In research using patient medical records, investigators report that people with serious mental disorders who were hospitalized for mania were more likely to be on antibiotics to treat active infections than a group of people without a mental disorder.
Although the researchers caution that their study does not suggest cause and effect, they note that it does suggest that an infection, use of antibiotics or other factors that change the body's natural collection of gut and other bacteria may individually or collectively contribute to behavioral changes in some people with mental disorders.
Alzheimer's may hamper ability to perceive pain
The study used a device to subject participants to different heat sensations and asked them to report their pain levels. After the tests, the researchers analyzed self-reported pain.
"We found that participants with Alzheimer's disease required higher temperatures to report sensing warmth, mild pain and moderate pain than the other participants," said study first author Todd Monroe, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt's School of Nursing. "What we didn't find was a difference between the two groups in reporting how unpleasant the sensations were at any level."
Participants with Alzheimer's were less able to recognize when they were in pain, but their pain tolerance was not diminished, the study found.
One more time, both of these things are symptoms of Systemic Endotoxemia caused by bacterial infection, or antibiotics, or both.
