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Investigators in Norway found that depression occurred more commonly in people who had high levels of the amino acid homocysteine in their blood, and in those who carried a form of a gene that encodes a protein involved in processing folate.
Homocysteine is a normal byproduct of metabolism, and folic acid -- the form of folate found in supplements -- is known to aid in breaking down homocysteine.
"Lack of folate and/or a disturbed folate metabolism ... may partially be the cause of the depression in some people," study author Dr. Ingvar Bjelland of the University of Bergen told Reuters Health.
Previous research has suggested that folic acid supplements may boost the effects of antidepressants, an idea supported by the current study, Bjelland said.
The results, which appear in the Archives of General Psychiatry, "could even support the suggestion that folate may prevent depression," the researcher noted.
Bjelland and colleagues obtained their findings by scanning blood samples from 5,948 people between the ages of 46 and 49, and screening them for depression and anxiety.
The researchers found that people who had relatively high levels of homocysteine in their blood were almost twice as likely to be depressed, relative to people with the lowest blood levels of homocysteine.
According to the report, depression was also linked to a form of the gene for a folate-processing enzyme associated with poorer efficiency in the breakdown of folate.
Anxiety, however, was not related to either homocysteine or the folate-processing enzyme.
Although markers of folate metabolism appeared altered in depression, actual levels of folate in the blood did not appear to differ between people with and without depression.
Bjelland noted that while this result is surprising, measuring folate in the blood may, in fact, be a "less precise" indication of how much folate is actually in cells.
"In addition, in our study the laboratory method of measuring homocysteine was more accurate than the method for folate," Bjelland said.
Explaining why folate might play a role in depression, the researcher said the body may need the B vitamin to build important substances in the brain -- a lack of which may cause depression and other mental disorders.
To Bjelland, the current study supports a simple message: get your vitamins.
"Vitamins are important, not only for the physical health, but for the mental health as well," the researcher said.
SOURCE: Archives of General Psychiatry 2003;60:618-626.
Medical researcher Lucy Darbishire and colleagues from Guy's, King's and St. Thomas's School of Medicine in London collected data from 22 general practices in and around London on patients with unexplained fatigue lasting more than six months.
Applying the U.S. Centers for Disease Control Prevention criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome, the researchers found that 69 percent of patients did not have the condition.
Several symptoms, including fatigue and distress, were higher in the chronic fatigue syndrome group. People with the condition were also more likely to be depressed and more than twice as likely to be unemployed, Darbishire and colleagues write in the June issue of the British Journal of General Practice.
Nevertheless, 11 out of 12 symptoms assessed by the researchers were reported by more than 60 percent of the patients who did not have chronic fatigue syndrome, although those symptoms were less severe, the researcher told Reuters Health.
"I don't think we really found a characteristic difference. It really looked as if everything was just more severe in the CFS group. It supports that theory, really, that it's just another end of the spectrum," she said.
"I think the take home message is to remember that there are these two-thirds of patients that present with fatigue that don't meet criteria for CFS because they don't seem as severe, but they do actually have quite distinct illness."
Chronic fatigue syndrome is characterized by a range of symptoms including fatigue, headache, sleep problems, muscle pain and difficulty concentrating.
Patients with the condition, which can strike suddenly, often experience a marked increase in symptoms after only minor bouts of exertion.
The cause of chronic fatigue syndrome is uncertain.
SOURCE: British Journal of General Practice 2003;53:441-445.
The findings, a follow-up from a study that initially looked at allergies in newborns up to age two, may offer evidence that harmless bacteria can train infants' immune systems to resist allergic reactions, according to the report in the journal The Lancet.
In the ongoing study, researchers in Finland used a type of bacteria found naturally in the gut -- called Lactobacillus rhamnosus strain GG -- to try to prevent allergy development in at-risk infants.
Lactobacillus bacteria have long been used in food fermentation and are commonly found in items such as yogurt. Some forms of the bacterium dwell normally in the human intestines. Lactobacillus-laden foods and supplements -- commonly referred to as "probiotics" -- have grown increasingly popular because they are believed to promote good gastrointestinal health.
In the original study, Dr. Marko Kalliomaki and colleagues at Turku University Hospital gave a group of pregnant women either probiotic capsules or placebo capsules every day for a few weeks before their due dates. For 6 months after delivery, women who breast-fed continued on the probiotics or placebo, while bottle-fed infants were given probiotics or placebo directly. All of the babies were considered to be at high risk of developing allergies because a parent or sibling was affected.
