September 2010 - Mental Health Update

Surviving the tsunami in Sweden

Lars Wahlstrom from Sweden's Karolinska Institutet has been looking into the mental health of Swedish people who survived the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004. His study surveyed around 1,500 people from Stockholm who had been in the disaster area. Around...

Published Mon, Sep 13 2010 3:28 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: PTSD

Anxiety and insomnia drugs linked to increased risk of death

Taking drugs to fight anxiety or insomnia could significantly increase people's risk of death. Researchers from the Universite Laval in Quebec analysed 12 years of data on over 14,000 Canadians from the National Population Health Survey. They found...

Published Fri, Sep 10 2010 7:12 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Anxiety Disorders, Sleep Disorders

Why your liver could affect your Alzheimer's risk

Low levels of a substance called docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in people's brains have been associated with Alzheimer's disease but new research from the University of California Irvine suggests that the problem might lie in people's livers not...

Published Fri, Sep 10 2010 6:54 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Alzheimer's Disease, Diet and Mental Health

Stress could be big killer in over 65s

People aged 65 and over are five times more likely to die if they are suffering from high levels of stress. Researchers from the Vrije Universiteit Medical Centre in Amsterdam studied 861 people aged 65 and over over a six-year period. They measured the...

Published Fri, Sep 10 2010 6:33 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Service Users' Health, Stress

Feeling stressed - help yourself to a book

In 2003 it was estimated that the equivalent of 13.4m working days were lost in the U.K. because of workplace stress. The U.K.'s National Health Service is one of the biggest employers in the world so anything that reduces the number of days lost...

Published Fri, Sep 10 2010 5:54 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Stress

Extra help boosts schizophrenia victims

Receiving non-medical help as well as antipsychotic drugs could substantially improve outcomes for people suffering from the early stages of schizophrenia. Researchers from the Central South University in Hunan, China studied 1,268 people with early-stage...

Published Thu, Sep 09 2010 3:27 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Schizophrenia

Levels and causes of postnatal depression

Researchers from the Medical Research Council in the U.K. have been looking into the levels of postnatal depression experienced by mothers and fathers and what might make some people more vulnerable to suffering from it. They looked at data from 86,957...

Published Thu, Sep 09 2010 2:31 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Postnatal Depression

Vitamin D and schizophrenia

Levels of vitamin D in newborn children's blood could be linked to their risk of developing schizophrenia in later life. A team of researchers, led by John J. McGrath of the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, studied blood samples taken...

Published Thu, Sep 09 2010 2:14 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Schizophrenia, Vitamin D

Vitamin B - a new breakthrough in Alzheimer's treatment

Vitamin B supplements could turn out to be the most effective way of fighting Alzheimer's disease so far discovered. Researchers at Oxford University studied 168 people who were all over 70 and who had been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment...

Published Thu, Sep 09 2010 2:01 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Alzheimer's Disease, Vitamin B

Bipolar disorder and violence

Previous research into bipolar disorder and violent crime has found that those with the condition are more likely to engage in acts of violence. However, it is unclear whether the disorder itself, or some of the problems that go with it are behind the...

Published Wed, Sep 08 2010 2:40 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Bipolar Disorder, Forensic Psychology

Eye movements, shifting shapes and autism

Researchers spend a lot of time looking into different ways of diagnosing autism in the hope that early treatment can help to mitigate at least some of the effects of the condition. One of the methods scientists use is to look at what children pay attention...

Published Wed, Sep 08 2010 2:18 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Autism

What's the best way to tackle loneliness?

Loneliness is a known risk factor for heart disease and has also been linked to high blood pressure, poor quality sleep, dementia and other health problems. But what is the best way of helping people to overcome it? Researchers from the University of...

Published Wed, Sep 08 2010 1:50 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Social Support, Social Networks, Loneliness

Design it yourself offices boost productivity

Workers who have more control over the design and layout of their offices are more likely to be happy, healthy and productive. Researchers from the University of Exeter surveyed more than 2,000 office workers. They asked them about the level of control...

Published Wed, Sep 08 2010 1:29 AM by Mental Health Update

Drunken mums and screwed-up kids

Psychologists sometimes use the maximum number of drinks people can remember having in one evening as a 'proxy' measure of alcohol problems. Not surprisingly women who can remember downing eighteen rum and cokes in an evening don't always...

Published Tue, Sep 07 2010 3:49 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Child Development, Child Psychology, Alcohol Problems

Empathy, autism and accidents with hammers

Children with autism usually have less empathy with, and sympathy for, other people. Autism is usually diagnosed at around three years of old but children's empathetic responses to other people's distress usually develops between one and two....

Published Tue, Sep 07 2010 2:32 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Child Development, Autism