Syphilis Is Killing Babies. The U.S. Government Is Failing to Stop the Disease From Spreading.

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Karmin Strohfus, the lead nurse at a South Dakota jail, punched numbers into a phone like lives depended on it. She had in her care a pregnant woman with syphilis, a highly contagious, potentially fatal infection that can pass into the womb. A treatment could cure the woman and protect her fetus, but she couldn’t find it in stock at any pharmacy she called — not in Hughes County, not even anywhere within an hour’s drive.

Most people held at the jail where Strohfus works are released within a few days. “What happens if she gets out before I’m able to treat her?” she worried. Exasperated, Strohfus reached out to the state health department, which came through with one dose. The treatment required three. Officials told Strohfus to contact the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for help, she said. The risks of harm to a developing baby from syphilis are so high that experts urge not to delay treatment, even by a day.

Nearly three weeks passed from when Strohfus started calling pharmacies to when she had the full treatment in hand, she said, and it barely arrived in time. The woman was released just days after she got her last shot.

Last June, Pfizer, the lone U.S. manufacturer of the injections, notified the Food and Drug Administration of an “impending stock out” that it anticipated would last a year. The company blamed “an increase in syphilis infection rates as well as competitive shortages.”

Across the country, physicians, clinic staff and public health experts say that the shortage is preventing them from reining in a surge of syphilis and that the federal government is downplaying the crisis. State and local public health authorities, which by law are responsible for controlling the spread of infectious diseases, report delays getting medicine to pregnant people with syphilis. This emergency was predictable: There have been shortages of this drug in eight of the last 20 years.

Yet federal health authorities have not prevented the drug shortages in the past and aren’t doing much to prevent them in the future.

Syphilis, which is typically spread during sex, can be devastating if it goes untreated in pregnancy: About 40% of babies born to women with untreated syphilis can be stillborn or die as newborns, according to the CDC. Infants that survive can suffer from deformed bones, excruciating pain or brain damage, and some struggle to hear, see or breathe. Since this is entirely preventable, a baby born with syphilis is a shameful sign of a failing public health system.

In 2022, the most recent year for which the CDC has data available, more than 3,700 babies were infected with syphilis, including nearly 300 who were stillborn or died as infants. More than 50% of these cases occurred because, even though the pregnant parent was diagnosed with syphilis, they were never properly treated.

That year, there were 200,000 cases identified in the U.S., a 79% increase from five years before. Infection rates among pregnant people and babies increased by more than 250% in that time; South Dakota, where Strohfus works, had the highest rates — including a more than 400% increase among pregnant women. Statewide, the rate of babies born with the disease, a condition known as congenital syphilis, jumped more than 40-fold in just five years.

And that was before the current shortage of shots.

In Mississippi, the state with the second highest rate of syphilis in pregnant women, Dr. Caroline Weinberg started having trouble this summer finding treatments for her clinic’s patients, most of whom are uninsured, live in poverty or lack transportation. She began spending hours each month scouring medicine suppliers’ websites for available doses of the shots, a form of penicillin sold under the brand name Bicillin L-A.

“The way people do it for Taylor Swift, that’s how I’ve been with the Bicillin shortage,” Weinberg said. “Desperately checking the websites to see what I can snag.”

The shortage is driving up infection rates even further.

In a November survey by the National Coalition of STD Directors, 68% of health departments that responded said the drug shortage will cause syphilis rates in their area to increase, further crushing the nation’s most disadvantaged populations.

“This is the most basic medicine,” said Meghan O’Connell, chief public health officer for the Great Plains Tribal Leaders’ Health Board, which represents 18 tribal communities in South Dakota and three other states. “We allow ourselves to continue to not have enough, and it impacts so many people.”

ProPublica examined what the federal government has done to manage the crisis and the ways in which experts say it has fallen short.

The government could pressure Pfizer to be more transparent.

Twenty years ago, there were at least three manufacturers of the syphilis shot. Then Pfizer, one of the manufacturers, purchased the other two companies and became the lone U.S. supplier.

Pfizer’s supply has fallen short since then. In 2016, the company announced a shortage due to a manufacturing issue; it lasted two years. Even during times when Pfizer had not notified the FDA of an official shortage, clinics across the country told ProPublica, the shots were often hard to get.

