Health & Environment

Could understanding environmental exposures help diagnose and treat some cases of depression? (Photo zweettooth, sxc)

This month, we take a look at something that has received very little attention: how mental health might be affected by chemical exposures.

In a sense, it stands to reason that mental health, as much as physical health, can be affected by pollutants: both systems are physical, dependent on hormones and other chemical processes for effective functioning, and therefore both liable to disruption.

Given the precarious balance and subtlety of processes in the brain, one might wonder if this isn’t more prone to upset than one might first think.

So this month we have given space to research, some of it very speculative and preliminary, into the possibility that being exposed to pesticides might be an underlying factor behind mental illness – and how this means that some episodes may be treatable without medication.

Click here to read this month’s issue.