Can medications cause depression?
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
17 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Venus Williams reflects on harrowing health battle a year on from surgery: 'I was told I could bleed to death'
Venus Williams has opened up on the depths of her recent health struggles, a year on from having surgery to remove fibroids from her uterus. The 45-year-old Williams, who recently confirmed her engagement to her actor boyfriend Andrea Preti, took a 16-month break from tennis due to the issue, returning to the court back in July. Now, for the first time, Williams has revealed just how much her condition was impacting her life away from tennis in a moving Instagram post 12 months on from her operation in New York. 'On this day 1 year ago I was having surgery, an open myomectomy to remove fibroids and a large focal adenomyoma that was imbedded in the muscle of my uterus,' Williams wrote on Instagram. 'What a difference a year makes! I played my first tournament in over 16 months and I am now preparing for the US Open. This post is in celebration of the last day of fibroid awareness month. There can be happy endings!' Williams won her first singles game since March 2024 at the Citi Open in Washington D.C. in July, the latest landmark step on her road to recovery. The 45-year-old took a 16-month break from tennis, before returning to the court back in July She told reporters at the tournament that the difference in her health is 'night and day' from the summer of 2024. But Williams told her 2 million followers on Instagram that she was now opening up her journey to recovery to reassure other women with the same condition. 'I was told I was inoperable,' she wrote. 'I was told I could bleed to death on the table. 'I was told to get a surrogate and forget the hope to carry my own children. I was misdiagnosed. 'I went untreated for years and years and years. It's so important to advocate for your health! I suffered from severe anemia, debilitating pain, excessive bleeding and abnormally frequent menstrual cycles for many years. It affected my tennis and the trajectory of my career.' 'I told my story so other women don't have to go through this and so they can get better sooner. I play tennis now because I can play healthier than ever, it is a dream come true!' It promises to be an emotional return to Queens for Williams later in August at the competition she first won in 2000. Williams confirmed her engagement to her Italian boyfriend Preti on her return to the game in DC, telling the crowd after her win: 'My fiancé is here and he really encouraged me to keep playing. 'There were so many times where I just wanted to coast and kind of chill. Do you know how hard it is to play tennis? You guys don't know how much work goes into this, like it's 9 to 5 except you're running the whole time. 'Lifting weights and just like dying and then you repeat it the next day. So he encouraged me to get through this and it's wonderful to be here. He's never seen me play.' The couple were first linked last summer when they were on vacation on the Amalfi coast. Speculation over their engagement had been rife for months - Williams was seen practicing with a huge ring back in February.
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Does summer make you sad? Here's why seasonal changes can trigger the blues
AS her daughter played happily in a paddling pool as a toddler, Heidi Ellert-McDermott blinked back tears. 'Everyone seemed to be having such a lovely time and was glowing in the sunshine,' she recalls, 'but I was feeling really low and like I just wanted it to cloud over.' 5 5 5 The speech writer, from Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucs, is not alone in hating the summer months. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a type of depression that affects one in 20 people in the UK. While traditionally associated with dark winters, 'reverse SAD' affects ten per cent of those with the condition. Clinical psychologist Dr Andrea Pickering, fellow of the British Psychological Society and clinical director at Clinical Partners, explains: 'It is triggered by seasonal changes, most commonly during winter but sometimes in summer. 'Blackout blinds' 'Like other forms of depression, it's linked to chemical changes in the brain, particularly involving serotonin which regulates mood, and melatonin which controls sleep. 'In winter, less sunlight leads to lower serotonin levels and increased melatonin production. 'In summer, the brain can become overstimulated by too much sunlight or heat, which can disrupt sleep cycles and leave people feeling agitated, anxious and unbalanced. 'So while the triggers are seasonal, the brain's response is similar to depression, just with different timing.' Heidi, 48, originally from Scotland, says her symptoms started around 2007. She adds: 'I don't remember having the extreme dislike of summer as a child or in my twenties, it kicked in in my mid-thirties. What is Seasonal Affective Disorder? 'I've felt it long enough that my friends don't expect me to dance at a festival or 'just come for an hour' to a roasting hot barbecue any more. 'I use blackout blinds, I've got fans in every room, I sleep with ice packs in my socks and I only venture out in the sunshine when I absolutely have to.' GP Dr Rosie Khan is seeing an increasing number of patients with reverse SAD. She says: 'I see a spike each year, especially in patients already living with anxiety or mood disorders. 'These individuals often report feeling overwhelmed, agitated and unusually fatigued during the warmer months. The longer days, intense heat and social pressure of summer can be just as challenging as winter.' Lisa Ventura, 51, from Worcester, has had reverse SAD symptoms since she was a child. She says: 'I've been to my GP plenty of times over the years but every time I've been told to just eat some ice cream, drink more water and stay indoors. 'None of this helps. In recent years it has been dismissed as the menopause, even though I've never had other symptoms. 'Cooped up' 'It feels like doctors think I'm being dramatic, just as my teachers thought at school.' There are guidelines for treatment of the condition, though. Dr Khan says: 'The NHS recommends a combination of approaches, depending on the severity of symptoms. 