Kalliomaki's team originally published results of the study when the children were two years old. Now, the researchers report that the youngsters in the probiotic supplement group were less likely at age 4 to have developed an allergic skin condition called atopic eczema.
"The main finding is that administration of probiotics (shortly before and after birth) may prevent the development of atopic eczema during the first 4 years of life in high-risk children," Kalliomaki told Reuters Health. Children at high risk, he said, are those whose mother, father or older sibling has asthma, atopic eczema or allergic rhinitis.
"The new finding is that the preventive potential of Lactobacillus GG may extend beyond infancy ... to the age of 4 years," the researcher added.
Probiotics have been shown to have favorable effects on the gut, according to Kalliomaki. Moreover these agents have clear effects on the developing immune system, he explained.
By the age of four years, 25 of 54 children in the placebo group had developed allergic eczema, a condition in which the skin becomes irritated, red and itchy. But just 14 of the 53 children who had received probiotics developed the skin condition -- a 43-percent reduction, according to report.
The study was funded by the Academy of Finland and Turku University Hospital.
SOURCE: The Lancet 2003;361:1869-1870.
[Allergies are the physical manifestation of retained stress and emotions. Learn to deal with stress in a positive manner, work through and release the retained emotions ... no more physical symptoms. -- Jane]
These findings do not suggest
that it is okay to smoke during pregnancy
it is to point out the benefits of breastfeeding
By Alison McCook
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) May 29 - New research suggests that the benefits of breastfeeding on infants' mental development might offset some of the harm posed by smoking during pregnancy.
Research has suggested that smoking during pregnancy can have a negative effect on a child's mental development. But in the new study, 9 year olds whose mothers smoked during pregnancy and breast-fed them for more than three weeks scored similarly on tests of reading, math and spelling as breast-fed children of mothers who did not smoke during pregnancy.
However, among bottle-fed children, those whose mothers smoked during pregnancy scored worse than those born to non-smokers, researchers report in the current issue of the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
"The harms of cigarette smoking seem to be offset by the benefits of breastfeeding," study author Dr. Laura Batstra of the University of Groningen in The Netherlands told Reuters Health. These findings do not suggest, however, that it is okay for women to smoke during pregnancy as long as they give their babies breast milk, Batstra said.
"Smoking during pregnancy is very harmful to the unborn baby and should always (try) to be avoided," she said. "But apart from helping ... future mothers to stop smoking, they should be encouraged to breastfeed."
Smoking during pregnancy is linked to a number of ill effects, including a higher risk of miscarriage and low birth weight. Babies whose mothers smoke while pregnant are also at greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS.
According to Batstra, it is unclear how breastfeeding might help negate the effects of smoking during pregnancy, but suggested that babies may benefit from breast milk's high concentration of a type of fatty acid that has been shown to aid brain development. Hormones in breast milk may also help babies overcome the negative effects of smoking, she noted.
The benefits of breastfeeding may also extend beyond what's good about breast milk itself, Batstra said, and breast-fed babies might also enjoy psychological benefits from breastfeeding.
Alternatively, women who breast-feed may differ in important qualities from women who don't -- perhaps in IQ or parenting skills -- and these differences might explain why their children did better on the tests, she said.
For the study, Batstra and her colleagues looked at data on 3,162 newborns born at their hospital in the 1970s. Their mothers were asked about breastfeeding and whether they smoked during pregnancy at the time of discharge from the hospital.
When 570 of the children were about 9 years old, they took standardized tests of arithmetic, reading and spelling skills. At that time, the mothers were asked again about how long they breast-fed.
SOURCE: Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 2003;57:403-404.
A new British study contends that working for a boss who's considered unreasonable and unfair can make an employee's blood pressure rise. That, in turn, increases the employee's risk of heart attack and stroke.
Researchers surveyed and monitored the blood pressure of 28 female health-care assistants, 18 to 45 years of age, with one group working for fair bosses and the other working for unfair bosses. The workers were followed for three days, with readings taken every 30 minutes for a 12-hour period each day.
Those in the "unfair" group registered an increase of 15 mm Hg in systolic and 7 mm Hg in diastolic blood pressure. An increase of 10 mm Hg in systolic and 5 mm Hg in diastolic blood pressure has been associated with a 16 percent increased risk of coronary heart disease and a 38 percent increased risk of stroke, according to the study.
On the other hand, those working for a good boss -- one deemed reasonable and fair -- registered a slight decrease in blood pressure.
This shows that a workplace "characterized by fairness, empowerment and consideration is likely to provide one inexpensive strategy for reducing the risk of cardiovascular disorders," the researchers write in a news release.
Their findings appear in the current issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/familyissues.html
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