Can You Catch a Mental Illness?
Luke R. remembers exactly when the bizarre urges first hit. Two years ago, soon after summer vacation started, Luke, then 11, bounded into his Westchester, NY, home, said something to his mother he can't remember—and then, for no reason, said it three more times in exactly the same way. "Is anything wrong?" Luke's mother asked, somewhat unnerved. Luke shook his head, puzzled. "I just feel like I have to repeat things," he said.
Luke's compulsion snowballed: A week later, he felt impelled to take four steps at a time, blink four times, even count to four as he ran bases. He had to read backward every phrase he read forward. Soon, he was darting his eyes back and forth, rolling his head around like a loose ball, and sticking his fingers into his mouth. Luke—an accomplished saxophone player, honor student, and athlete—says he never felt embarrassed about his new "habits." If he felt like he had to control his hands, he would trap them under his arms. But his parents were frightened. "He looked like he was possessed," recalls his father, Don. "Thank God this didn't happen 300 years ago, because they would have burned him at the stake."
The only thing stranger than Luke's sudden behavior was the diagnosis. After 2 weeks of the writhing motions and compulsions, Luke's pediatrician, Gary Wenick, MD, ran a blood test and concluded that the symptoms were caused by an infection—specifically, a strep infection. Wenick had read studies linking streptococcus bacteria with childhood obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and tics.
Luke, whose blood test showed that he'd recently been exposed to the bacteria, seemed to be unusually susceptible to the bug: He'd gotten a nasty strep-triggered kidney infection a few years earlier and had contracted strep throat five times the previous winter. So, on a hunch, Wenick put Luke on amoxicillin. Just 1 month later, Luke was nearly back to normal, playing baseball (without counting) and reading Hardy Boys mysteries (forward only). After two more rounds of antibiotics, the language tics disappeared as well.
Cases like Luke's raise a startling question: Could infections be responsible for abnormal behavior we think of as purely psychological?
Absolutely, says Paul Ewald, PhD, a biology professor at the University of Louisville and author of Plague Time: The New Germ Theory of Disease. "The mental condition itself isn't contagious. But you can catch an infectious agent that can lead to mental illness."
A growing number of doctors and medical researchers agree: They believe that viruses, bacteria, and parasites may play a key role in some childhood mental disorders such as OCD. Other cutting-edge research is looking at a possible connection between germs and obesity. If these researchers are right, knowing the source of these infections—and the ways to prevent or treat them—may make all the difference in the harm they can cause you and your family.
Read more about, How Bugs Affect the Brain at http://www.prevention.com/article/1,,s1-1-74-112-7442-1,00.html
Luke's compulsion snowballed: A week later, he felt impelled to take four steps at a time, blink four times, even count to four as he ran bases. He had to read backward every phrase he read forward. Soon, he was darting his eyes back and forth, rolling his head around like a loose ball, and sticking his fingers into his mouth. Luke—an accomplished saxophone player, honor student, and athlete—says he never felt embarrassed about his new "habits." If he felt like he had to control his hands, he would trap them under his arms. But his parents were frightened. "He looked like he was possessed," recalls his father, Don. "Thank God this didn't happen 300 years ago, because they would have burned him at the stake."
The only thing stranger than Luke's sudden behavior was the diagnosis. After 2 weeks of the writhing motions and compulsions, Luke's pediatrician, Gary Wenick, MD, ran a blood test and concluded that the symptoms were caused by an infection—specifically, a strep infection. Wenick had read studies linking streptococcus bacteria with childhood obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and tics.
Luke, whose blood test showed that he'd recently been exposed to the bacteria, seemed to be unusually susceptible to the bug: He'd gotten a nasty strep-triggered kidney infection a few years earlier and had contracted strep throat five times the previous winter. So, on a hunch, Wenick put Luke on amoxicillin. Just 1 month later, Luke was nearly back to normal, playing baseball (without counting) and reading Hardy Boys mysteries (forward only). After two more rounds of antibiotics, the language tics disappeared as well.
Cases like Luke's raise a startling question: Could infections be responsible for abnormal behavior we think of as purely psychological?
Absolutely, says Paul Ewald, PhD, a biology professor at the University of Louisville and author of Plague Time: The New Germ Theory of Disease. "The mental condition itself isn't contagious. But you can catch an infectious agent that can lead to mental illness."
A growing number of doctors and medical researchers agree: They believe that viruses, bacteria, and parasites may play a key role in some childhood mental disorders such as OCD. Other cutting-edge research is looking at a possible connection between germs and obesity. If these researchers are right, knowing the source of these infections—and the ways to prevent or treat them—may make all the difference in the harm they can cause you and your family.
Read more about, How Bugs Affect the Brain at http://www.prevention.com/article/1,,s1-1-74-112-7442-1,00.html
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