Mental Disorders


Exercise and Intellectual Activities Beneficial

A systematic review found that exercising for at least 52 hours (averaging about an hour, 3 times a week) is associated with improved cognitive performance in older adults with and without cognitive impairment. Another population-based study in Chinese suggested that active participation in intellectual activities might help prevent dementia in […]


Depression Linked to Memory, Brain Atrophy and Infarcts in Seniors

A prospective cohort study in the US revealed that greater depressive symptoms were associated with worse episodic memory, smaller cerebral volume, and silent infarcts. The study included 1,111 stroke-free older adults with an average age of 71 between 2003 and 2008, 52% were Caribbean Hispanic. 22% of participants had greater […]


Genes Associated with Depression

A genome-wide association meta-analysis identified 44 independent and significant loci associated with major depression. The analysis was based in 135,458 cases and 344,901 controls. Lower educational attainment and higher body mass were putatively causal, whereas major depression and schizophrenia reflected a partly shared biological etiology. All humans carry lesser or […]


Prenatal SSRI Exposure Linked to Fetal Brain Changes

A cohort study in the US suggested prenatal selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) exposure was associated with changes in fetal brain structure and activity, particularly in brain regions critical to emotional processing. The study included 98 infants: 16 with in utero SSRI exposure, 21 with in utero untreated maternal depression […]


Comparative Efficacy and Acceptability of Antidepressants

A systematic review and network meta-analysis concluded that all 21 antidepressants were more efficacious than placebo in adults with major depressive disorder. Smaller differences between active drugs were found when placebo-controlled trials were included in the analysis, whereas there was more variability in efficacy (response rate) and acceptability (treatment discontinuations […]


Shared and Specific Genes in Psychiatric Disorders

A transcriptomic profiling analysis revealed that there were shared and distinct gene-expression patterns across five major psychiatric disorders—autism (ASD), schizophrenia (SCZ), bipolar disorder (BD), depression (MDD), and alcoholism (AAD)—compared with matched controls. Brain transcriptomes—a quantitative, genome-wide molecular phenotype—were performed using 700 cerebral cortical samples from subjects with ASD (n = […]


Genetic Association of Depression with Obesity

An international consortium showed that patients with depression and increased appetite and/or weight (A/W) carried a higher number of genetic risk variants for body mass index (BMI) and levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) and leptin. Data sets were drawn from case-control, cohort, and population-based studies, with established psychiatric diagnoses and […]


Tackle Migraines Causes

According to Dr. Mark Hyman, the problem with migraines is to just treat the symptoms, not the causes. The most important causes of migraines are food allergy/bowel and gut imbalances, chemical triggers, hormonal imbalances, magnesium deficiency, and mitochondrial imbalances. Food allergy/bowel and gut imbalances may be treated with an elimination […]