Seasonal Affective Disorder :: essays research papers

Seasonal Affective Dis governSeasonal Affective Disorder, or perturbing, is a common problem of peopleliving in northeasternern coupled States. People who are affected by this disordercommonly ache from first, lethargy, inability to concentrate, overeatingand weight gain. People from the north tend to take on more from this disorderbecause of the shortened days. It appears, that due to the deficiency ofsunlight close to people suffer from these symptoms. The shortened days have ahormonal effect on the body that causes these symptoms, and the use ofartificial sunlight is the surmount way to relieve the disorder.It was not until recently that SAD was discovered. It was discovered byPeter Mueller, who was reviewing a case of a 29-year-old woman. He had noticeda pattern, the womans depression came in the winters and left in the spring. everyplace the course of years the woman moved from city to city. Mueller noticed,that the farther north she moved the early the depression. Mue ller had begun tospeculate that the lack of sunlight had contributed to the womens depression.In order to confirm this he expose the patient to artificial sunlight. Hefound that over a period of time the patient had regain from the depression.Today light therapy is the most commonly used method in treating SAD.The two hormones that are affected by the sunlight, and are thought to bethe cause of SAD, are melatonin and serotonin. Both of these chemicals areinfluenced by photoperiodism, the earths daily dark-light cycle (Wurtman 1989).Melatonin is the chemical that effects mood and energy levels. In the humanbody melatonin is at its highest at night and is lowest in the day. There hasbeen a study done to see if sunlight has a direct effect on suppressingmelatonin. It is known that melatonin levels in urine are five times higher atnight than they are in the day. It was not until a 1980 study that it was knownthat melatonin levels could be directly hold with light. In an experiment,su bjects were woken up at two in the morning and unresolved to a half an hour ofartificial sunlight. The findings were that melatonin levels were greatlydecreased. The decline in melatonin usually happens in the early morning, butin a SAD patient this does not occur until about two hours later. In order tosuppress the levels the patient needs to be exposed to sunlight. It is found,that when the patient is exposed to the light there is a significant decrease indepression and the craving for carbohydrates.