Depression drugs ‘causing falls’

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
19 January 2012 Last updated at 01:21 GMT Falls are the leading cause of accidental death in the over-65s Elderly people with dementia are more likely to suffer falls if they are given anti-depressants by care home staff, a study claims.

Many dementia patients also suffer from depression and drugs known as selective serotonin uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are frequently prescribed.

But the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology reports that the risk of injuries from falls was tripled.

The Alzheimer's Society called for more research into alternative treatments.

The risk of falls following treatment with older anti-depressants is well established, as the medication can cause side effects such as dizziness and unsteadiness.

It had been hoped that a move to newer SSRI-type drugs would reduce this problems, but the latest research, from the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, appears to show the reverse.

'Worrying'

Dr Carolyn Sterke recorded the daily drug use and records of falls in 248 nursing home residents over a two-year period.

The average age of the residents was 82, and the records suggested that 152 of them had suffered a total of 683 falls.

The consequences of falls were relatively high, with 220 resulting in injuries including hip fractures and other broken bones - and one resident died following a fall.

Continue reading the main story

More research is now needed to understand why this anti-depressant is having this effect on people with dementia and if there is an alternative treatment for depression that they could be prescribed”

End Quote Professor Clive Ballard Alzheimer's Society The risk of having an injury-causing fall was three times higher in residents taking SSRIs compared with those not taking the drug, and this risk rose further if the patient was being given sedative drugs as well.

Dr Sterke said that these risks needed to be taken into account when assessing whether anti-depressants were required.

She said: "Physicians should be cautious in prescribing SSRIs to older people with dementia, even at low doses."

Professor Clive Ballard, from the Alzheimer's Society, said it was "worrying" that such a commonly prescribed anti-depressant was causing increased risk.

He said: "It is important to highlight any aspect of care that might be causing risk to a person with dementia. We want to ensure that people with the condition are always receiving the best care possible.

"More research is now needed to understand why this anti-depressant is having this effect on people with dementia and if there is an alternative treatment for depression that they could be prescribed.

"One in three people over 65 will die with dementia yet research into the condition continues to be drastically underfunded. We must invest now.'

Source BBC

GOOGLE NEWS | BBC NEWS | NY DAILY NEWS | TRAFFIC NEWS | TECH NEWS

Read More

Combating Depression With Meditation, Diet

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

In his book Spontaneous Happiness, Dr. Andrew Weil writes of an 'integrative' approach to mental health, warding off mild and moderate depression with an anti-inflammatory diet, exercise and activities such as yoga and meditation, rather than antidepressants.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

About one in 10 Americans over the age of 12 takes an antidepressant drug, according to a report from the CDC, and the number of Americans taking antidepressants has gone up over 400 percent since 1988. Why the rise? Are we more depressed than we used to be, simply more medicated or both?

That's one of the questions my next guest, Dr. Andrew Weil, addresses in his new book "Spontaneous Happiness," and instead of taking medications to treat mild or moderate depression, Dr. Weil recommends a few alternatives, like meditation, daily exercise and what he calls anti-inflammatory diet.

What is the evidence that these treatments can actually be - put you in a brighter mood? That's what we'll be talking about. Dr. Weil is going to be joining us. Our number is 1-800-989-8255, 1-800-989-TALK. You can tweet us @scifri, @-S-C-I-F-R-I, or join us on Facebook.

Dr. Weil is here, author of "Spontaneous Happiness." Welcome back to the program.

DR. ANDREW WEIL: Thank you, Ira.

FLATOW: It's been a while. And are you spontaneously happy?

WEIL: I became happier as a result of writing the book, and I hope people will as a result of reading it.

FLATOW: And what does that mean, spontaneous happiness?

WEIL: You know, I think happiness is something that you can open yourself to. You can arrange circumstances so you're more likely to experience it spontaneously, and in using that word, I'm suggesting that it's something really that comes from inside.

Most people, in my experience, seem to think that they'll be happy if they get something they now don't have. And the root meaning of happiness, this is interesting, it comes from an old Norse root that means luck or fortune. So I think many people imagine that positive moods depend on external circumstances, and that's not a good place to have it linked to.

FLATOW: You write in your book that the notion that a human being should be constantly happy is a uniquely modern, uniquely American, uniquely destructive idea.

WEIL: And nowhere is this more evident than as the holiday season approaches. You know, my sense is that in the Northern Hemisphere, the time of the winter solstice is a time of danger. Light and warmth are at their lowest. The period of bad weather is yet to come. I think the natural tendency is to huddle together, feast, tell stories, wait it out.

It's certainly not to be happy all the time, and the disconnect between that cultural expectation and our individual experiences nowhere more apparent. But I think this extends throughout the year.

Many parents think that it's their job to make kids happy all the time. We're not supposed to be happy all the time. Our moods are supposed to vary. They're not supposed to vary so extremely that they disable us, but I think it is perfectly normal to have lows, as well as highs, and there may be even some value in those experiences.

FLATOW: All right, we'll be back to talking more with Dr. Andrew Weil, author of "Spontaneous Happiness." You can join in the discussion, make yourself happy, 1-800-989-8255. Also tweet us @scifri, @-S-C-I-F-R-I. So stay with us. We'll be right back after this break.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FLATOW: I'm Ira Flatow. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FLATOW: You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. We're talking about spontaneous happiness with the author of a book by that name, Dr. Weil is here with us. Andrew Weil is also director of the Arizona Center for Integrated Medicine, professor of medicine and public health at the University of Arizona in Tucson. And he's actually at our member station there, KUAZ in Tucson.

Our number, 1-800-989-8255. And when we broke for the break, Dr. Weil, you were talking about the notion that people think they have to be happy all the time, and that's not a good notion.

WEIL: No, I think a much better goal to strive for is to be content. Contentment is something that comes from within and is relatively independent of external circumstances. One of the research findings that I think find very interesting is that the more people have, the less content they seem to be.

There is a clear correlation of depression with affluence, and we're seeing an unprecedented epidemic of depression, in our country especially but in the developed world generally. Some of this is manufactured by the medical pharmaceutical complex. The pharmaceutical companies have been very effective at convincing people that ordinary states of sadness are now matters of imbalanced brain chemistry which needs to be treated.

I think that's spurious, and I don't know how much that is. Maybe it's a quarter of it; maybe it's a third of it. If you remove that, we're still left with a great deal of depression to explain.

FLATOW: And what does it have to do with the state of our society these days? I know you've written in this book and in other books that if you want to really achieve some kind of peace and some sort of feeling of well-being, you have to shut off your TV, stop reading magazines, newspapers, things like that. We...

WEIL: Well, you know, another - yeah.

