Archive for the ‘Mental Health’ Category

Stress could be big killer in over 65s

Posted by admin on September 10th, 2010

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 levels of the stress hormone cortisol in people’s urine at the start of the study and their health was monitored over the next six years. Those with the highest levels of cortisol in their bloodstream were five times more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than those with the lowest levels. The results took into account the influence of socioeconomic status, obesity, high blood pressure and smoking.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

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Why your liver could affect your Alzheimer’s risk

Posted by admin on September 10th, 2010

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 their skulls. Previous studies have shown that most DHA in the brain is actually made in the liver and the university’s post-mortem research suggests that the Alzheimer’s patients’ livers were unable to synthesize DHA from shorter molecules found in leafy plants and other foods. DHA occurs naturally in cold-water fatty fish (like salmon) and seaweed and is essential for the proper functioning of adult human brains and the development of the nervous system and vision during the first six months of life. Alzheimer’s is a complicated disease with a huge number of risk factors but monitoring DHA levels in people’s blood and dietary supplements for those in the early stages of the disease could prove helpful.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

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Anxiety and insomnia drugs linked to increased risk of death

Posted by admin on September 10th, 2010

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 that respondents who said they had used drugs to treat insomnia or anxiety at least once in the month before the survey had a mortality rate about 50% higher than those who did not use them. After allowing for alcohol and tobacco consumption, physical health, exercise and depression the researchers concluded that the drugs were associated with a 36% increase in the risk of death. The increased risk of death could be due to a number of causes including: the drugs’ effect on reaction times, alertness and concentration leading to more falls and accidents; their effect on people’s breathing particularly during sleep and a possible increased risk of suicide after taking the drugs.

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Feeling stressed – help yourself to a book

Posted by admin on September 10th, 2010

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 through stress could have a huge impact. The usual way of dealing with workplace stress is by using one-to-one, face-to-face counselling but telephone counselling can be cheaper and easier for people to use and bibliotherapy (giving people self-help books) can also be effective. A team of researchers, led by Catherine Kilfedder from the Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Service in Edinburgh compared these three approaches in a 4-month study of 90 NHS employees. Their study concluded that overall the three methods were equally effective. As bibliotherapy is significantly cheaper than the other two options it was suggested that this was used first with people only moving on to telephone or face-to-face counselling if this proved unsuccessful.

Kilfedder, Catherine … [et al] – A randomized trial of face-to-face counselling versus telephone counselling versus bibliotherapy for occupational stress Psychology and Psychotherapy: theory, research and practice September 2010, 83(3), 223-242

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Vitamin B – a new breakthrough in Alzheimer’s treatment

Posted by admin on September 9th, 2010

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 – memory problems that are often the forerunner of Alzheimer’s disease. Over two years half of the participants were given a daily tablet containing high doses of the B vitamins folic acid, B6 and B12 and half were given a placebo. The participants’ brains were scanned and on average taking the B vitamins slowed the rate of brain atrophy by 30% – in many cases the shrinkage was reduced by 53%. It is thought that vitamin B reduces the levels of a harmful protein called homocysteine – which has been linked to brain shrinkage – in the bloodstream. Vitamin B is relatively inexpensive and fairly safe although the doses used in the trial were much higher than those found in food or most vitamin supplements and there is some evidence that high folic acid intake could be linked to cancer. Nevertheless this could be an exciting breakthrough, even if more research is needed to confirm the beneficial effect of vitamin B.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

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Levels and causes of postnatal depression

Posted by admin on September 9th, 2010

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 families seen in primary-care clinics between 1993 and 2007. They found that more than a third of mothers and about a fifth of fathers had an episode of depression between their child’s birth and their 12th birthday. In any one year 7.53% of mothers and 2.69% of fathers suffered from depression but there was a greater risk – 13.93% in mothers and 3.56% in fathers – in a child’s first year. Depression was most likely to occur in parents with a history of depression, those who were aged 15 to 24 when their child was born and those who were more socially deprived.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

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Extra help boosts schizophrenia victims

Posted by admin on September 9th, 2010

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 schizophrenia treated between January 2005 and October 2007. 633 of them had extra, non-medical help (psychosocial intervention) while the rest just took drugs. The extra help included instruction for families and caregivers about mental illness, family therapies designed to teach coping and socializing skills, skills training and cognitive therapy. The rates of treatment discontinuation or change were lower in the group getting the extra help (32.8% vs 22.5%). The participants getting extra help also showed greater improvements in insight, social functioning, activities of daily living and quality of life and a higher proportion of them were employed or in education.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

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Vitamin D and schizophrenia

Posted by admin on September 9th, 2010

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 from 848 new-born babies, half of whom were later diagnosed with schizophrenia. Those babies who had low or very high levels of vitamin D in their bloodstream were found to be at an increased risk of schizophrenia.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

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What’s the best way to tackle loneliness?

Posted by admin on September 8th, 2010

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 Chicago reviewed 20 studies into the effectiveness of different interventions aimed at tackling people’s loneliness. Some worked on means, improving people’s ability to make friends and socialise while others worked on opportunity, providing participants with chances to meet new people. However, it was the interventions that worked on motive – people’s thoughts about their own likeability and other people’s friendliness – that were the most successful. The researchers also found that studies which used techniques of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) were particularly effective.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

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Bipolar disorder and violence

Posted by admin on September 8th, 2010

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 link. Researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Oxford University carried out research in Sweden where the state keeps a huge amount of information about people. They compared 3,700 patients with bipolar disorder, cared for in Swedish hospitals between 1973 and 2004, with 37,000 unaffected people from the general public. They found that the number of people committing violent crime was about the same in people with bipolar disorder and no substance-abuse problem and unaffected people (5% vs 3%). However, people with bipolar disorder and a substance-abuse problem were much more likely (21%) to commit violent crimes. The findings mirror similar research into schizophrenia which also found that it was schizophrenic’s drug problems not their condition in itself that lead to an increased risk of violence.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

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