Welcome to 5/15/13 podcast of The Healthy Mind with Dr. Zafirides. What does a sore throat have to do with depression? It may very well be the key to understanding why people get depressed – and how to treat them! This week, Dr. Z discusses the role of antidepressant medications in the treatment of depression – their usefulness, their limitations and why they may not be the answer for everyone. If you are confused as to whether antidepressants are right for you or they haven’t been all that effective for you, join Dr. Z for a lively conversation on this very important issue. 
 

In Health News:
1. Do Migraines and Depression Shrink Your Brain?
2. Untreated Emotional Illness Can Be Harmful To Your Longevity

All this, and “The Healthy Mind Headlines” on this week’s podcast! Welcome!!

NOTE: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our TERMS AND CONDITIONS.   

Older people with a history of migraines and depression may have smaller brain tissue volumes than people with only one or neither of the conditions, according to a new study in the online journal of Neurology.

“Studies show that people with migraine have double the risk of depression compared to people without migraine,” said study author Larus S. Gudmundsson, PhD, with the National Institute on Aging and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, in Bethesda, Md. “We wanted to find out whether having both conditions together possibly affected brain size.”

For the study, over 4000 people (average age was 51) were tested for migraine headache from 1967 to 1991. They were later assessed from 2002 to 2006 (average age was 76) for a history of depression.. Participants also underwent MRI, from which brain tissue volumes were estimated. A total of 37 individuals had a history of both migraine and depression, while 2,753 had neither condition.

Size Matters

The study found that people with both migraine and depression had slightly smaller brains. Individuals with both conditions had brain tissue volumes an average of 19.2 milliliters smaller than those without either condition. There was no difference in the total brain volume when comparing people with only one of the conditions to people with neither condition.

“It is important to note that participants in this study were imaged using MRI once, so we cannot say that migraine and depression resulted in brain atrophy. In future studies, we need to examine at what age participants develop both migraine and depression and measure their brain volume changes over time in order to determine what comes first,” said Gudmundsson.

Dr. Gudmundsson also noted that some of the factors leading to a joint effect of migraine and depression on brain volume may include pain, brain inflammation, genetics and differences in a combination of social and economic factors. “Our study suggests that people with both migraine and depression may represent a unique group from those with only one of these conditions and may also require different strategies for long-term treatment.”

May 22,  2013
The Healthy Mind Network
 

Story Source: The above story contains original content and/or information reprinted and editorially adapted by The Healthy Mind. Material is provided by the American Academy of Neurology. 

Image Credit: Telemetry9

NOTE: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our TERMS AND CONDITIONS.    

Welcome to 5/15/13 podcast of The Healthy Mind with Dr. Zafirides. This week, I discuss the mind-body relationship between our emotions and physical pain. You’ll learn how our brain uses physical pain as a purposeful, survival-based refuge from deeper emotional pain. Using the existing research, I discuss significant inconsistencies in the current medical understanding of chronic pain. This is information you need to know. Don’t believe anyone who tells you that you have to live with chronic pain forever. If you or some you love suffers with chronic pain, please join me for a very special episode of The Healthy Mind podcast.

In Health News:
1. Handling Stress: How Your Emotional Style May Be Creating Anxiety
2. Can Fish Oil Reverse The Brain Damaging Effects Of Junk Food?

All this, and “The Healthy Mind Headlines” on this week’s podcast! Welcome!!

NOTE: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our TERMS AND CONDITIONS.   

Data from more than 180 research papers suggests fish oils could minimize the effects that junk food can have on the brain. This review was recently completed by researchers at the University of Liverpool.

Research over the past 10 years has indicated that high-fat diets could disrupt neurogenesis – a process that generates new nerve cells. But diets rich in omega-3s could prevent these negative effects by stimulating the area of the brain that control feeding, learning and memory.

Fish oils do not have a direct impact in these areas of the brain. Instead, they appear to play a significant role in stalling the ability of refined sugars and saturated fats to block the brain’s control of how much food we consume.

