NIMH Director’s Blog: A New Research Agenda for Suicide Prevention

• By: Thomas Insel, MD The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
• July 1st, 2014
• 640    0

More than 38,000 Americans died by suicide in 2010, the most recent year for which we have national data. This makes suicide, once again, the tenth leading cause of death for all ages; the second leading cause of death for young adults ages 25 to 34.1 Despite changes in recent decades that might...

Spotlight on Eating Disorders

• By: Thomas Insel, MD The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Director’s Blog
• July 1st, 2013
• 2136    2

What is the most fatal mental disorder? The answer, which may surprise you, is anorexia nervosa. It has an estimated mortality rate of around 10 percent.1 What is the cause of this high rate of mortality? The answer is complicated. While many young women and men with this disorder die from...

Antidepressants: A Complicated Picture

• By: Thomas Insel, MD The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
• April 1st, 2012
• 1502    2

Anew report tracking antidepressant use among Americans from 2005-2008 found that more than 1 in 10 Americans ages 12 and older report taking an antidepressant medication. i These new data, from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) National Health and Nutrition Examination...

NIMH, Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs Join Forces on PTSD Research

• By: Thomas Insel, MD Farris K. Tuma, ScD, MHS The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
• April 1st, 2009
• 766    0

NIMH supports a wide-ranging program of research on PTSD, aimed at helping people and communities cope with the effects of traumatic events and preventing lasting mental health consequences. Although the institute’s research encompasses different populations and types of trauma, one area of...