Several health officials said they would like to see the government use its power as the largest purchaser of the drug to put pressure on Pfizer to produce adequate supplies and to be more transparent about how much of the drug they have on hand, when it will be widely available and how stable the supply will be going forward.

In response to questions, Pfizer said there are two reasons its supply is falling short. One, the company said, was a surge in use of the pediatric form of the drug after a shortage of a different antibiotic last winter. Pfizer also blamed a 70% increase in demand for the adult shots since last February, which it described as unexpected.

Public health experts say the increase in cases and subsequent rise in demand was easy to see coming. Officials have been raising the alarm about skyrocketing syphilis cases for years. “If Pfizer was truly caught completely off guard, it raises significant questions about the competency of the company to forecast obvious infectious disease trends,” a coalition of organizations wrote to the White House Drug Shortage Task Force in September.

Pfizer said it is consistently communicating with the CDC and FDA about its supply and that it has been transparent with public health groups and policymakers.

The FDA has a group dedicated to addressing drug shortages. But Valerie Jensen, associate director of that staff, said the FDA can’t force manufacturers to make more of a drug. “It is up to manufacturers to decide how to respond to that increased demand.” she said. “What we’re here to do is help with those plans.”

Pfizer said it had a target of increasing production by about 20% in 2023 but faced delays toward the end of the year. The company did not explain the reason for those delays.

The company said it has invested $38 million in the last five years in the Michigan facility where it makes the shots and that it is increasing production capacity. It also said it is adding evening shifts at the facility and actively recruiting and training new workers. Pfizer said it also reduced manufacturing time from 110 to 50 days. By the end of June, the company expects the supply to recover, which it described as having eight weeks of inventory based on its forecast demands with no disruptions in sight.

The government could manufacture the drug itself.

Having only one supplier for a drug, especially one of public health importance, makes the country vulnerable to shortages. With just one manufacturer, any disruption — contamination at a plant, a shortage of raw materials, a severe weather event or a flawed prediction of demand — can put lives at risk. What’s ultimately needed, public health experts say, is another manufacturer.

Congressional Democrats recently introduced a bill that would authorize the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to manufacture generic drugs in exactly this scenario, when there are few manufacturers and regular shortages. Called the Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act, it would also establish an office of drug manufacturing.

This same bill was introduced in 2018, but it didn’t have bipartisan support and was never taken up for a vote. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat who introduced the bill in the Senate, said she’s hopeful this time will be different. Lawmakers from both parties understand the risks created by drug shortages, and COVID-19 helped everyone understand the role the government can play to boost manufacturing.

Still, it’s unlikely to be passed with the current gridlock in Congress.

The government could reserve syphilis drugs for infected patients.

Responding to the shortage of shots to treat the disease, the CDC in July asked health care providers nationwide to preserve the scarce remaining doses for people who are pregnant. The shots are considered the gold standard treatment for anyone with syphilis, faster and with fewer side effects than an alternative pill regimen. And for people who are pregnant, the pills are not an option; the shots are the only safe treatment.

Despite that call, the military is giving shots to new recruits who don’t have syphilis, to prevent outbreaks of severe bacterial respiratory infections. The Army has long administered this treatment at boot camps held at Fort Leonard Wood, Fort Moore and Fort Sill. The Army has been unable to obtain the shots several times in the past few years, according to the U.S. Army Center for Initial Military Training. But the Defense Health Agency’s pharmacy operations center has been working with Pfizer to ensure military sites can get them, a spokesperson for the Defense Health Agency said.

“Until we think about public health the way we think about our military, we’re not going to see a difference,” said Dr. John Vanchiere, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Louisiana State University Health Shreveport.

Some public health officials, including Alaska’s chief medical officer, Dr. Anne Zink, questioned whether the military should be using scarce shots for prevention.

“We should ask if that’s the best use,” she said.

Using antibiotics to prevent streptococcal outbreaks is a well-established, evidence-based public health practice that’s also used by other branches of the armed services, said Lt. Col. Randy Ready, a public affairs officer with the Army’s Initial Military Training center. “The Army continues to work with the CDC and the entire medical community in regards to public health while also taking into account the unique missions and training environments our Soldiers face,” including basic training, Ready said in a written statement.

The government isn’t stockpiling syphilis drugs.

