Depression epidemic cutting potential years of life among Oz blokes: Study

MELBOURNE - It’s depression that cuts more years off the lives of Aussie men than liver disease and colon cancer, reveals a new study conducted by The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

Barbara Hocking of the SANE Australia 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,” News.com.au quoted her as saying.

“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,” added Hocking.

The report looked at the chronic diseases that resulted in death before the age of 75. It calculates how many years of potential life these people lost. (ANI)