Harvard Mental Health Letter articles from April 2002

Harvard Mental Health Letter archives from April 2002

The Mind and the Immune System - Part I.
April 1, 2002... One of the standing mysteries of medicine is the relationship between the mind and physical health - how feelings, thoughts, attitudes, and behavior are related to physical illness, how psychological and social stress affect the likelihood of...

Drug Treatments for Alcoholism.
April 1, 2002... Frustrated by the difficulty of treating addictions and inspired by the success of antidepressant and antipsychotic medications, physicians and scientists have conducted a long search for pharmacological aid. As the most common serious drug...

In Brief - Brain Tissue Loss in Schizophrenia.
April 1, 2002... Most scientists believe that schizophrenia is rooted in abnormal brain formation in the early years of life - before birth or at latest before age 5. A new study indicates that these abnormalities may not be a static condition. They may set in...

In Brief - Trends in Smoking and Their Meaning.
April 1, 2002... As the proportion of smokers in the American population declines, the proportion of nicotine addicts among them has been increasing. About 4,500 persons ages 15-54 were asked about their smoking habits in the National Comorbidity Survey....

In Brief - Personality and Cancer.
April 1, 2002... There are no cancer-prone personality types, according to a long-term Danish study published recently in the American Journal of Epidemiology. The researchers administered a personality questionnaire and an interview to more than a thousand...