Increasing evidence indicates that regular practice of yoga is effective in reducing stress and its effects and even appears to relieve the symptoms of clinical depression.
 
Yoga is a traditional practice originating in India designed to help the practitioner achieve and maintain both good physical and mental health, as well as fostering spritual enlightenment. The practice incorporates elements of physical exercise, meditation and breathing regulation. 

This ancient Eastern discipline continues to gain in popularity in the West for its wide-ranging benefits and medical researchers are taking an increasing interest in its potential to contribute to the prevention and treatment of a diverse collection of physical and mental ailments.

​The bioflavonoid quercetin may reverse the stress-induced biochemical and behavioural changes associated with anxiety and depression according to a recent study.
 
Researchers investigated the effects of quercetin on behaviour in mice using a social interaction test and a forced swimming test, a procedure used to induce stress in the animals. In doing so they found that administering quercetin in certain dosages had anxiolytic (anxiety-reducing) and antidepressant effect. 

Quercetin is a bioflavonoid found in a variety of fruits and vegetables with the best sources being citrus fruits, apples, onions, red wine and black tea. It is found in smaller amounts in green leafy vegetables such as spinach and kale and is also widely marketed as a standalone nutritional supplement and as part of multi-nutrient formulas. Quercetin is best known for its antioxidant and anti-allergy properties (it is thought to reduce histamine release) but research like this current study is demonstrating it also has effects on mood and behaviour.

Researchers have discovered that risk of depression, anxiety and panic disorders in young adults may be increased by higher blood levels of lead.

In a recent study, those in their 20s and 30s with the highest levels of lead in their blood were more than twice as likely to develop major depression as those in the same age group with the lowest blood lead levels. The results also showed that the risk of panic disorders was five times greater.

"This is true for the average American. We are not talking about excessively high exposures, it's just average exposures," said Dr. Maryse Bouchard of the University of Montreal, Canada, and the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston.

The US FDA warned this week that the antidepressant drug Norpramin (desipramine) can cause serious heart-related side-effects.

Desipramine, a tricyclic antidepressant medication manufactured by Sanofi Aventis, can cause disturbances in the heartbeat, also known as arrhythmia in people who have a family history of this or other heart rhythm disturbances, it was revealed.

Cardiac arrhythmia is the medical term for any of a large and varied group of conditions in which electrical activity of the heart is disturbed. As a result the heart beat may be too fast or too slow, or have and irregular beat.