Treatment for Depression: Pharmaceuticals, Herbals, or Sugar Pills?

Source - healthnews.com

Consumers have spent billions of dollars filling prescriptions for antidepressants, and study after study has shown their efficacy. They can work. Research on the herb, St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum) has also shown promise in treating depression. Both the natural herb and the medicinal drugs work well to treat depression. But so do sugar pills used as placebo!

Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide according to the World Health Organization. One in twenty American over the age of 12 is depressed, with the highest numbers showing up in people age 40 to 59. Eighty percent of people with depression have difficulty functioning, and one-third report difficulty at work. This makes depression a worldwide epidemic. The number of doctor visits for depression reached over 25 million last year. Pharmaceutical medications were prescribed for nine out of ten patients, even while it’s known that overall antidepressants work on less than half of all patients. And only 30 percent of people who experience depression seek medical care of any kind.

In a study comparing St. John's Wort to the popular antidepressant, Zoloft, St. John's Wort cured 24 percent of the people who received it and Zoloft cured 25 percent. Those taking a sugar pill placebo reported even higher numbers—over 30 percent cure.

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Social Networking May Affect Kids’ Health

Source - webmd.com

Cyberbullying, sexting, and so-called Facebook depression are a few of the reasons parents should tune in to what their teens and tweens are doing on social networking sites, pediatricians say.

A new clinical report, published in Pediatrics, outlines some of the key benefits and risks of social networking. It stresses the need for parents not only to talk to their kids about specific risks, but to participate with their kids on sites like MySpace and Twitter, rather than to leave monitoring up to software programs.

“Some young people find the lure of social media difficult to resist, which can interfere with homework, sleep, and physical activity,” says Gwenn Schurgin O’Keefe, MD, a Wayland, Mass.-based pediatrician, blogger, and health writer who co-authored the guidelines. “Parents need to understand how their child is using social media so they can set appropriate limits.”

O’Keefe is no dilettante in matters of adolescents and their cyber lives, either.

“I’ve had a few ‘a-ha’ moments as a mom with technology,” she tells WebMD.

She once had to summon her daughter to dinner via instant message after repeatedly calling, and failing, to steal her attention away from an online chat session.

“It was like she had become fused with the computer. She was so absorbed in what she was doing she was just tuned out,” O’Keefe says.

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Music Can Heal

Source - nbcchicago.com

Have a bad day and music can lift your spirits. Have a brain injury and music can actually rehabilitate, research increasingly shows.

Therapists say music has a broad ability to help Alzheimer's patients remember, improve the motor skills of those with Parkinson's and even help children with Attention Deficit Disorder.

Two years ago, a stroke left 69-year-old Rosemary Page unable to say much more than single syllables. Speech therapy alone didn't help much, but the addition of music has helped Rosemary learn to construct simple sentences.

Music works, therapists say, by bypassing the brain’s damaged language centers and creating new pathways to the parts of the brain that process music.

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The Dangers of Sleep Apnea

Source - healthnews.com

Sleep apnea is a serious condition that affects approximately 18 million Americans. Sleep apnea causes a person to stop breathing repeatedly during their sleep—often for as long as a minute or more, and up to hundreds of times during the night. Of the three types of apnea that include obstructive, central, and mixed, the most common type is obstructive. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is caused by a blockage of the airway, such as occurs when the soft tissue located in the back of the throat collapses and closes during sleep. With central sleep apnea, the brain fails to signal muscles to breathe, and mixed apnea is a combination of the two problems. Although the brain will arouse a person who experiences an apnea event to get them to resume breathing, the sleep disruption causes poor sleep quality. 

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Sleep Habits Can Play a Role In Weight Regulation

Source - healthnews.com

Recently a number of studies have shown a link between sleep deprivation and obesity in infants, teens and adults. Now a new study has found that there is an increased intake in calories for persons of average weight when they do not get a full night’s sleep. And those calories are not healthy ones, as they tend to be from items containing saturated fat.

