The American Medical Association decided this week not to press ahead with a recommendation to the American Psychiatric Association that video game addiction be labelled as a formal mental health disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The association also decided against urging parents to limit children to a total of two hours per day of playing video games, watching television and surfing the Internet.

A healthy diet can have a positive impact on mental health, according to recent research from the Mental Health Foundation. The charity has published a new booklet to help you protect your mental health through healthy eating. It is particularly relevant for those recovering from mild to moderate depression and suggests how changes to diet can help improve mood.

Too many people have had to wait too long to access our online counselling services — with our waiting list stretching out to 7 weeks recently. Today, we welcome our first Associate Online Counsellor, Sarah Hayes, whose practice is now featured in our online counselling service section. Welcome, Sarah, and we hope this will mean fewer people having to wait for the services they want!

Evidence that potential blockbuster weight loss drug Acomplia (rimonabant) causes neurological and psychiatric problems and increases the risk of suicide has led to a unanimous vote against the drug by a US FDA advisory panel. Although rimonabant is already being marketed in 37 countries, it is now unlikely the FDA will approve the weight loss drug, to have been sold in the United States under the name ‘Zimulti’, without more positive data on safety.

Over at our sister site BlogsInMind.com, new bloggers have been posting on topics ranging from how our minds can play tricks on us to the challenges of living with family members experiencing mental illness. Another has posted about embarking on a career in counselling, while others have just taken a moment to vent. Do you have your own blog yet?

We sure didn’t foresee that a couple of blog posts about Dr Joe Carver’s article called ‘Are You Dating a Loser?’ would wind up attracting some 260 comments from readers. But now that we’ve had to split the discussion thread 4 times — and brought Dr Carver on board as Consulting Clinical Psychologist with his own regular column — we’re pretty sure he’s on to something.

Many thanks to Dr Gareth Furber for giving our new free blogging service a ‘splash’ over at his site. Dr Furber highlighted the new site’s features and advertising model and commented on the potential of BlogsInMind.com as a journaling and therapeutic writing tool.