Obsession // Current

Birdie

Gavin loves birds, the feathered variety that is. Everybody thinks he is crazy... more

soapdish
added this
3 days ago
|
0 comments

Heinz Obsession

My Heinz Ketchup spot. I fashioned this commercial after the Calvin Klein Obsession... more

Super_Pimp
added this
16 days ago
|
0 comments

Everyone wants to be a Farmer.

The "Farmville app" for Facebook has quickly become the most popular app of all time... more

e_young
added this
16 days ago
|
0 comments

Disney's Biggest Fan

George Reiger is not just a fan, he lives and breathes Disney. To honour the... more

emmaboswood
added this
1 month ago
|
0 comments

Breaking: Glenn Beck - Secret communist, socialist?

Breaking news: Los Angles Times is reporting that Glenn Beck's Project 9-12 symbolism... more

locutus
added this
2 months ago
|
14 comments

Will Glenn Beck offer apology to Obama?

Will Fox News personality Glenn Beck offer an apology to President Barack Obama? Beck,... more

locutus
added this
3 months ago
|
71 comments

DISNEY Wedding Dresses?

Yes, Disney Wedding Dresses. Created for that special Bride-to-be who has a 09 year... more

TheJerryMadden
added this
3 months ago
|
14 comments

Man spends decade traveling world in search of volcano eruptions

A Dutch man has spent the last ten years traveling around the world in such of... more

FreshPlastic
added this
4 months ago
|
0 comments

Help for Chronic Hair-Pullers?

Our brains can give rise to all manner of odd psychiatric problems, but one of the strangest is trichotillomania — better known as hair-pulling. The uncontrollable desire to yank out one's hair may seem like a freaky sideshow diagnosis, but the disorder is actually not so uncommon, affecting perhaps two million American adults over 22. Exact numbers are hard to come by, since people with the condition often hide it — sometimes they don't even appear in public because of their embarrassing, mangy bald spots. There is no approved treatment.
But a paper published this week in the prestigious Archives of General Psychiatry offers a simple new hope for trichotillomania sufferers. In a small trial of 50 hair-pullers, more than half of those who took an over-the-counter antioxidant called N-acetylcysteine, which is available in pill form at mainstream stores like GNC and Vitamin Shoppe, had improvement of symptoms after 12 weeks, compared with 16% taking a placebo.

If the findings bear out, they may herald a potential new treatment for an age-old condition. As psychiatric symptoms go, hair-pulling is among the oldest recorded. According to Dr. Jon Grant, a trichotillomania expert at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine and the lead author of the new paper, Hippocrates himself said that in order to test whether patients were faking their illness, doctors must ask whether they are pulling out their hair. The behavior is so commonly associated with distress that the stock phrase to describe a stressful situation is one that causes you to tear your hair out.

We seem wired to attack our hair under traumatic conditions, possibly because forcibly extracting hair is painful; it can divert attention from stress to the more immediate matter of how to solve a pressing problem. For chronic hair-pullers, that diversion turns into addictive psychological relief. Some people with trichotillomania pull out not only hairs from their heads, but also from their pubic areas and armpits; as many as 20% eat their hair; a small minority pull other people's hairs. "Many say it's not painful but more of a sense of just a tug, one that provides a calming feeling," says Grant. "Some of these people are not even aware they are pulling their hair. Their spouses will say, 'Stop that,' and they are not even aware they have a clump of hair on their lap."

Grant theorizes that trichotillomania may be a kind of grooming irregularity that falls into the obsessive-compulsive family of disorders. "Some parrots pull out all their feathers," he says. "Some mice pull out all their fur."

That may explain why the antioxidant N-acetylcysteine can help prevent it. The compound is thought to work by reducing the synaptic release of a neurotransmitter called glutamate. As Grant told me, glutamate is the communication chemical that "tells the brain, 'Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it!' And the rest of the brain can be overwhelmed by this drive state." Reduce glutamate, and you may reduce the drive state. Previous studies have suggested the supplement may also reduce urges to use cocaine and to gamble.

Likewise, in Grant's 12-week study, those compulsive hair-pullers who were randomly assigned to receive 1,200 milligrams to 2,400 milligrams of N-acetylcysteine a day experienced a 40% reduction in scores on a test designed to measure trichotillomania. Unfortunately, the patients did not report a substantial improvement in quality of life, but Grant believes that may be because three months is too soon for unsightly bald spots to have grown back.

Currently, most patients with trichotillomania are treated with psychotherapy or antidepressants, including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), like Prozac. But in recent years, four studies that have looked at SSRIs in the treatment of trichotillomania showed they are not effective in relieving the condition.Our brains can give rise to all manner of odd psychiatric problems, but one of the... more