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‘British troops face risk of massive mental health problems’

London, Aug. 26 (ANI): British soldiers are faced with massive mental health problems due to drastic working conditions and out of date support techniques, a former Special Air Service soldier has revealed.

Ex-trooper Bob Paxman, 41, has broken the SAS vow of silence to reveal the risk soldiers face fighting post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“The military have got a massive problem on their hands and they haven’t faced up to it yet. It can be anything from flashbacks, nightmares, depression or self-medication with drugs or alcohol,” said Paxman, who has set up a charity to help those suffering in silence.

His newly registered charity, Talking2Minds, uses cognitive, neuro-linguistic and time line therapies.

“It’s a huge problem and we are getting a lot of telephone calls each week from the tri-services and the blue light services,” Sky News quoted him, as saying.

Critics claim the Ministry of Defence has not provided the support troops need, especially with increasing work loads post-9/11 with action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

PTSD experts estimate one in five troops being affected and Paxman believes the military’s method of treating troops is decades out of date.

“They have certain types of counselling but these processes are basically based in the 1960s,” Paxman, who left the service after 11 years in 2000, said.

The Ministry of Defence denies their facilities are outmoded.

An MoD spokesman told Sky News Online: “The MoD takes the mental welfare of all our personnel extremely seriously and extensive measures are in place to prevent and treat mental health concerns.

For elite Special Forces soldiers revealing problems might mean being sidelined permanently.

“The worst fear everyone in the SAS has is that they’d get binned form the unit if they said something – and they probably would,” Paxman said (ANI)

Scientists give first clear demonstration of self-medication among insects

Washington, March 14 (ANI): University of Arizona scientists have found that there are some caterpillars that munch on drug-laced leaves to get rid of crippling parasites.

Lead author Elizabeth Bernays says that this finding is the first clear demonstration of self-medication among insects.

She points out that parasitic flies lay their eggs inside woolly bears in the spring, and when the fly larvae hatch, they feed on the innards of their hosts before exploding out of their abdomens.

However, she adds, when infected caterpillars eat leaves from semecio and other plants, the animals get bellies full of drugs called alkaloids.

Alkaloids familiar to humans include caffeine, morphine, and cocaine.

The researchers concede that they cannot say whether the alkaloids attack the parasites directly, or whether the drug somehow gives the woolly bears’ immune systems a boost.

They, however, insist that the alkaloid-laden leaves do cure the insects.

During the study, Bernays’ team observed that infected woolly bears ate more leaves containing toxic alkaloids than their non-infected peers.

Although healthy woolly bears were also found to eat alkaloids, the amount was very small.

The researchers believe that healthy woolly bears apparently ingest alkaloids to make themselves unsavoury to predators.

The research also revealed that parasite-free woolly bears, which binged on alkaloids, were more likely to die as compared to those that took the drug in moderation.

“It’s a balancing act,” National Geographic quoted Bernays as saying.

The researcher says that the new finding contradicts the suggestion that self-medication is restricted to relatively intelligent creatures that are capable of learning, such as primates.

A research article describing this study has been published in the journal PLoS One. (ANI)

‘British troops face risk of massive mental health problems’

Scientists give first clear demonstration of self-medication among insects

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