Causes, Symptoms, And Treatment Of Melancholic Depression

Causes, Symptoms, And Treatment Of Melancholic Depression

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Just updated on April 23, 2019. 

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We all experience feelings of melancholia on occasion. When we lose a job or go through a tough breakup, we can go through a period where we feel sad and hopeless. While these feelings are a normal part of being a human, if they persist and begin to affect your everyday life negatively, you may have what is known as melancholic depression.

What Is Melancholic Depression?

Melancholic depression is a subtype of major depressive disorder (MDD), which is characterized by overwhelming and intense feelings of sadness and hopelessness, even when there is seemingly no catalyst. MDD affects every area of life, including work, school, and interpersonal relationships. Often those suffering from depression will lose interests in hobbies and activities that they once enjoyed, and may cut off contact with those closest to them. Those with melancholic depression often completely lose interest in everything for extended periods of time, and these bouts of melancholy often seem to come out of nowhere.

Symptoms Of Melancholic Depression

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Overwhelming and persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness

Those with melancholic depression often lose the ability to feel pleasure. Confronted by feelings of worthlessness and extreme sadness, these feelings are all-encompassing and feel as though they will never end. These symptoms are not brought on by a specific event, but rather come out of nowhere.

Complete loss of interest in activities once enjoyed

Even surrounded by positive events, great friends, and activities in which they once found a lot of pleasure in, those suffering from extreme depression feel no happiness. Events that they once looked forward to are now simply neutral. Even if a day is seemingly 'good,' or if they receive wonderful news, it doesn't do anything to alleviate the feelings of depression.

Thoughts of self-harm

While not a symptom present in everyone diagnosed with depression, those with more extreme symptoms may have thoughts of suicide or self-harm.

Disruption in sleep patterns

Depression can negatively affect sleep patterns, either leaving the person too sad to get out of bed (leading to excessive sleep) or disrupting sleep entirely (leading to a lack of sleep).

Significant weight loss

Loss of interest in most things includes lack of interest in food. Often those with melancholic depression will lose their appetite, leading to significant weight loss.

Difficulty concentrating, lack of energy, and inability to make decisions

Fatigue is a very common symptom, and even the most simple tasks can seem extremely difficult. It can also be difficult to concentrate on anything or make any decisions because there doesn't seem to be any reason to move forward.

Feelings of guilt

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Another symptom that differentiates melancholic depression from major depressive disorder is excessive feelings of guilt. These feelings of guilt are not brought on by a certain situation or event, but rather are linked to past experiences or the worry of doing something wrong in the future.

Symptoms worse in the morning

As opposed to major depressive disorder, melancholic depression is characterized by symptoms that are worse in the mornings. This may lead to difficulty getting out of bed and an inability to face the day ahead. Symptoms may begin to recede slightly as the days go on.

What Causes Melancholic Depression?

The important thing to note is that melancholic depression isn't caused by a specific traumatic event, although a traumatic event can trigger depression that may have been lying dormant. Biological factors cause this type of depression; in some cases, it may have been inherited from parents. Those with other mental disorders where psychotic symptoms are present are thought to be more susceptible to this type of depression, as well as elderly patients with dementia.

How Is Melancholic Depression Diagnosed?

As opposed to physical illnesses, diagnosing mental illnesses isn't as clear-cut of a process. Doctors can't simply take an x-ray, analyze a blood sample or see any physical problems. Instead, they rely on a handful of questions that will allow them to determine whether the patient is truly depressed or is simply going through a difficult time.

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The patient will be required to talk about a typical day - their behaviors, emotions, thoughts and overall lifestyle. The doctor will try to dig deeper, asking if they have had experienced any traumatic events either recently or in the past that may be contributing to feelings of melancholy. Gathering information on the history of mental illnesses in the family will also be helpful since mental illnesses are often hereditary.

To be diagnosed with melancholic depression, you must be exhibiting at least five of the above symptoms for at least two weeks straight. Before making a diagnosis, a doctor will try to rule out any physical illnesses that may be indirectly causing feelings of depression.

