Health
Major Depressive Disorder: How I Manage
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By Deborah Serani, PsyD, as told to Hallie Levine
When it comes to talking about how depression affects relationships, I’m the expert. And it’s not just because I’m a psychologist. I’ve lived with major depressive disorder since I was 19. I not only work on this issue with my patients, but I encounter it in my own life every single day.
There’s no doubt that strong relationships can help provide a buffer against depression and lessen the severity of depressive episodes. One study, for example, followed American adults aged 25-75 for 10 years and found that people who reported poor relationships with their spouse or other family members were at higher risk of depression.
But it can be hard to maintain relationships when you’re hurting so much yourself. Here’s what I tell my patients and what I want everyone who experiences depression, and those who care about them, to know.
Depression can be hard to understand because it’s an “invisible” illness. This is especially true if you struggle with it yourself. Most of us “get” that a broken leg is an injury, for example, and that we need a cast and crutches so we can move around. But if you have symptoms of depression such as moodiness, difficulty concentrating, trouble sleeping, and just generally feeling sad and uninterested in anything, it can be hard to resist the temptation to just tell yourself to snap out of it.
But if you don’t accept the fact that your depression is real, and just as much of a chronic illness as high blood sugar or arthritis, you’ll be setting yourself up for relationship trouble. Why? You’re setting unrealistic expectations for yourself.
Your loved ones want to help you and make your life easier. They need you to tell them what you’re up for, and when you need help, or a break. Spouses and other family members tend to over-worry. You can make their lives and yours easier if you’re simply upfront about how you feel.
Make clear that depression isn’t your everything. It’s easy for loved ones to mistake real, authentic sadness or irritability for depression. You might be upset about the situation in Ukraine, or worried about COVID-19, and a loved one will mistake these genuine emotions as just a relapse of symptoms.
Again, they’re just looking out for you and your health. I recommend that you be upfront with them and say, ‘No, it’s not that I skipped my medicine, or that my depression is worsening. I have a real legitimate reason to be upset, and it’s X, Y or Z.’ Then talk to them about it. You’ll feel better for sharing your thoughts and they’ll feel better knowing that you’ve got a handle on your symptoms.
This is especially true when it comes to children. My daughter, who is now in her 30s, is used to having a mom with depression. When she was little, I could tell that she worried about me when I seemed quiet or moody. I’d at times have to reassure her that mom was fine.
Kids who have parents with depression tend to feel like they need to walk on eggshells, that they don’t want to upset that parent. They want to be caretakers, and they forgo their own needs because they want to make sure that they don’t set up a row of collapsing dominos for their mom or dad with a chronic illness.
It’s important that both you and your partner reassure them that they don’t need to feel that way. Let them know that yes, you’re OK, but you might need some time in the sun or to go for a walk outdoors to regroup and begin to feel like yourself again. Just as it’s important for you to check in on your own mental health, check in on theirs.
Be selective about who you share your depression diagnosis with. It might seem that you “should” be open about your depression and let your boss and co-workers know. But think carefully before doing so. Yes, we’ve come a long way in understanding mental illness, but it’s still stigmatized. Employers view depression differently than other chronic conditions like heart disease.
I’ve found this to be true in my own professional life. Yes, I’ve found that it helps patients to know that I also have days when I struggle to get out of bed, or that I’m well acquainted with the side effects of certain antidepressant medications. The stigma I’ve faced has been, surprisingly, from other therapists, who feel that I’m oversharing.
As a result, I’ve learned to be very careful about whom I share personal struggles with. You can have depression and be a wonderful parent and have a stellar career. But there’s still this misconception that if you have this condition, you’re flawed as a person. It’s very sad, but unfortunately, it’s a reality.
Check in with yourself frequently. It won’t just help you; it will help your relationships. I ask patients to ask themselves these three questions at least once every few weeks:
- Has your partner commented that you seem more moody, sad, or irritable lately?
- Have you found yourself struggling every day for at least 2 weeks in more than one situation? (For example, feeling overwhelmed with both your work and your kids.)
- Are you finding it hard to do things with family and friends that you usually enjoy, like seeing a movie or going out to eat?
If at least one of your answers is yes, then check in with your therapist. And if you don’t have a therapist right now, consider getting one. You may also be due for a medication check, whether it’s to change drugs or up your dose.
