Unhealthy living lowers your brainpower

Unhealthy habits can reduce people's brainpower. That's the conclusion of a 17-year study of 5,123 British civil servants by researchers from Hopital Paul Brousse in Villejuif, France. The participants in the study took tests for memory, wordpower, mental arithmetic and logic when they were 44, 56 and 61 and were asked about their diet, smoking and drinking and exercise. Smokers did worse but teetotallers performed worse than moderate drinkers and people who had less than two servings of fruit and vegetables a day also did worse. People who took less exercise also showed a greater decline in brainpower.

You can find out more about this research at

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE5825S620090903?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews&sp=true

Postnatal depression and suicide

Postnatal depression occurs in about 19% of new mothers and can lead to thoughts of killing oneself. Researchers from Boston University studied 32 new mothers who were feeling suicidal. Those women with the most severe problems experienced more sleeping and eating problems, felt more anxious, had more changeable moods, had experienced a greater loss of self and felt greater guilt about their experience. They had poorer self esteem, felt they were less prepared for mothering and expected to have a poorer-quality relationship with their children. They were "less able to demonstrate sensitivity and reciprocity with their infants during unstructured interactions ... less aware of their babies' social signals and showed poorer ability to respond to them consistently." The women's children showed less smiling, more fussing and less engagement with their mothers. Most of the women with suicidal thoughts had held jobs before having their children and had moved from a predictable and controlled environment where they felt competent to the unpredictability of looking after a newborn child. Interventions for these women could include

• The mother structuring her day
• Identifying tasks that need to be accomplished
• Offering guidance into how to attune to the baby's needs
• Alerting a spouse or other family member to step in when they feel most vulnerable
• Gaining support from a person close by in moments of high anxiety

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090903163854.htm

Jam-today people more impulsive

A study of 42,863 people - conducted via the BBC web site - by researchers at University College London and the University of Warwick - has found that people who are financially more imprudent are also more impulsive in other ways. The study asked people whether they would prefer £45 in three weeks time or £70 in three months. Participants were also asked a number of other questions about their lifestyle. Nearly half the sample opted for a quick pay day and these people were more likely to smoke, be overweight and have had an affair. Those people most likely to make impulsive financial choices were young, poorly-educated and on lower incomes.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090903110806.htm

People who yearn for amputation

A small number of people have a burning desire to have a healthy limb amputated. Olaf Blanke from the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne has been conducting extensive interviews with 20 such people. His findings have cast doubt on the traditional view that this is a form of body dysmorphic disorder and suggest that it could be caused by abnormalities in the front-parietal circuits of the brain. 75% of the patients wanted their left leg amputated. They also reported abnormal sensations in the body parts they wanted removed including tingling and numbness, a loss of sensitivity, a feeling that the limb belonged to someone else or that it was already absent (a kind of phantom-limb sensation in reverse); all symptoms that are sometimes reported by people with damage to their fronto-parietal cortex. Contrary to how people feel in body-dysmorphic disorder none of the participants thought the 'offending' limb was defective or were embarrassed by it. Female patients tended to be more severely affected than men; the three women in the study all wanted to have multiple amputations.

You can find out more about this study at

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/09/people-who-yearn-for-amputation-of.html

Going straight - more help needed for people with mental-health problems

U.K. charity the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health says that prisoners with mental-health problems are not being given the help they need to find work when they are released. The charity's policy paper - Securing Employment for Offenders with Mental-Health Problems - states that too many prison-based work-preparation schemes exclude mentally-ill people because they are not thought to be ready for work, even though having a job is the single biggest factor in cutting the reoffending rate. The charity said that prison schemes placed too much emphasis on learning skills and not enough on cultivating links with employers. It called for a wider adoption of policies based on individual placement and support - involving helping people to secure paid jobs and providing in-work support to both employer and employee as long as they need it.

You can download a copy of the Sainsbury Centre report at

http://www.scmh.org.uk/pdfs/securing_employment_for_offenders.pdf

Kidney disease and depression

People with chronic kidney disease are at greater risk of depression than people with diabetes, heart failure and coronary artery disease. Researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre studied 272 people in the early stages of chronic kidney disease and found that one in five met the official criteria for a major depressive episode. Unemployment, mental-health problems and diabetes all contributed to a 20% depression rate in this group compared to 11% for people with diabetes, 14% for people with heart failure and 16% for people with coronary artery disease.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/162766.php

Attachment style and bipolar disorder

Attachment style can be defined as the way in which we carry our relationship with our closest childhood caregiver (usually our mother) into our own adult relationships. Attachment style can be described as secure - characterised by comfort with intimacy and autonomy and with a positive model of oneself and the other in a relationship - or insecure. Insecure attachment can be further divided into three types: anxious in which people are fearful on intimacy and socially avoidant, preoccupied with relationships in which people have a negative model of the self and a postiive model of the other, and dismissing in which the subject has a positive model of the self but is dismissive of the value of intimacy. Researchers from the universities of Nottingham, Liverpool, Lancaster and Bangor looked into attachment style in people with bipolar disorder. They studied 148 people, 107 of whom had the condition. They found that 78% of the bipolar patients had an insecure attachment style compared to only 32% of those unaffected. Healthy people had higher secure attachment, lower anxious attachment and lower preoccupied attachment. Mania was associated with higher secure and preoccupied attachment styles and depression was associated with higher preoccupied and lower dismissing attachment style scores.