How Is Melancholic Depression Treated?

Medication - Many patients diagnosed with melancholic depression will be put on antidepressants. This help regulate the levels of serotonin and dopamine in the brain, bringing the mind back to a manageable state. Antidepressants typically take between 2-4 weeks before they begin to work, and during that time suicidal thoughts may increase before the emotions are regulated. It's important to stay in contact with your doctor and let them know if you feel as though suicidal thoughts have increased. It is also important to not stop taking antidepressants even when you begin to feel better until your doctor approves and helps you reduce your dosage gradually.

There are many different types of antidepressants, and it may take a bit of time for a doctor to find the right dosage and medication for you.

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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) acknowledges that the way we think and behave affects our everyday life. It pinpoints negative thought patterns and works to change them back into more positive thought patterns. A therapist will help you take the steps necessary to restructure the way you think. Since melancholic depression is so severe, CBT is often combined with medication or other types of psychological treatment.

Interpersonal Therapy - Interpersonal Therapy (IPT) focuses on your interpersonal relationships, and pinpoints areas that may be exacerbating your symptoms of depression. This type of therapy aims to help patients improve their relationships or alter their expectations of them. IPT also aims to help develop a stronger support network to deal with symptoms of depression more easily.

Learning to manage melancholic depression is a long process, but there is hope. If a loved one of yours is suffering from depression, it's important to convince them to get the help they need as soon as possible. While it may be a long road to recovery, the combination of medication, psychological treatment, and a strong support system can help alleviate symptoms and help them get on the path to a happier, healthier life. It's very important to remain a supportive confidante throughout the entire process; people suffering from depression often feel worthless, and it's important to remind them that they are not alone. Acknowledging that there is a problem is the first step, and making that initial appointment is the most difficult part. Afterwards, everything else is a step in the right direction.

If you feel as though you are suffering from melancholic depression, seek help today. The trained therapists at BetterHelp are available 24/7 to discuss your symptoms and provide treatment, and there is no need to leave the comfort of your own home. You have the opportunity to remain anonymous, talk with a professional that you feel comfortable with, and can revolve sessions around your schedule. Don't wait to get help - the sooner you contact a trained professional, the sooner you will be on the path to a healthier, happier life.

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If you or a loved one are having thoughts of suicide, don't wait to hear back from a therapist - call an emergency center immediately.

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How Is Depression Genetic?

Killer whale ‘repeats human speech’ - study (AUDIO, POLL)

Published time: 31 Jan, 2018 13:16Edited time: 1 Feb, 2018 07:21

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Killer whales have for the first time been recorded apparently imitating human speech. Audio released in a new study captured an orca mimicking words such as “hello” and “bye bye.”

A new study, published Wednesday in the journal ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society B’ and led by the Complutense University of Madrid, found orcas have the ability to learn and mimic human language.

Not just that, researchers also found the creatures can copy unfamiliar sounds produced by other orcas (like blowing a raspberry, for instance).

“History will record that in the second decade of the third millennium, a killer whale uttered the word “hello” to a human,” wrote Luke Rendell, Lecturer in Biology at the University of St Andrews, which also assisted in the study.

While other animals like dolphins, bats, seals, elephants and parrots have already been found to mimic human speech, Rendell says a whale repeating “hello” and other phrases meaningless to the mammals proves “they are capable of one of the core building blocks of language development in humans: vocal learning.”

“Although the ability to copy sounds of individuals of the same species is widespread in birds, it is remarkably rare in mammals and, among primates, is practically exclusive to humans,” read the press release announcing the study.

The team tested a 14-year-old female orca called Wilkie with multiple sounds in different scenarios, including using loudspeakers. Each time the whale’s response was measured with forensic acoustic analysis and Wilkie was reportedly often found to repeat the sound back on the first try.

The team says this display of imitation helps explain how pods of wild killer whales create their own dialect, and how captive whales change their calls to fit in with their new group when moved to different locations.

