Men ‘suffering recession blues’

Black men suffer disproportionately from mental health problems

Men are struggling to cope with the emotional impact of the recession, a mental health charity has warned.

Almost 40% of men admit to feeling low at the moment with job security, work and money playing on their minds, a Mind survey of 2,000 adults found.

Yet men are less likely than women to seek help from their GP or a counsellor, the results suggested.

The charity said 2.7m men in England currently have a mental health problem such as depression, anxiety or stress.

Men responding to the survey seemed to be more reluctant to talk about when they were feeling stressed or low than women.

Only 29% of men would talk to friends about their problems compared with 53% of women and they were also less likely to talk to their family.

Men were also less likely to seek out professional help and a third would feel embarrassed about it.

The recession is clearly having a detrimental impact on the nation’s mental health but men in particular are struggling with the emotional impact
Paul Farmer, Mind

And 5% of men said they had experienced suicidal thoughts compared with 2% of women.

A report from Mind, has called for the government to produce a men’s mental health strategy and for employers to do more to help stressed male workers.

Mind said even though men and women experience mental health problems in roughly equal numbers, men are much less likely to be diagnosed and treated for it.

The recession could make the situation much worse, with research showing one in seven men develop depression within six months of losing their jobs.

Some minority ethnic groups are at a higher risk of mental distress than others, Mind said.

For example African Caribbean men are three times more likely than white men to be formally detained under the Mental Health Act and are also more likely to be inpatients on mental health wards and to receive invasive medical treatments.

Identity

Paul Farmer, chief executive at Mind, said: “The recession is clearly having a detrimental impact on the nation’s mental health, but men in particular are struggling with the emotional impact.

“Being a breadwinner is something that is still crucial to the male psyche so if a man loses his job he loses a large part of his identity putting his mental wellbeing in jeopardy.

“The problem is that too many men wrongly believe that admitting mental distress makes them weak and this kind of self stigma can cost lives.”

He added that the NHS must become more “male-friendly” offering treatments that appeal to men, like exercise on prescription or computerised therapy and advertising their services in places men frequent.

Stephen Fry who is supporting the Mind campaign to encourage men to seek help, said: “For so long I tried to get on with my life and career, somehow coping with the huge highs and lows I experienced.

“If I had felt able to get it off my chest when I was younger I could have got more of the support I needed.”

Peter Cooper, spokesman for the British Psychological Society, said the fact that men were less likely to talk about feelings added to anxiety and depression and unhealthy behaviours such as drinking.

“With men there’s much more shame about say the loss of a job or the loss of a home.

“The type of help that men need includes psychotherapy but what they are also desperate for is pragmatic practical help.”

Stem cell ‘deafness cure’ closer

Inner ear cells could be replaced

Stem cells that could be used to restore hearing have been successfully created, scientists have said.

A Sheffield University team took stem cells from embryos and converted them into cells that behave like sensory hair cells in the human inner ear.

Their discovery could ultimately help those who have lost hair cells through noise damage and some people born with inherited hearing problems.

But any cure is still some years away, experts told the journal Stem Cell.

The Sheffield team is now working on the next stage of the research to check if the cells can restore hearing.

This research is incredibly promising and opens up exciting possibilities
Dr Ralph Holme, RNID

Currently, hair cell damage is irreversible and causes hearing problems in some 10% of people worldwide.

Embryonic stem cells could change this because they have the unique ability to become any kind of human cell.

Not only could they be used to replace the lost hair cells, but also any damaged nerve cells along which the signals generated by the hair cells are transmitted to the brain.

But the use of stem cells is controversial – opponents object on the grounds that it is unethical to destroy embryos in the name of science.

Lead researcher Dr Marcelo Rivolta, said: “The potential of stem cells is very exciting. We have now an experimental system to study genes and drugs in a human context.

“Moreover, these cells would help us to develop the technologies needed to deliver them into damaged tissues, such as the cochlea, in order to restore the different cell types.

Is this the ultimate upgrade for the iPod generation?
Professor David McAlpine
Ear Institute

“This should facilitate the development of a stem cell treatment for deafness.”

Dr Ralph Holme, director of biomedical research at RNID, said: “Stem cell therapy for hearing loss is still some years away but this research is incredibly promising and opens up exciting possibilities by bringing us closer to restoring hearing in the future.”

