Your Diet May Cause Depression

For years, many scientists have maintained that a lack of omega-3 fatty acids in the typical modern diet may contribute to depression. A recent study confirmed that omega-3 fatty acids have anti-depressant-like effects. However, the latest research work in this field suggests that an excess of omega-6 – the fatty acid which is more prevalent in modern diets – may have more to do with causing depression.

Find out how Your Diet May Cause Depression.

Heart Surgery Mortality from SSRIs or Depression

Duke University Medical Center researchers have found that patients who were using SSRIs prior to undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery have significantly higher death and rehospitalization rates up to five years after the procedure than patients who were not on SSRIs.

Researchers hinted that they aren't completely positive the increase in deaths is caused by the depression and underlying conditions as opposed to the SSRIs themselves ... They believe that this increase is due more to the underlying depression itself than medication use, and that depressed poatients with metabolic syndrome symptoms are less likey to recover.

Read Heart Surgery Mortality from SSRIs or Depression.

The Politics of St. John's Wort

The latest study (5/24/05) on St John's Wort says that it may be effective for mild to moderate depression, but that it may not be effective for severe depression, and that it also may mot be effective over the long haul.

Every month a new press release seems to surface about this herb. Last month a new study said it should be a preferred treatment for major depression. Each wave of publicity is just another salvo in a hidden war between Big Pharma- the major drug companies- and the alternative health industry. At stake is the eleven (11) billion dollar anti-depressant market.

Read The Politics of St. John's Wort.

Depression and Heart Attack

Studies show that patients who are depressed or who have increased levels of the hormone and neurotransmitter norepinephrine in the blood have twice the incidence of chronic heart failure.

Not only are people with depression more likely to experience heart failure, research shows that people with heart failure are more likely to experience depression. Worse, people with heart disease who are depressed have an increased risk of death after a heart attack compared to those who are not depressed. Depressed heart attack survivors are twice as likely to die or have more heart problems in the two years following a heart attack.

The underlying link is stress hormones. Read Depression and Heart Attack.

The Controversy Over Vagus Nerve Stimulation For Depression

Just as the American Psychiatric Association is meeting to discuss therapies for treatment-resistant depression, the Food and Drug Administration appears to be on the verge of approving a highly controversial new form of neurostimulation therapy being used in experimental trials for severe and previously untreatable depression.

Read about the Controversy Over Vagus Nerve Stimulation Therapy.

New Treatment Options Emerging for Major Depression

New Treatment Options Are Emerging for Major Depression; Neurostimulation Therapies May Be Available for Clinical Use Within Two Years.

Investigational device-based therapies will lead to entirely new treatment options for chronic depression sufferers as early as late 2006, according to an American Psychiatric Association symposium to be presented this week on treatment-resistant depression.

Symposium on significant New Neurostimulation Therapies.

Depression and Diabetes

A Canadian research team writing in Diabetes Care says that young adults with depression have have an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The typical onset of major depression is in a person's 20s and 30s. In the Canadian study, the people at the highest risk for developing depression seem to be the same people with the highest risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

The question is: Why? Read Depression and Diabetes.

Draining the Fuel of Anger and Aggression

New research indicates that elevated stress hormones can switch on the aggression centers of the hippocampus... and that hormones like cortisol work with parts of the brain responsible for aggression in a powerful and rapid feedback loop, in which higher levels of stress hormones lead to higher levels of aggression.

This research clearly implies that by lowering levels of stress hormones we can succeed at lowering levels of aggression. But how can we drain the fuel of anger and aggression?

The Vicious Cycle of Stress, Anxiety and Aggression

One of the most common symptoms of stress anxiety and depression is irritability and aggressiveness. Aggression is particularly hard for many people with anxiety related depression to overcome, no matter how sincerely they try to master anger management techniques.

Recent experiments may help to explain why irritability and aggression can be so hard to beat for people who suffer from anxiety and depression.

The bottom line: stress and aggression work together in a fast feedback loop.

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Alternative Treatments 101

This website is dedicated to the use of scientifically supported alternative treatments for anxiety and depression. Like more conventional treatment plans in which psychotherapy is recommended together with medication, these treatments work much more effectively in concert with each other, as a part of an integrated program of lifestyle change.

But of all the treatments that have investigated thoroughly, which ones are fundamental? Which ones do most experts agree on? Which ones integrate best with others?

Read Alternative Treatments 101

The Path from Stress to Anxiety to Depression

The biochemical path from stress to anxiety to depression is becoming clearer. For some people-- though not for everyone-- the path begins with a gene variant that predisposes them to be hyper-sensitive to stress. That sensitivity starts a domino effect of neuro-endocrinological degeneration, commonly marked by biochemical processes like elevated cortisol levels, elevated c-reactive protein, and elevated homocysteine.

In psychological terms, we call this process of degeneration anxiety and depression.

For some people, this path is more like a ski run. They get through it in weeks or months. For others, it seems to take a lifetime. But for everyone, at every point on the path, there is a way out...

Read more about the path from stress to anxiety to depression.

