Depression
Diet Can Lead to Depression
The everyday diet can make a tremendous impact on a person’s well-being. Sure, the food a person chooses to ingest can play a part in their physical health, but new research is showing it also plays a role in their mental health as well.
According to a piece in Psych Central, a well-rounded, healthy diet may protect against depression in middle-aged people. This finding is part of a study conducted by researchers at the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London (UCL), UK and the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), University of Montpellier, France.
Depression as Deadly as Smoking, New Study Finds
A study has found that depression is as much of a risk factor for mortality as smoking, according to researchers at the University of Bergen, Norway, and the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) at King’s College London.
Utilizing a unique link between a survey of more than 60,000 people and a comprehensive mortality database, the researchers found that over the four years following the survey, the mortality risk was increased to a similar extent in people who were depressed as in people who were smokers.
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Easing Nightmares Can Help Treat Depression and Other Maladies
Some psychology experts say that treating disturbing nightmares directly can help relieve symptoms of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, insomnia, and other mental health problems.
Kim Painter of USA Today writes that when Yael Levy went to the Sleep-Wake Disorders Center at Montefiore Medical Center two years ago for help with her insomnia, she found that her nightmares were also treatable. Levy knew she had conquered her life-long nightmares the night she was able to turn a circle of sharks into a ring of dolphins. “I was able to change my nightmare while it was happening,” said the 29-year-old New York City graduate student. “I had control over my dreams.”
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New Magnetic Stimulation Offers Noninvasive Treatment for Major Depression
Rush University Medical Center has opened the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) Clinic to offer patients a safe, effective, non-drug treatment for major depression. TMS therapy is the first FDA-approved, non-invasive antidepressant device-based treatment clinically proven for treatment of depression.
Science Daily reports that psychiatrists at Rush University Medical Center were among the first to test the technique. Dr. Philip Janicak, professor of psychiatry and lead investigator at Rush for the clinical trials of TMS, helped develop the therapy.
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Brain Stimulation May Be Effective Treatment for Severe Depression
A new neurosurgical procedure may prove helpful for patients with treatment-resistant depression. Bilateral epidural prefrontal cortical stimulation (EpCS) was found generally safe and provided significant improvement of depressive symptoms in a small group of patients, according to lead researcher Ziad Nahas, M.D. at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC).
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Research Suggests Depression and Anxiety Very Different Disorders in Adolescents
Depression and anxiety are often classified as very similar conditions; so much so that many anxiety disorders are treated with the same medication as that prescribed for depression. When this approach is taken with adolescents, the results can be devastating.
A new Science Daily release found that adolescent depression and anxiety disorders are two very distinct psychiatric disorders. This difference was strongly noted by Dr. William W. Hale III, a researcher of the Langeveld Institute for the Study of Education and Development in Childhood and Adolescence at Utrecht University, in a recent publication in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
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Why Anti-Depressants Don’t Work for Some
More than half of people who take antidepressants for depression never get relief. New research from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine finds that this is because the cause of depression has been oversimplified and drugs designed to treat it are aiming at the wrong target.
Science Daily reports that a study from the laboratory of long-time depression researcher Eva Redei, presented at the Neuroscience 2009 conference in Chicago this week, appears to topple two strongly held beliefs about depression. One is that stressful life events are a major cause of depression. The other is that an imbalance in neurotransmitters in the brain triggers depressive symptoms.
Depression-Inflicted Adults Fail to Seek Treatment
Seeking medical treatment for depression can make a significant impact on a person’s quality of life. For men and women in Ontario, Canada, less than half are seeking this treatment. In addition, those who have been hospitalized for severe depression fail to see a doctor for follow-up care within 30 days of discharge.
These findings were recently posted in Science Daily and suggest there is a need for a comprehensive care model that involves a multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals to help both men and women to better manage depression and improve their quality of life.
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Too Much Light at Night Can Lead to Symptoms of Depression in Mice
Too much light at night can lead to symptoms of depression, according to a new study. Researchers found that mice housed in a lighted room 24 hours a day exhibited more depressive symptoms than did similar mice that had a normal light-dark cycle.
However, mice that lived in constant light but could escape into a dark, opaque tube when they wanted showed less evidence of depressive symptoms than did mice that had 24-hour light but only a clear tube in their housing.
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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Better for Treating Seasonal Affective Disorder
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a form of severe depression that occurs annually in the fall and winter seasons. University of Vermont psychologist Kelly Rohan presented the first published research study of the long-term effects of different treatments for SAD in the September issue of the journal Behavior Therapy.
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