The New Culture of Desire by Melinda Davis

Author:Melinda Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2002-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Stage 4: Depression

Our Black Plague

An Evolutionary Warning?

Depression has doubled since World War II, and according to all reliable accounts, the rates of depression continue to rise. Martin Seligman, head of the American Psychological Association, believes we are experiencing an “epidemic” of clinical depression. Myrna Weissman of Columbia University concluded, in a nine-nation, cross-cultural survey, that people born after 1945 are three times more likely to suffer depression than those born in earlier times. According to a 2000 study by the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and the Harvard School of Public Health, unipolar major depression is the leading cause of disability in the world today. And Americans are leading the unhappy parade.

Ask Americans how they are doing and 20 million will tell you, in any given year, that they are in the throes of a depression. As many as half of us will suffer depression at some time in our lives. At least 12 million are suffering right this minute without seeking treatment. Depression costs the United States some $40 billion each year in medical costs, lost productivity, and absenteeism. An Albert Einstein College of Medicine study affirms that depression is the most prevalent psychological disorder in the United States.

Something about the world today is making increasing numbers of us feel that everything is going wrong and we are powerless to change it. “As we approach the limits of our ability to deal with the complexities of our lives, we begin to experience a state of anxiety. We either approach or avoid. And indeed, we are seeing both—a polarization of behavior in which we see increases in both aggression, marked by a general loss of manners, and in withdrawal.” This from psychologists Bernardo Carducci and Phillip Zimbardo, who recently completed a study of depression.

Antidepressants are now by far the largest segment of psychiatric-related drug sales: 47 percent of the expenditures in the category are for meds that ease depression. That represented a big $7.1 billion in 1997, up to $15 billion in 2002. (This is roughly the same amount of money we spend, in America, on milk and bread.) There are at least eighteen new antidepressants in the research and development pipeline: Pharmacia and Upjohn are working on a compound that targets norepinephrine. Others, like Samaritan Pharmaceuticals and scientists at Ned Kalin’s Health-Emotions Research Institute in Madison, Wisconsin, are focusing on ways to inhibit the effects of cortisol into the system—Kalin’s group by working with a peptide called alpha helical corticotropin releasing factor—to block vulnerable receptors.

Others are working in the area of antidepressant gadgeteering: faster-working-than-pills devices that act on the brain rather like a Code Blue defibrillator works on the heart: antidepressant brain zappers. One, RTMS, or “rapid transcranial magnetic stimulation,” uses magnets and electric voltage to restart regular rhythms in the brain. More than twenty medical institutions around the world are working with magnetic stimulation to treat recurrent depression, stimulating the left side of the prefrontal cortex in an effort to mend damaged brain circuits. The premise: the

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