Donie's daily BLOG Saturday

The Celtic Tiger will return sometime with a mighty roar for Ireland

 

Sir, Lex may believe that Ireland is overvalued (September 4) but there are three very good reasons why international investors are right to disagree.

First, the Irish have a long history of coping with adversity and have known much worse in their past. Second, they are not afraid of hard work, having built, and continued to build, most of the infrastructure in Britain. Third, Ireland has one of the best educated workforces in Europe, making it one of the most attractive for foreign companies to invest in.

Certainly the Celtic Tiger may be licking its wounds and full recovery will take more time but, on fundamentals, it surely remains the best recovery play in Europe.

A high-fat diet can damage your brain

   

We live in an “obesigenic” environment where at every turn we are tempted by high-calorie, high-fat food choices. Eating them, however, looks capable of damaging your brain and contributing further to obesity.

“Recent research has shown a diet high in saturated fat damages the part of the brain that controls energy balance,” said Dr Lynda Williams of the University of Aberdeen. This could help explain why overweight people struggle to lose weight and maintain weight levels.

Her research group fed mice a diet where up to 60 per cent of the energy consumed came from saturated fats and sugar with 16 per cent fat, and compared these mice with controls fed a normal diet.

They found that the high-fat diet was associated with changes to the genes and the proteins that control a part of the brain called the hypothalamus.

“The hypothalamus is a small area at the base of the brain containing neurons that control the amount of food we eat and the energy we expend,” she said. This meant it became even more difficult to control eating given the interference with the hypothalamus.

She said the changes seemed to arise very quickly, with changes in proteins seen in a day or two and changes in genes within a week.

She acknowledged that the diet fed to the mice was “an extreme case” with a diet containing 10 per cent fat, which is considered a very high level. Humans could, on occasion, reach such levels of fat in their diets, but not over a sustained period.

“Our results indicate that a high-fat diet can damage the areas of the brain that control energy balance and perpetuate obesity,” said Dr Williams.

Alert on ‘period of calm ahead of suicide with victims’

         

People thinking of suicide often enter a period of calm immediately before the event, causing friends and family to misread the symptoms, a leading GP has warned.

Dr Harry Barry (above right) highlighted the need for families to identify the “cocoon” that potential suicide subjects may slip into in order to identify the person in difficulty.

“The almost universal refrain from any family members bereaved by suicide is how the person in distress seemed so normal before the event,” Dr Barry told a conference organised by Console.

“Survivors looking back at the period before the attempt also struggle to explain how they behaved,” he said.

Before entering the cocoon, people may exhibit symptoms such as tiredness, difficulty concentrating and sleeping, agitation and withdrawal, he said.

“However, when in the cocoon they seem to become much calmer, their mood may even improve and previous distresses may seem to have settled down.”

Some may even make special efforts to visit family and friends, who may feel previous issues with mood or anxiety have been left behind.

Dr Barry said that by using cognitive behavioural therapy, those at risk can be identified earlier.

Australian suicide prevention specialist Susan Beaton told the conference the focus should alter from keeping people alive to helping them make a life worth living.

She criticised “a tyranny of business” that often distracted people, and said listening was often the most valuable gift we could offer others.

Dr Jerry Reed, director of the Suicide Prevention Resource Centre in the US, highlighted the central role of those bereaved by suicide in changing the national debate on the issue.

“You cannot change yesterday but you can, through your voice, change tomorrow,” he said. The selfless service and passion of the bereaved could act as an inspiration to others, he said.

Cllr Peter Roche, deputy mayor of Galway, told the conference about the death by suicide of his youngest son Colin in November 2010.

Mr Roche questioned the need to put bereaved families through the pain of intensive questioning as part of the postmortem process. He also criticised the “cold and calculated” language used on his son’s death certificate which described the cause of death simply as “hanging”.

Suicide was often a permanent solution to a temporary problem, he said, and many people with suicidal thoughts needed a shoulder to cry on rather than clinical support. Mr Roche, a Fine Gael councillor, said it was a “sad reflection” on society that adequate funding was not provided for groups working in the area.

Campaigners protest against mental health care cuts make their point?

  

Mental health campaigners protested yesterday at Government Buildings in Dublin over reports the Government planned to use a €35 million promised for community mental health services to offset the deficit in the HSE.

Despite assurances from Minister of State for Mental Health Kathleen Lynch that the majority of promised posts for community health services would be in place by the end of the year, more than 50 campaigners gathered to say they were concerned about delays and uncertainty surrounding the mental health budget.

In Budget 2012, the Government committed to investing €35 million in the development of community-based mental health services including 370 staff for adult child and adolescent community mental health teams, 34 staff for suicide prevention and 10 staff for primary healthcare counselling services.

Advocacy group Mental Health Reform said the investment was part of an agreed transition from the old model of institutional hospital-based care towards holistic, community-based care outlined in the Government’s own mental health strategy.

“We’re protesting about the risk to the €35 million that has been designated for community mental healthcare services,” the organisation’s director, Orla Barry, said. “This is not new money for mental health services. Even with the proposed €35 million, the mental health budget still took a cut of 1 per cent in 2012. We are seen as easy targets. The transition is about reducing the reliance on hospital beds which are ferociously expensive. Some people may need to be in hospital but many can get help in their own homes and communities.”

Ms Barry called on the Government to deliver the allocated services for 2012.

Counselling psychologist and director of services at TurntoMe.org Eoin O’Shea said the proposed cutbacks were a “disgrace”. “There is an untold human cost. National and international studies prove the fiscal cost in the medium term. Cutbacks to mental health services result in economic deficits – absenteeism from work, increased pressure on physical health services and the fallout to their family members,” said Mr O’Shea.

TalktoMe.org offers a free online service to those suffering from mental health issues. “We encourage anyone looking for free, supportive mental health services to come to us. From a hard-nosed, economic perspective, these proposed cuts don’t even make sense in the short term.”