“The evidence that killer whales can show vocal learning provides us with a missing piece of understanding about their lives in the wild,” Rendell wrote.

Reporting what the mainstream media won’t: Follow RT’s Twitter account

How the Circadian Rhythm Impacts Your Diet and Supplement Use

How the Circadian Rhythm Impacts Your Diet and Supplement Use

You’ve probably heard a lot about circadian rhythms in terms of sleep/wake patterns and eating patterns. But, did you know that your circadian rhythms do much more than that? Our entire body is controlled by diurnal oscillations, which is why some activities seem easier at certain times of the day. This influence has the potential to impact the best times to take medication, eat your meals, and take your nutritional supplements.  

Many complementary medicine traditions, such as Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine, incorporate circadian rhythms in their treatments. Western medicine is starting to recognize the power of these rhythms to both facilitate treatments and contribute to dysfunction when they are in disarray. Let’s learn more about the influence of these powerful rhythms. 

The Power and Importance of the Circadian Rhythm 

Every process in your body, including reacting to oxidative stress, the composition of your microbiome, and the levels of your intracellular proteins, all have some type of oscillating pattern that fits within a daily 24-hour rhythm. Your body upregulates certain components of metabolism and mechanisms required for self-defense during the hours it expects to need them and down-regulates them during periods of rest.  

There are several circadian transcription factors that control positive and negative feedback loops in the cells to determine functions of key organs and systems, including your heart, lungs, immune system, and metabolism, as well as the intracellular processes, such as cellular respiration and DNA repair. In fact, this internal clock system regulates roughly one-third of your body’s entire gene activity! Your genetic code regulating these systems affects your body’s timing for peak performance, such as whether you are a morning person or a night owl. 

The central regulator of your circadian rhythms is the suprachiasmatic nucleus, SCN, which is found in the hypothalamus in your brain. It does this largely through controlling the secretion of melatonin, which is the main circadian hormone. 

Health problems associated with circadian rhythm disruption include:  

– Allergies
– Asthma
– Cardiovascular disease
– Hypertension
– Insomnia
– Jet lag
– Metabolic disorders
– Neurological disorders
– Psychiatric disorders
– Social jet lag
– Stroke 

Disruptions in the circadian rhythm also reduce your life expectancy. Furthermore, as you age, you become more sensitive to disruptions in the circadian rhythms—and less sensitive to synchronization techniques.  

Metabolism, Dietary Enzymes, and Feeding Times  

Circadian rhythms regulate your digestion and metabolism. In the proper rhythm, gastric emptying, thermogenesis, and motility rates reach their peak in the morning. During the active phase of the day, bile acids and nutrient transporters are regulated and more active, as is energy metabolism. Conversely, detoxification becomes more active during the rest phase.  

Several factors involved in regulating metabolism have a close relationship with the core clock:  

 – AMPK: a signal of low cellular energy and one of the most important sensors of nutrient status
– PGC-1a: regulates energy metabolism
– PPARa: regulates genes involved in glucose and lipid metabolism
– REV-ERBa: involved in the differentiation of adipocytes
– RORa: regulates lipid storage in skeletal muscle and lipogenesis
– SIRT1: a histone deacetylase that helps to signal transcription and stability of genes if dependent upon NAD+ 

For example, CLOCK-BMAL1 and omega-3 fatty acids activate some nuclear receptors involved in energy homeostasis, including PPARs. Glycogen synthase functions during the active period and glycogen phosphorylase during the resting period. Polymorphisms and other variants in certain genes related to circadian rhythms are associated with obesity and metabolic disease, some of which are affected by certain diets, such as higher carbohydrate intake or higher fat intake. 

Blood glucose and lipid regulation are dependent upon diurnal rhythms as well. Consuming a high-fat meal raises triglycerides in the blood more at night than the same meal consumed during the day. Important adipokines, including leptin and adiponectin, also have diurnal rhythms. 

