Can Vitamin B Boost the Effects of Your Antidepressants?

If your mental wellness is affected by depression, your doctor may prescribe you antidepressants to help you cope. However, you may have to go through a variety of medications before you find the one that improves your wellbeing, and, even when you find one, the benefits may decrease over time. This is why more and more doctors are prescribing a form of folate for depressed patients.

Folate, which occurs naturally in foods such as leafy vegetables, legumes, and nuts, is a water-soluble B vitamin, whilst its synthetic form is known as folic acid. Studies have shown that, if you have low levels of folate, you are six times more likely to respond poorly to antidepressants than those with normal levels. This is because folate is necessary for cell growth and brain function. Your body converts it into an active form, known as L-methylfolate, which you need to produce serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. These are neurotransmitters which are essential for mood regulation.

Your L-methylfolate levels can reduce with ageing, genetics, illness, poor nutrition, excess alcohol consumption, and some medications. Antidepressants often work by making serotonin or norepinephrine available to your brain for longer, but this whole process may be less effective or ineffective if your brain is not producing enough of the neurotransmitters in the first place. So, you need to increase your folate intake.

Aside from the previously mentioned dietary sources of folate, you can boost your neurotransmitter production with cereals, baked goods, okra, asparagus, fruits such as bananas, melons, and lemons, yeast, mushrooms, organ meat such as liver and kidney, orange juice, and tomato juice. Another cost-effective way to up your endorphin activity is with exercise.

However, if you need an extra folate boost, Deplin is a prescription version of the B vitamin which has been on the market since 2006. Recently, it has been found that Deplin is beneficial to individuals who do not improve after being placed on an antidepressant. One study gave 75 patients either a placebo or 15 milligrams of Deplin along with an antidepressant and, after 30 days, 32% of subjects on Deplin had responded, compared with 15% on the placebo. Consult your doctor for more information.

Can Vitamin B Boost the Effects of Your Antidepressants?

Categories: Antidepressant, antidepressants, Brain, deplin, depression, folate, form

“Trial and Error” in Antidepressant Treatment

Whilst finding the best treatments for depression can often be a process that involves a certain degree of “trial and error”, recent studies have indicated that specific biological markers in the blood can allow doctors to make a more informed decision on which antidepressants will work for patients in their care. According to Carmine Pariante at the King’s College Institute of Psychiatry:

“The study shows that we could use a blood-based test to personalise the treatment of depression”.

The studies have revealed that high-levels of inflammation within the body’s blood can be a pre-determinant of depression, especially for those who do not respond positively to low doses of antidepressants.

In recent years,  the number of people experiencing depression has risen dramatically and the World Health Organisation (WHO) has made the alarming prediction that by 2020, depression will be as common as heart-disease as a form of chronic illness. Whilst there are many antidepressants available, the most common ones being Prozac and Seroxat - it is widely acknowledged that they generally only work for 50% of the patients they are prescribed to, and at this point, pharmaceutical developers are finding it challenging to design similar treatments within the category.

In the study, Pariante’s team have indentified 2 types of bio-markers: ones which can predict future responses to antidepressants, called predictors and ones which are targeted by antidepressants and can change over the course of the treatment - known as targets. During the study the respondents were treated with 2 types of antidepressants: Escitalopram and Notriptyline, and after 8 weeks, the researchers concluded that patients who had high-inflammation and marker-levels were not experiencing any significant improvements in their condition. This suggests that the bio-markers could be used as a means of doctors determining which treatments are effective for patients, before the drug is administered, helping to reduce the often, distressing, “trial and error” aspect of the process.

Categories: Antidepressant, Mental Health, trial

Antidepressant safety during pregnancy

Depression in pregnancy is a common occurrence. If you suffer from depression during a pregnancy, it can be very difficult to decide whether to take any medication. On the one hand, you have a medical condition that requires treatment. On the other hand, you feel an extreme sense of responsibility towards the baby, and worry about the effects of any drugs on the wellness of your unborn baby (this is actually the case when it comes to taking any medication in pregnancy at all).

A recent study, however, seems to show that a group of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are safe to take in pregnancy, in so much as they do not appear to have any fatal consequences for the unborn baby.

The study showed that there appeared to be no link between the use of SSRIs in pregnancy and stillbirth or the death of newborn babies. Carried out by the University Hospital in Stockholm, the researchers said that whilst this marks an important piece of knowledge when protecting the wellbeing of depressed pregnant women, they urge caution.

Published in the January issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers said that decisions about prescribing SSRIs to pregnant women should still be taken with extreme caution and taking into account all other factors.

Some studies seemed to show that there may be a link between antidepressants and congenital defects, blood pressure problems in children and other difficulties, and for this reason, antidepressants are usually reserved for the most serious cases of depression in pregnant women. Depression itself can be a risk factor in other problems, however, such as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)

Antidepressants are typically reserved for major depression in pregnancy because of concerns in some prior studies suggesting links to congenital defects, spontaneous abortion, neonatal withdrawal syndrome, and persistent pulmonary hypertension in the baby.

However, maternal depression is also associated with risks in pregnancy, including infant mortality and, especially, sudden infant death syndrome and so the emotional wellbeing of the mother should be taken as a serious consideration.

Antidepressant safety during pregnancy

Categories: Antidepressant, Information, Pregnant