Oh My

Now that's some good data:

Depression in young people affects the stomach, anxiety the skin

Mental disorders and physical diseases frequently go hand in hand. For the first time, psychologists have identified temporal patterns in young people: arthritis and diseases of the digestive system are more common after depression, while anxiety disorders tend to be followed by skin diseases.

 Please note the crucial words:  "Followed By"

Mental symptoms can come BEFORE the epithelial symptoms.   Your nerves are affected at the same time as the rest of you.
It's a real phenomenon of a real illness.

You Don't Say

Children with Cushing syndrome may have higher suicide risk

Cushing syndrome results from high levels of the hormone cortisol. Long-term complications of the syndrome include obesity, diabetes, bone fractures, high blood pressure, kidney stones and serious infections. Cushing's syndrome may be caused by tumors of the adrenal glands or other parts of the body that produce excess cortisol. It also may be caused by a pituitary tumor that stimulates the adrenal glands to produce high cortisol levels. Treatment usually involves stopping excess cortisol production by removing the tumor.

The authors noted that children with Cushing syndrome often develop compulsive behaviors and tend to become over-achievers in school. After treatment, however, they then become depressed and anxious. This is in direct contrast to adults with Cushing syndrome, who tend to become depressed and anxious before treatment and gradually overcome these symptoms after treatment.

The authors stated that health care providers might try to prepare children with Cushing syndrome before they undergo treatment, letting them know that their mood may change after surgery and may not improve for months or years. Similarly, providers should consider screening their patients periodically for suicide risk in the years following their treatment.

Guess what also raises cortisol levels through the roof...
Bacteremia.  Sepsis.   Which is sometimes caused by surgery...

related post

Correlation Games

Rats Depress People More Than Crime Does, Study Finds

People living in Baltimore's low-income neighborhoods who see rats as a big problem are significantly more likely to have depressive symptoms such as sadness and anxiety, the research finds.
 This study provides very strong evidence that rats are an underappreciated stressor that affects how people feel about their lives in low-income neighborhoods," German said.

My turn:

This is not about an unsightly neighborhood making people unhappy for fcks sake.
It's about germs.
Rats carry Toxoplasma, a neurotropic, psychoactive parasite associated with suicidal tendencies.
It's been causing human weirdness in crowded, unsanitary cities since the Ancient Egyptians.

More Depressing News

Reality check: Taking antidepressants while pregnant unlikely to double autism risk in kids

Now, a new study is raising eyebrows in the psychiatry and neuroscience communities. It suggests that women who use antidepressants while pregnant are nearly twice as likely to bear children with ASD. Many epidemiologists and psychiatrists say the study, published today in JAMA Pediatrics, is flawed and will cause unnecessary panic.
...
The “critical flaw” in the new research is that it doesn’t fully account for the fact that women suffering from psychiatric illnesses already have a greater risk of having children with ASD, says Roy Perlis, a psychiatric geneticist at Harvard University who consults for several biotechnology startups. Although the authors controlled for maternal depression, “they don’t really have reliable measures of severity,” he says. As a result, there’s no way to tell whether the children were at higher risk because their mothers were taking more drugs or because the women had more severe depression. Several papers, including two from Perlis’s group, have looked at large numbers of women and children and found no increased risk for ASD after adjusting for the severity of maternal depression, he says. “The risk travels with the disease, not the treatment,” he says. 

Well that's really not at all reassuring.
And the treatment clearly isn't solving the problem...

Evidence of Occult Infection

Depression contributes to preventable hospitalizations in Danish study

Individuals with depression are more than twice as likely to have hospitalizations that might be preventable with timely outpatient medical care in the community, a new study finds. In addition, after being discharged from the hospital, individuals with depression were also more likely to return to the hospital within 30 days for the same conditions, the researchers found.
Such preventable hospitalizations, also known as hospitalizations for ambulatory care-sensitive conditions, include exacerbations of common chronic conditions, such as diabetes, congestive heart failure, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and acute illnesses, such as bacterial pneumonia and urinary tract infections.

Thanks Denmark.

I would just like to point out:
Orexin deficiency is strongly correlated with depression.
Narcolepsy is commonly comorbid with many of those conditions.
The orexin receptor has just been linked to heart failure.
And ALL of those illnesses can be caused by strep colonization.

