Comma here).

Ed Wagner, MD, MPH, knew there had to be a better way. He and Group Health colleagues set out 15 years ago to explore how best to engage patients with chronic diseases in effective care. With Robert Wood Johnson Foundation support, they developed the Chronic Care Model. More than 1,500 U.S. and international medical practices have adopted the Model. Now the largest roundup of evidence on how the Model performs (more…)

Learning a feeling of safety activates cellular and molecular processes that
act against depression. This has been analysed using a new animal model that
pharmacological antidepressants but that this effect is controlled by other
molecular processes. The project supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF
University in the U.S.
Fear is good. It protects us from all kinds of danger and is therefore (more…)

Romantic relationships establish special bonds between partners. Oftentimes, passionate rapport leads to permanent partnerships, and ultimately, the start of families.
Sometimes, however, one or both partners place too much emotional weight on their relationship. As a result, men or women may tend to evaluate their self-worth solely based on the outcomes of their romantic interactions. This is what (more…)

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is most effective in patients who have had four or more prior episodes of depression, according to new research from The Netherlands.
The study, published in the December issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, suggests GPs could use the number of prior episodes to determine which patients are likely to benefit most from therapy and prescribe treatment accordingly. (more…)

Valdoxan® today received a positive opinion from the European Medicines Agency’s (EMEA) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) for its use in the treatment of adult patients with Major Depressive Episodes (MDE).1
Valdoxan is an innovative approach to the treatment of MDE and has demonstrated convincing efficacy in depressed patients with moderate-severe depression2, offering new hope (more…)

Depression can cause diabetes patients to suffer from higher glucose levels over time compared to those who are not depressed, finds a study of older veterans with the disease.
"Our study shows that depression is a major and important comorbidity in people with type 2 diabetes," said study co-author Leonard Egede, M.D., from the Center for Health Disparities Research at the Medical University (more…)

Mental illness is one of the last surviving stigmas in today’s liberal society. Class, race, religion, gender and sexual orientation, are all off-limits now as reasons for discrimination, social exclusion, jokes or disparaging remarks of any kind. Where these are concerned, we’ve come a long way in terms of tolerance, fairness and sensitivity to the feelings of others; as a rule, words are chosen carefully so as not to offend and legislation ensures fair (more…)

Cortex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE Alternext US (COR)) reported that top-line data from its second Phase IIa study in opioid-induced respiratory depression (RD) demonstrated that a single oral dose of 1500mg of the AMPAKINE® compound CX717 achieved statistical significance (p = 0.005) over placebo on the primary endpoint measure of spontaneous basal respiration without affecting opioid-induced analgesia. This placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized (more…)

America’s financial crises is fueling chronic stress and limiting some people’s ability to think clearly, control emotions and regulate bodily functions in a healthy manner. University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Associate Professor Josh Klapow, Ph.D., says now is the time to take control of emotions (more…)

The news about antidepressant medications over the past several years has been mixed. The bad news from large multicenter studies such as STAR*D is that current antidepressant medications are effective, but not as effective as one might hope. Thus, there is a significant need for new treatment mechanisms for depression. On that front, there has been mixed news as well. One of the most exciting new drugs (more…)

The American College of Physicians is publishing a new guideline for the treatment of depression in Annals of Internal Medicine. ACP found no substantial differences in efficacy or quality of life among "second-generation" antidepressants used to treat depressive (more…)

There are few studies comparing the efficacy of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (STPP) and pharmacotherapy in major depressive disorder. A group of finnish investigators conducted a comparative study on the efficacy of STPP versus fluoxetine treatment in patients with major depressive disorder in a primary care setting.
Fifty-one (more…)

Prozac is regularly prescribed to ease the emotional pain of patients who are being treated for cancer. Buy lasix without prescription But can this common anti-depressant help to fight cancer itself?
Dr. Dan Peer of the Department of Cell Research and Immunology at Tel Aviv University is proving that it can. A study he and his colleagues recently (more…)

Thirty seven medical experts in psychiatry from across the
world have called on the medical community to take urgent action to optimize
services for people with a diagnosis of severe mental illness such as
schizophrenia or bipolar disorder(i).
Professor W. Wolfgang Fleischhacker, principal author of
Comorbid Somatic Illnesses in Patients with Severe Mental Disorders:
Clinical, Policy, and Research Challenges which was published in the Journal
of Clinical (more…)

A new study shows that antidepressant drugs which only affect serotonin, often used as first choice treatments, may not be best for depression in people with Parkinson’s disease. The new research is published in the December 17, 2008, (more…)

Researchers in the Laboratory of Structural Sciences at Van Andel Institute (VAI) have determined how the hormone corticotrophin releasing factor (CRF) precisely binds to its receptor. Buy soma pills This detailed structural information can help drug developers design new drugs for anxiety, depression, and related disorders.
"There are a few drugs in (more…)

Research published by the National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment (NIHR HTA) programme has added to the evidence base on treatment for adolescents who are clinically depressed. The researchers found that for adolescents with moderate to severe major depression, the addition (more…)

Irritations of the bowel can have genetic causes. Researchers at the Institute of Human Genetics at Heidelberg University Hospital have discovered this correlation. The causes of what is known as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), one of the most common disorders of the gastrointestinal tract, are considered unclear - making diagnosis and treatment extremely difficult. The results from Heidelberg, which were published in the prestigious (more…)

Postpartum depression (PPD) can lead to poor sleep quality, recent research shows. A study published in the current issue of the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, & Neonatal Nursing shows that depression symptoms (more…)

Can scientists predict who will develop anxiety disorders years in advance? UCLA psychology professor Michelle Craske thinks so. She is four years into an eight-year study evaluating 650 students, who were 16 when the study began, to identify risk factors for the development of anxiety and depression - the most comprehensive study (more…)

A new study from the National Institutes of Health finds that massage therapy may have immediate benefits on pain and mood among patients with advanced cancer. The study appears in the September 16, 2008 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.
In a randomized (more…)

A comprehensive review of current scientific literature, published in the peer-reviewed journal ecancer, has suggested that antidepressants can help the human body fight cancer by boosting its own immune response, amongst other mechanisms.
Not only this but they can help with side (more…)

In combination with medication, family-focused therapy appears to help
curb depression symptoms in teens with bipolar disorder, according to a
report released on September 1, 2008 in the Archives
of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives
journals.
Bipolar disorders are characterized by occasional periods of elevated
mood, known as mania. A large portion of patients who are diagnosed
with (more…)

The teenage years are a time of emotional highs and lows. So how do you distinguish normal teenage mood swings and rebellion from actual depression? The September 2008 issue of the Harvard Mental Health Letter highlights some ways to tell.
Although depression (more…)

Depression and heart disease are the two leading disorders with the strongest contributions to the global burden of disease. Depression and heart disease are also intertwined. In recent years, much attention has been given to depression following heart attack and its effects on prognosis. Several large scale studies have been undertaken (ENRICHD, SADHART, MIND-IT, CREATE) in which depression was targeted. Although we hoped that treating (more…)