We have discussed The Biology of Depression (and stress) in the last issue and will finish its discussion in this issue. We will also discuss The Psychology of Depression in this issue and will include in both depressions, the Stress factor, the glucocorticoid hormones and how they figure into all of this. Now would be a good time to review the Stress Hormone figure and chart from the last issue.

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    Let us recapitulate some of the items spoken of in the first issue of Depression. We pointed out that by 2020, the World Health Organization says there will be more depression than ever. It will rise from the #4 to the #2 leading cause of disability on planet earth. We find something wrong here! It will be soon be number one or two in the next few years in our thinking. It is on the rise now, and many do not recognize what is occurring for what it is worth. A living hell is marching our way! And felling people by the wayside.

    Depression is a disease; like diabetes is a disease. Depression is an emotional disease with biological and psychological components. The Biology or Biochemistry of Depression is one's hormones are out of balance.

    When this happens, you have major clinical depression. This is a condition wherein one cannot even do the laundry for months on end. They only want to stay in bed because they literally hurt physically as well as mentally all the time. They become crippled because they can't function in the least. When this happens the depressive sees no one; does not leave home for any reason; can't work. The primary symptom is anhedonia — the inability to feel pleasure in any sense of the word.

    The patient is in literal hell. This is not a character flaw! They used to beat the hell out of schizophrenics to drive the devil out of them. Then, it was discovered there are chemicals involved, made or not made by the body, as well as organic tissue in the brain that may have had injury. The hell increases such that depressives often become delusional.

    Not as a schizophrenic may present, but their reality is distorted. To them the glass is always half–full when in effect it is totally full. It is the way they look at things because their hormones, dopamine, epinephrine, ß–endorphins, and serotonin, and other things, such as one's receptors or receptor sites are not properly made any longer. This is the Biology of Depression. And these chemicals and physical protein areas (recptor sites) are malfunctioning.

    ß–endorphin, writes Wikipedia "is used as an analgesic in the body to numb or dull pains. That is the reason why humans start to feel better immediately after an acute physical trauma even though the symptoms are still present. The reason the pain dulls is because it [ß–endorphin] binds to and activates opioid receptors. ß-endorphin has approximately 80 times the analgesic potency of morphine.

"ß-endorphin is believed to have a number of other benefits, including:

• Boosting the immune system
• Slowing the growth of cancer cells
• Promoting feeling of well-being
• Increasing relaxation"

    That is why exercise is so good for you if not overdone. It stimulates the ß–endorphins. This is what a 'Runner's High' is all about. Keep this in mind When The Hell Breaks in full and if you get depressed.

    A problem that your WebMasters see that will increase among the depressives is suicide! We really do not like nor want this for a fellow human being. They are in such pain, such agony, that they first often start to injure themselves, such as cuts to their body. Piercings to certain flesh areas. This then takes on the character of mutilation of their body parts or body in general. They become so low, they attempt suicide. Many succeed! It happens at an alarmingly high rate. This act extrapolates to The Psychology of Depression.

    In this realm, many feel it is anger turned within, and one of the components of anger is injury. In this case, it is self–injury. And suicide is self–injury.

    Since depressives tend to actually get less sleep and have problems in falling asleep, and when they do sleep, they exhibit a hallmark of depression: They awaken early in the morning hours, such as 3 or 4 am. This being the case, they are not restoring the hormones needed for the next day's biochemical work in the body such that they are not getting the deep biological restorative sleep that occurs on a normal circadian rhythm from 2 to 4 am. Couple with this fact that the brain is not getting the rest to restore the energy it needs for the next day's work; nor the 5 sleep cycles necessary for health — mental and physical, the depressive person starts coming apart. Their sleep is "fractured" and they have built no energy currency for the brain and body refreshment.

    The depressive suffers cognitive dysfunction (thinking and recall) because the 'Rapid Eye Movement,' REM, sleep is fractured and thus, consolidation of memory does not take place. And these people have trouble with recalling things of very recent origin. The stress hormones (glucocorticoids) rise to higher levels and are often sustained.

    The big thing about sleep is that it restores brain and body energy!

