Depression seems to pose an evolutionary paradox. Research in the US and other countries estimates that between 30 to 50 percent of people have met current psychiatric diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder sometime in their lives. But the brain plays crucial roles in promoting survival and reproduction, so the pressures of evolution should have left our brains resistant to such high rates of malfunction. Mental disorders should generally be rare — why isn’t depression?

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Technorati Tags: Brain, Brains, depression, Depressive Disorder, Diagnostic Criteria, Estimates, Evolution, Major Depressive Disorder, Mental Disorders, Paradox, Reproduction, Roots, Rsquo, Survival

After a slow start, the 2009 hurricane season is kicking off in a big way. Currently, three named storms are swirling around the Atlantic, including the season’s first hurricane, Bill.  

Tropical depression Ana , which first appeared last week but never became a full-fledged storm, is now causing extremely wet weather in the Caribbean Sea near the Dominican Republic.  

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Technorati Tags: Ana, Caribbean Sea, Claudette, Dominican Republic, Hurricane Bill, Hurricane Season, Nbsp, Storms, Tropical Depression, Weather Caribbean, Wet Weather

Several years ago an elderly man came into the emergency room at Cook County Hospital in Chicago with a large, painful abscess (boil) on the back of his neck. When I told him he needed a minor procedure to lance the boil and drain it, he became ashen, asking, “Doc, is this going to hurt?” I told him that if at any time the treatment hurt too much, he could tell me to stop–and I would. I opened the boil with a very sharp scalpel. He did not make a sound for some time. “When are you going to start?” he finally asked. “It’s done,” I said. “How did you do that?” he replied. “I didn’t feel anything.”

Most people think of pain as resulting from physical injury or disease, but psychological factors play a huge role in pain perception. In the case of my elderly patient, my reassurance that the treatment would not significantly worsen his pain–because he could stop me if it did–produced an analgesic effect. In addition, reducing the man’s fear enabled him to look forward to pain relief instead, and that positive expectation also eased his pain.

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Technorati Tags: Analgesic Effect, Boil, Cook County Hospital, Cook County Hospital In Chicago, Elderly Man, Elderly Patient, Emergency Room, Expectation, fear, Pain Perception, Pain Relief, Psychological Factors, Psychology Of Pain, Reassurance

Danish researchers say women who take Zoloft, Celexa, and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressants during the first three months of pregnancy may have a slightly increased risk of having a baby with heart defects.
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Scientists at Stanford University School of Medicine say periods of short-term stress appear to boost the immune system and help protect against a type of skin cancer known as squamous cell carcinoma.
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Technorati Tags: Cancer Study, Carcinoma, Immune System, Medicine, Periods, School Of Medicine, Scientists, Skin Cancer, Squamous Cell Carcinoma, Stanford University School, Stanford University School Of Medicine, Term Stress, Type Of Skin Cancer

A health reporter talks to experts about a disorder known as complicated grief or prolonged grief disorder, an extreme form of mourning that can send people into “a loop of suffering” that causes them to withdraw from humanity.
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teen suicide: 43% do, even though they are 300% more likely to kill themselves then straight teens.

Puberty: 16% (meaning if you buy 10 books only 2 would have even one page on homosexuality.)

Why is this?

Maybe homosexuality and suicide are not studied in correlation of eachother? (I know it is, just not nearly as much as it is with straight teens).

Technorati Tags: Amp, Buy Books, Check Books, Correlation, Eachother, Guess, Homosexuality, Index Of Books, Index Teen, Straight Teens, Teen Puberty, teen suicide

Depression may be due to the mal-absorption of nutrients. Mal-absorption could interfere with the neurotransmitters that regulate mood. Researchers found a possible link between brain function, depression, and mal-absorption. Vitamin B12 deficiency will also contribute to depression as well as dementia. Celiac disease is one of the major causes of depression. In most of the studies, it is proved that children and adults with celiac disease have a higher rates of depression than those who are not affected by celiac disease. If you have celiac disease and if you are feeling depressed, here are some simple remedies.

For effective strategies on celiac depression, visit www.celiac.ws

The life you save is your own!

Duration : 2 min 28 sec

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Imagine you are a doctor treating a patient who has been in nearly constant pain for four years, ever since the day he sprained his ankle stepping off a curb. Physical therapy only briefly dulled the agony. Painkillers were not much better, and the most effective drugs made your patient exhausted and constipated. He is now depressed, sleeping poorly and having difficulty concentrating. As you talk with him, you realize that his thinking also seems impaired. Your exam confirms that the original injury has healed. Only pain and its consequences remain–and your options for helping this man are running out.

This scenario plays out every day in doctors’ offices around the world. Fifteen to 20 percent of adults worldwide suffer from persistent, or chronic, pain. Half the primary care patients who develop a chronic pain condition fail to recover within a year, according to surveys conducted by the World Health Organization. Common causes of such unrelenting discomfort include physical trauma, arthritis, cancer, and metabolic diseases such as diabetes that can damage nerves. In many cases, however, the pain’s origins are mysterious.

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