Antidepressant use may be linked to increased risk of weight gain

BMJ: Long term use of antidepressants is associated with a sustained increase in risk of weight gain over at least five years, finds a study published in The BMJ today. The findings show that patients prescribed any of the 12 most commonly used antidepressants were more likely to experience weight gain than those not taking the drugs. The risk was greatest during the second and third years of treatment.

Genetic analysis can improve depression therapy

Karolinska Institute: The failure of drugs such as SSRIs, used to treat depression, can be a result of genetic variations in patients. Variations within the gene that encodes the CYP2C19 enzyme results in extreme differences in the levels of escitalopram achieved in patients, according to a new study published in The American Journal of Psychiatry. Prescribing the dose of escitalopram based on a patient’s specific genetic constitution would greatly improve therapeutic outcomes. The study was conducted at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden in association with researchers at Diakonhjemmet Hospital in Oslo, Norway.

Mother’s Depression Might Do the Same to Her Child’s IQ

UCSD: Roughly one in 10 women in the United States will experience depression, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The consequences, however, may extend to their children, report researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, who found that a mother's depression can negatively affect a child's cognitive development up to the age of 16. The findings are published in the April issue of Child Development.

Fathers can get new baby depression too

Auckland: Depression symptoms among men before and after the birth of their children were identified by recent research from the University of Auckland’s Centre for Longitudinal Research – He Ara Ki Mua.
The study found that expectant fathers were at risk if they felt stressed or were in poor health. Elevated depression symptoms following their child’s birth were linked to social and relationship problems.
The study, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry investigated depression symptoms in more than 3,500 New Zealand men during the third trimester of their partner’s pregnancy and again nine months after their child’s birth.

New method could fast-track existing drugs as novel treatments for depression

London: Research from King’s College London reveals a new method of repurposing existing drugs as novel treatments for depression, using laboratory studies of brain cells. The results reflect a growing movement towards repurposing drugs that have been developed for one condition to tackle another. This approach effectively bypasses the discovery phase of drug development, which could save significant time and money in finding effective treatments. Finding ways to fast-track the discovery of new antidepressants is crucial as around half of all people diagnosed with depression do not respond to first-line treatments.

Brain circuits may reveal which young people are likely to commit suicide

Yale: A new Yale-led study of adolescents and young adults at high risk of taking their own lives — those suffering from bipolar disorder — implicates specific differences in the brains of those who attempt suicide and those who do not, researchers report Jan. 31 in the American Journal of Psychiatry. “Suicide is a leading cause of death of adolescents and young adults, and we can’t move on this issue fast enough,” said Hilary Blumberg, the John and Hope Furth Professor of Psychiatric Neuroscience, professor in psychiatry, radiology, and biomedical imaging and in the Yale Child Study Center, and senior author of the study. “The identification of brain circuits involved in risk for suicide can lead to new ways to identify who is most at risk and hopefully, prevent suicides.”

VIDEO: Depression. Living with a black dog

This short video is a guide for partners, carers and sufferers of depression. It provides advice for those living with and caring for people with depression on what to do, what not to do, and where to go for help.

VIDEO: I had a black dog, his name was depression

 This short video tells the story of writer and illustrator Matthew Johnstone’s depression and how he overcame it. It was produced by Matthew, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, to mark World Mental Health Day 2012.

Depression Risk Grows With Use of More Social Media Sites

Pittsburgh: Compared with the total time spent on social media, use of multiple platforms is more strongly associated with depression and anxiety among young adults, the University of Pittsburgh Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health (CRMTH) found in a national survey.The analysis, published online and scheduled for the April print issue of the journal Computers in Human Behavior, showed that people who report using seven to 11 social media platforms had more than three times the risk of depression and anxiety than their peers who use zero to two platforms, even after adjusting for the total time spent on social media overall.

How Nutrition May Feed Mental Health

Psychological Science: Good nutrition has long been viewed as a cornerstone of physical health, but research is increasingly showing diet’s effect on mental health, as well. A special section in Clinical Psychological Science highlights the different approaches that psychology researchers are taking to understand the many ways in which nutrition and mental health intersect. Clinical Psychological Science is a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

What is taurine and how can it improve psychosis?

TheConversation: A compound found in many foods and energy drinks can decrease symptoms of depression and psychosis, which is where the person loses contact with reality. In our recent study, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, we tested whether supplementing standard treatment with taurine would improve cognition and other mental health symptoms in young people who had experienced their first psychotic episode.

Hearing Loss Linked To Increased Depression and Dementia Risk: Interview with Frank Robert Lin, M.D.

MedicalResearch: Is there a link between hearing loss and the risk of developing dementia?

Response: In the last few years, we have investigated the link between hearing loss and dementia in large studies of older adults who have been followed for many years. In these studies, we and others have found that those with greater hearing loss have a higher risk of developing dementia even after we account for factors like age, education, medical comorbidities, etc. We think this is because there are some pathways through which hearing loss can directly affect our thinking and memory abilities

Can Ayahuasca, the ‘sacred plant’ of the Amazon, help addiction and depression?

TheConversation: Ayahuasca goes by many names: Daime, Vegetal, Hoasca, Kamarampi, Huni … whatever you call it, this plant-based psychoactive decoction, which has been used by indigenous Amazonians for centuries to contact the spiritual world, has suddenly burst into global consciousness. As a recent New Yorker article put it, ayahuasca is “the drug of choice for the age of kale”. The article, which positioned ayahuasca as a hipster trend in a tone of mockery mixed with mystification, nevertheless belies the growing interest of Western scientists and rich urbanites in its medicinal and therapeutic potential, which include antidepressant, anti-anxiety and anti-addiction elements.