Morriss, Richard K. ... [et al] - Adult attachment in bipolar 1 disorder Psychology and Psychotherapy: theory, research and practice September 2009, 82(3), 267-277

Memories matter - to everyone

The Alzheimer's Research Trust has launched a major new campaign which aims to highlight the problems of memory loss experienced by people with Alzheimer's, a condition that 700,000 people in the U.K. suffer with. The Trust has set up a website where people can share their unforgettable moments - good, bad or ugly - and well-known people such as Sir Michael Parkinson, Tony Benn, Tony Robinson, Sir Terry Pratchett, Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and David Cameron have already contributed their own memories to the site. So why not support the Trust's campaign and add your own memories at

www.memories-matter.org

Still stigma in the workplace for people with mental-health problems

U.K. anti-stigma campaign Time to Change surveyed more than 2,000 people around the country to investigate the links between stigma, mental health and employment prospects. Participants were asked to imagine that they were interviewing someone for a job and that the interviewee had admitted that they suffered from depression from time to time. 92% of people believed that admitting to having a mental illness would damage someone's career. The three careers felt to be most vulnerable were doctors (56%), the emergency services (54%) and teachers (48%). Interestingly only 21% of people thought an admission of mental illness would harm the career of an MP. Even if someone with depression was the best person for a job 56% said that they would not employ them. Of these people 17% said that they would not offer them a job because they would be unreliable, 10% said that they would be blamed if the employee took time off sick and 15% said that they were worried that a depressed person wouldn't work as well as other people or get on with other employees. Bank workers were the most likely to discriminate against someone with a mental illness.

You can find out more about the Time for Change survey at

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/162173.php

Earthquakes shake brains as well as bodies

On May 12, 2008 an earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale hit the town of Wenchuan in China, killing 69,146 people and seriously injuring 374,131. Brain scans of people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have shown alterations in people's brain structure but little is known about changes in the immediate aftermath of traumatic events. Researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry in London scanned 44 healthy survivors and 32 controls shortly (13 days) after the Wenchuan earthquake. They found hyperactivity in certain areas of the brain and decreased connectivity in others. The researchers hope that better understanding of the changes in the brain that take place after trauma could lead to an earlier diagnosis of those at risk and more effective treatment for them.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/162544.php

U.K. Government boosts mental-health support for workers

The U.K. Government has announced that people with mental-health problems will get extra support to manage their condition so they can stay in the workplace. After successful pilot schemes - which were 90% successful in helping people to retain their jobs - the Government is now looking to extend the scheme with an expectation that it will be rolled out nationally. The Government will publish its National Strategy for Mental Health and Employment in the autumn setting out how employers, healthcare professionals and organisations can improve wellbeing in the workforce. The Government will also introduce a network of dedicated mental-health experts across job centres who will work with healthcare professionals to coordinate support for people with mental-health conditions and is to increase the Access to Work fund from £69m to £138m over the next five years.

You can find out more about these Government initiatives at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8216873.stm

U.K. Government clamps down on new drugs

The U.K. Government is to ban the drugs BZP and GBL which have been linked to a number of deaths. The drugs are to be classified as class C carrying prison terms of up to two years for possession and 14 years for dealing. BZP is also known as 'herbal Ecstasy' and GBL is taken as a substitute for the 'date rape' drug GHB which is already illegal. The Government also clamped down on man-made cannabinoids - known as Spice - making them, like cannabis itself, class B drugs.

You can find out more about this issue at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8218688.stm

And you can watch a video about it at

http://www.newsy.com/videos/britain_bans_legal_highs

Older drinkers, stronger drinks behind rise in alcohol consumption

New research by private company Mintel has shown that although drink sales - by can or bottle - have remained steady since 2000 alcohol consumption per person has risen by 10%. This is because wines and lagers are becoming stronger and people are unaware of the changes. The average alcohol content of wine is now 13% as opposed to 11% in the past and 5% premium lagers are also more popular now. Mintel's research suggests that it is older people drinking at home rather than young adults binge drinking that is behind the rise in alcohol consumption. Interestingly 22% fewer 18-24-year-olds agreed with the statement "the point of drinking is to get drunk" than five years ago. In the U.K. a third of men and a fifth of women drink more than the recommended daily limits.

