February 2010 - Mental Health Update

Exercise, illness and anxiety

Having a chronic illness can sometimes lead to the development of anxiety - something that can lower people's quality of life and make them less likely to follow their treatment plans. Researchers from the University of Georgia have been looking into...

Published Wed, Feb 24 2010 7:49 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Service Users' Health, Exercise and Mental Health, Anxiety

Omega-3s and psychosis

Early intervention has been found to lead to much better results for people with schizophrenia and psychosis. This often takes the form of antipsychotic drugs but they have serious side effects and their use is controversial in people who have yet to...

Published Tue, Feb 23 2010 8:14 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Psychosis, Omega-3

Young people, mental health and the Internet

Young people often find it difficult to access mainstream mental-health services partly because of the stigma associated with mental-health problems. One way round this is to use the Internet and a team of researchers from University College Cork surveyed...

Published Thu, Feb 25 2010 7:09 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Telemedicine

Alcohol and bipolar disorder

Researchers from the University Medical Centre in Amsterdam have been looking into the effects of alcohol consumption on people with bipolar disorder. They studied 137 people with bipolar disorder. 44 drank very little or nothing at all, 49 were moderate...

Published Fri, Feb 19 2010 8:21 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Alcohol Problems, Bipolar Disorder

Brighter children at higher bipolar risk

Children who do better at school are more likely to develop bipolar disorder later in life. Researchers from King's College London and the Karolinska Institute in Gothenburg looked at the exam results of more than 700,000 Swedish teenagers and compared...

Published Wed, Feb 03 2010 2:41 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Bipolar Disorder

Belief in a caring God and depression

New research from Rush University in Chicago suggests that belief in a caring God can improve people's response to treatment for depression. Previous research has suggested that religious belief can help prevent people developing depression in the...

Published Wed, Feb 24 2010 7:24 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Depression, Religion and Mental Health

CBT and low back pain

Lower back pain is a very common problem and affects one in three adults in the U.K. each year with an estimated 2.5 million people seeking help from their GP. There is thought to be a psychological component to low back pain and researchers at Warwick...

Published Fri, Feb 26 2010 3:52 AM by Mental Health Update

Depression, obesity and stress

Cortisol is a hormone that is produced in reaction to stress. It is also produced more when people are depressed and plays a role in regulating people's metabolisms. There is thought to be a link between depression, cortisol and obesity but no-one...

Published Wed, Feb 24 2010 4:13 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Obesity, Depression - in adolescence, Stress

A happy heart is a healthy heart

Being happy could reduce your risk of developing heart disease. Researchers from Columbia University Medical Centre in New York assessed 1,739 adults at the start of the study. They recorded their general health and measured symptoms of depression, hostility...

Published Thu, Feb 18 2010 6:48 AM by Mental Health Update

Dyadic discord and depression

Psychologists rarely use a simple word where a complicated one will do and dyadic discord is their term for not getting on with your spouse or partner. A team of researchers, led by Wayne Denton from the University of Texas, looked at 171 people with...

Published Tue, Feb 16 2010 7:56 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Depression - causes

Antidepressants and premature birth

Some studies have found a link between premature births and the use of antidepressants during a mother's pregnancy. There is still a shortage of evidence on this topic but another study by researchers at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto has...

Published Mon, Feb 15 2010 7:45 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Antidepressants

Family therapy and teenage depression

Family therapy can help to reduce suicidal thoughts and depression in adolescents. Suicide is the third leading cause of death in American teenagers, accounting for more than 1,300 deaths in children between the ages of 12 and 18 in 2005. Researchers...

Published Mon, Feb 08 2010 7:50 AM by Mental Health Update

What patients think about involuntary treatment

All over the world large numbers of people are admitted to psychiatric hospitals. The laws governing this are controversial and in the U.K. are governed by the 2007 Mental Health Act. Most laws are based on the assumption that people who are compulsorily...

Published Fri, Feb 26 2010 1:51 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Inpatients

Obesity and cognitive function

A forty-year study of Swedish twins between 1963 and 2002 has found that those who had a higher body-mass-index when they were middle-aged had 'significantly lower general cognitive ability' and 'significantly steeper decline' than their...

Published Wed, Feb 24 2010 4:41 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Obesity

Cynical hostility and depression

Cynical hostility is a personality trait characterised by general cynicism and mistrust in interpersonal relationships. It is believed to be associated with an increased risk of depression but few large-scale studies have been carried out. Researchers...

Published Tue, Feb 16 2010 7:38 AM by Mental Health Update