- Email: [email protected]
Maverick, not mad
EDITORIAL
LOCATIONS UK Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 2666 Fax +61 2 9422 2633 USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217 201 Mission Street, 26th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel +1 415 908 3348 Fax +1 415 704 3125 to SUBSCRIbe UK and International Tel +44 (0) 8456 731 731 [email protected] The price of a New Scientist annual subscription is UK £143, Europe €228, USA $154, Canada C$182, Rest of World $293. Postmaster: Send address changes to New Scientist, PO Box 3806, Chesterfield, MO 63006-9953, USA. cONTACTS Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Who’s who newscientist.com/people Contact us newscientist.com/contact Enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] Permission for reuse [email protected] Media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 Marketing Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1286 Back Issues & Merchandise Tel +44 (0) 1733 385170 Syndication Tribune Media Services International Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588 UK Newsagents Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Tel: + 44 (0) 20 8148 3333 © 2011 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Polestar (Colchester)
Who are the misfits? It’s time to rethink how we label those with psychiatric conditions ARMCHAIR psychiatry is a tricky benefits: bipolar disorder seems business. Pundits may be quick to be linked to creativity, while to pronounce on the cause of the even antisocial or psychopathic latest celebrity’s public meltdown, traits may be valuable attributes but this rarely amounts to in such combative situations as anything more than speculation. the battlefield or boardroom. That’s even truer for historical So how could society benefit figures: retrospective diagnoses from any advantages that such of the likes of Vincent van Gogh maverick thinkers might bring? may make headlines, but they are We should start by reconsidering almost impossible to validate. how we classify and label people. Go back tens of thousands of This is not only a matter of years, and all we have to go on avoiding the stigma associated is archaeological and genetic with “madness”: it makes good evidence. That makes it all but scientific sense too. impossible to diagnose individuals – but we can still make “The common-sense view is that there is no clear inferences about attitudes to and dividing line between prevalence of mental illness. The mental health and illness” idea that Homo sapiens rose to dominance over other hominins because of a greater tolerance for Psychiatrists conventionally psychiatric conditions that use checklists of symptoms drawn produce unorthodox ways of from the Diagnostic and Statistical thinking (see page 34) is certainly Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) intriguing. But given the inevitable to distinguish between those who lack of first-hand accounts, it is are well and those who need help. likely to remain contentious. That doesn’t always work well. Nonetheless, this proposition Even after extensive examination, prompts us to consider whether psychiatrists may struggle to modern society might benefit match a troubled individual’s by becoming more accepting symptoms to a particular named of mental illness. There is disorder. The conditions listed in contemporary evidence that the DSM have also been shaped traits associated with particular partly by social expectations, as conditions may sometimes confer well as scientific evidence.
Homosexuality, for instance, was only removed in 1973. So some researchers are now trying to determine the biological and psychological traits that underlie psychiatric conditions, with the aim of replacing the DSM’s bewildering array of conditions with a simpler framework of “dimensions” of mental health. Rather than ticking boxes, psychiatrists would score people for traits along continuous scales, much like height and weight. That would reinforce the common-sense view that there is no clear dividing line between mental health and illness. For example, perfectionist athletes who practice relentlessly and indulge in superstitious pre-game rituals would then be seen to differ only in degree from those whose careers are crushed by obsessive-compulsive disorder. Will discarding the concepts of “normal” and “mad” lead humanity to new heights, mirroring the advances that might have stemmed from earlier tolerance of unusual thinking? Perhaps not. But it should definitely promote a clearer and more compassionate view of the misfit minds among us. That must be a good thing. n
A simple prescription for health IF THERE was a daily pill you could take to reduce your risk of developing cancer, would you take it? At the very least, you would want to know the downside. Such a drug does exist, has few side effects, and can be purchased for peanuts in any pharmacy. That wonder drug is aspirin. Evidence is piling up that a daily dose reduces the risk of dying from cancer by about a third
(see page 6). For some cancers the results are even better. As yet, there is no official advice to take aspirin to prevent cancer. Surely it can only be a matter of time. On the basis of similar – though admittedly stronger – evidence, doctors already advise millions of people to take lowdose aspirin to reduce their risk of having heart attacks and strokes. While the drug doesn’t agree
with everyone, severe adverse reactions are rare. A handful of doctors claim that aspirin’s benefits stem from the fact that it is a vital micronutrient which should be reclassified as a vitamin (New Scientist, 7 February 2004, p 36). That debate is still far from over. But the argument for even more widespread use of aspirin as a prophylactic is starting to look unstoppable. n 5 November 2011 | NewScientist | 3