Absolutely. 100%. Yes.

Could Depression Be Caused By An Infection? 

And you don't even need all these convoluted explanations how it works.
Infection reduces Orexin levels to one-sixth of normal.    It's a basic immune response to all kinds of infection.  You instantly have no energy and become cranky.
If your infection is chronic, well you experience this as depression.

Period. The End.

(unless of course you want to include all the other things that are caused by infections...  Anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, Schizophrenia, Autism, Bipolar, Alzheimer's, Parkinsons, Multiple Sclerosis, Alcoholism, Obesity, and all the "Addictions"...  I'm still working out all the details of that thesis, though.)

Correlation Games

Longevity hormone is lower in stressed, depressed women

 Women under chronic stress have significantly lower levels of klotho, a hormone that regulates aging and enhances cognition, researchers have found in a study comparing mothers of children on the autism spectrum to low-stress controls.

My turn:

The expression of klotho was markedly decreased by lipopolysaccharide (endotoxin) in vivo.

Correlation vs. Causation

The “logical despair” of womanhood: Women are much more likely to suffer psychological distress than men 

 A new report from the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that women in every single age group are much more likely than men to suffer from serious psychological distress (SPD). So, the weight of systemic oppression is actually having effects on our brain chemistry, who would have even thought that was possible?
The study also found that SPD puts people at greater risk for a number of medical conditions including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart disease.

Still, the data is even more alarming when coupled with the fact that suicide has become the leading killer of teenage girls aged 15 to 19 worldwide.
Dr. Suzanne Petroni, senior director for gender, population and development at the International Center for Research on Women, was the first to put the data together, reports The Guardian’s Jessica Valenti.
“It was clear that from at least 2000, [suicide] was a leading cause of death in this age group,” Petroni told Valenti, noting that suicide only recently overtook maternal mortality as the top killer of teenage girls. “We need more research and evidence to tell us if it is actually happening for the reason we hypothesize it is — which is that gender norms and inequality have a significant link for suicide vulnerability.”
... The hypothesis would make sense since puberty is around the time where discrimination and oppression starts to kick in.

This is also the time when hormone and metabolic changes set in.
And estrogen alters insulin metabolism, so girls diverge from boys around this time.

The fact is:
There really is a real physiological explanation for why women suffer more from depression than men...
That has nothing to do with sex discriimination.

BUT-
Since Psychs have historically been men who do not experience this phenomenon:
They tell us we're hysterical.   That we are imagining things.   And that we need to shut our whiny pie holes and snap the hell out of it.

See how that really works?

Cha Ching!

Researchers find direct link between insulin resistance and behavioral disorders

People with diabetes are more prone to anxiety and depression than those with other chronic diseases that require similar levels of management. The reasons for this aren't well understood, but Joslin Diabetes Center researchers have discovered one potential explanation.
Genetically modifying mice to make their brains resistant to insulin, the Joslin scientists first found that the animals exhibited behaviors that suggest anxiety and depression, and then pinpointed a mechanism that lowers levels of the key neurotransmitter dopamine in areas of the brain associated with those conditions.
"This is one of the first studies that directly shows that insulin resistance in the brain actually can produce a behavioral change."

Pretty, pretty, pretty.
Makes a nice follow up to the previous post, huh?

Still Thisclose

Rave drug holds promise for treating depression fast Companies and clinicians turn to ketamine to treat mental-health disorder as pipeline of new drugs dries up.

Today’s most common antidepressants target the brain’s serotonin or noradrenaline pathways (some target both). Ketamine blocks the signalling molecule NMDA, a component of the glutamate pathway, which is involved in memory and cognition. Before ketamine was studied, no one even knew that the pathway was involved in depression, Murrough says.
In 2013, his group published the largest trial of off-label ketamine carried out so far, with 73 participants. The trial found that the drug reduced depression 24 hours after treatment in 64% of patients who had tried three or more other medications with unsuccessful results. A second group received the sedative midazolam; in that case, the reduction was 28% . Murrough’s group is now imaging the brains of patients receiving ketamine treatment to try to dissect just how the drug works.

  Well, that probably won't help very much since it works in the periphery...

