People who experience their first-ever bout of depression after having a heart attack are at greater risk for future heart problems than are patients who either don?t become clinically depressed after the medical emergency or who were depressed even before the incident, new research shows.
Alcohol can help people initially fall asleep, but leads to poor-quality sleep later in the night. Escalated consumption of alcohol to aid sleep can lead to alcoholism. Inaccurate sleep perceptions among alcoholics in early recovery may predict relapse to drinking.
The National Institute of Mental Health, part of the National Institutes of Health, is funding five new research projects that will shed light on antidepressant medications, notably selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and their association with suicidal thoughts and actions (suicidality).
As the prevalence of allergic rhinitis appears to be rising, there are increasing concerns about its impact on health, sleep, work and school performance, as well as unmet patient needs regarding its treatment according to experts presenting new data at the Annual Meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI).
Almost half of newly diagnosed breast cancer patients are found to have clinically significant emotional distress or symptoms of psychiatric disorders before treatment is begun, according to a new study published in the December 15, 2006 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.
Boehringer Ingelheim announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved pramipexole, a non-ergot dopamine agonist, for the treatment of moderate to severe primary Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS).1 This is an important milestone for pramipexole (Mirapexin? / Sifrol? / Mirapex?), which was already approved throughout the European Union in April 2006 for this second indication.
For over 30 years, scientists believed that monoamines are low in the brain during major depressive episodes. However, no one ever found a convincing explanation for monoamine loss. Dr. Jeffrey Meyer and colleagues discovered that higher levels of MAO-A is the primary process that lowers monoamine levels. Having more MAO-A leads to greater breakdown of chemicals like serotonin. Based on these results, and work from previous publications, Dr. Meyer developed an advanced monoamine model of depression.
Both depression and anxiety disorders worsen the quality of life of asthma patients, report researchers who found that depression also affected patients’ ability to control their symptoms.
The latest book from the MS Trust aims to give people with MS a better understanding of the causes of fatigue and offers some practical suggestions for managing the symptom.
New research suggests that offering methamphetamine abusers an incentive-based behavioral therapy program called contingency management (CM ? also known as Motivational Incentives), along with psychosocial therapy is more effective than psychosocial therapy alone. The study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institutes of Health, and is published in the November 2006 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.