Tragedy again strikes in America - Gunman kills nine in Charleston, SC Church

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Once again, there was another mass killing and once again, the racial activists, social activists, and the news media labeled it another "Hate Crime."

We have now had 70 such killings since 1982.  Here was the news bulletin. 

A devastating attack took place on Wednesday night at a historic black church in Charleston.

From the New York Times:

A white gunman opened fire Wednesday evening at a historic black church in downtown Charleston, S.C., before fleeing, the police said, and nine people were killed. The Charleston Police Department said the shooting occurred at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church about 9 p.m.

Officials did not release information about possible victims. The police described the gunman as a clean-shaven white man about 21 years-old who was wearing a gray sweatshirt, bluejeans and Timberland boots.

According to the Post and Courier, Charleston Police Chief Gregory Mullen said at a press conference late Wednesday night, "I do believe it's a hate crime."

Most mass shooters in the United States have been white males, as our investigation of three decades worth of data shows. In most cases, the killers obtained their guns legally.

At least one other mass shooting was carried out in recent years at a house of worship, in August 2012 at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. And in April 2014 in Kansas City, a white supremacist opened fire in a Jewish retirement community, killing three.

As of early Thursday morning, the suspect in Charleston remained at large, and none of the victims had yet been publicly identified.

Before they even caught the killer the news media, law enforcement, and social activists already called it a hate crime and raised the issue of gun control.

Well I beg to differ with all of them.  The mass killing sprees plaguing America are far more likely to be the result of the horrendous over-prescription of legal drugs by our medical community.

There is no way to judge the actions of a mass murderer to a hate crime because in this nation nothing, not even prejudice, can justify murder.  There will always be the occasional nut case who gets carried away but mass murder is a real distraction from the truth.

The truth is nearly two-thirds of Americans are taking legal prescriptions of anti-psychotic and anti-depressive drugs, or other dangerous drugs, to get off their addiction to legal drugs.          

One of the key side effects of these prescription drugs is to amplify paranoia, delusion, or suicide tendencies.  Our failure to address mental health as a key cause of mass killings, a state of mental health intensified in the dark side by legally prescribed drugs, ignores the realities of the mass killings.

Today I want to expose all the scientific evidence that our prescription happy society is triggering mass murders at an ever-increasing rate.  A follow up article will address how this destabilization of the brain by prescription drugs opens the mind to an invasion from the dark or evil side of life.

Here are excerpts from a series of articles about mass killings and prescription drugs in America.  If you pay attention, you will note the connections between the side effects of drugs and the hideous acts of violence from legal drug users. 

Mother Jones

A Guide to Mass Shootings in America

There have been at least 69 in the last three decades—and most of the killers got their guns legally.

By Mark Follman, Gavin Aronsen, and Deanna Pan

Updated: Sat May 24, 2014, 10:45 PM EDT

It is perhaps too easy to forget how many times this has happened. The horrific mass murder at a movie theater in Colorado in July 2012, another at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin that August, another at a manufacturer in Minneapolis that September—and then the unthinkable nightmare at a Connecticut elementary school that December—were some of the latest in an epidemic of such gun violence over the last three decades.

Since 1982, there have been at least 69 mass shootings across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii. Thirty-two of these mass shootings have occurred since 2006. Seven of them took place in 2012, and another five occurred in 2013, including in Santa Monica, California, and at the Washington Navy Yard. The first five months of 2014 brought major gun rampages at Fort Hood and in northern and southern California.

We've gathered detailed data on more than three decades of cases and mapped them below, including information on the shooters' profiles, the types of weapons they used, and the number of victims they injured and killed. The below analysis covers the cases from 1982 through 2012, and the map and database have been updated with cases through 2013.*

Weapons: Of the 143 guns possessed by the killers, more than three quarters were obtained legally. The arsenal included dozens of assault weapons and semi-automatic handguns with high-capacity magazines. (See charts below.) Just as Jeffrey Weise used a .40-caliber Glock to slaughter students in Red Lake, Minnesota, in 2005, so too did James Holmes, along with an AR-15 assault rifle, when blasting away at his victims in a darkened movie theater. In Newtown, Connecticut, Adam Lanza wielded a .223 Bushmaster semi-automatic assault rifle as he massacred 20 school children and six adults.

