Category: Depression

The study compared depressed and non-depressed people.

People who are depressed have difficulty appreciating or recalling positive experiences, research finds.

Compared with non-depressed people, those who feel depressed find it harder to remember positives.

For example, a depressed person starting an exercise programme might notice their new aches and pains, but not the weight they are losing.

Depressed people need to make a special effort to see the positives, whereas non-depressed people tend to notice them automatically.

Dr Laren Conklin, the study’s first author, said:

“Since depression is characterized by negative thinking, it is easy to assume that depressed people learn the negative lessons of life better than non-depressed people – but that’s not true.”

In fact, when tested, non-depressed people were just as good as the depressed at learning negative information.

The study involved depressed and non-depressed people playing a computer game that encouraged them to learn positive and negative information.

It linked clinical depression to how people form attitudes to new information.

The non-depressed could learn both positive and negative information, but not so the depressed, explained Dr Daniel Strunk, study co-author:

“The depressed people showed a bias against learning positive information although they had no trouble learning the negative.”

The more depressed people were, the harder they found it to recall the positive information.

Dr Conklin said:

“Depressed people may have a tendency to remember the negative experiences in a situation, but not remember the good things that happened.

Therapists need to be aware of that.

Dr Strunk said:

“Therapists might focus more on helping their depressed clients recognize and remember the positive aspects of their new experiences.”

The study was published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry (Conklin et al., 2008).

The cause could be a lack of new brain cells in the hippocampus.

Depressed people find it harder to tell similar memories apart, research finds.

It may be difficult for depressed people to remember who they have told what, or where something happened.

The more depressed people are, the more they seem to forget the details that help to make memories distinct.

The cause could be a lack of new brain cells in the hippocampus, an area vital to memory.

It is not a generalised memory problem, though, the researchers think.

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Professor Brock Kirwan, study co-author, said:

“That’s really the novel aspect of this study — that we are looking at a very specific aspect of memory.”

For the study, people were asked to look at a series of objects on the computer screen.

Some they had seen before on the test, some were similar and some were new.

The results showed that the more depressed people were, the more trouble they had differentiating the similar objects.

In other words, they mixed up similar memories — although they had no problem with distinguishing new objects from those they had already seen.

This suggests it is not a general problem with memory.

Professor Kirwan said:

“They don’t have amnesia, they are just missing the details.

The reason for the memory problems could be down to a lack of new brain cells in an area of the brain critical to memory: the hippcampus.

Professor Kirwan said:

“There are two areas in your brain where you grow new brain cells.

One is the hippocampus, which is involved in memory.

It turns out that this growth is decreased in cases of depression.”

The study was published in the journal Behavioural Brain Research (Shelton & Kirwan, 2013).

Diet reduced chance of developing depression by 11%.

The ‘DASH’ diet may reduce the chances of developing depression, new research finds.

‘DASH’ stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), a diet designed to fight high blood pressure.

The DASH diet is reasonably straightforward and involves eating lots of fruit, vegetables and whole grains.

It also includes:

• fat-free or low-fat dairy products,
• fish,
• poultry,
• beans,
• nuts,
• and vegetable oils.

It recommends limiting intake of sugar, fatty meats, full-fat dairy, palm oil and foods high in saturated fats.

In contrast, the Western diet — what people tend to eat in the Western world — was linked to a higher rate of depression by the research.

Typically the Western diet is high in red meats and saturated fats and low in fruits and vegetables.

Dr Laurel Cherian, study author, said:

“Depression is common in older adults and more frequent in people with memory problems, vascular risk factors such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol, or people who have had a stroke.

Making a lifestyle change such as changing your diet is often preferred over taking medications, so we wanted to see if diet could be an effective way to reduce the risk of depression.”

The study included 964 people who were followed for around 6 years.

The results showed that following the diet more closely was linked to an 11% reduction in depression risk.

Dr Cherian said:

“Future studies are now needed to confirm these results and to determine the best nutritional components of the DASH diet to prevent depression later in life and to best help people keep their brains healthy.”

The study will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 70th Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, April 21 to 27, 2018.

The study confirmed that people eat twice as much of this when they feel down.

People eat more than twice as much chocolate per month when they feel depressed, research finds.

The more depressed they get, the more chocolate they eat, the study also found.

Depressed people ate the equivalent of 12 candy bars per month, compared with 5 for the non-depressed.

Professor Beatrice Golomb, who led the study, said:

“Our study confirms long-held suspicions that eating chocolate is something that people do when they are feeling down.

Because it was a cross sectional study, meaning a slice in time, it did not tell us whether the chocolate decreased or intensified the depression.”

