Category: Depression

The supplement reduces inflammation, which is related to depression.

The Indian spice turmeric can help treat major depressive disorder, research finds.

Curcumin — the active ingredient in turmeric — was given to half of 56 participants who were experiencing major depression.

Two doses of 500mg daily was enough to improve several symptoms of depression after one month.

The supplement had the greatest effect on people who also had problems with weight gain, appetite and daytime sleepiness.

Dr Adrian Lopresti, the study’s first author, said:

“In animal-based studies curcumin has been consistently shown to have antidepressant effects and it has been hypothesised that curcumin would have antidepressant effects in people with major depression.

There have been a few positive human-based studies investigating the effects of curcumin in depression.

However, this is the first randomised, double blind, placebo-controlled study and over the longest duration.”

Curcumin is thought to be beneficial because it reduces inflammation, which is linked to depression.

Dr Lopresti said:

“The findings from this study suggest that depression can be treated with an agent that has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.

Our findings support consistent research that depression is associated with increased inflammation.

Despite what has been previously believed, depression is not all about brain chemicals such as serotonin.

This could be why there were particularly good results in the subgroup of volunteers with atypical depression because this condition is often associated with higher levels of inflammatory proteins.”

Dr Lopresti continued:

“It would be useful to investigate whether a higher dose of curcumin will have a greater and more rapid antidepressant effect.

But although curcumin has several potential health benefits, I would not recommend it as a first line of treatment for depression yet. More research is required.”

The study was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders (Lopresti et al., 2014).

World-first study reveals how diet can treat major depression.

Improving dietary quality successfully treats major depression, a large new study finds.

The three-month study recruited people with major depressive disorder.

One group were given support from a clinical dietitian.

A control group were given access to social support, which is also beneficial for depression.

Those in the dietary group saw great improvements in depressive symptoms.

At the end of the study one-third of people who had changed their diet were in remission from depression.

This compared to only 8% in the social support group.

Professor Felice Jacka, the study’s first author, said:

“We’ve known for some time that there is a clear association between the quality of people’s diets and their risk for depression.

This is the case across countries, cultures and age groups, with healthy diets associated with reduced risk, and unhealthy diets associated with increased risk for depression.

However, this is the first randomised controlled trial to directly test whether improving diet quality can actually treat clinical depression.”

The dietitian encouraged people to eat more of the following food types:

• vegetables,
• fruits,
• wholegrains,
• legumes,
• fish,
• lean red meats,
• olive oil,
• and nuts.

At the same time people were discouraged from eating:

• sweets,
• refined cereals,
• fried food,
• fast-food,
• processed meats,
• and sugary drinks.

Professor Jacka continued:

“These results were not explained by changes in physical activity or body weight, but were closely related to the extent of dietary change.

Those who adhered more closely to the dietary program experienced the greatest benefit to their depression symptoms.”

The study suggests that dietitians should be made available to those being treated for depression.

Professor Jacka said:

“Mental disorders account for the leading cause of disability worldwide, with depression accounting for the large proportion of that burden.

While approximately half of sufferers are helped by currently available medical and psychological therapies, new treatment options for depression are urgently needed.

Importantly, depression also increases the risk of and, in turn, is also increased by common physical illnesses such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Successfully improving the quality of patients’ diets would also benefit these illnesses.”

The study was published in the journal BMC Medicine (Jacka et al., 2017).

The posture made people less focused on themselves, more enthusiastic and put them in a better mood.

Changing sitting posture helps to improve depression symptoms, new research finds.

Sitting up straight in a chair was linked to more enthusiasm and less tiredness, the researchers found.

The study’s authors write:

“The upright group reported greater high arousal positive affect, lower fatigue, and spoke more words and fewer singular first-person pronouns in the speech task compared to the usual posture group.”

The importance of using fewer first-person pronouns (“I” and “me”) is that people who are depressed tend to focus on themselves more.

One sign of lower depression is that people focus less on themselves.

For the study, 61 people were asked to give a 5-minute speech while sitting.

Some were asked to sit up straight while doing this, others were given no instructions.

Embodied cognition

The benefits to mood of sitting up straight fit in with a number of other findings, the authors explain:

“… [an] upright posture can counteract fatigue in people with sleep deprivation…

[…]

Increased slumping has been associated with self-reported fatigue and reduced energy in work settings.

In addition, an intervention to improve posture in surgeons performing laparoscopic surgeries resulted in improved posture and reduced surgical fatigue.”