You can find out more about this issue at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8223294.stm

Depression burden set to soar

As the first global Mental Health Summit starts in Athens the World Health Organization (WHO) has predicted that within 20 years more people will be affected by depression than any other health problem. WHO figures show that over 450 million people worldwide are directly affected by mental disorders or disabilities. Most of these people live in developing countries yet such countries spend less than 2% of their national budgets on mental healthcare. Levels of depression are actually higher in poorer countries and poorer people in richer countries also have a higher incidence of depression. However, higher-income countries allocate 200 times more resources to mental-health than low-income ones. In the U.K. it is estimated that depression costs £12bn per annum - about 1% of GNP.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8230549.stm

'Sticks and stones' not so true in high school

The old proverb that 'sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me' might not be that helpful as far as high-school students are concerned. Researchers from the University of Illinois studied 10,060 year 10 students in 659 high schools and found that classroom disruptions and psychologically-hostile school environments can make it harder for gifted students to excel and low achievers to catch up. 70% of the students said that they were bothered by disruption in the classroom and one in five said that they were often put down by their peers. The study found that smaller, private and more affluent schools did little to protect their students from verbal abuse. Boys experienced verbal put-downs more often than girls and high-achieving African-American students in minority schools were also more likely to experience verbal harassment.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090901105142.htm

Teenage depression increases adult risk

Teenagers who suffer from minor depression are much more likely to develop mental-health problems later in life. Researchers at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute interviewed 750 14-16-year-olds and found that 8% of them had minor depression. The same group was assessed again as adults. By the time the participants got to their 20s and 30s the risk of having major depression was four times greater in those who had suffered from minor depression as teenagers. The risk of agoraphobia, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder was two-and-a-half times greater and the risk of anorexia or bulimia was three times higher.

You can find out more about this research at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8227485.stm

Report paints mixed picture of UK childhood

An international report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) - Doing Better for Children - compares the wellbeing of children in a number of developed countries and paints a mixed picture of childhood in the U.K. The report found that children in the U.K. are relatively well off, tend to enjoy school more, experience low levels of bullying and are less likely to commit suicide relative to many other developed countries. However, young teenagers (13-15) in the U.K. were more likely to get drunk than those anywhere else in the world and were also more likely to become pregnant and to have parents who were separated. 33% of 13-15-year-olds reported being drunk at least twice - more than double the rate of children in the U.S., France and Italy. The rates of drinking were particularly high among U.K. girls with 50% of 15-year-old girls reporting getting drunk - three times higher than girls of the same age in France.

You can find out more about the OECD report at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8227443.stm

Drinking and depression - does abstinence make the heart grow stronger?

Heavy drinking can lead to poorer physical and mental health but there is increasing evidence to suggest that low levels of alcohol consumption might also be associated with psychological problems. This could be because teetotallers were heavy drinkers at one point and have now had to give up, or because they have other - non-alcohol-related health problems - that stop them from drinking and might also lead to depression. Researchers used information from the Nord-Troendelag Health Study covering over 38,000 Norwegians and found that those people who said that they had drunk no alcohol over the last two weeks were more likely to report symptoms of depression. Those people who referred to themselves as 'abstainers' were at the highest risk of depression. 14% of those who were currently teetotal had previously been heavy drinkers but this did not explain all the increased risk of depression in this group and neither did age or physical health problems. The authors thought that abstinence could either be caused by, or result in, social marginalisation in societies where alcohol use is the norm or that teetotallers might have other personality traits in common that predisposed them towards depression.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/162350.php

Hopelessness and stroke risk

Many studies have linked depression with heart disease and recent studies have suggested that optimism can protect women from heart problems. Researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School looked into the links between hopelessness and stroke risk. They studied 559 women with an average age of 50 who had no clinical signs of heart disease, such as high blood pressure. They measured the women's levels of hopelessness and depression and took ultrasound pictures of them to measure the thickening of their neck arteries. Thickening of the neck arteries is associated with deposits of plaque within them - atherosclerosis - which is a predictor of stroke and subsequent heart attack. The study found that the women who scored highly for hopelessness had thicker neck arteries - a difference that was significant even after adjusting for other risk factors such as age, race, income, heart-disease risk factors and depression.

You can find out more about this research at

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE57Q66720090827?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews&pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

The amygdala and personal space - the strange case of patient S.M.

Most people have a strong sense of personal space and feel uncomfortable when they are too close to others. Researchers from the California Institute of Technology have been studying a patient - known as S.M. - who has damage to the amygdala on both sides of her brain. S.M. seems to have no sense of personal space and felt no discomfort when experimenters walked to within a foot of her - half the distance of a twenty-strong control group. She also felt no discomfort when one of the experimenters stood nose-to-nose to her staring straight into her eyes and when an accomplice stood close to her in a situation which she couldn't have known was part of the experiment. The case of S.M. made the researchers think that the amygdala has something to do with people's personal space and in another experiment they scanned people's brains as they were told that a researcher was standing nearer to, or further away from, them. They found that when the participant was told that the researchers were standing nearer to them the activity in their amygdalas increased.

You can find out more about this research at

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/08/woman-with-no-sense-of-personal-space.html