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 read more »

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 read more »

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 read more »

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 read more »

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 read more »

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 read more »

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, read more »

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 read more »