Search
Related Links

 

 

Informative Articles

6 Questions To Ask Before Hiring Your Personal Trainer
Once reserved only for the rich and famous, personal fitness training has hit the mainstream. A personal trainer is now as common as a pair of good cross trainers and a water bottle. But unlike your hair stylist, your fitness trainer doesn’t need...
Improve Your Eating Habits To Save Money On Prescriptions!
Do you like the arthritis pain relief you get from over-the-counter anti-inflammatory pills (like ibuprofen)? But do they “bother your stomach”? Take an honest assessment of your eating habits. Think about your diet before you declare the...
Laughter, Why It's so Good for You
For hundreds of years, we've known that 'Laughter is the best medicine'. Laughter makes you feel good for a reason. The physiological effects on your body are amazing. For example: Laughter reduces levels of certain stress...
Supplements ... The New Magic Pills?
If I hear one more person suggest supplements as the cure to life stressors I'll scream! Everywhere I go I hear someone talking about this or that supplement, this or that herb, this or that dietary regime as the answer to health and happiness. Over...
Wonderful Remedy for an Unsuccessful Sexual life
Sexual cravings and desires are natural phenomena. Life is incomplete if it's devoid of this intense and personal feeling. True love and a healthy sex life is the essence of a good and complete relationship. But all of us are not that lucky to...
 
Antidepressants 101- What You Absolutely Need to Know

Introduction
Change in social and economical states throughout the world although has brought prosperity among the individuals of the world but at a price. It has brought both physical and mental stressors. Now people have to work harder and under mental tensions. Now the depression is prevalent everywhere at office, in transport and also at home. To relieve those stressors people are trying every type of therapy be it drugs or some exercise or some kind of psychotherapy so as to work efficiently.

What is depression?
Depression is basically a pathological change in mood. For being diagnosed as depressed medically one has to have certain well defined symptoms such as early morning awakening, decreased or increased appetite, decreased interest, sense of guilt, etc. continuously for a period of 2 weeks. From the biochemical point of view at the neuronal level it is hypothesized that there is a lack of nor adrenaline and Serotonin at the neuronal nerve endings.

Different types of antidepressants
Modern day antidepressants are classified broadly into nor adrenaline and serotonin reuptake inhibitors, selective serotonin reuptake intake inhibitors and the atypical ones. As stated above, the cause of depression is lack of nor adrenaline and serotonin and hence most of the antidepressants are meant to serve that purpose for e.g. some like imipramine increase the concentration of nor adrenaline and serotonin while selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) like fluoxetine block the uptake and hence increase the concentration of serotonin. The atypical antidepressants like mianserin increase the release of nor adrenaline at the neuronal nerve endings cause the elevation of mood.


Extreme forms of depression are associated with suicidal tendencies and they are mostly treated by electro convulsive therapy.

Uses and side effects
The antidepressants are used in major depression and also are sometimes used in enuresis of children. The side effects of the antidepressants are many like dry mouth sedation increased appetite hypotension and convulsions to name only few but the most important of them all are dependence of the patients on these medications and then the drug abuse.
The electro convulsive therapy has the side effect of some impairment in memory hence it is only used in extreme cases.

Other options and their advantages
The other options available in the market are herbal medicines, cognitive psychotherapy, yoga and other alternative medicine. Most of these therapies are based on the age-old system on minimally disrupting the chemical composition of the body but at the same time relieving the subjects of their symptoms. One of the herbal medicines is St. John’s wort. Therapies like yoga and psychotherapy are gaining ground as most the drugs are having their own side effects profile but these have none. Cognitive therapy aims at altering the thought processes of the individual and has beneficial effects not only in depression but also in disorders as varied as panic attacks, bulimia, etc.
From the discussion it is clear that there are a number of options available and what is best for one is not necessarily going to be the best for other and hence the therapy should be customized for individual rather than generalized.

About the Author

Mansi gupta writes about Antidepressants topics.

 

National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health
Part of the National Institutes of Health, the National Library of Medicine offers access to health information for consumer, patient, and physicians ...
www.nlm.nih.gov
 
Health and Medical Information produced by doctors - MedicineNet.com
Doctor-produced health and medical information written for you to make informed decisions about your health concerns.
www.medicinenet.com
 
Medicine in the Yahoo! Directory
Collection of sites for health professionals, with sections on specific disciplines, organizations, continuing education, conferences, publications, ...
dir.yahoo.com
 
MedlinePlus Health Information from the National Library of Medicine
Health information from the National Library of Medicine. Easy access to Medline and Health topics, medical dictionaries, directories and publications.
medlineplus.gov
 
Medicine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Medicine is a branch of health science and the sector of public life ... The practice of medicine combines both science as the evidence base and art in the ...
en.wikipedia.org
 
Journal Home - Nature Medicine
Nature Medicine has a vacancy for a Locum Assistant Editor for six months. The position involves working in all aspects of the editorial process, ...
www.nature.com
 
The New England Journal of Medicine: Research & Review Articles on ...
The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is a weekly general medical journal that publishes new medical research findings, review articles, and editorial ...
content.nejm.org
 
eMedicine Clinical Knowledge Base
eMedicine features up-to-date, searchable, peer-reviewed medical journals, online physician reference textbooks, and a full-text article database in 62 ...
www.emedicine.com
 
Open Directory - Health: Medicine
the entire directory, only in Health/Medicine. Top: Health: Medicine (11429). Description · Medical Specialties (4888); Surgery (2265) ...
dmoz.org
 
the www virtual library biosciences medicine
www.ohsu.edu/cliniweb/wwwvl/ - Similar pages
 
Medicine - home
Bimonthly journal covering the latest results in clinical investigation relevant to hospital and office practice.
www.md-journal.com
 
Institute of Medicine
The Institute of Medicine serves as adviser to the nation to improve health.
www.iom.edu
 
ScienceDaily: Health & Medicine News
Medical Research News. Health news on everything from cancer to nutrition. Full-text, images, updated daily.
www.sciencedaily.com
 
Google Directory - Health > Medicine
Search only in Medicine Search the Web. Medicine. Health > Medicine, Go to Directory Home. Categories. Alternative Medicine (6308) Basic Sciences (66) ...
www.google.com
 
the world wide web virtual library biosciences medicine
www.mcb.harvard.edu/biopages/medicine.html - Similar pages
 
PLoS Medicine - A Peer-Reviewed Open-Access Journal
PLoS Medicine is a peer-reviewed, international, open-access journal published ... Every issue of PLoS Medicine contains a selection of readers' responses. ...
medicine.plosjournals.org
 
Medicine On-Line - Medicine Online -The International Medical Journal
Medicine Online - independent and peer reviewed journal published by Priory Medical Journals - priory.com.
www.priory.com
 
Entrez PubMed
PubMed is a service of the US National Library of Medicine that includes over 16 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
Stanford University School of Medicine
Home Page of the Stanford University School of Medicine.
med.stanford.edu
 
Medicine OnLine
Meds.com offers medical information and education on cancer (lung cancer, colon cancer, breast cancer, leukemia) and HIV / AIDS for patients, ...
www.meds.com