Depression

Those searching for answers to the question " Is medical marijuana good medicine? " will find few in Dr. David Sack's Times Op-Ed article.   On the one hand, Sack concedes, "Marijuana can effectively treat neuropathic pain, and it has been shown to improve appetite and reduce nausea," an acknowledgment substantiating the plant's therapeutic utility. However, he later warns that cannabis' ability to provide relief for certain other conditions, such as lupus and anxiety, remains unproven.

Deanna Durbin, the singing starlet with the bubbly personality and the jewel-tone voice whose enormously popular movies were widely credited with saving Universal Pictures from bankruptcy during the Depression, has died. She was 91. Her popularity peaked by her late teens and by her mid-20s Durbin had left Hollywood forever, made wealthy by her relatively brief career. She died in April in France, said family friend Bob Koster, the son of Henry Koster, who directed Durbin in films early in her career.

Struggling with the black dog of depression? The supplement aisle abounds with options for people seeking a non-medicinal remedy - but figuring out what works and what doesn't can be a challenge for consumers and experts alike. That's because the data are generally poor, says Dr. Charles Raison, associate professor of psychiatry in the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona in Tucson. There are some exceptions. Hundreds of studies have investigated the effects of omega-3 fatty acids and St. John's wort.

As you stretch into warrior pose and inhale and exhale, you're not just stretching those hamstrings and lungs; you're also doing good for your brain with a practice that can stave off or relieve problems such as stress, depression and anxiety. Yoga "gives some sense of sanity," says Sat Bir Khalsa, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School in Boston. "You're no longer washed away by the avalanche of your emotions. You are more in control. " Yoga practice can also lower heart rate, breathing rate and blood pressure, and may make people less sensitive to pain.

Marbles Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me A Graphic Memoir Ellen Forney Gotham: 248 pp., $20 paper There's a glorious manic edge to Ellen Forney's "Marbles," a graphic memoir about the artist's battle with depression, which was diagnosed in the late 1990s and remains ongoing, if now essentially controlled. To some extent, this has to do with the material; Forney is bipolar, which means she suffers manic episodes, as the book recounts. Yet even more, it's a function of how she puts "Marbles" together, by turns methodical and frenzied, as if channeling her emotions on the page.

The brains of experienced meditators appear to be fitter, more disciplined and more "on task" than do the brains of those trying out meditation for the first time. And the differences between the two groups are evident not only during meditation, when brain scans detect a pattern of better control over the wandering mind among experienced meditators, but when the mind is allowed to wander freely. Those insights emerge from a study to be published next week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which looked at two groups: highly experienced meditators and meditation novices, and compared the operations of the " Default Mode Network " -- a newly identified cluster of brain regions that go to work when our brains appear to be "offline.

Some 2 million Americans adolescents experienced a bout of major depression last year, but only about a third of them got any help in dealing with the sadness, irritability,  anxiety, guilt and loss of interest and energy that are the hallmarks of such episodes, a report says. The new findings , tallied by the federal government's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration , were issued Thursday to kick off a month of national activity aimed at raising awareness of childrens' mental health.

Why do some children of mean, neglectful or downright toxic parents become rotten human beings themselves, while their siblings thrive cheerfully? And why do certain offspring of loving, attentive parents grow into well-adjusted adulthood while their siblings become sour misanthropes?  In short, why does good parenting only sometimes produce good kids, and bad parenting only sometimes produce bad kids? The answer may lie in the genes. Specifically, the almost-famous 5-HTTLPR serotonin transporter-promoter gene, which governs the activity of the mood chemical serotonin in the brain and essentially comes in three varieties.

In the last few months, I have been put on various drugs for sinus problems. These include antibiotics like Tequin and Levaquin as well as prednisone. The prednisone made me squirrelly, so I stopped it with my doctor's OK. I was given another course of Levaquin for a bladder infection and started feeling panicky. Then my doctor put me on Zoloft to combat anxiety. Next, I began having full-blown panic attacks and a bout of depression.

Re "His Depression Is 'Real,' All Right," Commentary, July 5: Robert Dawidoff effectively captures the insidiousness and misunderstanding of this crippling, negativistic disease. It is important after a depression lifts to remember that good experiences may have occurred during the blue phase; you just weren't able to interpret them positively. These experiences need to be reviewed, so that they can be more appropriately integrated into the psyche. Such ongoing cognitive self-management is a major key to surviving depression.

