Posts tagged with 'united kingdom'
Exercise 2: UK Department of Health, resources for assessment & advice
11th January 2010
Last week I wrote a blog post "Exercise 1: checking it's safe to start". In today's post I talk about resources provided by the Department of Health (for England & Wales). They have an excellent webpage on Physical Activity with links to a series of important initiatives including its publication …
Alcohol: know your limits and increase the price
5th April 2009
A recent article in the British Medical Journal (Kmietowicz 2009) reports that "The chief medical officer for England has called for a minimum price of 50 pence (0.54; $0.70) to be charged for a unit of alcohol to reduce excessive drinking and its associated harms. Liam Donaldson said that antisocial …
Recent research: five papers on depression, stigma, biology, & extending the reach of psychotherapy
2nd April 2009
This set of five papers documents, in part, our mixed viewpoints on depression. Worryingly, Mehta & colleagues show deteriorating public attitudes towards mental illness in England (and to a lesser extent Scotland) between 1994 and 2003. Meanwhile Blumner et al demonstrate a shift towards a more biological view on causes …
Time to change: let’s challenge mental health discrimination
7th February 2009
On 26th January the BMJ reported on the new £18 million Time to Change campaign " ... to tackle the discrimination and stigma that surrounds mental health ... The Time to Change initiative is funded by Comic Relief and the National Lottery. Its aim is to tell the public that …
Vegged out & fruitless: lifestyle & health
18th October 2008
Last month's BMJ published another in the long line of research articles that highlight the huge importance of lifestyle choices for our health: Dam, R. M. v., T. Li, et al. (2008). "Combined impact of lifestyle factors on mortality: prospective cohort study in US women." BMJ 337(sep16_2): a1440- [Free Full …
Would you like to be 14 years younger – it’s largely a matter of choice!
3rd October 2008
Back in January I wrote a blog post entitle "Does a healthy lifestyle really make a difference? " I highlighted that it makes a hell of a lot of a difference. At around that time another major study was published that hammered this point home even more thoroughly and I've …
“The demon drink” – social costs and social responses
18th January 2008
Modest alcohol intake seems pretty harmless and maybe even does a bit of good healthwise. However last month's editorial (Gilmore and Sheron 2007) in the Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal drummed in points it's important to remember. Ian Gilmore is President of the Royal College of Physicians and …