Reverse, Restore, Prevent

Dr Lucy Pickavance, from the University of Liverpool says consuming junk food (high in fat and refined sugars) can lead to obesity which leads to changes in the brain. ”These changes can be seen in the brain’s structure, including its ability to generate new nerve cells, potentially linking obesity to neurodegenerative diseases. Research, however, has suggested that omega-3 fish oils can reverse or even prevent these effects.”

Research shows that high-fat diets create and increase in inflammatory molecules and triglycerides. These substances decrease the ability of brain-protecting hormones to gain access the brain. The result? Neurogenesis (the growth of new nerve cells) is decreased and nerve cells can suffer damage.

Research also suggests that diets rich in omega-3s can restore normal function by interfering with the production of these inflammatory molecules, suppressing triglycerides, and returning these nerve growth factors to normal.

Dr Pickavance added: “Fish oils don’t appear to have a direct impact on weight loss, but they may take the brakes off the detrimental effects of some of the processes triggered in the brain by high-fat diets. They seem to mimic the effects of calorie restrictive diets and including more oily fish or fish oil supplements in our diets could certainly be a positive step forward for those wanting to improve their general health.”

Related Article: How Stress Affects Brain Cells…and Mood

May 13,  2013
The Healthy Mind Network
 

Story Source: The above story contains original content and/or information reprinted and editorially adapted by The Healthy Mind. Material is provided by the University of Liverpool and Eurekalerts. 

Image Credit: Telemetry9

NOTE: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our TERMS AND CONDITIONS.    

How do you handle stress? Do you tend to see the glass as half-empty or half-full?Do you tend to express your emotions or are you a “stuffer”?

New research suggests that the way you regulate your emotions, in bad times and in good, can influence whether – or how much – you suffer from anxiety. The study appears in the journal Emotion.

In a series of questionnaires, researchers asked 179 healthy men and women how they managed their emotions and how anxious they felt in various situations. The team analyzed the results to see if different emotional strategies were associated with more or less anxiety.

Reappraisal Is Key

The study revealed that those who engage in an emotional regulation strategy called reappraisal tended to also have less social anxiety and less anxiety in general than those who avoid expressing their feelings. Reappraisal involves looking at a problem in a new way, said University of Illinois graduate student Nicole Llewellyn, who led the research with psychology professor Florin Dolcos, an affiliate of the Beckman Institute at Illinois.

“When something happens, you think about it in a more positive light, a glass half full instead of half empty,” Llewellyn said. “You sort of reframe and reappraise what’s happened and think what are the positives about this? What are the ways I can look at this and think of it as a stimulating challenge rather than a problem?”

Study participants who regularly used this approach reported less severe anxiety than those who tended to suppress their emotions.

Anxiety disorders are a major public health problem in the U.S. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, roughly 18 percent of the U.S. adult population is afflicted with general or social anxiety that is so intense that it warrants a diagnosis.

“The World Health Organization predicts that by 2020, anxiety and depression –which tend to co-occur – will be among the most prevalent causes of disability worldwide, secondary only to cardiovascular disease,” Dolcos said. “So it’s associated with big costs.”

Good Anxiety

Not all anxiety is bad, however, he said. Low-level anxiety may help you maintain the kind of focus that gets things done. Suppressing or putting a lid on your emotions also can be a good strategy in a short-term situation, such as when your boss yells at you, Dolcos said. Similarly, an always-positive attitude can be dangerous, causing a person to ignore health problems, for example, or to engage in risky behavior.

Previous studies had found that people who were temperamentally inclined to focus on making good things happen were less likely to suffer from anxiety than those who focused on preventing bad things from happening, Llewellyn said. But she could find no earlier research that explained how this difference in focus translated to behaviors that people could change. The new study appears to explain the strategies that contribute to a person having more or less anxiety, she said.

“This is something you can change,” she said. “You can’t do much to affect the genetic or environmental factors that contribute to anxiety. But you can change your emotion regulation strategies.”

May 13,  2013
The Healthy Mind Network
 

Story Source: The above story contains original content and/or information reprinted and editorially adapted by The Healthy Mind. Material is provided by the University of Illinois and Eurekalerts. 

