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Depression Actually Affects Your Brain Structure: How You Can Change It Back!
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The World Health Organization, or WHO, states that about 400 million people, from all countries and all ages, suffer from depression. This would make depression the leading cause of disability globally.
Of course, this means there is a huge market for pharmaceutical companies who are looking to turn a quick and easy profit. Imagine what the CEO’s of such companies must think when they realize the amount of potential customers they have. There are huge profits to be made and drug companies are not wasting any time to make the most of this.
The British Medical Journal published a study recently which found that pharmaceutical companies were not disclosing all the information they had regarding the studies and clinical trials done on their drugs. Researchers involved in this study looked at the documentation from more than 70 different double blind studies of SSRI’s (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the most common type of antidepressant) as well as SNRI’s (norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors) and found that the full extent of possible side effects, some of them serious, went unreported in the final study analysis.
This isn’t the first time either. Depression can take a toll on physical health as well and when it comes to your brain, an ongoing state of depression can literally reduce the size of the hippocampus. This is the area of the brain which is involved with the formation and regulation of emotions and memory. This is especially concerning when we are talking about youngsters and teenagers as their brains are still developing.
There are several studies which have shown that people who experience long periods of depression have a smaller hippocampus. In fact, the more episodes of depression that a person experiences, the smaller the hippocampus.
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