Suicide Prevention

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10 USEFUL* things you can do for suicide prevention *Spoiler: none of these things are about “fixing” a suicidal person. I’d like to apologize for missing the actual National Suicide Prevention Day, which was September 10, but, really, any day is a good day to talk about suicide prevention.  Suicide prevention is not a matter of telling your distressed friend …

Inflammation and Depression – Specific Symptom Cluster

admin Basic Science, Depression, Diagnosis, Major Depression, Physical Conditions and Health, Psychobiology Leave a Comment

A study of 15 population-based cohorts, totalling 56,351 individuals, suggests that there is a correlation between inflammation as measured by elevated  C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) and a specific sub-group of symptoms of depression. The inflammation cluster consisted of four physical symptoms: changes in appetite, felt everything was an effort, loss of energy, sleep problems; and one cognitive symptom: little …

Depressive Symptoms COVID

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The COVID-19 pandemic appears to be associated with a higher burden of depressive symptoms than might have been predicted in comparison with earlier disasters and society-wide disruptive events, such as the September 11th attacks.  Since April 2020, self-reported symptoms of depression have increased over the previous year, and remain high.  A survey1 published in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas …

Pre-Diabetes Weight Gain and Depression

Insulin Resistance, Pre-Diabetes, Central Obesity, Elevated Triglycerides and Depression

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Three different findings associated with insulin resistance and pre-diabetes are predictive of developing depression according to a study published online from the American Journal of Psychiatry. Study Summary MedPage Today (9/23/2021) writes that, “Three surrogate measures for insulin resistance all showed a significant link with developing a major depressive disorder [MDD] over a nine-year follow-up period,” researchers concluded. The 601-participant study …

SSRI Doses and Effectiveness – High Dose vs Low Dose, Is There a Difference?

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One of the questions that has bedevilled clinicians ever since the introduction of the first SSRI (Prozac, fluoxetine) is whether there is any relationship between SSRI doses and effectiveness. In other words, do higher doses result in greater effectiveness. I can recall about 20 years ago reading the first clinical trial looking at this question. It was an article published …

SSRI and Other Antidepressants and Pregnancy – 2020

Peter Forster Major Depression, Physical Conditions and Health, Treatments of Depression Leave a Comment

We have several other posts on this topic which trace the evolution of our thinking about the risks of using antidepressants during pregnancy. Generally, the data continues to support our view that the risks of depression during pregnancy, both in terms of effects on the mother and effects on the child, usually outweigh the risks of antidepressant use. Another large …

Psychotherapy is Important for Depression Prevention

Peter Forster Best Practices, Major Depression, Treatments of Depression Leave a Comment

Psychotherapies — particularly cognitive-behavioral approaches used as adjunctive treatments — can play a critical role in helping people with a history of depression avoid relapse. For many people, major depression is a chronic illness. Even when they are no longer depressed, people who have had several episodes of depression have to be concerned about a significant risk of a recurrence …

Limbic and Prefrontal Connectivity and Treatment Selection for Depression

Peter Forster Basic Science, Best Practices, Major Depression, Psychobiology, Treatments of Depression

Boadie Dunlop, M.D., M.S., and Helen Mayberg, M.D., both of Emory University School of Medicine, and colleagues assessed resting-state functional connectivity between the subcallosal cingulate cortex (SCC) and three other brain regions—the dorsal midbrain, the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior insula, and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex—in 122 patients with depression. The patients were then randomized to 12 weeks of cognitive-behavioral …

Impaired Decision Making in Depression – Treatment Implications

Peter Forster Major Depression, Treatments of Depression Leave a Comment

Why do depressed people make choices that are unlikely to be rewarded. And why aren’t they willing to make choices that are likely to be rewarded. In fact, why are depressed people less likely than people who are not depressed to choose to take an antidepressant, or begin psychotherapy, or follow the advice of a therapist? A meta-analysis of many …