To break it down, during the day when you are awake, you have:  

– Adiponectin production
– Decreased synthesis of cholesterol
– Glycolytic metabolism
– Increased synthesis of bile acids and glycogen
– Increased uptake of fatty acids
– Lipogenesis
– Secretion of insulin  

During night when you are fasting and sleeping, you have:  

– Biogenesis of mitochondria
– Catabolism of lipid
– Gluconeogenesis and glycogenolysis
– Leptin and glucagon secretion
– Oxidative metabolism 

It is not just the human cells in your body that have a daily rhythm; your microbiota impacts—and is impacted by—circadian rhythms as well. Melatonin exists in the gut in levels that are about 400 times the level in the pineal gland in the brain where it acts as a modulator of bowel function. One study found that melatonin might impact the microbiota in the gut as well as regulate other components of the circadian rhythm, like sleep.  

Dr. Deanna Minich -- Green Foods and Your Heart

Green Foods and Your Heart

In my 7 Systems of Health, the color green is associated with love and, therefore, primarily the heart and lungs, which are part of your circulatory or cardiovascular system. When healthy, your cardiovascular system functions to circulate blood, nutrients, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and hormones between cells in your body where they are needed to carry out a wide variety of biochemical functions.

Cardiovascular disease includes a number of problems and can be related to hardening of the arteries, known as atherosclerosis; heart attack, when blood flow to part of the heart is blocked by a blood clot; heart failure, when your heart is not pumping as well as it should; arrhythmia, abnormal heart rhythm; and heart valve problems, when heart valves do not open as much as they should to allow adequate blood flow, known as stenosis, and when the heart valves do not close properly and blood leaks through, known as regurgitation.

Green plant foods contain vitamin K, folate, a variety of antioxidant nutrients, and fiber, all of which have the ability to nourish and benefit your cardiovascular system.

Did you know?

• Vitamin K plays an important role in blood clotting and can prevent excess bleeding if you have an injury or accident, and it also may inhibit hardening of your arteries, which can lead to cardiovascular disease.
• Folate plays an important role in protecting your heart because it can help lower levels of homocysteine, an amino acid that when elevated can damage blood vessels. Folate deficiency, and elevated levels of homocysteine, also can indicate an increased risk for cardiovascular disease.
• Antioxidant nutrients can help combat oxidative stress, which can lead to inflammation and chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease.
• Dietary fiber can help lower total and LDL cholesterol and, therefore, may have beneficial effects for cardiovascular health.
• Eating leafy green and cruciferous vegetables may reduce the incidence of several types of cardiovascular disease.
• Evidence from scientific studies is convincing that increasing your intake of vegetables and fruit can reduce your risk for hypertension, coronary heart disease, and stroke.

Leafy greens that help to nourish your cardiovascular and LOVE system of health include:

Chard (rainbow, red) 

• Green leafy vegetables, like Swiss chard, contain antioxidant phenolic compounds, which may positively effect cardiometabolic risk factors.
• Flavonoid antioxidants can be found in chard, in particular one called vitexin, which may exert cardioprotective effects.

Vitamin and Mineral Interactions: The Complex Relationship of Essential Nutrients

Vitamin and Mineral Interactions: The Complex Relationship of Essential Nutrients

The essential vitamins and minerals share a delicate dance in the body. For many body processes to function optimally, you must have the right balance of the nutrients. Many nutrients work synergistically, so a deficiency in one might appear as or exacerbate a deficiency in another and vice versa.

Other nutrients are antagonists, so care must be taken when supplementing with one so it does not negatively impact the absorption, uptake, or metabolism of the other. For some nutrient pairs, the balance is delicate, with the pairs in certain situations enhancing the work of the other, and in other situations, they antagonize one another.

The following is a brief overview of the relationships and interactions between the essential nutrients. As you will see, some vitamins and minerals have a relationship with several other essential nutrients, while some have few if any known synergistic or antagonistic interactions.

