Mental Health & Social Care Bulletin No. 394

The previous week was National Dementia Awareness and the Government launched its NHS Innovation Challenge Prize for Dementia,  inviting entries and the Care Minister wants all hospitals to become more dementia aware. NICE have published two new guidances: one on social anxiety disorder and another on the termination of loxapine inhalation for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.  All this and more in Bulletin No. 394

Damned if you do, damned if you don't - if you are a woman

In the wake of recent research that confirms too much red meat, particularly processed, is bad for our health and raises the population incidence of cancer, comes a new study. This time it concentrates on the interplay between red meat and mental health. The Australian study in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics concluded that too little red meat increased the occurence of anxiety and depression - but only if you are a woman.

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Social phobia a reality

A US study of teenagers published in the journal Pediatrics, concludes that social phobia is a bona fide serious mental condition rather than just shyness.The authors point out that this condition can occur in people who are not naturally shy in other ways. They hope this research will dispel the myth that social phobia is a made up condition.

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The recesssion and workplace stress

The charity MIND commissioned a survey of 2,050 workers to assess the effects of the recession on mental health. It found that fears about job security, longer hours or a cut in hours had resulted in 1 in 11 British workers consulting their GP due to stress, anxiety or depression


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Read the MIND press release

Valium as addictive as heroin

Scientists have warned that benzodiazepines such as Valium (diazepam) that are well known treatments for anxiety are as addictive as Class A drugs such as heroin. The Swiss study in Nature journal said benzodiazepines use the same "reward pathways" in the brain. It is hoped that the findings of this research will lead to the next generation of non-addictive treatments for anxiety.

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Anxiety good for you?

Depression is as deadly as smoking for the effect on a person's life expectancy according to collaborative research between universities in Norway and London. However the study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that when depression was combined with anxiety the increased risk of mortality was negated.

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