FLATOW: I'm just saying we're bombarded more now than when you wrote your last books about this stuff.

WEIL: True, and I think it has everything to do with modern life. I think in essence the depression epidemic represents a mismatch between our - the kind of life our genes have prepared us for and the kind of life most of us actually live. One clue is that major depression is virtually unknown in hunter-gatherer societies. You can't find a case of it in Papua New Guinea.

So what's different there? Well, everything. You know, people in those cultures are living close to nature. They enjoy strong tribal and community support. They're eating natural diets, not industrial food. They're getting plenty of physical activity.

So everything has changed, and I think that if you want to attend to emotional well-being, you really have to look at all of the influences on physical health and emotional health, both in the physical realm, mental realm and spiritual realm.

FLATOW: Could not Facebook and Twitter, though, could you not argue that it's creating more of a sense of community?

WEIL: I think it's a false sense, frankly. You know, the research is so strong, showing that interpersonal connection is protective against depression and protective of emotional wellness. And I think that more and more of us substitute virtual interaction for real interaction.

Also, a great deal of what we see as the advancements of technology in modern life make it easier for us to live in isolated cocoons. And we think that we live very comfortably, but in fact I think this is at the expense of a kind of social support that people in other cultures and people earlier in this culture enjoyed.

FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255 is our number, talking with Dr. Andrew Weil, author of the new book "Spontaneous Happiness." Tell us how we might overcome - you give us some recommendations. What would be the top few recommendations?

WEIL: First of all, we have - on the physical level, the strongest evidence we have is for exercise and for supplemental fish oil. Both of these interventions work as well as antidepressant medication for mild to moderate depression. I think they're even very helpful as adjunctive measures for severe depression.

So I think this the first thing, very important...

FLATOW: What is in the fish oil?

WEIL: These long-chain omega-3 fatty acids have a great influence on brain function. One of them, DHA, is the major constituent of cell membranes, of neuronal membranes. And if that's deficient in the diet, as it is generally in the North American diet, brain health suffers.

So we have very strong evidence here for the - not only the antidepressant effects but I'd say generally the brain protective effects of supplementing the diet with omega-3s. I recommend that everybody take two to four grams of supplemental fish oil a day, whether or not you eat fish. There's really no upper limit: The more you take, the better.

FLATOW: But aren't fish farms now feeding their fish stuff that doesn't have the omega-3s in it?

WEIL: The - most of the high-quality fish oil products are molecularly distilled, and they're therefore free of contaminants like mercury and PCBs and other things we have to worry about.

FLATOW: You say in your book that, well - what you just said, that people would be beneficial from taking fish oil. And a lot of these are in cold-water fish. And I keep wondering where in our evolutionary process we were around all these cold-water fish. We weren't, you know.

WEIL: No, but there were several things going for us. The first is that the animals that we ate until recently grazed on grass. And grasses have low levels of omega-3s in them. Animals eat great, tremendous quantities of them. So they concentrate omega-3s in their fat.

Now the animals we eat are fattened on grains, which are sources of omeg-6 fatty acids that have opposite effects. Now, it's not that omega-6s are bad, we need both of these classes of essential fats in the right proportion, but we're getting a tremendous overload of omega-6s today, mostly from refined vegetable oils.

And this is heavily present in industrial food. The more omega-6s you consume, the more omega-3s you need to consume in order to get tissue levels up to where they need to be. So I think the main things are that our omega-3 sources have been reduced, and our omega-6 intake has greatly increased, and this puts us at a great disadvantage biochemically.

FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255. Cathy(ph) in San Antonio, Texas. Hi, welcome.

CATHY: Hi there.

FLATOW: Hi there.

CATHY: What a wonderful, wonderful conversation. Happiness, I think if we all were just happy all the time, what a great world we would live in. And it is available to us, as I know Dr. Andrew Weil knows, all the time. But he made a comment earlier about that he didn't think that we should be happy all the time.

And I don't want to disagree with that, but I'm a yoga instructor, and I, you know, practice yoga every day, and I just know that I tell my students happiness is a choice. In every situation that you're in, you know, there's options. And you can either choose to be happy, or you can choose, especially if the situation is tough to deal with, you can choose to let that drag you down.

And one of the things that I tell my students all the time, because they're always asking me how do I change this, how do I change this, and all of us deal with traffic, for example, and this is my best analogy. I tell them if you're in a traffic jam, in general, people start fussing and fussing and being irrational - not irrational but impatient.

And I say it's the easiest thing to change in the world. Flip that switch and be grateful you have a car.

WEIL: I couldn't agree more in principle, and in fact, that principle is the essence of positive psychology. That field, which I strongly support, actually derives from ancient philosophy. It goes back to the Stoics in Greece and Epictetus, who taught in Rome. And the basic message there is that we can't change what happens to us, but we can change our reaction to it.

And I think you're quite right that this is a choice, but it's not necessarily so easy. It takes practice to do that. I have a friend who - a colleague of mine who's an integrative oncologist, who describes his mother as someone who not only sees the glass as half-empty but thinks that at any moment, it could tip over, spill and break on the floor.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

WEIL: So I think we do have this kind of choice, but I think it takes some practice to retrain the mind that way, and that's, you know, one of the other measures I recommend.

FLATOW: Thank you, Cathy. 1-800-989-8255. What other suggestions, Dr. Weil?

WEIL: Well, you know, first of all let me say something about medication. There is a disturbing and growing body of evidence that the major class of antidepressant drugs, the SSRIs, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, don't work so great, in fact that they barely can be distinguished from placebo even in severe depression now, and it may only be in very severe depression that they show an advantage.

There is also, I think, great concern about a new problem just coming to light. It's called tardive dysphoria,. That means lingering depression caused by the drugs. You know, we were always taught that depression, however severe it is, is self-limited, that it resolves itself.

Well, it doesn't anymore, and one reason why it may not is because the drugs produce the very problem they're meant to treat, and this is so logical. It's similar to what you discussed earlier about antibiotics and germ resistance, and when you push on the body with an outside force, it pushes back. This is called homeostatis, a basic truth of physiology.

If you increase serotonin at neural junctions with a drug, the body responds over time by producing less serotonin and dropping serotonin receptors. And therefore, it gets you into a worse situation. It's just like trying to treat acid reflux with drugs that suppress acid: You take it away, and you have a worse problem than you did to begin with.

So the drugs may create their own need. I'm not going to tell people to get off them or not use them, and I certainly would never tell anyone with bipolar disorder to stop taking medication or people with major depression, but I think if you've been on these drugs for a year, it's worth finding a practitioner who can help give you a schedule to wean yourself off while using the other measures that I recommend.