Vivienne Michael of Deafness Research UK said: “This study highlights the importance of stem cell research.

“In addition to the future potential for restoring hearing with stem cell therapy, the recent research success means that we may now have better ways to test the efficacy and toxicity of new drugs on auditory cells.”

Professor David McAlpine, director of the Ear Institute, University College London, said: “Is this the ultimate upgrade for the iPod generation?

“The possibility of regenerating the sensory cells of the inner ear, so easily damaged by exposure to loud sound, has just moved a step closer.

“If scientists can find out ways to deliver new cells to the inner ear, and wire them up correctly, then “plug and play” hearing could be the future.”

How infection may spark leukaemia

Common infections may trigger cancer cell growth

Scientists have shown how common infections might trigger childhood leukaemia.

They have identified a molecule, TGF, produced by the body in response to infection that stimulates development of the disease.

It triggers multiplication of pre-cancerous stem cells at the expense of healthy counterparts.

The Institute of Cancer Research study appears in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

While infection is clearly only one factor in triggering progression, this study greatly increases the strength of evidence for its role in the commonest form of childhood leukaemia
Dr Shabih Syed
Leukaemia Research

Leukaemia occurs when large numbers of white blood cells take over the bone marrow, leaving the body unable to produce enough normal blood cells.

The researchers had already identified a genetic mutation – a fusion of two genes – occurring in the womb that creates pre-leukaemic cells.

These cells then grow in the bone marrow, effectively acting as a silent time bomb that can stay in the body for up to 15 years.

Evidence suggests the mutation may be present in as many as one in 100 newborn babies, but only about one in 100 of these children then go on to develop leukaemia.

This suggests that the cells will only complete the transformation to fully-fledged cancer cells if they exposed to an independent trigger.

The latest study suggests production of TGF in response to an infection could be that trigger.

Because the molecule hugely increases the rate at which the pre-leukaemic cells multiply, this significantly raises the the chance that some will become even further damaged in a way that results in the child developing leukaemia.

Preventative measures

Researcher Professor Mel Greaves said: “Identifying this step means we can determine how an unusual immune response to infection may trigger the development of the full leukaemia and eventually perhaps develop preventative measures such as a vaccine.”

Dr Shabih Syed, scientific director at the charity Leukaemia Research, said: “Before this study, there had been only circumstantial evidence to implicate infections in the progression from a child carrying pre-leukaemic cells to actually having leukaemia.

“There was no evidence of the mechanism by which this might happen.

“While infection is clearly only one factor in triggering progression, this study greatly increases the strength of evidence for its role in the commonest form of childhood leukaemia.”

Baby chicks do basic arithmetic
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News


Chicks always want to join the larger group

Baby birds can do arithmetic, say researchers in Italy.

Scientists from the universities of Padova and Trento demonstrated chicks’ ability to add and subtract objects as they were moved behind two screens.

Lucia Regolin, an author of the study said the animals “performed basic arithmetic” to work out which screen concealed the larger group of objects.

The findings are reported in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Chicks always try to stay close to objects they are reared with – just as they stay close to and follow their mother as soon as they hatch. This instant recognition is known as “imprinting”.
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Link to Video: See a chick hunt for a hidden ball in an experiment designed to test the bird’s memory

“We had already found that the chicks have a tendency to approach a group containing more of these familiar objects,” explained Professor Regolin, who studies animal behaviour at the University of Padova.

She and her team were able to test the birds’ numerical skills as they followed the objects – which, in this instance, were small plastic balls.

“We used the little plastic containers you get inside Kinder eggs and suspended them from fishing line,” Professor Regolin told BBC News. “We made these balls ‘disappear’ by moving them behind the screens one at a time.”

Counting chickens

In each of the mini maths tests, a chick watched from a clear-fronted holding box while one of the researchers slowly moved the balls behind the screens – three behind one screen and two behind the other.

The front door of the box was then opened, releasing the chick into the tiny arena, so it could walk around and select a screen to look behind.

They chose correctly – adding up the numbers based on groups of objects they couldn’t see at that moment
Lucia Regolin
University of Padova

“The chicks still approached the larger of the two groups first, even though they had to rely on memory to work out which screen to choose,” said Professor Regolin.

Swapping the objects from one screen to another didn’t fool the maths-performing chicks.

“In a further experiment, once we had hidden the balls behind each screen, we transferred some of them from one to the other,” Professor Regolin explained.

