Child abuse and genetics have been mentioned before on this blog as contributors to mental illness - but never in the same story, until now.
A new study suggests that having certain gene variations helps people avoid depression as adults even if they were abused or otherwise experienced “extreme stress” as children.
Those without the variations have less protection from stress hormones that “hyperactivate” the chemicals known as neurotransmitters (discussed the other day).
Of course, they can still benefit from therapy to deal with the trauma of abuse - and the sooner, the better.
When it comes to mental illness, neither nature nor nurture (or the lack of it) has to be destiny by itself.

Readers and listeners often accuse journalists of only focusing on bad news.
It’s true that bad news proliferates — after all, one of the first things you learn in journalism class is that the more bizarre the story, the more newsworthy it is.
However, all the sadness can take its toll on an audience.
In a study by Medill’s Media Management Center, teens said “news is stressful and reminds them of the peril in the world.”
And it can affect journalists as well. Even though we’re trained to be emotionally detached, we’re still human and feel pain when trauma happens. (This past weekend, my heart broke when I heard about a teenage boy near my hometown being charged with murdering his parents and two younger brothers. The high school he went to was the athletic and academic archrival of my high school.)
So, how do we react in a healthy way?
The MMC recommends the media “actively experiment with ways to diminish the negative associations teens have with news and to lift their feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness.”
I believe bad news loses some of its power when it motivates people to overcome it with good news.

UPDATE: Today (Feb. 6), the Associated Press asks why teens kill their families.
One expert’s answer: “With a teenager, it’s almost always impulsive, spontaneous, and there happens to be a loaded gun around.”

Clinical depression is widely thought to involve problems with two chemicals: serotonin and norepinephrine (also called noradrenaline). When these neurotransmitters don’t go to the right place in your brain, it affects your moods. Common antidepressants — such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors — work by redirecting the chemicals.

However, recent research from Spain suggests another kind of medication might help. ScienceDaily reports a study that found people with depression had bad adrenoceptors in their brains that didn’t direct neurotransmitters properly. By using drugs to fix the adrenoceptors, pharmacologist and biochemist Jorge Emilio Ortega Calvo says, doctors hope they can improve treatment for depression by making it more specific to the individual.

While praising SSRIs, Dr. Ronald Duman of Yale University told the Chicago Tribune that individualized treatments are also needed and will likely be more common in the future.

It’s February! Can you believe it?

The shortest month of the year contains an odd mix of holidays. Yesterday was Groundhog Day. Punxsatawney Phil saw his shadow, predicting six more weeks of winter, which is bad news for those battling seasonal affective disorder.

In a few weeks, we’ll have Valentine’s Day (another depressing occasion for many people) and Presidents Day. And, thanks to an early Easter, Ash Wednesday is this week. (Some people find that depressing, but I find it strangely invigorating - I like undergoing a “spiritual tuneup” during Lent.)

The Chinese/Lunar New Year falls on Thursday, and the month wraps up with Leap Day on the 29th.

Also, the entire month is Black History Month, a time to remember the accomplishments and contributions of African-Americans.

One person worth highlighting is Solomon Carter Fuller, who lived at the turn of the 20th century and is recognized as the first black psychiatrist in the United States.

Although African-Americans have made great strides since then, they still face obstacles when it comes to mental health.
The U.S. Surgeon General reports:

African Americans are over-represented in high-need populations that are particularly at risk for mental illnesses:
* People who are homeless. While representing only 12% of the U.S. population, African Americans make up about 40% of the homeless population.
* People who are incarcerated. Nearly half of all prisoners in State and Federal jurisdictions and almost 40% of juveniles in legal custody are African Americans.
* Children in foster care and the child welfare system. African American children and youth constitute about 45% of children in public foster care and more than half of all children waiting to be adopted.
* People exposed to violence. African Americans of all ages are more likely to be victims of serious violent crime than are non-Hispanic whites. One study reported that over 25% of African American youth exposed to violence met diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Among Vietnam War veterans, 21% of black veterans, compared to 14% of non-Hispanic white veterans, suffer from PTSD, apparently because of the greater exposure of blacks to war-zone trauma.