The finding is the latest in an area called ’embodied cognition’.

This is the idea that we think with our bodies as well as our minds.

This is not the first study to find that sitting up straight improves mood:

“People sitting up straight rather than in a hunched position report a better mood, higher self-esteem and a host of other benefits.

Sitting up straight has even been shown to improve memory.

The study’s authors explain the results:

“The upright participants reported feeling more enthusiastic, excited, and strong, while the slumped participants reported feeling more fearful, hostile, nervous, quiet, still, passive, dull, sleepy, and sluggish.

The upright participants also reported higher self-esteem and reduced fear compared to slumped participants.”

The study was published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry (Wilkes et al., 2017).

Jobs with highest depression rates, herbs that beat antidepressants, the four types of depression and more…

Below are some of the latest findings from psychological research on depression.

(For those of you interested in my ebooks — currently on motivation and anxiety — you might like to know I am now working on a new ebook on depression. More news on this to follow…)

1. Jobs with highest depression rates

Bus drivers top the list of occupations with the highest depression rates.

They are closely followed by real estate agents and social workers.

What do these — and the other jobs with the highest rates of depression — have in common?

It’s dealing with the public, as the study’s authors explain:

“…service industries which require frequent or complex interactions with the public or clients are disproportionately represented…

This supports the theory that the stress of emotional labor could contribute to depression.”

2. Forgetting how to be happy

People who are depressed can’t imagine what it’s like to not be depressed.

It is as though they have forgotten what it is like to be happy.

However, non-depressed people can imagine what it is like to be depressed — they seem to recall the state more clearly.

Ms Constance Imbault, the study’s first author, said:

“It’s not that people with depression aren’t capable of feeling like someone who’s not.

People don’t start out being depressed – it’s that they’ve lost the ability to feel emotion altogether.

They’re apathetic.”

3. Saffron beats antidepressants

Extract of saffron, the exotic spice, is a safer alternative to pharmaceutical antidepressants in mild to moderate depression, recent studies find.

Saffron has fewer side effects and is just as effective in some cases.

The conclusions come from a review of six separate studies that included 230 clinically depressed patients.

All the studies were high-quality randomised controlled trials — although they were small.

4. There are 4 types of biological depression

Four types of depression have been newly identified by researchers using brain scans.

The brain scans revealed distinctly different types of brain activity in each sub-type.

The four different types of depression they identified are:

• Biotype 1 is characterised by anxiety, insomnia, and fatigue.
• Biotype 2 is characterised by exhaustion and low energy.
• Biotype 3 is characterised by an inability to feel pleasure as well as slowed movements and speech.
• Biotype 4 is characterised mostly by anxiety with insomnia along with the inability to feel pleasure.

5. Generalised goals

People who are depressed tend to use more generalised goals than others.

They tend to have goals such as: “I want to be happy.”

The problem with general goals is that they are difficult to achieve

6. Cause of depression in the brain

A part of the brain linked to disappointment at not receiving a reward has been linked to depression by a new study.

The area, called the lateral orbitofrontal cortex, normally becomes active when people fail to get a reward they were expecting.

In people who were depressed, this area was more strongly linked to other areas involved in our sense of self and personal loss.

In other words: depressed people are more likely to suffer self-esteem issues and a feeling of loss if they don’t get the rewards they are expecting.

7. Vitamin D deficiency

Vitamin D deficiency is linked to depressive symptoms and more negative thoughts, new research finds.

Vitamin D deficiency is also linked to cognitive impairments in young people.

Foods that have high levels of vitamin D include oily fish and eggs but most people get their vitamin D from the action of sunlight on the skin.

8. Why antidepressants don’t work for 50%

It is well-known that common antidepressants have little to no effect for up to 50% of people.

New research suggests it is at least partly down to people’s environment whether or not antidepressants work.

Antidepressants may give the brain a chance to recover from depression, but more is needed.

The rest could be down to being exposed to relatively low levels of stress.

9. The correct sleep schedule

Spending eight hours in bed at night helps antidepressants to work more effectively, new research finds.

Of those who spent eight hours in bed, 63% saw improvements in their symptoms while taking antidepressants.

After only six hours sleep, though, only one-third saw improvements.

The antidepressant response was also faster for those who had eight hours sleep rather than only six.

Trying supplements

If you are interested in trying saffron or vitamin D supplements, as researched in the studies above, here are some suggestions:

Spice extract has fewer side effects than pharmaceutical antidepressants (includes suggested supplements and dosage).