NOTE: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our TERMS AND CONDITIONS.    

Welcome to 5/8/13 podcast of The Healthy Mind with Dr. Zafirides. This week, Dr. Z dives in to the topic of fear. Using a story about a life lesson learned from a diving board, he takes you on a journey into the way our mind works when it comes to fear and anxiety. He explains why this happens and provides you with “swimmingly-good” (sorry, we couldn’t resist!) tips to help you tame your fears – starting today! Join us for a very empowering podcast. You’ll really be happy you did. Welcome!!

In Health News:
1. How Stress Affects Your Brain Cells… and Your Mood
2. When Stress Causes Pain: A Genetic Risk Factor Is Found

All this, and “The Healthy Mind Headlines” on this week’s podcast! Welcome!!

NOTE: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our TERMS AND CONDITIONS.   

Research from King’s College London reveals the detailed mechanism behind how stress hormones reduce the number of new brain cells – a process considered to be linked to depression. The researchers identified a key protein responsible for the long-term detrimental effect of stress on cells, and importantly, successfully used a drug compound to block this effect, offering a potential new avenue for drug discovery.

The World Health Organization estimate that by 2030, depression will be the leading cause of the global burden of disease. Treatment for depression involves either medication or talking therapy, or usually a combination of both. Current antidepressant medication is successful in treating depression in about 50-65% of cases, highlighting the need for new, more effective treatments.

Depression and successful antidepressant treatment are associated with changes in a process called neurogenesis – the ability of the brain to continue to produce new brain cells. At a molecular level, stress is known to increase levels of cortisol (a stress hormone) which in turn acts on a receptor called the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), leading to a decrease in neurogenesis. Exactly how this happens is not really well understood.

According to Dr. Carmine Pariante, Professor of Psychiatry at King’s College and lead author of the paper, “With as much as half of all depressed patients failing to improve with currently available medications, developing new, more effective antidepressants is an important priority. In order to do this, we need to understand the abnormal mechanisms that we can target.”

Memory Is Key

In this study, researchers studied cells from a part of the brain that can regenerate new cells.  This area is known as the hippocampus, or the memory center of the brain. They gave these cells cortisol to measure the effect on new brain cell production. They found that a protein – called SGK1 – was important in mediating the effects of stress hormones on neurogenesis and on the activity of the GR.

By measuring the effect of cortisol over time, they found that increased levels of this protein will prolong the effects of stress hormones on the formation of new brain cells. Specifically, SGK1 does this by keeping the GR active even after cortisol had been washed out of the cells.

The researchers also used a pharmacological compound (GSK650394) known to inhibit SGK1. They found they were able to block the detrimental effects of stress hormones and ultimately increase the number of new brain cells.

Dr Christoph Anacker, from King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry says: “Because a reduction of neurogenesis is considered part of the process leading to depression, targeting the molecular pathways that regulate this process may be a promising therapeutic strategy. This novel mechanism may be particularly important for the effects of chronic stress on mood, and ultimately depressive symptoms. Pharmacological interventions aimed at reducing the levels of SGK1 in depressed patients may therefore be a potential strategy for future antidepressant treatments.” 
 

Related Story: Mindfulness Meditation Linked To Lower Stress Hormone
 

May 7,  2013
The Healthy Mind Network
 

Story Source: The above story contains original content and/or information reprinted and editorially adapted by The Healthy Mind. Material is provided by King’s College London and Eurekalerts. 

Image Credit: Jepoirrier

NOTE: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our TERMS AND CONDITIONS.   

A new study led by University of North Carolina School of Medicine researchers is the first to identify a genetic risk factor for persistent pain after traumatic events such as motor vehicle collision and sexual assault. The study is to be published in the journal, Pain. 

“Our study findings indicate that mechanisms influencing chronic pain development may be related to the stress response, rather than any specific injury caused by the traumatic event,” said Dr. Samuel McLean,  senior author of the study and assistant professor of anesthesiology. “In other words, our results suggest that in some individuals something goes wrong with the body’s ‘fight or flight’ response or the body’s recovery from this response, and persistent pain results.”

