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Depression

NIH - Medical Encyclopedia Depression

"Depression may be described as feeling sad, blue, unhappy, miserable, or down in the dumps. Most of us feel this way at one time or another for short periods. But true clinical depression is a mood disorder in which feelings of sadness, loss, anger, or frustration interfere with everyday life for an extended time. … The main types of depression include: Major depression -- five or more symptoms listed above must be present for at least 2 weeks, but major depression tends to continue for at least 6 months. (Depression is classified as minor depression if less than five depressive symptoms are present for at least 2 weeks.) and Dysthymia -- a chronic, generally milder form of depression but lasts longer -- usually as long as two years. Depression also includes atypical depression, postpartum depression, Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), and Seasonal affective disorder (SAD). … If you are depressed for 2 weeks or longer, you should contact your doctor, who can offer treatment options. … Call 911, a suicide hotline, or get safely to a nearby emergency room if you have thoughts of suicide, a suicidal plan, or thoughts of harming yourself or others."

Highlighted Article

Regular exercise, anxiety, depression and personality: A population-based study. (Prev Med. 2006)

"This study corroborates and extends previous findings: regular exercise is cross-sectionally associated with lower neuroticism, anxiety and depression and higher extraversion and sensation seeking in the population."

Depression

General Information

NEWS:

9 Percent of Adolescents Experienced a Major Depressive Episode in the Past Year, Survey Finds

Chocolate may deepen depression

Depression and allergies linked

In a Bad Mood? Eat Your Fish

Mild Thyroid Dysfunction Is Not Associated with Anxiety, Depression, or Cognition in the Elderly

ARTICLES:

SSRI ads questioned. " Claims in drug monographs and advertising that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants work by normalizing serotonin levels are not based on scientific evidence and should be prohibited, says a leading US psychiatrist."

JOURNAL ARTICLES:

A three-year follow-up of major depression, dysthymia, minor depression and subsyndromal depression: results from a population-based study. (Depress Anxiety. 2006) "This study supports the view that depression is a dimensional illness, with the affected persons moving in and out of diagnostic subtypes. The 3-year prognosis was severe in half of the affected persons in all three diagnostic depression categories."

Carotid intima-media thickness in late-onset major depressive disorder. (Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2006)

Cigarette Smoking and Incidence of First Depressive Episode: An 11-Year, Population-based Follow-up Study (American Journal of Epidemiology 2006) "The risk of depression was four times as high for heavy smokers compared with never smokers. A dose-response relation with an increasing hazard for past smokers and for an increasing number of cigarettes smoked per day for current smokers was found. Similarly, increasing smoking time was associated with increasing risk."

Clinical characteristics of Major Depressive Disorder run in families - A community study of 933 mothers and their children (Journal of Psychiatric Research 2006) "We found that children of mothers who had a lifetime history of severe MDD and high number of symptoms, high impairment and/or melancholia, revealed elevated odds of MDD regarding the same characteristics as their mothers . Severe and melancholic MDD reveal a considerable high degree of familiar aggregation . "

Clinical factors associated with relapse in primary care patients with chronic or recurrent depression. (J Affect Disord. 2006)

Clinical features and correlates of major depressive disorder in individuals with body dysmorphic disorder. (J Affect Disord. 2006) "Conclusions: MDD is common in individuals with BDD. Individuals with current MDD had greater morbidity in some clinically important domains, including suicidality, functioning, and quality of life. A personality disorder and more severe BDD independently predicted the presence of current MDD."

Depression and Risk for Alzheimer Disease: Systematic Review, Meta-analysis, and Metaregression Analysis. (Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2006) "CONCLUSIONS: A history of depression may confer an increased risk for later developing AD. This relation may reflect an independent risk factor for the disease."

Depression in late-life: shifting the paradigm from treatment to prevention. (Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2006) "Late-life depression is very common and is associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality."

Depressive symptoms in the very old living alone: prevalence, incidence and risk factors. (Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2006) "CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Older people living alone are particularly vulnerable to depression and may benefit from targeted screening and development of appropriate care pathways."