…or eating chocolate could have no effect on depression whatsoever.

The results come from a survey of around 1,000 people who were asked about their chocolate intake and their levels of depression.

The results showed that both men and women with higher depression scores ate 12 servings of chocolate a month, on average.

A ‘serving’ is equivalent to around 1 candy bar.

Those who were not depressed ate only 5 servings per month.

Professor Golomb said:

“The findings did not appear to be explained by a general increase in caffeine, fat, carbohydrate or energy intake, suggesting that our findings are specific to chocolate.”

Another study has shown that countries with higher suicide and homicide rates have higher rates of chocolate consumption.

This further enhances the mysterious link between depression and chocolate.

On a separate tack, it’s also been found that countries with higher chocolate consumption have more Nobel Prize recipients.

However, it is dark chocolate, containing vital cocoa flavanols, that is usually linked to increases in brain function.

The study was published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine (Rose et al., 2010).

People get more suicidal in these unexpected places.

Living in happier countries and states may make people more suicidal, research finds.

Countries like the United States, Canada, Iceland, Switzerland and Ireland have relatively high levels of happiness.

Despite this, they also have disproportionately high levels of suicide.

It is known as the ‘happiness-suicide’ paradox.

The same is true from one US state to another.

New York state ranks 45th out of US states for life satisfaction, but has the lowest suicide rate in the country.

Utah, which frequently comes top for life satisfaction, has the 9th highest suicide rate.

The most dramatic case for a country is Denmark — sometimes known as the happiest in the world.

Despite this, it also has a disproportionately high suicide rate.

The finding might seem paradoxical, but makes some sense.

Many people judge their own situation by comparing themselves with others.

If you are feeling down and everyone else seems happier, it makes you feel worse.

Professor Stephen Wu, study co-author, explains:

“This result is consistent with other research that shows that people judge their well-being in comparison to others around them.

These types of comparison effects have also been shown with regards to income, unemployment, crime, and obesity.”

The study’s authors write:

“Discontented people in a happy place may feel particularly harshly treated by life.

Those dark contrasts may in turn increase the risk of suicide.

If humans are subject to mood swings, the lows of life may thus be most tolerable in an environment in which other humans are unhappy.

Whether such relative comparisons work by producing discord due to unmet aspirations, or reflect a real inability to integrate into broader society and gain access to key supports, remains to be understood.”

The study was published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (Daly et al., 2011).

DNA analysis of 300,000+ people explores how personality and depression are linked.

The personality trait of neuroticism predicts depression, research finds.

DNA analysis from over 300,000 people has found that the genes linked to neuroticism are also linked to depression.

Over half of the genetic variations associated with neuroticism are expressed in the brain.

People who are neurotic have more frequent feelings of guilt, anxiety and worry.

Dr Michelle Luciano, the study’s first author, said:

“This is the largest study of its kind in the area of personality.

These discoveries promise paths to understand the mechanisms whereby some people become depressed, and of broader human differences in happiness.

They are a resource for those seeking treatments for depression.”

Researchers used genetic data from people aged 39 to 73.

Their neuroticism was measured by a questionnaire and genetic analysis found 116 genetic variations linked to neuroticism.

Professor Ian Deary, study co-author, said:

“For millennia it has been recognised that people have a greater or lesser tendency to feel low, worry, and experience other negative emotions.

We knew that a part of the explanation is genetic differences between people, but it’s been a mystery which genes are involved.

These new results, from the very large UK Biobank sample, make a substantial contribution to solving that mystery by pointing to many specific places in the genome that are linked with neuroticism.”

The study was published in the journal Nature Genetics (Luciano et al., 2017).

Poor sleep is frequently linked to depression and anxiety.

Getting less than 8 hours per night is linked to depression and anxiety, research finds.

People who get less than this amount of sleep show increases in intrusive, repetitive thoughts.

The study found that sleep disrupted people had difficulty switching their attention away from negative thoughts.

Professor Meredith Coles, study co-author, said:

“We found that people in this study have some tendencies to have thoughts get stuck in their heads, and their elevated negative thinking makes it difficult for them to disengage with the negative stimuli that we exposed them to.

While other people may be able to receive negative information and move on, the participants had trouble ignoring it.”

The study involved people looking at pictures that triggered different emotional responses.

The less people slept, the more difficulty that had moving their attention away from the worrying pictures.

Getting stuck on negative thoughts — also known as rumination — is central to depression and anxiety.

Professor Coles said:

“We realized over time that this might be important — this repetitive negative thinking is relevant to several different disorders like anxiety, depression and many other things.

This is novel in that we’re exploring the overlap between sleep disruptions and the way they affect these basic processes that help in ignoring those obsessive negative thoughts.”