This new study, out of Columbia University, found that women ate an average of 329 additional calories when they don’t get a proper rest, while men ate an average of 263 more calories than their rested counterparts. At 3,500 calories per pound, that could equate to 2.57 additional pounds per month (and 30.8 pounds in a year), if sleep deprivation were to persist. 

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Is Having a Bad Job Worse Than Having No Job At All?

Source- healthnews.com

Good work ethics involve honesty, integrity and accountability, in addition to having a good attitude and being committed to doing a job well. In return, an employee expects to receive fair pay for work performed and to be treated with respect for a job well done. With ourselves and our families to support, it has long been instilled in us that having a job, any job, is better than having no job at all. However, new research suggests that working at a bad job can be just as detrimental to mental health as being among the unemployed.
According to researchers from the Australian National University in Canberra, a poorly paid, demanding job that provides minimal job security, and low control over job role can have the same negative impact on a worker’s well-being as having no job at all. In fact, those who are unemployed may actually fare better mentally than those who are working jobs of poor quality. The details of the study can be found in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 

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Stress Management

By helpguide.org

It may seem that there’s nothing you can do about your stress level. The bills aren’t going to stop coming, there will never be more hours in the day for all your errands, and your career or family responsibilities will always be demanding. But you have a lot more control than you might think. In fact, the simple realization that you’re in control of your life is the foundation of stress management.

Managing stress is all about taking charge: taking charge of your thoughts, your emotions, your schedule, your environment, and the way you deal with problems. The ultimate goal is a balanced life, with time for work, relationships, relaxation, and fun – plus the resilience to hold up under pressure and meet challenges head on. Read Full Story

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Calming Down: An Introduction to Stress and Some Stress

By righthealth.com

What is Stress?

According to the dictionary, the word stress means: ‘to be subjected to pressure or strain, a mentally disruptive or disquieting influence'. A situation that causes pressure or strain is called a stressor. The stress that we all experience at various times in our lives is expressed through different emotions, such as anxiety, anger, frustration, depression or even excitement, and affects us physically. In order to cope with stress, it is important to understand how stress affects the body and to familiarize oneself with the various types of stress.

This article will describe some causes of stress, and offer some options for reducing it.

How Stress Affects Your Body

When we are under stress, our bodies respond with the ‘fight or flight' response. Researchers believe that this reaction is an ancient response that has allowed humans to survive as a species since prehistoric times. We know that the human brain responds to stress (both real or imagined) by sending signals to the part of the brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus in turn activates the stress response by stimulating the nervous system. Finally, the nervous system creates changes in the body that get us ‘pumped up' to either stand and fight, or run away. Read Full Story

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Natural Remedies for Common Health Problems

By mtrguanlao, healthmad.com

Common health problems can be treated in a natural way. Now a days, even medical doctors are realizing the benefits and effectiveness of natural remedies for some common health problems.

Most people believe that natural remedies are better than drugs because they are natural and don’t have side effects. Here are some natural remedies you can use for some common health problems:

One tip for alcohol drinkers for them not to wake up in the morning with a heavy head is to drink a glass of water after every alcohol drink and another glass of water before going to bed. Water slows down all the alcohol you’ve consumed.

If you have shingles or rashes in your face, ice can be a useful remedy to reduce the irritations. Applying ice on the affected area can reduce the pain, swelling and itchiness. Ice can also reduce the acne scars by a small extent temporarily. Read Full Story

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How to Cope With an Asthma Attack

By Madeline Vann, MPH everydayhealth.com

You start to panic because you are short of breath. If you’re out in public, you’re likely to also become embarrassed by your situation. And next, your asthma control disappears. It’s a vicious cycle: fear of an asthma attack can actually make the experience of an actual asthma attack even worse, which creates more fear and worry about when the next attack might occur.

But the good news is that you can get a handle on this escalating cycle by learning how to cope, relax, and be prepared, all at the same time.

An Asthma Attack and Stress: What’s Going On?

