How to ward off the winter-time blues

With the festive season over and most of the winter still ahead, many of us (who are not fortunate enough to spend the season in sunny places where palm trees grow) will experience wintertime blues.

But there's a fine line between the blues and depression. And as a new study demonstrates, prolonged depression may sharply increase the risk of stroke. Fortunately, there are natural ways to address this problem.

Risks on the rise
To examine depression as a risk factor for death due to cardiovascular disease, a research team headed by US scientists at the State University of New York (SUNY) collected data from the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT); a trial designed to examine the association between three risk factors (cigarette smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol) and coronary heart disease mortality in middle-aged men.

As reported in the journal Stroke, toward the end of the seven-year MRFIT trial, more than 11,000 subjects completed a questionnaire used to identify and categorise symptoms of depression. Then for an 18-year follow up period, deaths and causes of death were recorded.

The SUNY team divided the subjects into five groups, or quintiles, that sorted the men according to the severity of depression symptoms, with the top quintile representing the most pronounced symptoms.

When mortality data was compared to the five quintiles, researchers found that men in the top quintile were at 15 percent greater risk of death by all causes and at 21 percent greater risk of death due to cardiovascular disease. But the most dramatic result involved stroke risk: Men in the top quintile had more than DOUBLE the risk of death due to stroke compared to men in the lowest quintile.

In an American Heart Association press release, a co-author of the study, Dr Karen A. Matthews, noted that even mild symptoms of depression were associated with an increased risk of stroke death when compared to subjects in the lowest quintile. Men described as only 'slightly depressed' had nearly 25 percent elevated risk of a fatal stroke.

Apply the oil
Depression is a difficult health problem that can have a variety of complicating factors. But as we've seen in previous e-alerts, omega-3 intake has been shown to alleviate symptoms of depression for many people.

For instance, researchers in the Netherlands conducted a study of more than 260 elderly and depressed subjects to examine how the ratio of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids might be associated with depression.

Blood samples revealing omega-6 and omega-3 levels from all of these subjects were measured against a control group of 461 randomly selected subjects. Researchers found what they called a 'direct effect of fatty acid composition on mood.' Subjects with depressive disorders had a significantly higher ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids. This confirms several previous studies that show how a low intake of omega-3 fatty acids may trigger depression, especially among older people.

One of the best sources of omega-3 is cod liver oil, which is also a good source of another key nutrient that's been shown to help prevent depression: vitamin D. During the autumn and winter months, and in northern and southern latitudes, the body's vitamin D production from sunshine is diminished. So this excellent source of both omega-3 and vitamin D may be an invaluable tool in avoiding the winter blues, depression and possibly even a stroke.

Just the thing for those of us who can't spend the next three months in a hammock strung between palm trees.

...and another thing
Some love it, some hate it, but there's no denying the benefits of broccoli.

More than seven years ago HSI first reported on research being conducted at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine that showed how a natural compound called sulphoraphane (found in cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage and Brussels sprouts, but especially broccoli) acts as a cancer-preventive agent.

That initial research has been confirmed with several studies, including the most recent from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the US.

NCI researchers used a dietary questionnaire to examine the link between fruit and vegetable intake and the potential prevention of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), a type of lymph cancer. More than 450 subjects with NHL were surveyed, in addition to 400 control subjects who were cancer-free and matched to the cancer patients by age, sex, race and geographical region.

Results showed that NHL risk was reduced by 40 percent among subjects who ate three or more servings of vegetables each day, when compared to subjects who ate less than one serving each day. But NHL prevention was stronger among those subjects who ate one or more servings of green leafy vegetables, and stronger still among those who ate a single daily serving of broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts or cauliflower.

Intake of Zinc and selenium was also found to decrease the risk of NHL.