And if you have mild to moderate depression, I would really urge you to find out about the other things you can do first before you try medication, and that not only includes the things we've discussed. It may include getting your vitamin D levels checked because there's a clear correlation with low vitamin D and poor emotional health. I think it means working in retraining the mind, and that may be going to practitioners of cognitive behavioral therapy, which can help you learn to make those choices that the caller referred to.

And I think there are things you can do - I call it secular spirituality in the book, meaning it has no reference to the supernatural or to a deity. I was very surprised in writing this to discover how much scientific evidence we have for the power of gratitude to improve mood. There's two aspects to this. It's feeling grateful and expressing it. And the good thing here, there's nothing in the way of doing it. All you have to do is remember to do it. You know, forgiveness also has great power, but that's tricky. There's a whole lot in the way of being forgiving.

But there's nothing in the way of expressing gratitude. There's a simple exercise from positive psychology called keeping a gratitude journal. You get a little notebook, keep it by your bed; during the day, make mental notes of things you have to be grateful for, jot them down when you go to bed. Doing that for one week can cause improvement of mood for up to six months. And that's pretty (unintelligible).

FLATOW: Is there really research on that?

WEIL: There is really research on that.

FLATOW: Wow.

WEIL: Yeah.

FLATOW: Simple stuff.

WEIL: So simple.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255 is our number. Let's go to the phones and get some more tips. Edith in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Hi, Edith.

EDITH: Hi.

FLATOW: Hi there.

EDITH: My question is that I have several people in my life who are suffering from mild to moderate depression, and I wonder if Dr. Weil has any strategies for how to - how I can help them without getting - without putting myself at risk, without getting myself caught up in the cycle of depression and (unintelligible)?

WEIL: Well, without being...

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

WEIL: Without being too self-promotional, I would suggest you give them this book because it has a program in it, a step-by-step, week-by-week program for doing just that. And, you know, people can follow this at their own rate. All these suggestions that I give are backed by very good scientific evidence, and I think people will find this very helpful.

FLATOW: All right. Good...

EDITH: OK.

FLATOW: Good luck to you, Edith. 1-800-989-8255 is our number. Let's go to Carolyn in Greenwich, Connecticut. Hi there.

CAROLYN: Oh, hi. This is a wonderful topic. I didn't tell the screener that my niece, who is a freshman in college, was given antidepressants and committed suicide shortly thereafter.

FLATOW: Sorry to hear that.

WEIL: Oh, I'm sorry.

CAROLYN: It had the reverse effect. But I was just telling him that there is an off-label use for antidepressants which may explain a lot of the uptick in sales because it really does affect and help with hot flashes, which, you know, us baby boomers...

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

CAROLYN: ...are now getting them, and it cuts down the time and the temperature by, oh, a good 90 percent.

WEIL: Hmm.

CAROLYN: It's amazing.

FLATOW: Do you know people taking them?

CAROLYN: Yeah. I did. I did for 10 years. I have lots of friends who do it.

FLATOW: Wow.

WEIL: Well, I'm a little concerned about that because these drugs also...

CAROLYN: It's a (unintelligible).

WEIL: ...are not benign.

CAROLYN: What?

WEIL: They're not benign. No, there are some significant adverse effects of antidepressant drugs. They may increase cardiovascular risks. They may increase cancer risks. A latest finding - although this doesn't apply to hot flashes - is that pregnant women who take them, there are higher rates of autism in their offspring. You know, so these are not benign agents. And in general, I would recommend looking for safer ways of managing hot flashes.

FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255. We're talking with Dr. Andrew Weil on SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR. I'm Ira Flatow. What other messages are in your book? What other kinds of techniques can you use - breathing, meditation?

WEIL: You know, yes. I think that there is a tremendous amount of research that's been done, and this derives from Eastern psychology that learning to focus the mind, to concentrate attention in the present moment is very beneficial, that the more the mind wanders into the past and future, the more attention is fragmented, the more vulnerable we are to poor emotional health. This is, by the way, I think one of the problems of information overload today and all the new media. They encourage multitasking, and there's very clear research that the brain really can't do more than one thing at a time.

All it can do is rapidly switch back and forth. You can get good at that, but I think this leaves you very vulnerable. So learning to, you know, whether it's simply sitting down and focusing on breathing, trying to bring full attention to every act that you're doing - the eating, so forth. This is a very useful practice.

FLATOW: Would you say that this is - that you've written about so many of these things over the years, did you have something new, an epiphany, or you're just basically summarizing what you've learned over the years?

WEIL: Well, I think there's a lot of new information here about, first of all, the limitations of the biomedical model in the mental health field, how much all these other options have been ignored. One of the things that was new for me in researching the book is the connection between inflammation and depression. And if I can tell this story, I found it very interesting. Farmers have long known that when domestic animals become sick usually with infectious illnesses, they show a characteristic pattern of behavioral changes, and these are called sickness behavior.

They include immobility, loss of appetite, loss of interest in socializing with others of their kind, loss of interest in sex, changes that are strikingly similar to the changes that human beings show who have major depression. It was - farmers assume that this was due to fatigue caused by illness. But in the 1950s, it was found that sickness behavior is mediated by a blood-borne factor. You can take blood from an animal with this behavior, inject it into a healthy animal, and that animal shows the same behavior. Nobody knew what it was. It was called factor X for 20 years.

And then in the 1970s, it was identified as cytokines, a group of regulatory proteins used by the immune system to regulate inflammation. In - some of these cytokines later become - became purified and available for medical use, like interferon for the treatment of chronic hepatitis and interleukin-2. When these are administered to people for medical treatments, the most severe side-effect is extreme depression and suicide. And this is on the label warnings of the package.

So this has led to the cytokine hypothesis of depression, which I find very compelling. And it is that there is a link between up-regulated inflammation and cytokines and depression. In animals who are sick, this is an adaptive response that the cytokines affect the brain, cause behavioral changes that probably favor healing. It makes more energy available to the immune system. But I think this is a really interesting connection, opens new avenues for both preventing and treating depression by following an anti-inflammatory lifestyle.

FLATOW: All right. We'll come back, take a break. We'll talk more with Dr. Andrew Weil, author of "Spontaneous Happiness." Our number, 1-800-989-8255. You can tweet us, @scifri. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FLATOW: I'm Ira Flatow. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR.

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow, talking with Dr. Andrew Weil, author of "Spontaneous Happiness." Our number is 1-800-989-8255. There a lot of folks - when we posted this on our Facebook page, a lot of folks who said that what you do - integrative medicine, alternative treatments - they're not science. There's no scientific basis in any of this. How do you respond to that?

