA levels are associated with increased incidences of
suicidal acts. (2) This relationship between low CSF 5-HIAA levels and
suicidal acts is not confined to depressive illness but has been reported in
other psychiatric conditions such as aggression, schizophrenia or personality
disorders. (3) The relationship between violent suicide or attempts (such as
hanging, shooting, etc... ) and low CSF 5-HIAA levels appears the strongest ,
seen regardless of diagnostic catagory. A question remains: Is violent
suicide in itself an intrapunitive form of aggression?"
From citation writen by New York State Psychiatric Institute and
Department of Psychiatry , Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons.
" Serotonin and Stress Induced Analgesia" :
" Serotonin interacts with the HPA axis on several levels: In the
Hippocampus where the expression of 5-HT receptors may be unregulated by
glucocorticoid feedback, in the paraventricular nucleus where there is direct
5-HT synaptic input upon CRF nuerosecretory cells, in the median eminence
where 5-HT terminals exist and in the anterior pituitary where 5-HT may act
directly upon the corticotrophs. The net pharmacologic effect of serotonin
upon the HPA axis is to stimulate ACTH release via a 5-HT1a and 5-HT2
receptor mediated process. Hence, in interpreting serotonergic manipulations
of stress induced analgesia, direct neuroendocrine actions must be
experimentally dissected from alterations in interpretive difficulty that is
peculiar to neuropharmacologic studies of stress-analgesia. Indeed,
Fluoxetine, which increases free 5-HT at synapses by inhibiting it's uptake,
is well known to depress feeding. As we have seen, it also mimics the
neuroendocrine effects upon the HPA axis of a natural environmental stressor
by increasing circulatory glucocorticoids in a dose dependent manner.
Suppresion of consumatory behavior is one of the defining properties of a
stressful environmental stimulus. Needless to say, this is not meant to
argue that Fluoxetine and other serotonergic agents act only indirectly upon
eating through stress-mediated process. To the contrary, most 5-HT1a
agonists, such as Gespirone, result in Hyperphagia and in concommitant
elevations of ACTH, beta-endorphin and cortisol."
Molecule One Scientific Research Institute questions: (1) Are
the available SSRI's in the United States effective in keeping serotonin
levels 'up' during times of stress? (2) Are certain Hightech Superserotonins
actually 'nutritional' via in their antagonist effect on 5-HT reuptake?
We would be pleased to receive your comments...M1.