Researcher develops new concept for treating refractory depression

Copenhagen: Danish patients suffering from refractory depressions can now look forward to being offered a new type of treatment. Refractory depression is a term used to describe cases of major depressive disorders that do not respond adequately to at least two antidepressants as well as other types of treatment. The treatment concept is developed by Danish researchers from the University of Copenhagen as well as by psychiatrists in Danish hospitals. Behind the clinical trials is professor dr. med. Per Bech and he states that the new concept is a paradigm shift for psychiatric treatments. 

Researchers predict with high accuracy if antidepressants will help

Stanford: Using brain scans combined with a personal history of any early life trauma, such as abuse or neglect, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine successfully predicted with 80 percent accuracy whether antidepressants would help patients recover from depression.
“We think our results are especially strong because we demonstrated that accuracy is robust by confirming it with cross-validation techniques,” said Leanne Williams, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.
A paper describing the findings was published online Oct. 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science. Williams is the senior author. Postdoctoral scholar Andrea Goldstein-Piekarski, PhD, is the lead author.

Antidepressants During Pregnancy Associated with Childhood Language Disorders

Columbia: Mothers who purchased antidepressants at least twice during pregnancy had a 37-percent increased risk of speech and/or language disorders among their offspring compared to mothers with depression and other psychiatric disorders who were not treated with antidepressants, according to new research. Results by scientists at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and Columbia University Medical Center are published online in JAMA Psychiatry.

Is There a Connection Between Your Age at Menopause and Later Depression?

JAMA: A review of medical literature suggests older age at menopause was associated with a lower risk of depression for women in later life. Eleni Th Petridou, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, and coauthors included 14 studies in a meta-analysis that represented nearly 68,000 women. Study results suggest menopause at age 40 or older compared with premature menopause was associated with a decreased risk for depression (four studies; 3,033 unique participants). Older age at menopause and a longer reproductive period mean a longer exposure to endogenous estrogens. “This meta-analysis suggests a potentially protective effect of increasing duration of exposure to endogenous estrogens as assessed by age at menopause as well as by the duration of the reproductive period. … If confirmed in prospective and culturally diverse studies controlling for potential confounders and assessing depression via psychiatric evaluation, these findings could have a significant clinical effect by allowing for the identification of a group of women at higher risk for depression who may benefit from psychiatric monitoring or estrogen-based therapies,” the authors conclude.

St John's Wort can make you sick

Adelaide: St John’s Wort can produce the same adverse reactions as antidepressants, and serious side effects can occur when the two are taken together, according to new University of Adelaide research. In a study published this month in the journal, Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology, researchers compared the pattern of spontaneous reported adverse drug reactions to St John’s Wort, a herbal treatment for depression, and fluoxetine, a commonly prescribed antidepressant. They found the adverse reactions were the same for people who took St John’s Wort as it was for those who took fluoxetine.

Is depression a mental or physical illness? Unravelling the inflammation hypothesis

Most people feel down, tired and inactive when they’re injured or ill. This “sickness behaviour” is caused by the activation of the body’s immune response. It’s the brain’s way of conserving energy so the body can heal.

This immune response can also occur in people with depression. This has prompted some researchers and clinicians to hypothesise that depression is actually a side effect of the inflammatory process.

But while there may be a connection between inflammation and depression, one doesn’t necessarily lead to the other. So it’s too simplistic to say depression is a physical, rather than a psychiatric, illness.

The inflammation hypothesis

University of California clinical psychologist and researcher George Slavich is one of the key recent proponents of depression as a physical illness. He hypothesises that social threats and adversity trigger the production of pro-inflammatory “cytokines”. These are messenger molecules of the immune system that play a critical role in orchestrating the host’s response to injury and infection.

This inflammatory process, Slavich argues, can initiate profound behavioural changes, including the induction of depression.

The idea that the activation of the immune response may trigger depression in some people is by no means a new one. Early descriptions of post-influenza depression appeared in the 19th century in the writings of English physician Daniel Tuke.

But it was not until the 1988 seminal paper, published by veterinarian Benjamin Hart, that the phenomenon of acute “sickness behaviour” caught the interest of the scientific community.

Hart described his detailed observations of the “behaviour of sick animals”. During acute infection, and in response to fever, the animals sought sleep, lost their appetite, showed a reduction in activity, grooming and social interactions, as well as showing signs of “depression”.

Just like the immune response itself, these changes reflect an evolved survival strategy that shifts priorities toward energy conservation and recovery.

Putting the theory into practice

Cytokine-induced sickness behaviour has subsequently been studied as an example of communication between the immune system and the brain.

The behavioural changes during sickness resemble those associated with depression, so it didn’t take long for researchers to make a connection between the phenomenon of sickness behaviour and mental disorders.

TheConversation: Such speculation was strengthened by research showing that depressive states can be experimentally induced by administering cytokines and other immunogenic agents (such as vaccines) that cause an inflammatory response. Depression is frequently associated with inflammatory illnesses such as heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis. It’s also a side effect of treatment with cytokines to enhance the immune system.

The brains of people with recurrent depression have a significantly smaller hippocampus

Sydney: The brains of people with recurrent depression have a significantly smaller hippocampus - the part of the brain most associated with forming new memories - than healthy individuals, a new global study of nearly 9,000 people reveals. Published in Molecular Psychiatry, the ENIGMA study is co-authored by University of Sydney scholars at the Brain and Mind Research Institute. The research is the largest international study to compare brain volumes in people with and without major depression. It highlights the need to identify and treat depression effectively when it first occurs, particularly among teenagers and young adults. Using magnetic resonance imaged (MRI) brain scans, and clinical data from 1,728 people with major depression and 7,199 healthy individuals, the study combined 15 datasets from Europe, the USA and Australia.