Ketamine’s fast action is particularly promising for suicide prevention, says Carlos Zarate of the NIMH. Instead of being committed to institutions for weeks of treatment, people who have just attempted suicide might be treated with ketamine and released in days or even hours. Zarate has found that ketamine seems specifically to affect the desire to attempt suicide, whether a person is clinically depressed or not (ref). That observation suggests that suicidal behaviour might be distinct from depression.

 This is because Ketamine reverses the cascade of sepsis.   Septic delirium is a trigger for suicidal ideation.

In vitro investigation of the antibacterial effect of ketamine.
Large dose ketamine inhibits lipopolysaccharide-induced acute lung injury in rats. 
Ketamine suppresses endotoxin-induced NF-kappaB activation and cytokines production in the intestine.
Mechanisms of ketamine-induced immunosuppression.
Glutamate metabolism in malnutrition and sepsis in man.

I like this a lot.   I like that it works.  I like that it makes sense.
I do not like that- once again- they are going to sell the living shit out of it before they understand what the hell they're doing ...

Same as it ever was.

As I was Saying

No psychology required.

Orexin Signaling Mediates the Antidepressant-Like Effect of Calorie Restriction

During periods of reduced food availability, animals must respond with behavioral adaptations that promote survival. Despite the fact that many psychiatric syndromes include disordered eating patterns as a component of the illness, little is known about the neurobiology underlying behavioral changes induced by short-term calorie restriction. Presently, we demonstrate that 10 days of calorie restriction, corresponding to a 20–25% weight loss, causes a marked antidepressant-like response in two rodent models of depression and that this response is dependent on the hypothalamic neuropeptide orexin (hypocretin). Wild-type mice, but not mice lacking orexin, show longer latency to immobility and less total immobility in the forced swim test after calorie restriction. In the social defeat model of chronic stress, calorie restriction reverses the behavioral deficits seen in wild-type mice but not in orexin knock-out mice. Additionally, chronic social defeat stress induces a prolonged reduction in the expression of prepro-orexin mRNA via epigenetic modification of the orexin gene promoter, whereas calorie restriction enhances the activation of orexin cells after social defeat. Together, these data indicate that orexin plays an essential role in mediating reduced depression-like symptoms induced by calorie restriction.  (free full text)

Honestly, I do not know how I missed that article.   It's so very wonderful...

Everything Old is New Again

Is depression a kind of allergic reaction?

According to a growing number of scientists, this is exactly how we should be thinking about the condition. George Slavich, a clinical psychologist at the University of California in Los Angeles, has spent years studying depression, and has come to the conclusion that it has as much to do with the body as the mind. “I don’t even talk about it as a psychiatric condition any more,” he says. “It does involve psychology, but it also involves equal parts of biology and physical health.”

One more time-  before Freud, depression as an illness was the assumption of all doctors throughout history.
And depression is not caused by Psychology in any way-  other than the fact that Psychologists and their ridiculous magical thinking are the reason the reality based hypothesis has been ignored for a freakin century.

Article Roundup

Hand dryers can spread bacteria in public toilets

Scientists from the University of Leeds have found that high-powered 'jet-air' and warm air hand dryers can spread bacteria in public toilets. Airborne germ counts were 27 times higher around jet air dryers in comparison with the air around paper towel dispensers.

Excellent.   Another universally accepted assumption that was backwards.


Could there be a bright side to depression?
NO.   No no no no no.
I hate this argument.   Thought of it and Dismissed it twenty years ago.
The ruminations are not the evolutionarily adaptive factor in depression.   In mania- for sure.
Fatigue and Immobilization is an evolutionary adaption for FIGHTING INFECTION.


Review: Ketogenic diets suppress appetite despite weight loss

Vegetable oil ingredient key to destroying gastric disease bacteria

The bacterium Helicobacter pylori is strongly associated with gastric ulcers and cancer. To combat the infection, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Jacobs School of Engineering developed LipoLLA, a therapeutic nanoparticle that contains linolenic acid, a component in vegetable oils. In mice, LipoLLA was safe and more effective against H. pylori infection than standard antibiotic treatments.

Depression, Pain More Common in Dry Eye Than Tear Film Flaw
Indicating this is an INFECTION.
As one of my pet peeves, let me just add that "Dry Eye" is a description of a syndrome, and does not qualify as a diagnosis.