WEIL: Well, I think they're uninformed. And, you know, the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine has trained now almost 1,000 physicians from all specialties very intensively in an evidence-based curriculum in integrative medicine. Many of these people are out there practicing, teaching others, working at academic health centers. A group called the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine now includes, I think, more than a third of the nation's medical schools. This is involvement at the level of deans and chancellors.

Oxford University Press is publishing a series of volumes for clinicians in integrative medicine. I'm the general editor of that series. We've had volumes come out so far in integrative oncology, cardiology, pediatrics, psychiatry, women's health. This is a very robust field. We're currently working to establish a board certification as a specialty in integrative medicine. I think this is the future. It's not only medicine that makes economic sense. It's what people want.

And the focus on alternative therapies is really, I think, a distraction. You know, there's a lot more important aspects to integrative medicine, such as really emphasizing the body's own innate capacities for healing and for maintaining health. And I would just say that, you know, everything that we teach and everything that we practice is backed by scientific evidence, and we also encourage research to gather more evidence. And with - specifically as regards to the recommendations in "Spontaneous Happiness," the book is very well referenced, and you'll find, you know, scientific backing for all of the things that I suggest that people try.

FLATOW: Well, are we going to see some day an in-network doctor be an integrative medicine doctor?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

WEIL: You know, I - yes, absolutely. I think in fact, one day, we'll drop the word integrative, and this will just be good medicine. It's what medicine has been in the past. When it's worked well, I think, it's what it can be in the future.

FLATOW: Let me go back - we only have a couple of minutes, but you touched on a very interesting topic that we've been talking about for years from a traditional medicine side, and you're now bringing it from another side. And that is the role of inflammation in disease.

WEIL: Now, for years, I've been recommending an anti-inflammatory diet as the best strategy for optimizing health, extending longevity, reducing overall risks of disease, and I have devised an anti-inflammatory diet. You can find this in the book or in my website, DrWeil.com. It's a version of the Mediterranean diet for which we have great evidence of general health benefits. I've tweaked it to make it even more effective. But the theory here is that all of the major chronic diseases - cardiovascular disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease - begin as inflammatory processes.

And I think most people in our culture go through life in pro-inflammatory states. Many reasons for that - genetics, stress, exposure to environmental toxins. Diet plays a huge role. The mainstream diet, which is heavy in industrialized food-like stuff is strongly pro-inflammatory. It gives us all the wrong things, the wrong fats, the wrong kinds of carbohydrate and it's deficient in all that can protect us from the damage from inflammation. And now, there is this new connection that our emotional health may also be tied here. So that following an anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle may offer great protection as well as a new treatment strategy for managing depression.

FLATOW: And you say in your book that you lay out a diet and then exercise regimen and an integrative approach.

WEIL: And, Ira, the simplest step, the first step of an anti-inflammatory diet is simply to avoid eating refined processed and manufactured food because that's...

FLATOW: You sound like Michael Pollan now.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

WEIL: Well, we're good friends, and we're pretty much on the same wavelength.

FLATOW: All right. The book is called "Spontaneous Happiness." It used to be "Spontaneous Healing." All kinds of great books...

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: Andrew Weil has put together "Spontaneous Happiness." Thank you very much, Dr. Weil, for coming on the program and talking with us today.

WEIL: I enjoy talking with you.

FLATOW: Good luck to you.

WEIL: Thanks.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

Health Management

Education Information

Read More

Dad's depression may rub off on kids

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
A child's odds of developing emotional problems increase by as much as 70% if the father shows signs of depression.The situation is predictably worse if both parents are depressedThat proportion increases to 11% if the father is depressedGenes often play a role in passing depression and other mental-health problems

(Health.com) -- Doctors and researchers have known for years that children are more likely to develop mental-health problems if their mother has struggled with depression. But what if it's the father who's depressed?

According to a new study -- one of the first to examine mental-health patterns in a nationally representative sample of dads and kids -- a child's odds of developing emotional or behavioral problems increase by as much as 70% if the father shows signs of depression. That's smaller than the increased risk associated with depressed moms, but it's still cause for concern, researchers say.

"For years we've been studying maternal depression and how it affects children, but the medical community has done a huge disservice by ignoring fathers in this research," said the study's lead author, Michael Weitzman, a professor of pediatric medicine at New York University, in New York. "These findings reinforce what we already assumed -- that fathers matter, too, and they matter quite a lot."

Health.com: 12 signs of depression in men

The situation is predictably worse if both parents are depressed. Just 6% of children with two mentally healthy parents have serious emotional or behavioral problems, such as feeling sad or nervous, acting out at school, or clashing with family and peers, the study found. But that proportion increases to 11% if the father is depressed, 19% if the mother is depressed and 25% if both parents are depressed -- a strikingly high number, Weitzman says.

Although the study doesn't prove that a parent's depression directly causes problems in children, rather than vice versa, previous research on mothers and children has clearly shown that it's generally mothers who influence kids' mental health, not the other way around.

The idea that parents have an impact on their children's mental health is a "no-brainer," said Michael Brody, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Child Psychiatry and a visiting professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, in College Park, Maryland.

Genes often play a role in passing depression and other mental-health problems from parent to offspring, Brody said, and the family environment is also important. "We learn how to adapt to situations by looking at our parents as models," he says. "So if either parent is depressed, a kid is going to be influenced by this."

Health.com: How to help someone who's depressed

The study, which appears in the December issue of the journal Pediatrics, included nearly 22,000 two-parent families who participated in federal health surveys between 2004 and 2008. During in-home visits, researchers interviewed one adult in each household -- typically the mother -- about the mental health of all family members (including the interviewee).

The researchers used two separate questionnaires to record the overall mental health and depression symptoms of the parents. These questionnaires were used only for screening purposes, the study notes, and were not equivalent to the official symptom checklists doctors use to diagnose depression.

If the father displayed below-average mental health or depression symptoms, a child's odds of having similar problems increased by 33% and 70%, respectively. The child's odds increased even more -- by as much as 200% -- if the mother had mental-health problems instead.

Health.com: 10 things to say (and not say) to someone with depression

Boys, 12- to 17-year-olds, and white children with depressed dads had higher rates of emotional and behavioral problems than did girls, younger kids, and children of other ethnicities. The study was limited to children who live with both parents, however, so the findings as a whole don't necessarily apply to all households and family situations, the authors note.

Doctors and mental-health professionals have to do a better job of looking at the entire family picture when one member shows signs of depression, and asking about what role the father plays in a child's upbringing, Brody says. "The good news is that dads are participating in their children's lives; they're active and they're interested," he says. "The bad news is that if they're participating in a negative way, it's going to affect the kids."