The killers: More than half of the cases involved school or workplace shootings (12 and 20, respectively); the other 30 cases took place in locations including shopping malls, restaurants, and religious and government buildings. Forty four of the killers were white males. Only one of them was a woman. (See Goleta, Calif., in 2006.) The average age of the killers was 35, though the youngest among them was a mere 11 years old. (See Jonesboro, Ark., in 1998.) A majority were mentally troubled—and many displayed signs of it before setting out to kill. Explore the map for further details—we do not consider it to be all-inclusive, but based on the criteria we used we believe that we've produced the most comprehensive rundown available on this particular type of violence. (Mass shootings represent only a sliver of America's overall gun violence.)

Our focus is on public mass shootings in which the motive appeared to be indiscriminate killing. We used the following criteria to identify cases:

The shooter took the lives of at least four people. An FBI crime classification report identifies an individual as a mass murderer—versus a spree killer or a serial killer—if he kills four or more people in a single incident (not including himself), typically in a single location.

The killings were carried out by a lone shooter. (Except in the case of the Columbine massacre and the Westside Middle School killings, which involved two shooters.)

The shootings occurred in a public place. (Except in the case of a party on private property in Crandon, Wisconsin, and another in Seattle, where crowds of strangers had gathered.) Crimes primarily related to gang activity, armed robbery, or domestic violence in homes are not included.

If the shooter died or was hurt from injuries sustained during the incident, he is included in the total victim count. (But we have excluded many cases in which there were three fatalities and the shooter also died, per the above FBI criterion.)

We included a handful of so-called "spree killings"—cases in which the killings occurred in more than one location over a short period of time, that fit the above criteria.

For more on the thinking behind our criteria, see our mass shootings explainer. Plus: more on the crucial mental illness factor, and on the recent barrage of state laws rolling back gun restrictions across the US. And: Explore the full data set behind our investigation.

Here are two charts detailing the killers' weapons:

Antipsychotic Drug Definition

Antipsychotics are drugs used in the treatment of brain disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and severe depression. According to the New York Times, antipsychotics are one of the largest types of prescribed drugs in the United States with over 3.1 million Americans accounting for a market worth USD 18 billion in 2011 itself. Global estimates suggest that over 1.25% of the global population suffers from psychosis and related disorders. This brings a market of about 7.5 million people suffering from combined disorders of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, dementia, depression among other rare conditions. Several recent studies have suggested instances of drug abuse and over prescription of these drugs in the market, particularly in North America. Clinical studies have shown severe drawbacks and addiction to antipsychotic drugs. A serious side effect observed is tardive dyskinesia which is a potentially irreversible movement disorder. These drugs are prescribed for mild symptoms as well, increasing the market for the drugs tremendously.

WND EXCLUSIVE

70 million Americans taking mind-altering drugs

Exclusive: David Kupelian tells untold story of nation's rapidly escalating drug dependence

Published: 02/09/2014 at 4:25 PM

The heroin-overdose death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman has caused the media to focus, however fleetingly, on America’s drug problem.

News accounts of the Oscar-winner’s tragic demise typically reference the startling increase in heroin-related deaths in the last four to five years. The problem, reporters explain, is the vast number of Americans addicted to prescription pain meds like OxyContin, many of whom discover heroin to be both cheaper and easier to obtain than the prescription opioid drugs to which they initially became addicted.

That’s accurate as far as it goes. But by following the trail further, we arrive at a place far more shocking and consequential. We discover that not only has the traditional distinction between illegal “street drugs” and legal “therapeutic prescription drugs” become so blurred as to be almost nonexistent, but between America’s twin drug epidemics – one illegal, the other legal – well over 70 million Americans are using mind-altering drugs. And that number doesn’t include abusers of alcohol, which adds an additional 60 million Americans. So we’re really talking about 130 million strung-out Americans. How is this possible?

Examples of opioids are: Painkillers such as; morphine, methadone, Buprenorphine, hydrocodone, and oxycodone. Heroin is also an opioid and is illegal. Opioid drugs sold under brand names include: OxyContin®, Percocet®, Palladone®(taken off the market 7/2005), Vicodin®, Percodan®, Tylox® and Demerol® among others.

Opioids are medications that relieve pain. They reduce the intensity of pain signals reaching the brain and affect those brain areas controlling emotion, which diminishes the effects of a painful stimulus. Medications that fall within this class include hydrocodone (e.g., Vicodin), oxycodone (e.g., OxyContin, Percocet), morphine (e.g., Kadian, Avinza), codeine, and related drugs. Hydrocodone products are the most commonly prescribed for a variety of painful conditions, including dental and injury-related pain. Morphine is often used before and after surgical procedures to alleviate severe pain. Codeine, on the other hand, is often prescribed for mild pain. In addition to their painrelieving properties, some of these drugs—codeine and diphenoxylate (Lomotil) for example—can be used to relieve coughs and severe diarrhea.

