Mental disorders affect more than 160 million Europeans - 38% of the population - each year, says a report¹ issued today by the European Brain Council and the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Yet, fewer than a third of those affected receive treatment.

Led by Hans-Ullrich Wittchen, a psychologist at the Technical University of Dresden in Germany, the three-year study covered the 27 countries in the European Union (EU) as well as Switzerland, Norway and Iceland. The researchers found that the most common disorders are anxiety, insomnia and depression, which account for 14%, 7% and 6.9% of the total, respectively.

The researchers originally aimed to study all disorders of the brain, split into two major categories: mental or psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia, and neurological diseases such as stroke, multiple sclerosis or Parkinson's disease. Ultimately, they weren't able to estimate the combined prevalence, because so many of them occur together. So Wittchen says the true figure is likely be "considerably larger" than 38%.

A pill costing less than £3 a day is being hailed as the biggest breakthrough in stroke prevention in 50 years.

The drug, which slashes the risk of suffering a stroke by over a third, will help more than a million Britons.

Pradaxa is now available for use in the UK. In trials it was found to significantly reduce the risk of a stroke in patients with an irregular heartbeat, known as atrial fibrillation. This is one of the main causes of strokes.

The drug, taken twice a day at a cost of £2.52, already prevents thousands of deaths each year from blood clots after hip or knee replacement surgery. Now European regulators have given the makers of the drug permission to use it for the prevention of strokes in patients with AF, who have one or more risk factors such as having already ­suffered a stroke.

Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface Farms, author of Folks This Ain't Normal (to be released October 10, 2011), activist and leading spokesperson for local, sustainable food system in movies such as Farmageddon, Food Inc., Fresh and American Meat, describes how this new book, published by Hachette Groups, will shake up the food rights movement and introduce the public to organizations such as Weston A. Price Foundation and the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.

Important! The producers of this powerful film are allowing a full and FREE preview through September 10th in celebration of Mercury Awareness Week (September 4 - 10)! Please tell everyone you know to watch this film in its entirety through September 10th, 2011. You can support the Consumers for Dental Choice by visiting ToxicTeeth.org!

As climate change and its impacts on our planet and society are still debated, a new report by the Climate Institute of Australia warns against the devastating effects of extreme weather events on communities' mental health.

Taking severe weather events in Australia as a point of focus for the study, the report also blames adverse weather on climate change and says:

"Unabated, a more hostile climate will spell a substantial rise in the incidence of post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression - all at great personal suffering and, consequently, social and economic cost."

The document, published this week, also warns that up to 20% of affected communities will suffer extremes stress, emotional injury, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse.

The study found that as severe weather events in Australia increase in number, "climate change will have many adverse impacts on Australians' health - physical risks, infectious diseases, heat-related ill effects, food safety and nutritional risks, mental health problems and premature deaths.

Asking three simple questions could help patients have more say and better understand their treatment options, according to University research.

Researchers from the University's School of Medicine's Department of Primary Care and Public Health have been working alongside doctors and nurses from Cardiff and the Vale University Health Board to develop tools to get the public more involved in deciding how they are treated.

By encouraging patients to ask three simple questions: What are my options? What are the possible benefits and risks of those options? How likely are the benefits and risks of each option to occur? the researchers hope to improve patient knowledge and encourage engagement with health staff to develop more tailored treatment.

The work is based on research that shows shared decision making can lead to better outcomes for patients. The Making Good Decisions in Collaboration (MAGIC) programme, funded by the Health Foundation, is a joint venture between Cardiff School of Medicine, Newcastle University, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board and Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The 18-month programme, joint led by Professor Glyn Elwyn, School of Medicine, aims to explore how clinicians can engage patients in shared decision making and how it can be embedded into mainstream health services.

ABSTRACT: Modern diseases of civilization cause great distress and reduce happiness, healthy longevity and productivity. Our presentation focuses on the basis for applying an evolutionary medicine framework to the treatment and prevention of mental health issues, as well as using the framework in a corporate environment to promote employee well-being. We discuss rationale, evidence, barriers, and a future trajectory for evolutionary medicine.

As you all know, I have a number of vegetarians in my life, and there are many present and active in our MDA community. I empathize with the thinking that goes into their commitment, but I choose to eat meat and obviously encourage others to do the same for the sake of optimum health. I get a fair amount of emails from vegetarian readers who want to reintroduce meat into their diets. Although they see the health benefits of reclaiming omnivorism, they're hesitant about the transition itself. Have they been herbivores too long? Will they really be able to follow through? The Primal mind is willing, but the flesh remains unsure. I've found their concerns generally fall into four areas that I'll label taste, digestion, morality, and psychology. For all the vegetarians out there interested in rejoining the omnivorous side, let me take up your concerns and offer some Primal-minded suggestions.

Taste

Some vegetarians after many years are still nostalgic for certain meats (bacon seems to be the most common), while others have entirely lost any semblance of craving. Maybe they've managed to satisfy their taste for umami so well, they learned to live happily without any meat source. Alternatively, they may have vehemently talked themselves out of the taste long ago.

Faced with the interest in reclaiming meats' nutritional benefit, they wonder how to rebuild a positive relationship with their estranged fare. We are, all of us, creatures of habit, and we tend to lean toward the familiar. As hard as it may be for meat lovers to understand, giving up a food group for years (and in some cases decades) means wholly disengaging from it. One's associations with meat may become apathetic at best and full-on revulsion at worst. One reader worried because he'd come to hate the smell of grilled meat that wafted through his neighborhood from the corner restaurant. "If I can't even take the smell," he said, "I wonder how I'm ever going to stand the taste again."

Readers will undoubtedly have good advice on the subject, but let me offer a few suggestions to ease the taste transition. It goes without saying (except I'm saying it) to take it slowly. Use small bits of meat (shredded or ground) as filler in what are already favorite dishes. Add a bit of shredded lamb to a ratatouille. Include small bites of chicken or shrimp in a Greek salad. Throw a little ground beef in a veggie stew.

Conventional medical authorities say that consumption of saturated animal fats is bad for you and causes heart disease.

But a hundred years ago, fewer than than one in one hundred Americans were obese, and coronary heart disease was unknown. Then Procter and Gamble started marketing Crisco as a new kind of food -- the first commercially marketed trans fat. Crisco was originally used to make candles and soap, but with electrification causing a decline in candle sales, Procter and Gamble decided to promote the fat as a "healthier" all-vegetable-derived shortening

According to LewRockwell.com:

"Feeding high doses of fat and cholesterol to omnivores, like rats and dogs, does not produce atherosclerotic lesions in them ... In fact, it turns out that people who have highest percentage of saturated fat in their diets have the lowest risk of heart disease ... The last word on this subject should go to Julia Child ... Enjoy eating saturated fats, they're good for you!"

In the first article in this series, I showed that hypothyroidism is an autoimmune disease in 90% of cases. In this article we're going to discuss the connection between autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) and gluten intolerance.

Several studies show a strong link between AITD (both Hashimoto's and Graves') and gluten intolerance. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] The link is so well-established that researchers suggest all people with AITD be screened for gluten intolerance, and vice versa.

What explains the connection? It's a case of mistaken identity. The molecular structure of gliadin, the protein portion of gluten, closely resembles that of the thyroid gland. When gliadin breaches the protective barrier of the gut, and enters the bloodstream, the immune system tags it for destruction. These antibodies to gliadin also cause the body to attack thyroid tissue. This means if you have AITD and you eat foods containing gluten, your immune system will attack your thyroid.

Even worse, the immune response to gluten can last up to 6 months each time you eat it. This explains why it is critical to eliminate gluten completely from your diet if you have AITD. There's no "80/20″ rule when it comes to gluten. Being "mostly" gluten-free isn't going to cut it. If you're gluten intolerant, you have to be 100% gluten-free to prevent immune destruction of your thyroid.