Hypericum’s - HBC Protocols All natural depression treatment

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Thursday that it had opened a preliminary investigation into whether retired pitcher Roger Clemens lied during his congressional testimony earlier this month. Lying under oath before Congress is a federal crime. One of the points of contention, beyond whether Clemens was knowingly injected with steroids and human growth hormone, is whether he did or did not attend a party at ex-outfielder Jose Canseco’s house in 1998.

MIAMI—Former MLB star and admitted steroid user Jose Canseco extended an informal invitation Monday to over 500 current and former professional baseball players, requesting their presence at his house this coming weekend for his annual steroid party. “Hey guys, big steroid bash at my place,” Canseco said while handing out flyers at a Toronto Blue Jays spring training intrasquad game. “Nothing too fancy, just a bunch of guys, hanging out, taking steroids. Tell your friends.”

The party is historically an extravagant affair, usually featuring women in bikinis carrying silver trays of various types of anabolic steroids, four VIP suites upstairs where guests can sample steroids from Canseco’s personal collection, a giant 40-foot-tall ice syringe filled with Dianabol, oil paintings of steroids on the walls, a keg of steroids, a disco ball, and a punch bowl spiked with steroids. (read more)

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Psychiatrists have long known that the children of severely depressed parents are at high risk of developing chronic despair themselves, in part because they inherit a physical susceptibility to the condition. Now researchers have identified more than a dozen specific portions of DNA that probably account for that susceptibility. The findings, based on the first comprehensive genetic analysis of families with depression, are expected to pave the way for isolating specific genes responsible for the illness. The results also could give doctors and patients desperately needed guidance in how best to treat it. Investigators at the University of Pittsburgh studied 81 families prone to the most severe form of depression, which often strikes during adolescence and recurs through much of adult life.

By cataloging each family member’s DNA, researchers tracked which segments of genetic material were common to family members who developed depression. They found 19 portions of DNA containing genes likely to put people at risk of the disease. Parents pass on various combinations of these genes, producing different depressive symptoms, the study suggests. “This study is a very big deal,” said Dr. Louis Marino, a specialist in depression and chief of geriatric services at Butler Hospital in Providence, R.I. Its findings provide an overall picture of the genetics of the disease, he said, “and helps explain why it has so many faces and can look so different from person to person.” The new analysis showed a striking gender difference in inherited susceptibility to the disease.

Four of the DNA regions the researchers identified were linked to depression in women only; just one was male-only. This could explain why women are about twice as likely as men to develop depression, psychiatrists say. The study demonstrated that one DNA region in particular — one containing a gene called CREB1 — is very strongly linked to depression in women. And CREB1 is known to interact with female hormones. “This is a neat explanation for why the risk of depression is greater during puberty, pregnancy, menstrual cycles,” times when hormone levels are changing, said Dr. George Zubenko, a research psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh and lead author of the study. The research supports a shift in thinking about the biology of such mood disorders as depression. Once thought by some doctors to be triggered by a chemical imbalance in the brain — too much of one brain messenger, say, or too little — mood problems might in fact stem from genetic difficulties in regulating sudden changes in brain chemistry, said Dr. Bruce Cohen, chief of psychiatry at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass.

When hit with a flash flood of stress hormones, for example, normal brain cells respond, in part, by blunting their sensitivity to the hormones, buffering themselves against the onslaught. Cohen compares these regulating systems to shock absorbers that, in chronically depressed people, don’t work as well as they should. “It’s like if the shocks go out on your car,” he said, “you not only feel every bump, your head hits the roof.”  The findings should help vanquish much of the self-blame depressed people so often heap on themselves, as if their moodiness were a character flaw or somehow resulted from a failure of will, said Zubenko. Many overcome serious depression on their own; but some need more help than others because of the genetic cards they were dealt, the research suggests.

In coming years, psychiatrists expect research into the genetics of depression to give rise to new drugs that shut down the disease closer to its source, rather than simply treat its symptoms. In the meantime, Zubenko said, drug researchers can use the newly identified segments of DNA to individualize treatment with antidepressants. The drugs act differently in people with different genetic make-ups; using the panel of newly identified genetic segments, doctors can study which antidepressant drugs work best in whom, with fewest side effects. “Right now, it’s really hit or miss” when doctors choose an antidepressant, he said. “It can be weeks before patients get the best treatment.”

Semen makes you happy. That’s the remarkable conclusion of a study comparing women whose partners wear condoms with those whose partners don’t.

The study, which is bound to provoke controversy, showed that the women who were directly exposed to semen were less depressed. The researchers think this is because mood-altering hormones in semen are absorbed through the vagina. They say they have ruled out other explanations.

“I want to make it clear that we are not advocating that people abstain from using condoms,” says Gordon Gallup, the psychologist at the State University of New York who led the team. “Clearly an unwanted pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease would more than offset any advantageous psychological effects of semen.”

