Reduce Stress Hormones To Beat Sleep Problems

Stress can ruin your whole day … and your whole night, too. According to NIH estimates, at least 60 million Americans annually suffer from occasional sleeplessness, and the stress of modern living can play a major role.
%26quot;Stress and sleep are not comfortable bed partners,%26quot; explains Cheryl Myers, Vice President of Health Sciences for Enzymatic Therapy (ETI). %26quot;But many people don’t recognize that stress may be the reason they’re counting sheep at night.%26quot;
"If you’re running at high rev and the body’s stress hormones remain elevated, it can be difficult to unwind and fall asleep. These stress hormones can short circuit the usual biorhythms that occur as the body prepares for sleep."
Enzymatic Therapy has just introduced a valerian-free, stress-reducing sleep aid to promote overall relaxation and support a healthy sleep cycle with the use of non-habit forming ingredients.
A recent 28-day trial conducted by ETI found that the Sleep Tonight! formula produced a dramatic reduction in stress during the course of the study. Cortisol, a stress-related hormone, can interfere with healthy sleep. Salivary cortisol levels decreased by more than 60% after the first dose of Sleep Tonight! The effect continued throughout the duration of the study, averaging a 75-83% reduction in cortisol. The valerian-free formula presented no side effects and was shown to be well tolerated by participants.
Keeping cortisol in check is also a good prescription for overall health. Associated with the fight-flight stress response, cortisol can impact blood sugar, bone density, muscle tissue, blood pressure and immunity. Cholesterol researcher Dennis Goodman, MD, FACC, explains, "Elevated cortisol hits you in the gut and then in your heart. It manifests as increased abdominal fat, which can have a negative impact on heart health, including lowering levels of ‘good’ cholesterol (HDL)." Goodman, former Chief of Cardiology at Scripps Memorial Hospital is currently at Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine and Clinical Associate Professor at U.C., San Diego.

More Americans using antidepressants

According to a new report published in the August issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, antidepressants are now one of the most commonly prescribed classes of drug in the United States. Treatment for mental health conditions has led more Americans to use antidepressants, perhaps because of awareness of depression symptoms and acceptance of treatment options.
Between 1996 and 2005, antidepressant use in America rose from an estimated 13.2 million to 27 million. Mark Olfson, M.D., M.P.H., of Columbia University Medical Center and New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York, and Steven C. Marcus, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia analyzed data from Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys, sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to find that antidepressant use in America has increased from 5.84 percent to 10.12 percent. The scientists are not clear whether major depression is more widespread among Americans, or if increased use is a combination of factors.
Included in the study were 18,993 individualsm age 6 and olderm from 1996 surveys, and 28,445 individuals from 2005 surveys. Data revealing antidepressant use was provided by an adult household member answering questions related to medical conditions, physician visits, and prescription treatments, allowing researchers to extract information related to depression treatment from a large sampling of the US population.
The authors write, "Significant increases in antidepressant use were evident across all sociodemographic groups examined, except African Americans, who had comparatively low rates of use in both years (1996, 3.61 percent; 2005, 4.51 percent). Although antidepressant treatment increased for Hispanics, it remained comparatively low (1996, 3.72 percent; 2005, 5.21 percent)."
Even though antidepressant use is increasing among Americans, psychotherapy has taken a downward trend according to the analysis. The study authors say use of antidepressants in the United States has taken precedence over psychological interventions to treat depression. Clinical guidelines for treatment of depression support the use of antidepressants, and several new drugs were approved by the FDA between 1996 and 2005.
More Americans are taking antidepressants, yet fewer are receiving psychological care. The authors say the introduction of new antidepressant drugs, encouraged for clinical use, combined with more people suffering from major depression may be contributing factors as to why more Americans are using antidepressants.

