Buy into these promising medical developments now and you may be embarking on the trip of a lifetime. Bruce Packard reports
In the third quarter of last year, 22 million antidepressants were prescribed to an estimated 6.8 million patients. Sadly, mental health problems are not limited to adults – 1.5 million children will need additional mental-health support following the pandemic, according to a report from the Centre for Mental Health. The NHS is struggling to cope with the increased demand – the size of the workforce dealing with mental health has risen by 22%, but that has been outpaced by referrals, up 44% since the pandemic. Around one in six adults in England have a common mental-health disorder, and roughly half of mental-health problems start by the age of 14. Last year the government spent £12bn, or 9% of the total NHS budget, on mental-health services.
Job insecurity, long working hours and high levels of personal debt have been linked to the sixfold rise in prescriptions for psychiatric drugs since the 1980s. Similar trends are being seen in the US and other countries, and social psychologists such as Jean Twenge and Jonathan Haidt have suggested that the rise of smartphones and social media are partly to blame.
Smartphones to the rescue
But if capitalism and smartphones are part of the problem, perhaps they could also be part of the solution – whether through funding more effective drug treatments or the use of mobile-phone apps such as MoodKit, iBreathe, Happify, Me (for self awareness), Quit That!, Reframe and I Am Sober (for addiction).
The two apps with the highest number of downloads are US-founded Headspace and Calm. They were launched more than a decade ago and offer breathing exercises, sleep stories read by celebrities and guided meditations. Together they have raised just under half a billion dollars but are yet to float on the stockmarket, despite the technology-focused Nasdaq index more than doubling in value over the past five years. In 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that Calm, which had been valued at $2bn by VC backers in 2020, had laid off 20% of its staff. Good examples, perhaps, of the frothy valuations that US venture capitalists put on their funding rounds not matching the reality that stockmarket investors see.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Another promising area of progress is using psychedelics to treat menta
