Posts Tagged: depression
Hammock Lab: Paper of the Month!
DAVIS--A research paper on an innovative tool to control depression—the work of UC Davis...
UC Davis-Discovered Chemical May Be a New Tool to Control Depression
DAVIS--A small chemical discovered in the Bruce Hammock laboratory at the University of California,...
Researchers Jun Yang (left) and Christophe Morisseau of the Hammock lab. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Migrants are more likely to suffer anxiety, depression than family members who remain in Mexico
Mexicans who migrate to the United States are far more likely to experience significant depression and anxiety than individuals who do not immigrate, a new study indicates, as reported by UC Davis Health System.
The study, "Migration from Mexico to the U.S. and subsequent risk for depressive and anxiety disorders: A cross-national study," was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry. It was conducted collaboratively by researchers at the UC Davis School of Medicine and the National Institute of Psychiatry, Mexico. It is the first to suggest that migrating to the U.S. places one at risk of “clinically significant” mental-health problems.
![Immigrants depression Immigrants depression](http://ucanr.org/blogs/LatinoBriefs/blogfiles/6725.jpg)
“We had a unique opportunity to examine the effect of migration by comparing migrants with people in their country of origin who did not migrate,” said lead study author Joshua Breslau, an associate professor of internal medicine at the UC Davis School of Medicine and a researcher with the UC Davis Center for Reducing Health Disparities. "The results suggest that after migrating from Mexico to the U.S., migrants are more likely to develop significant mental-health problems than individuals who remained in Mexico.”
“From the Mexican side, this study is very important, because most of what we know about what is happening to the population when they are in the United States is based on studies carried out in the U.S. only,” said Guilherme Borges, senior researcher with the National Institute of Psychiatry, Mexico, and professor of psychiatry at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “Now, for the first time, we have data that compares the situation in the U.S. and in Mexico.”
There are approximately 12 million people born in Mexico who are living in the United States, constituting approximately 30 percent of the foreign-born U.S. population and nearly 25 percent of the total U.S. Hispanic population of close to 50 million.
The study analyzed data from interviews with approximately 550 male and female Mexican-born migrants and approximately 2,500 non-migrant Mexicans.
One of the study’s strengths was that it compared migrants with same-aged nonimmigrant family members still living in Mexico. It found that during the period following arrival in the United States, Mexican migrants were nearly twice as likely to experience a first-onset depressive or anxiety disorder as their nonimmigrant peers.
The greatest risk was experienced by the youngest migrants, who were 18-to-25 years old at the time of the study.
“This study confirms our earlier research that suggests that the longer immigrants remain in their country of origin, the lower the likelihood that they will develop anxiety and mood disorders,” said senior study author Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, professor of clinical internal medicine, director of the UC Davis Center for Reducing Health Disparities and an author of the earlier studies. “Conversely, there is evidence that the younger the Mexican migrants are when they arrive in the U.S., the greater their propensity to develop these disorders.”
Earlier studies have found that among Mexican-Americans, as among U.S. Hispanics more broadly, greater acculturation — adoption of American patterns of behavior — is associated with worse mental-health status, including higher rates of both psychiatric and substance-use disorders. In addition, among Mexican-born immigrants in the U.S., those who have been in the U.S. for longer periods of time have worse mental health than those who have arrived more recently.
“We tend to be very disease-specific when we address migrant health, focusing on HIV or tuberculosis, for example. But this is an enormous global population whose broadly based health-care needs have largely been overlooked,” said Marc Schenker, UC Davis professor of public health sciences and director of the Migration and Health Research Center.
“And within the range of health conditions, mental-health in particular has not been addressed. Migrants experience a wide range of mental-problems that are exacerbated by the enormous stresses of political and economic disenfranchisement and victimization. Only a bi-national or multinational approach will be effective in improving this picture,” Schenker said.
Source: UC Davis Health System, “Study: Migrants are more likely to suffer anxiety, depression than family members who remain in Mexico,” April 6, 2011.
Depressed people eat more chocolate
![chocolate chocolate](http://ucanr.org/blogs/food/blogfiles/4602.jpg)
The scientists examined the relationship between chocolate and mood among 931 women and men who were not using antidepressants. Their surprising conclusion: Participants who screened positive for possible depression ate an average of 8.4 servings of chocolate per month; those who weren't depressed ate on average 5.4 servings per month.