    Remember this through all you read here: Mood disorders are now appearing to be more and more related to low energy in the brain, according to Dr. Ray Peat's Newsletter, 'Serotonin, depression, and aggression: The problem of brain energy,' 2009. And this knowledge, coupled with The Psychology of Depression, can help alleviate one's suffering considerably. And the problem with low energy in the brain entails all of what we are talking about and heavily involves diet. We will discuss certain neutraceuticals/vitamins/minerals and proteins one should especially consider as the blanket of depression falls over America.

    In an off/on everyday type depression, if the weather changes, or the economic news, etc., looks bad, you may feel a little depressed, you get over it and no harm done. However, in deep clinical depression, the stress hormones become somewhat chronic and cause a reduction in the size of the hippocampus—the seat of the memory, many call it. Actually, it is involved in forming new memories. The hippocampus of the brain tends, in major depressives, to undergo a reduction in size. You can see what this does to such a person involved with clinical depression. The same happens in one on high synthetic glucocorticoids for an immune disorder such as Lupus, or HIV. Not only does this tend to predispose one to memory problems, but the glucocorticoids can generate a depression.

    Men and women differ and are similar in the rate of occurrence of depression. The two genders differ in bipolar disease—that depressive disorder wherein one is high, manic; then tumbles into abject lowness. Men have more bipolar disease than women. But women have twice as much depression that is unipolar—that form of depression where they are always low, than men.

    The chief reason for this is because of gender difference. Women have children and often the tremendous biochemical effect upon their chemistry and metabolism of such generates a post partum depression that comes upon them two weeks after giving birth. When the hormones, estrogen and progesterone, drop as they approach menopause, a depressive spirit can overtake women. And for years, the periodicity of the menses can bring on depression around that particular time of the month.

    Another reason women have higher depression rates than men is because women see their physicians for treatment (and this gets recorded) and men do not tend to see their doctors for such. Men primarily will self–medicate with alcohol and drugs whereas women do not tend to such an action.

    Many people labeled as alcoholics are actually depressive spirits. They are suffering with depression and the alcohol tends to blunt their suffering from depression, but here's the problem. They drink more often and more as life 'tightens' around them.

    Quite often, the inbibers (men & women) have been drinking all their lives from high school through college and into their business ventures or work. As life gets harder, with its ever presenting problems, the drinker tends to drink more and more.

    Here's the rub: When young, they have more muscle mass, more bone mass, more fat mass, and all this mass holds water and helps dilute the alcohol consumed. As they age, and the body mass shrinks, though they contend they do not drink any more than when they were younger; yet, they get intoxicated sooner. In other words, that amount which did not made them inebriated 20 or 30 years ago, the same amount or much less throws them into a solid 'drunken' state as they have become older, and they had only a 'few drinks,' they claim.

    Usually, they are not believed. Often it is true they drank more when younger, however, in their mind—which is probably true—they drink less, and are perplexed as to why they get intoxicated so soon. Yet, they do not stop drinking. They enjoy it. They are still depressed and do not know it! The alcohol soothes them. And they do not believe they have a problem. They just "enjoy the alcohol."

    Quite often, the man (or woman) does not even question it. They simply know they could drink more when younger and can drink less now that they are older. What they are not considering, is that it took many drinks to make them inebriated when younger; now it only takes a very few drinks to make them intoxicated. The same with drugs. All the while, they are depressed; they have been for years and do not know it; nor would they acknowledge it when pointed out to them.

    This is why such a person needs to be evaluated for depression. They may not be depressed; they may have another problem that needs addressing biochemically and psychologically.

    Two hormones of prominence in women that need to be considered are estrogen and progesterone. As these drop, biochemistry changes, such that depression can start up. Another, that is most important in men and women is thyroid hormone. Much depression is caused by hypothyroidism, or low thyroid function. The reason the thyroid hormone (TH) is so important is that it has to do with metabolic rate. And when the metabolic rate is down, one has a risk of falling into depression.

    And with all of the endocrine disruptors (TH is an endocrine hormone) in our food and water, low thyroid is estimated to be undiagnosed in about 60% of the American population. The facts suggest that 15% to 20% of all the depressions are caused by secondary disorder, low TH, and are not a primary disorder.

    Our recommendation is for one to be treated with T₃, the active form of T₄, which is TH. If one is treated with T₄ the health care provider needs to be aware of certain minerals necessary to form the deiodinase enzymes that are necessary to strip off one of the iodine molecules to form T₃. Most do not consider this. And consequently, TH is circulating in the bloodstream giving negative feedback saying that all is fine and TH is adjusted correctly. Thus, TSH gives a normal readout. The following will show why you want to ingest mangense, magnesium, selenium and zinc if taking TH.