In rare instances, the federal government has created stockpiles of drugs considered key to public health. In 2018, confronting shortages of various drugs to treat tuberculosis, the CDC created a small stockpile of them. And the federal Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response keeps a national stockpile of supplies necessary for public health emergencies, including vaccines, medical supplies and antidotes needed in case of a chemical warfare attack.

In November, the Biden administration announced it was creating a new syphilis task force. When asked why the federal government doesn’t stockpile syphilis treatments, Adm. Rachel Levine, the HHS official who leads the task force, said officials don’t routinely stockpile drugs, because they have expiration dates.

In a written statement, an HHS spokesperson said that Bicillin has a shelf life of two years and that the Strategic National Stockpile “does not deploy products that are commercially available.” In general, the spokesperson wrote, stockpiles are most effective before a national shortage begins and can’t overcome the problems of limited suppliers or fragile supply chains. “There is also a risk that stockpiles can exacerbate shortages, particularly when supply is already low, by removing drugs from circulation that would have otherwise been available,” the spokesperson wrote.

Stephanie Pang, a senior director with the coalition of STD directors, said that given the critical role of this drug and the severe access concerns, she thinks a stockpile is necessary. “I don’t have another solution that actually gets drugs to patients,” Pang said.

The government could declare a federal emergency.

Some public health officials say the federal government needs to treat the syphilis crisis the way it did Ebola or monkeypox.

Declare a federal emergency, said Dr. Michael Dube, an infectious disease specialist for more than 30 years. That would free up money for more public health staff and fund more creative approaches that could lead to a long-term solution to the near-constant shortages, he said. “I’d hate to have to wait for some horrible anecdotes to get out there in order to get the public’s and the policymakers’ minds on it,” said Dube, who oversees medical care for AIDS Healthcare Foundation wellness clinics across the country.

Citing an alarming surge in syphilis cases, the Great Plains Tribes wrote to the HHS secretary last week asking that the agency declare a public health emergency in their areas. In the request, they asked HHS to work globally to find adequate syphilis treatment and send the needed medicine to the Great Plains region.

During the 2014 outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, Congress gave hundreds of millions of dollars to HHS to help develop new rapid tests and vaccines. Facing a global outbreak of monkeypox in 2022, a White House task force deployed more than a million vaccines, regularly briefed the public and sent extra resources to Pride parades and other places where people at risk were gathered.

Levine, leader of the federal syphilis task force, countered that declaring an emergency wouldn’t make much of a difference. The government, she said, already has a “dramatic and coordinated response” involving several agencies.

The FDA recently approved an emergency import of a similar syphilis treatment made by a French manufacturer that had plenty on hand. According to the company, Provepharm, the imported shots are enough to cover approximately one or two months of typical use by all people in the U.S. (The FDA would not say how many doses Provepharm sent, and the company said it was not allowed to reveal that number under the federal rules governing such emergency imports.)

Clinics applaud that development. But many of them can’t afford the imported shots.

The government could do more to rein in the cost.

Clinics and hospitals that primarily serve low-income patients often qualify for a federal program that allows them to purchase drugs at steeply discounted prices. Pharmaceutical companies that want Medicaid to cover their outpatient drugs must participate in the program.

One factor in determining the discount price is whether a pharmaceutical company has raised the price of a drug by more than the rate of inflation. Because Pfizer has hiked the price of its Bicillin shots significantly over the years, the government requires that it be sold to qualifying clinics for just pennies a dose. Otherwise, a single Pfizer shot can retail for upwards of $500. The French shots are comparable in retail price and not eligible for the discount program.

Several clinic directors also said they worried that drug distributors were reserving the limited supply of the Pfizer shot for organizations that could pay full price. For several days in January, for example, the website of Henry Schein, a medical supplier, showed doses of the shot available at full price, while doses at the penny pricing were out of stock, according to screenshots shared with ProPublica. When asked whether it was only selling shots at full price, a spokesperson for Henry Schein did not respond to the question.

Local health departments that qualify for the discount program told ProPublica they’ve had to pay full price at other distributors, because it was the only stock available.

The Health Resources and Services Administration, the federal agency that regulates the discount program, said that a drug manufacturer is ultimately responsible for ensuring that when supplies are available, they are available at the discounted price. When asked about this, Pfizer said that it has “one inventory that is distributed to our trade partners” and that hospitals and clinics that qualify for the discount program are “responsible for ensuring compliance with the program and orders through the wholesaler accordingly.” The company added, “Pfizer plays no part in this process.”