Suicide attempts

His team divided 293 female students into groups depending on how often their partners wore condoms, and assessed their happiness using the Beck Depression Inventory, a standard questionnaire for assessing mood. People who score over 17 are considered moderately depressed.

The team found that women whose partners never used condoms scored 8 on average, those who sometimes used them scored 10.5, those who usually used them scored 15 and those who always used them scored 11.3. Women who weren’t having sex at all scored 13.5.

What’s more, the longer the interval since they last had sex, the more depressed the women who never or sometimes used condoms got. But the time since the last sexual encounter made no difference to the mood of women who usually or always used condoms.

The team also found that depressive symptoms and suicide attempts were more common among women who used condoms regularly compared with those who didn’t. The results will appear in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.

And Gallup told New Scientist that his team already has unpublished data from a larger group of 700 women confirming these findings. In this study, the always-use-condoms group were more depressed than the usually-use-condoms group, suggesting the discrepancy in the smaller study was a sampling error, he says

Alternative explanations

But is it really the semen that affects women’s mood? The researchers say they looked at alternative explanations such as whether women who seldom use condoms took oral contraceptives, how often they had sex, the strength of relationships, and the possibility that having a certain type of personality influenced the decision to use condoms. But none of these factors can explain their findings, they say.

In fact, the results aren’t a complete surprise because semen does contain several mood-altering hormones, including testosterone, oestrogen, follicle-stimulating hormone, luteinising hormone, prolactin and several different prostaglandins. Some of these have been detected in a women’s blood within hours of exposure to semen.

The question many people will ask is whether oral sex could have the same mood-enhancing effects. “Since the steroids in birth control pills survive the digestion process, I would assume that the same holds true for at least some of the chemicals in semen,” Gallup says.

“I understand that among some gay males who have anal intercourse, it is not uncommon to attempt to retain the semen for extended periods of time,” he adds. “Suggesting, of course, that there may be psychological effects.” But further research will be needed to confirm whether exposure to semen through oral or anal sex really does affect mood in heterosexual or homosexual partners.

But why should semen have such an effect? “It makes no sense to me for this phenomenon to have evolved,” says Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. But Gallup counters that men whose semen promotes long-term mood enhancement might have more chances to indulge in sexual activity.

Sometimes viewed as a modern human defect, depression is more likely a natural state which has been with human beings since prehistoric times. A re-evaluation of depression says that while it might not be pleasant, it may lead to positive actions.

Dr. Paul Keedwell says he hears from ex-depressives who admit that being depressed ultimately led them to change the direction of their lives and that because of that, they’re happier now than they were before they became depressed.

Depression may also help people let go of unrealistic expectations and reassess their strengths and weaknesses with more humility. Ex-depressives say their depression made them stronger and eventually fostered a new love for life.

Former Spice Girl Melanie Chisholm says her proudest achievement is having overcome depression - despite a record breaking career with the band. As Sporty Spice, Mel C played her part in the group’s nine No 1 singles and two No 1 albums. She also scored two No 1 singles as a solo artist, but has suffered with depression and told Psychologies magazine that beating it is the best thing she’s done. “We achieved amazing, record-breaking things with the Spice Girls, but, for me, it would be overcoming a lot of personal problems,” she said. “I’m proud I’ve been able to recover, and get myself back to 100 per cent health. “I’ve suffered with depression, and that was the most debilitating thing that has ever happened to me. Recovering from it taught me to appreciate happiness, and that has remained my number-one priority. When you’re happy and strong, you can achieve anything.”

After a two-year break, Melanie C is back with her third solo album ‘Beautiful Intentions’. The album is the first to be released on the singer’s own Red Girl Records label (named after her favourite football team - Liverpool) and precedes her forthcoming UK tour. In Melanie’s own words: “With this album I wanted to show what I do best. I love performing and before we started recording the album we went touring to see what worked live and what people liked.”

HERB HOPES GROW FOR ALCOHOLICS

Here is the briefest possible summary of hypericum and the treatment of depression:

Hypericum is Hypericum Perforatum, also known as St. John’s Wort (St. John the Baptist, not the Beloved). It is a short, yellow-flowering, wild-growing plant — healing herb to some; troublesome weed to others. It has a 2,400-year history of safe and effective usage in folk, herbal, and ancient medicine. Hypericum was prescribed as medicine by Hippocrates himself.

A series of recent double-blind, placebo-controlled studies indicate that a specific extract of Hypericum perforatum was as effective as prescription antidepressants but had far fewer side effects (thus available without a prescription for the treatment of mild to moderate depression) and cost considerably less — about 25 cents a day.

In Germany, more than fifty percent of depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders are treated with hypericum. Prozac has two percent.

Although many extracts are available containing St. John’s Wort, only a handful (thus far—the gap will soon be filled by the free market place: Long live Milton Friedman!) of companies. These are listed in the section: How to Obtain Research-Grade Hypericum.

For more complete information on hypericum, you can read the complete text of the book Hypericum & Depression