Depression and Help Seeking Among Mexican-Americans: The Mediating Role of Familism.
Depression and Help Seeking Among Mexican-Americans: The Mediating Role of Familism.
J Immigr Minor Health. 2013 Apr 9;
Keeler AR, Siegel JT, Alvaro EM
Increased depression symptomatology results in a reduced willingness to seek help from family. Focusing on Mexican-Americans, the current study hypothesized that the a reduction in favorable perceptions of familial relations could be partially to blame for limited help seeking among people with depression. Data were collected from 84 Mexican-Americans. Measures assessed depression symptomatology, familism, perceptions of help seeking from family, and demographics. As predicted: (1) depression symptomatology was negatively associated with perceptions of help seeking from family; (2) familism was positively associated with perceptions of help seeking from family; and, (3) depression symptomatology was negatively associated with familism. Further, familism partially mediated the relationship between depression symptomatology and help seeking comfort, as well as between depression symptomatology and the perceived utility of familial help seeking. The results indicate a reduction in familistic values may be partially responsible for reduced help seeking among Mexican-Americans with depression. HubMed – depression
Use of Paced Respiration to Alleviate Intractable Hiccups (Singultus): A Case Report.
Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback. 2013 Apr 9;
Hurst DF, Purdom CL, Hogan MJ
Heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback is an emerging treatment for many health conditions involving dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system including hypertension, gastric pain, anxiety, and depression. Hiccups are frequently considered an annoyance. However, when intractable (lasting over 1 month), they can become debilitating, with some patients resorting to invasive treatments that often involve the phrenic nerve. Theoretically, HRV biofeedback should also provide a means to stimulate the phrenic nerve and could be an alternative option. We report the successful treatment of a 5 year-long case of intractable hiccups with one session of HRV biofeedback training. These results suggest that biofeedback may be a useful, non-invasive means of relieving intractable hiccups. No clear causality can be inferred from a single case, and further study is needed to determine if this finding has wider applicability. HubMed – depression
The association between low vitamin D and depressive disorders.
Mol Psychiatry. 2013 Apr 9;
Milaneschi Y, Hoogendijk W, Lips P, Heijboer AC, Schoevers R, van Hemert AM, Beekman AT, Smit JH, Penninx BW
It has been hypothesized that hypovitaminosis D is associated with depression but epidemiological evidence is limited. We investigated the association between depressive disorders and related clinical characteristics with blood concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] in a large cohort. The sample consisted of participants (aged 18-65 years) from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA) with a current (N=1102) or remitted (N=790) depressive disorder (major depressive disorder, dysthymia) defined according to DSM-IV criteria, and healthy controls (N=494). Serum levels of 25(OH)D measured and analyzed in multivariate analyses adjusting for sociodemographics, sunlight, urbanization, lifestyle and health. Of the sample, 33.6% had deficient or insufficient serum 25(OH)D (<50?nmol?l(-1)). As compared with controls, lower 25(OH)D levels were found in participants with current depression (P=0.001, Cohen's d=0.21), particularly in those with the most severe symptoms (P=0.001, Cohen's d=0.44). In currently depressed persons, 25(OH)D was inversely associated with symptom severity (?=-0.19, s.e.=0.07, P=0.003) suggesting a dose-response gradient, and with risk (relative risk=0.90, 95% confidence interval=0.82-0.99, P=0.03) of having a depressive disorders at 2-year follow-up. This large cohort study indicates that low levels of 25(OH)D were associated to the presence and severity of depressive disorder suggesting that hypovitaminosis D may represent an underlying biological vulnerability for depression. Future studies should elucidate whether-the highly prevalent-hypovitaminosis D could be cost-effectively treated as part of preventive or treatment interventions for depression.Molecular Psychiatry advance online publication, 9 April 2013; doi:10.1038/mp.2013.36. HubMed – depression
Allelic differences between Europeans and Chinese for CREB1 SNPs and their implications in gene expression regulation, hippocampal structure and function, and bipolar disorder susceptibility.
Mol Psychiatry. 2013 Apr 9;
Li M, Luo XJ, Rietschel M, Lewis CM, Mattheisen M, Müller-Myhsok B, Jamain S, Leboyer M, Landén M, Thompson PM, Cichon S, Nöthen MM, Schulze TG, Sullivan PF, Bergen SE, Donohoe G, Morris DW, Hargreaves A, Gill M, Corvin A, Hultman C, Toga AW, Shi L, Lin Q, Shi H, Gan L, Meyer-Lindenberg A, Czamara D, Henry C, Etain B, Bis JC, Ikram MA, Fornage M, Debette S, Launer LJ, Seshadri S, Erk S, Walter H, Heinz A, Bellivier F, Stein JL, Medland SE, Arias Vasquez A, Hibar DP, Franke B, Martin NG, Wright MJ, , , , , , Su B
Bipolar disorder (BD) is a polygenic disorder that shares substantial genetic risk factors with major depressive disorder (MDD). Genetic analyses have reported numerous BD susceptibility genes, while some variants, such as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in CACNA1C have been successfully replicated, many others have not and subsequently their effects on the intermediate phenotypes cannot be verified. Here, we studied the MDD-related gene CREB1 in a set of independent BD sample groups of European ancestry (a total of 64?888 subjects) and identified multiple SNPs significantly associated with BD (the most significant being SNP rs6785[A], P=6.32 × 10(-5), odds ratio (OR)=1.090). Risk SNPs were then subjected to further analyses in healthy Europeans for intermediate phenotypes of BD, including hippocampal volume, hippocampal function and cognitive performance. Our results showed that the risk SNPs were significantly associated with hippocampal volume and hippocampal function, with the risk alleles showing a decreased hippocampal volume and diminished activation of the left hippocampus, adding further evidence for their involvement in BD susceptibility. We also found the risk SNPs were strongly associated with CREB1 expression in lymphoblastoid cells (P<0.005) and the prefrontal cortex (P<1.0 × 10(-6)). Remarkably, population genetic analysis indicated that CREB1 displayed striking differences in allele frequencies between continental populations, and the risk alleles were completely absent in East Asian populations. We demonstrated that the regional prevalence of the CREB1 risk alleles in Europeans is likely caused by genetic hitchhiking due to natural selection acting on a nearby gene. Our results suggest that differential population histories due to natural selection on regional populations may lead to genetic heterogeneity of susceptibility to complex diseases, such as BD, and explain inconsistencies in detecting the genetic markers of these diseases among different ethnic populations.Molecular Psychiatry advance online publication, 9 April 2013; doi:10.1038/mp.2013.37. HubMed – depression
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