Depression News and Research

Latest Depression News and Research

Mice offer clues to the roots of human resilience

When faced with adversity, some people succumb to debilitating psychological diseases including posttraumatic stress disorder and depression, while others are able to remain remarkably optimistic.

19 Oct 2007

Study looks at connections between athletic skill and social acceptance among school children

In the Peanuts comic strip, Charlie Brown was never able to kick the football, fly a kite properly or lead a baseball team.

19 Oct 2007

Review of PTSD treatments

Many people, including significant proportions of active duty military personnel and veterans, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), often in conjunction with other injuries or illnesses.

19 Oct 2007

Early intervention dramatically improves outcomes for new dialysis patients

A program of education, close medical follow-up, and self-empowerment for patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) newly starting dialysis, reduces complications and improves outcomes - including significant reductions in mortality and hospitalization rates, reports a study in the November Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

19 Oct 2007

Heart attacks and suicide higher in those who have surgery for obesity

New research has revealed that deaths due to suicide and coronary heart disease are higher among people who have undergone bariatric surgery for obesity.

19 Oct 2007

Ability to cope with stress, depression linked to variations in brain structure and function

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found in mice that the ability or inability to cope with stress is linked to specific differences in the way brain cells communicate with each other.

19 Oct 2007

Causes of male infertility

Two reports from physician-scientists at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center shed new light on male infertility.

18 Oct 2007

Height linked to how good a person thinks their health is

Your height in adult life significantly affects your quality of life, with short people reporting worse physical and mental health than people of normal height.

18 Oct 2007

Elderly Medicare, Medicaid patients not receiving quality care

If the care received by vulnerable older people concurrently enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid was evaluated on a grading scale, it would squeak by with a barely passing mark, a new UCLA study has found.

18 Oct 2007

Severely mentally ill at high risk for cardiovascular disease

A psychiatrist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis writes in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that although mortality from cardiovascular disease has declined in the United States over the past several decades, patients with severe psychiatric illness are not enjoying the benefits of that progress.

17 Oct 2007

Lidocaine lollipop helps prepare for upper GI endoscopy

Researchers at the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) in Lebanon have found that administering a lidocaine lollipop as a single-agent anesthetic to patients undergoing an upper gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy procedure eliminated the need for sedation in the majority of patients.

17 Oct 2007

Mental disorders are disorders of the brain

Depression, anxiety disorders such as panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorders, alcohol and drug dependence, dementia and Parkinson's disease are just a few examples of "disorders of the brain".

17 Oct 2007

Psychosocial and psychological interventions for treating postpartum depression

For the estimated 13 percent of new mothers who experience postpartum depression, counseling and peer support groups appear to offer symptom relief without medication, a new review of research suggests.

17 Oct 2007

Risk of death following bariatric surgery

Approximately 1 percent of Pennsylvania residents who underwent bariatric surgery between 1995 and 2004 died within one year of the surgery and nearly 6 percent died within five years, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of Surgery, a theme issue on bariatric surgery.

16 Oct 2007

Surgical treatment of morbid obesity increases likelihood of patients returning to work

Obese Medicaid patients who undergo Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery may be more likely to return to work than obese Medicaid patients who do not undergo the surgery, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of Surgery, a theme issue on bariatric surgery.

16 Oct 2007

The costly business of depression in the work place

According to a new government report caregivers, waiters and social workers have the highest rates of depression among full-time workers in the United States.

16 Oct 2007

Continuous positive airway pressure improves symptoms of depression in obstructive sleep apnea patients

Patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) who also suffer from depression often find that continued use of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) relieves them of symptoms of depression, according to a study published in the October 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine (JCSM).

16 Oct 2007

Depression among patients with coronary artery disease

Depression has long had a popular link to cardiovascular disease and death. However, only during the last 15 years scientific evidence supporting this common wisdom has been available (Glassman et al., 2007a).

16 Oct 2007

The importance of the endocannabinoid-system

Cannabis (marijuana) is the most widely produced plant-based illicit drug worldwide and the illegal drug most frequently used in Europe.

15 Oct 2007

Breast cancer radiation does not affect women's immune system

A new study shows that neither of two commonly used radiation treatments for early-stage, node-negative breast cancer has any effect on a woman's immune system, even though women who receive five-day partial-breast radiation therapy (MammoSite brachytherapy) (PBRT) have improved energy and quality of life compared to women who undergo six weeks of whole-breast radiation therapy (WBRT).

15 Oct 2007