Extract of saffron, the exotic spice, is a safer alternative to pharmaceutical antidepressants in mild to moderate depression, recent studies find.

Saffron has fewer side effects and is just as effective in some cases.

The conclusions come from a review of six separate studies that included 230 clinically depressed patients.

Using saffron as an antidepressant was compared with both Prozac and Tofranil (generically known as fluoxetine and imipramine).

All the studies were high-quality randomised controlled trials — although they were small.

Dr Adrian Lopresti, the study’s first author, said:

“So far the literature shows saffron is as effective as pharmaceuticals.

Saffron has had a number of really well designed, robust studies investigating its antidepressant properties and pretty much all the studies have been positive.”

Pharmaceuticals can cause a wide range of side effects.

Some of the most common side effects of pharmaceuticals are:

• sleepiness,
• constipation,
• and sexual problems.

Saffron, though, was not linked to such severe or wide-ranging side effects, Dr Lopresti said:

“Saffron certainly had less severe side effects than pharmaceutical medication.

The most common side effect, which is really only minor, was digestive issues.”

It’s not yet known exactly why saffron works, but it is probably at least partly down to its antioxidant effect.

Saffron contains crocin, which is an anti-inflammatory and crocetin, which is an antioxidant.

Dr Lopresti said:

“What’s been found in the literature over the last ten years is that people with depression have high levels of inflammation and free radical damage associated with oxidative stress.

That led to interesting work looking into antioxidants and anti-inflammatories as antidepressants.”

Dr Lopresti hopes to carry out further studies with more people and over longer periods, he said:

“We need thousands of samples to get a good idea of the side effects, but so far it looks like there is a better safety profile for saffron.”

Supplements and dosage

For anyone interested in trying saffron extract for depression, here are a couple of ideas for supplements, depending on whether you prefer a tablet or a liquid:

The doses used in the studies were 15mg taken twice daily.

They should be taken for 6-8 weeks before making a decision about whether it is helping.

The study was published in the journal Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental (Lopresti & Drummond et al., 2014).

Saffron image from Shutterstock

How to keep arguments in proportion in your mind and stop a bad mood in its tracks.

Heated arguments can frequently leave us in a bad mood.

But recalling the details of a disagreement in a particular way can actually stop it leading to anxiety and depression, research finds.

The same is true of other types upsetting or stressful events that can put us in a bad mood.

Remembering where you where, exactly what was said, and — vitally — how it could have been dealt with differently, can all help with a bad mood.

Professor Ed Watkins, who led the research, said:

“Christmas and the New Year can be a tricky time for many people’s mood whether it be due to the colder and darker weather, the often common family tensions and quarrels, which sometimes lead to the reopening of old grievances, finances being tight, or the triggering of unfavourable comparisons with how we want to be this year or against “picture-perfect” ideals of a Merry Christmas.

We often see this in an increase in referrals for treatment for depression in January and February.

Staying with the details of what happens and keeping it in context can be one way to prevent these challenges of the festive season becoming something worse.”

In the studies, people were trained to focus on the sensory details of the upsetting experiences.

For example:

• What was the tone of your voice?
• What were the exact words used?
• What exactly happened then?

People who did this recovered more quickly from moderately upsetting experiences.

A clinical trial in patients with depression asked them to focus on and re-imagine stressful events.

They thought about what they could see, hear, smell and feel.

Daily training at spotting the warning signs of stress helped them reduce the symptoms of depression.

Rumination and a bad mood

The findings are surprising because typically running over troubling events, or ruminating, is linked to worsening depression.

But this method of re-imagining is different, Professor Watkins explained, because it is constructive:

“We know that rumination about upsets and losses is a big factor in getting and staying anxious and depressed.

Often clinical depression can follow a difficult life event, such as losing a job, the end of a relationship, illness, or being trapped in a stressful situation.

Furthermore, once people are depressed, the normal hassles and challenges of daily life can themselves lead into more rumination and get blown out of proportion, further fuelling the depression.

So being more concrete by reducing the negative impact of daily hassles can help people to come out of depression,”

Professor Watkins continued:

“We have found in the lab that when people train themselves to think about the specific sensory details, context and sequence of an emotional event, including how it unfolded, they were more emotionally resilient to an unexpected stressor than those who thought about the meaning and implications of emotional events.