The researchers hope their study will provide insights into how people’s sleep patterns can be shifted to help treat their depression and anxiety.

The study was published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry (Nota & Coles, 2018).

The drug takes effect within hours.

Ketamine — a type of anaesthetic — has anti-suicidal effects within hours of administration, new research finds.

The drug performed better than a commonly used sedative called midazolam.

The drug could be useful for those experiencing suicidal thoughts.

Dr Michael Grunebaum, the study’s first author, said:

“There is a critical window in which depressed patients who are suicidal need rapid relief to prevent self-harm.

Currently available antidepressants can be effective in reducing suicidal thoughts in patients with depression, but they can take weeks to have an effect.

Suicidal, depressed patients need treatments that are rapidly effective in reducing suicidal thoughts when they are at highest risk.

Currently, there is no such treatment for rapid relief of suicidal thoughts in depressed patients.”

The study compared ketamine with midazolam in a group of 80 people experiencing suicidal thoughts.

Those given ketamine showed a greater reduction in suicidal thoughts.

Researchers found that the beneficial effects of ketamine persisted six weeks later.

Dr Grunebaum said:

“This study shows that ketamine offers promise as a rapidly acting treatment for reducing suicidal thoughts in patients with depression.

Additional research to evaluate ketamine’s antidepressant and anti-suicidal effects may pave the way for the development of new antidepressant medications that are faster acting and have the potential to help individuals who do not respond to currently available treatments.”

The study was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry (Grunebaum et al., 2017).

Many colouring in books advertise themselves as ‘art therapy’, but do they make people feel better?

Colouring in books do help to improve people’s mood, new research finds.

However, ‘real’ art therapy has other advantages on top, the authors argue.

Dr Girija Kaimal, who led the study, said:

“The main takeaway is that coloring has some limited benefits like reducing stress and negative mental states.

But it does not shift anything else of substance, develop relationships, nor result in any personal development.”

Art therapists argue that therapy is about more than just feeling better, it is about growing oneself.

The study compared simple colouring in with a 40-minute art therapy session.

This involved people creating art while being facilitated by an art therapist.

Both groups showed similar improvements in wellbeing after the sessions.

However, Dr Kaimal explained that the art therapy had some additional effects:

“The art therapists’ open studio sessions resulted in more empowerment, creativity and improved mood, which are significant for individuals striving to improve their quality of life and make lasting change.

Many of the outcomes were enabled through the relational support from the art therapist

The art therapist-facilitated session involves more interpersonal interaction, problem solving around creative choices and expression, empowerment and perhaps more learning about the self and others.

That all contributes to the outcomes we saw.”

Colouring in, then, can be effective to make you feel better in the short-term.

Dr Kaimal said:

“Coloring might allow for some reduction in distress or negativity, but since it is a structured task, it might not allow for further creative expression, discovery and exploration which we think is associated with the positive mood improvements we saw in the open studio condition.”

The study was published in the journal Canadian Art Therapy Association Journal (Kaimal et al., 2017).

Surveys of over half a million teens in the US hint at worrying trend.

More time in front of screens may be to blame for the increase in depression and suicidal behaviours among young people, study finds.

Girls may be particularly prone to the possible negative effects of too much time spent on smartphones tablets and computers.

The conclusions come from surveys of over half a million teens in the US.

These have found that suicide rates for girls aged 13-18 have increased 65% between 2010 and 2015.

The number of teenage girls reporting severe depression also increased 58% in this period.

Professor Jean Twenge, the study’s first author, said:

“These increases in mental health issues among teens are very alarming.

Teens are telling us they are struggling, and we need to take that very seriously.

When I first saw these sudden increases in mental health issues, I wasn’t sure what was causing them.

But these same surveys ask teens how they spend their leisure time, and between 2010 and 2015, teens increasingly spent more time with screens and less time on other activities.

That was by far the largest change in their lives during this five-year period, and it’s not a good formula for mental health.”

The study showed that those who spent more than 5 hours per day on electronic devices had almost twice the suicidal tendencies of those spent an hour or less per day.

Professor Twenge recommends limiting screen-time to around one or two hours per day to decrease the risk.

Professor Twenge said:

“Although we can’t say for sure that the growing use of smartphones caused the increase in mental health issues, that was by far the biggest change in teens’ lives between 2010 and 2015.”

On a more positive note, the study found reduced depression and suicide was linked to:

• sports and exercise,
• doing homework,
• talking to real people in real life!

Because of its design, this study cannot tell us that increased screen time is causing depression and suicide.

It could be that depressed teens tend to use screens more.

The study was published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science (Twenge et al., 2017).