Mediterranean Diet Improves Mental Health

Eating a Mediterranean-style diet — packed with fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, olive oil and fish — is good for your heart, many studies have found. Now scientists are suggesting the diet may be good for your mental health, too.

For more on this article click on the link

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/health/research/13nutrition.html?_r=1

$20,000 to ease the pain

Press Release:

The Association For Better Mental Health founder, Mark Lockyer, has announced that the Association will give to a person suffering from mental illness $20,000 to improve the quality of their life.

Mr Lockyer said he was aware that many people suffering mental illness led an impaired quality of life. Many could not hold down a regular job and so suffered financially. The mission of the Association is to ensure that no person suffering mental illness suffers in silence. It is hoped a grant of this size will help a sufferer experience some improvement in the quality of his or her life.

If someone would like to nominate them self, or a friend or family member would like to nominate a loved one. They may do so by visiting the web page http://www.afbmh.org/20000/where the details are outlined.

Bipolar Disorder in children

Symptoms of bipolar disorder are different in children than in adults. This can lead to the condition not being diagnosed early enough in young children. In fact it is estimated up to 70% of children are diagnosed late with the disorder which has an obvious negative impact on treatment.

In Britain as recently as 2005 there were no diagnoses of bipolar disorder in children and low rates in some counties in Europe. The discrepancy has been put down to lack of appropriate screening in children.

Studies carried out in adults showed up to 60% of those with adult bipolar disorder had the condition as children but it went undiagnosed. This lack of diagnosis in people under the age of 20 years appears quite widespread.

To read the rest of the article please go to http://www.afbmh.org/public/articles/BipolarDisorderInChildren.htm

The old classic "I thought I could beat it"

This is a story that happened Monday 21 Setpember 2009. This man is a prominent politician in Australian politics. Please read his story.

Depression took Robb 'to hell and back'

Senior Coalition MP Andrew Robb says he has been humbled by the support he has received from both sides of politics since revealing that he suffers from a depressive illness.

The man once touted as a possible Liberal leadership contender is relinquishing his frontbench duties for three months while he gets treatment for his condition, known as diurnal variation.

The Member for Goldstein has lived with the illness - which makes him depressed and negative in the hours after he wakes up - for all of his life, but was forced to seek treatment after it became worse in recent times.

"It's a long-standing family joke that my wife would not discuss the state of our marriage before 8:30am and the kids wouldn't ask for money," he told Fairfax Radio.

Mr Robb said he was hoping to continue to keep his condition a secret while he was receiving treatment, and only told his three adult children about it last Friday.

He was forced to go public because it was a struggle to cope with adjusting to medication and in the last six weeks he had "been to hell and back".

"You don't turn around 50 years of body chemistry in three weeks," he said.

"No-one knew much except my wife and my personal assistant and a couple of other colleagues, not even my kids.

"I thought I can beat this and come good, but after a while I thought, 'This is madness."

Mr Robb says he feels "in a lot better frame of mind" since he went public and says colleagues on both sides of politics have been fantastic.

He has received phone calls from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his political adversary Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, as well as messages of support from those in his own party.

"It's been a humbling experience really," he said.

He has no plans at this stage to give up politics and expects to return to full duties once he recovers.

"I really want to get back in the front line firing so I'm going to use the next three months to try and do that," he said.