Researchers at Duke University who studied 183 adolescents for three years found that increased depression associated with poverty may be mediated by epigenetic changes in DNA. The researchers conclude: “These initial results suggest a specific biological mechanism through which adversity contributes to altered brain function, which in turn moderates the emergence of general liability as individual risk for mental illness. If replicated, this prospective pathway may represent a novel target biomarker for intervention and prevention among high-risk individuals.”
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An epigenetic mechanism links socioeconomic status to changes in depression-related brain function in high-risk adolescents. Molecular Psychiatry, (2016), 1– 6
Another case of making the simple complicated. I never saw anything in the article hinting that said changes had any relationship to the diets poor people have. No doubt some form of drug treatment is going to come from this study- expensive drug treatment that only the government can afford to pay. The treatment won’t work, of course, because the patients will remain on their deficient diets, which will give political conservatives the chance to rant and rave. Even the fundamentalists will turn into eugenicist Darwinians.
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Culture of poverty
Early proponents of this theory argued that the poor are not simply lacking resources, but also acquire a poverty-perpetuating value system. According to anthropologist Oscar Lewis, “The subculture [of the poor] develops mechanisms that tend to perpetuate it, especially because of what happens to the worldview, aspirations, and character of the children who grow up in it”
[ Lets get lots of stupid tattoos then complain about difficulty finding job ]
Among scholars, sociologists in the field, and government policy makers, the debate as to whether poverty stems from social, political, and economic conditions or from entrenched behaviors on the part of the poor themselves, continues.
But just in case it is “Bad DNA” lets spend millions and billions chasing that instead of on poverty itself.
“this prospective pathway may represent a novel target biomarker for intervention and prevention among high-risk individuals”
GIVE ME A BREAK !!!!
Why is this nonsense even on MIA , what is this site controlled opposition ?
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“high-risk individuals”
We can always expect good things from people that use THAT phrase !
“A judge has ordered 22 students at Bryan Highschool in Texas to carry GPS tracking devices in the name of preventing truancy, another example of how schools are now youth internment centers – preparatory camps for brainwashing kids to accept the prison planet.
“Bryan High students who skip school will soon be tracked 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” reports KBTX.
“It’s called the Attendance Improvement Management Program or AIM, and it has been used across Texas and the United States.”
Students who skip class are now forced to attend “truancy court” and be lectured by a judge before being mandated to carry a GPS tracking device.”
http://www.infowars.com/texas-schoolkids-tagged-with-gps-tracking-devices/
“high-risk individuals”
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Are YOU a “high-risk individual” ?
We are going to need a DNA sample for analysis. “Treatment” comes later.
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The way I read this is no DNA sample will be needed to test for “high risk” status, all that will be needed is your W2. They want to drug up all those who don’t care to worship a fraudulent, and now worthless, thanks to our fiscally irresponcible “too big to fail” bankers, paper monetary system. EVIL, is the correct term.
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Who’ll be the first to sneak his GPS into the cab of daddy’s 18-wheeler the day Dad get’s up from the breakfast table to make that r.un to Seattle. Then, Sonny/Daughter is camped at his/her school desk as the interstate chase is on.
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I thought our court systems were overwhelmed and unable to handle most of it’s work load.
We should all know (as popular misconception tells us) that any child not prepared to assimilate in the school system is trouble in the making. Maybe, just possible it’s the school system failing the child?
Oh the irony of living in a country that feels compelled to “educate” everyone about everything even if by force.
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“Maybe, just possible it’s the school system failing the child?”
The sorry excuse for a public education system in this country is why homeschooling has grown exponentially. People are waking up. It used to be that homeschooling was heavily associated with conservatives and extremely religious. Now, I know people from all walks of life, all faiths, all income levels, all family types across the political spectrum who are refusing to send their children to be institutionalized in schools that more resemble prisons than educational settings.
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Are you freakin’ kidding me? Here they have PROOF that poverty increases the rate of depression, but instead of advocating for fighting to reduce poverty, we’re going to modify the brains of those so affected so they find poverty more amenable and tolerable in the future. THESE PEOPLE ARE TOTALLY IRRATIONAL!!!!!
—- Steve
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When I first saw this I wondered if someone was deliberately trying to piss me off. People like this should be rounded up and sent to reeducation camps.
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Just to be clear I was talking about people who look for “biomarkers.”
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Psychiatrists don’t treat the insane. They are the insane.
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Yes, with a suicide rate just behind the dentists, who at least have the excuse of daily exposure to mercury in amalgam fillings.
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Short and accurate!!
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No- it’s perfectly rational if your goal in Psychiatry is to increase the financial well-being of yourself, your friendly pharmaceutical detail man and his parent company.
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All right, then, how about TOTALLY EVIL!!!!!
— Steve
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That’ll work.
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The definition of evil being “hurting, oppressing, or killing for fun or for profit”. So yep, evil sums up biological psychiatry and Big-Harma perfectly.
The definition of good being “respecting and protecting innocent life” which most certainly is not psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry.
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We shouldn’t forget brain plasticity. Practices like mindfulness meditation bring about healthy epigenetic changes (numerous studies support this). Mindfulness practices would be a better approach to treat these issues (in addition to addressing social issues), rather than the trial and error drug approaches.
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It’s true Nancy99, it’s possible to start life again any time. Traditional methods like Mindfulness and Meditation can be substantiated to work completely.
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I think the DNA link is just bad science. There might be deprivation connections attached to “poverty”, I don’t know. But I’ve lived in the UK for many years and I’ve never worked for anyone that’s had much of an education.
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Well, it’s kinda like saying that torturing someone for months or years creates “epigenetic changes in their brain.” I would think it does! But does this suggest the torture victim’s brain is flawed, or that the torturers are evil and should be stopped? This should be a call for alleviating poverty, not for drugging its victims!
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Or maybe just seeing which DNA types are most prone to being damaged by torture, and avoiding it with those individuals (except of course as a last resort). Or which people are more genetically predisposed towards reacting to, say, waterboarding in a more negative way than to sleep deprivation, and adjusting the torture according to their biomarkers.
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The first thing that comes to mind for me is a dietary connection involving the All-American/UK junk food diet. Did you eat your 125 pounds of sugar last year? Or get an adequate supply of fast death food?
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This really isn’t anything new because many deprivation studies have been done. The effects of scarcity on humans is not a riddle unless you’re a faux “science” like psychiatry.
This is eerily psychiatry seeking it’s next victim for it’s profit and that of pharma. And governments the world over turn a blind eye so one has to be curious about their ulterior motives.
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I think there is hope here. I think it is likley that drug and ECT prescribing psychiatrists, right wing politicians, racists and violent men all have epigenetic changes that result in cruelty and that this might be amenable to drug treatment.
Lets hope so.
What gets looked into first in terms of epigenetics and drug treatment does seem to show some bias by the researchers though.
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You know how this works, don’t you? These researchers are trying to connect “mental illness” with genetics, they would never try to connect “poverty” with genetics. That would be bad form. Epigenenics still represents geneticists trying to get around the fact that all is not determined by genetics. Connect poverty with genes, and you have eugenics. Connect “mental illness” with genes, and you have nugenics. Dance around other contributing factors, and you have epigenetics.
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