The abuse of and addiction to opioids such as heroin, morphine, and prescription pain relievers is a serious global problem that affects the health, social, and economic welfare of all societies.  It is estimated that between 26.4 million and 36 million people abuse opioids worldwide, with an estimated 2.1 million people in the United States suffering from substance use disorders related to prescription opioid pain relievers in 2012 and an estimated 467,000 addicted to heroin.  The consequences of this abuse have been devastating and are on the rise.  For example, the number of unintentional overdose deaths from prescription pain relievers has soared in the United States, more than quadrupling since 1999.  There is also growing evidence to suggest a relationship between increased non-medical use of opioid analgesics and heroin abuse in the United States.

CERTAIN MEDICATIONS TAKEN ROUTINELY BY A HUNDRED MILLION AMERICANS FOUND T0 CAUSE USERS TO COMMIT MURDER AT HIGHER RATES

06-01-2015 7:45 pm - Mike Adams - Natural News

Just as Natural News has warned for over a decade, mind-altering medications such as tranquilizers and psychiatric drugs (SSRIs) have now been confirmed to increase the risk of a person committing murder.

A new study published in the journal World Psychiatry (June 1 edition, not yet found on the web) found that several classes of prescription medications -- including antidepressant drugs, tranquilizers and anti-inflammatory painkillers -- markedly increased the chances of someone murdering another human being.

This link has long been suspect in antidepressants, which have been repeatedly linked to mass school shootings in the United States.

"I think that these chemical substances affect the impulse control of the person," Dr. Jari Tiihonen, lead author and a professor, told Medical Daily. "The only surprising result was that painkillers also increase the risk."

According to the study's findings:

• Antidepressant drugs increased the risk of committing homicide by 31%.

• Tranquilizers increased the risk of committing homicide by 45%.

• Opioid pain relievers increased the risk of committing homicide by 92%.

• Anti-inflammatory painkillers increased the risk of committing homicide by 200%.

We were right all along: These mind-altering medications turn some people into cold-blooded killers

For years, the New Media / Independent Media has been warning about the dangers of psychiatric drugs causing violence. The mainstream media, which now receives as much as 70% of its advertising revenue from drug companies, has all but censored this story, largely ignoring the mass deaths taking place right in our local communities.

Years ago in 2009, I wrote the rap song, "S.S.R.Lies" which exposed this link between psych meds and school violence. Since then, Natural News and other media sources have continued to cover the link between psychiatric drugs and violence, including this story: Prescription drugs are connected to school shootings and other violence, yet more drugs are touted as the solution.

(Also since 2009, I've published fourteen songs and music videos, each of them covering key issues of social justice, liberty and food freedom. Click here to hear the fan-favorite song "Be Divergent" or one of my personal favorites Revolution of the Heart.)

Is Big Pharma contributing to the wave of homicidal violence sweeping America?

America is presently experiencing a massive crime wave, with gangs running loose in the streets of cities like Baltimore and Chicago. The number of shootings that took place in Baltimore over just the Memorial Day weekend -- 32 -- is larger than the total number of shootings that take place in an entire year in many other countries.

In the month of May alone, there were 300 shootings in Chicago, with 35 deaths.

Here's the question of the day: How many people in Baltimore and Chicago are on antidepressant drugs? How many are taking anti-inflammatory painkillers? How many people who participated in the recent riots were operating with medicated brains? What role does medication play in the escalating violence now spiraling out of control across many of America's cities? (A medicated population is not a rational population... where will this lead next?)

Gun control advocates point to firearms as the cause of such violence, but the logic doesn't pan out. Guns don't shoot by themselves. (I tried it with a magic wand over and over, and I could never get my rifle to fire unless I deliberately pulled the trigger.)

Firearms require a person to make a decision in order to unleash a high-velocity bullet in the direction of an intended target. That decision-making process is precisely what's compromised by mind-altering medications. SSRIs can push some people over the edge, causing them to illegally use a firearm in a way its manufacturer never intended. In much the same way, someone can drink a lot of alcohol and use a vehicle to commit mass homicide, too. Both of these are chemically induced homicides using mechanical tools (cars or guns) which were never meant to kill innocent people.