To help rectify the situation, the Black Mental Health Alliance, based in Baltimore, seeks to promote better, more culturally relevant care for black Americans.

Whatever you celebrate this month, may it be healthy!

As I’ve been looking for stories for this blog, I’ve encountered an abundance of riches, both from RSS feeds and stories my classmates have written.

There’s just not enough time to do them all justice with their own post. So, I’m going to take a cue from my favorite TV show, “Jeopardy!” (yes, I’m a nerd), and make a hodgepodge category of stories that caught my eye this week.

From Britney to Katrina to Tom Brady, there should be something here for everyone.
Enjoy, and comment away!

1) Group helps women — and men — through abortion trauma; critics say it’s a ploy - Medill News Service
2) Super Bowl stress can be a hazard - Associated Press
3) Mental disorders persist among Hurricane Katrina survivors - National Institute of Mental Health
4) Oops, they did it again to Britney Spears - World of Psychology
5) Kids with ADHD may be more likely to bully - MSNBC.com
6) Winter Health Week shares survival strategies - Beyond Blue
7) Suicide risk high among Latinas - The Washington Post

Here’s another potential cause of many mental illnesses and other conditions: traumatic brain injuries.

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York found that many people who suffered a major blow to the head later struggled with addiction, learning disabilities, memory loss and depression.

The good news is that they responded well to therapy for the injuries, often caused by an accident, sports mishap or parental abuse.
The bad news is that initial problems with memory and confusion after a brain injury often lead to worse problems later in life:

People get abused as kids, making them inattentive in school and sometimes unable to learn,” says [Jennifer] Highley [of Common Ground, an agency that builds housing for the homeless]. She says head injury and the emotional fallout from abuse can lead to alcoholism and addiction, and “that combination creates the inability to function and often leads to homelessness.”

However, one type of brain injury that’s not being linked to mental illness is those suffered during combat.
Many veterans returning from Iraq have reported serious brain injuries. Illinois recently launched a Warriors Assistance Program to screen all National Guardsmen returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tammy Duckworth, director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, said,

“Too often mild traumatic brain injury is misdiagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Military doctors said the opposite is also true.
They hope more accurate diagnoses will help soldiers get the right kind of treatment.

Illinois has a hot line for veterans to call for screenings: 1-866-554-4927.
Civilians who think they may have a serious brain injury or are worried about someone else can contact their doctor for help.

Mental illnesses are known to run in families.

Allaboutdepression.com says,

If you have a parent or sibling that has had major depression, you may be 1.5 to 3 times more likely to develop the condition than those who do not have a close relative with the condition.

The link is even stronger with bipolar disorder:

Of those with bipolar disorder, approximately 50% of them have a parent with a history of clinical depression. When a mother or father has bipolar disorder, their child will have a 25% chance of developing some type of clinical depression. If both parents have bipolar disorder, the chance of their child also developing bipolar disorder is between 50% and 75%. Brothers and sisters of those with bipolar disorder may be 8 to 18 times more likely to develop bipolar disorder, and 2 to 10 times more likely to develop major depressive disorder than others with no such siblings.

However, a specific gene linked to depression has not been found — yet.

But a new study suggests that a gene could help determine why people respond better to certain antidepressants than others

The German team looked at how changes in the ABCB-1 gene affected three widely used treatments: Forest Laboratories Inc’s Celexa, Wyeth ’s Effexor and Remeron from Dutch chemicals group Akzo Nobel’s Organon pharmaceutical unit. … They found that the gene and the protein blocked Celexa and Effexor but not Remeron. The researchers do not know why but said the drugs’ different chemical makeup could be the reason.

The team added that a genetic test could be developed to help people for whom antidepressants don’t work.

