Mental Health News and Research

Latest Mental Health News and Research

President Bush appoints Dole, Shalala to lead panel examining veterans' care

President Bush during a speech before the American Legion on Tuesday named former Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and former HHS Secretary Donna Shalala as co-chairs of a commission that will examine the care that wounded veterans receive after they return from war, both at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and at other military hospitals across the nation, the Washington Post reports

8 Mar 2007

Surgeon General gets serious about underage drinking

The Surgeon General's Office has appealed to Americans to do more to stop the nation's 11 million underage drinkers from using alcohol, and to discourage other young people from taking it up.

7 Mar 2007

Whether torture is physical or mental the trauma is the same

In a study which has examined forms of ill treatment during captivity, researchers have found that psychological torment and humiliation can inflict as much terror and trauma as physical torture.

6 Mar 2007

Children under stress develop more fevers

Children whose parents and families are under ongoing stress have more fevers with illness than other children. Published this month in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, the study also shows the unanticipated conclusion that children's natural killer cell function, part of the body's innate immune system, increases under chronic stress, unlike adults, whose function is decreased.

6 Mar 2007

Effect of depression in mothers with breast cancer on their children's concerns

A woman's breast cancer diagnosis can wreak as much havoc on her emotions as it does on her physical health. Mothers who experience bouts of depression during their battles with breast cancer may find that the effects reach beyond their own psyches to those of their children.

5 Mar 2007

Severe stress can damage a child's brain

According to researchers in the U.S. children who suffer severe stress may also suffer damage to their brains.

5 Mar 2007

Health status of Gypsies and Travellers in England

The health of Gypsies and Travellers is significantly worse than that of other vulnerable groups, reveals research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

4 Mar 2007

Morphine for euthanasia is a myth

Using morphine to end a person's life is a myth, argues a senior doctor in a letter to this week's British Medical Journal.

4 Mar 2007

Rare cell prevents rampant brain activity

One of the mysteries of the brain is how it avoids ending up in a state of chaos, something which happens only on exceptional occasions, when it can lead to epileptic fits.

4 Mar 2007

New insight into brain disorders

The function of an enzyme in the brain - strongly linked to a number of major brain diseases such as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder - has been identified for the first time by researchers at the University of Bristol.

1 Mar 2007

Warning about the indiscriminate use of diet drugs

The United Nations (UN) has issued a warning about the rise in a number of countries of the use of diet drugs to lose weight.

1 Mar 2007

Stress-related adult disease may originate in fetal development birth weight, gestation period may be linked to depression

According to a review in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, evidence is mounting that lifelong stress-related conditions such as depression and chronic pain may be linked to fetal growth and timing of delivery.

28 Feb 2007

Vitamin D deficiency widespread among women during pregnancy

Even regular use of prenatal multivitamin supplements is not adequate to prevent vitamin D insufficiency, University of Pittsburgh researchers report in the current issue of the Journal of Nutrition, the publication of the American Society for Nutrition.

28 Feb 2007

Relationship between appearance and psychological distress in rheumatic diseases

Patients with rheumatic disease can experience physical deformities, especially of the hands and feet in the case of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), or skin rashes and lesions and hand deformity in the case of systemic lupus erthyematosus.

28 Feb 2007

Nicotine use is highly addictive in primates

Tobacco dependence is the leading cause of mortality in Canada. Although most smokers express a desire to stop smoking, only a small number are able to succeed.

27 Feb 2007

Psychological depression contributes to worse medical outcomes for patients with heart failure

Heart failure, also known as congestive heart failure, is marked by the inability of the heart muscle to pump enough oxygen and nutrients in the blood to the body's tissues.

27 Feb 2007

Depression linked with a specific autoantibody and central nervous system dysfunction in lupus

Systemic lupus erythomatosus (SLE), often simply called lupus, is a complex autoimmune disease marked by joint pain, skin rashes, extreme fatigue, and depression, among other symptoms.

27 Feb 2007

Delaying sex can have positive effects for adolescents

Teens who start having sex significantly earlier than their peers also show higher rates of delinquency in later years, new research shows.

27 Feb 2007

Defense Secretary Gates announces creation of independent panel to study military health care conditions

Department of Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday announced the creation of an independent panel to examine outpatient conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other military hospitals, the Los Angeles Times reports (Barnes, Los Angeles Times, 2/24).

27 Feb 2007