Police investigating missing Nicola Bulley have revealed the missing mum's health issues that 'recently resurfaced'.
Lancashire Police tonight said: "Sadly, it is clear from speaking to Paul and the family that Nicola had in the past suffered with some significant issues with alcohol which were brought on by her ongoing struggles with the menopause and that these struggles had resurfaced over recent months. This caused some real challenges for Paul and the family."
It comes after a press conference held earlier today revealed police were treating Nicola as a "high risk" missing person due to some "vulnerabilities".
In an updated statement, they added: "We have described how Nicola had some vulnerabilities at the time she went missing and we just wanted to expand on that a little.
"Sadly, it is clear from speaking to Paul and the family that Nicola had in the past suffered with some significant issues with alcohol which were brought on by her ongoing struggles with the menopause and that these struggles had resurfaced over recent months. This caused some real challenges for Paul and the family.
"As a result of those issues, a response car staffed by both police and health professionals attended a report of concern for welfare at Nicola’s home address on January 10th. No one has been arrested in relation to this incident, but it is being investigated.
"It is an unusual step for us to take to go into this level of detail about someone’s private life, but we felt it was important to clarify what we meant when we talked about vulnerabilities to avoid any further speculation or misinterpretation.
"We have explained to Nicola’s family why we have released this further information and we would ask that their privacy is respected at this difficult time."
In a public update held today, Lancashire Police said they had been "inundated" following the mortgage advisor’s disappearance on the morning of January 27.
Nicola had been walking along the River Wyre in St Michael's on Wyre, Lancashire, when she disappeared.
Detective Superintendent Rebecca Smith said that the mum was quickly ranked as "high risk" due to her "vulnerabilities" that partner Paul Ansell had made them aware of.
During a press conference with Assistant Chief Constable Peter Lawson, she said that out of respect to Nicola's family and the "unimaginable pain and distress" they are going through, she would not go into anymore detail about the vulnerabilities.
She said: “It’s normal in any missing person investigation that you obviously gather as much information at an early stage about the person in question, which is no different and we did that with Paul.
“I’m not going to go into the details of those individual vulnerabilities. I’ve asked you to respect the family, who are going through unimaginable pain and distress at this moment.
“But those vulnerabilities based our decision-making in terms of grading Nicola as high risk and have continued to form part of my investigation throughout.”
If someone is ranked "high risk" by police is means they believe the risk of serious harm to the subject, Nicola, is very likely, according to force guidelines.
During the conference, they said that 40 detectives were working on the ongoing investigation and they had received 1,500 pieces of evidence.
Lancashire Police has visited 300 premises and spoken to over 300 people during their ongoing hunt, and received 150 dashcam submissions to review - none of which, so far, showed Nicola after she dropped her kids off at school.
After dropping them off, she walked her family dog Willow down to the River Wyre, in St Michael's on Wyre, something police said was "routine".
She bumped into a number of other dog walkers and took a work call where she had her camera turned off and her microphone muted.
In detail released today by the police, they were able to say that around 9.20am, Nicola's phone was moved to the bench where it was eventually found.
Over the next 13 minutes, officers don't know what happened, other than that Nicola vanished.
