clock regardless of the time of year and directly fighting our biological urges, which are actually trying to get us to shut down and hibernate until spring? Seasonal Affective Disorder The Royal College of Psychiatry states that 3% of the UK population have some form of significant winter depression. However, while many medical resources are quick to highlight the similarities between SAD and general depression, there are in fact several differences between the two conditions. Both depression and SAD patients tend to suffer with the following:
Yuletide Blues: 'Tis The Season
Most of us have heard of the medical condition seasonal affective disorder (or SAD) or, more informally, the winter blues. But while its existence may now seem obvious, the ‘official’ origin of SAD only dates back to the late 1970s.
A
t this time, the American researcher Herb Kern (based at the National Institute of Mental Health in Maryland) used himself as a guinea pig, convinced that his own depression was made worse in the winter months than in the summer.
Dr Jeff Foster www.drjefffoster.co.uk Dr Jeff Foster is a GP with an interest in Men's Health. If you have any questions on men's health, please contact Dr Foster at contact@drjefffoster.co.uk
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Kern (and two other researchers, Alfred Lewy and Sanford Markey) came up with the hypothesis that the longer nights of winter increased levels of melatonin, which had the effect of triggering or exacerbating Kern’s depression. To confirm this idea, they set up a simple light box to shine light into Kern’s eyes twice a day, and within a week Kern had reported his symptoms improving. From this point on, not only was the condition of SAD recognised, but so was one of its most commonly used treatments. Since the 1970s, awareness and diagnosis of SAD have increased dramatically. Even so, could we be more prone to depression in winter because we spend our time working in offices, maintaining the same social
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low mood lack of interest and enjoyment in life, work, and hobbies decreased energy not wanting to socialise being grumpy or more irritable decreased interest in sex.
Patients with depression also tend to have disturbed sleep patterns (difficulty getting to sleep, staying asleep or waking early) and often have a reduced appetite. The opposite is seen in SAD, where patients often only want to be awake during daylight hours. In addition, SAD patients often have an increased appetite, generally craving higher calorie foods. Although the symptoms of increased sleep and increased appetite are not always seen in SAD, they can be important symptoms that help differentiate between SAD and general depression. Interestingly, SAD does tend to follow other types of depression in terms of patient demographics. It is most common in women of childbearing age, and it is about three times more common in women than in men. SAD is rarely seen in children; it also becomes less common in older adults, where the prevalence becomes the same in both sexes. Pathophysiology There is no accepted reason why some people develop SAD. The common hypothesis is that a lack of daylight
