Croydonjohn

Dear Blog followers, I am moving to a new job on the 11th of April and will no longer be able to keep up my work on the Mental Health Update blog. I have really enjoyed writing for the blog over the last six years. Thank you all for your kind comments about it and I hope some of you have found it interesting and even helpful. I'd like to wish everyone who follows the blog all the best for the future. Best Wishes, John Gale, Mental Health Update Read Full Story

There has been much criticism in the past about the overuse of newer, atypical antipsychotic drugs to manage problem behaviour in elderly people with dementia. However, a new study by researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston has suggested that alternative drugs may be just as dangerous. The researchers studied 10,900 people who were admitted to nursing homes in British Columbia between 1996 and 2006 and who received a psychotropic drug within 90 days of admission. The study... Read Full Story

Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) could be more creative than other people. Holly A. White from the University of Memphis and Priti Shah from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor studied 60 people, 30 of whom had ADHD. They found that the adults with ADHD had higher levels of real-world creative achievement and displayed higher levels of creative thinking on a test of creativity. People with ADHD showed an inclination towards idea generation while those without... Read Full Story

Women's acceptance of their bodies could have more to do with how other people see them than their actual weight. Researchers from Ohio State University studied 801 women between the ages of 18 and 65. They found that the most important influence on how women saw their bodies was how they thought important people in their life saw them and that the more women focused on how their bodies functioned and felt the more they appreciated them. In turn, the more women appreciated their bodies the... Read Full Story

Studies into the effects of ecstasy tend to be carried out in the laboratory and don't always reflect what goes on in real life. A team of researchers led by Dr Rod Irvine from the University of Adelaide tried to get round this by sending researchers to parties where they thought people might be taking the drug. The researchers managed to persuade 56 people to invite them to house parties where they collected samples of pills and measured the users' levels of MDMA - the active ingredient of... Read Full Story

Better-behaved children don't always get better marks at school and naughtier ones don't always do worse. A team of researchers from the University of North Carolina studied 350 children in seven schools over a five-year period. They looked at teachers' assessments of children's behaviour and achievements and at the actual level of pupils' work. They found that teachers were more likely to report that well-behaved students did better academically and expected more of them - even when some of... Read Full Story

Being exposed to violence, either watching it on TV, seeing it in the flesh or suffering it oneself is more likely to make children think it is normal and could lead to them behaving violently themselves. A team of researchers, led by Izaskun Orue from the University of Duesto in Spain, studied nearly 800 children aged between eight and twelve. They asked them if they had witnessed violence in their own lives or on TV and if they had been a victim of violence. They were also asked about their... Read Full Story

People with psychosis are said to lack insight when they have a poor awareness that they are mentally ill and don't think they need to get help. Lack of insight is associated with poorer outcomes and worse adherence to treatment while improved insight has been linked to better treatment compliance and less hostility. A team of researchers led by Guillem Lera from the Hospital de la Ribera in Valencia looked into the links between insight and auditory hallucinations in a study of 168 psychotic... Read Full Story

Anxiety sensitivity can be defined as being anxious about being anxious. People with anxiety sensitivity are anxious about the physical symptoms of being anxious (an upset tummy, sweaty palms, pounding heart), mental incapacitation (losing control and not being able to think properly) and social concerns such as other people seeing them with a red face or in a panic. Some researchers think anxiety sensitivity plays a part in cannabis use and a team of researchers led by Julia D. Buckner from... Read Full Story

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore have identified a gene that could be linked to an increased risk of attempting suicide. The researchers studied 2,698 people with bipolar disorder, 1,201 of whom had a history of suicide attempts. Those with one copy of a genetic variation on chromosome 2 were 1.4x as likely to have attempted suicide while those with two variations were almost three times as likely. The gene involved - ACP1 - leads to increased levels of a protein called... Read Full Story