Men who are feeling depressed should seek treatment, if only for the sake of their children, Brody adds. "Women are more likely to seek medical treatment in general, and psychiatric health, specifically," he says. "This is just another reason for men who are feeling down or know they're experiencing depression...to seek help."

Copyright Health Magazine 2011

Education Information

Technology

Read More

Older first-time moms not at higher depression risk

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
By Amy Norton

NEW YORK | Tue Oct 25, 2011 1:15pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who have their first baby at an older age aren't at greater risk of postpartum depression, according to a new report that contradicts earlier concerns.

In a study of more than 500 first-time mothers, Australian researchers found that moms age 37 or older were no more likely to get postpartum depression than their younger counterparts -- whether they conceived naturally or had infertility treatment.

Overall, eight percent of the women had major depression symptoms four months after giving birth. That's at the lower end of what's seen among new mothers in general, the researchers say.

And they found no evidence that age itself affected a woman's risk of developing postpartum depression.

The idea that older first-time mothers might face a higher depression risk has been largely based on speculation and "popular culture anecdote," according to study leader Catherine A. McMahon, an associate professor of psychology at Macquarie University in Australia.

"Older mothers are frequently discussed in the media," McMahon noted in an email. "There are a lot of myths, and limited empirical data."

There's been some speculation, for instance, that older mothers might have a tougher time adjusting to motherhood -- after, presumably, being in the workforce for a long time. Or they might be more "set in their ways" than younger women, and have more difficulty dealing with the lifestyle changes that a baby brings.

But, McMahon said, "there is no research evidence to support these speculations."

On the other hand, it is known that older mothers have a higher risk of pregnancy complications, like high blood pressure and diabetes. And pregnancy complications, in turn, have been linked to postpartum depression risk.

For their study, reported in the journal Fertility and Sterility, McMahon's team followed 266 women who had conceived naturally and 275 who'd undergone fertility treatment. All of the women answered questionnaires during their third trimester, and had a diagnostic interview for depression when their babies were four months old.

Overall, 180 women were age 37 or older when they gave birth. And they were no more likely to develop postpartum depression than younger women were, the study found.

"The findings suggest that older first-time mothers are not at greater risk of postpartum depression, at least in the first four months after birth," McMahon said.

That, she added, highlights the importance of not "labeling" older moms as high-risk for depression -- something that, itself, could stress out a new mother.

Still, McMahon said that there are questions for future studies. One is whether going through menopause while caring for a young child presents challenges.

"There is considerable evidence that vulnerability to depression is greatest in mid-life for women," McMahon noted.

She said it would also be interesting to see how older mothers fare when they go back to work, since they may be more "emotionally committed" to their careers compared with younger mothers.

McMahon also pointed out that this study looked only at depression among women who successfully had a baby. She said there's a need for studies that look at the psychological well-being of women who put off having a baby, and then are unable to conceive.

SOURCE: bit.ly/vfffcx Fertility and Sterility, online September 30, 2011.

New Automobile

Health Management

Read More

CDC: 1 in 25 adolescents take drugs for depression

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
ATLANTA (AP) — Roughly 1 in 25 adolescents in the United States are taking antidepressants, according to a new government study billed as the first to offer such statistics on that age group.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday reported the figure for kids ages 12 to 17. It's based on surveys and depression screenings of about 12,000 U.S. adolescents and adults during the years 2005 through 2008.

The study found about 1 in 10 adults take antidepressants. And perhaps more should: The researchers said only one third of people in the study with symptoms of depression were taking medication.

The finding suggests that "there's a lot of people who are seriously ill who aren't getting treated," said Laura Pratt, the CDC epidemiologist who led the research.

Curiously, rates of antidepressant use were about the same in different income groups, even though earlier research had shown higher rates of depression among the poor, Pratt noted.

The researchers don't know why that is, but other experts have noted that poor people may have less access to medical services and doctors who prescribe the drugs. Also, some people may think they can get over depression themselves or don't want to be labeled as depressed.

Women take antidepressants more than men, and whites use them more than blacks or Mexican-Americans, the study also found.

Also, more than 60 percent of Americans taking antidepressants have been taking a medication two years or longer, and 14 percent have been taking such a drug for 10 years or more.

___

Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs

Associated Press

Technology

News

Read More

CDC: 1 in 25 adolescents take drugs for depression

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
ATLANTA (AP) — Roughly 1 in 25 adolescents in the United States are taking antidepressants, according to a new government study billed as the first to offer such statistics on that age group.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday reported the figure for kids ages 12 to 17. It's based on surveys and depression screenings of about 12,000 U.S. adolescents and adults during the years 2005 through 2008.

The study found about 1 in 10 adults take antidepressants. And perhaps more should: The researchers said only one third of people in the study with symptoms of depression were taking medication.

The finding suggests that "there's a lot of people who are seriously ill who aren't getting treated," said Laura Pratt, the CDC epidemiologist who led the research.

Curiously, rates of antidepressant use were about the same in different income groups, even though earlier research had shown higher rates of depression among the poor, Pratt noted.

The researchers don't know why that is, but other experts have noted that poor people may have less access to medical services and doctors who prescribe the drugs. Also, some people may think they can get over depression themselves or don't want to be labeled as depressed.

Women take antidepressants more than men, and whites use them more than blacks or Mexican-Americans, the study also found.

Also, more than 60 percent of Americans taking antidepressants have been taking a medication two years or longer, and 14 percent have been taking such a drug for 10 years or more.

___

Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs

Associated Press

Technology

News

Read More

Targacept depression drug: high risk, high reward

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
By Toni Clarke

BOSTON | Mon Oct 3, 2011 4:32pm EDT

BOSTON (Reuters) - Targacept Inc, a small drugmaker that began life inside the bowels of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co, has for years been using its understanding of nicotine to develop experimental treatments for depression, schizophrenia and, yes, smoking cessation.

Now it is poised to release data from a crucial trial of its depression drug, TC-5214, an event that, in the view of Leerink Swann analyst Joshua Schimmer, represents "one of the most important catalysts in biotech through year-end."

Targacept, which is developing the drug with Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc, could see its stock rise by 100 to 200 percent if the results are positive, Schimmer said in a recent research report, and fall as much as 50 percent if they are negative. He gives the trial, the first of five late-stage studies, a 65 percent probability of success.

TC-5214 is thought to work by modulating neuronal nicotinic receptors in the brain. Overstimulation of these receptors, or proteins, is thought to be associated with depression.

A mid-stage trial showed that when TC-5214 was given to patients who did not respond well to citalopram, an antidepressant sold under the name Celexa, patients experienced a significantly greater lessening of their depression than those who took citalopram plus a placebo.

