That depression may be linked to alterations in glutamate circuits is suggested by the observation that ketamine (which is an NMDA glutamate receptor antagonist) may rapidly reverse depression in some patients. Depression has also been found to be associated in some people with various markers for inflammation (c reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor, interleukin 1 beta, and interleukin 6). As …
Depression and Inflammation: Treatment Options
A host of conditions have been associated with mild to moderate levels of inflammation in the body. Depression is one of these. Elsewhere in this blog we have discussed the relationship between depression and inflammation, evidence that treatment with an antidepressant (escitalopram) reduces inflammation in depression, and talked about how exercise prevents depression. We have also noted that elevated levels of inflammation (simple …
B Vitamins and Depression and Cognition
We ran across a Q&A from Consumer Lab on the role of B vitamins in depression which sparked us to update and expand this section of our page on nutritional supplements. ConsumerLab.com Answers Question: I’ve heard that having low B-12 or B-6 can cause depression. Is that true? Answer: Yes, being deficient in vitamin B-12 or B-6 can cause …
Genetic Tests for Depression Updated 2023
Do Genetic Tests Help? Are genetic tests for depression treatment worthwhile? Or is this an expensive technology that is not ready for routine use? Peter Roy-Byrne, writing in NEJM Journal Watch seems to say that they aren’t worth it. Although some clinicians may argue that such testing “can’t hurt and might help,” current psychopharmacological practice is complex, usually including combinations …
Mindfulness for Depression – Research Update
Mindfulness has received a lot of attention recently as an approach to improving mental health in a number of conditions. But is it really effective as part of a strategy for treating serious depression? And, if so, how can we best incorporate it into treatment, given the great difficulty that many people with depression have doing even a small amount …
Depression and Inflammation
Is depression one of a series of illnesses caused by inflammation? There has been a lot of interest in the last year in the idea that inflammation (activation of the body’s immune system) might be a cause as well as a consequence of depression. One theory suggests that depression might be an inflammatory disorder, rather than a disorder of altered neurotransmitter levels. Certainly …
Early intervention for depression helps
In a review of an article published in JAMA Psychiatry in early March 2016, Dr. Steven Dubovsky writes about encouraging findings about treatment efficacy of patients with major depression from a large study in Denmark. In the study, researchers reviewed 10 years worth of national data from the extensive population records capped in Denmark which provides nearly universal access to …
Testosterone for Older Men
Does testosterone supplementation help older men with low testosterone improve their quality of life, mood and energy? Some of the “low T” advertisements on TV made it seem like the magic hormone that conquered aging. More recently the FDA has been expressing its concern about over-prescribing by, among other things, adding black box warnings on the labels of gel formulations of …
Norepinephrine dopamine and depression
In an elegant set of studies published in February 2016 in Nature Neuroscience the team of Bruno Giros, a researcher at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and Professor of Psychiatry at McGill University, reports the first-ever connection between noradrenergic neurons and vulnerability to depression. The study involved research using probably the most well developed animal model for depression – chronic or …
Buprenorphine for Depression – A Combination Approach
While we were in the midst of a seeming epidemic of concern about opiate prescribing and possible overuse of opiates by physicians, it is ironic that we are also seeing a small stream of articles being published about the potential effectiveness of opiate agonists in treating patients with treatment resistant depression. I’ve been interested in this topic since Enoch Callaway, …