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Antidepressant Suicide Risk May Not Be Greater in Kids After All

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:16:34 +0000

Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has placed a blanket warning on all antidepressants stating that they may increase suicide risk among children and young adults, this may not be true for them all, according to a new analysis.

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Love Is the Drug?

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 04:03:39 +0000

According to researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, a hormone called oxytocin, which is released whenever people hug or touch each other, could be useful in helping depression.

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Lab Test for Depression?

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 06:09:29 +0000

Although there isn't currently a laboratory test that can be used to detect depression, researchers say it may eventually become a reality.

In an attempt to design such a test, Dr. George Papakostas and his team gave 36 people with depression and 43 people without a blood test which looked at nine different biomarkers which have been associated with depression. These biomarkers appear to be an indicator of inflammation in the brain, according to Papakostas.

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Child Abuse May Cause Later Depression By Affecting Brain Development

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 04:37:33 +0000

New research appears to show that the stress of child abuse shrinks an important area of the brain called the hippocampus, which has been associated with memory, learning and emotional regulation.

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Exercise Can Help Depression in Those With Chronic Illness

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:11:03 +0000

If you have a chronic illness and are battling depression, exercise may be just what you need to lift your mood, according to University of Alabama, Birmingham researchers.

For the study, Matthew Herring and his team examined 90 previous studies of 10,500 sedentary patients with chronic illness. Each study included people who had been randomly assigned to either an exercise group or a non-exercise group. In addition, the study participants had had their depression levels measured both before and after exercise.

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Free Depression Screening

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:00:51 +0000

Do you believe that the symptoms you are experiencing could be caused by depression? Our online depression screening tool is quick, easy and completely confidential.

Try it now!

Working Too Many Hours Can Make You Depressed

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:45:01 +0000

Newly published research indicates that working too many overtime hours could make you more prone to developing depression.

The study, which included about 2,000 British government employees, found that those who worked 11 or more hours per day were more than twice as likely to develop depression as those who worked a normal seven or eight hour day.

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DSM-V: Proposed Changes in Depression Criteria Too Broad?

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:48:42 +0000

The American Psychiatric Association is in the process of revising its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) , a handbook used by clinicians when making diagnoses of conditions such as depression, and some believe it may be going too far.

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Antidepressants Increase Risk for Nursing Home Falls in Patients With Dementia

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 08:07:18 +0000

Nursing home patients with dementia who were taking a class of antidepressants called serotonin reuptake inhibitors - which includes such drugs as Prozac, Paxil, Lexapro, Zoloft and Celexa - were three times more likely to experience a fall than other dementia patients, according to a new study out of the Netherlands.

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Low Vitamin D Associated With Depression

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 04:59:14 +0000

According to a study conducted by UT Southwestern Medical Center psychiatrists, low levels of vitamin D have been linked with depression.

When the researchers looked at the results gathered from 12,600 participants in the Cooper Center Longitudinal Study between 2006 and 2010, they found that low levels of vitamin D were associated with depressive symptoms, especially in those with a history of depression. High vitamin D levels, however, were associated with a significantly decreased risk for current depression.

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