Physical problems 'often mental'

[Guest guest]

By Michelle Roberts

Health reporter, BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8305404.stm

The true burden of mental ill health is unrecognised since many " physical "

problems, like cancer and obesity, are really " mind " problems, say experts.

 

Most lung cancers are caused by addiction to smoking, and some obesity by a

brain-driven compulsion to eat, says UK psychiatrist Dr Peter Jones.

 

And to tackle such problems experts need to go back to delving the mind.

 

He and other leading mental health experts are calling for a trebling of funding

to £200m a year for research.

 

The Research Mental Health initiative, along with public figures including

Alistair Campbell, Jo Brand and Stephen Fry, are taking their declaration to

Downing Street.

 

Mental illness in its " classic " sense, including depression and schizophrenia,

affects one in four people in the UK each year but receives just 5% of total

health research spending.

 

Currently, around £74 million a year is spent on researching mental illness.

 

Yet the economic, social and human cost of mental illness totals £100 billion a

year in the UK alone.

 

And many " physical " health problems involve a strong mental component, they say.

 

" Mental "

 

Professor Peter Jones, head of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, said:

" Mental health and illness are seen as separate from physical health and

disorders but it's becoming increasingly clear that is wrong.

 

" Take smoking and lung cancer. People think of it as a physical illness but lung

cancer is a behaviour disease due to smoking habit. "

 

Similarly, he said research showed that some cases of obesity could be explained

by a hormonal deficiency that acts on the brain circuitry that tells the body

when it is full or hungry.

 

" We need to zip together physical and mental health. It is absurd to think that

biological processes would stop at the neck. "

 

People with severe mental illnesses are nearly three times more likely to

develop diabetes and other cardiovascular disease risk factors and, on average,

die 25-30 years younger.

 

Research Mental Health says more research investment is desperately needed to

match the impact mental health has on people in terms of premature death and

disability.

 

Poor cousin

 

" The long term aim must be to put mental health research on the same footing as

that for physical illness, " it says.

 

Mental illness and cancer both account for about 15% of the total disease burden

in the UK, yet cancer gets more than 25% of research investment, while mental

health gets 5%.

 

Andrew McCulloch, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, said: " Our

understanding of mental illness is moving at a snail's pace.

 

" Whilst treatments have improved, we have not yet seen the breakthroughs needed

to significantly reduce the massive economic and social damage caused by mental

illness. "

 

Meanwhile, experts and advocates in mental and physical health are working

together for the first time in a European policy initiative - the Mental and

Physical Health Platform - to improve the understanding of the interaction

between body and mind in disease.

 

The chairman of the initiative, John Bowis, said: " It is time to bridge the gap

between mental and physical health by taking actions across policy areas and

countries. "