WHO: Alcohol kills more than AIDS, TB or violence

"Alcohol causes nearly 4 percent of deaths worldwide, more than AIDS, tuberculosis or violence, according to the World Health Organization.

In Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), every fifth death is due to harmful drinking, the highest rate. Binge drinking, which often leads to risky behavior, is now prevalent in Brazil, Kazakhstan,, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and Ukraine, and rising elsewhere, according to the WHO.

Alcohol consumption rates vary greatly, from high levels in developed countries, to the lowest in North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and southern Asia, whose large Muslim populations often abstain from drinking.

In France and other European countries with high levels of adult per capita consumption, heavy episodic drinking is rather low, suggesting more regular but moderate drinking patterns."

source: Reuters

The glue of the societySocial strcurture of Congolese villages and mass rape during the war

Another horrifying observations on mass rapes in Congo by a photographer Marcus Bleadsdale. The author mentions the role of women in a Congolese society. Women tend to make 95% of work, which is important to the community: raising children, educating them, planticg, harvesting etc.
Raped women often loose their social position and become excluded from their communities.
The whole situation makes me think about the gender division of labour.What is the role of the male in the Congolese rural society? I don´t really understad it. It seems to have a strong link to the situation in rural Russia where the male population is de facto not participating on the social life beacuse of mass alcoholosm. The women there also tend to be major force due to the village subsitence economy.

Haiti one year after the earthquake the Hobbesian State

Photo: http://blog.marshillchurch.org/2010/02/01/free-haiti-photos/

One year after the quake. The way of living in Haiti does not seem to cange significantly. What kind of social process may occur therefore in the Haitian society, especially in the camps for homeless refugees? 

Thomas Hobbes, a political philosopher from the XVI century, argued that without a strong gouvernment unlimited violance would spread out in the country. So real power would downscore to the very local area - to  the groups of weaponed violent men, more or less organised in gangs. As a result: deprivation of everything which can have any value, and destruction if it cannot be heisted,  (it is reported, that gangs detroyed even showers in refugee camps, actually without any reason ), mass rapes of women, lawlessness.

This way of living Hobbes called the 'natural state'. He belived - it would be very common to what our predecessors experinced in the prehistorical times. It should be the natural environment, where our psyche emerged, modern evolutionary psychologist would call it the 'environment of evolutionary adaptedness'.

Does it mean that we are genrally ready to cope with situations, Haitians have to survive?

Top 100 Mental Health and Psychology Blogs

A valuable link to the source about blogging on metal health topics. Some important bloggers, among them researchers and patients are listed there.

Over 60 per cent of Afghans suffer mental health problems

"This is a major problem," Suraya Dalil, Afghanistan’s acting public health minister, told a ceremony in Kabul on World Mental Health Day. "More than 60 percent of Afghans are suffering from stress disorders and mental problems."
The picture is particularly grim in parts of the country where government healthcare workers are unable to provide basic services because of Taliban insurgency, she said.
"Extreme poverty, insecurity, violence and gender disparities are the major factors contributing to worsening mental health in Afghanistan."
[...]

"There are only 200 beds for psychiatric services in the country, with only two psychiatrists in the country covering the entire population," said WHO representative Peter Graaff.
(AFP)

 view the article at globalnews

Ig Nobel Prize for asthma research

'UvA psychologist Simon Rietveld has won the Ig Nobel Prize for medicine, together with Ilya van Beest, professor of Psychology at the University of Tilburg. Their research showed that a rollercoaster ride may be helpful in fighting symptoms of asthma. The Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded for research ‘that makes people laugh and then think.'

read the statement of the Universiteit van Amsterdam

 Abstract
'The current study assessed how negative and positive stress is related to dyspnea perception. The participants were 25 young women with a medical diagnosis of severe asthma, and 15 matched controls. Stress was induced during repeated rollercoaster rides. Results showed that negative emotional stress and blood pressure peaked just before, and positive emotional stress and heart beat peaked immediately after rollercoaster rides. Dyspnea in women with asthma was higher just before than immediately after rollercoaster rides, even in women with asthma with a rollercoaster-evoked reduction in lung function. These results suggest that stressed and highly aroused individuals with chronic asthma tend to perceive dyspnea in terms of acquired, familiar associations between dyspnea and positive versus negative feeling states, favoring either underperception or overperception of dyspnea, depending on the emotional valence of a situation.'
Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest, Behaviour Research and Therapy, vol. 45, 2006, pp. 977–87

An article by telegraph.co.uk about the lg Nobel awards

A bad joke

What is the indication that you are an evil experimental psychologist? - Only the guys from the control group love you.

by Philipp