The key now is whether those results can be replicated in a bigger, phase III trial. Targacept will announce the results of the first such trial by the end of the year. Investors are most eagerly awaiting this data as it is expected to offer clues as to whether the other four trials, whose results are expected in the first half of next year, will be successful.

TC-5214 is a tweaked version of mecamylamine, a drug introduced in the 1950s to treat high blood pressure. Researchers at the University of South Florida later began testing mecamylamine in the hope it would help children with Tourette's syndrome. It didn't, but research showed that it seemed to lessen depression in those children.

Targacept acquired a license to the drug and began tweaking and developing it as a treatment for depression. Initial results have shown promise, but many depression drugs fail in late-stage trials, especially those that address new molecular targets.

"It may be difficult for them to replicate their Phase II results with a Phase III trial because it's a new mechanism of action and therefore very high risk," said Natalie Taylor, an analyst at the research firm Decision Resources.

Indeed, "short" interest in Targacept has doubled since January. By mid-September, some 5.5 percent of Targacept's shares -- a notable but not overwhelming amount -- had been sold "short" by investors betting the stock will fall.

NEW CLASS OF DRUGS

Most new depression drugs today work by increasing the chemicals serotonin, or serotonin and norepinephrine, in the brain. TC-5214 targets a different set of receptors, known as neuronal nicotinic receptors. According to Patrick Lippiello, co-founder of Targacept, the drug regulates an overactivity in the brain of the chemical messenger acetylcholine. It blocks the activity of its receptors to bring their activity down.

Ironically, modulating neuronal nicotinic receptors has been shown in some cases to increase suicidality. The first drug to modulate these receptors was Pfizer Inc's anti-smoking drug Chantix, which was approved in 2006.

Chantix, however, has been plagued by safety concerns, including reports of a heightened risk of heart attack and of suicidal thinking, and while it appears to help some people stop smoking it is unclear exactly how the drug works.

"We don't really know the mechanism except that it changes the activity of the nicotinic receptors," said Stephen Heinemann, a professor and scientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and a pioneer in the identification and cloning of the nicotinic receptors.

It seems clear that nicotine, which activates the same receptors, can have antidepressant effects and boost cognition, Heinemann said. It is thought that many smokers and schizophrenics use cigarettes to "self-medicate."

TC-5214 targets the same receptors but works in a different way and appears to have a more benign safety profile as well as a greater antidepressant effect.

"My prediction is TC-5214 will have very few side effects," said Decision Resources's Taylor.

Harry Tracy, an industry consultant and publisher of NeuroPerspective, a monthly publication focusing on central nervous system disorders, argues that it doesn't really matter whether the drug's mechanism of action is understood -- as long as it works and is relatively safe.

"I am actually pretty confident about the Phase III trial," he said, of TC-5214. "Of all the programs I follow, this is one where I think the rationale and data hold together pretty well."

Targacept, which is based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is developing TC-5214 with AstraZeneca Plc, which is 2009 agreed to pay as much as $1.24 billion for rights to the drug, including an upfront payment of $200 million.

TC-5214 is one of the few potential bright spots in AstraZeneca's pipeline. It is initially being designed as an add-on therapy for patients who have failed to respond to existing depression treatments, but the companies are also testing it as a single agent in patients who fail to respond adequately to a prior therapy.

Analysts expect the drug, if successful, to generate more than $1 billion a year as an adjunctive therapy; much more if approved for wider use.

If used as an add-on therapy, TC-5214 would compete with Abilify, made by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co and AstraZeneca's own Seroquel XR. The two drugs are atypical antipsychotics, a class of drugs initially developed to treat schizophrenia.

Physicians are reluctant to use antipsychotics in patients with depression since they can have serious side effects. Abilify, among other things, can cause restlessness, while Seroquel can cause significant weight gain.

If TC-5214 fails, it would be, at most, a black eye for AstraZeneca, which generated more than $33 billion in sales last year. The stakes are far higher for Targacept, which has a market value of roughly $500 million and does not yet have a product on the market.

A positive result would give further credence to the science behind the company's broader pipeline of experimental products, which include treatments for schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and Alzheimer's disease.

TARGACEPT SPIN-OFF

Targacept grew out of R.J. Reynold's extensive research into the pharmacology and toxicology of nicotine. Donald deBethizy, Targacept's chief executive, was a toxicologist who was hired by RJR in the mid-1980s to work on safer cigarettes in the company's R&D department. He also managed a separate basic research program to study the biological effects of nicotine, later to become known as the Nicotine Research and Analog Development program (NRAD).

The scientists within NRAD gradually began to expand their research beyond nicotine, and to develop compounds that could capture the positive benefits of nicotine while dialing out the negative impact on heart rate and blood pressure. They discovered that compounds targeting nicotinic receptors appeared to have the potential for therapeutic benefit in a variety of diseases. But by the mid-1990s, "the demonization of the tobacco industry began," said deBethizy, placing tobacco companies on the defensive.

RJR retrenched and lost interest in funding a pharmaceutical discovery business. It decided to spin NRAD off as an independent company. DeBethizy, who at that time was RJR's overall vice president of research and development, stepped in to head NRAD, which by 1997 had dozens of patents in an industry entirely unrelated to the sale of tobacco.

NRAD renamed itself Targacept and became a wholly-owned subsidiary of RJR. By the middle of 2000 it had raised $30.4 million in venture capital funding, and in August its spin-off from RJR was complete. It first sold shares to the public in 2006 at $9 each.

By March this year the shares had risen to a high of about $30. Since then, they have dropped almost 50 percent after GlaxoSmithKline dropped out of a partnership and AstraZeneca failed to exercise its option to help develop Targacept's schizophrenia drug TC-5619, even though it met the main goal of a mid-stage trial.

For the time being, investors and physicians alike are focused on TC-5214.

"Developing drugs based on different neural pathways is really important because most of the drugs we have now are derived from the same neural pathways," said Dr. Srijan Sen, assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Michigan, and a specialist in the genetics of depression. Still, he said, "I'm skeptical."

(Additional reporting by Ben Hirshler in London; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

New Automobile

Health Management

Read More

Coffee 'may prevent depression'

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
26 September 2011 Last updated at 23:59 GMT By Michelle Roberts Health reporter, BBC News Coffee must contain caffeine to have the effect, say the researchers Women who drink two or more cups of coffee a day are less likely to get depressed, research suggests.

It is not clear why it might have this effect, but the authors believe caffeine in coffee may alter the brain's chemistry. Decaffeinated coffee did not have the same effect.

