Are you "Inf-Obese?" A New Health Crisis and 3 Ways to Avoid It

Infobesity: the feeling of busting at the seams with tweets, status updates, texts, emails…too much information!

The average adult spends 6-8 hours each day online. With each passing moment, there’s a more portable gadget that makes consuming information easier... just as there's another unhealthy junk food or 'energy drink.' Is this really any different than the obesity crisis?

Whether from distracted driving, or erosion of quality time with our children, or lacking a spare moment in the day to just relax...infobesity is equally as dangerous to our bodies and even more so to our spirits.

How can you avoid the dangers of infobesity and get Info-Skinny in 2011?

Getting Started: Talk Therapy for Depression

Many studies have found that talk therapy, or psychotherapy, can help treat depression. Talk therapy can help you learn about your depression and help you find ways to manage your symptoms.

“Talk therapy can give you the skills to help handle your depression, so for many people it’s a very empowering experience,” says Larry Christensen, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of South Alabama in Mobile. “This makes it effective over a long period of time.”

If you have mild to moderate depression, talk therapy might be all you need to feel better. But if you have more severe depression, you might benefit from medication in addition to talk therapy. Here are some tips for getting started.

The Top Ten Inexpensive Ways to Keep Warm in Winter

Baby, it’s cold outside! Rosy cheeks are cute but you’ll soon want to warm up when ol’ Jack Frost has been nippin’ at your nose. Here are ten fun and inexpensive ways to beat the winter chill.

10. Warm Bricks. This is an old-fashioned, cheap way to keep those toes toasty. While you are cooking dinner, place a brick in the bottom of your oven. Wrap it in towel and put it at the foot of your bed. It will keep you warm all night long!

9. New Life for Old Socks. You can recycle socks by using them as forearm warmers. No one likes cold wind up coat sleeves. So cut off the sock at the ankle and pull them on. You can easily slip them into your coat pocket with no one the wiser.

Depression Rising, but Psychotherapy Declines

Gap Between Drug Treatment and Talk Therapy Widens

More Americans than ever are receiving treatment for depression, but the number getting psychotherapy with or without drugs continues to decline, a national survey finds.

Depression treatment rates increased dramatically during the 1990s with the introduction of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants Paxil, Prozac, and Zoloft.

Other SSRIs, including Celexa, Lexapro, and Luvox soon followed, as did newer classes of antidepressants represented by drugs like Cymbalta, Effexor, and Wellbutrin.

Despite all the new drug choices, the use of antidepressants increased only modestly during the last decade -- from about 74% of patients treated in 1998 to 75% in 2007, the survey revealed.

Team Treatment Helps Depression, Chronic Disease

Patients Have Better Outcomes With Team Approach to Managing Care, Study Finds

More than 40% of older Americans have multiple chronic conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease, and many also suffer from depression.

These patients have the highest health care costs and the worst outcomes, but a new study suggests that a team-based approach to managing care could improve outcomes and potentially save taxpayers billions.

Researchers at the University of Washington and the Seattle-based managed care organization Group Health Cooperative published their findings in the Dec. 30 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Bright Light Eases Depression in Elderly People

An Hour of Light a Day May Brighten Mood, Improve Sleep in Elderly People With Depression

Exposure to bright light may ease symptoms of depression in elderly people.

A new study shows that three weeks of bright light therapy using specially designed light boxes improved symptoms of depression by as much as 54% in older adults with depression.

In addition to lifting their moods, bright light therapy improved sleep and optimized levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Low levels of serotonin are associated with depression and often targeted by antidepressant drugs.

Researchers say it’s the first major study to show a beneficial effect of bright light therapy on treating depression in the elderly with non-seasonal major depressive disorder.

Untreated Depression

Untreated clinical depression is a serious problem. Untreated depression increases the chance of risky behaviors such as drug or alcohol addiction. It also can ruin relationships, cause problems at work, make it difficult to overcome serious illnesses, and even result in .

Clinical depression, also known as major depression, is an illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts. Clinical depression affects the way you eat and sleep. It affects the way you feel about yourself and those around you. It even affects your thoughts.

People who are depressed cannot simply “pull themselves together” and be cured. Without proper treatment, including antidepressants and/or psychotherapy, untreated clinical depression can last for weeks, months, or years. Appropriate treatment, however, can help most people with depression.

‘Depression Gene’ Linked to Response to Stress

Study Shows Gene Plays Role in the Ways People React to Stressful Events

An analysis of 54 studies suggests that there really is a depression gene that can affect how people respond to stressful life events.