'This includes self-help techniques, talking therapies and sometimes medication. 'Lifestyle measures, such as maintaining a regular sleep schedule, staying cool and managing screen time can make a big difference, too.' Lisa, who works as a cyber security expert, says the impact on her life has been huge. 'Every arrangement I make in the summer has to be caveated with 'as long as it isn't too hot' — especially if the temperature goes above 25C,' she says. 'I couldn't attend my cousin's fiance's 50th birthday party at the end of June as it was a barbecue in 30C heat. There was no way I could sit outside even for a few minutes. 'I'm a huge Black Sabbath fan and I desperately wanted to go to their final concert at Villa Park but my heart sank when I saw it was in July because I knew I wouldn't be able to go if it was hot. 5 5 'I also recently started an outdoor yoga class but have had to miss the first three sessions because of the heatwaves. 'I hate being cooped up at home but I have no other choice.' Dr Pickering says it might not be as common as anxiety, which affects eight million people in the UK, but SAD is 'very real' for those impacted and the symptoms should not be ignored. 'It often shows up as low mood, anxiety or irritability during late spring and summer,' she says. 'People might struggle to sleep, feel restless or panicky, lose their appetite or avoid socialising and going outside. 'It can feel like you're out of sync with others who seem to enjoy the season. 'If these symptoms start to affect your daily life, it's worth speaking to a GP or mental health professional.' Heidi, who says she spends the summer months counting down the days until the clocks go back, wishes more people understood reverse SAD. 'I've googled 'Is hating summer a personality flaw?',' she says. 'I get irritable and start irrationally resenting people for being cheerful in shorts. 'It's like I'm the only person not enjoying the 'best time of year'. It's like being the designated driver at a month-long party. 'I've braved a couple of hot holidays but I can't be more than five metres from a pool or the sea. 'Red flag' 'Rain calms me and fog delights me but disliking summer doesn't mean I'm joyless. I just like my joy chilled — and preferably set to the sound of rain on my windows.' Dr Khan says anyone can be affected by SAD but it is more common in women and usually begins in young adulthood. 'People with a family history of depression or other mood disorders may also be more susceptible,' she adds. 'Those who are highly sensitive to changes in light, temperature or routine, or shift workers or people with anxiety can be more vulnerable, too.' If a dislike of summer starts affecting work or relationships, it could be time to seek help. 'We all have seasonal preferences but when your discomfort in summer becomes emotionally and physically disabling, that's a red flag,' Dr Pickering says. 'Don't dismiss it. Speak to your GP or a mental health professional. Practical lifestyle changes to regulate light and temperature can really help. 'Try using blackout curtains, sticking to a regular sleep routine and limiting exposure to bright light if that's a trigger. 'Most importantly, know that you're not alone and professional help is available.'
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
A professor had a $2.4m grant to study Black maternal health. Then Trump was elected
Jaime Slaughter-Acey was in a state of shock and anger when she learned that her National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study on birth outcomes in Black families was cancelled this spring. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill associate professor in epidemiology said that she felt like 'the rug was pulled out from under us' when the university called her to share the news. The termination notice said that the study no longer met the agency's priorities and didn't promise to increase life expectancy. 'It was heartbreaking,' Slaughter-Acey told the Guardian, 'and honestly, infuriating given the high rates of maternal and infant mortality in this country.' The cancellation came as the Trump administration terminated 1,902 NIH grants totalling more than $4.4bn between his January inauguration and the end of July, according to Grant Witness data. NIH followed guidance from the so-called 'department of government efficiency' (Doge) and Trump's executive orders to cut costs. Additionally, in April, the Trump administration let go of a majority of the staff at the federal Division of Reproductive Health, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) office that collects data on maternal experiences. It also surveils pregnancy-related deaths in an effort to reduce infant mortality and improve health outcomes for mothers and their children. Slaughter-Acey's several-year study funded by a more than $2.4m NIH grant aimed to look at how social and biological factors affect outcomes for more than 500 Black women in Detroit. The grant termination froze the team's more than $581,000 remaining funding. Through blood samples and surveys of Black mothers and grandmothers, Slaughter-Acey and her team aimed to understand if social environments accelerated how bodies physiologically age, otherwise known as biological ageing, which may lead to adverse pregnancy outcomes for Black women. She said that the research is 'designed to tell us how social environment and the pathways that social environment affects us physiologically, to then increase this risk that Black moms and Black babies have with respect to pregnancy'. While most studies that look at racism only focus on one point in time, Slaughter-Acey said that hers was 'the first study to comprehensively examine how exposure to structural, cultural and intergenerational racism throughout a Black woman's life impacts her epigenome and her child's birth outcomes.' It was also innovative because Black women are underrepresented in epigenomic studies, a field where researchers look at how environment and behavior impacts a person's genes, said Slaughter-Acey, due to medical mistrust and experiences of racism in the healthcare system. The NIH-grant