The findings, published in Archives of Internal Medicine, come from a study of more than 50,000 US female nurses.

The experts are now recommending more work to better understand the link.

And they say it is certainly too soon to start recommending that women should drink more coffee to boost mood.

Caffeine lift

The Harvard Medical School team tracked the health of the women over a decade from 1996 to 2006 and relied on questionnaires to record their coffee consumption.

Continue reading the main story

This fits nicely with a lot of the previous work and what we know about caffeine and the brain”

End Quote Prof Bertil Fredholm Karolinska Institute Just over 2,600 of the women developed depression over this time period.

More of these women tended to be non- or low-coffee drinkers rather than frequent coffee consumers.

Compared with women who drank one cup of caffeinated coffee or less per week, those who consumed two to three cups per day had a 15% decreased risk of developing depression.

Those who drank four or more cups a day cut their risk by 20%.

Regular coffee drinkers were more likely to smoke and drink alcohol and were less likely to be involved in church, volunteer or community groups. They were also less likely to be overweight and have high blood pressure or diabetes.

Even after controlling for all of these variables, the trend of increasing coffee consumption and lower depression remained.

Mounting evidence

The researchers say their findings add weight to the work of others which found lower suicide rates among coffee drinkers.

They suspect caffeine is the key player - it is known to enhance feelings of wellbeing and energy.

Continue reading the main story There is no recommended level a person should consumeBut pregnant women are advised to consume less than 200mg a dayOne mug of instant coffee: 100mg One mug of filter coffee: 140mg One mug of tea: 75mgOne can of cola: 40mgOne 50g bar of milk chocolate: about 25mg

Source: NHS Choices

And it has a physical effect on brain function and transmission by blocking certain chemical receptors, like adenosine. But more research is needed to show if this might mean it is useful for warding off depression.

Alternatively, it might be that people with low moods chose not to drink coffee because it contained caffeine, point out the researchers. One of the common symptoms of depression is disturbed sleep, and caffeine can exacerbate this because it is a stimulant.

Too much caffeine can also increase feelings of anxiety.

Prof Bertil Fredholm, an expert in pharmacology and physiology at Sweden's Karolinska Institute, said the findings were reassuring for coffee-lovers.

"This fits nicely with a lot of the previous work and what we know about caffeine and the brain. It blocks adenosine, which produces a similar effect to increasing dopamine production. And it's becoming increasingly clear that the dopamine-rich areas of the brain are much more important in depression that previously thought.

"Despite valiant efforts to show how dangerous coffee is for us, it is not proving so.

"This removes yet another anxiety regarding caffeine use. Drunk in moderation, the evidence is strong that it is not one of the things we do that is going to damage your health."

Debt Financing

Career Advisor

Read More

For women, risk of depression falls as coffee intake rises

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
Some experts have speculated that the antioxidants in coffee may have health benefits.Some experts have speculated that the antioxidants in coffee may have health benefitsWomen who drink caffeinated coffee are less likely to become depressed, study saysThe study included more than 50,000 women between the ages of 30 and 55

(Health.com) -- A few cups of coffee a day may help keep the blues at bay. According to a large new study, women who drink caffeinated coffee are less likely to become depressed -- and the more they drink, the more their risk of depression goes down.

The study, which was published today in the Archives of Internal Medicine, included more than 50,000 women between the ages of 30 and 55 who periodically filled out surveys about their coffee consumption and health. None of the women had depression symptoms (or a history of depression) at the start of the study, but during the next 10 years roughly 5% received a depression diagnosis or began taking antidepressant medication.

Compared with women who drank little or no caffeinated coffee, those who averaged two to three cups per day were 15% less likely to develop depression, even after the researchers took into account a wide range of potentially mitigating factors including marital status, church or community participation, and various health measures. Drinking four cups a day was associated with a 20% lower risk of depression.

Health.com: The 10 most depressing states in the U.S.

The study doesn't prove cause and effect, so there's no reason to believe that drinking cup after cup will actually prevent depression, the researchers say.

"There's no need to start drinking coffee," says study co-author Alberto Ascherio, M.D., a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston. "The message is that coffee is safe to drink, with no adverse effects. That's really all that can be said."

Previous research, including a study published last year that was conducted among men in Finland, has linked caffeine consumption to a lower risk of depression and suicide.

"A couple of past studies found similar results," says Daniel Evatt, Ph.D., a psychiatry research fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, in Baltimore, who was not involved in the new research. "This study validates the association, and it was done in the best possible way."

Health.com: Big perks: coffee's health benefits

It's not clear why coffee might protect against depression. Some experts have speculated that the antioxidants in coffee may have health benefits, but in the new study people who drank only decaf were no more or less likely to be depressed than women who drank no coffee at all.

The caffeine might be responsible, but the researchers weren't able to confirm or deny this theory because there wasn't enough data available to determine whether drinking caffeinated tea or sodas is linked to depression risk in the same way as coffee consumption. Eighty-two percent of the study participants drank coffee, while only 13% and 6% drank tea and soft drinks, respectively.

Evatt, who studies the psychological effects of caffeine, is "not terribly convinced" that caffeine can prevent depression. "There's a very strong indication that there is a real relationship there, but that doesn't mean that coffee will stop depression," he says. "We need to come up with a hypothesis for the mechanism at work, and then try to see what's really happening."

Health.com: 12 surprising sources of caffeine

Another possibility is that people who aren't depressed may simply be more drawn to coffee than their depression-prone peers. Non-depressed people tend to be more "behaviorally activated," and coffee drinking may therefore fit in better with their lifestyle, says Scott Bea, Psy.D., a psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic who was not involved in the study.

Similarly, Bea adds, some depressed people may steer clear of coffee because it can heighten anxiety, which often goes hand in hand with depression.

"We shouldn't rush to the conclusion that I should drink more coffee if I don't want to be depressed," Bea says.

Health.com: 12 nondrug remedies for depression

For his part, Evatt stresses that caffeine can have negative consequences for many people, whether they're experiencing depression symptoms or not.

"We shouldn't put caffeine in too positive a light," he says. "Some people have a relationship with caffeine that's similar to an addictive drug. I don't want to pin it as a public health problem, but people can become dependent on coffee and have troubling withdrawal symptoms."

Copyright Health Magazine 2010

View the original article here

Peliculas Online

Read More

Coffee 'may prevent depression'

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
26 September 2011 Last updated at 23:59 GMT By Michelle Roberts Health reporter, BBC News Coffee must contain caffeine to have the effect, say the researchers Women who drink two or more cups of coffee a day are less likely to get depressed, research suggests.

It is not clear why it might have this effect, but the authors believe caffeine in coffee may alter the brain's chemistry. Decaffeinated coffee did not have the same effect.