Similar studies showed that when people with depression are encouraged to focus on how an upsetting event happened and how it unfolded it improved their ability to solve problems such as arguing with their partner, and with repeated practice, this can in fact hasten recovery out of depression itself.”

The research was conducted in the lab of Professor Ed Watkins at the University of Exeter.

Warning: depression linked to setting the wrong type of goals.

People who are depressed tend to use more generalised goals than others.

They tend to have goals such as: “I want to be happy.”

The problem with general goals is that they are difficult to achieve.

Depressed people also give less specific reasons for trying to reach their goals.

People who are not depressed, however, tend to have more specific goals, such as “I want to take a 30 minute walk every day.”

Dr Joanne Dickson, the study’s first author, said:

“We found that the goals that people with clinical depression listed lacked a specific focus, making it more difficult to achieve them and therefore creating a downward cycle of negative thoughts.”

It may be that more general goals are harder to visualise, which partly explains why they are harder to achieve.

Depressed people are motivated

One fascinating thing that came out of a related study was that depressed people are just as motivated as the non-depressed.

For the research the depressed and non-depressed listed their goals.

Dr Dickson said:

“…both groups listed a similar number of goals and valued their personal goals similarly.

However the group with depression were more pessimistic about achieving their goals and had more difficulty generating goals focused on positive outcomes.

The group with depression were also more likely to give up on goals they saw as unattainable and at the same time reported greater difficulty in setting new goals to pursue.

While disengaging from unattainable goals is thought to help break a cycle of goal failure, negative thinking and depression this is complicated by the difficulty in setting new goals for people with depression.”

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE (Dickson et al., 2016).

Fight depression by thinking flexibly, watching what you eat and using your support network correctly.

Along with getting some exercise and perhaps a little meditation, here are seven ways to decrease depression.

1. Think flexibly

The key to healthy emotional control is to be flexible, new research finds.

People with lower levels of depression and anxiety tend to vary their emotional control strategy successfully depending on whether the situation can be explained.

When the situation can be changed, it is better to let your emotions — whatever they may be — motivate that change, rather than trying to change the emotions.

When the situation can’t be changed, however, it is better to try and change the emotion.

2. 30 minutes in the park

People who spend just 30 minutes a week in a park have much better mental health than those who don’t.

Visiting parks weekly is also linked to lower blood pressure, the Australian research has found.

Dr Danielle Shanahan, the study’s first author, said:

“If everyone visited their local parks for half an hour each week there would be seven per cent fewer cases of depression and nine percent fewer cases of high blood pressure.

Even staring at trees is enough to reduce people’s stress level, research finds.

3. Take care of your gut

Nutrition is one of the most overlooked factors in depression.

The Mediterranean diet in particular provides the vitamins and minerals the body and brain need.

Also consider omega-3 supplements, which have been found to help with major depression.

Probiotics may stop sadness turning into depression by helping people let go of the past, a recent study finds.

The reason is probably that bacteria in the intestine can play an important role in anxiety and depression.

Probiotics may work to help stabilise the bacteria in the gut.

4. Music therapy

Music therapy can reduce depression in young people with behaviour problems, new research finds.

Music therapy also increased self-esteem compared to those who received the usual treatment without the therapy.

The conclusions come from the largest every study of its kind.

It involved 251 children, only half of whom were given music therapy.

Read on about the study —>

5. Fight depression with herbs

The herb roseroot could be an effective alternative to antidepressants, a recent study finds.

Compared with a modern SSRI, roseroot has fewer side effects and similar antidepressant effects, finds a clinical trial.

The study tested oral R. rosea extract against sertraline, an SSRI antidepressant and compared these with a placebo.

The big difference was in the side effects.

63% reported side effects from the SSRI antidepressant versus 30% on the herbs for depression.

So, herbs for depression could be worth a try.

6. Boost antidepressant effectiveness

If you are taking antidepressants, then consider these 4 natural supplements found to boost antidepressant effectiveness and fight depression.

1. Omega 3 fish oils,
2. S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe),
3. methylfolate (bioactive form of folate),
4. and vitamin D.

Dr Jerome Sarris, the study’s first author, said it was another vote of confidence for omega-3:

“The strongest finding from our review was that Omega 3 fish oil – in combination with antidepressants – had a statistically significant effect over a placebo.

Many studies have shown Omega 3s are very good for general brain health and improving mood, but this is the first analysis of studies that looks at using them in combination with antidepressant medication.

7. Call on your support network

This could be the most important factor of all.