Make it a priority to have some self-care time, too. It may seem like a luxury you can’t afford, either financially or time-wise. But if you take just a few minutes a week, whether it’s going to the gym or taking a relaxing bath, you’ll feel better about yourself and be more willing to give in your relationships. Trust me. Your partner, kids, friends, and other family members will thank you.
Health
Walmart Is Selling a $300 Power Tower for Just $128, and Shoppers Say It's 'Surprisingly Sturdy'
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When building a home gym, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the equipment options, especially when you’re working with limited space and a tight budget. But when you focus on versatile gear and hunt for deals, creating a useful setup is easily doable. Thankfully, Walmart has been slashing prices on a ton of fitness equipment, including its bestselling adjustable dumbbells and even a complete home gym system. Now, it’s reduced the price of a popular power tower by over $170, and it even ships for free.
The Pooboo Body Champ Multifunction Power Tower is on sale for $128, a 57% discount on its normal price of $300. This incredibly versatile workout station has earned nearly 250 five-star ratings from Walmart shoppers who’ve praised its “strong and sturdy” build and “quality fit and finish,” and it’s currently one of the top 5 bestselling models on the site.
Pooboo Body Champ Multifunction Power Tower, $128 (was $300) at Walmart
Don’t let the brand’s bizarre name fool you—this power tower is a well-made piece of gym equipment. It features steel construction and is rated to hold up to 480 pounds (the tower itself weighs 66 pounds). A nearly 42-inch H-shaped base gives it excellent stability, so it won’t wobble or shake when you’re exercising, and anti-slip feet on the bottom keep it securely planted on the floor. It’s also adjustable (from 71.4 inches to 94 inches) to accommodate users of varying heights. And, once it’s set up, you can use it for a huge range of exercises, including dips, pull-ups, chin-ups, push-ups, vertical leg raises, knee raises, and more.
According to Walmart reviewers, the Pooboo Body Champ stands out for its solid build and usefulness. “It’s a surprisingly sturdy piece of equipment,” a shopper said. “Everything about this fitness tower is perfect. I originally purchased this with the intention of only doing pull-ups on it, but after quickly assembling the power tower, I came to realize just how versatile it is. It has cushions for knee and leg raises, it’s sturdy, and the perfect width for dips.” Another shopper agreed, saying, “This was a much-needed addition to my home gym.”
“This thing is amazing and worth every penny,” said another, who added that it’s “easy to install and can hold a lot of weight.”
At just $128, this Pooboo power tower is a screaming deal, and it’s sure to get lots of use during your workouts. But this discount won’t last long, so grab one today before the price pumps back up.
Health
Alzheimer’s Drug May Save Lives Through ‘Suspended Animation’
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By Lindsay Brownell | Wyss Institute Communications | Harvard Gazette
Could buy patients more time to survive critical injuries and diseases, even when disaster strikes far from a hospital
Donepezil, an FDA-approved drug to treat Alzheimer’s, has the potential to be repurposed for use in emergency situations to prevent irreversible organ injury, according to researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.
Using Donepezil (DPN), researchers report that they were able to put tadpoles of Xenopus laevis frogs into a hibernation-like torpor.
“Cooling a patient’s body down to slow its metabolic processes has long been used in medical settings to reduce injuries and long-term problems from severe conditions, but it can only currently be done in a well-resourced hospital,” said co-author Michael Super, director of immuno-materials at the Wyss Institute. “Achieving a similar state of ‘biostasis’ with an easily administered drug like DNP could potentially save millions of lives every year.”
This research, published Thursday in ACS Nano, was supported as part of the DARPA Biostasis Program, which funds projects that aim to extend the time for lifesaving medical treatment, often referred to as “the Golden Hour,” following traumatic injury or acute infection. The Wyss Institute has been a participant in the Biostasis Program since 2018, and has achieved several important milestones over the last few years.
Using a combination of predictive machine learning algorithms and animal models, the Wyss’ Biostasis team previously identified and tested existing drug compounds that had the potential to put living tissues into a state of suspended animation. Their first successful candidate, SNC80, significantly reduced oxygen consumption (a proxy for metabolism) in both a beating pig heart and in human organ chips, but is known to cause seizures when injected systemically.
In the new study, they once again turned to their algorithm to identify other compounds whose structures are similar to SNC80. Their top candidate was DNP, which has been approved since 1996 to treat Alzheimer’s.