The birds, she said, were able to “count” the balls that were moved to work out which screen hid the larger set at the end of the transfer.

“They still chose correctly – adding up the numbers based on groups of objects they couldn’t see at that moment.”

It is already known that many non-human primates and monkeys can count, and even domestic dogs have been found to be capable of simple additions.

But this is the first time the ability has been seen in such young animals, and with no prior training.

Medicine crisis hits Russia’s poor

St Petersburg’s governor has warned of a looming catastrophe for patients

The impact of the global economic crisis has forced some Russians to make a desperate choice between food and medicine, the BBC’s Richard Galpin reports from Russia’s second city, St Petersburg.

St Petersburg is one of Russia and Europe’s most glamorous cities.

Brimming with history, culture, wealth and beauty, it comes as a shock to discover its dark underbelly.

But in these times of hardship, the weaknesses in the Russian economy and social welfare systems have been laid bare.

We drove out from the Venetian atmosphere of the city centre to a grimy suburb to meet a man who in his heyday had been a member of the cultural elite.

I have been prescribed medicines which cost more than 7,000 roubles a month but my pension is just more than 4,000 roubles
Sasha Pol Marsel

Sasha Pol Marsel used to be a concert pianist giving performances in Russia and abroad.

Now 60 years old, he came to greet us in the entrance to his apartment block, which was covered in graffiti and stank of urine.

To get to his apartment, we passed through makeshift hardboard doors, before sitting down in the meagre, decaying surroundings he calls home, which he shares with his elderly mother.

He soon pulled out his mobile phone, where he stores a recording of a performance he gave 30 years ago of Rachmaninov’s first piano concerto. We listened to the brilliance of the man who once was.

Unaffordable

Today, his thoughts are as far from the glamour of the concert hall and the exhilaration of live performance as it is possible to be.

Mr Pol Marsel sometimes cannot even find vital tablets in the pharmacies

Instead, he is preoccupied by illness and faces a fundamental struggle for survival.

Having suffered a series of strokes and after becoming diabetic, he requires a vast assortment of medicines, which have now risen so steeply in price because of the economic crisis that he can no longer afford them.

“I have been prescribed medicines which cost more than 7,000 roubles [£145; $207] a month but my pension is just more than 4,000 roubles [£83; $118],” he said.

“So some medicines I simply cannot afford. At times I don’t buy food, but what can I do?”

He told me that sometimes he cannot even find vital tablets in the city’s pharmacies.

Exchange rate

Last month, the governor of St Petersburg, Valentina Matviyenko, warned of what she called a looming “catastrophe” in the market for medicines because of the global economic crisis.

At least 80% of all the medicine used in Russia is imported

The root cause of the problem is the slide of the Russian rouble against the dollar and euro over the past four months.

That has made importing foreign goods much more expensive, and so now there are far fewer medicines being imported.

“Our company expects that our cargo turnover will decrease this year by about 28%,” says Yulia Zheboyedova, director of communications for the sea port of St Petersburg.

And the problem for those who are sick is that they depend on imports, because at least 80% of all medicine used in Russia is made abroad.

The root cause of the soaring prices is the slide of the Russian rouble

Outside a pharmacist in the city centre, one woman told us how the price for the medicine she needs to treat her mother for cancer had gone up by 150%.

Under a front-page headline saying “Medicine instead of Bread”, a local newspaper recently published a list of medicines which had shot up in price, including some which had tripled.

The city authorities say they have spent money stockpiling medicines, particularly for hospitals.

But that leaves most people extremely vulnerable to the whims of the market in the midst of a deep economic crisis.

Budget cuts

Oleg Sergeyev, head of the city council’s health committee had little comfort for those now in distress, other than promising to monitor prices and to set up a hotline for people to complain about increases.

Some people have died because they cannot buy particular drugs
Dr Konstantin Levando

“Because of the economic crisis, many major investors have left St Petersburg,” he said.

“So the city has lost a third of its [overall] budget and therefore cannot put any extra money into the health budget.”

And apparently there is no extra money for medicine from the federal government either.

“It’s very bad for our seriously ill patients,” said Dr Konstantin Levando, the only doctor who agreed to be interviewed on the record.

“They wait and wait until they are in a critical condition and then call to be taken into hospital emergency wards,” where they get free medicines and treatment.

