Americans prefer drugs to talk therapy for depression. Nearly 80 percent take a pill for the condition.
Hospitals stays are shorter, but readmissions are higher and the net cost may be higher as well.
How acupuncture works: It increases levels of the compound adenosine.
Exercise for depression or anxiety: The effect is similar to medication and talk therapy and better than relaxation, meditation, stress education and music therapy.
Surprise finding: Illegal immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native Americans.
The mystery of depression is not that it exists — the mind, like the flesh, is prone to malfunction. Instead, the paradox of depression has long been its prevalence. While most mental illnesses are extremely rare — schizophrenia, for example, is seen in less than 1 percent of the population — depression is everywhere, as inescapable as the common cold… The persistence of this affliction — and the fact that it seemed to be heritable — posed a serious challenge to Darwin’s…evolutionary theory. If depression was a disorder, then evolution had made a tragic mistake, allowing an illness that impedes reproduction — it leads people to stop having sex and consider suicide — to spread throughout the population…
The alternative, of course, is that depression has a secret purpose and our medical interventions are making a bad situation even worse. Like a fever that helps the immune system fight off infection — increased body temperature sends white blood cells into overdrive — depression might be an unpleasant yet adaptive response to affliction.
Full article on the upside of depression.
If you have depression, you are probably being undertreated or overtreated.
Man wins $1,000 in lottery; government cuts his Social Security income by $980.
Americans spend about $3.6 billion on [mostly worthless] over-the-counter cold, cough and throat remedies — and millions more on antibiotics that have no effect on viral infections.
As though it weren't bad enough that chronic stress has been shown to raise blood pressure, stiffen arteries, suppress the immune system, heighten the risk of diabetes, depression and Alzheimer's disease and make one a very undesirable dinner companion, now researchers have discovered that the sensation of being highly stressed can rewire the brain in ways that promote its sinister persistence.
Why the Mount Sinai ER is called the "knife and gun club." "Each shooting victim costs up to $12,000 to care for, and the patients rarely have health insurance or qualify for Medicaid."
What you don't know can hurt you. "Among 90 FDA-approved drugs between 1998 and 2000, there were 909 clinical trials: of these 394 were published in peer-reviewed medical journals and 515 were unpublished."
Pedestrians killed by vehicles – Manhattan is the worst borough. "Men and women who will never see 64 again were four times as likely as everyone else to be killed this way. Those who were 75 years old and up had a death rate more than five times that of their younger neighbors."
Listening to music may have had evolutionary survival value. It can aid cognitive recovery, promote the functioning of blood vessels, help treat depression and enhance athletic endurance.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CPab8U5zTU
Heal Better, Feel Better – With Music
A champagne cork can travel at 50 mph. Americans suffer 1,500 cork-related eye injuries every year.
Placebos work best for alcoholism, allergies, depression and migraines. For depression, a placebo was just as effective as an antidepressant. Migraine attacks are cut in half for one in five patients.
Almost one in eight kids gets an alternative therapy. It’s everything from acupuncture to echina tablets.
Brain scans can predict MS. But should patients be told?
"It's been known for a long time that darkness makes us sad and bright light makes us happy," says Daniel Kripke, a professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of California-San Diego. "Now it's been shown scientifically."
Full story here.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-4w9gKlR3U
Let the Sun Shine In