Research led by the University of Adelaide has resulted in new insights into clinical depression that demonstrate there cannot be a "one-size-fits-all" approach to treating the disease.
Among patients on chronic hemodialysis, those with depressive symptoms and pain were more likely to abbreviate or miss dialysis sessions, visit the emergency department, and be hospitalized. Depressive symptoms were also linked with an increased risk of premature death.
Here are highlights from the insert month issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter, an eight-page monthly newsletter of reliable, accurate and practical information on today’s health and medical news.
A new study gives insight into the relationship between depression and dementia. The study is published in the July 30, 2014, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Researchers at UC San Francisco have found that children with sensory processing disorders have decreased structural brain connections in specific sensory regions different than those in autism, further establishing SPD as a clinically important neurodevelopmental disorder.
Children diagnosed with depression as preschoolers are likely to suffer from depression as school-age children and young adolescents, new research shows.
A study of high school students by University of Adelaide psychology researchers has shed new light on the links between insomnia-related mental health conditions among teens.
Johns Hopkins researchers say they have discovered a chemical alteration in a single human gene linked to stress reactions that, if confirmed in larger studies, could give doctors a simple blood test to reliably predict a person’s risk of attempting suicide.
Antismoking advertising effectively promotes attempts to quit smoking among vulnerable population groups, including minorities and people with lower education and income, according to a new study by researcher at RTI International.
A new study from UC San Francisco is the first to show that while the impact of life’s stressors accumulate overtime and accelerate cellular aging, these negative effects may be reduced by maintaining a healthy diet, exercising and sleeping well.
Babies can learn what to fear in the first days of life just by smelling the odor of their distressed mothers’, new research suggests. And not just “natural” fears: If a mother experienced something before pregnancy that made her fear something specific, her baby will quickly learn to fear it too -- through her odor when she feels fear.
The secret to boosting the language skills of preschoolers with disabilities may be to put them in classrooms with typically developing peers, a new study finds.
A study involving nearly 27,000 older adults on five continents found that nearly 1 in 10 met criteria for pre-dementia based on a simple test that measures how fast people walk and whether they have cognitive complaints. People who tested positive for pre-dementia were twice as likely as others to develop dementia within 12 years. The study, led by scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Center, was published online on July 16, 2014 in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Preventing gun violence will require a scientific public health approach and recognition of the limits of predicting individual cases of violence, according to experts slated to speak at the American Psychological Association’s 122nd Annual Convention.
A new study in General Hospital Psychiatry confirms that Blacks with depression plus another chronic medical condition, such as Type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure, do not receive adequate mental health treatment.
Vitamin D-deficient individuals are twice as likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia as people who have sufficient levels of the vitamin, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).
As part of a multinational, collaborative effort, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have helped identify over 100 locations in the human genome associated with the risk of developing schizophrenia, in the largest genomic study published on any psychiatric disorder to date, conducted with 80,000 people. The findings, published online in Nature, point to biological mechanisms and pathways that may underlie schizophrenia, and could lead to new approaches to treating the disorder, which has seen little innovation in drug development in more than 60 years.
As part of a multinational, collaborative effort, researchers from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and scores of other institutions from all over the world have helped identify over 100 locations in the human genome associated with the risk of developing schizophrenia, in what is the largest genomic study published on any psychiatric disorder to date.
A performance improvement initiative for physicians can significantly increase their use of evidence-based practices in screening for and treating depression, in the July Journal of Psychiatric Practice. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
Cigarette smokers are more likely to commit suicide than people who don’t smoke, a relationship that has been attributed to the fact that numerous people with psychiatric disorders, who have higher suicide rates, also tend to smoke. But a new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis finds that smoking itself may increase suicide risk and that policies to limit smoking reduce suicide rates.
By using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans from before the attack and survey data from after, the researchers found that heightened amygdala reaction to negative emotional stimuli was a risk factor for later developing symptoms of PTSD.
Ithaca College professor Iann Woods researches how genetics influence responses to stimuli that can trigger anxiety, and he’s using zebrafish — a tropical member of the minnow family named for the black stripes on their bodies — to do so. He and his team of student researchers examine how fish with tweaked genes respond to different triggers compared to unmodified fish. The work could someday lead to better, more nuanced medications for anxiety disorders.
Depressed men with localized prostate cancer were more likely to be diagnosed with more aggressive prostate cancer, received less effective treatments and survived for shorter times than prostate cancer patients who were not depressed, a UCLA study has found.
In newly published research in the journal Neuron, Michael Cole of Rutgers has determined that the underlying brain architecture of a person at rest is basically the same as that of a person performing a variety of tasks.