    There are changes in thyroid function with aging. "The levels of T3 and T4 may decline as we grow older, and levels of TSH may increase slightly," reported in the September 2005, of Vitamin Research News (vrp.com). "However," they report, "although there is an increase in apparent hypothyroid–related symptoms as people get older, the change in blood levels of these hormones is often surprisingly much less than would be expected from the severity of the symptoms."

    The VRN now gives the reason why people have such severe symptoms, even though they may take replacement thyroid hormone therapy. They write:

One reason for the apparent stability of blood levels ot T3 and T4 (despite decreased production of T4 by the thyroid) is that the metabolic breakdown of these hormones decreases, as well—thus, helping to maintain stable blood levels of the hormones."

    This is similar when many see their physician and feel terrible and are on thyroid medication. Tests are run and come back normal. The hormones, T3 and T4, are not being used efficiently, but give negative feedback to the brain that all is well because the TH are still present and thus, TSH is not stimulated attempting to increase T3 and T4.

    Another reason postulated is that "The thyroid homeostat paradoxically becomes more sensitive to feedback inhibition with aging—i.e., smaller amounts of T3 and T4 are capable of inhibiting the release of TRH (thyroid releasing hormone from the hypothalamous which stimulates thyroid stimulating hormone, TSH, that causes the thyroid to make and release thyroid hormones.) Even though thyroid hormone levels might drop slightly with aging, there is reduced stimulus to produce more TRH (and consequently, reduced stimulus of TSH and thyroxine, T4) due to the increased sensitivity of the hypothalamic thyroid receptors."

    Finally, It has been "demonstrated that peripheral [arms, legs, etc.] receptor sensitivity to thyroid hormone decreases with age. This is another why so many older people experience symptoms of hypothyroidism despite having normal or near–normal thyroid hormone blood levels."

    And as given earlier, in order to form T3 from T4, and T2 from T3, and T1 from T2, deiodinase enzymes are necessary to strip off an iodine molecule respectively from T4 on down to T1, and this entails having the minerals manganese, magnesium, zinc present in sufficient amounts.

    One can thus see why they may be on thyroid hormone, T4, and still present with thyroid deficiencies; or may experience depression. If one has their physician change them to T3, it is still advisable to ingest the minerals suggested above. This can be taken in the form of Nature's Plus: The Energy Supplements, MEGA–MINS: Hold The Iron, unless you are a menstruating woman, or have a bleeding issue. Your need for iron goes down once past 21 and no iron or blood problems.

    Basic Neurochemistry: Molecular, Cellular, and Medical Aspects, Seventh Edition, writes on page 893, the following:

Approximately 5–10% of individuals evaluated for depression have previously undetected or subclinical thyroid dysfunction [52]. Jackson [53] suggests that most patients with depression, although generally viewed as chemically euthyroid (normal thyroid), have altered thyroid function, including slight elevation of the serum thyroxine (T4), loss of the nocturnal TSH rise, and blunted thyrotrophin (TSH) response to thyrotropin–releasing–hormone (TRH) stimulation.

    One test we suggest you have performed if you have depression, is Reverse T3. It should be as low as possible. Your active form of T3 is being formed incorrectly and your physician can straighten this out by given you T3 hormone and not T4.

    Now, more for The Psychology of Depression. If one has a major stressful event in their life, they may come down with a depression.The event can be one time, such as losing a son or daughter in a war; a hell–raising divorce, the death of a parent or child—all this and more can result in depression.

    Much has to do with getting good counselling from a good listener who understands the psychology of such an event in terms of how it can affect one's life, as well as the counselor understanding the biochemistry of the affected individual and the stress hormones.

    It has been shown that pastors are good counselors; and better than this, are English professors. Why? Because the latter has a large and developed working and thinking vocabulary from which to reason.

    Where do you find such a person? This is why patients often have an internist, counselor, and primary care physician. We have seen in our private practice, they just push pills at a depressive; give psycho–babble, and then wonder why the depressive attempted suicide.