Having social support quadruples the chance of depression recovery, new research finds.

Emotionally supportive relationships are one of the keys to successful recovery from major depression.

The researchers found that 39% of people who experienced major depression made a complete recovery.

Two of the best ways to fight depression in the long term were by using exercise and turning to spirituality.

Only 30% suffered side effects on herbs for depression, compared with 60% who were on antidepressants.

The herb roseroot could be an effective alternative to antidepressants, a recent study finds.

Compared with a modern SSRI, roseroot has fewer side effects and similar antidepressant effects, finds a clinical trial.

Roseroot — a perennial flowing plant found in the world’s colder regions — has long been used in Russia and Scandinavia.

It has traditionally been used to help people deal with the stressful life and cold climate.

It is also used in traditional Chinese medicine.

The recent study tested oral R. rosea extract against sertraline, an SSRI antidepressant and compared these with a placebo.

57 people with mild to moderate depression were included in the trial.

They were all suffering from typical depression symptoms including:

• fatigue,
• inability to concentrate,
• thoughts of death,
• weight gain or loss,
• and insomnia.

They were split into three groups and given either the herbs for depression, the SSRI antidepressant, or a placebo.

The results showed that the roseroot extract had a similar effect on the symptoms to the antidepressant.

Herbs for depression have fewer side effects

But the big difference was in the side effects.

63% reported side effects from the SSRI antidepressant versus 30% on the herbs for depression.

Sexual dysfunction and nausea were twice as common among those taking the SSRI antidepressant.

Dr Jun J. Mao, who led the study, said:

“These results are a bit preliminary but suggest that herbal therapy may have the potential to help patients with depression who cannot tolerate conventional antidepressants due to side effects.

Larger studies will be needed to fully evaluate the benefit and harm of R. rosea as compared to conventional antidepressants.”

The study’s authors write:

“Furthermore, many individuals with more mild depressive symptoms weigh concerns over side effects alongside the limited benefits and costs of conventional antidepressant therapy.

Thus, it is not surprising that depressive symptoms are among the most common reasons cited by consumers to choose alternative therapy.”

The study was published in the journal Phytomedicine (Mao et al., 2016).

Image credit: Dolina Tomanowa (CC BY 2.5)

Back pain treatment could also help treat depression, fatigue and common digestive disorders.

Taking a placebo — a fake pill — reduces back pain 30% even when people know it is fake.

Professor Ted Kaptchuk, one of the study’s authors, explained:

“These findings turn our understanding of the placebo effect on its head.

This new research demonstrates that the placebo effect is not necessarily elicited by patients’ conscious expectation that they are getting an active medicine, as long thought.

Taking a pill in the context of a patient-clinician relationship — even if you know it’s a placebo — is a ritual that changes symptoms and probably activates regions of the brain that modulate symptoms.”

It had been thought that the so-called ‘placebo effect’ relies on patient’s beliefs about what the fake pill will do for them.

Belief being so powerful, it can change the experience of pain dramatically.

But this study questions all that.

Treat depression and fatigue?

In the research, patients with lower back pain either had traditional treatment or a placebo pill in addition to the traditional treatment.

The traditional treatment was usually ibuprofen.

Patients taking the pills labelled ‘placebo pills’ saw 30% reductions in usual and maximum pain, as well as a 29% reduction in pain-related disability.

Equivalent figures for those taking ibuprofen, or similar, was 9% reduction in usual pain, 16% reduction in maximum pain and no improvement for pain-related disability.

Professor Kaptchuk said:

“It’s the benefit of being immersed in treatment: interacting with a physician or nurse, taking pills, all the rituals and symbols of our healthcare system.

The body responds to that.”

Dr Claudia Carvalho, the study’s first author, said:

“Our findings demonstrate the placebo effect can be elicited without deception.

Patients were interested in what would happen and enjoyed this novel approach to their pain.

They felt empowered.”

Placebos could also be used to treat some other ailments such as depression, fatigue and common digestive disorders.

Dr Carvalho said:

“You’re never going to shrink a tumor or unclog an artery with placebo intervention.

It’s not a cure-all, but it makes people feel better, for sure.

Our lab is saying you can’t throw the placebo into the trash can.

It has clinical meaning, it’s statically significant, and it relieves patients. It’s essential to what medicine means.

Taking placebo pills to relieve symptoms without a warm and empathic relationship with a health-care provider relationship probably would not work.”

The study was published in the journal Pain (Carvalho et al., 2016).