Latest Major depressive disorder Stories

Young girls can dance their way to better mental health. Symptoms like depression, stress, fatigue, and headaches are alleviated with regular dancing. This is shown in a study run by Anna Duberg, a physical therapist at Örebro University Hospital and a doctoral candidate at Örebro University in Sweden. Regular dance training can thereby be regarded as a strategy for preventing and treating low spirits and depression. Dance also brings enhanced self-esteem and a greater capacity to deal with...

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The Internet was a phenomenon when it came on the scene in the early 1990’s. As the technology has grown, psychiatrists have struggled to recognize and identify a whole host of mental health issues that have arisen as a result of the increased amount of time people spend online. Dr. Uri Nitzan of Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Shalvata Mental Health Care Center has produced a new paper, to be...

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Just in time for the appearance of jolly old Saint Nick at the end of the Thanksgiving Day Parade, researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario have identified a gene that not only contributes to obesity, but also to a lowered risk of depression. The ‘Santa Claus gene,’ known as FTO, is a major genetic contributor to obesity and was linked to an eight percent reduction in the risk of depression, according to the...

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online If you have trouble falling or staying asleep, you are not alone. Approximately 48 percent of Americans have reported having occasional insomnia with 22 percent claiming they suffer from insomnia on a frequent or even nightly basis. Insomnia is a symptom, not a condition. It can be caused by a host of issues like anxiety, stress, depression, disease or pain. Also, the use of certain over-the-counter and prescription medications...

Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online “Men are from mars, women are from Venus” is the title of a book written by John Gray, a relationship counselor and author from the United States. Gray highlighted how relationship problems between males and females could be caused by gender differences, especially in terms of how each handles stress differently. The idea of male and female differences can be seen in a new study from the University of Westminster in the...

[ Watch the Video: Light Exposure Leads To Depression, Learning Issues ] Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Night owls beware: scientists from Johns Hopkins University recently revealed that when people routinely work late at night, they have an increased risk of developing depression and learning issues. This change is not only due to lack of sleep, but also a result of the exposure to bright light at night from items like computers, laptops and iPads. The team...

There are a growing number of clues that immune and inflammatory mechanisms are important for the biology of schizophrenia. In a new study in Biological Psychiatry, Dr. Mar Fatjó-Vilas and colleagues explored the impact of the interleukin-1β gene (IL1β) on brain function alterations associated with schizophrenia. Fatjó-Vilas said that "this study is a contribution to the relatively new field of 'functional imaging genetics' which appears to be potentially powerful for the study of...

Controlling depression in patients with heart failure can improve health status, social functioning and quality of life, according to a new study by psychiatrists and cardiologists at the UC Davis and Duke University schools of medicine. While depression is known to worsen a variety of diseases, the current study is one of the first to show that reducing symptoms of the mental health condition can benefit physical health. The study is available online now and will be distributed in the...

While powerful magnetic stimulation of the frontal lobe of the brain can alleviate symptoms of depression, those receiving the treatment did not report effects on sleep or arousal commonly seen with antidepressant medications, researchers say. "People's sleep gets better as their depression improves, but the treatment doesn't itself cause sedation or insomnia." said Dr. Peter B. Rosenquist, Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior at the Medical College of Georgia at...

The combination of shortened telomeres, a biological marker of aging associated with cancer development, and elevated depression significantly impacted bladder cancer mortality, according to data presented at the 11th Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research, held here Oct. 16-19, 2012. "We found that patients with bladder cancer with shorter telomeres and high levels of depression symptoms have a threefold increased risk for mortality," said Meng...