“Some people have died because they cannot buy particular drugs,” he added. “The situation is very dangerous.”

Brown accused over green spending
By Roger Harrabin
Environment analyst, BBC News

Ministers are accused of failing to pump money into green projects

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been accused by a think tank of failing to harness his economic stimulus for the benefit of the environment.

The New Economics Foundation says that among rich nations, the UK has invested the least in clean technology.

It called UK performance pathetic, but the Treasury said the fiscal stimulus could not be looked at in isolation.

It said it expected to drive over £50bn of investment in the low-carbon sector between 2008 and 2011.

Meanwhile, three other reports out on Monday call for world leaders to use the financial crisis to create a new economy that benefits the environment.

They say the world financial stimulus package can improve security for energy, food and water supplies if it is invested wisely.

The analysis by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) criticises the UK for spending just over £100m – 0.0083% of its national wealth (GDP) – on genuinely new and additional measures to benefit the environment.

Andrew Sims, the report’s author, said: “This is a fraction of the amount given to RBS staff in bonuses. The prime minister says he is creating green jobs but this is a fantasy. The government’s performance is pathetic.”

‘Comprehensive framework’

A Treasury spokesman said it was unfair to look at the green element of the fiscal stimulus in isolation.

He said: “The UK already has a comprehensive policy framework in place, expected to drive over £50bn of investment in the low-carbon sector between 2008 and 2011, including supporting renewable energy, upgrading grid infrastructure, enhancing energy efficiency and improving public transport.

“This must be considered when comparing different countries’ approaches to low-carbon investment and the development of a low-carbon economy.”

Meanwhile Lord Stern, a former UK Treasury chief economic adviser, is launching a report commissioned by the German government.

It calls for massive investment by the G20 nations in energy efficiency and new electricity grids; supporting markets for clean technology; pushing up the price of emitting carbon; and initiating large-scale demonstration projects for carbon capture and storage and concentrated solar and energy storage.

His study expresses confidence that G20 leaders can build a low-carbon economy which brings the world back on track for growth and prosperity.

In the UK, a report by Greenpeace, the Federation of Master Builders and the Liberal Democrats accuses the government of missing an open goal by creating jobs through new roads and subsidies to car firms when the cash could have been spent on more insulation.

They say this creates more jobs for the money, while also cutting energy demand and emissions.

‘More work needed’

The report says the government’s new green measures will delay the growth of UK carbon emissions by five-and-a-half-hours by the end of 2011.

Another report, this time by HSBC, suggests that South Korea and China have spent more than 1% of their GDP on green growth.

Pavan Sukhdev, the banker who heads the UN’s green economy drive, told BBC News: “The UK needs to recognise this is a competitive situation.

“They need to compete into the future where there will be a cost for carbon, there will be low-carbon development models in rich and poor nations, and the UK will do itself and its entrepreneurial community an injustice if it does not provide them with at least the same competitive position that the rest of the world has.

“I think a bit more work is needed with Prime Minister Brown.”

Life: A medical condition
By Alasdair Cross
Producer, Medicalisation of Normality

Hysteria once preoccupied medical science

Restless leg syndrome, social anxiety disorder, female sexual dysfunction, celebrity worship syndrome – it seems that a new illness is invented every week, covering every potential quirk in human behaviour.

Is the human condition becoming a medical condition?

Ten per cent of British children are regarded as having a clinically recognisable mental disorder, 34 million prescriptions for anti-depressants were written in the UK in 2007, while it is estimated that 10% of US children take Ritalin to combat behaviour problems.

Dr Tim Kendall, Joint Director of the National Collaboration Centre for Mental Health and a key government adviser is deeply concerned at what he sees as a medicalisation of a vast swathe of society.

He said: “I think there is an inherent danger from increasingly classifying people.

“If you look at the American Psychiatric Association ‘bible’, you’ll see almost every piece of human behaviour can be classified as being in some way aberrant.”

Dr Kendall sees dangers in a “tendency for new categories to be invented, often at the behest of drug companies looking for a new drug”.

Medical historian, Dr Louise Foxcroft agrees, pointing to ill-defined conditions such as female sexual dysfunction and to the erectile hardness scale promoted by the producers of Viagra which she claims “is a creation of fear and anxiety”.

It is certainly not a new phenomenon.

Historical ailments

Dr Foxcroft, author of ‘Hot Flushes, Cold Science’, has shelves of old medical textbooks stuffed with long-forgotten ailments.