Bullies Face More Health, Safety Risks Than Their Victims Do

Compared to their victims, bullies experience a significantly higher risk of a wide range of health, safety and educational problems, according to research in the International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health.
“We see that the [obvious] victims are not the only victims. The bullies are also victims of their own emotional problems,” said lead study author Jorge Srabstein, M.D., medical director of the Clinic for Health Problems Related to Bullying at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
He and his coauthor analyzed data from a 1996 survey of 9,574 students in grades 6 through 10. Students noted their involvement in bullying in the last year, but also identified whether they had participated in a variety of risky behaviors.
More than one-third (39 percent) of students reported some involvement in bullying within the preceding 12 months, either as bullies, victims or both.
“Both the bullies and the victims have a very significant, high probability of suffering from injuries — self-inflicted, accidental and injuries that are perpetrated by others — as compared to those who are not involved in bullying incidents. Because of this, they are at a considerable danger of dying from suicide, homicide and accidents,” Srabstein said.
In this study, victims proved more likely to inflict self-injury or experience accidental injuries, abuse over-the-counter medications, hurt animals and people on purpose, use weapons and be absent from school, compared to uninvolved students.
However, the survey also revealed that bullies and bully/victims — students who have both bullied and been bullied — experienced an even greater risk of these problems than victims. Bullies and bully/victims were more likely — with up to a 14-fold increased risk — to abuse alcohol, drugs and tobacco; experience injuries requiring hospitalization; set fires; carry weapons to school; skip classes; and receive poor grades, compared to victims alone.
The authors’ findings about the prevalence of bullying are in line with other large studies from the United States and around the world, said Rachel Vreeman, M.D., a fellow in children’s health services research at Indiana University School of Medicine. She had no connection to the study.
“Bullying occurs among children in every part of the world where it has been studied. The amount of bullying has not changed in recent years. Instead, more people identify bullying as a problem among children, look for bullying and look for ways to prevent it,” Vreeman said.
“While being involved in bullying is associated or tied with some scary things like hurting others, using weapons and abusing medicines, this does not mean that one causes the other. They go together in these groups of kids, but this type of study cannot tell us that being bullied or being a bully means that you will do these types of things,” she said.
Ultimately, the research highlights bullying as a public health issue for both educators and health care practitioners, Srabstein said. Both “bullies and victims need to be referred for health care if their participation is accompanied by problems like this,” he said.

Mindfulness Therapy Rivals Drugs for Treating Depression Relapse

Canadian researchers conducted a study comparing standard antidepressant medication to cognitive therapy and placebo, finding the treatment rivals medication for preventing depression relapse. Mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT) worked just as well as medications for a group of patients who have unstable remission after being treated for depression.

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy Compared to Antidepressants

The findings, reported in the Archives of General Psychiatry, found that teaching depressed patients to focus on that promote health such as Yoga and meditation removes focus on symptoms, leading to fewer relapses.
Out of a group of 166 patients, 84 had achieved remission and received mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, antidepressants or placebo.
The group chosen for cognitive behavioral therapy discontinued antidepressant medications and attended one group session for 8 weeks. During initial treatment, 51 percent were found to have depression relapse.
"Our findings indicated that the quality of remission achieved during the acute phase interacted with the type of prevention treatment patients received to determine relapse outcomes during the subsequent maintenance phase," the researchers wrote.
A comparison was then made between the three groups of unstable depression patients, showing cognitive based therapy worked as well as taking medication – specifically 28 percent for mindfulness therapy, 27 percent for antidepressant medications and 71 percent for placebo.
The authors write, "For patients whose acute-phase remission was marked by periodic symptom flurries”, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and antidepressants individually, “significantly lowered relapse/recurrence risk compared with discontinuation to placebo."
The researchers note, “Surprisingly, for patients whose acute-phase remission was stable, there was no differential effect on survival between the treatments we studied.”
The findings, according to the authors, emphasize the “importance maintaining at least 1 long-term active treatment in unstable remitters.” For patients who poorly tolerate antidepressants, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy was found to work as well as medications to prevent depression relapse.