Redefining Crazy

Please check out my newest article on serious mental illness, "Redefining Crazy". Here is the link.

Which of these people is the “crazy” one?


A. A person who reads the newspaper everyday, grocery shops, cooks healthy meals and has an immaculately clean house.

B. A person who is petting an imaginary cat and speaks in “word salad”.

C. A person who is a talented creative visual and musical artist.

D. A person who has 12 inch paths through their house due to clutter.

E. A person who loves to talk about cultural history, has a lovely apartment and drives every day.

F. A successful writer with multiple publications and speaking engagements.

Did you pick Person B, or maybe D?

You'll have to read the article to see what the answer is!

Video still of Britney Spears performing "Crazy".

Wheat and Schizophrenia

Do wheat and schizophrenia have a relationship? Here's a fascinating article by Emily Deans, MD.

Anyway, there's a funny thing about schizophrenia, turns out that quite a few of the adult schizophrenics on an inpatient psychiatric unit in 1967 happened to have a major history of celiac disease (gluten/wheat intolerance) as children. As in 50-100 times the amount of celiac disease that one would expect by chance. Celiac doctors also noticed their patients were schizophrenic about 10X as often as the general population. That's a lot! In addition, epidemiological studies of Pacific Islanders and other populations showed a strong, dose-dependent relationship between grain intake and schizophrenia. The gluten-free populations had extremely rare occurrence of schizophrenia - just 2 in 65,000 versus about 1 in 100 as we have in the grain-eating West.