Horror in American nursing homes: The dangerous practice that they keep getting away with

An NPR inquiry found that antipsychotics are incorrectly prescribed to hundreds of thousands.

"Chemical Restraints"- such a nice euphemism for poisoning people...

Everything old is new again.

Reconceptualizing major depressive disorder as an infectious disease

Although I agree with everything and will probably write to him and tell him to look up orexin...

This is not a new concept.   Not in any way.
BEFORE FREUD,  Melancholia was assumed to be an illness just like any other.

Yo Psychs

Behold the actual results of your advice-

Depression increasing across the United States

A study by San Diego State University psychology professor Jean M. Twenge shows Americans are more depressed now than they have been in decades.
Analyzing data from 6.9 million adolescents and adults from all over the country, Twenge found that Americans now report more psychosomatic symptoms of depression, such as trouble sleeping and trouble concentrating, than their counterparts in the 1980s.
"Previous studies found that more people have been treated for depression in recent years, but that could be due to more awareness and less stigma," said Twenge, the author of "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- and More Miserable than Ever Before." "This study shows an increase in symptoms most people don't even know are connected to depression, which suggests adolescents and adults really are suffering more."

You aren't addressing the cause.   It's as simple as that.

This is pretty hilarious though...   Puts her in brain-eating territory-

Twenge believes Generation Me would benefit from a heavy dose of realism.

Yes, that's predictable.  Blame everyone else.

I suggest she investigate some reality based mechanisms herself.   Like all those high doses of antibiotics and sugar.

Yo Psychs- Yoo Hoo

New study throws into question long-held belief about depression

In the late 1980s, the now well-known antidepressant Prozac was introduced. The drug works mainly by increasing the amounts of one substance in the brain—serotonin. So scientists came to believe that boosting levels of the signaling molecule was the key to solving depression. Based on this idea, many other drugs to treat the condition entered the picture. But now researchers know that 60 to 70 percent of these patients continue to feel depressed, even while taking the drugs. Kuhn's team set out to study what role, if any, serotonin played in the condition.
To do this, they developed "knockout" mice that lacked the ability to produce serotonin in their brains. The scientists ran a battery of behavioral tests.
Interestingly, the mice were compulsive and extremely aggressive, but didn't show signs of depression-like symptoms. Another surprising finding is that when put under stress, the knockout mice behaved in the same way most of the normal mice did. Also, a subset of the knockout mice responded therapeutically to antidepressant medications in a similar manner to the normal mice. These findings further suggest that serotonin is not a major player in the condition, and different factors must be involved.

That is just beyond snarkable.
Complete and utter refutation of their core premise.   Poof it's gone...

Circling the Truth

See the bias.

Is fast food making us depressed?

Good article.   Almost.   He still thinks fat is involved.   Nothing about insulin...  but he's on the right track.

The Veteran's study looks interesting.  Omega 3 supplements are a good idea, but I'm guessing the results will be disappointing.  Those guys are way sicker than that.   They need rigorous infection suppression.

I clicked on that MoodFood link.   I think that group needs to get together with those Narcolepsy researchers from the Netherlands, learn a little about Orexin and insulin resistance...

...click on the MoodFood homepage, see the graphic.  See The Bias.

Brain Eating Zombie of the Day

Taffy Brodesser-Akner

How Botox Can Solve the Depression Epidemic

I'm sorry dear, but you are desperate and confused.
Yes, shutting down the trigeminal nerve feels great.   My head never felt better than after my eye surgery.
But that information should be used to find the source of the neuralgia.
Not to make money injecting neurotoxin into people's heads to mask the symptoms.

As I Said

Depression in the elderly linked to Alzheimer's risk

"Our results clearly indicate that mild cognitively impaired subjects with depressive symptoms suffer from elevated amyloid-levels when compared with non-depressed individuals," said the study's principal scientist Axel Rominger, MD, from the department of nuclear medicine at the University of Munich in Germany. "The combination of elevated amyloid-levels and coexisting depressive symptoms constitute a patient population with a high risk for faster progression to Alzheimer's disease."

I am the luckiest person in the world.

Their Vision of Your Future

Military Plans To Test Brain Implants To Fight Mental Disorders

Plug into the matrix.  

oh shit I'm having that gut fear response.   go figure.