People who reflected major depression ate an average of 11.8 servings per month. What does that say about people like me who eat 30 or more servings of chocolate every month? It is depressing to contemplate.
The study's authors offered some possible explanations for the seeming correlation of chocolate consumption with depression:
- Depression could stimulate chocolate cravings as 'self-treatment'
- Depression may stimulate chocolate cravings for other reasons
- Chocolate could contribute to depressed mood
- Inflammation could drive both depression and chocolate cravings
If you are looking for some good news associated with chocolate consumption, go to the UC ANR website Feeling Fine Online and view the 15-minute video of UC Davis nutrition professor Carl Keen explaining the health benefits chocolate.
According to Keen, a diet high in flavanols, such as those in chocolate, can reduce inflammatory conditions associated with cardio vascular disease, vasoconstriction and the risk of forming a blood clot.
A new study indicates that flavanols may increase a population of certain cells in the blood that scientists think help repair the inner walls of blood vessels, improving blood flow and potentially lowering blood pressure. This suggests that, in the future, isolated flavanols or flavanol-rich foods might be useful in preventing or possibly even treating coronary artery disease. For more information, read the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences story Flavanol-rich foods may help heart disease patients, study suggests.
(Ann King Filmer contributed to this story.)
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Depression-Era Angelenos and the Self-Help Cooperative Movement
The Great Depression arrived as Los Angeles was booming. Oil was big business. Automobiles had begun to transform the landscape. The movie studios had come to Hollywood. Industry was increasing throughout the Southland. And Los Angeles County was the most productive farming county in the US. At first, the 1929 stock market crash did not have much impact on the average Angeleno. But quickly, unemployment rose. By January 1930, a Los Angeles City Council resolution noted that “the unemployment situation is becoming more and more acute each day” (Leader, 1991, p. 4). The situation grew severe in the months that followed. Of 700,000 jobless people in California in June, 1932, fully half were residents of Los Angeles County (Kerr & Taylor, 1935).
Deprivation existed along side over-abundance and waste. Farmers were unable to harvest all of their produce, often because they couldn’t afford labor, and enormous quantities of food were left in the fields as people went hungry.
One response of Los Angeles County residents was to organize into “self-help cooperatives”. Unlike marketing cooperatives, self-help cooperatives were based on bartering labor for goods, for example, harvesting farmer’s crops for a share of the harvest. Members were unemployed, often retired people who preferred to work rather than accept public assistance. The first such cooperative was organized in Compton in 1932. A year later 45 such cooperatives had been established in LA County. The movement spread to other parts of the US, but was strongest in Southern California, especially Los Angeles County. In 1934, there were 14,000 members of self-help cooperatives in LA County, about 10% of the total US membership (Panunzio, Church, & Wasserman, 1939). Cooperatives usually had elected leaders, and were organized into area “conferences”.
Farm work and gardening were common components of the self-help cooperatives, although they encompassed a wide variety of activities, including bakeries, fishing, canning and more. Typically, members worked 16 hours per week in support of their cooperative and its projects. At the cooperative in Santa Monica, members worked at local dairies for milk and cheese. They had an arrangement with the College of Agriculture at UCLA to tend the trees at UCLA's experimental farm in exchange for fruit. The Huntington Park Cooperative had vegetable gardens on vacant land, harvesting more than 27,000 pounds of fresh produce in just one quarter of 1936. Typically, cooperatives were able to find vacant buildings to use at no charge for meeting places, to store their bartered goods, and to conduct business.
Many cooperatives helped local farmers harvest their produce in exchange for a share of the harvest, often the “seconds” that were unmarketable. Japanese farmers were especially receptive to bartering with the cooperatives for labor in exchange for food (Kerr & Taylor, 1935).
Through participation in these cooperatives, families were able to secure 60 to 75% of their food budget, and other supplies as well, such as second-hand clothes. The movement’s slogan was “Self-help beats charity: Charity is for abnormal people in normal times; we are normal citizens in abnormal times”.
Kerr, C., & Taylor, P. S. (1935). Self-help cooperatives in California Essays in Social Economics (pp. 191-225). Berkely, CA: University of California Press.
Leader, L. J. (1991). Los Angeles and the Great Depression. New York: Garland.
Panunzio, C. M., Church, W. E., & Wasserman, L. (1939). Self-help coöperatives in Los Angeles. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
No Work, No Eat
Cooperative Quilting