We know depression can result with avid users of social media. Is that level of metabolic dysfunction going to result in genetic changes?
We already know depression can run in families. If depression were defeated in familial dynamics, would the chromosomes show change that brings normality to new members of that family. It is worth pursuing. I have to wonder, on a global scale, what genomes manifest less depression.
Is terrorism a result of poverty. Yes, we know that for a fact. Is depression reinforcing it? What do you think?
February 1, 2016
We already know depression can run in families. If depression were defeated in familial dynamics, would the chromosomes show change that brings normality to new members of that family. It is worth pursuing. I have to wonder, on a global scale, what genomes manifest less depression.
Is terrorism a result of poverty. Yes, we know that for a fact. Is depression reinforcing it? What do you think?
...Psychologist Steve Cole, (click here) who studies how social environments affect gene expression, says researchers have known for years that lonely people are at greater risk for heart attacks, metastatic cancer, Alzheimer's and other ills. "But we haven't understood why," he said.
Then last year, Cole and his colleagues at the UCLA School of Medicine, along with collaborators at the University of California at Davis and the University of Chicago, uncovered complex immune system responses at work in lonely people. They found that social isolation turned up the activity of genes responsible for inflammation and turned down the activity of genes that produce antibodies to fight infection.
The abnormalities were discovered in monocytes, a type of white blood cell, produced in the bone marrow, that is dramatically changed in people who are socially isolated. Monocytes play a special immunological role and are one of the body's first lines of defense against infection. However, immature monocytes cause inflammation and reduce antibody protection. And they are what proliferates in the blood of lonely people....
Does the global community use the same standards for defining depression? When I look at European countries with higher than expected rates, it is accompanied by higher number of Psychiatrists. Depression in countries such as the Netherlands is more widely reported.
Higher levels of incidence without accompany Psychiatrists means there is lack of treatment that overwhelms the country.
A global view of the burden caused by depression. (click here)
12 November 2014
Depression is a major human blight. Globally, it is responsible for more ‘years lost’ to disability than any other condition. This is largely because so many people suffer from it — some 350 million, according to the World Health Organization — and the fact that it lasts for many years. (When ranked by disability and death combined, depression comes ninth behind prolific killers such as heart disease, stroke and HIV.) Yet depression is widely undiagnosed and untreated because of stigma, lack of effective therapies and inadequate mental-health resources. Almost half of the world’s population lives in a country with only two psychiatrists per 100,000 people....
Afghanistan is deeply mired in depression among it's people. No surprise there. For all the monies poured into the war machine there is still no relief for the people. Something is very wrong in the priorities of countries insisting war will solve all problems. War is not solving the problems of the people of Afghanistan. Nor is it solving the problem of The West.
Does the global community use the same standards for defining depression? When I look at European countries with higher than expected rates, it is accompanied by higher number of Psychiatrists. Depression in countries such as the Netherlands is more widely reported.
Higher levels of incidence without accompany Psychiatrists means there is lack of treatment that overwhelms the country.
12 November 2014
Depression is a major human blight. Globally, it is responsible for more ‘years lost’ to disability than any other condition. This is largely because so many people suffer from it — some 350 million, according to the World Health Organization — and the fact that it lasts for many years. (When ranked by disability and death combined, depression comes ninth behind prolific killers such as heart disease, stroke and HIV.) Yet depression is widely undiagnosed and untreated because of stigma, lack of effective therapies and inadequate mental-health resources. Almost half of the world’s population lives in a country with only two psychiatrists per 100,000 people....
Afghanistan is deeply mired in depression among it's people. No surprise there. For all the monies poured into the war machine there is still no relief for the people. Something is very wrong in the priorities of countries insisting war will solve all problems. War is not solving the problems of the people of Afghanistan. Nor is it solving the problem of The West.