The findings, published in Archives of Internal Medicine, come from a study of more than 50,000 US female nurses.

The experts are now recommending more work to better understand the link.

And they say it is certainly too soon to start recommending that women should drink more coffee to boost mood.

Caffeine lift

The Harvard Medical School team tracked the health of the women over a decade from 1996 to 2006 and relied on questionnaires to record their coffee consumption.

Continue reading the main story

This fits nicely with a lot of the previous work and what we know about caffeine and the brain”

End Quote Prof Bertil Fredholm Karolinska Institute Just over 2,600 of the women developed depression over this time period.

More of these women tended to be non- or low-coffee drinkers rather than frequent coffee consumers.

Compared with women who drank one cup of caffeinated coffee or less per week, those who consumed two to three cups per day had a 15% decreased risk of developing depression.

Those who drank four or more cups a day cut their risk by 20%.

Regular coffee drinkers were more likely to smoke and drink alcohol and were less likely to be involved in church, volunteer or community groups. They were also less likely to be overweight and have high blood pressure or diabetes.

Even after controlling for all of these variables, the trend of increasing coffee consumption and lower depression remained.

Mounting evidence

The researchers say their findings add weight to the work of others which found lower suicide rates among coffee drinkers.

They suspect caffeine is the key player - it is known to enhance feelings of wellbeing and energy.

Continue reading the main story There is no recommended level a person should consumeBut pregnant women are advised to consume less than 200mg a dayOne mug of instant coffee: 100mg One mug of filter coffee: 140mg One mug of tea: 75mgOne can of cola: 40mgOne 50g bar of milk chocolate: about 25mg

Source: NHS Choices

And it has a physical effect on brain function and transmission by blocking certain chemical receptors, like adenosine. But more research is needed to show if this might mean it is useful for warding off depression.

Alternatively, it might be that people with low moods chose not to drink coffee because it contained caffeine, point out the researchers. One of the common symptoms of depression is disturbed sleep, and caffeine can exacerbate this because it is a stimulant.

Too much caffeine can also increase feelings of anxiety.

Prof Bertil Fredholm, an expert in pharmacology and physiology at Sweden's Karolinska Institute, said the findings were reassuring for coffee-lovers.

"This fits nicely with a lot of the previous work and what we know about caffeine and the brain. It blocks adenosine, which produces a similar effect to increasing dopamine production. And it's becoming increasingly clear that the dopamine-rich areas of the brain are much more important in depression that previously thought.

"Despite valiant efforts to show how dangerous coffee is for us, it is not proving so.

"This removes yet another anxiety regarding caffeine use. Drunk in moderation, the evidence is strong that it is not one of the things we do that is going to damage your health."

View the original article here

Peliculas Online

Read More

Depression increases risk of stroke, study says

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
Four percent of the estimated 795,000 strokes that occur in the United States each year can be attributed to depression.Depression increased the risk of ischemic strokeDepression increases the risk of heart attacks (and especially fatal ones)People who are depressed are more likely to smoke or drink heavily

(Health.com) -- People with depression are more likely to have a stroke than their mentally healthy peers, and their strokes are more likely to be fatal, according to a new analysis published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Depression is a relatively minor risk factor for stroke compared to high blood pressure (hypertension) and other health conditions and behaviors that damage blood vessels, the researchers say. Still, their analysis suggests that as many as 4% of the estimated 795,000 strokes that occur in the United States each year can be attributed to depression.

"If you have depression but no other health issues, you probably don't have to pay too much attention to stroke risk," says An Pan, Ph.D., the lead author of the analysis and a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston. "But if you are depressed and are also obese, or have hypertension or...unhealthy lifestyle factors, your risk is going to increase dramatically."

Health.com: The 10 most depressing states in the U.S.

Pan and his colleagues combined data from 28 studies dating back to the mid-1990s that included about 318,000 people overall. Roughly 2.7% of the participants had a stroke during the studies, which ranged in length from two to 29 years.

Compared to those who showed no signs of depression, people who received a depression diagnosis from a doctor or who reported feeling depressed were 45% more likely to have a stroke and 55% more likely to die from a stroke, the researchers found.

Depression increased the risk of ischemic stroke, in which a blood vessel becomes blocked and cannot send blood to the brain. But it did not measurably raise the risk of the other major type, hemorrhagic stroke, in which a blood vessel leaks or bursts open.

Health.com: 12 signs of depression in men

The new study is the latest in a long line of research linking depression to chronic disease and serious physical health problems.

"We knew that depression raises a person's risk of developing diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease," Pan says. "We also knew that depression can occur after patients suffer a stroke. We just didn't have strong enough evidence to know if the reverse was true, or what really comes first."

Researchers have already established that depression increases the risk of heart attacks (and especially fatal ones), so it makes sense that depression would have a similar association with stroke, says Norman Rosenthal, M.D., a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, in Washington, D.C.

"Strokes and heart attacks both represent blood vessels becoming blocked and blood being withheld from a vital organ, whether it's the heart or the brain," says Rosenthal, who was not involved in the new study. "They're essentially the same disease."

Health.com: Careers with high rates of depression

Depression could contribute to strokes in many ways, Pan says. For starters, people who are depressed are more likely to smoke or drink heavily, to follow an unhealthy diet, and to neglect their personal health. Most of the studies included in the analysis controlled for these and other risk factors, but the data suggests that at least some of the stroke risk in depressed people can be explained by an unhealthy lifestyle.

There are other possibilities, as well, that aren't as easily measured. Depression can increase the production of stress hormones in the body, for instance, and can trigger dangerous inflammation in the blood vessels. "Little things, like keeping up good dental hygiene or socializing with friends, all affect inflammation levels -- and these are things that a depressed person is less likely to do," says Rosenthal.

Depression may also cause people to slack on taking medications needed to control other stroke-related conditions, such as diabetes or high blood pressure. On the other hand, some medications prescribed for depression -- most notably the class of drugs known as atypical antipsychotics -- have been shown to cause weight gain and obesity, a known risk factor for stroke.

More research is needed to determine whether depression drugs contribute to stroke risk. Doctors should monitor weight gain and blood pressure levels in patients taking these drugs, but there's no reason for patients to stop taking them, Pan says. "For now, physicians should prescribe medication if they think it is necessary, or if non-drug treatments haven't worked."

Although depression isn't the most important risk factor for stroke, the researchers say it likely has a noticeable impact on the stroke rate. They estimate that depression is responsible for an additional 106 strokes per 100,000 people in the United States each year.

Copyright Health Magazine 2010

View the original article here

Peliculas Online

Read More