VITAMINS

Vitamin A

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Synergistic Nutrients:

Vitamin E

• Vitamin E enhances vitamin A intestinal absorption at medium to high concentrations, up to 40 percent.
• Vitamin A and E together lead to increased antioxidant capabilities, protect against some forms of cancer, and support a healthier gut.
• They work synergistically to prevent or support obesity, metabolic syndrome, inflammation, immune response, brain health, hearing loss.

Iodine

• Retinoic acid is involved in iodine uptake.
• Severe vitamin A deficiency decreases the uptake of iodine and impacts thyroid metabolism.
• Iodine deficiency and vitamin A deficiency leads to a more severe case of primary hypothyroidism compared to iodine deficiency alone.

Iron

• Iron is required for converting beta-carotene into retinol.
• Vitamin A increases iron absorption, especially non-heme iron.
• Iron increases the bioavailability of pro-vitamin A carotenoids, including alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, and beta-cryptoxanthin.
• Supplementing with vitamin A might help reverse iron deficiency anemia in children, and vitamin A deficiency might contribute to anemia.

Zinc

• Zinc is required for vitamin A transport.
• Supplementing with vitamin A and zinc in children led to a reduced risk of infection and increased linear growth.
• Zinc along with vitamin A helps maintain eye health.

 Antagonistic Nutrients:

Vitamin E

• High levels of beta carotene might decrease serum levels of vitamin E.

Vitamin K

• Vitamin A toxicity inhibits the synthesis of vitamin K2 by intestinal bacteria and interferes with hepatic actions of vitamin K.
• Vitamin A interferes with absorption of vitamin K.

My interview with Dr. Deanna Minich

My interview with Dr. Deanna Minich

Dr. Deanna Minich

Functional Nutritionist, Author, Artist, Yoga Practitioner

Dr. Deanna Minich is an internationally-recognized lifestyle medicine expert, creative visionary and teacher, and author of five books. Her extensive background in nutrition, yoga, and personal growth led her to create a whole-self, colorful approach to health called Food & Spirit. She developed the Certified Food & Spirit Practitioner Program to provide health professionals with a practical way to apply the Food & Spirit framework with their patients and clients. She is author of Whole Detox, a book based on a whole-life, whole-systems, whole-foods approach to detoxification, as well as on her Detox Summit, the world’s largest online event with 30 leaders in the detox field.

Dr. Minich has a Ph.D. in Medical Sciences (Human Nutrition and Metabolism) and a M.S. in Human Nutrition and Metabolism. During her scientific study, she also studied ancient healing arts such as Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine.  Currently, she is a Fellow of the American College of Nutrition, a Certified Nutrition Specialist, a Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner, and a Registered Yoga Teacher. She spends her time teaching for her Whole Detox and Food & Spirit programs, the Institute for Functional Medicine and the University of Western States. Her passion is teaching a whole-self approach to nourishment and bridging the gaps between science, spirituality, and art in medicine.  

Broken Brain: Episode 7

After I experienced my own broken brain,[ First Name], I threw myself into scouring the literature. I consulted with other doctors and scientists, and experimented with my own body and mind.
I finally came to understand that it wasn’t just one thing that had caused my brain to break, but the accumulation of many things.

Since it was that accumulation of many things, treating my broken brain required addressing many things.

My life’s mission has become to support humanity with what the comprehensive 7-step plan based off of the treatment that I used for myself and that I use for my patients. In this episode we will cover each of those seven steps so that you can start to heal your broken brain today. 

Click here to watch Episode Seven.

This episode also includes a long list of experts and doctors to share their most important to-do list to live your best life and support your best, healthiest brain and mind.

Dr. Rupy Aujla
Dr. Elizabeth Boham
Dr. John Ratey
Biomedical Nutrition Expert, Vicki Koblinger
Dr. David Perlmutter
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Dr. Daniel Amen
Dr. Maggie Ney
Dr. Datis Kharrazian
Dr. Izabella Wentz
Dr. Hyla Cass
Dr. Todd LePine
Jim Kwik
Dr. Robin Berzin
Dr. Frank Lipman

Trust me, you won’t want to miss this.