What they both have in common is inhibited cognitive function caused by chemicals. "Medicated driving" is just as dangerous as "drunk driving..." and possibly even more so.

Pharma-funded media tries to downplay link between SSRIs and homicide.

The mainstream media is predictably trying to downplay the increased risk homicidal behavior among people medicated with antidepressants, claiming a 31% increased risk is only a "slight" risk. Of course, this is the same media that, if presented with a press release from the CDC claiming unvaccinated children had a 31% increased risk of contracting measles in Disneyland, would be screaming bloody murder and causing a nationwide infectious disease panic. "Thirty-one percent increased risk!! Get your damn kids vaccinated!"

Example of the total dismissal of the risk factors documented in the study: "When asked about the practical implications of these findings, Tiihonen said that people should not be worried about the risk of violence associated with antidepressant use," reports LiveScience.com, which also downplays any link between antidepressant drugs and violence.

Why, exactly, should we not be worried about medicated people committing mass murder? Maybe because that worry would call into question all the lies we've been told about drug safety by the FDA and Big Pharma.

Even if the increased risk seems small on an individual basis, you have tens of millions of Americans taking these drugs. A small risk multiplied by tens of millions of people results in the inevitability of a drug-induced homicide or mass murder... much like what we saw in Columbine, Colorado, and other school shootings. According to CDC statistics, almost 30 million Americans aged 12 and over are now taking antidepressant medications. That's 30 million would-be killers... ticking time bombs of violence if the drugs trigger homicidal violence in their brains.

There are almost a hundred million more people who take anti-inflammatory painkillers, too, according to this Consumer Reports document. On top of that, there are presently about 60 million prescriptions written each year for tranquilizer-class medications. Clearly, we're talking about more than one-third of Americans taking these risky medications that can cause homicidal behavior. That's not a small deal by any measure.

Furthermore, both the government and mainstream media have loudly raised the alarm on many other issues that pose a far smaller risk of public harm than psychiatric drugs. For example:

• There is virtually zero risk of being harmed or attacked by a terrorist anywhere in the United States. Yet the entire Patriot Act surveillance state / TSA / police state / militarized police infrastructure that has been put into place since 2001 was based on the heavily marketed fear that terrorists were hiding around every corner, waiting to kill us all. In truth, almost no one in America has even seen a terrorist, much less been killed by one.

• There is almost ZERO risk that a healthy, unvaccinated child exposed to measles will be killed by measles. Even in the heavily propagandized Disneyland outbreak, not a single child died. Some got the measles, built their own immune system antibodies, and recovered naturally.

• Almost no one dies from raw milk consumption in America, yet the FDA and state "food Nazi" thugs wage surveillance wars and arrest people like James Stewart at gunpoint (SWAT style) for distributing raw milk to health-conscious parents who desire the wholesome beverage.

Get off the mind-altering meds.

The most important take away message from all this is to get off the mind-altering meds. If you're taking psychiatric drugs or tranquilizers, you run the risk of "snapping" and turning into a homicidal maniac who kills other people. That's precisely what this study documented.

It also calls into question the escalating violence in a country that's the most medicated nation in the world: America. When you combine the scourge of mind-altering medications with the cognitive-harming effects of fluoride, glyphosate, pesticides and urban air pollution, is it any wonder things keep getting worse among the voters?

Sources for this article include:

Study: Tiihonen J, Lehti M, Aaltonen M, Kivivuori J, Kautiainen H, Virta L, Hoti F, Tanskanen A, Korhonen P. Psychotropic drugs and homicide: a prospective cohort study from Finland. World Psychiatry. 2015.
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America we've got a problem - Kids, guns & drugs, legal that is!!!

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The shooting this week in an Oregon school marks the 74th shooting incident in schools in America since the Sandy Hook murder rampage just 18 months ago in Newtown, Connecticut.  When kids are injured or die there is understandably a much more passionate reaction than to the typical murders in America.

The media, politicians and shrinks all take to the airways whenever there is another incident, and at the current rate there is one a week.  Each week we get the gun control debate, the profiling and psychological analysis of the shooter, the grief for the victims, and White House reaction, more promises and then everyone goes home and does nothing.

74 School locations

However, in the course of reacting to the tragedies everyone seems to be caught up in the emotional frenzy and loses sight of the truth about what is happening.  I guess truth has little value when those raising Hell have no ability to do anything about the continuous stream of killings.