This is important to the study of mental illness, says Cole, because it is easier to analyze a brain at rest.
Kansas adults with mental illness are twice as likely to use tobacco as adults without mental illness, according to a new report by RTI International and funded by the Kansas Health Foundation.
Johns Hopkins researchers have begun to connect the dots between a schizophrenia-linked genetic variation and its effect on the developing brain. As they report July 3 in the journal Cell Stem Cell, their experiments show that the loss of a particular gene alters the skeletons of developing brain cells, which in turn disrupts the orderly layers those cells would normally form.
Adults who have dyslexia are much more likely to report they were physically abused before they turned 18 than their peers without dyslexia, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill.
Cognitive behavioral therapy in addition to medication improves the long-term success of treatment for children and adolescents suffering from depression, a new UT Southwestern Medical Center study indicates.
Adolescents who play team sports in grades 8 through 12 have less stress and better mental health as young adults, finds new research published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Available evidence suggests that paroxetine and fluoxetine can improve depressive symptoms but may be less well-tolerated. Unfortunately, the most promising agent, Mianserin, is not available in the U.S.
Mental distress in people with disabilities is associated with increased prevalence of chronic illness and reduced access to health care and preventive care services, finds a new study in the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved.
TheResearchers at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s PolicyLab found an increase in the concurrent prescribing of second-generation antipsychotics (SGA) – typically used to treat severe mental disorders – with other psychotropic medications among Medicaid-enrolled youth. From 2004-2008, the majority of Medicaid-enrolled youth using SGA were prescribed this medication concurrently with another psychotropic medication class. Researchers say the data is a rich resource for providing a picture of clinical practice trends on a national scale and can valuable in informing policies and practice around SGA use.
The need for psychiatric services in inpatient hospitals continues to grow, according to the latest annual survey from the National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems (NAPHS) released today.
Socioeconomic adversity during childhood increases the likelihood of both depression and higher body mass index (BMI) in early adolescence, which can worsen and lead to illness for young adults, according to a new report in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Short, otherwise healthy children who are treated with growth hormone (GH) may become taller, but they may also become more depressed and withdrawn over time, compared to children the same age and height who are not treated with GH, a new study finds. The results were presented in a poster Monday, June 23 at ICE/ENDO 2014, the joint meeting of the International Society of Endocrinology and the Endocrine Society in Chicago.
Researchers have found a possible biological reason why people with diabetes are prone to depression. A new study shows that high blood glucose (sugar) levels in patients with Type 1 diabetes increase the levels of a brain neurotransmitter associated with depression, and alter the connections between regions of the brain that control emotions. The results will be presented Sunday at the joint meeting of the International Society of Endocrinology and the Endocrine Society: ICE/ENDO 2014 in Chicago.
Adult offspring of mothers who used fluoxetine, a common antidepressant, during pregnancy were more likely to develop a fatty liver, a new animal study has found. The results will be reported Saturday at the joint meeting of the International Society of Endocrinology and the Endocrine Society: ICE/ENDO 2014 in Chicago.
Researchers have demonstrated for the first time in an animal model that maternal use of a class of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, resulted in increased fat accumulation and inflammation in the liver of the adult offspring, raising new concerns about the long-term metabolic complications in children born to women who take SSRI antidepressants during pregnancy.
A House Divided: Recovering from Sexual Abuse and Multiplicity is an inspiring account of how the patient becomes whole after discovering the unspeakable sexual and physical abuse she endured as a child.
A new study in the American Journal of Health Behavior finds that women are more likely than men to use tobacco products after experiencing severe psychological distress.
There is new hope for people suffering from depression. Researchers have identified a compound, hydroxynorketamine (HNK), that may treat symptoms of depression just as effectively and rapidly as ketamine, without the unwanted side effects associated with the psychoactive drug, according to a study in the July issue of Anesthesiology, the official medical journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists® (ASA®). Interestingly, use of HNK may also serve as a future therapeutic approach for treating neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, the authors note.
Explosions are the most common cause of traumatic brain injuries in veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. A new study shows that military personnel with mild brain trauma related to such blasts had outcomes similar to those with mild brain injury from other causes, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have generated fresh insights that could aid in the development of rapid-acting antidepressants for treatment-resistant depression.
A new study led by Alan B. Ettinger, M.D., M.B.A., Director of the Epilepsy Center at Neurological Surgery, P.C., has found that many patients who fail to take their antiseizure medications are suffering from depression. Previous studies by Dr. Ettinger and others have found a high incidence of depression in people with epilepsy, but this is the first research to show a direct link between depression and medication nonadherence. The study will be published in the July 2014 issue of the journal Epilepsy & Behavior, and is available online ahead of publication.