Depression affects millions of people worldwide and is characterized by feelings of sad mood, hopelessness, irritability, fatigue and loss of interest in once pleasurable activities. Depression symptoms vary from someone to person, but many people who are feeling down for more than some weeks, may be clinically depressed.
What are the symptoms of depression?
- Persistent low or sad mood
- Feelings of anxiety
- Lack of vigor / fatigue
- Feelings of guilt, hopelessness
- Loss of interest in activities that were once enjoyable
- Irritable mood
- Changes in appetite
- Changes in sleep: either insomnia or over-sleeping
- Difficulty concentrating or remembering things
- Aches or pains, digestive problems, persistent headaches
- Thoughts of suicide
Depression occurs more frequently in women than in men, perhaps because of biological factors unique to women may be connected to a higher depression rate in women. Women also tend to complain of depression symptoms differently than men.
The majority of depressed patients never seek help, although depression is highly treatable. Many depressed patients share the mistaken confidence that other people will think less of them if they go to a physician for depression. Many blame the symptoms on other diseases and never seek help. Some people with depression have suicidal thoughts in the confidence that their feelings will never change.
Depression can be caused by a aggregate of factors, together with genetics, environmental factors, trauma and stress. Whatever the cause, more surely an imbalance of neurotransmitters that carry signals in the middle of nerves.
The monoamine hypothesis
Most antidepressants on the shop today treat depression by expanding the availability of monoamine neurotransmitters, nor-epinephrine and serotonin. Some antidepressants may also growth an additional one monoamine, dopamine. Although the monoamine hypothesis has been the focus of much antidepressant research, it has also received a share of criticism. Some antidepressant drugs work well in depressed patients despite the fact that they do not work straight through the monoamine pathway. Also, experiments in which monoamines were depleted in patients did not seem to cause depression in healthy people and did not make depression worse in depressed patients.
Modern antidepressant drugs work by blocking the re-uptake of monoamines from the synapse (gaps in the middle of nerve endings). This causes the monoamines to stay in the synapse longer, prolonging the signal transfer in the middle of nerve cells.
In the past, depression was often treated with tricyclic compounds or with monoamine oxidase (enzymes that break down monoamines) inhibitors. Monoamine oxidase inhibitors are not used very often anymore, since they wish the patient to effect a exact low histamine and low tyramine diet to forestall a inherent hypertensive crisis.
Depression (Major Depressive Disorder)
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