SUICIDE RATE RISES IN U.S. AS MORE MIDDLE-AGED DIE!!!!

[Daanyeer]

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home
By Rob Waters and Jason Gale

Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The suicide rate in the U.S. rose from 1999 to 2005, the first increase after a decline of more than a decade, fueled by a 17 percent rise among middle-aged whites, researchers reported today.

Middle-aged men continued to kill themselves at a much higher rate than middle-aged women, while the rate rose faster in women than men. Rates of suicide declined slightly among blacks and Asians of all ages, as well as among white teenagers and adults younger than 40. They fell even more in people 65 and older.

Yet the number of white people ages 40 to 64 who took their own lives increased, to 17.5 for every 100,000 people in 2005 from 14.9 per 100,000 in 1999. The numbers surprised Susan Baker, a professor at the Center for Injury Research and Policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, who said yesterday in a telephone interview she was worried ``the trend may continue or get worse.''

``I don't know what's going on with this age group,'' said Baker, who led the analysis, which was published today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. ``With the present economic crisis, I'm concerned we may be heading into a period where it's especially important for primary care physicians to pay attention to people in this age group.''

Puzzling Change

Before 1999, the U.S. suicide rate had declined for 13 years. The new numbers are especially puzzling because other research has found that for most people, middle age ``is a time of relative security and emotional well-being,'' Baker and her colleagues wrote in their paper. Their analysis was based on death reports compiled by an injury prevention program of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Even six years of consistent increase in the suicide rate among the middle-aged is ``not a long enough period of time to get terribly concerned about,'' said Lanny Berman, executive director of the American Association of Suicidology, a nonprofit research group based in Washington D.C. He said it can take years to identify definitive trends and causes and there was no clear reason why the suicide rate rose among the middle-aged.

Still, Berman said he fears the struggling economy could accelerate the trend. ``We know that unemployment affects suicide rates and that when people feel a severe economic strain, suicide rates tend to increase among people experiencing that strain,'' he said in a telephone interview today.

Self-inflicted deaths and other forms of violence cost the U.S. more than $42 billion a year, a report last month showed.

More Men

Men continue to kill themselves at more than three times the rate of women, a ratio that changed little in the six years examined by Baker and her colleagues. Still, the rate of women who took their own lives grew 3.9 percent a year, compared with an average annual increase of 2.7 percent among men.

Women and men tended to use different means of killing themselves. Men most frequently shot themselves with guns, while women committed suicide most often by hanging or suffocation.

The biggest change in the way people committed suicide during the six years studied was a 19 percent rise in women who did it by poisoning themselves by overdosing on medications.

New `High-Risk' Group

More research is needed to identify the forces that are causing people ages 40 to 64 to take their own lives and to develop prevention strategies that might stem the tide, Baker said. In the meantime, she wrote, public health officials should take note of ``a change in the epidemiology of suicide'' that has made middle-aged whites ``a new high-risk group for suicide.''

The increase in the number of people killing themselves by consuming large amounts of medications should prompt U.S. drug regulators to consider requiring that commonly used painkillers often used as suicide agents are packaged individually as they are in England, Baker said.

``Potentially lethal medications should be dispensed wherever possible'' in ways that ``make it harder for you to pop a handful of anything in your mouth,'' she said.

Baker and her colleagues also urged greater efforts to control the number of suicides committed with guns, the method used in 52 percent of all suicides in 2005.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News's parent Bloomberg LP, is an alumnus and benefactor of the Johns Hopkins University, and Bloomberg School of Public Health is named in his honor.

[FAH1223]

yeah and more and more of them are seeing their retirements and savings go down the drain in a blink of an eye

not suprising

[sheekh-Farax-zero]

that is good news,,let all kufaars commit suicide

[Anab]

I want to kill myself, any painless way to go?

[AyanTu]

I want to kill myself, any painless way to go?

Leave the car running in a small garage with no windows, and leave ur car windows open....


Bye Basra, i'll miss u.....we'll sorta we still have Sir Lug!!!

[peace-]

I want to kill myself, any painless way to go?

anab please dont walaal im gonna miss you.......................................sort of

[Anab]

I want to kill myself, any painless way to go?

Leave the car running in a small garage with no windows, and leave ur car windows open....


Bye Basra, i'll miss u.....we'll sorta we still have Sir Lug!!!

ayaaantu@loooooooooooooool


Why AM I not surprised u answered fast and first? U r the most melancholic, suicidal isaaq i know. Its scary walaahi!

[AyanTu]

I want to kill myself, any painless way to go?

Leave the car running in a small garage with no windows, and leave ur car windows open....


Bye Basra, i'll miss u.....we'll sorta we still have Sir Lug!!!

ayaaantu@loooooooooooooool


Why AM I not surprised u answered fast and first? U r the most melancholic, suicidal isaaq i know. Its scary walaahi!

Nayaaa i happen to LOVE my life


p.s who said i was issaq

P.s.s. who is Saeed!?!?!?!?!?