The magazine rack at the local Albertson’s isn’t usually the place I look for health information, but I picked up the November issue of Glamour (the one with Mariah Carey on the cover) and discovered an interesting article about young women and anxiety & depression disorders.
According to the article, anxiety & depression meds are the number one prescribed drugs for women in their 20s and 30s – far more than birth control pills, which many of my friends and I always assumed were the most widespread.
The article also touches on an interesting question regarding the increasing prevalence of young women taking anxiety and depression meds – do we need the meds to deal with our lives, or have the lives we created for ourselves also created a need for the meds? We try to do everything these days; the ideal modern woman is a superwoman, no doubt: have a successful career, a great relationship, be the perfect mother, and look fabulous while doing it – all before you turn 35. I need a Xanax just writing that sentence!
The physician contributors in the article stress that it’s ideal to treat anxiety and depression with both drugs and therapy – but therapy’s time-consuming and expensive, so it’s no surprise that busy, cash-strapped young women prefer to pop a pill. There are also several profiles of women who share their experiences with anxiety and depression and what worked for them – meds vs. no meds, lifestyle changes, etc.
The good news is that if health issues like anxiety and depression are getting some major coverage in magazines like Glamour, the taboos surrounding them are surely falling away.
Or, the conditions are becoming so widespread that they can’t be ignored, even by the glossy monthly mags… and that’s not such good news after all.
Check out Glamour’s online info about depression: http://www.glamour.com/health/articles/2007/10/depressiontest
Science Daily — Brain imaging has revealed a breakdown in normal patterns of emotional processing that impairs the ability of people with clinical depression to suppress negative emotional states. Efforts by depressed patients to suppress their feelings when viewing emotionally negative images enhanced activity in several brain areas, including the amygdala, known to play a role in generating emotion, according to a report in the August 15 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
"Identifying areas in the nervous system that correlate to pathological mood states is one of the pressing questions in mental illness today," says Carol Tamminga, MD, of the University of Texas Southwest Medical Center. Tamminga was not involved in the study.
Tom Johnstone, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin, and colleagues there and at Tufts University studied 21 adults diagnosed with major depressive disorder and 18 healthy subjects of comparable ages. Participants were asked to view a series of emotionally positive and negative images and then indicate their reaction to each one. Four seconds after the presentation of each picture, participants were asked either to increase their emotional response (for example, imagining a loved one experiencing what was depicted in the image), to decrease it, or simply to continue watching the image.
During the test, a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner detected changes in neural activity. Johnstone and his colleagues also recorded levels of emotional excitement by measuring pupil dilation.
The data showed distinctive patterns of activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) and the right prefrontal cortex (PFC), areas that regulate the emotional output generated from the amygdala. The VMPFC is compromised in depression, likely because of the inappropriate engagement of right PFC circuitry in depressed individuals.
"These findings underscore the importance of emotional regulation deficits in depression," says Johnstone. "They also suggest targets for therapeutic intervention."
According to previous research, normal interaction between the amygdala and the VMPFC may underlie the proper adaptation of levels of the stress hormone cortisol on a daily basis. These levels do not vary as widely in people with major depressive disorder; future research may now be able to clarify the mechanism that underlies this aspect of depression. It could also examine the possibility of using measurements of activity in the amygdala to predict the effectiveness of treatments for depression such as cognitive behavioral therapy.
The work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, part of the National Institutes of Health, and Wyeth-Ayerst Pharmaceuticals.
Note: This story has been adapted from material provided by Society for Neuroscience.
Fausto Intilla
www.oloscience.com
Posted by: Fausto Intilla | October 18, 2007 at 04:46 AM
Are You Taking a Benzodiazepine?
If so, you might want to seek the advice of a psychiatrist who specializes in anxiety disorders and who is familiar with current research on benzodiazepines, such as Xanax.
Most medical professionals do not recommend discontinuing the use of benzodiazepines without first informing your prescribing physician. If you've been taking benzodiazepines for a few months or so (and choose to stop them), you should gradually taper off of them, and your physician should be helping you do so.
A common topic when discussing anxiety disorders in several online communities is the question of whether or not Xanax is a habit forming drug. The alleged addictiveness of Xanax and other benzodiazepines is a hot topic among those suffering from anxiety disorders and the professionals who specialize on this topic. This topic often results in heated debates among online support groups.
So the question is, are benzodiazepines habit forming drugs which lead to addiction? Or, are benzodiazepines drugs that become habit forming only when abused or misused? Maybe benzodiazepines are drugs that when taken as prescribed effectively treat anxiety and depression?
Posted by: William Hill | December 21, 2007 at 07:55 PM
Anxiety is a multisystem response to a perceived threat or danger. It reflects a combination of biochemical changes in the body, the patient's personal history and memory, and the social situation. Depression is a common mental disorder that presents with depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-worth, disturbed sleep or appetite, low energy, and poor concentration.
-jomie-
Posted by: Alcoholism teenager | August 02, 2009 at 07:56 PM