Article discussion: National trends in the outpatient diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder in youth. C. Morena, G . Laje, C. Blanco, H. Jiang, A.Schmidt, M.Olfson. Arch Gen Psychiatry 2007; 64(9): 1032-1039.

The paper under review presents an alarmingly high increase in the diagnosis of bipolar affective disorder in children and adolescents in the USA. The diagnosis of this disorder in young people has increased fortyfold in the past 10 years.