Mental health is a state of emotional and psychological well-being in which an individual is able to use his or her cognitive and emotional capabilities, function in society, and meet the ordinary demands of everyday life.
British Medical Association lobbied for higher taxes on alcohol, an end to happy hours. – A new hard-hitting report ‘Alcohol misuse: tackling the UK epidemic’ launched by the British Medical Association (BMA) calls on governments to show leadership and implement a full range of effective control policies that will reduce the burden of alcohol misuse.
Autism gives special insight into the inner workings of the animal mind. – When Temple Grandin argued that animals and autistic savants share cognitive similarities in her best-selling book Animals in Translation (2005), the idea gained steam outside the community of cognitive neuroscientists.
Mental health in the military: Majority of troops avoid couch talk; First Canadian study to examine mental health among armed forces and barriers to help. – Mental disorders ranging from depression to alcoholism need to be de-stigmatized among military personnel to encourage troops to seek support when needed, according to a national investigation published in the February edition of the research journal, Medical Care.
Consistent alcohol consumption can impair immunity functions following surgery. Study authors recommend that patients considering surgery control their drinking habits, and also be very honest with their doctors about their drinking habits, prior to surgery. – People who drink often have immune-function problems following surgery. For example, patients who consume alcohol long-term have a two- to five-fold greater chance of post-operation infection complications. A new rodent study has found that chronic consumption ? in this case, the equivalent of prolonged moderate drinking ? can result in a more severe form of pneumonia following surgery.
Infants? bodies expel the thimerosal mercury much faster than once thought ? thereby leaving little chance for a progressive building up of the toxic metal. – February’s issue of Pediatrics offers another reason to rethink blaming the spike in autism diagnoses on thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative routinely used in several childhood vaccines until the late ?90s.
ABC plans to run an episode of ?Eli Stone? in which the title character successfully argues in court that a vaccine caused a child?s autism. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), an organization of 60,000 pediatricians, is alarmed that this program could lead to a tragic decline in immunization rates. The AAP calls on ABC to cancel the episode. – The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is demanding ABC cancel the opening episode of “Eli Stone” scheduled for Thursday, January 31. As reported in The New York Times, the episode features a lawyer who argues in court that a vaccine caused a child’s autism.
Middle class women are earning more and drinking more, and because of larger wine glasses. The gap between men and women is reducing. – Middle-class women are drinking more alcohol than they realise because of larger wine glasses, and the more you earn, the more you drink – with those in higher income groups consuming 30 per cent more alcohol than the working classes.
Men in Britain drink twice as much alcohol as women, according to official figures. Office for National Statistics data says men get through an average 18.7 units per week compared to women at nine units. – Men are drinking twice as much alcohol as women according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics – 18.7 units a week, on average, compared with 9.0 units.
Chromosomal abnormalities play substantial role in autism, revealed in a study. Noting this change would help early diagnosis for autism or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) – a kind of developmental disorder. – Genome-wide scans of families affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have revealed new evidence that previously unknown chromosomal abnormalities have a substantial role in the prevalent developmental disorder, according to a report published online Jan. 17th in the American Journal of Human Genetics, a publication of Cell Press.
A large US study suggests that statin, cholesterol lowering drug use does not lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). – Taking statins, which are cholesterol-lowering drugs, offers no protection against Alzheimer’s disease, revealed by US researchers at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
Religious activities good for mental health in women, revealed by Temple University?s researchers. Religiously active women were less likely to suffer anxiety and depression. – For many, religious activity changes between childhood and adulthood, and a new study finds this could affect one’s mental health. According to Temple University’s Joanna Maselko, Sc.D., women who had stopped being religiously active were more than three times more likely to have suffered generalized anxiety and alcohol abuse/dependence than women who reported always having been active.
US researchers say they have successfully corrected key symptoms of a type of autism and mental retardation in mice, a development which could offer sufferers a potential treatment. – Researchers at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have corrected key symptoms of mental retardation and autism in mice. The work, which will be reported in the Dec. 20 issue of Neuron, indicates that a certain class of drugs could have the same effect in humans. These drugs are not yet approved by the FDA, but will soon be entering into clinical trials.