cancellation in late March followed the release of data from the CDC revealing that Black women were the only race or ethnic group who didn't experience a decline in deaths from pregnancy related causes in 2023. Out of every 100,000 live births, 50.3 Black mothers died, compared with 14.5 deaths for white people, 12.4 for Latinos and 10.7 for Asians. The NIH didn't respond to a request for comment. Slaughter-Acey fears that the grant-cancellation signals that research and efforts to close the maternal death gap are at risk of coming to a standstill under the Trump administration. Other NIH grants that have been terminated include one that looked at prenatal exposure to public drinking water contaminants and a study that analyzed why women of color die of cervical cancer at a disproportionate rate. On Thursday, the Trump administration froze UCLA research grants from federal agencies including NIH and the National Science Foundation totaling nearly $200m, accusing the university of antisemitism and discrimination in admissions. 'It's part of a larger pattern of political interference in science that puts the health of all people at risk, especially vulnerable populations,' Slaughter-Acey said. The study 'is about understanding the root causes of poor maternal and infant health in this country – something that affects all of us, regardless of race or background. When science is silenced, communities suffer'. Still, Slaughter-Acey and her team are hopeful that the study will continue for years to come as they search for alternative funding sources, including donations. On Slaughter-Acey's LinkedIn page, she called upon her followers to donate to the University of North Carolina Department of Epidemiology, and to include a note that they support Slaughter-Acey's work, or the name of the study, 'LIFE-2'. 'The voices of these 500 plus moms and babies should not die or be silenced with the termination of this grant,' she told the Guardian. The pull in funding 'is an example of erasure of black mothers and infants'. There has been some temporary relief. This June, Slaughter-Acey's team received short-term funding from Michigan State University to continue their study over the next few months. Now nearly 600 moms are enrolled in the study, but without additional funding, it will probably pause again at the end of the year. The nearly 600 women who have joined the study were recruited from local delivery hospitals in Detroit, Michigan, in the day or two following childbirth. Slaughter-Acey chose Detroit since she completed her post-doc at the University of Michigan, where she researched the influence of social environments on Black maternal health. Participants for her study, which began in 2021, completed a post-delivery survey where they answered questions about social determinants of health including housing and food insecurity throughout their life. Along with collecting their blood through a finger prick, researchers also collect the babies' and mothers' birth certificates from the state health department as well as the mothers' blood that was collected at birth and stored in a biobank. About 20% of the babies' grandmothers are also participating in the study by answering questions about the social environment during their pregnancies and their daughters' early childhoods. The multilevel data collection allows the researchers to create 'this robust and triangulated dataset that includes social determinants of health, like information about food and housing insecurity', Slaughter-Acey said. 'It's capturing a more holistic view than what's been captured previously for moms in terms of maternal and infant health.' After the moms are discharged from the hospital, the researchers also follow up with a majority of the women eight to 10 weeks after they give birth to ask about their adjustment to motherhood, whether they've received support for breastfeeding, a postpartum healthcare visit, or if they've experienced discrimination from their healthcare providers. At the time of the funding termination, the research team was in the process of creating a 12-month postpartum checkup with the mothers to help define maternal thriving. 'When we are talking about maternal morbidity and mortality, we're defining maternal health by the absence of disease, by mom not dying, by mom not having a severe morbidity,' Slaughter-Acey said. 'But the field in general does not have a good understanding or even definition of, 'what does maternal thriving look like?' And we need to get past this conversation of maternal survival, and move to thriving.' More than two years of funding remained in the NIH grant, during which her team had planned to recruit more mothers and to conduct data analysis. They also aimed to create a website for participants to read about the study's findings. But the data that the team has analyzed thus far has revealed that mothers with a lot of adverse childhood experiences were more likely to have conflict with the father of the child. The finding, Slaughter-Acey said, 'underscores the importance of understanding how the social environment influences relationship dynamics and maybe perinatal outcomes. We know that social support is key during pregnancy'. The team also found that one in five study participants experienced housing insecurity during their pregnancy, a factor that she said greatly affects perinatal health and is rarely documented in hospital records. They also created a tool to measure racial microagressions from healthcare providers and in the mothers' everyday life, since many in the cohort said that they experienced harmful interactions that Slaughter-Acey said may explain why they felt unsupported. For Slaughter-Acey, the study findings 'highlight how structural inequities – across housing, healthcare, and personal history – intersect to shape maternal and infant outcomes. And they underscore why we need research that listens to and reflects the full complexity of Black women's experiences.' NIH research funding will probably continue to take a hit under the Trump administration. A new Trump administration policy requiring that multiyear grants be paid upfront lowers the odds that a research proposal will be accepted. As a result, university labs may close.
