Depression is no joke for blokes

By Callie Watson
The Advertiser
December 20, 2010

DEPRESSION cuts more years off the lives of Australian men than liver disease and colon cancer.

The findings come as experts continue calls for males to ditch their "blokey" attitude towards mental health issues.

SANE Australia executive director Barbara Hocking said depression was a silent epidemic among many men who still believed discussing the difficult topic was a sign of weakness.

"There's a general understanding that women experience it (depression); there's much less awareness that men do," she said.

"Part of that . . . is that men are much less likely to seek help for depression; there needs to be a lot more work in changing blokey attitudes. The important thing to understand with this silent epidemic is that getting treatment does help and the risk people run by not seeking help is enormous."

An Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report looked at the chronic diseases that caused people to die before the age of 75. It calculates how many years of potential life these people lost.

Coronary heart disease topped the list for men, then lung cancer and depression. For women, breast cancer, lung cancer and coronary heart were deemed to be the leading causes of potential years of life lost because of chronic disease.

Depression was in eighth place.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare senior data analyst Karen Bishop said figures on depression included people who had died as a result of suicide and it is the first time such information on chronic diseases has been compiled. The report found chronic disease killed more than 25,000 Australians during 2007 and that three out of five of these deaths were potentially avoidable.

Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance chairman Greg Johnson said the toll was especially high among disadvantaged Australians and called on the Government to reverse this toll.

 
This article can be found on The Advertiser's website at: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/depression-is-no-joke-for-blokes/story-e6frea6u-1225973609136