Acupuncture For Depression

Acupuncture has been used in Chinese Medicine to successfully treat anxiety, stress, depression, and other conditions that Western Medicine considers "psychological" for thousands of years.

Hundreds of studies show that acupuncture can effectively treat physical conditions such as chronic pain and arthritis, but most people are not aware of the growing scientific support for acupuncture as a treatment for depression and related conditions.

Acupuncture For Depression

Gene Variant Explains Anxiety and Depression After Stress

New research this week in Nature Neuroscience indicates a gene variation may make people more susceptible to depression and anxiety by weakening a circuit for processing stressful negative emotions, especially fear.

The research found that the short version of the gene contributes to greater general anxiety and the risk of depression following a major stress situation.

Fortunately, many studies show that a wide range of alternative treatments can be particularly effective in overcoming this kind of stress driven, anxiety related depression.

Cortisol, Stress and Depression

Chronic stress can make you clinically depressed. Stress- either physical or emotional stress- produces a cascade of different hormonal changes in the body, usually preparing us for fight or flight. That normal survival response can turn deadly when prolonged exposure to elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol begins to tear at the neuro-endocrinological processes of the body.

Understanding how prolonged excess cortisol levels impacts the brain and body is absolutely crucial to treating anxiety related depression. This article outlines the relationship of cortisol, stress, anxiety, and depression, and describes some alternative treatments.

Depression and Metabolic Syndrome

Metabolic Syndrome is a potentially lethal combination of obesity, insulin resistance )or type II diabetes), high blood pressure, high blood triglyceride levels and low HDL cholesterol levels (the more protective type of cholesterol), often leading to Coronary Heart Disease. It is epidemic in developed countries, especially the United States and Britain.

There's evidence that not only can depression lead to Metabolic Syndrome, but Metabolic Syndrome commonly leads to anxiety and depression. Fortunately there are simple, inexpensive and highly effective alternative interventions to cut short the dangerous feedback loop of metabolic syndrome and depression.

Cortisol and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression

Anxiety and depression can cause a variety of physical and mental symptoms. Many of these symptoms are common to both disorders.

That fact that so many symptoms seem to be common to both disorders underlines the suspicion of many researchers that these supposedly different categories of mental illness may themselves be symptoms of a common underlying condition.

Many of these symptoms may have a common cause: prolonged excess levels of cortisol.

Depression Treatment Modalities

Stanford University Medical School has released a study saying that patients with severe depression who do not respond to psychotherapy should switch to pharmacotherapy, and that patients with severe depression who do not respond to drugs should switch to psychotherapy.

Forgive me, but as Homer Simpson would say, "DUH!"

This may seem obvious, but to average family M.D. practitioners and Internists - the main doctors that most depressed patients see - writing prescriptions is still the most common solution. Another recent study showed that psychotherapy alone was recommended to only 4% of depressed patients by most family practitioners.

Read Depression Treatment Modalities...

Homocysteine and the Brain

Individuals prone to anxiety and depression may need to watch out for elevated homocysteine levels.

Part of why stress can lead to brain problems like anxiety and depression may have to do with the amino acid homocysteine, which is produced during times of stress.

Why? Because homocysteine, which is produced during times of stress, may actually be a neurotoxin...

Read more in Homocysteine and the Brain.

Depression and C-Reactive Protein

Depression may raise heart disease risks in men, according to a study in the new issue of the journal Circulation. The average blood level of the inflammatory marker C-reactive protein was 46% higher in depressed men than in other men. The European study also found that men with depression were about 50% more likely to develop coronary heart disease within five years.

C-reactive protein (CRP) is a marker of inflammation in the body. CRP blood tests are commonly used to evaluate the threat of heart attack. This is the first study investigating the respective contribution to coronary heart disease of depression and inflammatory markers. Atherosclerosis is now widely viewed as an inflammatory process, along with diabetes and Alzheimer's. More than a few researchers think anxiety and depression involve inflammatory processes, as well.

Fortunately, there are a number of effective nutriceutical solutions to the threat of elevated C-reactive protein levels.

Meditation = Less Stress and Anxiety = A Longer Life

A study published today in the American Journal of Cardiology says meditation can increase lifespan by 28%. Meditation succeeds at increasing lifespan by the same mechanism that it successfully decreases stress, anxiety, and depression- by lowering cortisol levels. That preserves brain tissue, and keeps neurochemistry in balance, just as it helps preserve immune response, bone and heart integrity and the integrity of most other major organs that would be robbed by elevated cortisol.... The equation is
Meditation = Less Stress and Anxiety = A Longer Life.

Anxiety and Depression: One Disease?

Many researchers, psychiatrists and clinical psychologists have come to view anxiety and depression as two categories or stages of one underlying neuro-endrocrinological condition. Recently, the British Depression Alliance released a survey about depression patients hiding their physical symptoms of depression from their doctors. The irony here is that these symptoms are also commonly associated with chronic stress and anxiety, as well as prolonged high levels of cortisol in the blood.

There's a lot of research in this area. I am following it in anxiety-depression-alternatives.com with articles about this condition and why alternative treatments may be superior to conventional ones.