First the truth.

The worst shootings have taken place in the states with the toughest gun control laws in America.

Since 1993 murders by guns in America have declined drastically, in fact the rate of murder is about half of the 1993 rate.

Many of the weapons being used are illegal firearms.

More truth.

Percent of Youth Aged 4-17 Currently with ADHD Receiving Medication Treatment by State: National Survey of Children's Health

Most of the shooters, where the information was disclosed, had been or were on prescription drugs for depression, ADHD or other reasons.

All of these prescription drugs have a direct effect on the brain.

We have no idea what the long term impact of prescription drugs may be on our children.

When kids have more than 1 problem they may get multiple prescriptions for drugs and the cocktail effect when mixed has unknown impact on the brain.

Our addiction to drug prescriptions may very well be causing the increase in school shootings and killings.

In truth, our medical system and pharmaceutical greed may be destroying our kids mental and physical health faster than it destroyed our own health.

Did you ever wonder why no current reports on prescription drug use, the increase in drug use, and the deaths from legal drug use are available.  The most current analysis is four to five years old before it is made available.

Are prescriptions, problems and complications increasing at such a fast rate that critical information is now being withheld from the public?

If multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical corporations can report profits the first quarter of the next fiscal year, in other words within 90 days from when it happened, in order to maintain their lofty stock values, why can't they tell us how many more children are being given prescriptions of their drugs, how many died, and what other complications have been detected from extended use until 4-5 years later?

Politicians must make the giant pharmaceutical companies liable for all the long term damage they are doing to our kids minds with their prescriptions, cocktails and indifference.  And when kids on prescriptions are doing the shooting like they have been, then the same companies have to be liable for the victims deaths, treatment and consequences.

Do you think your elected representatives will support such a logical liability measure or will they continue to waive the liability for these companies like they have been doing all along for the same companies and banks and others?

What is more important to a politician - innocent school victims or corporate campaign money?  So far the money has trumped the kids.  So far our ignorance of the effect of drugs and drug cocktails is shameful.  So far our indifference in demanding change by our politicians is a disgrace but we can still do something about this before we have destroyed an entire generation.

America - we have really got a problem.... Our children's brains are being bombarded and possibly permanently altered by the prescription drugs we are pumping into them at record levels.

Here are some reasons why.

ADHD Medication

This past year, the utilization of medications to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) jumped 9.0%. With this increase, the United States now spends more on prescription drugs for Attention Disorders than it does for all but six other conditions.

Currently, an estimated 5.4 million U.S. children are diagnosed with ADHD. And with new guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics that now recommend physicians prescribe these medications to children as young as 4 (previous guidelines suggested a lower limit of age 6), the number of total diagnosed children is likely to grow.

Interestingly, the local impact of this national trend depends highly on where you live.

When looking only at Americans with commercial insurance, Express Scripts researchers found that children living in the South are 63% more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than children living in western states. When broadening to all American children (including those on Medicaid and other government-sponsored plans where ADHD prevalence is higher), those living in a southern state have approximately a 1 in 9 chance of being diagnosed with this condition.  

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The American Psychiatric Association states in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) that 5% of children have ADHD.  However, studies in the US have estimated higher rates in community samples.

Recent surveys asked parents whether their child received an ADHD diagnosis from a health care provider. The results show that:

Approximately 11% of children 4-17 years of age (6.4 million) have been diagnosed with ADHD as of 2011.

The percentage of children with an ADHD diagnosis continues to increase, from 7.8% in 2003 to 9.5% in 2007 and to 11.0% in 2011.

Rates of ADHD diagnosis increased an average of 3% per year from 1997 to 2006 and an average of approximately 5% per year from 2003 to 2011.

Boys (13.2%) were more likely than girls (5.6%) to have ever been diagnosed with ADHD.

The average age of ADHD diagnosis was 7 years of age, but children reported by their parents as having more severe ADHD were diagnosed earlier.

Prevalence of ADHD diagnosis varied substantially by state, from a low of 5.6% in Nevada to a high of 18.7% in Kentucky.

Medication Treatment

Percent youth being treated for ADHD

Parents were also asked about whether their child was taking medication for ADHD. The results show that:

The prevalence of children 4-17 years of age taking ADHD medication increased from 4.8%  in 2007 to 6.1% in 2011

More US children were receiving ADHD treatment in 2011 compared to 2007; however, as many as 17.5% of children with current ADHD were not receiving either medication for ADHD or mental health counseling in 2011.