Kirsten Haglund of Michigan won the 2008 Miss America pageant on Saturday.

Like all Miss Americas, she has a cause. Based on her own experience with anorexia, she wants to raise awareness of eating disorders and encourage people to have a healthy body image.

“You have to have curves,” she said proudly.

“You can’t look like a stick-thin model.”

Haglund isn’t alone:

The National Eating Disorders Association estimates eating disorders affect 10 million girls and women and about one million boys and men in the United States.

Some of them, like Haglund, recover. But others don’t, leading one site to call anorexia “the most deadly mental illness.”

Treatment for eating disorders has a heavy psychological component, including therapy and behavior modification.

Although I was rooting for Miss New York (her brother was a friend of mine when I lived upstate), I wish Haglund the best and hope other people with anorexia can find inspiration from her story.

I’m always a little skeptical of studies that try to determine whether prayer helps people recover from illness.

Not because I don’t believe in prayer, but because I think religious tenets usually can’t be measured within a scientific framework. Therefore, such studies just seem like a waste of time: No matter what your beliefs, you probably won’t change your mind - or your prayer habits - based on the results.

However, I think it’s great when people affected by mental illness find strength and coping strategies in religion and spirituality.

For one thing, houses of worship can provide a great sense of community and support, which alleviates feelings of loneliness.

Clergy and other religious leaders can also often be a person’s first stop when seeking help. Some churches, including First Presbyterian in Evanston, even run counseling centers.

Sadly, some congregations have done great harm over the years, telling people that if they really loved or trusted God, they wouldn’t be depressed.

Well, tell that to Jesus. Or Job. Or Jeremiah, or any one of a number of biblical people who weren’t super-happy all the time.

Besides the Christian tradition, Buddhism and Hinduism make heavy use of meditation, which comes in various forms and has many possible health benefits.

World of Psychology shares a study being done at Emory University on how to prevent depression before it starts by using “compassion meditation,” promoted by the Dalai Lama.

His Holiness tells CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta that while depression has a biological basis, it can be mitigated by changing how we think about other people. Instead of seeing some as enemies, some as friends and the rest as “other,” we should try to treat everyone the same, “with hands of compassion moving in action.”

(The New Testament has a somewhat similar concept.)

The research team at Emory says the study looks promising. Perhaps researching religion and prevention will be more conclusive than religion and cures.

Depression is being realized as more than just a mental condition. Besides having numerous physical symptoms (including headaches, fatigue and problems with sleeping and digestion), it may contribute to heart disease, according to the American Heart Association.

The heart association cites a study that found men with depression had greater amounts of substances in the blood that can signify inflammation and lead to clogged arteries. The results were even greater among men who were otherwise healthy and had no other symptoms of heart disease.

However, the link is far from conclusive:

One surprise of the study was that depressive mood was more frequent in French men than Irish men even though the incidence of heart disease is higher in Ireland.

In America, heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death for men and women in all racial groups except Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders. For them, it’s No. 2, behind cancer.

Besides depression, anxiety, particularly workplace stress, can also raise a person’s risk, as Julie Deardorff of the Chicago Tribune reports on her “Julie’s Health Club” blog.

“Stress appeared to upset the part of the nervous system which controls the heart, telling it how to work and controlling the variability of the heart rate,” the BBC News reported.

That’s not good for us Americans, who seem to thrive on stress and creating it for ourselves. We commute long distances, work long hours, spend too much money, eat too much (unhealthy) food, drink excessively, smoke, and don’t exercise or sleep enough.

Some of that is unavoidable, thanks to the demands of modern life. And many people face stress caused by poverty or other situations that are largely beyond their control.

But it’s probably no coincidence that many of the same things recommended to prevent heart disease are also good for people with depression and anxiety. In fact, they’re good for people in general.

We have yet to learn all the ways our minds and bodies are connected. Even though heart disease seems far away to my generation, we should still know our risks, take some control and start healthy habits now, before it’s too late.