The new study, which appears in the Jan. 3 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, should help resolve controversy regarding the role of this gene.

People with a short variation of the serotonin transporter (5-HTTLPR) gene are more likely to become depressed when faced with certain stressful life events than their counterparts who have the longer variation, the new study showed.

What’s more, not all stressful life events are created equally when it comes to depression risk. For example, this gene raises risk of depression in people who have experienced stress related to childhood maltreatment and severe medical illness as opposed to other stressful events.

FDA OKs Viibryd to Treat Depression

New Antidepressant Gives Patients New Option for Treating Major Depressive Disorder

he FDA has approved a new drug called Viibryd to treat adults with major depressive disorder.

Carol Reed, MD, chief medical officer of Clinical Data Inc., tells WebMD that Viibryd offers a new choice for doctors treating people with depression. It is the only antidepressant that is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor but also works as a 5HT1A receptor partial agonist, meaning it affects the brain chemical serotonin in two ways. Serotonin helps regulate mood and other processes.

“Major depressive disorder is disabling and prevents a person from functioning normally,” Thomas Laughren, MD, director of the division of psychiatry products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, says in a news release. “Medications affect everyone differently, so it is important to have a variety of treatment options available to patients who suffer from depression.”

Depression: Coping With Anxiety Symptoms

Depression and anxiety often go together.

Depression and anxiety might seem like opposites, but they often go together. More than half of the people diagnosed with depression also have anxiety.

Either condition can be disabling on its own. Together, depression and anxiety can be especially hard to live with, hard to diagnose, and hard to treat.

“When you’re in the grip of depression and anxiety, it can feel like the misery will never end, that you’ll never recover,” says Dean F. MacKinnon, MD, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. “But people do recover. You just need to find the right treatment.”

Genetic Link Between Stress and Depression

Study Shows People With a Genetic Mutation May Be More Likely to Develop Depression

A gene that influences how the brain responds to stress may also play a key role in depression.

A new study shows people with a certain genetic mutation that causes them to produce less of the brain chemical neuropeptide Y (NPY) have a more intense negative emotional response to stress and may be more likely to develop depression than others.

Researchers found low levels of neuropeptide Y caused a stronger emotional response to negative stimuli and physiological response to pain in the brain, which may make people less resilient in the face of stress and more prone to depression.

Medications For Depression (Valium)

Valium (diazepam) is a medication available by prescription and used to relieve anxiety, seizures and muscle spasms, as well as to control and relieve the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal syndrome.
Dosage and taking this medicine regularly
Valium comes as a liquid, regular tablet and extended-release capsule that is supposed to be taken orally to make sure you benefit from it. The extended-release tablet is not supposed to be crushed or chewed – you need to take it whole to provide for the gradual release of the medicine inside your body. This medicine is usually taken four times a day, and you need to make sure you take it at regular intervals without skipping doses. The liquid form is supposed to be taken with the help of a special dropper, as otherwise you may take too much of this drug or too little of it. The contents of the dropper are t be mixed with some semi-solid food, like applesauce, or mixed with a carbonated beverage. If you are taking antacids, let one hour pass between your dosage of Valium and an antacid. Being allergic to diazepam or any other medications of the kind is a contraindication for taking Valium.

Therapy, Exercise Help Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Study Shows Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Exercise Are Safe Ways to Treat CFS Symptoms

Cognitive behavioral therapy and exercise, in conjunction with medical care, are safe and effective ways to treat some of the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), finds a new study published online in The Lancet.

CFS is characterized by severe, debilitating fatigue, pain, difficulty concentrating, and other symptoms that last for six months or longer. There is little consensus about the cause of CFS and how best to treat it.

In the study, called the PACE trial, 640 people with CFS received specialized medical care including disease education and medication to treat CFS symptoms, alone or in combination with:

India moves toward regulation of assisted reproduction and surrogacy

India's surrogacy industry may soon face national regulation.

India's booming, and much publicized, surrogacy industry may soon feel the effects of significant regulatory developments. The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, in conjunction with the Indian Council of Medical Research, has finalized the 2010 "Assisted Reproductive Technologies (Regulation)" bill and sent it to the law ministry for approval.

The 35-page bill seeks to regulate India's heavily market-driven fertility industry, and introduces a number of policies ranging from clinic regulation to restrictions on ART access. Some notable points that the bill formally includes: