Blog — Mental Health

Why are Mitochondria Important?  Mitochondria are organelles that are present in every cell of the body except red blood cells. About 20% of our body weight is mitochondria.  The accepted theory is that mitochondria were once bacterial cells that created a commensal relationship with eukaryotic cells, and gave the eukaryotic cells the energy to become multicellular. The eukaryotes gave mitochondria more machinery and structure. Working together, multicellular organisms were able to evolve. What Are the Mental Health Manifestations of Mitochondrial Function? I became interested in mitochondria a few years back, for I had noticed that a certain percentage of patients...

An eye-opening discussion and review of mental health case histories with Alyssa Burns-Hill, PhD takes practitioners through the hormone looking glass for a deeper understanding of depression and mental illness.  From Burns-Hill's perspective, mental health is not just the preserve of mental health professionals, but a global health problem that all specialists – from family practitioners and psychiatrists, to neurologists and social workers – ought to be concerned about. She points to the 2010 Global Burden Disease Study that identified the most predominant mental health problems as depression and anxiety, which are symptoms physicians see in practice every day. Yet...