Re "Radar shows U.S. border security gaps," April 4 The Times' article describes how an airborne radar system showed that in a small, 150-square-mile area of the U.S.-Mexico border, there were nearly 2,000 successful illegal crossings over a three-month period last year. This comes as a surprise, since we've been told that our border is finally secure. Rep Michael McCaul's (R-Texas) comment, that "you can't measure what you can't see," is a dead-on description of our border security.

Re "Disability: the new welfare?," Opinion, April 2 Jonah Goldberg is correct that the increase in Social Security disability beneficiaries deserves scrutiny, but he shows a misunderstanding of how the program works. It is relatively challenging for a claimant to qualify for benefits. The Social Security Administration does not simply accept certification from a physician, and it has its own evaluation units that comb through medical records. So why are there so many more people receiving disability?

Mariel Hemingway, makeup-free and in sweats, is gorgeous. That bone structure, her cheetah-like build and flowing hair have been familiar for decades. What's disarming is her forthright approach to a rough family history and her determination to live the happy and healthy life that eluded so many of her relatives. She knows a lot, she says, about what it takes to live a happy life - no matter your cheekbones or pedigree. Perhaps it's because she's seen enough unhappiness to last many lifetimes: for starters, the suicides of her supermodel sister and her legendary grandfather, as well as five other relatives.

In his statement to his congregation about his son's death, Pastor Rick Warren talked about how “only those closest knew that he struggled from birth with mental illness, dark  holes of depression, even suicidal thoughts.” Matthew Warren, 27, died Saturday after battling depression for much of his life, the leader of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest said in his statement. “Today after a fun evening together with Kay and me, in a momentary wave of despair at his home, he took his own life,” Warren said of his son. He described Matthew Warren as a “kind, gentle and compassionate man” with a “brilliant intellect” who was sensitive to the needs of others.

Re "No debt agreement, no break," Opinion, March 25 Debt hysteria, or "austerity," is the bad idea of late that just will not die. America does not have a debt crisis; it has an employment crisis, which, if appropriately addressed, would reduce the debt. Social Security does not contribute to the federal budget deficit; it is projected to pay out 100% of benefits due until at least 2033, and could remain at 100% forever by raising the contribution cap. Spiraling healthcare costs can be solved by doing three things: end fee-for-service, establish Medicare for all and allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

The starting point for Marisa Silver's new novel, "Mary Coin," was a moment of genius that unfolded on a California roadside more than 70 years ago. Just outside the coastal valley town of Nipomo in 1936, photographer Dorothea Lange spotted a migrant farmworker family sitting in a tent off U.S. Highway 101. After a few minutes of conversation, Lange snapped six shots of a mother and her children. The sixth became the defining American photograph of the Great Depression. Silver, a writer with a sharp eye for the visual (she began her artistic career as a filmmaker)

The pain of losing a loved one can be a searing, gut-wrenching hurt and a long-lasting blow to a person's mood, concentration and ability to function. But is grief the same as depression? That's a lively debate right now, as the psychiatric profession considers a key change in the forthcoming rewrite of its diagnostic "Bible. " That proposed modification -- one of many -- would allow mental health providers to label the psychic pain of bereavement a mood disorder and act quickly to treat it, in some cases, with medication.

Compared with uncaffeinated women, those who drank the equivalent of four or more cups of coffee a day are more likely to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes and less likely to volunteer their time in church or community groups. But a new study finds that well-caffeinated women have a key health advantage over their more abstemious sisters: they're less likely to become depressed. In the back-and-forth world of research on caffeine's effects, the latest study suggests that women who get several jolts of java a day may do more than get a quick boost: their mental health may see sustained improvement even as the physical stresses of aging accumulate.

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook criticized a rebellious investor for creating a "silly sideshow" by filing a lawsuit a few weeks before the company's annual shareholder conference. "Frankly, I find it bizarre that we find ourselves being sued for doing something that's good for shareholders," Cook said. "It's a silly sideshow, honestly. My preference would be that everyone take the money they are spending on this and donate it to a worthy cause. " Cook made his remarks during an interview at a Goldman Sachs technology conference Tuesday.

A Canadian study on anxiety and sexual orientation suggests that heterosexual men suffer more depression and higher levels of stress than gay and bisexual men. The study, published Monday in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, involved 87 men and women in Montreal, and sought to determine whether gays, lesbians and bisexuals experienced reduced stress and anxiety after "coming out of the closet. " Study subjects were asked to fill out diagnostic questionnaires for depression, anxiety and burnout.