In 2011, geographic variability in the percent of children taking medication for ADHD ranged from a low of 2% in Nevada to a high of 10.4% in Louisiana.

Anti-depression Medication

In the US, almost 40% of people with mental health issues received treatment in 2012. But data from the US department of health also shows the types of treatments they received - from psychologists to prescription medication (including antidepressants).

Like other countries, the use of antidepressants in the US has soared. In 1998, 11.2 million Americans used these drugs. By 2010, it was 23.3 million. Despite that rise, expenditure on antidepressants has barely risen as the drugs have become cheaper – from $624 per person in 1998, to $651 in 2010.

According to a report released yesterday by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), the rate of antidepressant use in this country among teens and adults (people ages 12 and older) increased by almost 400% between 1988–1994 and 2005–2008.

The federal government’s health statisticians figure that about one in every 10 Americans takes an antidepressant. And by their reckoning, antidepressants were the third most common prescription medication taken by Americans in 2005–2008, the latest period during which the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) collected data on prescription drug use.

Here are a few other stand-out statistics from the report on antidepressants:

23% of women in their 40s and 50s take antidepressants, a higher percentage than any other group (by age or sex)

Women are 2½ times more likely to be taking an antidepressant than men (click here to read a May 2011 article in the Harvard Mental Health Letter about women and depression)

14% of non-Hispanic white people take antidepressants compared with just 4% of non-Hispanic blacks and 3% of Mexican Americans

Less than a third of Americans who are taking a single antidepressants (as opposed to two or more) have seen a mental health professional in the past year

Antidepressant use does not vary by income status

Drug	Time Period	8th Graders	10th Graders	12th Graders
Any Prescription Drug	Past Year	-	-	15.00
Amphetamine	Past Year	2.60	5.90	8.70
Adderall	Past Year	1.80	4.40	7.40
Ritalin	Past Year	1.10	1.80	2.30
Narcotics other than Heroin	Past Year	-	-	7.10
Vicodin	Past Year	1.40	4.60	[5.30]
OxyContin	Past Year	2.00	3.40	3.60
Tranquilizers	Past Year	1.80	3.70	4.60
Monitoring the Future Study: Trends in Prevalence of Various Drugs for 8th Graders, 10th Graders, and 12th Graders; 2013 (in percent)*

* Data in brackets indicate statist

Drug	Time Period	Ages 12 or Older	Ages 12 to 17	Ages 18 to 25	Ages 26 or Older
Psychotherapeutics (Nonmedical Use)	Lifetime	[20.90]	10.00	28.10	[21.00]
	Past Year	[6.40]	6.60	[13.70]	[5.10]
	Past Month	2.60	2.80	5.30	2.10
National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Trends in Prevalence of Psychotherapeutics (Nonmedical Use) for Ages 12 or Older, Ages 12 to 17, Ages 18 to 25, and Ages 26 or Older; 2012 (in percent)*

  

Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes— long known to have an adverse effect on the brain— has now been linked with the loss of brain matter.

Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), researchers studied the brain structures of 614 patients with a mean age of 62, who had all been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes for an average of 10 years. They found that long-term diabetes was associated with the greatest loss of brain tissue – suggesting brain atrophy.

“It’d been thought that most, if not all, of the effect of diabetes on the brain was due to vascular disease that diabetics get and, therefore, stroke,” lead study author Dr. R. Nick Bryan, professor emeritus of the department of radiology at the Perleman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, told FoxNews.com. “We found that in addition to that, there’s sort of diffuse loss of brain tissue, atrophy… we think may have a direct effect of the diabetes on the brain.”

Researchers noted that the greatest reduction of volume was seen in the brain’s gray matter, where the organ’s neurons are located.  The shrinkage of gray matter is often regarded as the start of the neurodegenerative process. Since patients with diabetes have been previously shown to have a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease, the findings suggest cognitive changes may be related to neurodegeneration.

“[We’re] not saying all [people with diabetes] will get Alzheimer’s, but suggesting that many of them will have worse cognition and worse thinking ability as they get older and probably more of them will get neurodegeneration and Alzheimer’s, than non-Alzheimer’s patients,” Bryan said.

The findings suggest that for every 10 years of diabetes duration, the brain of a diabetes patient looks approximately two years older than that of a non-diabetic person – with regards to gray matter volume.

