Category: Depression

The symptom occurs in 50 percent of people with depression.

Physical pain is a surprisingly common sign of depression.

Over half of those living with depression experience physical symptoms such as headaches, stomach aches, dizziness and muscle or leg pain.

Indeed, these physical issues are nearly as common as emotional struggles like moodiness, lack of motivation and fatigue.

Even after successful treatment with antidepressants, the physical symptoms can linger after the emotional ones have improved.

Professor Kurt Kroenke, who led the study, said:

“Depression is a risk factor for symptoms of pain.

The most reports of pain – such as muscle pain, headaches, leg pain – are two or three times more common in people with depression.”

The conclusions come from a study of 573 depressed people visiting 37 different clinics in the US.

The results revealed that common antidepressants were less effective when the physical symptoms were more severe.

In one-third of patients, the physical symptoms lasted longer than the emotional ones.

Professor Kroenke said:

“Physical symptoms may not respond to common antidepressant treatment as much as the emotional symptoms.

Even though the physical symptoms may be related to or aggravated by the depression, they can linger longer than the emotional symptoms.”

Professor Kroenke continued:

“While physical symptoms showed, on average, some improvement with antidepressant treatment, the improvement was typically less than was reported for emotional symptoms.

Most of the improvement for the physical symptoms occurred within the first month of treatment, while the emotional symptoms continued to improve over a nine-month period.”

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The study was published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine (Greco et al., 2004).

White matter disruption has been linked to both emotional problems and difficulties with thinking skills.

Depression changes the structure of the brain, according to the results of over 3,000 brain scans.

Changes were seen in the white matter of the brain.

The white matter is the brain’s ‘wiring’, connecting the different areas together.

It contains tracts of fibre down which electrical signals can pass.

White matter disruption has been linked to both emotional problems and difficulties with thinking skills.

The results come from brain scans of 3,461 people.

The study found that people who reported symptoms of depression had reduced white matter integrity.

Dr Heather Whalley, who led the research, said:

“This study uses data from the largest single sample published to date and shows that people with depression have changes in the white matter wiring of their brain.

There is an urgent need to provide treatment for depression and an improved understanding of it mechanisms will give us a better chance of developing new and more effective methods of treatment.

Our next steps will be to look at how the absence of changes in the brain relates to better protection from distress and low mood.”

Scientists used a cutting-edge technique called diffusion tensor imaging.

This technique — which measures the movement of water molecules — is particularly suitable for mapping the fibres in the brain.

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The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports (Shen et al., 2017).