Category: Depression

A range of common drugs, many available over the counter, help to reduce depression.

Fish oils, statins and common painkillers like aspirin — all available over-the-counter — can help treat depression, research concludes.

The positive effects of these anti-inflammatories are even stronger when taken with antidepressants.

The reason these drugs may help is because inflammation in the body can contribute to depression.

The research found that the most effective anti-inflammatory drugs are:

• Omega-3 fatty acids,
• statins,
• non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs),
• and minocyclines (a type of antibiotic).

The study also found that other anti-inflammatories, like steroids, modafinil and N-acetyl cysteine, were linked to a positive effect on depression.

The conclusions come from an analysis of 30 different studies which collected their results together.

Professor Ed Bullmore, a neuropsychiatrist at Cambridge University, who was not involved in the study, explained:

“The paper uses rigorous statistical methods to combine results from 30 previously published trials, involving about 1600 people with depression.

Based on this large amount of data, they find that anti-inflammatory agents “on average” have modest but robust anti-depressant benefits.

Interestingly, anti-inflammatory agents had a stronger effect when they were taken together with a conventional anti-depressant drug, like an SSRI.”

Around one-third of people given antidepressants do not respond to the medication.

Taking anti-inflammatories, though, reduced depression symptom severity by 52 percent.

They also increased the chance of curing depression symptoms by 79 percent.

Prof Bullmore sounded a note of caution, though:

“The study falls short of providing definitive evidence that any particular agent is an effective anti-depressant, or is likely to work well for everybody with depression.

Even for over the counter drugs and food supplements, it is advisable to let your doctors know what you’re taking, especially if you’re already taking prescribed medication or you experience any side-effects.”

The study was published in the journal Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry (Bai et al., 2019).

One way that depression could be good for you comes from a radical new positive view of depression.

People who are depressed find it easier to let go of goals that are hurting them, research finds.

Depression could be a useful mechanism to stop people doing things that are making them unhappy.

For example, depression could stop people from:

• working too hard,
• taking on too many commitments outside work,
• or aiming for an impossible goal.

Unobtainable goals could spark bouts of depression, which then encourage the person to give up.

This unusual view of depression as a ‘useful’ state comes from a paper published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry.

For the study, some people who were depressed and some who were not were asked to solve some anagrams.

The trick was that some of the anagrams could not be solved.

Ms Katharina Koppe, the study’s first author, explained:

“These unsolvable tasks represented unattainable goals, which it was necessary to give up as soon as possible in order to use the time effectively.”

The results showed that people who were depressed spent less time on the unsolvable anagrams than the control group.

However, depressed people spent the same amount of time on the anagrams that could be solved — showing they still pushed on with tasks that could be completed.

Professor Klaus Rothermund, who co-authored the study, said:

“The general lack of motivation that is typical of many patients with depression apparently gives rise to a greater ability to abandon goals, and one could use this in therapy.”

Giving up on an impossible task is clearly beneficial — as long as the unattainable goal is replaced with something meaningful that can be achieved.

Ms Koppe said:

“If we stop seeing depression simply as a psychological burden, which just needs to be removed through therapy, we might also be able to use the patient’s crisis as an opportunity for personal development.”

The study was published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry (Koppe et al., 2016).

Certain dairy products are associated with lower rates of depression.

People who consume low-fat dairy products are less likely to be depressed than those who prefer whole-fat.

The conclusions come from researchers in Japan and China.

They studied 1,159 Japanese adults aged between 19 and 83.

All were asked about their dairy consumption and levels of depression.

People who ate low-fat dairy between one and four times a week were less depressed, the results showed.

The benefits of dairy products could be down to trytophan, the study’s authors write:

“Dairy products may decrease the prevalence of depressive symptoms due to its beneficial contents, such as tryptophan, an essential amino acid.

Tryptophan can be converted into 5-hydroxytryphtophan (5-HTP) which is subsequently converted into the neurotransmitter serotonin.

Therefore, intake of tryptophan may improve depressive symptoms by increasing the level of serotonin in the brain. It has been confirmed that serotonin deficiency is causally related to depressive symptoms.”

Whole-fat milk consumption, though, was not linked to depressive symptoms.

It may be that the benefits of the tryptophan in milk were cancelled out by the trans-fatty acids.

Only milk and yogurt were measured in the study, not cheese and butter.

As ever with correlational studies — those that find an association between two factors — it is not strong evidence that low fat dairy causes lower depression.

There is still a link to be explained, though.

Some experts also recommend milk for brain health:

Milk consumption has been linked to higher levels of naturally-occurring antioxidants in the brain, a study finds.

Despite this, few Americans reach the recommended daily intake for this healthy brain food.

Professor Debra Sullivan, chair of dietetics at University of Kansas Medical Center, said:

“We have long thought of milk as being very important for your bones and very important for your muscles.

This study suggests that it could be important for your brain as well.”

The study was published in the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology (Cui et al., 2017).

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.

It 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 suited for mapping the fibres in the brain.

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

People who’d experienced depression had hyper-connectivity in areas of the brain which have been associated with rumination.

Young adults who have experienced depression have hyper-connected cognitive and emotional networks, a study finds.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago scanned the brains of 30 adults between the ages of 18 and 23 while they were in a resting state (Jacobs et al., 2014).

The participants had previously experienced depression but were otherwise healthy and not taking any medication.

Their fMRI scans were compared with those of 23 controls who had not experienced serious depression.

They found that people who’d experienced depression had hyper-connectivity in areas of the brain which have been associated with rumination.

Rumination involves running personal problems over and over in your head without coming up with a solution.

Dr Scott Langenecker, associate professor of psychiatry and psychology at UIC, said:

“Rumination is not a very healthy way of processing emotion.

Rumination is a risk factor for depression and for re-occurrence of depression if you’ve had it in the past.”

Along with rumination, the researchers examined how much cognitive control participants had.

Dr Langenecker continued:

“Cognitive control and rumination, as you might expect, are related to each other.

As rumination goes up, cognitive control goes down.”

While the young adults in the study were not currently depressed, given previous research we know that around half of them will relapse within two years.

Young adulthood may be a critical period in which people are more responsive to the correct therapies.

Dr Rachel Jacobs, the study’s first author, said:

“If we can help youth learn how to shift out of maladaptive strategies such as rumination, this may protect them from developing chronic depression and help them stay well as adults.

We think that depression is a developmental outcome, and it’s not a foregone conclusion that people need to become depressed.

If we can provide prevention and treatment to those people that are most at risk, we might be able to prevent depression, reduce the number of depressive episodes, or reduce their severity.”

.