WebMD reported June 7 that Ronald Kessler, M.D., and colleagues said that about a quarter of American adults have addiction or mental-health problems, ranging from mild to severe, each year. But few get treatment.

The Harvard researchers interviewed 9,200 adults and found that in a given year, 26 percent had a mental disorder, including alcohol or other drug abuse. Eighteen percent of participants had suffered from anxiety, while 9.5 percent had mood disorders (such as depression), 9 percent had impulse-control problems, and 3.8 percent had addiction problems. About 40 percent of cases were mild, 37 percent were moderate, and 22 percent were classified as serious.

Over the course of a lifetime, 29 percent of Americans will have anxiety disorders, 21 percent will have mood disorders, 25 percent will have impulse-control disorders, and 15 percent will have addictive disorders, the researchers estimated. Many anxiety and impulse-control disorders start in adolescence -- often by age 11 -- the authors noted.

The study was published in the June 2005 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

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