    One such patient, a medical doctor, got tired of the pill pushing, and the psycho–babble that the reason why the doctor was suffering depression was because he felt insecure and wanted to get back to his mother's womb where he could have shelter and security. Also, this particular physican, who was seeing one of the (considered) best counselors in the area was tired of being told that he want to suckle his mother's tit for more security. He tired of this "bullshit," he told one of your WebMasters, and that was why he was seeing the WebMaster for help now.

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Learned Helplessness

    This is extremely important. We are seeing this in our schools, the work place, middle management, in the military, and elsewhere. Make sure you understand this and recognize it out there in society. This is so pervasive, it is like something that happened years ago, in the sense of where it came from.

    The Tsar or Emperor of Russia, Nikolas II, and his wife came under Rasputin's mysticism:

Rasputin was a Russian mystic who is perceived as having influenced the latter days of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their only son Alexei. Rasputin had often been called the "Mad Monk", while others considered him a "strannik" (or religious pilgrim) and even a starets, believing him to be a psychic and faith healer.

    According to history, the 13-year-old hemophiliac son, Prince Alexei, of Nicholas II and Alexandra, "is heir to the throne, is loved by the people, but he has hemophilia and a slight fall turns out to be life-threatening. When royal physician Dr. Remezov is powerless to stop the boy's bleeding, Princess Natasha, Alexandra's lady-in-waiting and her fiancee, recommends Rasputin as a healer. He convinces the frantic Empress that he has been sent by God to cure the child. Left alone with Alexei, he supposedly hypnotizes the boy and relieves his agony, but also gradually makes Alexei a slave to his will."

    The throne comes under his will and powers. He is considered to have performed many prodigies, and numerous historians and theologians say his power had to come straight from Hell! There is no way he could have done the things he did without the aid coming straight from the Infernal Regions!

"Hold These Thoughts!"  Now, when you consider the pervasiveness of Learned Helplessness, one cannot help but draw the conclusion that it, too, has come straight from hell. How? Why?

    Consider the New World Order. They are now the puppet masters pulling the strings. In order to do what they want to do, they have to control the masses and make them give up and become dependent on the New World Order when they go into total action and control. The people that have fallen under the spell of 'Learned Helplessness' are the puppets and respond as controlled zombies. This is one of 'The Light Bearer's' trump cards—one of his highest cards he has been playing for years through our schools with noise and the noise of our society. The zombies are ready to 'roll' at the puppeteer's beckoning.

    This Learned Helplessness had to have come straight from Hell! Everything is now set for the small chastisement which is a prelude to the coming of the Son of Perdition after this forthcoming Chastisement. The scene is now set to play itself out. There is no turning back.

    And now for Learned Helplessness. This is the process whereby an individual, due to repeated psychological stress, has lost the capacity to recognize circumstances where it is possible to effectively cope with a stressor. It is most commonly used in the context with Stress and The Psychology of Depression. But, we will show how it is used in other settings, all giving rise to "one giving up in life," and being submissive to another's biddings.

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    What is The Psychological Depression all about? When you have psychological stressors, such as the following, you may, and quite often do develop psychological depression:

• Lack of Outlets: someone to talk intelligently with and have them listen with understanding and make intelligent comments. Exercise, meaningful work, accomplishment in small or large areas, etc.

• Lack of Control: When this is lost, and you're no longer in control of your immediate environment, stress hormones rise and if this lack of control is chronic, the hormone rise is chronic, with dire results, such as depression, memory loss, weight gain or loss, etc.

• Lack of Predictability: The is quite powerful—predictability. If you have pain, and know that you have control over it by taking medicine, this allows one to tolerate a certain amount of pain. If something coming your way is going to be bad, such as food shortages, and you have knowledge of this, and know how bad it is going to be, how long it is going to last, you can plan strategies (what to do) about coping with it.
  This is the central theme behind the central question: "Do I have much time left?" And for those who did not prepare—but were warned about the coming chaos, the other four perceptions are going to be horrendous! The pathological extreme of these 5 logical perceptions, given here under The Psychology of Depression, generate extreme depression. And when the person does not have much control over these 5 things, he develops what we discussed immediately above, and will discuss below in this section after the last item.

