(These are all of the posts we have on this topic)
1st Post on Stress and Depression Why the Current Theory Fails So Often
2nd Post on Stress and Depression Cortisol
3rd Post on Stress and Depression Pregnenolone
5th Post on Stress and Depression BDNF
6th Post on Stress and Depression: The Cholesterol/Dopamine Connection
7th Post on Stress and Depression: Increasing levels of Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF)
6th Post on Stress and Depression: The Cholesterol/Dopamine Connection
7th Post on Stress and Depression: Increasing levels of Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF)
Welcome to the fourth post on the biology of Stress and Depression.
Just to recap important information from the previous posts, please
review the following:
The current model regarding the problem of depression (that most medical
providers believe) sees it as a lack of neurotransmitters (dopamine, serotonin
& nor-adrenaline). This view sees depression as a “lack of happiness”. If
you want to treat a depressed patient, you give him/her drugs to increase the
presence of these deficient hormone(s). Increasing amounts of these hormones
should, in theory, make people happier. The trouble is that in the light of
other explanations of depression, this theory is very limited. In
addition, it does not take into account the impact of stress on the body.
Current research clearly shows us that stress leads to depression.
Excessive amounts of stress lead to the gradual destruction of the
hippocampus. The hippocampus controls the body's reaction to stressors.
Increasing amounts of stress and the consequential destructive impact on the
hippocampus lead to a reduced ability to handle further stress. It can become a
vicious cycle. That cycle is reinforced by research finding that
untreated stress/depression is linked to having a smaller hippocampus which in
turn is directly linked to being predisposed to depression. This is largely
because of reduced ability react appropriately to stressors. Clearly,
stress does lead to depression.
Note: stress is often regarded as something people have control over.
This is often not the case. Stressors are not just series of thoughts.
Stress can be biological or physical in nature and either is often completely
out of our control. In order to cut depression off at the source, we need
to find ways to deal with all forms of stress.
In the previous post we discussed a neuro-hormone with anti-depressant
properties called pregnenolone. In this post we will be discussing another
important neuro-hormone involved with stress and depression called DHEA.
DHEA is an abbreviation for dehydroepiandrosterone. Levels of DHEA peak
in your 20's and slowly fall as you age. By the time you reach 40, your body
makes about half as much DHEA as it used to. By 65, levels drop to 10 to 20
percent; by age 80, it plummets to less than 5 percent.
DHEA is a hormone made primarily by the adrenal glands. Hormones are
chemical messengers that affect the function of cells and tissues all over the
body. DHEA and cortisol are long-acting stress hormones and they are inversely
related to each other. If one of these hormones goes up, the other goes down.
They also have opposing functions. Where DHEA has an anabolic or
regenerating influence, cortisol has a catabolic or degenerating effect. Both
of these hormones are indispensable, but they must be in proper balance for
optimal health. How does the relationship between these hormones become
unbalanced? The short answer is "stress maladaptation".
Stress maladaptation refers to an inappropriate response to prolonged
stress. The typical reaction of the body to a stressor is to produce adjusted
amounts of both cortisol and DHEA. When the stress is gone, the body readjusts
its output of both cortisol and DHEA to resting levels. Both return to an
appropriate baseline. This is what happens with short episodes of stress.
However, when the stress is prolonged, the body begins to increase levels of
cortisol while reducing levels of DHEA. How long does it take for this to
happen? One study showed that after just 28 days of constant stress, cortisol
levels had climbed to 240 percent and values for DHEA had dropped to 15 percent
of original levels! What's worse is that even after the stress is removed, the
body sometimes does not recover and bring these hormones back to normal
baselines. Instead, it remains in the stress response mode with high cortisol
production and low DHEA output.
Remember, stress and its ever present partner cortisol shrink and erode
your hippocampus. A happy, healthy and large hippocampus is a major
factor in avoiding depression. Poor stress management and the resulting
DHEA deficit are a major factor in depression. In fact, DHEA
supplementation has been shown to promote neurogenesis (regrowth of new nerve
tissue) in the hippocampal regions of rats which have been artificially stressed
with high levels of injected cortisol.
Multiple human clinical studies have also shown that DHEA effectively
treats depression:
1. The National Institute of Mental Health studied 46 patients age 40-65
with major and minor depression. After six weeks of administering DHEA, 23
patients showed a 50% reduction in depressive symptoms. Ten patients chose to
continue taking DHEA for one year at a low dose and remained free of
depression.
2. Ten elderly men (58-69 years old) with a range of age-related
symptoms such as feeling weak and having low-energy showed significant
improvement in symptoms after taking 25 mg of DHEA every morning for
one-year.
3. In a 1999 study published in Biological Psychiatry, researchers
tested the effects of DHEA in 15 people who had developed mid-life depression.
Sixty percent of those receiving DHEA responded well to treatment compared to
only twenty percent of those who received the placebo.
4. In a large-scale study conducted in 2007, of 2,855 elderly men and
women, it was concluded that low DHEAS levels were linked with depressive
symptoms.
5. A 2007 study of sixty-one patients with Dysthymic disorder (DD), a
chronic state of mild depressive symptoms, found that individuals with DD have
low levels of DHEAS.
A 2009 comprehensive review of DHEA in the treatment of depression
concluded:
"... to date, every controlled trial of DHEA in depression has reported
significant antidepressant effects."
Managing cortisol is becoming a major factor in the treatment of stress
and its resulting depression. There is more research to be done, but to
be honest, no matter where one looks, there is always more research that needs
to be done. The results from the above list of studies is already more
impressive than the results of traditionally approved drug treatments for
depression.
Does this mean you should run out and supplement with DHEA without
guidance from a health care provider? No. DHEA is a hormone, not a
vitamin. But the clinical results show that this treatment will help some
of those not helped by their current anti-depressant medications.
In our next post we will be discussing Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor
…
Stay Tuned!
Yours,
David
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