Word: lithium
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...fall of communism, the L.A. riots, even the apocalyptic rhetoric of the Republican revolution. But in the two years since Oklahoma City, the rough edges of the national psyche seem to have been sanded down a bit, as if we'd taken a collective dose of lithium. The economy is performing nicely, crime is down, we're finally bored of O.J. This isn't end time--it's quiet time...
Ultimately, scientists would like to figure out how genetic defects cause depression, and then to design drugs to correct whatever has gone awry. Gene mapping would be particularly helpful to people at risk for manic-depressive illness: although lithium and related drugs usually relieve the manic episodes, current antidepressants are often ineffective against the acute depressive ones. Says Ascher: "That's the real frontier...
Huggins got into trouble, according to state dental examiners, when, in pursuit of mercury, he went beyond the bounds of dentistry. In some cases he prescribed lithium tablets and ordered potentially dangerous injections of insulin "without clinical justification." One man, who had no amalgam fillings, was allegedly told that his lab reports showed he had "retention toxicity." Huggins denies any wrongdoing and claims that "dentistry is trying to embarrass me for getting this message...
...suicide. But it took years for her to accept the fact that she had to stay on medication. What really saved her life, she says, was psychotherapy. In an age that believes drugs alone can defeat disease, Jamison remains a staunch supporter of what Freud called "the talking cure." "Lithium moderates the illness," she observes, "but therapy teaches you to live with...
...with her second husband Dr. Richard Wyatt, a schizophrenia researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health, she writes her books, sees close friends and takes long walks. But like many who have lived life at the highest pitch, Jamison finds being "normal" a "bittersweet exchange." "I know without lithium I'd be dead or insane," she says. And yet "I don't see Saturn's image now without feeling an acute sadness...