Get Healthier and Happier

InfiniteHealthResources.com has produced many articles blasting the pharmaceutical industry and our medical community for its rampant abuse prescribing drugs.Well some good news finally. Much is written lately about the medical community realizing that medication is not the cure all that the drug industry would have you believe.

Get Healthier and Happier
You may need a lifestyle fix as well as antidepressants

By: Deborah Kotz, U.S. News and World Report

What has become abundantly clear in the antidepressant age—the drugs are now the most commonly prescribed medications in the country—is that depression is terribly difficult, if not impossible, to cure. Many primary-care doctors, who treat 80 percent of depressed people, labor under the assumption that a prescription is a panacea. But antidepressants completely alleviate symptoms in only about 35 to 40 percent of people compared with 15 to 20 percent of those who take a placebo—a fact not publicized in pharmaceutical ads. And about 70 percent of people who successfully beat one bout can expect to face another. "We just don't have one magical pill that will do the whole trick," says Madhukar Trivedi, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He recently participated in the government-funded "Star*D" trial of more than 4,000 patients with difficult-to-treat depression, which showed success rates of antidepressants could be increased but that it sometimes took four tries of various drugs plus therapy. Even then, in 30 percent of those who completed the yearlong study, symptoms still lingered.Lifestyle culprits. Gradually, many mental-health practitioners are coming to believe that adjusting brain chemistry with medication isn't enough—that depression is a complex chronic disease, akin to diabetes, requiring lifestyle changes and ongoing monitoring to address underlying causes. As with diabetes, experts have begun to look for culprits in the 21st-century lifestyle. Might the isolating, sedentary, indoor computer culture explain, for example, why the disorder appears to be surging in young adults? Today's 20-somethings have a 1-in-4 lifetime risk of experiencing depression's hallmark black mood, joylessness, fatigue, and suicidal thoughts compared with the 1-in-10 risk of their grandparents' generation. Americans are 10 times as likely to have depression today as they were 60 years ago, a development that is not merely a result of increased awareness and diagnosis.There's certainly evidence that vigorous exercise has an effect on mood. Trivedi and others have shown that burning off 350 calories three times a week in sustained, sweat-inducing activity can reduce symptoms of depression about as effectively as antidepressants. Brain-imaging studies indicate that exercise stimulates the growth of neurons in certain brain regions damaged during depression. And animal studies have found that physical exertion increases the production of brain molecules that improve connections between nerve cells and act as a natural antidepressant. Sunlight or light-box exposure often helps people prone to seasonal affective disorder. And there's no doubt that getting a decent night's sleep can lift the spirits. Nutrition may play a role, too: It's fairly well established that those who eat the most fish have the lowest rates of depression.Realizing that primitive societies like the Kaluli of Papua New Guinea experience virtually no depression, Stephen Ilardi, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Kansas, is now testing a cave-man-esque approach to treatment with promising results. His 14-week Therapeutic Lifestyle Change program entails large doses of simulated hunter-gatherer living in people suffering from prolonged, unremitting depression. Participants sign up for 35 minutes of aerobic exercise (running, walking briskly, biking) three days a week, at least 30 minutes of daily sunlight or exposure from a light box that emits 10,000 lux, eight hours of sleep per night, and a daily fish oil supplement containing 1,000 mg of the fatty acid EPA and 500 mg of the fatty acid DHA.Brooders. They also get plenty of time surrounded by the "clan," in the form of frequent social gatherings with family members, Starbucks dates with friends, and volunteer work. "Hunter-gatherers almost never had time alone," says Ilardi; even a generation or two ago, people grew up supported by extended family and much more engaged with their community. Too much time in isolation, he says, means "opportunities to ruminate," the modern scourge. Studies indicate that brooders are far more likely than nonbrooders to develop depression. "I feel terrific now, but I'm really well plugged in with my old friends," says Russo, who regularly calls and E-mails former colleagues, occasionally traveling 70 miles to Philadelphia to meet them for lunch.Obsessive thinkers can learn to redirect themselves. Cognitive behavioral therapy, for example, teaches people to recognize when irrational negative thoughts are triggering a mood plunge and to reframe those thoughts in a rational way. Was that coworker really laughing at my outfit? Or just trying to be witty in front of the boss? A 2006 study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that people whose symptoms disappeared after cognitive behavioral therapy showed significant changes on MRI scans in two brain regions associated with depression. What's more, the therapy appears to be as effective as medication when used for resistant depression, according to findings from the Star*D trial."Drugs are quicker acting and take less work in the short run, but they only suppress the problem," says Michael Thase, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine who led the comparative study for Star*D. The therapy, he says, allows people to take action when their mood is dipping to prevent a full-blown relapse.

Happier—and Healthier
The mind-body link appears to work both ways

Far from being just a psychiatric disorder, depression wreaks havoc on the entire body by throwing the stress response out of whack. The amount of damage it causes takes a greater toll on health than chronic angina, arthritis, asthma, or diabetes, according to a September report from the World Health Organization. And a growing body of research indicates that it triggers certain diseases:
Heart disease. Under stress, blood produces more clotting factors to prepare for a wound, which can cause clots to form in the arteries—setting the stage for a heart attack or stroke. Increased stress hormones can also lead to inflammation in the heart.
Osteoporosis. Depression's link to high levels of the stress hormone cortisol may speed bone loss, raising the risk of fractures even in premenopausal women, according to one new study.
Diabetes. Increased cortisol also raises blood sugar levels, which new research suggests may cause diabetes in those over age 65. Inflammation may also play a role.
Cancer. Studies show that depressed folks have high levels of immune system chemicals called cytokines, which may hamper the body's ability to destroy malignant cells.