A study has shown that the combination of a nutritious diet, daily fish oil supplements and/or three oily fish meals, like salmon, sardines or fresh tuna, a week can help alleviate depression symptoms.
Published in Nutrition & Dietetics - the official Journal of the Dietitians Association of Australia, including the Journal of the New Zealand Dietetic Association - researchers reviewed all existing literature related to dietary manipulation in a bid to uncover how such nutritional manoeuvring may assist in treating this illness.
Depression is a major risk factor for deliberate self-harm and suicide - affecting more than one million Australians each year, and is estimated by the World Health Organization to become the second leading cause of morbidity worldwide by 2020. The findings in this study contribute to rectifying the simplistic, traditional view of the illness as a personality weakness, and provide anecdotal evidence of depression as a mood disorder with underlying biological and psychosocial causes.
Amazing, simply amazing. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has finally discovered that Dolophine (methadone hydrochloride) is dangerous. They obviously thought this discovery would be news to prescribers so they issues a medwatch safety alert. At the risk of sounding more sarcastic than simply incredulous I say again: amazing!
Here is what they have to say.
Dolophine (methadone hydrochloride)
Audience: Pain management specialists, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals
Indication: Treatment of moderate to severe pain not responsive to non-narcotic analgesics; detoxification of opioid addiction; and maintenance treatment of opioid addiction
[Posted 11/27/2006] FDA notified healthcare professionals of reports of death and life-threatening adverse events such as respiratory depression and cardiac arrhythmias in patients receiving methadone. These adverse events are the possible result of unintentional methadone overdoses, drug interactions, and methadone's cardiac toxicities (QT prolongation and Torsades de Pointes). The reports underscore the importance of knowing methadone's toxicities and unique pharmacologic properties, including dosing and monitoring recommendations.