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overty, rapid urbanization and weakening community ties are being blamed for the increasing number of suicides in Indonesia, a scholar has revealed.

Speaking at a seminar on bipolar disorder in Yogyakarta on Tuesday, Surakarta Sebelas Maret University (UNS) professor of psychiatry Syamsul Hadi said that such social and economic developments were causing ennui and loneliness that drove individuals to commit suicide.

Quoting 2010 data from the World Health Organization (WHO), he said that Indonesia was ranked ninth globally in suicide cases, tied with Japan, which has a strong cultural tradition of suicide.

According to the data, 24 out of 100,000 people in Indonesia committed suicide per year.

Syamsul said that victims of bipolar disorder had the highest risk of committing suicide.

The disorder, he said, was caused by a host of factors, such as genetics, brain function and structure, environment and stress.

'€œThis disorder can be treated, but it requires careful attention from the patients'€™ surrounding [environment],'€ Syamsul said.

He went on to say that the disorder was marked by extreme mood swings, for example from depression to happiness in a short time.

To mitigate the effects of the disorder, those with it are suggested to consume iodine, water containing lithium and bananas to optimize the function of the body'€™s mood stabilizer.

Separately, psychiatrist Carla R. Machira of Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University'€™s (UGM) School of Medicine said that Indonesia had yet to produce its own official data on the incidence of suicide in the country.

Quoting WHO data, Carla said that of the 166 member countries of the United Nations, only 39 had official national data on the number of suicide cases.

A 2005 study, she said, revealed that 50,000 out of Indonesia'€™s 220 million population committed
suicide per year.

'€œThe figure in Indonesia tends to keep increasing, but it spiked in the time of economic crisis in 1997-1998,'€ Carla said.

She suggested the poverty was the primary cause of suicide in the country, and said the Indonesian government had to address the problem seriously before it was too late.

She went on to say that Russia had the highest rate of suicide of any country. Globally, a million people commit suicide per year. Every 40 seconds a person takes his or her own life, and every three seconds a person attempts to.

In Yogyakarta, Gunungkidul regency in the southeastern part of the city has the highest number of suicide cases in the province. According to local police data, there were 75 suicide cases from 2001 to 2012 in the regency.

Quoting a study conducted by Darmaningtyas, the author of Pulung Gantung, which analyzed the suicide phenomenon in Gunungkidul, nine out of 100,000 people in the regency took their own life
each year.