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Transcendental Meditation may be an effective way to reduce depression, anxiety, blood pressure and anger among college students at risk for high blood pressure, says a new study set to appear in the December 2009 issue of the American Journal of Hypertension.

The study was conducted at American University using 298 college students randomly placed in either a Transcendental Meditation group or a wait-list control group over a three-month period. A subset of 159 students considered to be at risk for high blood pressure were analyzed separately. At baseline and again after three months, blood pressure, psychological distress and coping ability were evaluated for this group.

Among the students at risk for high blood pressure, significant improvements in blood pressure, psychological distress and coping were observed. Compared to the controls, the students practicing Transcendental Meditation experienced a reduction of 6.3 mm Hg in systolic blood pressure and 4.0 mm Hg in diastolic blood pressure. This amount of reduction in blood pressure is associated with a 52% lower risk of developing high blood pressure in later years, according to the authors.

These results are important because "psychological distress such as anxiety, depression, and anger contribute to the development of hypertension in young adults," said lead author Sanford Nidich, of the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University of Management. "This has major implications for the prevention of hypertension, heart attacks and strokes in adulthood," added Nidich's co-author, Robert Schneider, director of the Institute.

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A new drug called flibanserin is being hailed as a potential "Viagra-like drug for women," according to researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and the University of Ottawa in Canada.

Flibanserin, which was originally developed as an antidepressant, did a very poor job in treating depression, says principle investigator for North America John M. Thorp, Jr., but it is effective in treating low libido, a common problem among depressed women.

Thorp, Elaine E. Jolly, overall principle investigator, and their colleagues pooled data from four clinical trials of flibanserin conducted in the U.S., Canada and Europe, including a total of 1,946 pre-menopausal women aged 18 and older who had been randomly selected to receive either the drug or placebo for 24 weeks. The women were also measured four weeks prior to treatment to obtain a baseline and followed up for four weeks afterward. One of the four trials was eventually excluded from the final report, however, due to the fact that it dealt with doses too low to be effective.

The researchers found that treatment with a 100 mg dose once a day was associated with significant improvements compared to placebo in all of the measures used, including the number of satisfying sexual events reported by the women, sexual desire and function and distress associated with sexual dysfunction.

"These results point to a novel approach to pharmacologic treatment of the sexual problem that plagues reproductive age women the most, and may over time prove to be an effective treatment without the side effects of androgen replacement therapy, which is the only treatment currently available," said Thorp.

Flibanserin is currently an investigational drug only and is not available outside of clinical trials.

Thorp and Jolly presented their results on November 16 at the Congress of the European Society for Sexual Medicine in Lyon, France.

Depression in teens could be reduced, say researchers, by something simple, yet often lacking: a good night's sleep.

Teenagers should be getting about nine hours of sleep per night, according to experts, but few do. In fact, the average teen only gets about seven hours of sleep per night. While in the past it was believed that poor sleep was simply a byproduct of depression, thinking on this matter is changing. Chronic sleep deprivation may actually be a cause of depression, experts say.

Allison Harvey, a clinical psychologist at UC Berkeley and her team at the university's Sleep and Psychological Disorders Laboratory have plans to research this problem by recruiting 60 middle and high school students to discover if more sleep may indeed be a valid way to prevent or treat teen depression.

The 60 teens who participate in the 12-week study will self-report their sleep habits and participate in 12 one-hour, weekly sessions of cognitive behavior therapy focusing upon sleep and mood patterns.

If results are promising, says Harvey, a larger follow up study will be conducted to confirm the results.

If you live in the Berkeley area, have a middle school or high school aged child who is experiencing depression symptoms and are interested in having them participate in the project you can get more information by calling (510) 643-3797 or emailing teensleepucb@gmail.com.

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