• Lack of Social Support: When one does not have a network to help support him/her in their time of need, dysfunction can set in; often the form it takes is depression. One may need a social network of his peers; if a lawyer; or a doctor; or a middle management; or whatever form your discipline is, you need networking with people who can understand and talk and make intelligent suggestions. This seems to no longer be the case in most depressions as everyone is concerned with "How they are going to now make it."

• The Perception that Things Are Getting Worse: For instance, much of growing up as a child in a society is learning what you can control and cannot control.When a child loses a parent, he learns he cannot control that event in his life. When something in your life happens over and over again that is rather awful, especially as a child (child abuse); or, as a teen; or even at your workplace as a grown adult, in a generalized subliminal (subconscious) or conscious manner, you learn you don't have much control over anything. When these happen, one realizes consciously or subconsciously, he has very little to no control over anything!
  These above factors taken singly or all at a time in one's life, creates the condition known as Learned Helplessness! The child, teen, or adult, has Learned to be Helpless! Oftentimes, "They Just Flat Give Up In Life!"
  Many cannot learn in school, do poorly in work, marriage, etc. In a number of instances, they have to be taken care of.
  Depression cause by means of Psychology is powerful. It is the extremes of psychological stress.

    With what is breaking over our heads, you now see why one must be prepared for the coming harsh events in our lives.

    Now, what we are about to tell you is not good! First, consider the immediate above. This is where Prozac, the tricyclics, and the next generation of antidepressive medicines came from. And still there are oceans of people out there that are treatment–resistant depressives.

    The drugs that facilitate the body chemicals, such as norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin, have helped many to be made Less Learned Helplessness. They have helped many unlearn what they learned as helplessness!

    Many are about to undergo Learned Helplessness. They have been on the border since the economy turned down. In another few months, as they have been trying to keep their heads above water, they are becoming more and more unsuccessful at it. They are Learning Helplessness! It is going to be awesome in the next few months.

    Cognitive psychology has learned from all the above that depression is Learned Helplessness! It's coming folks. Have you prepared? It's coming with The Killing Mechanism. It's coming with Cannibalism. It's coming with the New World Order attempted take over. It's coming...it's coming!

    The person(s) in Learned Helplessness has learned to be helpless and uses a parallelism—he overgeneralizes from a single instant generalization setting or instance; or more, to overgeneralization in his life "this is the way it has to be" that he has no control over his life; no predictability; no outlets; no social support; no control; no nothing!

    What is all this? This overgeneralization process! What does it mean? How does it function?

What that person(s) have been set up for is cognitive distortion. The world of reality has changed. Instead of learning that they are in; have been in a setting, recently; or most of their life, where there is no control, no outlets, no predictability, no social help through understanding contact, they conclude this is what life is like. I am hopeless, and I am helpless.

    And it doesn't have to be that way!

"Over time noise annoyance tends to increase, even when the loudness and duration do not, and even when reported complaints start dropping off. 'People have stopped complaining' never means people have stopped suffering."

... To Be Continued ...

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Sources

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Basic Medical Biochemistry: A Clinical Approach, Marks, D.B., Marks, A.D., Smith, C. M., Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Pennsylvania, 1996.

Basic Neurochemistry: Molecular, Cellular, and Medical Aspects: Seventh Edition, Editors: Siegel, Albers, Brady, Price, Elsevier Academic Press, 2006.

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology: Third Edition, Elliott, W.H., Elliott, D.C., Oxford University Press. NY; 2005.

Cell And Molecular Biology: Concepts And Experiments. Fourth Edition Karp, Gerald. John Wiley & Sons, 2005.

Instant Notes in Biochemistry, Hames, B.D., Hooper, N.M., & Houghton, J. D., Bios Scientific Publishers, NY, Reprinted 1999.

NeuroScience: Fourth Edition, Editors: Purves, Augustine, Fitzpatrick, et. al., Sinauer Associates, Inc. Sunderland, Massachusetts, U.S.A 2008.

Remington: The Science and Practice of Pharmacy, 21 Edition, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2006.

Stress and Your Body, Transcript Book. Professor Robert Sapolsky, Stanford University. The Great Courses®, Science & Mathematics by The Teaching Company. DVD; 2010.

Peat, Ray, Ph.D., Serotonin, Depression, And Aggression: The Problem of Brain Energy. RayPeat.com, 2009.

In An UpComing Issue:
Depression: Part III—What You Can Do About It When No Doctor Is About!

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