When to Avoid Antidepressants in Bipolar Patients

Patients with bipolar depression who exhibit even minimal manic symptoms are at heightened risk for switching into mania if they receive antidepressant medication, according to a new report from the Bipolar Collaborative Network.1

This finding from the multinational sites of the former Stanley Foundation Bipolar Network emerged in a post hoc analysis of 176 patients who participated in a 10-week controlled trial of adjunctive antidepressant medication for bipolar I or II depression. The investigators sought to identify clinical correlates for the development of treatment-emergent affective switching from patient demographics and baseline symptoms.

Possible risk factors for affective switch, which have been previously suggested, include comorbid substance abuse, younger age, decreased thyroid-stimulating hormone, and rapid cycling. Although none of these factors were predictive in this study, the investigators acknowledged that their modest effect size precluded ruling these out in other populations. They characterize this study, however, as the first controlled assessment of antidepressant treatment in bipolar depression to correlate a specific phenomenological presentation at baseline with affective switching in subsequent antidepressant treatment.

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Studies Try to Tease Apart the Links Between Depression and Heart Disease

People who are depressed are literally sick at heart: they have a significantly increased risk for cardiovascular disease, and no one knows exactly why. Now three new studies have tried to explain this, and they arrive at subtly different conclusions.

The first, led by Dr. Mary A. Whooley of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Francisco, studied 1,017 patients with coronary artery disease for an average of more than four years. Although the study found an association of depression with heart disease, when researchers statistically corrected for other medical conditions, disease severity and physical inactivity, the association disappeared.

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Increased Bipolar Risk Linked to Father's Age

Older men are more likely than younger men to father children with autism, schizophrenia, or early-onset bipolar disorder.

Fathering a child later in life seems to increase its risk of having autism or schizophrenia, research has shown. And now it seems to increase a child's risk of having bipolar disorder as well, a new study suggests.

The study was headed by Emma Frans, a doctoral student in epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Results were published in the September Archives of General Psychiatry.

Sweden's Multigeneration Register, as well as Sweden's National Hospital Discharge Register, made this new investigation possible. The former, which has been in existence since 1947, gives demographic information about all people living in Sweden as well as about their parents. The latter, which has been in existence since 1973, lists all people living in Sweden who have been hospitalized for various conditions.

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Obesity tied to risk of psychiatric disorders

Obesity is a well known risk factor for certain physical health problems, but a new study suggests that heavy adults also have higher rates of psychiatric disorders.

Using data from a national health survey of more than 40,000 Americans, researchers found that obese adults were up to twice as likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions as normal-weight adults.

In addition, even moderately overweight people had elevated rates of anxiety disorders, the study found.

Whether excess pounds somehow lead to mental health problems is not clear, according to the researchers. But the findings do indicate that a range of psychiatric disorders are more common among overweight people.

READ MORE @ REUTERS