Excessive daytime sleepiness in patients with depressive disorder. (Rev Bras Psiquiatr. 2006) "CONCLUSIONS: Excessive daytime sleepiness was frequent among patients and significantly associated with higher levels of depression and particularly with suicidal ideation. Thus, a careful investigation of daytime sleepiness in depressed patients is required during clinical evaluation."

Frontal white matter anisotropy and symptom severity of late-life depression: a magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging study. (J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2006)

Impairments in health functioning and sleep quality in older adults with a history of depression. (J Am Geriatr Soc. 2006)

Implications of high-risk family studies for prevention of depression. (Am J Prev Med. 2006) " … parental depression is associated with a range of emotional and behavioral problems, including anxiety and conduct disorder, in their offspring. These nonspecific effects, together with emerging findings on mechanisms of risk, support early intervention efforts that target a range of youth at risk for depression through multipronged approaches that attend to the individual characteristics of the child and parent, clinical comorbidity, and the broader family and social context."

Interrelationship of childhood trauma, neuroticism, and depressive phenotype. (Depress Anxiety. 2006)

Links between depression and substance abuse in adolescents neurobiological mechanisms. (Am J Prev Med. 2006)

Longitudinal investigation into childhood- and adolescence-onset depression: psychiatric outcome in early adulthood. (Br J Psychiatry. 2006) "CONCLUSIONS: Prognosis is similar in young people with depression from community and clinical samples. Boys from a clinical sample are at higher risk than girls of becoming persistently and severely mentally ill."

Major depression in males: Effects of age, severity and adaptation on sleep variables. (Psychiatry Res. 2006)

Offspring of depressed parents: 20 years later. (Am J Psychiatry. 2006) "CONCLUSIONS: The offspring of depressed parents constitute a high-risk group for psychiatric and medical problems, which begin early and continue through adulthood. Early detection seems warranted."

Omega-3 polyunsaturated essential Fatty Acid status as a predictor of future suicide risk. (Am J Psychiatry. 2006) "CONCLUSIONS: A low docosahexaenoic acid percentage and low omega-3 proportions of lipid profile predicted risk of suicidal behavior among depressed patients over the 2-year period. If confirmed, this finding would have implications for the neurobiology of suicide and reduction of suicide risk."

Perimenopause and depression: strength of association, causal mechanisms and treatment recommendations. (Best Pract Res Clin Obstet Gynaecol. 2006)

Personality and the onset of depression in late life (Journal of Affective Disorders 2006) "The effect of neuroticism was more strongly related to onset than health-related and social factors. Results revealed no significant interaction effects between the personality characteristics and age or the other prognostic factors on the association with onset of depression."

Recent developments and current controversies in depression. (Lancet. 2006)

Seasonal Affective Disorder (Am Fam Physician 2006) " … some emerging evidence suggests that seasonal affective disorder may be associated with alcoholism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Seasonal affective disorder often can be treated with light therapy, which appears to have a low risk of adverse effects. Light therapy is more effective if administered in the morning. It remains unclear whether light is equivalent to drug therapy, whether drug therapy can augment the effects of light therapy, or whether cognitive behavior therapy is a better treatment choice."

Sexual dysfunction in major depression. (CNS Spectr. 2006) "Loss of libido has been reported in various studies to affect from 25% to 75% of patients with unipolar depression, and its prevalence appears to be correlated with the severity of depression. Disorders of arousal also appear to be relatively common in both men and women with major depression, of whom approximately 25% may experience problems with erection or lubrication. The scant available data regarding orgasmic difficulties in patients with depression who have not yet taken antidepressant medication suggest that they are more common than in the general population."

Specificity of Familial Vulnerability for Alcoholism Versus Major Depression in Men. (J Nerv Ment Dis. 2006) "Our data are most consistent with a mechanism of reciprocal causation, whereby MD increases risk for AD and AD increases risk of MD."

Summaries for patients. Decision support in primary care and depression outcomes.

Toward a comprehensive developmental model for major depression in men. (Am J Psychiatry. 2006)

Yearlong physical activity and depressive symptoms in older Japanese adults: cross-sectional data from the Nakanojo study. (Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2006) "CONCLUSION: A depressive mood is associated with the quantity and quality of habitual physical activity."

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