The national suicide rate rose 28% from 1999 to 2016, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2016, alone, 45,000 people took their own lives.

This year's suicides of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and fashion designer, Kate Spade, focused new attention on the crisis.

Why is the U.S. suicide rate as high as it was one hundred years ago? What are proven ways to save lives and reduce depression and chronic anxiety?

Our guest is Dr. Richard Friedman, a professor of clinical psychiatry and Director of the psychopharmacology Clinic at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York. 

"We should declare war on suicide," he tells us. "The federal government spends more money researching dietary supplements and headache remedies than it does suicide."

More here from Dr. Friedman's recent New York Times article.

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