I think there is an inherent danger from increasingly classifying people
Dr Tim Kendall
National Collaboration Centre for Mental Health

Among them is hysteria, the symptoms of which could range from excessive masturbation to excessive novel reading and a tendency to wander.

Common treatments for hysterical women, and they were invariably women, included opium, the removal of the clitoris and incarceration.

Later, neurasthenia became the fashionable mental affliction, suffered by the likes of novelist, George Eliot and philosopher Immanuel Kant.

These over-worked intellectuals were offered the more convivial option of Priory-style rehab retreats to help ease their troubled minds.

Such ailments and the chance of treatment were once confined to the upper classes but that has changed in the past 20 years.

US advertising

In 1997 the US fully legalised the advertising of prescription medicines.

Since then television ad breaks and popular magazines have been packed with explicit claims for the effectiveness of anti-depressants, behaviour modifying drugs and pre-menstrual tension treatments.

Prescriptions for the most heavily-advertised drugs have risen significantly.

Could we see a similar effect in the UK?

Dr Kendall is concerned by current European Commission proposals that could loosen the blanket ban on the advertisement of prescription medicines to European consumers.

Do not expect Prozac ads before Coronation Street or a Ritalin sponsored X-Factor.

However, the proposed shift would allow adverts on medical websites and in relevant magazines.

Dr Richard Tiner of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry says that his members are completely opposed to ‘direct to consumer advertising’ on the American model.

Dr Kendall, an adviser to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, said: “It’s far better that independent bodies like NICE provide the evidence, turned into plain English for patients.

“I’d far rather that’s what patients got than so-called information provided by a pharmaceutical company.”

If the proposals become law then, as in the US, we can expect to see even more new conditions and new drugs to treat them, new ways not to be ‘normal’.

‘The Medicalisation of Normality’ is broadcast on BBC Radio Four at 2100 BST on Monday 30 March and repeated on Wednesday 1 April at 1630 BST.

Evolution study focuses on snail
By Sarah Mukherjee
Environment correspondent, BBC News


The banded snail has been studied for at least 60 years

Members of the public across Europe are being asked to look in their gardens or local green spaces for banded snails as part of a UK-led evolutionary study.

The Open University says its Evolution MegaLab will be one of the largest evolutionary studies ever undertaken.

Scientists believe the research could show how the creatures have evolved in the past 40 years to reflect changes in temperature and their predators.

The six-month study, starting in April, will ask people to submit data online.

‘Ideal organism’

Professor Jonathan Silvertown, from the OU, said: “I was thinking about Darwin year and how we could help people get an idea of what Darwin was talking about.

“The banded snail has been studied for 60 or more years, so it’s an ideal organism to use. It’s something that’s very common, we know what the genetics are and it’s safe to handle.”

Professor Silvertown said there were two main evolutionary drivers that affect where yellow and brown banded snails are found.

The first is climate – darker-shelled snails tend to be further north, and scientists believe this is because dark shells get warmer quicker than lighter ones.

Darker-shelled snails could also be active for longer – which would make a difference to how much they could eat and how many offspring they could have.

The second evolutionary driver is predation by thrushes.

The birds hunt by sight and they find it more difficult to find yellow-striped shells around grass and brown shells against brown leaves – so yellow-shelled snails have been more common in grassland and darker ones in areas with brownish background environments.

‘Genuine study’

“We think [the snails] have changed in the last 40 or 50 years,” said Professor Silvertown.

“Firstly, the climate has warmed up, so we think the distribution of colours has probably changed.

“Secondly, thrushes have become far less common in the last 30 years or so – so snail colouring in different habitats might be less important.”

This is what the Evolution MegaLab, which will run from April to October, will be trying to discover.

“There’s a lot of historical data on the website,” said Professor Silvertown.

“We have data from the past on 8,000 or so snail populations, so if you submit your data on the website, it will automatically make a comparison telling you whether there’s been any change in your area.”

Professor Silvertown said this was a genuine scientific study and not just a public relations exercise.

It has been funded in part by the Royal Society and the British Council, and he and his team are hoping that a major report will be published on the data collected at the beginning of next year.

He also points out that this could be an invaluable tool for researchers of the future who will be able to look at this project and compare any further evolutionary changes.

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Website: Crisis of Credit