First let me thank all of you who have written to me about my novel around the theme of depression.  I much appreciate the kind sentiments.

As I wrote in The Brain Food Diet, it would appear that we are richer than ever, but no happier - or so the experts tell us - prompting renewed discussion about what happiness is, in the hope that public policies can be devised to promote it. You may be a little sceptical about public policies helping the cause of your personal happiness. But it would appear, according to the experts, that not only does increasing wealth fail to make us happier, but the very means of growing wealthier - all that hubble, bubble, toil and struggle - actually makes a lot of us unhappier.

I'm hardly claiming to be a paradigm of sense and prudence myself. Like a lot of professional people, I have spent most of my life working long hours and allowing duty to distract me. But it's never too late to slow down a little and think about what really matters in your life.

Readers of The Brain Food Diet will be aware that, alhough the jury is still out, there is some evidence that omega-3s, and DHA in particular, may well help people suffering from depression rediscover that zing factor.  There is also growing evidence that fish oil, and the omega-3s, may help puerperal melancholia as well as schizophrenia. 


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