“Is CBD Helpful, or Just Hype?” AND More on Best 5 Monday Reads

Hello and welcome to another edition of Best 5 Reads. Lets begin!

1) Is CBD Helpful, or Just Hype?

Let’s see what the research says before pouring it into our tea and rubbing it all over our bodies.

2) Schizophrenia affects your body, not just your brain – new study

Schizophrenia is considered a disorder of the mind, influencing the way a person thinks, feels and behaves. But our latest research shows that organs, other than the brain, also change at the onset of the disease.

Scientists have known for a long time that people with schizophrenia have much higher rates of physical illness compared with the general population, and this contributes to startlingly high rates of premature death. People with the disorder die 15 to 20 years earlier than the average person.

This poor physical health has often been seen as a secondary effect of illness. Antipsychotic drugs, for example, are associated with an increased risk of weight gain and type 2 diabetes. Lifestyle factors have been thought to play a part, too. A person with debilitating mental symptoms is more likely to forgo exercise and have a poor diet.

3) Opioids for Chronic Pain Only Nominally Better Than Placebo

Opioids offer marginal pain-control benefits over placebo for patients with chronic pain and “should not be first-line therapy” for pain management, investigators of a new meta-analysis say.

4) Digital Psychiatry: 7 Trends in to Watch in 2019

While no one can predict the future, it is clear that 2019 will be a transformative year for smartphone apps, sensors, chatbots, and much more. Here are 7 trends to follow.

5) ICD-11: the importance of a science of psychiatric nosology

After a decade of work, WHO released ICD-11 to its 194 member states for review and preparation for implementation. 1 The World Health Assembly is expected to approve the revision at its next meeting in May, 2019, with reporting of health statistics to be based on ICD-11 from January, 2022. The current version of the classification ICD-10 was approved in 1990, making this period the longest between major revisions of the ICD since its inception. Revision of the chapter on mental, behavioural, and neurodevelopmental disorders for ICD-11 provides the field with an important opportunity to incorporate a broad range of developments in our understanding of mental disorders over the past quarter century.

Thank you and see you tomorrow for more articles!

Best Regards,

Vikram