In October, on Weinberg’s regular search for shots for her Mississippi clinic, she found doses of Bicillin for sale at the discounted price and purchased 40. “The idea that we’re supposed to be hoarding treatment is a horrific compact,” she said. Word got out that the clinic, called Plan A, has some shots, and other clinics began sending pregnant patients there.

The clinic’s supply is dwindling. Weinberg is happy to get the shots to patients who need them. But she’s not sure how much longer her reserve will last — or if she’ll be able to find more when they’re gone.

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  • The 5 Resets – by Dr. Aditi Nerurkar

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    What this book isn’t: an advice to go on a relaxing meditation retreat, or something like that.

    What this is: a science-based guide to what actually works.

    There’s no need to be mysterious, so we’ll mention that the titular “5 resets” are:

    1. What matters most
    2. Quiet in a noisy world
    3. Leveraging the brain-body connection
    4. Coming up for air (regaining perspective)
    5. Bringing your best self forward

    All of these are things we can easily lose sight of in the hustle and bustle of daily life, so having a system for keeping them on track can make a huge difference!

    The style is personable and accessible, while providing a lot of strongly science-backed tips and tricks along the way.

    Bottom line: if life gets away from you a little too often for comfort, this book can help you keep on top of things with a lot less stress.

    Click here to check out “The 5 Resets”, and take control with conscious calm!

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  • Black Tea or Green Tea – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing black tea to green tea, we picked the black tea.

    Why?

    It was close! Ultimately we picked the black tea as the “best all-rounder”.

    Both teas are great for the health, insofar as tea in general is a) a very good way to hydrate (better absorption than plain water) and b) an excellent source of beneficial phytochemicals—mostly antioxidants of various kinds, but there’s a lot in there.

    We did a run-down previously of the relative benefits of each of four kinds of tea (black, white, green, red):

    Which Tea Is Best, By Science?

    Which concluded in its final summary:

    Black, white, green, and red teas all have their benefits, and ultimately the best one for you will probably be the one you enjoy drinking, and thus drink more of.

    If trying to choose though, we offer the following summary:

    • Black tea: best for total beneficial phytochemicals
    • White tea:best for your oral health
    • Green tea: best for your brain
    • ❤️ Red tea: best if you want naturally caffeine-free

    Enjoy!

    Share This Post

  • What Is Earwax & Should You Get Rid Of It?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Earwax (cerumen) forms in the outer ear canal when dead skin cells mix with oily sweat (a specialty of the apocrine glands) and sebum, a fatty substance mostly associated with facial oiliness. But, does it have a purpose, or is it just a waste product?

    Nature is (mostly) best in this case

    Earwax plays an important role in ear health, acting as a natural lubricant that prevents dryness and itchiness, trapping debris and microbes, and forming a protective barrier for the ear canal. It even contains proteins that help fight bacterial infections.

    As for removal: the body has a natural mechanism for removing excess earwax: as skin cells grow, they migrate outward, carrying earwax with them.

    In contrast, manual removal of earwax can do more harm than good. Using swabs or other items often pushes wax deeper, risks damaging the ear canal, and disrupts its protective barrier, potentially leading to infection.

    Ear candling, which claims to extract earwax, not only does not work (its main premise has been actively disproven and clinical evidence shows unequivocally that it doesn’t work by any mysterious method either; it just plain doesn’t work), but also can cause injuries and will tend to leave more harmful debris behind than was there originally.

    For those prone to earwax buildup, over-the-counter eardrops can help soften wax for natural removal, and medical professionals have safe methods to clear blockages if necessary.

    To maintain ear health, it’s best to clean only the outer ear with a damp cloth, limit the use of earplugs or earbuds, and generally leave earwax alone unless it causes discomfort or hearing issues.

    For more on all of this, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    Ear Candling: Is It Safe & Does It Work? ← the answer is “no and no”, but the science may interest you

    Take care!

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  • How To Gain Weight (Healthily!)

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    What Do You Have To Gain?

