“The two most common questions that patients ask me are, ‘Will I become dependent on the medications?’ and ‘Will I gain weight?’” says Everyday Health contributor Sanjay Gupta, M.D. It’s a serious concern for people considering taking any kind of psychiatric medicine, and a sensitive subject among patients who are currently on meds. “A rapidly expanding waistline is one of the major reasons why patients prematurely discontinue an otherwise effective treatment, fall back into depression, and experience a poor outcomes,” says Gupta.
Depression is often believed to be more prevalent in women than men. However new studies have revealed that men are also prone to depression as women. However the symptoms and the way the person expresses his depression seem to differ. Men under emotional stress or pain often express it as outbursts of anger, self destructive actions, self distractions, overdose of drugs or alcohol, womanizing or even working overtime.
Not happy with the devaluing language, but the concept is very important.
An international consortium MetaHIT, which includes the research group of Jeroen Raes (VIB / Vrije Universiteit Brussel), publishes in the leading journal Nature that there is a link between richness of bacterial species in the intestines and the susceptibility for medical complications related to obesity. The researchers demonstrated that people with fewer bacterial species in their intestines are more likely to develop complications, such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. A flora with decreased bacterial richness appears to function entirely differently to the healthy variety with greater diversity.
Jeroen Raes (VIB/VUB): “This is an amazing result with possibly enormous implications for the treatment and even prevention of the greatest public health issue of our time. But we are not there yet, now we need studies in which we can monitor people for a longer period. We want to perform these types of long-term studies together with the “Vlaams Darmflora Project” (Flemish Gut Flora Project), which is only possible thanks to the selfless efforts of thousands of Flemish residents.”
People with mild depression underestimate their talents. However, new research carried out researchers at the University of Limerick and the University of Hertfordshire shows that depressed people are more accurate when it comes to time estimation than their happier peers.
In one recent study, meditation was reported to increase release of dopamine. The study by Perreau-Linck and colleagues is the first to report that self-induced changes in mood can influence serotonin synthesis. This raises the possibility that the interaction between serotonin synthesis and mood may be 2-way, with serotonin influencing mood and mood influencing serotonin.
Exposure to bright light is a second possible approach to increasing serotonin without drugs. Bright light is, of course, a standard treatment for seasonal depression, but a few studies also suggest that it is an effective treatment for nonseasonal depression and also reduces depressed mood in women with premenstrual dysphoric disorder and in pregnant women suffering from depression.
A third strategy that may raise brain serotonin is exercise. A comprehensive review of the relation between exercise and mood concluded that antidepressant and anxiolytic effects have been clearly demonstrated.
The fourth factor that could play a role in raising brain serotonin is diet. According to some evidence, tryptophan, which increases brain serotonin in humans as in experimental animals, is an effective antidepressant in mild-to-moderate depression. Further, in healthy people with high trait irritability, it increases agreeableness, decreases quarrelsomeness and improves mood.
Researchers found that young people taking atypical antipsychotics like Risperdal, Seroquel, Abilify and Zyprexa were three times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes within the first year of using the drugs as compared to those taking other psychiatric medications.
In a recent survey, 69 percent of persons who met the criteria of depression consulted a doctor for aches and pains. Physical symptoms are surprisingly common in depression and can grow more complicated and severe if the depression is not treated. Here are some of the most common physical symptoms associated with depression.
Some of what is described here should be less of a problem with the Affordable Care Act preventing denial of insurance because of preexisting condition.
I know I’m being hypocritical. Though I may wax poetic about erasing the stigma of mental illness, I’ve changed my name and the particulars of my life. I’m still scared of people treating me differently and of my boss feeling like I’m less capable of doing my job. I want to be the person that uses my real name and admits what I’m going through to put a face to the stigma of mental illness in the workplace, but I can’t. It terrifies me.
We found a significant rise in both Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria in those taking the LcS, and there was also a significant decrease in anxiety symptoms among those taking the probiotic vs controls (p = 0.01). These results lend further support to the presence of a gut-brain interface, one that may be mediated by microbes that reside or pass through the intestinal tract.
The initial relapse rates were twice as high in the dose reduction/discontinuation group as in the maintenance-therapy group. But the curves then approached each other and came on par at about three years of follow-up. From then on, the relapse rates did not differ significantly between the two groups.
Moreover, by the seven-year follow-up interview, the dose reduction/discontinuation group had experienced significantly more functional improvement than the maintenance group had. And also by the seven-year interview, 40 percent of the dose reduction/discontinuation group had recovered from their illness, whereas only 18 percent of the maintenance group had—a significant difference.
So if after remission is achieved, an antipsychotic dose reduction/discontinuation does promote recovery, how might it do so? One possibility, Wunderink and his colleagues suggested, is that antipsychotics not only counter psychosis, but also compromise important mental activities such as alertness, curiosity, drive, and executive function. Another possibility, they said, is that being in the antipsychotic-reduction/discontinuation group motivated subjects to actively participate in their own recovery.