WebMD's guide to the types and prevalence of depression.
Almost all of us feel low sometimes, usually because of a disturbing or difficult event in our lives. But ongoing sadness or despair can be caused by depression, a serious condition that warrants treatment. Talking to your primary care doctor can be a good place to start. Your doctor can screen you foraffects more than 300 million people worldwide -- 20% of all women, 10% of all men, and 5% or more of all adolescents.
However, most people first experience depression when they are in their early thirties, and depression is particularly rife among older adults. Depression is not simply a normal reaction to the challenges of growing older, such as the death of a spouse or friends and the physical limitations of age, but is a medical condition without a known cause.A less-severe and often temporary depression that arises from a specific life situation.
Major depression, which affects more than 16% of U.S. adults over a lifetime, often appears spontaneously and is seemingly unprovoked, or it can begin as a depressive reaction following a loss, trauma, or other significant stressful event. In people who are biologically predisposed to developing a depressive illness, the initial depressive reaction can intensify and evolve into a clinically full-blown depressive episode.
A low-grade, long-term depression that lasts for more than one year for children and adolescents and at least two years for adults.involves fewer symptoms than occur in a major depressive episode, but it is persistent and longstanding and often can be as disabling as major depression. Over the course of a lifetime, over 11% of teens suffer from dysthymia, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Although the exact causes of major depression and dysthymia are unknown, researchers currently believe that both of these forms of depression are caused by a malfunction ofchemicals called neurotransmitters are important for healthy nerve cell connections; medicines that can regulate the levels and functioning of these chemicals can help to fine-tune the efficiency of how these"malfunctions" related to depression can have a genetic component, although genetics alone does not fully...
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