The problem starts in your brain, and spirals from there. “The interesting mind-body part of asthma is that the anxiety parts of our brain are very finely attuned to breathing problems, meaning that if people’s carbon dioxide levels go up or their oxygen levels go down, the brain very quickly tweaks the fight or flight response,” explains Wayne Katon, Read Full Story

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Natural Remedies for Diabetes

Source - healthnews.com 

Diabetes affects over 23 million Americans, nearly 8 percent of the population, and these numbers are on the rise. Diabetes prevalence increased 13 percent in the two years between 2005 and 2007. Add to this the 24 percent of people who are believed to be undiagnosed and you can see the picture of the epidemic rise of diabetes in recent years. Adult onset diabetes, the most common form, can lead to complications such as heart disease, stroke, blindness, and kidney failure.

Prevention and lifestyle are still the best medicine. Though there is no known cure, a healthy lifestyle can reduce symptoms. The National Institute of Health has launched a campaign that focus on lifestyle and dietary choices for diabetes prevention. Alternative medicine has also been busy researching natural treatments for diabetes prevention and health maintenance. Numerous products—including foods, botanicals, and vitamins—offer promising results. 

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12 Cancer-Fighting Foods

By rd.com/health

A slew of research suggests that eating a nutritious diet rich in cancer-fighting fruit, vegetables, herbs, and spices could be key to keeping the disease at bay. Luckily most of the best cancer-fighting foods are easily found in your local supermarket’s produce aisle. Here’s a grocery list to get you started:

Cabbage, Broccoli, and Cauliflower

Vegetables in the cabbage family, also known as cole crops and cruciferous vegetables, contain indole-3-carbinol, a chemical that inhibits the growth of cancer cells. Broccoli may also ward off colon and rectal cancer, thanks to an enzyme called glucoraphanin that is especially abundant in broccoli sprouts.

Carrots and Sweet Potatoes

Both are rich in beta carotene, which is believed to hinder the growth of a long list of cancers, including lung, throat, stomach, and prostate. Read Full Story

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Tai Chi Eases Depression in Elderly

By Tara Parker-Pope, nytimes.com

The ancient Chinese practice of tai chi appears to relieve symptoms of depression in older people, a new study shows.

The findings, published this month in The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, are the latest to suggest that the slow movement, breathing and meditation of tai chi results in meaningful benefits to patients with chronic health problems. Other recent studies have shown that practicing tai chi may provide benefits for patients with arthritis and fibromyalgia. But the newest research is important because depression is notoriously difficult to treat in older people, many of whom are already coping with other health problems and are less likely to respond to drug treatment. Read Full Story

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The Health Benefits of Bananas

By rd.com/health

Thanks to their low sodium and high potassium content, bananas are particularly good for people with high blood pressure. Bananas also contain tryptophan, which the body converts into serotonin, a brain chemical that helps you relax, improves your mood, and makes you fall asleep more easily. That’s why some doctors suggest eating a banana an hour before sleep.

At roughly 105 calories, a medium banana is the perfect size for a mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack. Bananas also provide an abundance of natural sugars, making them a great source of easily digested and readily available fuel. Read Full Story

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Daily Diet: Is the Dukan Diet the Hot New Trend?

By Susan Brady, healthnews.com

It is always hard to predict the front end of a trend, and never more so than in the diet realm. But we  seem to like to celebrate, talk about, embrace, and test out diet programs. Given that it is time to get ready for shorts and bathing suit weather, it just may be time to jump on a new bandwagon, hopefully finding success in something new. And will that new be the Dukan Diet?

According to magazine Marie Claire, Jennifer Lopez and Gisele Bundchen both reportedly turned to the new French Dukan Diet, to help shift those post-pregnancy pounds. And now rumors are swirling that princess-to-be Kate Middleton may be turning to this diet plan to prepare for her upcoming nuptials. This diet, which originated in France by nutritionist Dr. Pierre Dukan, is living large in over 1. 5 million French households, where women appear to be finding success. Read Full Story

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