Can nasal spray help prevent military suicides?

Could the solution to increasing suicide and depression rates among members of the U.S. military lie in a nasal spray? The Army hopes so.

In the midst of a crisis that saw its highest rate of suicide in July, the Army has greenlighted a grant for Dr. Michael Kubek, an Indiana University of Medicine professor, to dig deeper into whether a nasal spray could be a safe and effective way to administer a specific antidepressive neurochemical to the brain and help calm suicidal thoughts.

Kubek helped discover thyrotropin-releasing hormone, or TRH, which is known to have antisuicidal and antidepression effects. The problem is that the naturally occurring chemical cannot easily cross the “blood-brain barrier.” The barrier is meant to protect the nervous system by keeping out any substances in the blood that could injure the brain, including hormones and neurotransmitters. But it also makes it extremely difficult to get TRH to the brain, rendering normal methods of delivering the chemical, through pills or injection, largely unhelpful.

The military is hoping Kubek, an associate professor of anatomy and cell biology and of neurobiology, can use a three-year grant to work with other researchers to use a nasal spray to get TRH safely into the brain and calm soldiers' thoughts.

Kubek's research was spotted by Navy physician Capt. Neal Naito several years ago, according to a news release from Indiana University. Naito, who had been the director of public health for the Navy but is now retired, reached out to Kubek to see whether his research might be applied to active military members and veterans.

The Army reported 242 suicides in 2009, 305 in 2010 and 283 in 2011.

“These deaths are troubling and tragic,” Kubek said in a statement. “Today’s commonly used anti-depressants can take weeks to have an effect and carry a black box warning label for suicidal ideation in young adults. That is why we hope to develop a quick-acting, easy-to-use, non-invasive system that delivers a compound that’s been shown to reduce suicidal thoughts.”

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told a congressional committee last month that the U.S. military was facing an "epidemic" of suicides and was in need of improvements in mental health services for active-duty and returning troops.

The military spends about $2 billion a year on mental health for its members. But many who study and report on military suicides say the stigma attached to depression as well as the red tape involved in implementing a program make it difficult to attack the problem in the aggressive way that is needed.

Time magazine Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Mark Thompson says a former high-ranking Army officer told him, “there are promising techniques that the military could deploy against suicide, but they involve an initial two-hour screening, a sit-down, a one-on-one with a psychiatrist that this nation is just not willing to pay for.”

Kubek's techniques could be promising. It will take a few years to know, but it's research the Army knows is important.

"Suicide is the toughest enemy I have faced in my 37 years in the Army. And it's an enemy that's killing not just Soldiers, but tens of thousands of Americans every year," Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, vice chief of staff of the Army, said in a written statement after the July release of suicide statistics.
 "That said, I do believe suicide is preventable. To combat it effectively will require sophisticated solutions aimed at helping individuals to build resiliency and strengthen their life coping skills."

Kubek will work with pharmacology professor Abraham Domb from Hebrew University in Jerusalem to figure out how to deliver the drug effectively. That process, according to Indiana University’s School of Medicine, should take about a year. Kubek would then work with researchers at Purdue University on clinical trials in the second and third years of the grant.

Dear Stephen: Netiquette: Five texts you should never send

I had a big conversation with my nephew Stephen about the use of text messaging.  I promised I would write him a letter in my blog about texting messages. So nephew, this one is for your:

Dear Stephen

We're texting more than ever, and, like society, the texts themselves are getting worse and worse.

That's a conclusion cobbled together from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which found that the median number of texts adults send and receive in a day doubled from 2009 to 2010, and much anecdotal observation from the authors.

Read on to learn just how terrible silent cell phone users are these days, and the five texts that should never traverse that satellite-banked arc from your hands to the eyes of another.

1. "I think we should see other people." 

It isn't just skittish teenagers pulling this rude move. Last year, a survey from Lab 42 found that 33% of adults (adults!) had broken up with someone via text, e-mail or Facebook. Forty percent said they "would never" do it, indicating that 7% of the surveyed humans are soulless jerks who haven't but would hurtfully sever ties with a lover if only someone would respond to their advances.

Yes, breaking up is hard. Knowing you're going to hurt someone you cared about with your words indeed makes your stomach do some Cirque de Soleil-esque acrobatics. But shooting over a one-way missive to deliver the news for you? It's supremely cruel, because it leaves the other person cocking his or her head with Fred Willard-esque histrionics and asking, "Hey, wha' happened?" That complete lack of closure (not to mention the dearth of soothing, I-care-about-you-as-a-human-being signals you send with your voice and motions) add up to WAY more ruminating than is necessary.

The break-up text is only this much more noble than ghosting on someone you're dating, letting the silences grow longer and longer until you can tell yourself it was a mutual separation and then scuttle into the night like a cowardly cockroach. If you went on enough dates to call this person your boyfriend or girlfriend, he or she deserves at least a call.

2. "Will you marry me?"

A text proposal. It actually happened, people. And if that isn't innards-wrenchingly horrific enough, after it happened, Miss Manners went on to condone it. Can we please consider marriage proposals one of the few remaining bastions of old-fashioned romance, free from the lackadaisical pall that technology has cast over everything?

Unless you've rigged some clever feat that ties in the nerdy way you met, your phone should be put away, your knee should be on the pavement, and your hands should be clutching a ring, not picking a ringtone.

3. "We're thinking about going to Shortstop later but Aiden is still napping & Mona was talking abt having ppl over for a cookout. IDK if I want to be out in the heat tho since I'm still hungo from Bosco's pirate party thing last night. Are you and Weeds still... [1 of 2]"

4. "...wandering around the park or did you want to do something later? Hit me up if you see this before 10. Gonna go pass out for a while. [2 of 2]"

Texting was supposed to save us time by letting us bypass the phone call and just instantly telegraph the important stuff. But we've grown so reliant upon it that we obliviously miss, Mr. Bean-like, the conversations that could happen expeditiously over the phone.

So often, we put our thumbs to work typing out long and convoluted messages that warrant a detailed, meticulous volley of responses, when wagging our tongues would have cleared things up in 30 seconds flat. More than half of texters have "long, personal text message exchanges," according to a 2010 survey. They are all wasting time.

Our rule of (red, raw, overused) thumb: If your text is longer than two sentences and it demands a response other than a simple yes or no, just hit Call. You'll save everyone a little time and a lot of confusion.

5. [a photo of your junk]

According to a Pew Research Center study that is (according to the Times) due out later this year, 6% of American adults -- that's one in 17 upstanding citizens -- has sent a nude or nearly nude (but not "never-nude") photo on a cell phone. And 15% have received such a text. (Apparently these self-portraitists are prolific.)

Leave something to the imagination, folks.