Kids who play video games for at least 30 hours a week tend to develop psychological disorders like depression and anxiety, according to more than 3,000 children living in Singapore who were surveyed annually from 2007 to 2009. The study is led by researchers from Iowa State University in Ames.
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Filed under Anxiety Disorders, Major Depression, Mental Health, Mental Illness by on Jan 13th, 2012. Comment. 
Having stress during first trimester months of pregnancy should be avoided as much as possible, said by researchers from New York University, because it can hike risk of having problems like preterm births and, surprisingly, decline of male babies. This finding stems from the study of pregnant mothers who are affected by the 7.8 magnitude 2005 Tarapaca earthquake in Chile.
Read more on Stressful First Trimester found to cause Premature Birth, Less Male Babies?…
Filed under Anxiety Disorders, Mental Health, Mental Illness by on Dec 20th, 2011. Comment.
A popular saying mentioned that exposure to negative emotions like stress and depression makes the person look older. Well, it’s highly likely according to a study conducted in Umeå University in Sweden. People who experienced prolonged bouts of negative emotions tend to accelerate aging process of cells, based in the DNA sequences called Telomeres of their white blood cells.
Telomeres are found in the outermost ends of the chromosomes. As cells (and chromosomes) replicate, the telomeres becomes shorter. Therefore it is used as an accurate biological marker of aging because as cells age, the telomeres becomes shorter. When telomeres divide, its DNA sequence is also replicated. But as it divides again and again some bits and pieces of the original DNA sequence is lost which is implicated as the cause of aging process.
The participants of the study are composed of 91 patients with recurrent depression and 451 healthy persons as controls. The lengths of their telomeres from white blood cells and cortisol levels are measured. In addition, the participants were subjected to dexamethasone suppression test to determine how their bodies react to stress.
The results showed that participants with high cortisol levels, an indicator of chronic stress, and depression have shorter telomeres compared to healthy individuals. People with depression often have disturbed cortisol regulation, and therefore are often stressed. The role mental problems to accelerated shortening of telomeres are not yet known, but this is the first study that shows relationship between the two.
In previous studies, shortened telomeres are linked to DNA damage and tumour formation. It is thought that shortened telomeres increase chances of cellular abberations. Because aging is associated with onset of numerous disorders, researchers recommended that it is important for people to have some sort of stress management and to seek professional help for psychiatric problems.
The study appears in the upcoming issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry.
Read more on Does Depression and Chronic Stress Accelerate Aging?…
Filed under Anxiety Disorders, Major Depression, Mental Health, Mental Illness by on Nov 22nd, 2011. Comment.
Leptin, the hormone produced from fat cells, are found to cause symptoms of anxiety and depression according to the study from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in United States.
The hormone, which was just recently discovered in 2004, was one of the important fat-derived hormones in the body. It helps inhibit appetite, and deficiency of the hormone results to increased food intake and delayed satiety. And recently it is found that low levels of the hormone causes anxiety and depression, and vice versa. Furthermore, amount of body fat and weight does not seem to have any effect.
The researchers studied fasting blood leptin levels, amount of body fat and weight of a total of 64 women; with 15 of them having anorexia, 17 are overweight and 12 had hypothalamic amenorrhea, a condition that causes low leptin levels but have normal fat levels. The rest of the participants were healthy women with normal weight. The participants were also assessed for their stress levels, depression and anxiety symptoms.
This is the first study that links the hormone to anxiety and depression to humans, regardless of amount of fat in the body. In animals, leptin is shown to have anti-depressant and anti-anxiety properties. Other studies link leptin to fertility, increased thickness and inflammation.
Researchers further commented that studies with more participants are needed to establish whether leptin has the potential for treatment of depression and anxiety.
Filed under Anxiety Disorders, Major Depression, Mental Illness by on Nov 3rd, 2011. Comment.