“One thing that’s pretty clear was that the adverse effect of diabetes was significantly worse in patients who had diabetes longer,” Bryan said.

Researchers point out that, for people with diabetes, proper care is a priority.

“[Patients] need to take the maximum effort to cooperate with physicians… to manage diabetes and blood sugars as well as they possibly can to try to decrease or prevent the damage of diabetes to the brain and ability to think later on in life,” he said. “[Diabetes] significantly affects all the organs in the body; the brain is one that is affected significantly perhaps in not just one, but two ways— not just vascular that we know about, but as a primary or direct assault on the brain.”

Legal Drugs for everyone 

    

About half of all Americans in 2007-2010 reported taking one or more prescription drugs in the past 30 days.  Use increased with age; 1 in 4 children took one or more prescription drugs in the past 30 days compared to 9 in 10 adults aged 65 and over.

Cardiovascular agents (used to treat high blood pressure, heart disease or kidney disease) and cholesterol-lowering drugs were two of the most commonly used classes of prescription drugs among adults aged 18-64 years and 65 and over in 2007-2010.  Nearly 18 percent (17.7) of adults aged 18-64 took at least one cardiovascular agent in the past 30 days.

The use of cholesterol-lowering drugs among those aged 18-64 has increased more than six-fold since 1988-1994, due in part to the introduction and acceptance of statin drugs to lower cholesterol.

Other commonly used prescription drugs among adults aged 18-64 years were analgesics to relieve pain and antidepressants.

The prescribing of antibiotics during medical visits for cold symptoms declined 39 percent between 1995-1996 and 2009-2010.

Among adults aged 65 and over, 70.2 percent took at least one cardiovascular agent and 46.7 percent took a cholesterol-lowering drug in the past 30 days in 2007-2010.  The use of cholesterol-lowering drugs in this age group has increased more than seven-fold since 1988-1994.

Other commonly used prescription drugs among those aged 65 and older included analgesics, blood thinners and diabetes medications.

In 2012, adults aged 18-64 years who were uninsured for all or part of the past year were more than four times as likely to report not getting needed prescription drugs due to cost as adults who were insured for the whole year (22.4 percent compared to 5.0 percent).

The use of antidepressants among adults aged 18 and over increased more than four-fold, from 2.4 percent to 10.8 percent between 1988-1994 and 2007-2010.

Drug poisoning deaths involving opioid analgesics among those aged 15 and over more than tripled in the past decade, from 1.9 deaths per 100,000 population in 1999-2000 to 6.6 in 2009-2010.

The annual growth in spending on retail prescription drugs slowed from 14.7 percent in 2001 to 2.9 percent in 2011.

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The National Institute of Drug Abuse has some pretty shocking statistics detailing just how bad America’s addiction has become. For example:

the US, which holds 5 percent of the world’s population, is responsible for 75 percent of global prescription drug use;

52 million people over the age of 12 have used this medication for purposes outside of what they are intended for;

enough painkillers were prescribed in 2010 to medicate every American adult every four hours for a month;

over half of these pills are obtained for free from a friend or family member;

there are 5.1 million abusers of painkillers,

2.2 million who illegitimately take tranquilizers,

and 1.1 million needlessly popping stimulants.

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ROCHESTER, MINN. Researchers find that nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and more than half receive at least two prescriptions, reports CBS Atlanta.

Researchers from the Mayo Clinic, a non-profit medical and research center, report that antibiotics, antidepressants and painkiller opioids are the most common prescriptions given to Americans.

Twenty percent of U.S. patients were also found to be on five or more prescription medications.

Nearly one in four women ages 50 to 64 were found to be on an antidepressant, with 13 percent of the overall population also on antidepressants.

Seventeen percent of people in the study were being prescribed antibiotics, and 13 percent were on painkilling opioids.

As a whole, women and older adults received the most prescription drugs.

Antidepressants and opioids were most common among young and middle-aged adults.

The percentage of people who took at least one prescription drug in the past month increased from 44 percent in 1999-2000 to 48 percent in 2007-08, the Mayo Clinic reports.

Expenditures on prescription drugs reached $250 billion in 2009, and accounted for 12 percent of total personal health care expenditures.

According to the CDC, the percent of persons using at least one prescription drug in the past month increased nearly 50 percent between 2007 and 2010.

And the researchers said prescription drug spending will only increase in the future.

America - you have got a problem...

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