Teen Depression
June 10, 2008
From Fox News
By Dr. Manny Alvarez
Depression among children is a serious problem. One out of every 20 adolescents suffers from clinical depresion. When depression begins during the teenage years, the risks are significant, interrupting both learning and the development of those parts of the brain where decisions are made.
Among depressed teens, suicide is a significant risk. Suicide is responsible for more than 10 percent of the deaths in the 15-to-19 age group.
There are many reasons for depression. Suffering loss such as the death of a parent or a friend, or experiencing extreme trauma can trigger depression, of course. Other well-known links to childhood depression include physical and sexual abuse, neglect, inappropriate criticism, conflict in the family, divorce, addiction in the family, violence in the family, racism, and poverty. Some depression may be genetic at core and be caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. But even then, the genetic predisposition must be triggered by a trauma or stressful event of some sort.
From Fox News
There’s a grim, rarely talked-about twist to all that medical know-how doctors learn to save lives: It makes them especially good at ending their own. An estimated 300 to 400 U.S. doctors kill themselves each year — a suicide rate thought to be higher than in the general population, although exact figures are hard to come by.
Some doctors believe the stigma of mental illness is magnified in a profession that prides itself on stoicism and bravado. Many fear admitting psychiatric problems could be fatal to their careers, so they suffer in silence.
And when the pain is too much, doctors have easy access to prescription drugs and a precise knowledge of both how the body works and the amount of a drug needed for an overdose to stop breathing and halt the heart.
“All physicians have access to neat, clean ways to commit suicide,” said Dr. Robert Lehmberg, a Little Rock, Ark., surgeon who has battled depression and long considered suicide “an exit strategy if absolutely necessary.”
It Takes Hard Work To Be Happy
May 2, 2008
By cbsnews.com
Staying healthy and happy is a struggle for about half of Americans, according to a massive survey that attempts to measure the nation’s general welfare, much like the Dow Jones Industrial Average portrays the health of the stock market.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, based on interviews of more than 100,000 people so far, shows that 47 percent of Americans are struggling and 4 percent are suffering. Forty-nine percent of respondents are reported to be thriving based on a personal assessment of how they feel about their lives at the time of the survey, and where they think they will be in five years.
Pollsters asked people to imagine where they would put themselves on a ladder with 10 steps. Those who said they were on step seven or above are listed as thriving. Those at four or below are suffering. In between are the strugglers.
Are Antidepressants No Better Than A Placebo?
March 25, 2008
From Salynn Boyles, WebMD.com
A study suggesting the widely prescribed antidepressantsProzac, Paxil, and Effexor work no better than placebo for most patients who take them does not present an accurate picture of the research as a whole, a leading depression expert says.
The research analysis included published and previously unpublished data submitted to the FDA by the manufacturers of the three drugs, as well as a fourth, Serzone, which is no longer sold in the U.S.
The researchers concluded that when taken as a whole, the data showed that only a small group of the most severely depressed patients benefited from taking one of the antidepressants.
Antidepressants vs. Placebo
For less severely depressed patients, the antidepressants were found to work no better than placebos, leading the researchers to conclude that most patients who take antidepressants probably shouldn’t be on them.
The findings are published in the February issue of the journal PLoS Medicine.
“There seems little reason to prescribe antidepressant medication to any but the most severely depressed patients, unless alternative treatments have failed to provide a benefit,” says study researcher Irving Kirsch, PhD, of England’s University of Hull.
