The US Preventive Services Task Force says the rate of depression in children between 12 and 18 years old is high enough to warrant routine screening by their primary care physicians.  The recommendation, announced in the latest issue of the…

Bullying is much more than kids just being kids.  For Eric Mohat, it was a matter of life and death.  His classmates taunted him unmercifully and school officials did little to stop it.  One day, Eric, 17, had apparently had…

Many a new mother suffers the ravages of postpartum depression just when her new baby demands the most attention.  Until recently, there’s been little physical evidence to determine which mothers are most at risk of developing this debilitating condition but…

A recent study conducted at the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute indicates a connection between a woman’s emotional well-being during early pregnancy and the chance she will deliver a child prematurely. These preterm births, occurring before the 37th week of pregnancy,…

The number of white, middle-aged American men and women committing suicide increased by 35% from 1999 to 2005, according to the latest issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The rate of suicide in African Americans during that same…

Teenagers who exhibit symptoms of insomnia are more likely than other teens to develop depression or problems with substance abuse or to entertain thoughts of suicide by the time they reach early adulthood, according to a study recently concluded at…

In the past 10 years, the use of antidepressant drugs has tripled in the United States, where one in 10 women takes at least one antidepressant, according to National Center for Health Statistics’ 2004 Health United States report. A new,…

Ask a depressed woman if she’d take Viagra to invigorate a faded libido caused by the antidepressants she’s taking to keep the blues away and she’s likely to say the proposition sounds like a pretty bitter pill to swallow. Others,…

Researchers at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions have documented such a strong association between diabetes and depression that the research team suggests new treatment options targeting the combined diseases might prove to be more effective than when traditional treatment options…

On April 16, 2007 23-year-old Seung-Hui Cho, a student at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA, shot to death 32 students and faculty members, wounded many more, and then committed suicide. From an early age Cho was seen to…

Low doses of antidepressants can provide significant relief for adolescents with irritable bowel syndrome, according to a study published in the May issue of Journal of Pediatrics. IBS affects 6 percent of middle school students and 14 percent of high…

Ten to 15 out of every 100 mothers report feelings of depression during the first year after giving birth. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recently analyzed data taken from PRAMS (the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring…

Neglect and abuse during childhood is associated with a high incidence of depression and inflammation once the child reaches adulthood. When these two chronic conditions occur together, the risk of developing cardiovascular disease rises, too.

The April 8 issue of Neurology carries the results of a study conducted on 486 people ranging in age from 60 to 90 with no symptoms of dementia. These same people were monitored for about six years each to see…