    We have previously promised a three-part series about changing one’s weight:

    1. Losing weight (specifically, losing fat)
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    3. Gaining weight (specifically, gaining fat)

    There will be, however, no need for a “losing muscle” article, because (even though sometimes a person might have some reason to want to do this), it’s really just a case of “those things we said for gaining muscle? Don’t do those and the muscle will atrophy naturally”.

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    Shedding Some Obesity Myths

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    BMI and all-cause mortality in older adults: a meta-analysis

    Here was our second article: How To Build Muscle (Healthily!)

    And now, it’s time for the last part, which yes, is also something that some people want/need to do (healthily!), and want/need help with that.

    How to gain fat, healthily

    Fat gets a bad press, but when it comes to health, we would die without it.

    Even in the case of having excess fat, the fat itself is not generally the problem, so much as comorbid metabolic issues that are often caused by the same things as the excess fat.

    So, how to gain fat healthily?

    • Obvious but potentially dangerously misleading answer: “in moderation”
    • More useful answer: “carefully”

    Because, you can “in moderation” put on less than one pound per week for a few years and be in very bad health by the end of it. So how does this “carefully” work any differently to “in moderation”?

    The key is in how we store the fat

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    • When our body is receiving energy from food faster than it can physically process it to store it healthily, it will start shoving it wherever it can instead. This is bad!

    This is the physiological equivalent of the difference between tidying a room carefully, and cramming everything into one cupboard in 30 seconds just to get it out of sight.

    So, you do need to consume calories yes, but you need to consume them in a way your body can take its time about storing them.

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    • Do not drink your calories. Drinking calories tends to be the equivalent of injecting sugars directly into your veins, in terms of how quickly it gets received.
      • See also: How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver ← this is highly relevant, because the same process that results in unhealthy weight gain, results in liver disease, by the same mechanism (the liver gets overwhelmed).
    • Eat your greens. No, they won’t provide many calories, but they are critical to your body not being overwhelmed by the arrival of sugars.
      • See also: 10 Ways To Balance Blood Sugars ← the other 9 things are also helpful for not putting on fat unhealthily, so using these alongside a calorie-dense diet can result in healthy fat gain as needed
    • Get more of your calories from fats than carbs. Fats will not overwhelm your body’s glycemic response in the same way that carbs will.
    • Consider going low-carb, but even if you choose not to, go for carbs with a low glycemic index instead of a high glycemic index.
    • Need healthy fats in a snack? Enjoy nuts (unless you have an allergy); they will be your best friend in this regard. As an example, a mere 1oz portion of cashew nuts has 157 calories.
    • Need healthy fats for cooking? Enjoy olive oil, as it has one of the healthiest lipids profiles available, and is a great way to increase the calorific content of many meals.

    Lastly…

    Be patient, enjoy your food, and stick as best you can to the above considerations. All strength to you.

    Take care!

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  • We looked at genetic clues to depression in more than 14,000 people. What we found may surprise you

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    The core experiences of depression – changes in energy, activity, thinking and mood – have been described for more than 10,000 years. The word “depression” has been used for about 350 years.

    Given this long history, it may surprise you that experts don’t agree about what depression is, how to define it or what causes it.

    But many experts do agree that depression is not one thing. It’s a large family of illnesses with different causes and mechanisms. This makes choosing the best treatment for each person challenging.

    Reactive vs endogenous depression

    One strategy is to search for sub-types of depression and see whether they might do better with different kinds of treatments. One example is contrasting “reactive” depression with “endogenous” depression.

    Reactive depression (also thought of as social or psychological depression) is presented as being triggered by exposure to stressful life events. These might be being assaulted or losing a loved one – an understandable reaction to an outside trigger.

    Endogenous depression (also thought of as biological or genetic depression) is proposed to be caused by something inside, such as genes or brain chemistry.

    Many people working clinically in mental health accept this sub-typing. You might have read about this online.

    But we think this approach is way too simple.

    While stressful life events and genes may, individually, contribute to causing depression, they also interact to increase the risk of someone developing depression. And evidence shows that there is a genetic component to being exposed to stressors. Some genes affect things such as personality. Some affect how we interact with our environments.

    What we did and what we found

    Our team set out to look at the role of genes and stressors to see if classifying depression as reactive or endogenous was valid.

    In the Australian Genetics of Depression Study, people with depression answered surveys about exposure to stressful life events. We analysed DNA from their saliva samples to calculate their genetic risk for mental disorders.