The study assessed the role of the HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal) axis. The HPA axis is responsible for the body’s response to stressful events. The study evaluated whether the HPA axis influences musculoskeletal pain severity six weeks after motor vehicle collision and sexual assault.

HPA Points The Way

It was found that a variation in the gene encoding for the protein FKBP5 – which plays an important role in regulating the HPA axis response to stress – was associated with a 20% higher risk of moderate to severe neck pain six weeks after a motor vehicle collision, as well as a greater extent of body pain. The same variant also predicted increased pain six weeks after sexual assault.

“Right now, if an someone comes to the emergency department after a car accident, we don’t have any interventions to prevent chronic pain from developing,” McLean said. Similarly, if a woman comes to the emergency department after sexual assault, we have medications to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease, but no treatments to prevent chronic pain. This is because we understand what causes pregnancy or infection, but we have no idea what the biologic mechanisms are that cause chronic pain. Chronic pain after these events is common and can cause great suffering, and there is an urgent need to understand what causes chronic pain so that we can start to develop interventions. This study is an important first step in developing this understanding.”

This study can help to bridge the mind-body gap as it relates to pain. “Because we don’t understand what causes these outcomes, individuals with chronic pain after traumatic events are often viewed with suspicion, as if they are making up their symptoms for financial gain or having a psychological reaction,” McLean said. “An improved understanding of the biology helps with this stigma.”

Related Story: Can Stress Cause Physical Pain? New Clues Emerge

May 5, 2013
The Healthy Mind Network
 

Story Source: The above story contains original content and/or information reprinted and editorially adapted by The Healthy Mind. Material is provided by the University of North Carolina and Eurekalerts. 

Image Credit: Pensiero

NOTE: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our TERMS AND CONDITIONS.   

Welcome to 5/1/13 podcast of The Healthy Mind with Dr. Zafirides. This week, Dr. Z takes on the topic of family conflict and anger.  Why do we tend to hurt the ones we love the most? The answer will really surprise you. Dr. Z goes through the psychology of anger and why family members are so vulnerable. But don’t despair… there is hope! Dr. Z provides several tips to help you more effectively deal with family conflict and anger. You don’t want to miss this week’s podcast! Join us!!

In Health News:
1. Is Depression Contagious?
2. Omega-3 Fatty Acids Are Linked To Preserving Memory

All this, and “The Healthy Mind Headlines” on this week’s podcast! Welcome!!

NOTE: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our TERMS AND CONDITIONS.   

The largest study to date finds that eating foods that contain omega-3 fatty acids (found in fish, chicken and salad dressing) while avoiding saturated fats, meat and dairy foods may be linked to preserving memory and thinking abilities. However, the same association was not found in people with diabetes. 

“Since there are no definitive treatments for most dementing illnesses, modifiable activities, such as diet, that may delay the onset of symptoms of dementia are very important,” said Georgios Tsivgoulis, MD, with the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Athens, Greece. The research is published in the journal, Neurology.

For the study, dietary information from 17,478 people with an average age of 64 was reviewed to see how closely they adhered to a Mediterranean diet. They were also given tests that measured memory and thinking abilities over an average of four years. 

The study found that in healthy people who more closely followed the Mediterranean diet were 19% less likely to develop problems with their thinking and memory skills.  Unfortunately, this association was not found in people with diabetes. 

“Diet is an important modifiable activity that could help in preserving cognitive functioning in late life,” said Tsivgoulis. “However, it is only one of several important lifestyle activities that might play a role in late-life mental functioning. Exercise, avoiding obesity, not smoking cigarettes and taking medications for conditions like diabetes and hypertension are also important.”
 

Related Story: Fish Oils And Your Health (Dr. Barry Sears Interview)

April 29,  2013
The Healthy Mind Network
 

Story Source: The above story contains original content and/or information reprinted and editorially adapted by The Healthy Mind. Material is provided by the American Academy of Neurology and Eurekalerts. 

Image Credit: Let Ideas Compete

NOTE: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our TERMS AND CONDITIONS.