Forty-five-year mortality rate as a function of the number and type of psychiatric diagnoses found in a large Danish birth cohort.

Objective: Psychiatric comorbidities are common among psychiatric patients and typically associated with poorer clinical prognoses. Subjects of a large Danish birth cohort were used to study the relation between mortality and co-occurring psychiatric diagnoses.

Method: We searched the Danish Central Psychiatric Research Registry for 8109 birth cohort members aged 45 years.

The contribution of parental alcohol use disorders and other psychiatric illness to the risk of alcohol use disorders in the offspring.

Background: Few population-based studies have investigated associations between parental history of alcoholism and the risk of alcoholism in offspring. The aim was to investigate in a large cohort the risk of alcohol use disorders (AUD) in the offspring of parents with or without AUD and with or without hospitalization for other psychiatric disorder (OPD).

Methods: Longitudinal birth cohort study included 7,177 men and women born in Copenhagen between October 1959 and December 1961.

Effects of premature birth on the risk for alcoholism appear to be greater in males than females.

Objective: A large Danish birth cohort was used to test the independent and joint effects of perinatal measures associated with premature birth as predictors of the development of alcoholism in male and female subjects.

Method: Subjects were born at the Copenhagen University Hospital between 1959 and 1961 (N = 9,125). A comprehensive series of measures was obtained for each of the 8,109 surviving and eligible infants before birth, during birth, shortly after birth, and at 1 year.

Do premorbid predictors of alcohol dependence also predict the failure to recover from alcoholism?

Objective: In a search for viable endophenotypes of alcoholism, this longitudinal study attempted to identify premorbid predictors of alcohol dependence that also predicted the course of alcoholism.

Method: The 202 male subjects who completed a 40-year follow-up were originally selected from a Danish birth cohort (N = 9,182). Two thirds of the subjects were high-risk biological sons of treated alcoholics.

Minor versus major depression: a comparative clinical study.

Objective: To examine whether minor depression differs from major depression in clinically relevant ways.

Method: Structured interviews, Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) scores, and physicians' treatment recommendations were obtained systematically from 1,458 admissions to an outpatient teaching clinic during a 5-year period from 1981 to 1986. Of these, 1,002 (69%) satisfied inclusive DSM-III lifetime criteria for a major depressive episode.

Childhood ADHD and conduct disorder as independent predictors of male alcohol dependence at age 40.

Objective: The Danish Longitudinal Study on Alcoholism was designed to identify antecedent predictors of adult male alcoholism. The influence of premorbid behaviors consistent with childhood conduct disorder (CD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on the development of alcohol misuse was examined.

Method: Subjects were selected from a Danish birth cohort (9,125), which included 223 sons of alcoholic fathers (high risk) and 106 matched sons of nonalcoholic fathers (low risk).

Indicators of mania in depressed outpatients: a retrospective analysis of data from the Kansas 1500 study.

Objective: Previous prospective studies have shown that unipolar depressed patients often switch to a manic episode. Some of these studies have reported that the conversion to bipolar disorder is predicted by an early onset of depression, a positive family history for mania, and psychotic symptoms. The present study examines the strength of the relationship between these 3 indicators, both alone and in combination, and the presence of mania in a large retrospective analysis.

Neonatal vitamin K might reduce vulnerability to alcohol dependence in Danish men.

Objective: Levels of oxidative defenses and blood-clotting factors are normally reduced in newborns, increasing the risk of injury to developing brain structures around the time of birth. This early neonatal vulnerability corresponds to a timeframe in which the development of reward-related limbic structures is particularly active. Taking advantage of a serendipitous event in the history of treating newborns, we tested the hypothesis that vitamin K supplementation, administered to facilitate the synthesis of blood-clotting proteins within this critical timeframe, might also reduce the development of alcohol dependence later in life.

A double-blind, placebo-controlled study of valproate for aggression in youth with pervasive developmental disorders.

Objective: The aim of this study was to study valproate efficacy and safety for aggression in children and adolescents with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD).

Methods: In this prospective double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 30 subjects (20 boys, 10 girls) 6-20 years of age with PDD and significant aggression were randomized and received treatment with valproate (VPA) or placebo (PBO) for 8 weeks as outpatients. Mean VPA trough blood levels were 75.

Developmental differences in childhood motor coordination predict adult alcohol dependence: proposed role for the cerebellum in alcoholism.

Background: The Danish Longitudinal Study of Alcoholism has identified a number of early biological indicators that predicted alcohol dependence 30 years later. In light of recent evidence linking deficits of the cerebellum to certain neuropsychiatric disorders often comorbid with alcoholism, we hypothesized that developmental deficits in the cerebellar vermis may also play a role in the initiation of adult alcohol dependence. The present study evaluated whether measures of motor development in the first year of life predict alcohol dependence three decades later.

The overt aggression scale for rating aggression in outpatient youth with autistic disorder: preliminary findings.

Aggression is a common and costly problem in youth with developmental disabilities. Rating scales that accurately capture and measure subtypes of aggression phenomenology, frequency and severity are urgently needed, in both clinical practice and research. The authors studied the Overt Aggression Scale (OAS) in a preliminary sample of eight outpatients who participated in an ongoing placebo-controlled study of valproate for aggression in autism.

Risk factors that predicted problem drinking in Danish men at age thirty.

Objective: The Danish Longitudinal Study of Alcoholism utilized a prospective, high-risk research paradigm to identify putative markers of adult male alcoholism from a comprehensive database that began with the birth of the subject and extended over three decades. This article focuses on measures antedating abusive drinking that predicted lifetime alcohol abuse/dependence at age 30 years.

Method: The original 330 subjects of this study were drawn from a large Danish birth cohort (N = 9,125) born between 1959 and 1961.

Comparison of desipramine or carbamazepine to placebo for crack cocaine-dependent patients.

The authors compared the effects of desipramine or carbamazepine to placebo in an intensive outpatient program for cocaine abuse. Subjects recruited from an urban drug treatment program were randomly assigned to a double-blind, placebo-controlled, eight-week trial of desipramine, carbamazepine, or placebo. Patient ratings, urine drug screens, and blood samples were obtained weekly.