Seasonal Pattern in Bipolar Disorder May Help Treatment

clipped from www.medicalnewstoday.com Approximately one fifth of people with bipolar disorder, mostly those with bipolar II, find their symptoms wax and wane with the seasons. Benito Mussolini was a prime example. In her biography of the Italian dictator Margarita Sarfati wrote: "He was quiet for months on end. But then came the troubled season (spring) when the sap rose and he was overcome by a swarm of powerful and dark instincts." Psychiatrist Dr Athanasios Koukopoulos, of Centro Lucio Bini, in Rome, Italy who has been studying Mussolini says: "This seasonal bipolar pattern with spring-summer highs which led him to believe in easy victories, and winter depressions masked by stomach pains is clearly documented from 1938 on." (1)