Achieving a similar state of ‘biostasis’ with an easily administered drug like DNP could potentially save millions of lives every year.
–Michael Super
“Interestingly, clinical overdoses of DNP in patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease have been associated with drowsiness and a reduced heart rate — symptoms that are torpor-like. However, this is the first study, to our knowledge, that focuses on leveraging those effects as the main clinical response, and not as side effects,” said the study’s first author, María Plaza Oliver, who was a postdoctoral fellow at the Wyss Institute when the work was conducted.
The team used X. laevis tadpoles to evaluate DNP’s effects on a whole living organism, and found that it successfully induced a torpor-like state that could be reversed when the drug was removed. The drug, however, did seem to cause some toxicity, and accumulated in all of the animals’ tissues. To solve that problem, the researchers encapsulated DNP inside lipid nanocarriers, and found that this both reduced toxicity and caused the drug to accumulate in the animals’ brain tissues. This is a promising result, as the central nervous system is known to mediate hibernation and torpor in other animals as well.
Although DNP has been shown to protect neurons from metabolic stress in models of Alzheimer’s disease, the team cautions that more work is needed to understand exactly how it causes torpor, as well as scale up production of the encapsulated DNP for use in larger animals and, potentially, humans.
“Donepezil has been used worldwide by patients for decades, so its properties and manufacturing methods are well-established. Lipid nanocarriers similar to the ones we used are also now approved for clinical use in other applications. This study demonstrates that an encapsulated version of the drug could potentially be used in the future to buy patients critical time to survive devastating injuries and diseases, and it could be easily formulated and produced at scale on a much shorter time scale than a new drug,” said senior author Donald Ingber, the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, and the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Bioinspired Engineering at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
This research was supported by DARPA under Cooperative Agreement Number W911NF-19-2-0027, the Margarita Salas postdoctoral grant co-funded by the Spanish Ministry of Universities, and the University of Castilla-La Mancha (NextGeneration EU UNI/551/2021).
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This story is reprinted with permission from The Harvard Gazette.
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Health
Can Stuff in Rosemary Extract Fight Cocaine Addiction?
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Researchers have discovered that an antioxidant found in rosemary extract can reduce intakes of cocaine by moderating the brain’s reward response, offering a new therapeutic target for treating addiction.
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The study in the journal Neuron describes researchers’ focus on a region of the brain called the globus pallidus externus, which acts as a gatekeeper that regulates how we react to cocaine.
They discovered that within the GPe, parvalbumin-positive neurons are crucial in controlling the response to cocaine by changing the activity neurons releasing the pleasure molecule dopamine.
“There are currently no effective therapeutics for dependence on psychostimulants such as cocaine, which, along with opioids, represent a substantial health burden,” says corresponding author Kevin Beier, an associate professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of California, Irvine.
“Our study deepens our understanding of the basic brain mechanisms that increase vulnerability to substance use disorder-related outcomes and provides a foundation for the development of new interventions.”
Findings in mice revealed that globus pallidus externus parvalbumin-positive cells, which indirectly influence the release of dopamine, become more excitable after being exposed to cocaine. This caused a drop in the expression of certain proteins that encode membrane channels that usually help keep the globus pallidus cell activity in check. The researchers found that carnosic acid, an isolate of rosemary extract, selectively binds to the affected channels, providing an avenue to reduce response to the drug in a relatively specific fashion.
“Only a subset of individuals are vulnerable to developing a substance use disorder, but we cannot yet identify who they are. If globus pallidus cell activity can effectively predict response to cocaine, it could be used to measure likely responses and thus serve as a biomarker for the most vulnerable,” Beier says. “Furthermore, it’s possible that carnosic acid could be given to those at high risk to reduce the response to cocaine.”
The next steps in this research include thoroughly assessing negative side effects of carnosic acid and determining the ideal dosage and timing. The team is also interested in testing its efficacy in reducing the desire for other drugs and in developing more potent and targeted variants.
Scientists from the University of West Virginia and the University of Colorado participated in the study.
Support for this work came from the National Institutes of Health, One Mind, the Alzheimer’s Association, New Vision Research, BrightFocus Foundation, and the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.
Source: UC Irvine
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Previously Published on futurity.org with Creative Commons License
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