How You Can Learn To Treat Depression

Written by John Maxford


When a person undertakes a course of therapy through their doctor, and there is no improvement, they may be suffering from a treatment resistant depression.

This is difficult, and takes time to diagnose, since by its nature, depression is not an illness that can be cured with a ten-day course of drugs, like an infection.

Depending onrepparttar physician's assessment, a patient may start out on a mild tricyclic drug, which can be replaced with something that has better results for more involved cases. They may also recommend concurrent counseling with a psychologist or psychiatrist, to work onrepparttar 140489 underlying issues that have causedrepparttar 140490 illness.

Some conditions, like post partum depression, and bi-polar disorders are chemically related, and even multiple changes of medication may not do enough to break throughrepparttar 140491 cycle of dark moods and thoughts. In that event,repparttar 140492 next recommendation may be for a stay in a treatment facility for depression.

Treatment resistant depression can be better addressed in an environment where a patient is closely monitored for both behavioral and mood changes, and possibly for blood tests to assessrepparttar 140493 therapeutic level of a drug in their system.

Herbal Medicine has been used for thousands of years to successfully treat disease - why are we still doubting its worth?

Written by Danny Siegenthaler


Herbs or medicinal plants have a long history in treating disease and health disorders. In traditional Chinese medicine, for example,repparttar written history of herbal medicine goes back over 2000 years and herbalists inrepparttar 140451 West have used “weeds” equally long to treat that which ails us. We are all familiar withrepparttar 140452 virtues of Garlic, Chamomile, Peppermint, Lavender, and other common herbs.

Interest in medicinal herbs is onrepparttar 140453 rise again andrepparttar 140454 interest is primarily fromrepparttar 140455 pharmaceutical industry, which is always looking for ‘new drugs’ and more effective substances to treat diseases, for which there may be no or very few drugs available.

Consideringrepparttar 140456 very long traditional use of herbal medicines andrepparttar 140457 large body of evidence of their effectiveness, why is it that we are not generally encouraged to use traditional herbal medicine, instead of synthetic, incomplete copies of herbs, called drugs, consideringrepparttar 140458 millions of dollars being spent looking for these seemingly elusive substances?

Herbs are considered treasures when it comes to ancient cultures and herbalists, and many so-called weeds are worth their weight in gold. Dandelion, Comfrey, Digitalis (Foxglove),repparttar 140459 Poppy, Milk Thistle, Stinging nettle, and many others, have well-researched and established medicinal qualities that have few if any rivals inrepparttar 140460 pharmaceutical industry. Many of them in fact, formrepparttar 140461 bases of pharmaceutical drugs.

Research intorepparttar 140462 medicinal properties of such herbs asrepparttar 140463 humble Dandelion is currently being undertaken by scientists atrepparttar 140464 Royal Botanical Gardens, in Kew, west London, believe it could berepparttar 140465 source of a life-saving drug for cancer patients.

Early tests suggest that it could holdrepparttar 140466 key to warding off cancer, which kills tens of thousands of people every year.

Their work onrepparttar 140467 cancer-beating properties ofrepparttar 140468 dandelion, which also has a history of being used to treat warts, is part of a much larger project to examinerepparttar 140469 natural medicinal properties of scores of British plants and flowers.

Professor Monique Simmonds, head ofrepparttar 140470 Sustainable Uses of Plants Group at Kew, said: "We aren't randomly screening plants for their potential medicinal properties, we are looking at plants which we know have a long history of being used to treat certain medical problems.”

“We will be examining them to find out what active compounds they contain which can treatrepparttar 140471 illness.”

Unfortunately, as is so oftenrepparttar 140472 case, this group of scientists appears to be looking for active ingredients, which can later be synthesized and then made into pharmaceutical drugs. This is notrepparttar 140473 way herbs are used traditionally and their functions inevitably change whenrepparttar 140474 active ingredients are used in isolation. That’s like saying thatrepparttar 140475 only important part of a car isrepparttar 140476 engine – nothing else needs to be included…

So, why is there this need for isolatingrepparttar 140477 ‘active ingredients’?

As a scientist, I can understandrepparttar 140478 need forrepparttar 140479 scientific process of establishingrepparttar 140480 fact that a particular herb works on a particular disease, pathogen or what ever, andrepparttar 140481 need to know why and how it does so. But, and this is a BIG but, as a doctor of Chinese medicine I also understandrepparttar 140482 process of choosing and prescribing COMBINATIONS of herbs, which have a synergistic effect to treat not justrepparttar 140483 disease, but any underlying condition as well asrepparttar 140484 person withrepparttar 140485 disease – That is a big difference and not one that is easily tested using standard scientific methodologies.

Using anecdotal evidence, which after all has a history of thousands of years, seems to escape my esteemed colleagues all together. Rather than trying to isolaterepparttar 140486 active ingredient(s), why not test these herbs, utilizingrepparttar 140487 knowledge of professional herbalists, on patients in vivo, usingrepparttar 140488 myriad of technology available to researchers and medical diagnosticians to see how and why these herbs work in living, breathing patients, rather than in a test tube or on laboratory rats and mice (which, byrepparttar 140489 way, are not humans and have a different, although some what similar, physiology to us…).

I suspect, that amongrepparttar 140490 reasons for not followingrepparttar 140491 above procedure is thatrepparttar 140492 pharmaceutical companies are not really interested inrepparttar 140493 effects ofrepparttar 140494 medicinal plants as a whole, but rather in whether they can isolate a therapeutic substance which can then be manufactured cheaply and marketed as a new drug - and of course that’s whererepparttar 140495 money is…

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