    Our question was simple. Does genetic risk for depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, ADHD, anxiety and neuroticism (a personality trait) influence people’s reported exposure to stressful life events?

    Girl or teenager leaning against wall, hand across face, looking down
    We looked at the genetic risk of mental illness to see how that was linked to stressful life events, such as childhood abuse and neglect. Kamira/Shutterstock

    You may be wondering why we bothered calculating the genetic risk for mental disorders in people who already have depression. Every person has genetic variants linked to mental disorders. Some people have more, some less. Even people who already have depression might have a low genetic risk for it. These people may have developed their particular depression from some other constellation of causes.

    We looked at the genetic risk of conditions other than depression for a couple of reasons. First, genetic variants linked to depression overlap with those linked to other mental disorders. Second, two people with depression may have completely different genetic variants. So we wanted to cast a wide net to look at a wider spectrum of genetic variants linked to mental disorders.

    If reactive and endogenous depression sub-types are valid, we’d expect people with a lower genetic component to their depression (the reactive group) would report more stressful life events. And we’d expect those with a higher genetic component (the endogenous group) would report fewer stressful life events.

    But after studying more than 14,000 people with depression we found the opposite.

    We found people at higher genetic risk for depression, anxiety, ADHD or schizophrenia say they’ve been exposed to more stressors.

    Assault with a weapon, sexual assault, accidents, legal and financial troubles, and childhood abuse and neglect, were all more common in people with a higher genetic risk of depression, anxiety, ADHD or schizophrenia.

    These associations were not strongly influenced by people’s age, sex or relationships with family. We didn’t look at other factors that may influence these associations, such as socioeconomic status. We also relied on people’s memory of past events, which may not be accurate.

    How do genes play a role?

    Genetic risk for mental disorders changes people’s sensitivity to the environment.

    Imagine two people, one with a high genetic risk for depression, one with a low risk. They both lose their jobs. The genetically vulnerable person experiences the job loss as a threat to their self-worth and social status. There is a sense of shame and despair. They can’t bring themselves to look for another job for fear of losing it too. For the other, the job loss feels less about them and more about the company. These two people internalise the event differently and remember it differently.

    Genetic risk for mental disorders also might make it more likely people find themselves in environments where bad things happen. For example, a higher genetic risk for depression might affect self-worth, making people more likely to get into dysfunctional relationships which then go badly.

    Middle aged man looking sad, leaning on sofa, staring into distance
    If two people lose their jobs, one with a high genetic risk of depression the other at low risk, both will experience and remember the event differently. Inside Creative House/Shutterstock

    What does our study mean for depression?

    First, it confirms genes and environments are not independent. Genes influence the environments we end up in, and what then happens. Genes also influence how we react to those events.

    Second, our study doesn’t support a distinction between reactive and endogenous depression. Genes and environments have a complex interplay. Most cases of depression are a mix of genetics, biology and stressors.

    Third, people with depression who appear to have a stronger genetic component to their depression report their lives are punctuated by more serious stressors.

    So clinically, people with higher genetic vulnerability might benefit from learning specific techniques to manage their stress. This might help some people reduce their chance of developing depression in the first place. It might also help some people with depression reduce their ongoing exposure to stressors.

    If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

    Jacob Crouse, Research Fellow in Youth Mental Health, Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney and Ian Hickie, Co-Director, Health and Policy, Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Reclaiming Body Trust – by Hilary Kinavey & Dana Sturtevant

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Authored by a therapist and a dietician, this book draws from both of their extensive professional clinical experiences, to explore how we can (often early in our lives) be led into disordered thinking when it comes to food and our bodies, and how we can “take back that which has been stolen from us”.

    More prosaically: the presented goal here is for us to each figure out where we are with our own body, and how we might build our relationship with same going forwards, in the way that will work the best for us.

    The style is relaxed and conversational, while taking care to cover topics that are often tricky with no less seriousness. Chapter headings such as “Your coping is rooted in wisdom”, “What does grief have to do with it?” and “Allowing for pleasure and satisfaction” give an idea of the flavors at hand here.

    Bottom line: if you think your relationship with food and your body could be better, not only are you probably right, but also, this book can help.

    Click here to check out Reclaiming Body Trust, and regain more than you probably realized you had lost.

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