Category: Depression

Light therapy can provide an instant boost for those suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder, but it’s not the best treatment.

Light therapy may not be the best way to treat seasonal affective disorder or SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), a study finds.

Instead, cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) may be a better choice.

Professor Kelly Rohan, who led the study, said:

“Light therapy is a palliative treatment, like blood pressure medication, that requires you to keep using the treatment for it to be effective.

Adhering to the light therapy prescription upon waking for 30 minutes to an hour every day for up to five months in dark states can be burdensome.”

Light therapy can be useful for an instant boost, but, the study found, therapy is more effective in the long-run.

In the study, researchers put people suffering from SAD into two different groups for six weeks of treatment:

• One group received light therapy equipment which they were encouraged to use for 30 minutes each morning.
• The other group were taught a version of CBT that challenged negative thoughts and attempted to change behaviours.

In therapy people learned to avoid social isolation, which can depress mood.

It also tried to challenge the idea that the dark winter months are inevitably depressing.

The study found that while people were keen on the light therapy at the start, by the second winter only 30% were still using the equipment.

CBT, though, gave people the skills they needed to cope.

Having better skills leads to a feeling of control over the situation — which is usually helpful.

Both treatments, though, are probably similarly effective over the short-term, said Professor Rohan:

“The degree of improvement was substantial.

Both treatments showed large, clinically significant improvements in depressive symptoms over six weeks in the winter.”

The study was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry (Rohan et al., 2015).

The antioxidants in mushrooms likely help to prevent against various mental illnesses.

Mushrooms could reduce the risk of depression substantially, a study suggests.

People who eat around 5 g per day of mushrooms, on average, have a 31 percent lower risk of developing depression symptoms.

A portion of mushrooms is around 80 g, suggesting that eating them once a week is all that is required to gain the benefit.

The researchers found no additional benefit to depression in eating more than a moderate amount of mushrooms.

Dr Djibril Ba, the study’s first author, said:

“Mushrooms are the highest dietary source of the amino acid ergothioneine — an anti-inflammatory which cannot be synthesized by humans.

Having high levels of this may lower the risk of oxidative stress, which could also reduce the symptoms of depression.”

Other studies have shown that antioxidants help to prevent mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

The study included over 24,000 people in the U.S. whose diet and mental health was tracked over more than a decade.

The study did not differentiate between the benefits of different types of mushrooms.

However, white button mushrooms, one of the most common types eaten in the U.S., have previously been linked to lower levels of anxiety.

Professor Joshua Muscat, study co-author, said:

“The study adds to the growing list of possible health benefits of eating mushrooms.”

The humble mushroom, now known as a ‘superfood’, has already been linked to weight loss and lowering the risk of both cancer and premature death.

Mushrooms halve risk of memory loss

Another recent study found that two portions of mushrooms a week halve the risk of memory loss (Feng et al., 2019).

Mild cognitive impairment, as it is known, is frequently a precursor to dementia.

It involves forgetfulness, along with problems with language and attention.

Older people eating around half a plate of mushrooms per week, though, were at half the risk of developing the condition.

Even one small portion of mushrooms a week may be enough to have a meaningful effect.

The study was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders (Ba et al., 2021).