According to an article in the Independent, an increasing number of women in their 50’s and beyond are being treated for anorexia and other eating disorders. Youthful looking older celebrities (including Madonna and Sharon Stone) have been linked to older women having unrealistic expectations of how they should look as they age.

Anorexia is most commonly associated with young teenagers, however Ursula Philpot (chairman of the British Dietetic Association’s Mental Health group) has commented that “older women now make up at least 10% of eating disorder patients”. It was also suggested that these statistics could be a result of better diagnosis, however this remains unclear at present.

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According to an article in the Guardian, the Government has released details of its £170m plan to train 3,600 more psychological therapists in response to the study questioning the use of anti-depressants. According to the Department of Health, about 900,000 more people will be treated for depression and anxiety under the plan, and an estimated 450,000 of these will be cured.

Mental Health Groups accept that doctors have had little choice other than to prescribe anti-depressants due to the shortage of therapists. Alison Cobb, from Mind, said “Nine out of 10 GPs say they’ve been forced to dish out drugs because they don’t have proper access to ‘talking treatments’ such as cognitive behavioural therapy”. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) recommends that talking therapies should be tried before drugs are prescribed, but with the shortage of therapists, this is difficult.

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According to findings from a review of clinical trials, anti-depressants “worked no better than a dummy pill for mildly depressed patients and for most people suffering severe depression”. Researchers looked at four commonly-prescribed anti-depressants in the UK including fluoxetine (Prozac), venlafaxine (Efexor) and paroxetine (Seroxat). Professor Kirsch (from the Department of Psychology at the University of Hull) said: “The difference in improvement between patients taking placebos and patients taking antidepressants is not very great”.

Researchers reported little evidence of benefit when analysing both unpublished and published data from the drug companies. They concluded: “We find that the overall effect of new generation antidepressant medications is below recommended criteria for clinical significance.”

A spokesman for GlaxoSmith Kline (which makes Seroxat said): “The authors have failed to acknowledge the very positive benefits these treatments have provided to patients and their families dealing with depression and their conclusions are at odds with what has been seen in actual clinical practice.”

Dr Hilary Jones (from popular TV programme GMTV) said “The best treatment for depression is always likely to be a combination of drugs and talking therapies.”

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Networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace are being urged to clamp down on pro-anorexia sites. A spokesperson for MySpace said they were working with organisations such as B-eat, but believe it is “hard to distinguish between support groups and pro-anorexia groups”.

According to an article on the BBC website, over 1.1 million Britons are known to suffer from an eating disorder, however experts believe the numbers could actually be much higher as many cases go undiagnosed.

The rise of the Internet and new media has helped individuals easily access information on how to get thin, and Susan Ringwood from B-eat said they “were not calling for such sites to be banned completely, but for greater awareness of the dangers and for more support online so the sites are not the ‘only refuge’”.

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The current publicity surrounding the suicide rate among young people has bought mental health issues back into the news. A recent article in the Guardian highlights the fact that data on suicides among young people is ‘unrealistic’ (due to the number of attempts that fail and the inaccurate recording of suicides by coroners due to lack of evidence) and that “Bridgend does not deserve to be demonised - just to get better counselling facilities”

Steve Walker, from Anglia Ruskin University says, “What is being obscured in the current publicity is the sheer scale of mental health problems in children and young people which is being denied, avoided and neglected by adults, leading them to feel hopeless and helpless, and left to contemplate a devastating final act of desperation”.

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As concern continues mounting about the high suicide rate in and around the Bridgend area, young people are being urged to talk about their problems with counsellors. Ms Dalgleish, manager of youth counselling for Bridgend Council’s youth services, said “counselling can offer a release to young people struggling to cope with problems, although it will not necessarily provide all the answers.” Ms Dalgleish highlighted the importance of “talking” and went on to say “we may not solve the problems but there is a release from talking to someone impartial.”

Health Charity, Mind Cymru, has announced that a suicide prevention strategy for the whole of Wales is long overdue. Health Minister, Edwina Hart, has revealed the strategy is being accelerated after the death of yet another teenager in the Bridgend area. School-based counselling services are among the recommendations and will receive £6.5m over three years.

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According to researchers, the suicide rate among young men in England and Wales is at the lowest for 30 years. Lead researcher David Gunnell believes that favourable changes in several different factors, including the levels of unemployment, substance misuse and antidepressant prescribing may have contributed to the reductions. Another key factor, according to the research, has been the cut in toxins in vehicle exhaust fumes because of catalytic converters, which makes it harder for people to commit suicide.

However, Alison Cobb from Mind believes there’s still a lot of work to be done to reduce the stigma associated with mental health problems and Marjorie Wallace from Sane, said: “we must fight to raise awareness of the complex triggers to suicide, and make available treatments such as talking therapies immediately when the warning signs are identified.”

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According to recent news a commons committee has expressed that GPs have been over prescribing and not following up the length of time people should be on certain drugs such as tranquilizers. More and more of the British public are taking drugs and turning into a ‘pill-popping nation’ with a tablet for every problem. In actual fact, one reason people are taking tablets is because of the general increase in depression.

Only 42% of people visiting their doctor for depression were offered counselling according to the Mental Health Foundation. If more people were given this option and made more aware of this sort of help, perhaps less people would be prescribed drugs and may not be on anti depressants for a long period of time.

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