LOCATIONS UK Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 2666 Fax +61 2 9422 2633 USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217 201 Mission Street, 26th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel +1 415 908 3348 Fax +1 415 704 3125 to SUBSCRIbe UK and International Tel +44 (0) 8456 731 731 [email protected] The price of a New Scientist annual subscription is UK £143, Europe €228, USA $154, Canada C$182, Rest of World $293. Postmaster: Send address changes to New Scientist, PO Box 3806, Chesterfield, MO 63006-9953, USA. cONTACTS Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Who’s who newscientist.com/people Contact us newscientist.com/contact Enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] Permission for reuse [email protected] Media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 Marketing Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1286 Back Issues & Merchandise Tel +44 (0) 1733 385170 Syndication Tribune Media Services International Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588 UK Newsagents Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Tel: + 44 (0) 20 8148 3333 © 2011 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Polestar (Colchester)
Who are the misfits? It’s time to rethink how we label those with psychiatric conditions ARMCHAIR psychiatry is a tricky benefits: bipolar disorder seems business. Pundits may be quick to be linked to creativity, while to pronounce on the cause of the even antisocial or psychopathic latest celebrity’s public meltdown, traits may be valuable attributes but this rarely amounts to in such combative situations as anything more than speculation. the battlefield or boardroom. That’s even truer for historical So how could society benefit figures: retrospective diagnoses from any advantages that such of the likes of Vincent van Gogh maverick thinkers might bring? may make headlines, but they are We should start by reconsidering almost impossible to validate. how we classify and label people. Go back tens of thousands of This is not only a matter of years, and all we have to go on avoiding the stigma associated is archaeological and genetic with “madness”: it makes good evidence. That makes it all but scientific sense too. impossible to diagnose individuals – but we can still make “The common-sense view is that there is no clear inferences about attitudes to and dividing line between prevalence of mental illness. The mental health and illness” idea that Homo sapiens rose to dominance over other hominins because of a greater tolerance for Psychiatrists conventionally psychiatric conditions that use checklists of symptoms drawn produce unorthodox ways of from the Diagnostic and Statistical thinking (see page 34) is certainly Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) intriguing. But given the inevitable to distinguish between those who lack of first-hand accounts, it is are well and those who need help. likely to remain contentious. That doesn’t always work well. Nonetheless, this proposition Even after extensive examination, prompts us to consider whether psychiatrists may struggle to modern society might benefit match a troubled individual’s by becoming more accepting symptoms to a particular named of mental illness. There is disorder. The conditions listed in contemporary evidence that the DSM have also been shaped traits associated with particular partly by social expectations, as conditions may sometimes confer well as scientific evidence.
Homosexuality, for instance, was only removed in 1973. So some researchers are now trying to determine the biological and psychological traits that underlie psychiatric conditions, with the aim of replacing the DSM’s bewildering array of conditions with a simpler framework of “dimensions” of mental health. Rather than ticking boxes, psychiatrists would score people for traits along continuous scales, much like height and weight. That would reinforce the common-sense view that there is no clear dividing line between mental health and illness. For example, perfectionist athletes who practice relentlessly and indulge in superstitious pre-game rituals would then be seen to differ only in degree from those whose careers are crushed by obsessive-compulsive disorder. Will discarding the concepts of “normal” and “mad” lead humanity to new heights, mirroring the advances that might have stemmed from earlier tolerance of unusual thinking? Perhaps not. But it should definitely promote a clearer and more compassionate view of the misfit minds among us. That must be a good thing. n
A simple prescription for health IF THERE was a daily pill you could take to reduce your risk of developing cancer, would you take it? At the very least, you would want to know the downside. Such a drug does exist, has few side effects, and can be purchased for peanuts in any pharmacy. That wonder drug is aspirin. Evidence is piling up that a daily dose reduces the risk of dying from cancer by about a third
(see page 6). For some cancers the results are even better. As yet, there is no official advice to take aspirin to prevent cancer. Surely it can only be a matter of time. On the basis of similar – though admittedly stronger – evidence, doctors already advise millions of people to take lowdose aspirin to reduce their risk of having heart attacks and strokes. While the drug doesn’t agree
with everyone, severe adverse reactions are rare. A handful of doctors claim that aspirin’s benefits stem from the fact that it is a vital micronutrient which should be reclassified as a vitamin (New Scientist, 7 February 2004, p 36). That debate is still far from over. But the argument for even more widespread use of aspirin as a prophylactic is starting to look unstoppable. n 5 November 2011 | NewScientist | 3